Snape the Half-blood?

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 44844

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "marinafrants" <rusalka at i...> wrote:

> 
<Snip>
> 
> As for Snape spending his childhood with his face in a book, I 
> suspect he did, but they would have to be magic books in order for 
> him to pick up all those Dark Curses.  This suggests to me that he 
> wasn't raised by Muggles.  Hermione didn't start reading up on 
> magic until after she got her Hogwarts letter, and while she did 
> know more spells than most first-years by the time she arrived, I 
> seem to don't think she could've competed with the seventh-years.
> 
> Marina
> rusalka at i...

Don't worry, this isn't one of those theories that I'm going to 
defend to the death [grin].

However, the curses point: PS/SS "Hagrid almost had to drag Harry 
away from Curses and Counter Curses...."I was trying to find out how 
to curse Dudley.." [Ch. 5 p. 62 UK paperback].

So, if Snape [unlike Harry, but like Voldemort] did have knowledge of 
his magical heritage and did have a relation who took him to Diagon 
Alley as a child, he could have picked up books on curses. 

Or the muggle background could have been a result of a slow breakdown 
of his parents marriage, with lots of comments along the lines 
of 'I'm not having you do any of that stupid wand-waving in front of 
the boy!', culminating in 'That's it! I'm leaving! He's going to be 
brought up in a normal world, not one filled with wand-waving 
crackpots.' Snape might have been old enough to remember this.

There are other arguments, but they're going to have to wait until I 
get back from work...
[grin]

Pip!Squeak