#occlumency

We know that he used the pensieve before each lesson, putting his memories in, and then taking them back afterwards.

I don't think we get a lot of information about how the pensieve works. But it makes sense to assume that, to put a memory in, you have to think about it, or visualise it.

That means that, every Monday night, Snape had to think about all his worst memories. His childhood abuse and assault, his worst mistakes, and the crushing knowledge of how the war has to end.

I will give credit where it’s due: Snape doesn’t mock Harry about any of the traumatic memories he sees. He even almost compliments Harry a few times. He seems to be occasionally trying. Even when he isn’t being the most sadistic version of himself which he is 99% of the time, he clearly just has no clue how to teach (although, after 15 years of having children in his care - certainly including children whose families were victimized and killed by Death Eaters and Snape himself - the least he could do is suck it up and learn how to teach). Faced with proof that Harry isn’t a pampered prince like James, Snape is clearly very reluctantly seeing himself (and seeing Lily) in Harry.

Unfortunately, all of that is made null and void with Snape’s reaction to Harry viewing SWM and all his abusive behavior in the future.

I can’t believe it’s still debated whether Snape’s reaction to Harry viewing SWM is about the Marauders or about Lily. It’s not his worst memory because of James, it’s his worst memory because of Lily. If Snape didn’t react like that to Harry seeing memories of his abusive father, then his reaction here isn’t due to a memory of being bullied.

And Snape like, very very openly says things like “Sirius tried to MURDER me!” in front of Harry, he was never even pretending that he was anything but a victim of the Marauders, he claims that status readily! He seems like he’s blatantly implying it in a lot of the things he says about James, he also shows Harry detention slips of the Marauders’ attacking others (idk if they included any slips of them attacking him but he’s still obliquely alluding to their “bullying” and therefore the Pensieve memory), and willingly brings it up in HBP during his duel with Harry after Dumbledore’s death.

People say SNAPE had his privacy invaded? Snape only had one singular memory revealed, to one singular child (okay, two, counting the one with his dad). This book consists of Sirius’s childhood trauma being put on display for the whole Order, including Snape, to see for a year - which Snape constantly mocks him for, despite his conveying the prophecy being what led to Sirius’s best friends being killed and his imprisonment and torture in Azkaban, which Sirius is still paying the consequences for and is the whole reason he’s stuck in that house as a fugitive. And still, Sirius endures it, because having Grimmauld Place as a safe house helps the Order. Snape has seen months and months worth of Harry’s worst memories, memories far worse than SWM. Snape also had no issue reading aloud to a whole classroom an article that violently invaded Hermione’s privacy about her romantic life - an article that called her a slut and that the whole damn wizarding world could read - to humiliate her.

And you know what - Snape lost the right to any privacy about Lily when he called her a slur and humiliated her publicly in the front of the whole school, and certainly when he got her killed.

Harry has every fucking right to his mother’s story. He has every right to know about the man who is responsible for his mother’s death and how that man treated her and victimized her.

Lily isn’t there to tell Harry her story because of Snape. She isn’t there to tell him about the heartbreak and despair she felt when she was betrayed by her best friend. Lily and her memory is erased from history because of Snape. Snape fucking owes Harry that memory.

Snape’s response to being faced with his OWN biggest mistake, his OWN horrific fascist violence against his muggleborn best friend, is not to take responsibility for it, but to get physically violent with her son and stop doing his fucking job for the Order in teaching Harry a life saving skill that is absolutely crucial for their mission, which eventually leads to Harry being lured to the DoM and Sirius’s death. Snape can’t make this one sacrifice (which can hardly even be called a sacrifice). He does the same thing in HBP when Harry uses Sectumsempra - he’s faced with a Dark curse he invented and certainly used in combat to torture/kill victims as a DE, and used enough at Hogwarts that it became known as his specialty, and responds by deflecting blame onto the Marauders by showing Harry detention slips of their petty crimes and psychologically torturing Harry over his grief over Sirius. He also only doesn’t sell out Harry over the Prince’s book because he’s hiding the Dark magic in it from Dumbledore, again being unwilling to acknowledge his Death Eater violence.

