Legilimency, Intention, & Secret Agent Snape (was: What If He Didn't Tell All?)

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--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "severelysigune"
<severelysigune at y...> wrote:
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>> Kneasy: But I think he does know who the target is. Sevvy gazes
>> into Cissy's tear-filled baby blue eyes - and he's an ace at
>> Legilimancy. He knows. He might even see that Cissy means to bind
>> him with a UV.

This got me to thinking about Legilimency. I may be wrong, as I
haven't had the ambition to actually re-read all of the OOP
legilimency lessons, but I don't recall Snape ever reading something
in Harry's thoughts which hadn't actually yet happened. We see
snatches of Harry's miserable time with the Dursleys and, later,
memories of Hogwarts, but we don't (IIRC) ever see Snape reading
Harry's *intention* to hex him into the next room, as I'm sure he must
have wanted to do more than once during those lessons.

The thing is this: the pensieve allows us to see memories as they
actually happened, without the filter of one's perceptions or
feelings. Legilimency seems to work similarly. Through legilimency,
Snape sees the things Harry has experienced (and, to a lesser extent,
Harry sees bits and pieces of things that Snape has experienced), and
has been able to draw conclusions from these memories (i.e. Dudley
tormented Harry *so* Harry must hate Dudley). But he has never been
able to actually feel what Harry felt at the time, nor was he able to
divine Harry's intentions for the future.

Why is this important? Well, I see two reasons. For one, it would be
far easier to fool Voldemort into believing that Snape is actually
working for him if, while Voldie is legilimizing Snape, he only sees
memories of Snape being a right b*st*rd to Harry at all times, while
at the same time throwing in a bit of good-natured nurturing towards
the Malfoy boy. Snape's thoughts or intentions at the time would be
undetectable. Only his actions would be seen.

Secondly, this would offer a neat explanation for why Snape could have
AK'd Dumbledore so easily. Assuming that Snape and Dumbledore had some
quickie legili-meeting of the minds, and Dumbledore had shown him
where he had been that night, Snape would have clearly seen what they
were up against.  Being potions master, Snape would have realized
instantly what Dumbledore had drunk that night. He would have known
that a) Dumbledore was far too frail to survive that potion or b) the
potion was far too lethal for anyone to survive for long. Both knowing
that Dumbledore had only a short time to live anyway, and rather than
squander the opportunity, they chose to have Snape do the AK and get
the points for it in the Voldie camp.

Snape may have even known that DD was none too long for this world
when he made the pact with Narcissa. He was frail and damaged by then
and probably had only enough time to, as they say, set his affairs in
order. 



> Sigune:
> Legilimency is very convenient, isn't it? :-)


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