Snape the Half-blood?

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 44849

Pip the indefatigable wrote:

> Is Snape a half-blood? Not half-vampire, or half-dementor, or half 
> any other 'interestin' creature' but plain old half-muggle.
> 
> Consider: 'Severus' certainly sounds like the sort of name an pure 
> wizarding family would give their child, but it might also be the 
> sort of name a wizarding parent married to a muggle would insist 
on - 
> to signify that *their* heritage is the more important.

This is an ingenious argument!  <g>  So an odd name means that 
someone's parents are wizards, unless it means his parents aren't 
wizards.  And speaking of magic, but flashing back a few hundred 
years for some reason, did you know that if someone denies she's a 
witch, it's proof that she's a witch?  Especially if she doesn't 
drown when thrown into deep water . . .

> What other wizard *ever* regards wand-waving as foolish? 

Trelawney makes the same *kind* of comment, for IMO the same reason:  
snobbery about forms of magic besidesher specialty.  (Her comment is 
about bangs and smells, an obvious dig at Charms, Transfiguration, 
and Potions, but I can't quote it exactly because my PoA is where it 
belongs, next to my side of the bed, and there's a sleeping spouse in 
there.)  In a similar vein, McGonagall brags that her field is "some 
of the most complex and dangerous magic" (PS/SS 8).  Standard 
professorial snobbery.  

Snape is of course perfectly capable of wand-waving, and I'm sure has 
all due respect for it.  He's just constitutionally incapable of 
starting his class without pointing out the superiority of Potions 
over all other fields.  He is also probably hypersensitive to the 
fact that new (and especially Muggle-born) students think Potions is 
like cooking and about as exciting, whereas give 'em a wand to wave 
and they think "now THIS is magic."  I bet he wouldn't say it in 
front of Flitwick or McGonagall, though.

Amy Z