None of this is Harry’s fault. It’s Snape’s for being an awful abusive teacher. Even when Snape’s behavior is at its tamest, he does still repeatedly insult Harry, and these lessons start with Snape yet again insulting Harry and Harry’s dead father in Grimmauld Place. Yes Harry doesn’t practice, but if it hadn’t been someone who abused him for five years teaching him, he would’ve been far more inclined to practice. Likewise, Harry not believing that Snape heeded his “he’s got Padfoot in the place where it’s hidden” warning and therefore tearing off to the DoM was in part due to Snape’s abusive behavior - why would Harry believe Snape had anything but the worst intentions after how he’s treated both him and Sirius? Harry also doesn’t anticipate viewing a personal memory of Snape’s when he enters the Pensieve, he thinks it’s stuff Snape is hiding about the Order. Harry respects Snape’s privacy and doesn’t tell Ron and Hermione about the memory (he also respects Neville’s re: his parents).

7/ Vows in Bruised Petals : Evelyne’s plan, devised to grant Ominis a life unshackled by his parents’ ambitions, is beginning to bear fruit. Will they hold the sweetness of nectar… or the bitterness of collapsing illusions?

NSFW - 🔞 | ⚠️ Physical & emotional abuse + heavy theme | Ominis Gaunt x OC

Credits: This stunning cover was created by the talented @/tamayula-hl. 🙏🫶

“Contrary to what many believe,” Ominis professes in an even inflection, his wand reflecting the tense silhouette of Evelyne, seated at a table in the Undercroft.

“Legilimency doesn’t read thoughts. It delves into the layers of your memory to unearth what it covets. The most experienced sometimes inject their venom into it, just as others poison a well.”

“Yes, that’s what your, er...” Evelyne hesitates, the word burning on her lips. “Marvolo did to me.”

The word “brother” hangs silently in the air, yet the bond of blood rings in his ears. In a broken voice, she confesses to having felt his elder brother’s perverse pleasure in tormenting Muggles as if it were her own, to the point of feeling dirty to the core.

Ominis clenches his jaws so hard that the pain radiates to his temples. He doesn’t need to imagine; he knows all too well this stain, the scars of which he still bears. He experienced it as a child, when Marvolo entered his mind without warning, ransacking the secret gardens of his thoughts to tear out what he considered to be weeds. 

Like her, he also remembers the self-loathing, that faithful companion who never leaves him. Fearing that the atmosphere would become even heavier, he forces himself to change the subject and asks her, with a façade of calm, about her reading of Salazar Slytherin’s ancient treatise on mental magic. For while the supremacist ideas of his illustrious ancestor are abhorrent, his genius in Legilimency and Occlumency remains unrivalled.

“There are several ways to counter a Legilimens,” she recites, as docile as a student in front of Professor Sharp. “Some build mental walls, others hide a memory behind its twin, some drown the attacker in a torrent of images, and finally, a few rare individuals know how to create a complete void.”

Good. She has grasped the essentials. Unfortunately, theory is only a pale reflection of practice.

Read the full chapter on AO3

It's interesting to think that Harry and Snape don’t have longer conversations in the series, but when they do, their communication styles are so different that they often clash.

Harry’s way of communicating is practical and straightforward. He tends to break down complex ideas into simpler terms that he can easily understand. This makes sense, given his upbringing in a non-magical world and his tendency to rely more on gut instinct than deep theoretical knowledge. For Harry, things are usually black and white, and his directness shows his desire to cut through the confusion and get straight to the point.

Snape, on the other hand, has a more complex and layered way of speaking. His language is precise and often sarcastic, which reflects not just his intelligence but also his disdain for what he sees as Harry’s lack of subtlety. Snape’s use of imagery and metaphor, especially when he describes consepts, gives his speech a poetic, almost philosophical quality. He takes pleasure in showing off his superior knowledge and uses this as a way to belittle Harry.

We see this clash clearly in OOTP during Harry’s first Occlumency lesson:

Snape looked back at him for a moment and then said contemptuously, “Surely even you could have worked that out by now, Potter? The Dark Lord is highly skilled at Legilimency —” “What’s that? Sir?” “It is the ability to extract feelings and memories from another person’s mind —” “He can read minds?” said Harry quickly, his worst fears confirmed. “You have no subtlety, Potter,” said Snape, his dark eyes glittering. “You do not understand fine distinctions. It is one of the shortcomings that makes you such a lamentable potion-maker.” Snape paused for a moment, apparently to savor the pleasure of insulting Harry, before continuing, “Only Muggles talk of ‘mind reading.’ The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by any invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing, Potter . . . or at least, most minds are. . . .” He smirked. Whatever Snape said, Legilimency sounded like mind reading to Harry and he did not like the sound of it at all.

