Half-Blood Prince

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183780

Jen wrote: 

<snip>  My main hesitation about Lucius inventing the name is whether
Snape would still proudly proclaim it at the end of HBP?  He's
completely given himself over to Dumbledore's cause by then.

Carol responds:
I'm sure you're right on this point. It seems to be Severus's own
invention, personal and important to him but possibly not even known
to anyone else. Look where he writes, "This book is the property of
the Half-Blood Prince," in his tiny writing on the inside back cover,
IIRC. In any case, were he to misplace his precious book as a teenager
(not likely given his frequent use of it and the amount of spare time
he must have spent on inventing spells and potions improvements) his
fellow Slytherins could tell at a glance that it was his without
looking for the name.

Jen:
>  Although there is Hermione's comment: "I don't think he wanted to
associate himself with that book," said Hermione.  "I don't think
Dumbledore would have liked it very much if he'd known." (Chap. 30,
HBP)  I believe that's meant to be taken as true, meaning there was
some aspect of the Half-Blood Prince Snape didn't feel pride about.

Carol responds:

I disagree. Hermione herself has considered the book disreputable from
the start, partly because it enables Harry to get marks he doesn't
deserve in Potions class without even trying and partly because she
disapproves of the spells, which for the most part are no worse than
the hexes that the boys (and Ginny) use on other students all the
time. The toenail hex and Langlock are used for laughs on Crabbe and
Filch (Harry is in danger of becoming James in this book, IMO); Ron,
after the initial shock of finding himself suspended by the ankle,
regards Levicorpus as funny. Harry continues to use it even though he
knows it was used by his father to torment a wandless Severus Snape.
Hermione associates the spell with the DEs at the QWT, but she's
mistaken (or JKR is confused); while all the DEs seemed to be using a
Hover Charm (possibly strengthened by the number of people using it)
to keep the Robinson family suspended high in the air above them, only
one of them flicks a Muggle, Mrs. Robinson, upside down (Levicorpus).
another uses a different spell to make a small child spin around. In
Hermione's mind, Levicorpus is "Dark" by association, but it and the
other hexes are only relatively Dark, no more so than Stupefy or
Petrificus Totalus and less so than the curse Harry cast, intended for
Draco, that caused Goyle (IIRC) to burst out in painful boils. The
toenail hex is on a level with Draco's Densuageo, intended for Harry,
which causes Hermione's teeth to lengthen but is easily reversed by
Madam Pomfrey. Muffliato is not Dark at all; it's merely a useful
charm to allow people to talk without being overheard, along the lines
of the Impervius Charm used by Mrs. Weasley to prevent the kids from
eavesdropping. The only Dark spell that we know of in the book is
Sectumsempra, and the invention of that spell is no worse than having
been a Death Eater in the first place. I doubt that Dumbledore would
judge Snape for having invented it in his youth, considering what DD
planned with Grindelwald at a slightly older age. Besides, Snape seems
to have (deliberately or carelessly) left his Potions book in the
classroom after he left school, perhaps because he no longer needed
it; everything in it, down to the proper order of potion ingredients
(and his own improvements), was in his head.

As for an aspect of the name Half-Blood Prince that Snape didn't feel
pride about, he certainly wasn't proud of being Tobias Snape's son and
he was probably defensive about being a Half-Blood, but there's an
element of defiance in the nickname. He's *the* Half-Blood, as in "the
one and only *Half-Blood* Prince, the others being, presumably,
pureblood. In essence, as Leah suggested, he's saying that he's just
as good (clever and magically powerful, not "good" in a moral sense),
and just as much a "prince," as the other members of his family. ("The
Half-blood Lestrange" or "the Half-Blood Malfoy" wouldn't have worked
as well. Or how about "the Half-Blood Crouch"?)

Potioncat:
> > The thing is, I can't see Severus enjoying the name or its
> > meanings. <snip>

Carol:
Oh, I can. It's just the sort of sarcastic, wry humor that he would
appreciate, half self-deprecating, half-defiant. Whether he shared it
with his friends and whether they were sophisticated enough to
appreciate it, I don't know. I suspect that it was private based on
the placement of the statement of ownership. (BTW, if he didn't share
his spells with his Slytherin friends, they could have discovered them
by looking at that book, but I suspect that he kept it locked in his
trunk, protected as Harry protected his bottle of Felix Felicis and
his Firebolt.
> 
> > Zara:
> > I can. <snip> I think Severus did it in earnest, and shared it
with no one. We know very little about his background, but we do know
that for some reason, he wanted Slytherin House. The House of
Purebloods, which he darn well knew he was not.

