Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses)

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 150350

zgirnius: 
Good questions, Tonks, I don't think we really know the answers...so 
I shall speculate!
 
> Tonks:
> I am starting to wonder where Snape learned these dark arts that he 
> is said to know at age 12.  Before HBP I assumed him to be a pure-
> blood and from a family of dark wizards. But now we find that his 
> father was a Muggle. That begs some questions to ponder. Was his 
> mother involved in the dark arts? Was she the battered woman we 
> think she was, or not? 

zgirnius:
I think the marriage was not happy, anyway. To me 'cowering' 
(assuming the man and woman were Eileen and Tobias, of course!) 
suggests more than a simple fight between spouses. And the stories of 
Merope Riddle and Nymphadora Tonks in HBP do raise the possibility 
that even if Eileen was a witch with some knowledge of the Dark Arts, 
she could still have been vulnerable to her Muggle husband if she was 
sufficiently emotionally affected by her situation.

> Tonks:
> What sort of family were the Princes?  

zgirnius:
Again, speculating...I think they were purebloods, and biased about 
it, but less hung up on it than the Blacks. The marriage announcement 
for Eileen and Tobias, after all, suggests they were less obsessed 
than the Blacks. Walburga Black would have never mentioned a daughter 
who married a Muggle again... Why I think they were still pureblood 
supremacists is actually my take on the HBP nickname of Snape's. To 
me it came across as a sort of 'I'll show them all!' private 
nickname, which would make sense if the wizards in his family did 
care, in a negative way, that he was a half-blood. (Also, it would 
make Snape THE half-blood Prince, as in the only one...) 

I also speculate that they belonged to a different social class in 
the WW. No manor, no fancy town-house with ancient tapestries on the 
wall. Working class-I can see Grandpa Prince holding a job in some 
shady (Dark Arts connected) enterprise in Knockturn Alley, and 
Grandma Prince cooking up potions at home in her kitchen to 
supplement the household income. I get the working class vibe from 
details like Snape apparently using used textbooks. I think if the 
Princes were wealthy, and reacted to the marriage well enough for 
there to be a marriage announcement and birth announcement for 
Severus, then they would, upon learning their half-blood grandson was 
sufficeintly magical to enter Hogwarts, have provided him with school 
necessities if his parents were not able to.


Tonks:
> Did 
> Snape know Bella as a child?  Why do Snape and Bella have such a 
> tense relationship? Does this go back to before DE days?

zgirnius:
I don't think Snape and Bella knew each other before Snape started 
school, since I am guessing that the Princes and Blacks would not 
have mixed socially, and also because of the age difference, looking 
like 7 years. I think Bella and Snape have a conflict of 
personalities. Bella is a very fanatical follower of Voldemort, and 
very open about her beliefs. Just as Sirius declares (completely 
sincerely) he would die for his friends, Bella declares (with equal 
sincerity) that she would go to Azkaban for her leader. The whole 
double-agent thing is very much not her cup of tea. She does not 
respect Snape or trust him because his behavior is so alien to her.

And on Snape's side, the situation is not helped by Bella's physical 
resemblance to Sirius, and the ways in which her personality is also 
similar to his.