For Harry, when Snape mentions Legilimency, it immediately sounds like “mind reading,” which is a reasonable but overly simple way to understand such a complex concept. His quick jump to this conclusion shows his need to make sense of something that feels threatening, but it also reveals his limited grasp of the deeper nuances.

Snape, however, can’t resist mocking Harry’s lack of subtlety. His response is laced with condescension as he insists on the complexity of the mind and dismisses the idea of “mind reading” as something only muggles would think of. Snape’s explanation is detailed and philosophical, contrasting sharply with Harry’s desire for a straightforward answer.

Another great example of their different communication styles comes in HBP when Snape puts Harry on the spot, asking him to explain the difference between an inferius and a ghost:

“Let us ask Potter how we would tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost.” The whole class looked around at Harry, who hastily tried to recall what Dumbledore had told him the night that they had gone to visit Slughorn. “Er — well — ghosts are transparent —” he said. “Oh, very good,” interrupted Snape, his lip curling. “Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. ‘Ghosts are transparent.’ ” Harry took a deep breath and continued calmly, though his insides were boiling, “Yeah, ghosts are transparent, but Inferi are dead bodies, aren’t they? So they’d be solid —” “A five-year-old could have told us as much,” sneered Snape. “The Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard’s spells. It is not alive, it is merely used like a puppet to do the wizard’s bidding. A ghost, as I trust that you are all aware by now, is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth . . . and of course, as Potter so wisely tells us, transparent.” “Well, what Harry said is the most useful if we’re trying to tell them apart!” said Ron. “When we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, we’re going to be having a shufti to see if it’s solid, aren’t we, we’re not going to be asking, ‘Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?’

Once again, Harry demonstrates his practical and straightforward approach. He gives a simple, clear distinction based on what would be most useful in a real-life situation—whether the entity is solid or transparent. This shows how Harry tends to focus on what’s immediately relevant and actionable, and Ron’s defense of Harry’s answer highlights this practicality. Ron even points out that in a real-world scenario, Harry’s answer is actually the most helpful, contrasting it with Snape’s more academic approach.

Snape, though, dismisses Harry’s answer as too simplistic and mocks him for stating what he sees as the obvious. Snape’s communication is more about the theoretical and precise understanding of magical concepts. He emphasizes the deeper, more complex nature of an Inferius, which, while academically accurate, is less practical in the context that Harry is thinking of. Snape’s disdain shows that he values this deeper, nuanced understanding more than the direct, practical knowledge that Harry offers.

@jegulus-microfic December 21, Word count 308

Previous part First part

He woke suddenly, drenched in sweat, as someone screamed at the top of their lungs. It wasn’t until James’s face came into view, and he felt his warm hands on his shoulders, gently shaking him, that he realised he was the one screaming. He quickly closed his mouth and fell into James’s arms. He was shaking uncontrollably as the nightmare he’d been dreaming about replayed in his mind.

“You’re safe. I’ve got you, love. I’ll never let them have you again,” James murmured against his hair repeatedly as he cradled him against his chest. Regulus could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and after a little effort, he managed to get it under control and calmed himself down.

“Can we go back to our bed? I don’t think being in here is helping.” James didn’t argue. He simply scooped Regulus into his arms and walked out of the hospital wing.

It was eerie walking down the silent, deserted corridors. It made him think of their escape from Grimmauld Place. Regulus tucked his head into the side of James’s neck, deeply breathing in his scent. He closed his eyes and started forcing the horrors of those few hours he spent at home into lead-lined boxes, wrapping them in heavy chains and throwing them into the placid lake of his mind. He imagined watching the bubbles escaping from the boxes rise to the surface, disrupting the surface before the water returned to its previous state and became a calm, serene pool again.

He hardly noticed how long it took for James to get them safely back to Gryffindor Tower, but he knew the instant that they were back in their bed.

He slept better surrounded by familiar scents and sounds, but the surface of his lake continued to ripple every now and again as his memories fought for freedom.

And that’s why, among other reasons, he learned to hide and repress all of it so thoroughly that not even the best Legilimens could uncover it. Because he felt so much that he had to kill those feelings, bury them in the deepest corners of his mind, crush them with sheer magic and discipline.