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

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 143595

Potioncat:
Whoa! You could knit a scarf-and-mitten set from all the current 
threads that are discussing "the dyanmics of the Snape family."  So I 
took a break from the posts and went back for some canon.

OoP, chapter 29:
After Harry began seeing Dementors in his mind, he uses "Protego" and 
saw three memories in Snape's mind. 
"--a Hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small 
dark-haired boy cried in a corner...A greasy-haired teenager sat 
alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting 
down flies...A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a 
bucking broomstick--"

Snape repels him, they are going to continue,

"He was sure he had just broken into Snape's memories, that he had 
just seen scenes from Snape's childhood, and it was unnerving to 
think that the crying little boy who had watched his parents shouting 
was actually standing in front of him with such loathing in his 
eys..."


HBP, chapter 30, Hermione is speaking:
"I was going through the rest of the old Prophets and there was a 
tiny announcement about Eileen Prince marrying a man called Tobias 
Snape, and then later an announcement saying that she'd given birth 
to a--" (Harry interrupts)

Then Hermione also says, "Tobias Snape was a Muggle from what it said 
in the Prophet."

Harry goes on to compare Snape to Riddle, and says that Snape is just 
like Riddle, rejecting his Muggle parent.


Returning now to the discussion:
 
> Carol responds:
>snip< 
> 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.

Potioncat:
LOL, I wonder if Rita Skeeter was a new reporter at The Prophet, 
working on the "Weddings and Births" page. I could see her making a 
point of bloodlines, or anything else a bit off.(Never mind, she's 
too young, isn't she?) Actually Hermione's comment is "from what it 
said" Darn it, what did it say?

But, I think you're right, I think this section in HBP is to reveal 
to the reader that Snape's father is a Muggle. Whenever JKR has given 
us clues to Snape's family, she's revealed a stressed family. The 
grey underwear, the boy who looked like a plant that grew in the dark 
(sorry, from memory), the lonely teenager shooting flies, the man 
shouting at a woman. Now we have a "tiny" announcement that contains 
enough information to tell Hermione that Tobias is a Muggle. To me 
the fact that it was tiny...therefore smaller than others, says 
something in itself about the joyful event.

I do have to admit, something in Harry's reaction to this information 
makes me think he's taken the information too far, and may be jumping 
to conclusions, but that would be another thread.


Carol made some very good points about Tobias tolerating, or not, 
Eileen's magic; that Harry would have noticed that the man was 
wearing Muggle clothing; and that it's hard to imagine a witch 
cowering before a Muggle. I've summarized because snipping would made 
a mess of the post. I hope I didn't change the meaning of any of the 
points by listing them like this. Go upthread for her actual post

JKR's wording is man and woman. I'm not sure if JKR ever refers to 
Magic folk as men or women...did both of these people look like 
Muggles and none of us picked it up? Of course, in this memory, the 
words are man, woman, teenager, girl, boy.

Also in other posts, very good points have come up that abuse happens 
to all sorts of women that you might think unlikely; or that Eileen's 
magic may have become weak for some reason; or the hook-nosed man may 
or may not have been Tobias; this shouting may or may not have been a 
pattern. It's hard to guess which of these details was part of JKR's 
plan or which ones are ideas we've slipped in ourselves. 

Going back to the canon, this is what I think. JKR is giving us some 
information about Snape's family. Look at the OoP canon above, Harry 
reflects and thinks,"...the crying little boy who had watched his 
parents shouting was actually standing in front of him..."

JKR is as good as Snape at misleading with the truth...well, she's 
even better because she taught him. But based on the wording, I think 
Tobias is the man in the memory. Look at this again though. Although 
the actual scene is described as a shouting man, cowering woman, here 
the wording is "parents shouting." The woman may have been coming out 
of a cower, or she may have been cowering, but shouting back.

The straight forward reading would be that the two people shouting at 
each other were Snape's parents: Tobias and Eileen.

But to confuse things a bit, and others have suggested something 
similar, Hermione says "there was a tiny announcement...and then 
later an announcement saying she'd given birth..." She doesn't say 
how much later. The other possiblity is that the man and woman were 
Snape's parents, but the man wasn't Tobias. While I think it could 
be...I don't think it's very likely.

Potioncat: who thinks she did more to muddle this than to clear it 
up, and doesn't really know what she thinks about the Snapes of 
Spinner's End.