The HBP's book: unanswered questions

[sneeboy2]

No: HPFGUIDX 170978

Some things still puzzle me about the textbook in the HBP.

Why are spells from the book known to Snape and James in their fifth
year ("Snape's Worst Memory, OotP), when it's a sixth-year text book?

How did Levicorpus become popular with other students when Snape
himself was so unpopular – not to mention too private and proud to
give away his creation lightly?

If Snape is the HBP, why doesn't Slughorn recognize a similarity
between Harry's work and Snape's work as a student? He knows Snape has
been teaching Harry for five years. Why not attribute Harry's
knowledge to that?

Then there's this line from Hermione in HBP, p. 637: "It's just that I
was right about Eileen Prince once owning the book. You see . . . she
was Snape's mother!" Why does she assume that Eileen once owned the
book? I thought she was just the explanation for Snape's nickname.

But if Eileen did own the book, and Snape inherited the book from her,
it would explain why he had it prior to his sixth year. Perhaps she
was dead by then and it was one of the few things she ever gave him,
so he cherished it.

But it doesn't explain the connection to Lily that Slughorn sees when
Harry uses the HBP's book. Or how the spell Levicorpus ended up being
all the rage at Hogwarts. Here's a stab at that.

Let's say Lily came to be in possession of the book in her fifth year.
How would she get it? Well, in "Snape's Worst Memory" one gets the
sense that she and Snape have at least spoken before. What if he
loaned it to her? Perhaps she needed to brew a potion. Maybe, as many
suspect, they were friends or he had feelings for her or wanted to pay
her back for sticking up for him.

If Lily had the book, she could have passed along the Levicorpus spell
to a friend. (Snape could have too – except that he had no friends.)
Maybe Lily even showed it directly to James. Her dislike of James in
"Snape's Worst Memory" must be concealing some attraction to him,
since they end up falling in love. Regardless of who she shared the
spell with, it got out and James learned it.

How would it have made Snape feel to discover, after he'd trusted Lily
with his precious book, that a spell from it became known to his worst
enemy, who then used it to humiliate him in front of Lily? Betrayed
certainly. Maybe even hurt enough to lash out at her and call her a
"mudblood." And if that moment of anger cost him her friendship,
wouldn't that make the memory of it even worse, especially for a boy
with so few friends – not to mention female friends? Wouldn't it all
add up to the worst memory Snape had? (JKR has said the title of the
chapter is accurate.)

And maybe Lily was hurt enough by Snape's remark that she decided not
to give the book back. After all, she'd need it the next year. But why
did she dazzle Slughorn more than Snape did? If it's Snape's book, he
must know what's it in by heart. Slughorn, at his Christmas party,
begins to compare Lily's ability at potions with Snape's.

"Instinctive, you know – like his mother! I've only ever taught a few
with this kind of ability, I can tell you that, Sybill – why even
Severus –" p319 of the U.S. hardback edition.

And he then interrupts his train of thought to bring Snape over.

Was he going to say "even Severus [didn't have her ability]"? It seems
possible. Snape accepted the post as potions master reluctantly, after
all. His primary interest is the Dark Arts.

What if Eileen Prince is the author of the margin notes about potions?
The handwriting resembles Snape's, but perhaps it runs in the family.
Snape says he created the spells, but he never claims the notes about
potions. Would their handwriting be that close, that Harry wouldn't
notice two separate hands in the book? Seems a stretch, but it's
possible. Our hero is not the most observant fellow.

Let's say Snape become so bitter over Lily's betrayal of his trust and
her outshining him in class using his own book that he begins to hang
out with the Death Eaters on campus. If so, then the HBP's book is the
key to Snape's original fall from grace. Until then, he could have
been, as he appears to be in "Snape's Worst Memory" merely a loner and
an outcast. He's poor and not a pureblood. Nor is he a sycophant like
Wormtail. But at some point, we know, he begins to associate with the
mostly wealthy, snobbish Death Eaters.

The Half-Blood Prince's Advanced Potion-Making text book is still
hidden in the Room of Requirement at the end of Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince. We know Harry marked its location carefully, and
this makes me think he will need to go back for it. (Though perhaps it
won't be as easy to find as he hopes.) I expect Harry will need that
recipe for a perfect Draught of Living Death in Book 7, and perhaps
might want to search the book for clues about Snape. Could this be
what he discovers?

A lot of plot lines are going to have to come together in the last
book. It would be especially tidy if Lily is both the reason Snape
became a Death Eater and the reason he stopped being one.

Sneeboy2