back to Blacks was Re: Snape and DD

[lolita_ns]

No: HPFGUIDX 147307

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lagattalucianese" 
<katmac at k...> wrote:
>
>> I'm sure Snape gave as good as he got; he says in HBP.28 that 
James 
> never dared attack him unless it was four to one. But I'd bet my 
> buckled booties that the Marauders were the ones to start it. Snape 
> just looked like such easy meat, this geeky, brainy, antisocial, 
> undergrown, homely kid with no particular friends or supporters.


Lolita:

Well, he didn't seem to have friends or supporters in the pensieve, 
but that was his 5th year. However, according to what Sirius told 
Harry and co. in GoF, Snape was a part of a whole little *gang* of 
Slytherins, among which he mentioned the Lestranges. 

Let's employ some maths. We know for a fact that Bellatrix is the 
eldest of the 3 sisters. From Tonks's age (in OotP she says that she 
qualified as an Auror a year ago. Auror training, according to 
McGonagall, takes 3 years. The majority of children are 18 when they 
graduate from Hogwarts. That would make Tonks at least 22 when we 
first meet her - 18 + 3 + 1.)we can calculate that her mother, 
Andromeda, must have been at least 41 in OotP - L.Malfoy's 
contemporary, and 5 years older than both Sirius and Snape, who were 
36 at the beginning of OotP. That would make her a 6th year when 
Snape was in his first. In order to be the eldest sister, AND to be a 
part of the group Snape used to hang out with, Bellatrix must have 
been a 7th year when he started Hogwarts. 

Their time there thus overlapped for a single year. Malfoy (whom 
Sirius so conspicuously doesn't mention) left when Snape finished his 
2nd year. We also know that Snape knew a lot of hexes when he turned 
up at Hogwarts. So, Bellatrix and co. probably took him up and used 
him for his inventive little curses. In return, they probably 
provided some protection, and Snape probably used it to get at Potter 
and Black (I agree with you that the Marauders - or, more precisely, 
Sirius - started the dislike. But since Snape had a back-up team when 
he was just a first year, he probably started the actual attacks). 
However, after his first year, the majority of the group whose part 
he had been were gone from school. After Snape's second year, Malfoy 
was gone as well. The tables had turned, and now Snape was the one 
without support. And the open war began. It lasted, as far as I can 
tell, until it culminated with the Werewolf episode, which was hushed 
up, and the hostilities, while still there, were not so openly 
exercised. 

 

> La Gatta Lucianese:
> 
> But given the age difference, and more particularly the 
relationship 
> between Snape and Bellatrix that we see in HBP.2, I doubt there was 
> any love lost there. 


Lolita:

I agree. He was probably more often than not slapped by dear 
Bellatrix if he dared contradict her on something (or if she felt 
like it). But, while he may have been a stupid, naive kid to let 
himself be taken up by them, I bet he used every bit of power the 
relationship provided him for not-so-noble ends. Still,he must have 
realised that they were using him far more than he was using them, 
and was actually quite relieved when they left. But during the time 
he hung out with them, he must have earned himself a genuine dislike 
among his peers. And he seems not to have bothered to make any other 
friends after his original 'gang' had left. Plus, his disposition and 
general behaviour, if he behaved anything like he does now, didn't 
serve him as a recommendation either. No wonder he was alone in his 
5th year. 



> he didn't have anybody else 
> than from close friendship. The poor kid really seems not to have 
had 
> much of anybody close to him throughout his school years.


Lolita:

Well, he seems to have remained quite close with L.Malfoy. Although 
Malfoy, too, left soon after the rest of the gangleaders, he must 
have been a lot better to Snape than Bellatrix had been, for the two 
of them are still rather chummy (not all of that is just for the sake 
of 'The Cause' - Snape seems to be genuinely close to Lucius, and to 
*actually* like Draco). And let's not forget about Narcissa - Snape's 
and her time at Hogwarts overlapped too - she may be anything from 2 
years younger (in order to have a 16 year-old son in 1996, she 
couldn't have finished school later than 1979) to 5 years older than 
Snape. I wonder when the two of *them* became so close... And then, 
there was Lily. Hmm... Rowling really needs to give us that 1970s 
backstory.



> La Gatta Lucianese:
> 
> ... Snape grew up in poverty because 
> his mother was a pure-blood in disgrace and his father was a 
Muggle. 
> Given Eileen's "cross and sullen" nature (HBP.25), Severus may well 
> have been closer to his father than his mother, and picked up blue-
> collar Muggle behavior from him. 

Lolita:

Given that there is no doubt that Snape was wizarding-raised 
(remember the hexes he knew before he even came to school and 
everything he has to say about Muggles - e.g. that only a Muggle 
would call Legilimency mind-reading), I would say not. If he had been 
close to his Muggle father, why on earth would he join a movement 
whose idea of fun was to torture Muggles?
Plus, judging from the fact that no one seems to have known that he 
was a literal halfblood, and that he invented the Prince-based 
soubriquet for himself, I would say that he identified more with his 
mother's family than with the one of his father.

Cheers,
Lolita.