What's in the Box? - Eileen Prince

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177227

Aussie wrote:
> 
> Eileen Prince !
<snip>
> So what was Eileen's history. I know JKR would have loved to tell 
> us, but that subplot may have eclipsed some Hallows story line.
> 
> - Eileen went to school at the same time as Tom Riddle
> - Eileen may have been in Slytherin with Tom
> - Hermione couldn't find any other wizarding family called "Prince" -
> - Was she muggle-born or from wizard lineage? <snip>

Carol responds:

Eileen cannot have been a Muggle-born or Severus would not have been a
Half-Blood. In the view of pure-blood supremacists like the Malfoys
and Voldemort, a Muggle-born is just a Muggle with unnatural magical
powers. Severus would have four grandparents who were Muggles, which
would make him a Muggle-born. So Eileen would have to be at least a
Half-blood herself, and probably a Pure-blood, for Severus to qualify
as a Half-blood. I'm not sure whether one wizarding grandparent would
be enough. (Harry, Tom Riddle, and Dumbledore, whose mother was a
Muggle-born, each have two Muggle and two wizarding grandparents.)

More important, IMO, Teen!Severus called himself *the* Half-Blood
Prince, which indicates that he was the only one (no brothers or
sisters). The other Princes, including his mother, must have been
pure-bloods.

As for Hermione not finding any wizarding family called the Princes, I
don't think that's quite true since she wasn't looking in a wizarding
genealogy, she was looking in the Daily Prophet and old school
records. She found one student named Eileen Prince and stopped there.
The most we can conclude is that she found no record of any brothers
or sisters for Eileen (no Prefects with that name, no Potions awards
for any student named Prince). Later, when she knows that Snape is the
Half-Blood Prince, she finds the wedding and birth announcements. We
don't know whether Eileen's parents are mentioned in the wedding
announcement. If they were alive, they probably were, unless Eileen
was in her twenties or thirties and marrying against their wishes
(which I find likely given her choice of husbands and their home in a
Muggle slum).

Since Severus thought that Slytherin was a House for "brains," I'm
guessing that it was Eileen's old House and she described it to him in
that way. (It's clear that she didn't mention the pure-blood supremacy
ethic or he might not have wanted to go there, and he certainly would
not have thought that Lily could be placed in Slytherin.) And, of
course, if Eileen *was* in Slytherin, she could not have been a
Muggle-born. (How she met Tobias is another question altogether, but
not one we're likely to find an answer to.)

Anyway, I'm curious to know more about young Severus's homelife and
how a witch could allow herself to be bullied by a Muggle (fear of
arrest for hexing a "helpless" Muggle is my guess). Apparently, she
taught him about Hogwarts and Dementors and underage magic. Possibly,
she taught him Potions from an early age (though Hermione didn't find
her name as a recipient of any Potions awards), and possibly, she
allowed him to practice magic as soon as he got his wand (would that
have been his eleventh birthday?), giving him about seven months to
learn more jinxes and hexes than half the seventh years before he
started school (if Sirius Black can be relied on here. Certainly, they
weren't Dark curses since most seventh years don't go around casting
Unforgiveables and other illegal or highly dangerous curses, and the
spells he invented before Sectumsempra are imaginative jinxes and hexes.)

I'd like to see Severus' relationship with his mother, who must have
educated him at home when her husband was at work. I can't see her
sending him to a Muggle school. Unlike Harry, he seems to have
acquired at least a rudimentary knowledge of Latin, as well--not a
subject that's taught in most Muggle schools these days, to my
knowledge (at least not state schools for children eleven and
under--elementary schools, we'd call them in the U.S.)

Carol, quite sure that Eileen was a Pure-Blood because, otherwise,
Sevvy's nickname would make no sense