Handwriting

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 148895

Rebecca Scalf <witherwing at ...> wrote:
>
> Does anyone else wonder if at least some of the writing in the HBP's
potions book is Snape's mothers? I believe the canon is that the book
was published years before the Marauders' time at Hogwarts, and that
makes it a used book for SS - I assumed it was a hand-me-down from his
mother. <snip>

>
Carol responds:
We know from "Flight of the Prince" (both the title and Snape's own
words) that he is the Half-Blood Prince. The words "This Book is the
Property of the Half-Blood Prince" are in "the same small, cramped
writing as the instructions that had won [Harry] the bottle of Felix
Felicis" (HBP Am. ed. 193). This is almost certainly the same writing
that we see young Severus using in his DADA OWL: "His hand was flying
across the parchment; he had written at least a foot more than his
closest neighbors, and yet his writing was minuscule and cramped" (OoP
Am. ed. 641).

The Pensieve scene shows us two things: first, even as a student,
Snape knew *a lot* about DADA; and second, he wrote in a small,
cramped hand that allowed him to get a lot of words on the page. The
reader, IMO, is meant to catch the first one immediately and connect
it with Snape's known desire to teach the DADA course. The second is a
planted clue to connect young Severus in "Snape's Worst Memory" to the
Half-Blood Prince, who shares Snape's gift for Potions. 

Harry, it appears, noticed the handwriting but did not register its
significance--or even its similarity to or difference from the adult
Snape's handwriting. His focus is elsewhere--he's looking for, and
soon finds, his father. And when he sees his father bullying young
Snape without provocation, everything else slips from his mind.

We have, BTW, seen Professor Snape writing on the board without magic
at least once--I believe it's in GoF--but only because JKR needs to
have Snape's back turned at that moment (or else she hadn't yet
thought of the idea of writing the potion instructions on the board
with a flick of the wand). In OoP Snape uses the wand flick, but no
difference in the handwriting is indicated. Harry, who seldom pays
attention to details, doesn't see the similarity or difference, if any
exists. Also, there's no indication that Snape, who has a *lot* of
essays to mark and return quickly, makes extensive comments on them.
And even if he did, Ron can't read the small writing and Hermione
refuses to read the improved instructions, so neither of them can help
Harry to connect the HBP's writing with the adult Snape's.

Now if Snape were still Harry's Potions instructor, even he (Harry)
might notice a similarity between the HBP's writing and Snape's--and
wouldn't dare to use the shortcuts in the Potions book because he'd
know whose they were. But JKR takes care to keep him (and the reader)
from seeing Snape's handwriting in HBP. Even the message about his
first detention (the one for "cheek") is delivered by word of mouth
(HBP Am. ed. 235-36). That, along with the red herrings about the
writing resembling a girl's (wishful thinking on Hermione's part and
based on a cursory glimpse, not on careful study of the marginal notes
she distrusts) and the age of the book (which, I agree, is a
hand-me-down from Snape's mother--Slughorn is too lazy to change to a
more modern textbook even now), prevents Harry from figuring out what
an observant reader suspects from the first description of the writing
at the end of the "Half-Blood Prince" chapter. 

The similarity of the descriptions in HBP and OoP and the hint we've
already received in OoP that teen!Snape was obsessed with DADA, along
with what we already know of the adult Snape's skill at Potions and
his recognition of the book as his, makes the identification of the
Half-Blood Prince, the writer of both the spells and the potions
hints, as certain as anything we know to be true in the HBP books. We
may be in doubt regarding Snape's motives and his loyalties, but the
title mystery has been solved just as surely as the identity of the
person who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire.

So unless Eileen used the same nickname as her son and called herself
"the Half-Blood Prince," which I rather doubt, the writing throughout
the book is that of the teenage Potions and DADA genius, Severus
Snape--a sublime irony given the empathy and admiration Harry feels
for the unknown boy in contrast to the determined hatred he now feels
for the man that boy became.

Carol, who *does* pay attention to details and hopes she has not
obscured her argument by including too many in this post