My brother just brought this up to me. I think it's fantastic, and I'm a little over excited, so bear with me here.

In Order of the Pheonix, Harry enters Snape's Worst Memory. The memory starts out in the Great Hall with students scattered about testing, but: why can't Harry find Snape at first?



Notice the italics. When Harry finds himself in Dumbledore's memory in the Goblet of Fire, he lands right next to him, and can only hear what Dumbledore hears. Why doesn't Harry land right next to Snape, and why is he able to venture over to James' desk and see exactly what James has written, and hear exactly what James is saying? She describes Harry as moving almost dream-like over to James. As though he's being brought to James, because he is supposed to being paying attention to only what James is doing in this memory.
It's a memory, an emotional point in your life of some sort, not a snapshot in time. You can't wander around in a memory. Rowling writes:




Rowling constantly tries to make us remember the fact that this is Snape's memory, and she, of course, makes him follow the trio so we wouldn't suspect this could quite possibly be James' memory.
We see everything from James' point of view. His little fight with Lily, what he wrote on his examination papers, rumpling his hair all the time, his showing off for a 'gang of chattering girls', his Levicorpus spell on Snape, his playing with the golden snitch and Wormtail watching him in awe. If it were Snape's memory, wouldn't it have started when his little quarrel with the trio began? Why would it have started at the end of the exams? Nothing of any consequence or significance happened at that particular time, surely nothing that Snape would want to stow a memory away for. He had his nose buried in papers almost the whole memory. And if it were Snape's memory, we'd be reading about the bushes he's sitting behind, or what he had written on his precious papers. She makes it very clear, many times, that Snape isn't paying attention to anything else until Sirius starts taunting him. Why then, do we know every word of their conversation? Why do we know almost every emotion James experiences, and move he makes?

Why would Snape have James' memory? Why did he pull Harry out at a certain time? Perhaps something was about to happen that would give something significant away about why there was so much tension between Snape, Lily and James? Maybe there's more to their relationship that we don't understand. Maybe there's more to James that we don't quite understand.

<3. Hopefully that made sense.

Well, memories are complicated in my opinion - Snape's memory first started in a large room, with a lot of people. He wouldn't necessarily remember everyone, but if he watched it again, he would see everyone present in his version of the memory. I mean, you can have people in your memory, but not remember them...am I even making sense? Hey, I tried xD

Maybe Snape wanted to stow away the whole thing, because one little thought, like his exam, would trigger off another, and another till he got to the whole remove-the-pants thing. You can't really expect Harry to stick around Snape can you? It's like from James's point of view because Harry chose to follow him. Harry saw everything James did that day, so he can pretty much get James's point of view. Hope I'm making sense and don't sound completely stupid xD

I'm assuming that Snape pulled Harry out because he didn't want Harry to see the finale - the actual pulling of the pants off. I mean, hs embarassment level can only be pushed so far.

Yeah, that's certainly the way we're supposed to look at it. And, without a doubt it makes sense.
But, it says that he can't wander too far off from Snape. Proving that if there's anything outside of Snape's hearing range or vision, Harry can't follow it, because it wouldn't really exist. What I'm trying to say is really, really hard to explain.



But, he didn't have thoughts of any importance. He was just buried in his exam papers. That's all he was doing. The memory surely would have started later. In every memory in the Harry Potter series, Harry lands right next to the rememberer [ha, like my terminology?] Tom Riddle, Dumbledore, Slughorn. I suppose Harry having to turn right around to find Snape, could be right next to him. But what if he landed right next to someone else?

I'm just not making any sense. : ] I'm gonna think about this some more. I think it says the exact position of everyone during the exam in the chapter.

Oh wow, this is a really good point
If it wasn't Snape's memory might it have been someone else who could later be useful to the plot. Harry might be able to find out who's it was and trace him down, to find out more about Snape's history or something. I'm not sure, but it's possible.
Of course, sometimes JKR is careless and she might have just wanted us to see how curious Harry was about James, so he had to follow him.
Hmm i'll ponder this a bit longer
.X.

This is a tricky one, I could say that it is one of those things that you shouldn't worry too much about but I can't manage to say that. It does seem significent to me. If it was Snape's memory, the memory would be all focused on his exam paper at the time because that's what he was thinking about he was not looking at James and his friends and everything else then. But of course if you are in someones memory you can wander around but the thing that is bothering me is how Harry landed next to his dad (I know someone already said this) I have no idea what to explain maybe, ok this is going to sound stupid but maybe Snape was doing like legilemcy(sp?) on them and trying to see what they were talking about and thinking and stuff but he was looking at his paper? Okay that came out worse than it did in my head. If that were true, then he would have to be reallly skilled. All in all, I personally think something was up there but I still don't think how it could fit into the Deathly Hollows if they go back to Hogwarts because I'm pretty sure that Harry would see no more about that memory if he wasn't at Hogwarts anymore.

This is a very good point but how would Snape get his hands on someone else's memory. I mean honestly, who would give Severus Snape, the most hated pupil in his year one of another student's memory? I mean where is the logic in that? Unless, Snape forced someone to give him the memory but why would he want a memory of himself being made fun of? You'd think he'd want to forget about that, not relive it.

Yeah good point jiggery-pokery, if it wasn't his memory (which I am almost posative it isn't) because most of it was focused on james, then why would he want to watch it? that really stumps me. but wait a second, i just thought of something. remember when he took the thoughts out of his mind before he dove into harry's brain? so that must mean that it actually was his memory because he took it out of his brain. but then again that's just assuming he did it again the next time they had occulemcy. or maybe i am totally having a brain fart and it was just always in the pensieve the whole time. oh well there are some thoughts though.

Well this is Dumbledore's pensieve right? What if it was Dumbledore's memory? Like he was watching over the exam. It was never said who Harry landed next to. Dumbledore could have been watching the students taking the exam. That's pretty far-fetched though.
And, yes, if it was Snape's memory, then we would have seen what was on his examination paper.

You must remember the magic of the Pensieve. The Pensieve allows memories to be deposited in as you remember them, but when you review them, you see them as accurately as they happened the moment they happened. This allows you to see things that you may have missed. Also, within this magic is the ability to accurately construct events around you. We see evidence of this when Snape is removed from the Marauders, but Harry is able to be with them anyway. The way you can tell that it is indeed Snape's Memory is that when he leaves the area, Harry either must follow him to remain in the memory and the what the Marauders are doing is no longer watchable.... its a complicated magic, but trustworthy magic nonetheless. It is Snape's memory.


~Albus

It may not have been in his mind, he may've already had it in the pensieve...



Very good point Albus Dumbledore. Harry had to position himself in between them so he could hear his father and his friends yet stick with Snape. Yes...

That just doesn't make sense to me. [ The point that you can go back and wander around in your memory. ]
The point of storing memories, in my opinion, is to relive them to see what directly happened to you, and hear what you were directly hearing, or relive some sort of conversation you were having. Dumbledore uses them for that reason.
If this is Snape's memory, then, it definitely isn't his worst memory because of his embaressment. I think something else was to occur before he yanked Harry out, or, there's something about Snape and Lily's relationship we don't exactly know about. [ Veering a bit off topic, sorry. ] But maybe it was his worst memory becuase Lily turned on him that day, because he felt hurt and betrayed, so he called her a mudblood.

If that isn't the case, then I really, really don't think this is Snape's memory. There isn't anything significant about it at all.

<3

I agree, but how would Snape know precisely when that moment was in the memory. As I recall, he wasn't watching the memory with Harry, he just yanked him out. I also agree that there is something fishy about Snape and Lily's relationship. Personal connection in potions class...?