HBP's Potion book

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 155538

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cass_da_sweet"
<cass_da_sweet at ...> wrote:
>
> I have yet to see this posted and it's been bugging me for a while. In
> HBP Hermione continues to insist that the HBP's Potions book was
> written by a girl. I know that it was Snape's mother's book but we are
> giving Snape all the credit for the spells and such written in it when
> it might not have been he who wrote it. Maybe it matters and maybe it
> doesn't but 
 well it's bugging me.
> 
> Cass_da_sweet
>
Carol responds:
Since we know that he's a Potions genius and that he came to Hogwarts
knowing more hexes than most sixth-years, and since we learn in HBP
that he's also a Healer and he refers to himself as the Half-Blood
Prince, I really don't think there's much doubt. I think Hermione's
insistence that the author of the spells might be a girl and her
discovery o Eileen Prince's existence is chiefly a red herring, but
also foreshadowing of Snape's Half-blood parentage. The cheeky little
remark on stuffing a bezoar down their throats sounds like something
the young Snape would write and fits in beautifully with the adult
Snape's bezoar lesson on the first day of Potions class in
SS/PS--Snape is doubly responsible for (indirectly) saving Ron's life
in HBP. (And of course, there are all the references to his knowledge
of both the Dark Arts and healing in HBP, and Slughorn's view of him
as highly talented--almost as brilliant as Harry, the Potions
"natural"!) The irony would be lost if the Potions hints were
Eileen's, not Snape's. And the Potions hints, including the bezoar
remark, are written in the same minuscule, cramped handwriting as the
spells, which we know are Snape's. (He tells Harry not to use his own
spells against him and he alone, apparently, knows the countercurse to
Sectumsempra. Lucky for Draco that Snape was keeping an eye on him or
Harry!)

Another clue that pretty much cinches the HBP's identity, at least for
me, is the teenage Snape's handwriting, described when he's taking his
DADA exam in the Pensieve memory in OoP as minuscule and cramped (he's
written a foot more than his nearest neighbor, indicating a detailed
knowledge of the subject, and is clearly squeezing as much knowledge
as he can into his exam answers). And we see that same minuscule,
cramped writing used to cram notes on potions and drafts of spells in
the margins of his mother's old NEWT Potions book.

It's interesting that Snape writes the Potions ingredients and
step-by-step directions on the board with a flick of his wand, whereas
Slughorn has the students use their books. Clearly, Snape has
memorized every step of the process for every potion (he knows exactly
which step has been skipped or what has been done incorrectly when
Neville or Harry makes a mistake in concocting a potion). It's
possible, too, that the potions directions are his own improved
versions rather than those in the book. Hermione does much better in
his class than in Slughorn's, perhaps for this reason.

Altogether, I see no reason to assume that anyone other than
Teen!Snape should get credit for the potions tips just as no one else
should get credit for inventing Muffliato--or blame for inventing
Sectumsempra. IMO, the whole idea of HBP is that it's Harry
interacting with Snape on two different levels, hating the one and
identifying with the other. Eileen Prince is unimportant in herself;
Snape is a major character, Harry's paradoxical antagonist and
sometime ally/protector. To have anything written by the HBP be other
than Snape's would, IMO, spoil that complexly ironic relationship,
including the irony of Harry hiding the HBP's own book from the HBP.

Carol, noting that Slughorn's use of the same Potions text for fifty
years doesn't say much for his own inventiveness or incentive, in
marked contrast to Snape's