What Little Niggling Details will be left?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 171132

Mike wrote:

> > 6. Is that house in Spinner's End the Prince family home?

TKJ replied:
 
>  I think the house has to be the Snape family home because doesn't
Narcissa claim the "none of our kind has been here." or "we must be
the first of our kind in this place." I don't have my book in front of
me but that leads me to believe that it is the Snape family house and
not his mother's (Prince) family house. <snip>

Carol responds:

While it's possible that the house at Spinner's End was the Snape
family home, it's hard to explain how little Severus could have come
to school knowing more curses than half the seventh-years if he grew
up in a Muggle neighborhood. (I can't imagine him attending a Muggle
school, either.) I tend to think that his father died or walked out on
the family when Severus was small, perhaps as a result of the argument
involving a hook-nosed man shouting at a cowering woman, if the man in
the memory was Tobias and not Grandpa Prince. (I think it was Grandpa
Prince because even Harry would have noticed if the shouting man was
dressed as a Muggle and because I can't imagine sullen-faced Gobstones
champion Eileen Prince intimidated by a Muggle. All she'd have to do
is cast a Silencio--or turn him into a table.)

IMO, Severus's self-imposed nickname, *the* Half-Blood Prince,
suggests that he was the one half-blood in a family of "pure-blood
Princes." IOW, it implies that he was brought up by the Princes (his
mother and her parents) rather than by his parents together (and
rather neglected, given  his appearance in SWM, perhaps the
consequence of being regarded as a "filthy little half-blood" by
pure-blood supremacist relatives). It's possible that Spinner's End,
with its walls full of leather-bound books (on spells and potions and
WW history, I imagine, certainly not Muggle novels or Muggle science
or history, leather-bound books having gone out of fashion in the
Muggle world long before Sevvy's childhood in the 1960s), and its
sliding bookcases and candelabras instead of electricity, was the
Prince family home, protected by anti-Muggle charms like those placed
by Sirius Black's father on 12 GP--another "Muggle dungheap,"
Bellatrix! Bellatrix's remark that she and Narcissa must be the first
of their kind ever to come there is unanswered by Narcissa (who may
have been there before or may simply have been given the address by
Lucius[?]) and merely indicates that Bellatrix herself was unaware
that Snape lives in a "Muggle dungheap," meaning the mostly deserted
neighborhood rather than the specific house, which she has not yet
seen when she makes that remark.

Alternatively, the house may be Snape's own, bought with his salary as
a teacher and fitted up as a wizard house (though the air of neglect
indicates that he doesn't spend much time there--how hard could it be
for a wizard of Snape's caliber to fix a rickety table?). Maybe he
bought it quite recently as a place to hide out once he became an
active double agent again. Narcissa knows more or less where to find
him (presumably anti-Apparition charms prevent her from Apparating
there directly), but Bellatrix is surprised to find him there.
Possibly, when they knew him at school, he lived somewhere else.
Either that or, being older than he was, they never visited him during
their school days or his, or even his days as a novice DE in his late
teens or early twenties.

Obviously, I'm only speculating, but I'd like to know how Snape came
by the house at Spinner's End (Spinner's End being a street name, not
the name of the house) and whether he's still there. Can he safely
hide there? Won't the Aurors question Narcissa, who could be forced
through Veritaserum or a spell to tell everything she knows, including
his address? What protective spells could he place on the house to
keep from being found? (And while I'm at it, what about that secret
chamber under the Malfoy's drawing room, which Ron and Harry forgot to
tell Mr. Weasley about, and which he's searched their manor twice
without finding? Is Bellatrix hiding there? And how the heck did she
follow Narcissa when she didn't know where Narcissa was going?)

Carol, who also wants to know what's going on in the bucking broom
memory and who the laughing girl is (and whic other memories Snape
placed in the Pensieve to prevent Harry from seeing)