The handwriting in the book (Was: Lily and Snape)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 140388

Carol earlier: <heavily snipped>
> > First, it's highly unlikely that Lily (or Snape's mother,
suggested by other posters) would invent the curses that Snape claims
as his own, particularly Sectumsempra and its accompanying note, "for
enemies," and the curses are in the same handwriting as the potions
hints. Both appear to be the product of the same ingenious mind, young
Snape's: <snipped>
> >
Auria responded:
> You are making a huge assumption that everything that Snape wrote in 
> his textbook is coming from one source.  No-one here seems to have 
> considered the fact that MAYBE Snape picked up tips from several
other students, perhaps other books too, as well as making some spells
of his own. Just because Snape is now a very accomplished Potions and
DADA teacher doesn't preclude Lily from also being good at potions. 
Why should one exclude the other?  Snape may well have become such a
good potions master from some of the information copied from Lily that
he then added to from his own intellect.  Rarely does someone learn
from only one source.


Carol responds:

Perhaps you've misunderstood me. I didn't say "one source." I said
"the same ingenious mind" (Severus Snape's). I certainly never said
that Snape doesn't read. Clearly he does. His detailed response to the
DADA question in the OoP Pensieve memory indicates that young Snape
not only reads but remembers what he reads. The book-lined walls of
Spinner's End show that the adult Snape still reads. But unlike
Hermione, with her straight out of the textbook responses, young Snape
also questions and analyzes and experiments, as the cross-outs and
revisions in his annotated textbook show. (If the annotations were
hints given him by someone else or copied from a book, they would
surely not be in such rough form.)

Since you snipped most of my post, including the canon support, I'll
repeat the key points: 1) The potion tips and the spells are all in
the same handwriting: young Snape's, and 2) Lily would not have helped
to invent Sectumsempra and that the spells in Snape's Potions book are
his own inventions, as he claims. 3) If the spells are his own, the
potion tips are probably his own as well. To me, it's much more likely
that the spells and the potion experiments are the products of the
same experimentally oriented mind than that they're the result of an
uncharacteristic cooperation between a lonely little Slytherin nerd
and a popular Gryffindor "Mudblood." 

None of which is to say that Lily might not also be good at Potions,
but in contrast to the solid evidence in every book of Snape's expert
knowledge, all we have to indicate Lily's skill is Slughorn's fond
memory of a favorite pupil, which may or may not be accurate.
(Slughorn's assessment of Harry's abilities does not speak well of his
judgment in that regard.) He may or may not be correct about Lily, but
even if he is, her abilities are not in themselves an indication that
some of the experiments in the HPB's book could be hers. *That's* an
assumption for which you need to present canon evidence. Frankly, I
would love to see some. (And no, I'm not being rude or sarcastic. I
don't do that.)

However, just because two students in the same class are good at the
same subject doesn't mean that they will work together. They could as
easily be rivals, or wholly indifferent to one another, as friends.
Ernie Macmillan is good at Potions. So is Hermione. But they're from
different houses and they don't work together in NEWT Potions. And
Gryffindor and Slytherin are rival houses. The only time we see
Gryffindors working with a Slytherin in Potions is in PoA when Draco's
arm is injured and Ron is forced to cut up Draco's slugs and roots. 

There's also the question of logistics. The different Houses have
different common rooms. The only place, aside from class, where
Severus and Lily could have worked together is the library. And I
doubt that Severus would want to be seen studying with any Gryffindor,
especially one he had publicly called a "Mudblood" and who had
retaliated by calling him "Snivellus." And Severus Snape, at least
from his fifth year onward, appears to be a loner. Certainly he's
alone when he's ambushed by James and Sirius. (I think his Slytherin
gang consisted mostly of older students who had already graduated, but
I discuss that briefly in another post.) The adult Snape is still a
loner. Aside from CoS, where the other teachers follow his lead in
getting Lockhart out of their hair, when have we seen him working
cooperatively with anyone or even sharing a friendly cup of tea? He
*reports* to Dumbledore, but he *works* alone. And if he socializes
with anyone before "Spinner's End" (not a casual, friendly visit),
we've yet to see it. There's nothing to suggest that the young Snape
studies with Lily or anyone else.

In short, the HBP annotations are in young Snape's handwriting (canon
evidence upthread). There is solid evidence that Snape (boy and man)
is an expert at both DADA and Potions and that he's a loner. Even if
Lily is also good at Potions (and Slughorn's word is our only
evidence), that does not in itself indicate that she contributed in
any way to the annotations in young Snape's book. 

You suggest that "maybe" young Snape picked up information from other
students, including Lily. Maybe he did. But a possibility is not a
fact. ("The fact that MAYBE" is an oxymoron.) I have yet to see canon
evidence that the annotations in the HBP's book reflect any ideas or
experiments other than his own.

Carol, who has spent far too much time on this post