What is poetic justice? WAS: Re: Snape-the Hero -- Snape-the Abuser

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 143535

Potioncat:
> Oh, Isn't JKR lovely! Who expected the Gaunt-Riddle dynamics? For 
> that matter, who read the chapter title "House of Gaunt" and 
expected 
> that family! I was expecting a household of kings and kings to be. 
> So, aren't we all wondering what the twist is to the Snape family?

Ceridwen:
I thought the fact that Tobias appears to be a Muggle was the kicker 
in that one.  After the memory scene, who would have dreamed that 
Papa Snape was a Muggle?  While it could be Grandpa Prince, since 
wizards age slower than Muggles, most people I've messaged with 
thought it was Papa at the time.

And, with Snape in the DEs, and that slip of the tongue with Lily in 
the Pensieve scene, it just about clinched Pureblood Snape for 
everyone.  Only those of twisted enough minds would ever think that 
Snape had this sort of deep, dark secret (probably not to his 
contemporaries, though) lurking in his background.  When my second-
born and I were going through the list of possible candidates for HBP 
and I suggested Snape, she went off on all the reasons why it 
couldn't have been him.

Potioncat:
> Well, let's face it. We don't really know who was in that memory. 
Was 
> it Eileen? Harry doesn't register that Eileen (from her school 
photo) 
> was the woman he saw in Snape's memory, but that means nothing. Was 
> it Tobias? Could it have been Grandfather Prince? I suppose Eileen, 
> like Merope and Tonks was "weak" with love, but I doubt it.

Ceridwen:
If it's my scenario, which I do love but haven't married, then it 
would explain a cringing, sobbing Eileen.  She does love her husband, 
and cringes at the thought of something driving a wedge between 
them.  It doesn't make her magic weak from love.  It's a situation 
where magic is the culprit, as well as a situation that magic just 
can't solve.  Unless she decides to go the Merope route and use a 
love potion, or worse, she does Merope one better and uses the 
Imperio.  But I'm not going for that one.  I think the 'terrified' 
Eileen is terrified of losing her husband in that one, a purely 
human, whether WW or MW, response.

Potioncat:
> Eileen had enough contact with the Muggle world to meet and marry a 
> Muggle. Yet, little Severus will arrive at Hogwarts knowing more 
> curses than most 7th years. Lots of gaps here. Of course, one could 
> practice Dark Magic without being a Pureblood.

Ceridwen:
Eileen could have friends who are into the Dark Arts, as well as 
family who may well be.  Grandfathers often take grandsons and teach 
them things like fishing or woodworking, no reason why Grandpa Prince 
doesn't take a young Severus on his knee and teach him Dark Magic.  
And, I suppose it would be a funny party gag to some friends, or even 
to Eileen herself, to have a diminutive wizard performing Dark spells 
at a Wizarding party.

Potioncat:
> My personal speculation is that Eileen was expelled from Hogwarts 
and 
> was unable to do most magic, therefore was at a angry Muggle's 
mercy 
> in that scene.

Ceridwen:
Interesting speculation.  The HBP scenario certainly opens that whole 
scene up for much more speculation, doesn't it?
 
> >Ceridwen: 
*(snips following)*
> > love-match...
> > someone in the Prince family gave their blessing...
> > announcements were put into the paper...
> > pokes holes in the Pureblood Supremacist Princes, too...

Potioncat:
> I agree, and that makes it unlikely that it's Grandfather Prince. 
If 
> it is him, it's not the the marriage and child he's upset about. Of 
> course the two annoucements could have been placed by Eileen. They 
> were small...it wasn't big news, and it appears to have been a 
small, 
> or at least, unimportant wedding. But it was public knowledge.

Ceridwen:
It could have been the Princes' finances which dictated the size of 
the announcement.  When I got married the first time, all we could 
manage was the tiny announcement.  Eileen *apparently* married a 
working-class Muggle, from everything we can glean, which isn't 
much.  It's possible the Princes were from the same or similar social 
background.

Potioncat:
> I snipped your comment that the whole purpose of the announcement 
was 
> for Hermione to find...and it isn't some sort of clue. That could 
be 
> correct too. It could be that the Daily Prophet has some magical 
way 
> of knowing when a magical wedding  has taken place and therefore, 
> prints it.  Hmmm...so should we look for the Riddle-Gaunt wedding 
and 
> would the birth of Tom Riddle automatically appear?

Ceridwen:
I don't know how the Daily Prophet works, aside from what we saw with 
Rita Skeeter, and all the put-downs in OotP.  It's possible to print 
erroneous information, for instance.  But, I used to live in a small 
town, and they got birth announcement info directly from the 
hospital.  Mom had to sign a release, but after that, she and Dad, or 
just she alone, didn't have to do a thing.  Marriages were pretty 
much common knowledge, but I don't know how the paper got their 
info.  Just about every wedding in town, and in the two towns down 
the road, appeared.  The paper saw it as a public service to its 
readers (though, getting the details in a news report right, wasn't 
that big of a priority, it was a social rag first, a news rag second).

Potioncat:
> Bottom line...I don't have the slightest idea what is really going 
> on. But it doesn't seem to me that Severus Snape was raised with 
any 
> Pureblood ideology.

Ceridwen:
I think I do, but I know that I could be way off, too.  And, while he 
does seem to have been raised, or at least often exposed, to someone 
who thought Dark Magic was all right, that certainly doesn't equal a 
Pureblood ideology.  Completely agree.

Ceridwen.