Snape's grandfather, the Pure-Blood Prince (Was: Snape's Parents)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 134859

Sherrie wrote:
> <snip> [My sister] suggested that perhaps that was Grandpa Prince,
berating  his daughter, and turning him into a yak wasn't an option.
>  
> Sherrie

Carol responds:
I think your sister is absolutely right. First, though I sometimes
doubt Harry's interpretation of events, I think he's right that the
terrified child, not the hook-nosed man, is Snape. (After all, the
adult Snape is standing right in front of him and he would have no
trouble recognizing him.) He makes no guess regarding the identity of
the man, but he assumes that the little boy, like the older boy who
struggles with the broom (not for lack of magical ability but for lack
of practice because he has a Muggle father?) and the teenage boy who
zaps flies with his wand, is Snape. (Teenage Snape is instantly
recognizable, as we know from the later Pensieve scene. There must be
enough resemblance between the teenage boy and the little boy to make
 the child's identity unmistakable. Besides, these are Snape's
memories. If the hook-nosed man isn't him, the little boy has to be.

Until HBP I always assumed (like many other readers) that the abusive
man was Snape's DE father, but clearly that can't be the case. But the
hooked nose shows that he's a close relative, one who can cow Snape's
witch mother and who must therefore be a wizard with some sort of
authority or control over her. It's impossible that Snape's pure-blood
grandfather would have approved of her daughter's marriage to a Muggle
(whom she must have loved--there's no other explanation.) The parallel
with Gaunt and Merope is clear, but with one significant difference.
Tom Riddle never witnessed his wizard grandfather abusing his witch
mother. Little Severus apparently did.

Another reason I don't think this man is Tobias Snape is that Tobias
would have dressed like a Muggle, and surely Harry would have noticed
if the man in the memory wasn't dressed in wizard's robes. The man in
the memory probably looks exactly like the sort of Dark wizard Harry
would expect to see in a memory of Snape's childhood.

Moreover, little Severus came to school already knowing more hexes
than most sixth-years (some of them possibly of his own invention).
This feat is wholly incompatible with an upbringing in a half-Muggle
household, where the concern for a "normal" Muggle appearance would be
paramount. It's hard for me to imagine Snape and his witch mother
living in what was probably Tobias's house in Spinner's End. How could
they have dressed and behaved as a witch and a wizard without calling
attention to themselves? How could little Severus have had anything
like the Slytherin upbringing that he must have had to be so
precocious with a wand at such a young age, enough to become part of a
Slytherin gang composed mostly of students older than himself? And
wouldn't the Ministry of Magic have come after him for such extensive
underage magic in a Muggle neighborhood?

Possibly Grandpa Prince tracked Eileen down, taking her and little
Severus away from Tobias, maybe even murdering him, when Severus was
between three and five. That, at any rate, is my take on the memory,
which certainly seems to be a traumatic one involving a hook-nosed man
who is clearly a wizard. I think he's Severus Snape's grandfather, the
Pure-blood Prince.

Reactions, anyone?

Carol, wondering whether the girl who laughed at Snape in the later
memory is Bellatrix