Was Eileen a Slytherin? (Was: The Irma/Eileen Theory & Snape's Return)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 164292

Lyra wrote:
>  I agree we can sorta (keeping "maths" in mind) conjecture Eileen
may have been at Hogwarts around the same time as Tom Riddle, but I
don't recall anything tying her to Slytherin aside from the fact she's
a pureblood, (which, in and of itself, is no guarantee of being in
Slytherin).
> 
> zgirnius:
> Nothing places her in Slytherin, other than the fact that her son is
in Slytherin (and these things tend to run in families, we are told. 
Snape's father's line were never at Hogwarts). 
> 
> We also do not know for a fact that she *was* a pureblood. Hermione
initially suggests Eileen was the Half-Blood Prince, and never
mentions finding proof of Eileen's pureblood status. I tend to think
she was because *the* Half-Blood Prince sounds like an exclusive
designation, which would make sense if Snape's wizard relatives were
pureblood, but it doesn't have to be.
>
Carol responds:
First, the wedding announcement that Hermione finds in an old Daily
Prophet is mentioned (but not quoted) in the last chapter of HBP, "The
White Tomb," on page 637 of the American edition. (It strikes me as
odd that the announcement would identify Tobias as a Muggle, but, oh,
well.)

I agree with zgirnius that *the* Half-Blood Prince strongly suggests
(but doesn't prove) that Severus was the one and only *Half-Blood*
Prince, the others being the Pure-Blood Princes. Nevertheless,
Hermione's guess that one of the Prince's parents was a pureblood and
the other a Muggle makes sense to me, even though she had the wrong
person in mind (Eileen instead of Severus). Since no alternative
explanation is offered in canon, I think we can tentatively accept
hers as accurate. 

As for Eileen's being in Slytherin, we're on somewhat shakier ground,
but, again, I agree with zgirnius. In addition to the Houses tending
to run in families, we have the (admittedly not definitive) evidence
of Eileen's general unattractiveness. With the exception of the Blacks
and possibly the Malfoys, the Slytherins tend to be relatively
unattractive, ranging from the (merely) fat Slughorn to the apelike
Crabbe and Goyle, the pug-faced Pansy Parkinson, and the large,
square-jawed Millicent Bulstrode. (IIRC, Marcus Flint, who may be
related to the Bulstrodes based on the Black family tree, is described
as looking like he has Troll blood--not likely to be true, but hardly
indicative of good looks.) Eileen's description, "a skinny girl of
around fifteen . . . simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows
and a long, pallid face" (HBP 537) fits right in with the generally
unattractive typical Slytherin--and sounds rather similar to her
(Slytherin) son, who was also skinny and pallid as a teenager.
(Nothing about a hooked nose, though.)

Another point in favor of the Princes *possibly* having a Slytherin
family tradition is the fact that Severus came to school knowing more
hexes than half the seventh years. Since kids don't normally have
their own wands until they're eleven and someone must have taught him
most of those hexes (he can't have invented all of them at that age,
surely?) I think we're seeing a parent or grandparent (not
Muggle!Tobias, who must be out of the picture) ignoring the
restriction on underage sorcery, which sounds like part of a Dark
wizard/Slytherin tradition to me. Draco, for example, knows
Serpensortia (and a number of other hexes) as a second-year though I
suppose he could have learned them at school from the older Slytherins
rather than from DE!Daddy at home.

At any rate, I don't see how young Severus could have learned all
those hexes in a home with an abusive Muggle father and a submissive
witch wife, which is why I keep thinking that the hook-nosed man in
Snape's memory must be Grandpa Prince rather than Tobias. I can't see
Eileen being cowed by a Muggle, no matter how mean and angry he was,
or being afraid to hex him, and I can't see Harry overlooking Muggle
clothes even in a fleeting flash of a memory, which after all is
inside his own head though it isn't his. And yet young Severus seems
neglected and defensive about his Half-Blood status, so maybe the
Pure-Blood Prince(s) treated him rather poorly despite (apparently)
letting him practice learn and a variety of hexes at an early age,
which means that he either had his own wand early or borrowed one or
learned a whole lot in the short time between being accepted to
Hogwarts (when his mother or grandparents would presumably buy him a
wand) and actually attending it, all of which suggests a rather loose
attitude toward underage magic (possibly including potions experiments
a bit later on) on the part of his mother or grandparents, which
again, to me, suggests a Slytherin background. (Anyone think that Mrs.
Black kept her sons from using a wand until they were eleven or
enforced the statute against underage magic at home? I don't.)

Carol, noting that the more information JKR provides, the more
questions she raises