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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 140415


Auria wrote:
<snip>> 
> One thing you wrote ''3) If the spells are his own, the
> > potion tips are probably his own as well.''  I have to disagree 
> with. This is the major assumption I was referring to.  I never said
that Snape worked WITH Lily, I meant that he may have written his 
> notes by watching what she did during their classes. He may have 
> taken notes on what other students did as well as make up stuff of 
> his own.  In keeping with Snape's character, he would be the spying 
> type - we know that he eavesdropped on Prof Trelawney and Dumbledore 
> that night at the Hogs Head when she made the prophesy.  
> This does not mean he has no talent of his own.  Quite the contrary - 
> he seems the type to steal other people's ideas without giving them 
> due credit, as well as experiment with convention, and of course 
> dabble with the dark arts. The sectum sempra curse is his own 
> invention, as he stated. <snip>

Carol responds:

We have canon evidence that Peter Pettigrew cheated or was trying to
cheat on his DADA exam and that Gilderoy Lockhart claimed credit for
DADA feats that were not his own. Can you show me any canon evidence
of Snape doing something similar? Just because he's good at spying (at
least as an adult--he got caught as a young man spying on DD and
Trelawney--doesn't mean that he copies other people's notes and
tactics. Since he discovered his own spells through experimentation
and revision, why should we even question that he did the same with
his potions?

As for Valky's idea that he has no aesthetic sense, I think that's
been pretty well answered by several people who quoted his "simmering
cauldron" speech in SS/PS. I could argue (but won't take time here)
that his adult persona has been carefully cultivated to gain what he
considers to be the respect of his students and that it includes a
very careful use of words and movements (sweeping out of doorways)--an
appreciation of masculine grace and the color black, for example. I
think he likes the *study* of potions as much as he likes the study of
the Dark Arts. (Teaching Potions to "dunderheads" who melt their
classmates' cauldrons is another matter altogether.) He has a clear
mastery of both poisons and antidotes (nice association with the Dark
Arts and DADA there), however much the young Severus may recommend
stuffing a bezoar down someone's throat--which does not sound to me at
all like something our gentle Lily would say, not to mention that it's
in Severus's book in his handwriting. (It would be interesting to see
Lily's Potions textbook but I don't think that's going to happen.)

The book is called "The Half-Blood Prince." We have the irony of Harry
learning from the HBP what he never learned from the adult Snape,
which would be lost if the notes are not his own. (The bezoar incident
is particularly important since Snape quizzes Harry on bezoars in his
very first lesson. If it weren't for that lesson, reiterated and
remembered through the HBP's sardonic little note, Harry could not
have saved Ron from death by poison.)

We *know* that the handwriting is young Snape's. We see him crossing
out and revising both the spells and the potion instructions, treating
both in the same experimental way. Even when Hermione is suggesting
that the handwriting looks like a girl's, she never suggests that the
altered potions instructions come from a different source than the
spells or that they are not the products of the same mind. There is
nothing in the narrative to suggest that, either.

It's *possible* that Severus's mother encouraged his early talent for
potions and hexes, or that his grandfather Prince helped him.
(Certainly Tobias the Muggle didn't.) Maybe she lent him her book
before he reached NEWT level and he practiced at home with her
cauldron and her supervision. But we don't know that. What we do have
is spells and potions worked out in the same book and the same
handwriting, with crossouts and revisions for both. We also have
Snape's established gift for Potions, demonstrated in all the books,
mentioned by Slughorn in HBP and tacitly acknowledged by Dumbledore
when he offered young Snape the post of Potions master rather than
DADA teacher. Why deny or denigrate it? I can see arguing over his
personality traits and wheter or not he's evil, but surely his talents
and powers are revealed by HBP as even greater than we thought they were?

To return to Valky's post for a moment: Why would young Snape suggest
adding a peppermint leaf to a Euphoria potion? Maybe because he knew
the side effects and didn't want to experience them? Maybe as an
intellectual exercise to see what worked? Maybe his mum gave him that
particular hint, but there's no canon evidence that she excelled at
anything other than gobstones. Maybe he looked across the room and saw
Lily adding one or overheard Slughorn praising her for doing so. But
considering all the other experimentation that he's doing, it makes
just as much sense to take the straightforward approach of assuming
that it's as much his own idea as Sectumsempra (which is clearly a
retaliation for bullying by "enemies"). Makes me wonder what Severus
would have been like if MWPP had left him alone. (And, no, I don't
think he was a helpless little victim. MWPP knew he was dangerous or
they'd never have sneaked up on him two against one.)

I really don't understand why so many posters seem to be trying to
suggest that the hints Harry benefits from in NEWT Potions are not the
HBP's. We know Snape is a Potions genius. We know he's the HBP. We
know, as I've said a dozen times, that the notes are in his
handwriting and that the spells are his own inventions. There's no
solid evidence that anyone helped him, only Slughorn's statement that
Lily was also good at Potions and the discredited idea that the
handwriting looks like a girl's. (We *know* it's isn't.) Why give the
credit for his Potions improvements to anyone else and spoil the
delicious irony of Harry (finally) learning from Snape and of Ron
(indirectly) owing Snape his life?

Carol, again asking for *solid* canon evidence that the Potions
improvements (which appear to have been incorporated into his own
Potions classes since Hermione excels in them) are not Snape's own