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In Order of the Pheonix, when Snape was teaching Occlumency, he made sure that Harry couldn't see his humiliation at the hands of James and Sirius. My question is, why didn't he try to conceal the other important stuff such as his true allegiance in case Harry accidentally broke through his defences? This would have blown his cover had Voldemort invaded Harry's mind.

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    ...what makes you think he didn't hide his other memories?
    – Izkata
    Aug 3, 2014 at 14:13
  • I mean he didn't put those in Pensive and I couldn't find any other way to hide memories Aug 3, 2014 at 14:14
  • Something like how Slughorn messed with his memory, telling Tom Riddle about Horcruxes. It was mentioned that Slughorn didn't do it very well.
    – Izkata
    Aug 3, 2014 at 14:31
  • But he had it with him all the time Aug 3, 2014 at 14:34
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    Harry was interrupted well before he had time to go through all the memories in the pensieve. IIRC, they came up in chronological order and hadn't gotten to his Death Eater years yet.
    – Kevin
    Aug 3, 2014 at 16:21

2 Answers 2

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Snape puts multiple memories in the Pensieve:

Snape pulled out his wand from an inside pocket of his robes and Harry tensed in his chair, but Snape merely raised the wand to his temple and placed its tip into the greasy roots of his hair. When he withdrew it, some silvery substance came away, stretching from temple to wand like a thick gossamer strand, which broke as he pulled the wand away from it and fell gracefully into the Pensieve, where it swirled silvery-white, neither gas nor liquid. Twice more, Snape raised the wand to his temple and deposited the silvery sub-stance into the stone basin...

We know that even when there are many memories in the Pensieve, you only see one at a time. We also know from Snape's dying moments that you can deposit multiple memories using only one strand. So it's possible, even likely, that Snape DID hide those memories in the Pensieve, but Harry never got to see them.

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  • So its asserts that Snape was more worried about his humilation scence than cover up?? Bcz the moment harry comes out, he says; "havibg fun","funny man, your father" etc Aug 3, 2014 at 14:43
  • @HashirOmer No, Snape removed multiple memories including his humiliation scene. It just so happens that was the one Harry saw, and he was interrupted before he could view any of the others.
    – ssell
    Aug 3, 2014 at 16:41
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    Wait, when a person takes his memory & puts it in a pensieve, that memory no longer exists in his mind? Aug 4, 2014 at 4:57
  • @KharoBangdo: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/52366/…
    – user13267
    Aug 4, 2014 at 12:58
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Snape may have concluded that the best way to hide his memories was to keep them in his mind as keeping them in a pensieve would have been too risky. Harry sneaking into Snape's pensieve in "Snape's Worst Memory" may have led to this conclusion as well as traumatized him. And if "mediocre" Harry was able to do so, there would always be a chance that others would be able to do so too. Plus, Snape was probably confident in his Occlumency skills.

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