Carol responds:
We know the reason. Eleven-year-old Severus thinks that Slytherin is
"the house for brains" (by implication, the antithesis of Gryffindor,
which he would probably associate with brawn). This impression must
have been created by his mother, herself a Slytherin. Blood has
nothing to do with his choice since he hopes that the Muggle-born Lily
will be sorted into Slytherin with him.

Zara:
 To me, this suggests a conviction/desire to prove, that he is *as
good as* a pureblood. Good enough to get into Slytherin, even with a
Muggle father. 

Carol:
Again, he evidently didn't know about the blood prejudices of his
chosen House or he couldn't have hoped that Lily would be Sorted into
it, but certainly, he viewed himself (rightly) as having brains and
talent, and he certainly wanted to be good enough to get into the
House he associated, however mistakenly, with brains. (Maybe "cunning"
and "ambition" counted as "brains" in Eileen's view?)

Zara:
Good enough to be a Death Eater, again despote his birth. 

Carol:
Well, yes, but that ambition comes later, several years after Lucius
Malfoy took him under his wing and perhaps himself become a Death
Eater, when his friends at school (fifth year and later) are openly
expressing the same ambition and particularly after Lily has ended her
friendship with him. When Severus is eleven, Voldemort has only been
back for about a year and is assuredly not recruiting children in
their first few years at Hogwarts. 

Zara:
> > That however a certain segment of wizard society (his family? his
housemates?) might regard him owing to his parentage, he was still as
good as any of them. In spite of his father.

Carol:
Yes. And, of course, his own abilities would have proven that
worthiness, not only to Severus himself, but to the likes of Lucius
Malfoy, who somehow senses a prodigy even as Severus is Sorted into
Slytherin.
>
Jen: 
> The only thing is Snape didn't talk about Slytherin house as the 
house of purebloods on the train in the Prince's Tale; he mentions 
brains.  Are you thinking he was covering up some of his beliefs for 
Lily?  It's possible since he holds back earlier when she asks about
her Muggle-born status.

Carol:
I know you're not addressing me, but I'd say "yes" to the first part
of your post and "no" to the second. He wouldn't excitedly hope that
Lily would be Sorted into Slytherin if he knew its views, and he'd
have kept quiet about it in front of Lily rather than covering up his
beliefs. Severus is already anti *Muggle* because of his father and
perhaps Petunia, but that's not the same as being anti-Muggle-born.
the only Muggle-born of his acquaintance is Lily, and she's his best
friend.

Jen: 
> I like your [Zara's??] explanation, that even if Snape didn't think
of Slytherin as the house of purebloods when he was 11, he knew how
important divisions by blood were a few years later when Voldemort
started gaining power.  Snape's already a proud boy with a chip on his
shoulder by the time he starts Hogwarts.  It fits he would feel equal
to any pureblood because of his incredible intelligence.  It's what
head to offer Voldemort in lieu of pure ancestry when the time came 
to join up.

Carol:
I agree with this paragraph. However, it's hard to say at what point
he started thinking about joining the DEs. I'd guess around fifth
year. I don't think he was fully committed to it until after Lily
ended their friendship. Apparently, Avery and Mulciber have openly
expressed their ambition to become DEs but Severus hasn't, or she'd
have dropped him long before.

Jen:
> The problem with Snape not sharing his nickname with anyone is it
would invalidate Harry's comment at the end of HBP: "Yeah, that 
fits," said Harry. "He'd play up the pure-blood side so he could get
in good with Lucius Malfoy and the rest of them...He's just like
Voldemort.  Pure-blood mother, Muggle father...ashamed of his
parentage, trying to make himself feared using the Dark Arts, gave 
himself an impressive new name - *Lord* voldemort - the Half-Blood 
*Prince* - how could Dumbledore have missed -? (HBP, chap 30)

