Eileen & Tobias was (What is poetic justice? WAS: Re:

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 143552

> Potioncat:
> I think it's very likely they were from a similar background. I'm not 
> sure if marriage announcements are charged by the word or not. And 
> I'm sure it varies. My hometown paper prints whatever is submitted by 
> the bride's family...within certain guidelines. Nothing submitted, 
> nothing printed. <snip>

Carol responds:
I've probably snipped too much here, but in any case, the newspaper I
worked for when I was young (summer job between high school and
college) printed both birth announcements and wedding announcements
free as a matter of public record. You could also submit a more
detailed announcement (with a photo, if desired) by filling out a
from. No charge either way. After all, it wasn't an ad. It was a
public service/local news. If the Daily Prophet operates the same way,
the Princes' economic status is not a factor.

My problem is that I can't imagine a wedding announcement in the Daily
Prophet announcing that the husband was a Muggle. What a strange thing
to do! I doubt that blood status was a standard part of the
announcements: "James Potter, pureblood, of __________ married Lily
Evans, Muggleborn, of Little Whinging, Surrey, on the 8 June, 1978 (or
whatever). I think it the anouncement was just a plot device JKR used
to identify Snape as a half-blood, with his mother as the witch.

I also have a problem with the flash the hook-nosed man in Snape's
memory being Tobias if he's willing to have his name (complete with
his status as Muggle) announced in a WW newspaper and allows his wife
to keep her old Potions book and wand. (If Sevvie learned all those
spells before his first year at Hogwarts, he was probably using
someone else's wand since kids don't receive their first wand till
they're eleven. Either that or he learned a lot very fast in the not
quite eight months between his eleventh birthday and his first day at
Hogwarts.) So either Tobias was a very tolerant Muggle whose wife was
openly teaching her prodigy of a son to use a wide variety of hexes
(some of which he may have invented himself) or Tobias was dead or
gone or someone other than Eileen taught little Severus to do magic
I'm guessing he learned some potions before entering school as well as
spells since his mother kept her Potions book (and possibly some of
those leather-bound volumes in Snape's front room at Spinner's End
were hers, or her parents', as well.). 

I keep pointing out, and no one else seems to think it's important,
that Harry, with his experience of Muggles, would have recognized the
man in the memory as a Muggle if he was one. Wizards wear robes;
Muggles wear Muggle clothes--except in the films. And the narrator
says nothing about a Muggle man shouting at a witch, only a hook-nosed
man shouting at a cowering woman. Harry would have expected the people
in Snape's memories (including the laughing girl) to be witches and
wizards and would have noticed if a Muggle popped in there. 

I don't think we have sufficient information to draw any conclusions
about Eileen Prince's blood status or the financial situation of her
family. At any rate, the teenage Severus may wear grey underwear, but
the narrator says nothing about shabby robes or anything that would
indicate poverty or penury similar to the Weasleys'.

Carol, who can't imagine a witch cowering in fear of any Muggle,
abusive or otherwise