Half-Blood Prince

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183781

Zara:
> Yes, whereas Snape's was known. Bella doubts whether 'her kind' ever
graced Spinner's End prior to that chapter in HBP - the logical 
implication of which, is that she doe snto consider Snape to be "her 
kind". As you suggest in the snipped part, doubtless because she knew
 quite well there were no Wizarding Snapes.

Carol:
And yet she must have known that Snape's mother was a witch.
Obviously, he's not a Muggle-born or he wouldn't have been in
Slytherin (or LV's supposed right-hand man). Also, as I've indicated
earlier, the Princes must have been Pure-bloods because "*the*
Half-Blood Prince" makes no sense unless there are or were "Pure-blood
Princes." 

So either Bella, who is at least six and possibly nine years older
than Severus (if we count the Black family tree as canon) didn't know
who Snape's mother was or she didn't know that Spinner's End (where
she had never been before) had been his childhood home--if indeed it
was. (He might have bought it as an adult--it really doesn't seem like
a home that a Muggle like Tobias Snape would have lived in in the
1070s unless he was completely dominated by his witch wife, which does
not appear to be the case.)

At any rate, obviously "our kind" can't relate to Witches and Wizards
since Snape lives there, so it must, as you say, mean "Pure-Blood."
But if Spinner's End was Snape's childhood home and if Eileen was a
Pure-blood, as I think she must have been, Bella is wrong in her
assumption, and they're not the "first of their kind" ever to set foot
there.

I realize, of course, that the point is Bella's snobbery, but she
apparently knows very little about Snape's personal history. Maybe,
setting aside some unacknowledged jealousy of the favor he's enjoying
from Voldemort, she considers him beneath her notice (in contrast to
the Malfoys).

Which reminds me, do we ever actually see Lucius Malfoy and Snape
together? I imagine that Lucius would be conscious of his superior
social standing but only mildly condescending toward the talented
younger man who had been his protege and who must still work for his
living.

Carol, who knows that Spinner's End is really a street but is using it
here metonymically to refer to the house