Carol:
What's wrong with invalidating Harry's comment? He's judging Snape as
a DE, a traitor to DD, and a murderer, and he's assuming that a
superficial resemblance to Voldemort has a deeper significance than it
probably has. Severus didn't need to "play up the pure-blood side so
he could get in good with Lucius Malfoy"; Lucius seems to have taken
him under his wing from the first, probably more so when he discovers
the little boy's prodigious talents. And where do we see evidence of
Severus "trying to make himself feared using the Dark Arts"? It's
Mulciber that Lily accuses of trying to use some unidentified Dark
spell. If such a thing happened, we don't see any evidence for it.
Harry is only speculating here, based on false assumptions. We can't
take his hypotheses about a man he has never understood as having any
more value than Snape's view of Harry as "arrogant" and "mediocre."
The whole point of the Snape subplot as far as Snape himself is
concerned is redemption; as far as Harry is concerned, it's
misperception, which is finally corrected, too late for Snape himself,
by "The Prince's Tale." (BTW, I don't know why, but I like JKR's
reference to him in several chapter titles as "the Prince," without
any "Half-Blood" attached to it. It's Harry's nickname for his
"friend," too, before the discovery of his identity, with no
Machiavellian connotations.)

Jen: 
> Given that the HBP story was initially part of COS, I think Harry
was wrong in his conclusions about Snape's similarity to Voldemort but
right to think Snape had to work harder than a pureblood to gain
respect in Slytherin and with LV.  
> 
Carol:
I agree that Harry was wrong in his conclusions but I'm not sure what
the subplot's originally being part of CoS had to do with it. (How
would that have worked, anyway? Two books, Riddle's diary and the
HBP's second-year Potions book (which was probably no different from
the first year's) in parallel plots? Harry as a second-year finding
Snape's sixth-year Potions book, which would not help him in Snape's
second-year Potions class, and using Snape's spells, including
Sectumsempra, in second year, all this before he learns that Snape was
ever a DE? Or maybe the plan to have Harry find Snape's book was
switched to the Riddle diary planted on Ginny when JKR discovered that
the HBP plot would not work for the second year. Surely Snape's
potions book was never intended to open the CoS. Only a Riddle Horcrux
could and would do that.

Anyway, I'm not sure that Severus *had* to work harder than anyone
else to gain the respect of the Slytherins, who must have been
impressed from the outset by his extensive knowledge of hexes (and his
ability to invent them, whenever that talent manifested itself). But
knowing Snape, who is as much a workaholic as Hermione and is almost
always *doing* something even when he's not teaching, whether it's
prowling the hallways or marking essays and potions off-page or
conducting a detention, I suspect that he worked hard as a boy, too,
not so much for approval but as a compulsion. Look at the length and
detail of his response to the DADA exam. If he worked that hard on his
other subjects (as he must have done in Potions, at least), his
friends must have considered him a swot, redeemed in their view by his
cleverness at creating hexes. (I doubt that he shared his Potions
improvements with his fellow Slytherins, but they'd have been mightily
impressed by the hexes and charms.)

 Jen: 
> I like this version [Leah's] too, heh.  In-Your-Face Snape. 
Interestingly, if his motives were to stick it to his family, parade
around who he was & what he could do, he became a man who hid his 
greatest feat of all - fooling the Dark Lord completely & becoming 
instrumental in his downfall. <snip>

Carol:
I don't think it was "in your face." I think it was personal and
secret. Imagine him presenting himself to his Pure-Blood relatives and
saying, in essence, "I'm a Prince, too. So there." They would remind
him, snidely, that technically he was a Snape. I wonder if his friends
even knew that his mother was Eileen Prince or had any knowledge of
the Prince family, which must have intermarried with other pureblood
families just as the Crouches, Blacks, Yaxleys, and Longbottoms did,
even though they don't appear on the portion of the Black family tree
that JKR has shared with us. I suspect that, with his grandfather's
death, the family, like so many others, became extinct in the male
line. (I'm reminded of the Wars of the Roses here!)

Anyway, the teenage Severus (who would have been a dynamic character
if we had seen him develop off-screen, to cite another thread) is
different in many ways from the heart-broken and repentant and bitter
adult, one of which is his ability to "act," as he puts it to Draco in
HBP, to put on an inscrutable expression (until, on perhaps three
occasions, the bottled up rage comes spewing out). I don't think that
the teenage Severus, who seems more than a bit emotional and wears his
heart on his sleeve, could have fooled anybody except those like James
and Sirius who judged him as an enemy based primarily on the House he
wanted to be Sorted into. I think he was torn between Lily and his
junior DE friends and could not commit to one or the other until Lily
rejected him and, in effect, forced his hand. But that's not the same
as deliberately disguising his true loyalties, which requires not only
a mastery of Occlumency (surely not yet acquired in SWM) and immense
self-control and determination, prompted first by his fear for Lily
and then by his promise to protect her son at whatever cost.

Carol, who should be editing but is waiting for the maintenance people
to repair her air conditioning unit before going back to work