Occlumency VERY VERY LONG

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191709


> 
> Aha, but what could be concern for his safety here? To make sure he does not sneak out again right now? See I think I am missing something here.

Pippin:
Harry has just secretly gotten out of school. More to the point, he has just secretly gotten *in*. That's not supposed to be possible. The school is surrounded with dementors and every  precaution has been taken against unauthorized entry. 

If Harry can get in undetected, so can Sirius, whom everyone including Harry believes to be a murderer. For all Snape knows, Sirius himself is in the school at that very moment just waiting for another chance.  

Snape is  trying to find out if Harry could have got the map from Sirius -- if so it  could have some kind of curse on it -- thus his questions about "directly from the manufacturers" and "full of dark magic". If he recognizes the nicknames, Snape must know that Lupin's "looks to me like a Zonko's product" is a bare-faced lie. The two men are speaking in a kind of code, since neither wants  Harry to know about Sirius's relationship to his family. 

Pippin


> 
> Alla:
> 
> Maybe here we have the disconnect indeed, because I do not think Snape is lying, I just think that this IS the description of mind reading. Does it make sense? Snape says it is flashes, but he sees stuff what is happening in Harry's mind, flashes or not, and I do not see the sign that there is stuff Snape just cannot see, period, if subject is not resisting. When Harry is resisting, Snape is sometimes having trouble, sure, but I do not see that there is stuff that he just cannot see because of what Legilimency is. 

Pippin:
We have a description from Harry's point of view when he reverses Snape's spell with Protego:
"and suddenly Harry's mind was teeming with memories that were not his: a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner...a greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies...a girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick--"

This is not the kind of mind invasion you were describing. Harry has no access to Snape's thoughts and feelings and knows no detail about what he is seeing. He is seeing Snape's experiences from the outside, as if they were in a pensieve. "Teeming with memories" sounds as if other memories flashed by too quickly for Harry to see what they were about. 

Snape is a skilled occlumens and is probably doing some blocking so that Harry doesn't see secret conferences with Voldemort or memories of Lily. But he doesn't want Voldemort to know he can do that, so what Harry sees is probably typical of Snape's level of legilimency. 

Snape does have the ability to home in on a specific memory, as  in HBP when he forces Harry to reveal the source of the Sectum Sempra spell. But Harry is very aware of what is happening, and there is certainly reason for a student in that situation to be searched. Snape does not take the opportunity to look around for other memories that would make Harry unhappy. 

As to why Snape hides some of his memories in the Pensieve, he's got to make Voldemort think he's a less accomplished occlumens than he really is, so Snape and Dumbledore are pretending that Snape can't be really sure of protecting his memories without help.

Pippin