A problem with the pensieve

[Dutchess42]

AND THE ANSWER IS:

From an interview


Anelli, Melissa and Emerson Spartz. "The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet interview Joanne Kathleen Rowling: Part Three," The Leaky Cauldron, 16 July 2005

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
MA: One of our Leaky “Ask Jo” poll winners is theotherhermit, she's 50 and lives in a small town in the eastern US. I think this was addressed in the sixth book, but, “Do the memories stored in a Pensieve reflect reality or the views of the person they belong to?”

JKR: It’s reality. It’s important that I have got that across, because Slughorn gave Dumbledore this pathetic cut-and-paste memory. He didn't want to give the real thing, and he very obviously patched it up and cobbled it together. So, what you remember is accurate in the Pensieve.

ES: I was dead wrong about that.

JKR: Really?

ES: I thought for sure that it was your interpretation of it. It didn’t make sense to me to be able to examine your own thoughts from a third-person perspective. It almost feels like you'd be cheating because you'd always be able to look at things from someone else's point of view.

MA: So there are things in there that you haven't noticed personally, but you can go and see yourself?

JKR: Yes, and that's the magic of the Pensieve, that's what brings it alive.


-----------------------------------
So Athena's theory was quite correct

[Athena Appleton]

I'd love to take credit for that theory, but I was working almost word for word with what Rowling said in that very interview.

[Dutchess42]

Well you get full marks for finding it, then !!

[Dark Hindrance]

At one point in the book Harry and DD look into a house elf's memory where LV goes to a old womans house and the elf goes out of the room to get tea for them but Harry and DD stay in the room since it was the elf memory the should have left the room too

[Dutchess42]

Yes I noticed that as well.

[Athena Appleton]

Apparently there's some kind of amount of room you can wander from the person whose memory it is without losing the memory. The same thing happens in OotP when Harry goes into Snape's memory, but he's actually with James and the other Marauders, while Snape is somewhere nearby (not close enough to know what's being said).

[Dutchess42]

Yes. It's more like the pensieve can return to the memory time rather than just repeat the memory.

[Fantasy girl]

of course its not supposed to make sense all the time, if it did, what fun would it be

[Salazar Slytherin]

i dont like penesive its kinda invasive

[Athena Appleton]

Well, it's really only invasive if you're looking into someone else's memory without their permission (like Harry looking into Snape's). Otherwise, you're using it with permission, or you're using your own memories.