Half-Blood Prince

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183789

Jen earlier:
> > 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 earlier:
> > 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. <snip>
> 
Jen replied: 
> Except that Hermione isn't disapproving during that particular 
discussion.  She's providing necessary narrative information, playing
the role Dumbledore typically played at the end of the story.

Carol responds:
Possibly. But Hermione is just guessing, and she isn't always right.
Now when she provides the information, based on a Daily Prophet
article, that Eileen Prince married a Muggle named Tobias Snape, we
can entirely trust her. That's not speculation or guessing at another
character's motives. *That's* Hermione providing the exposition
normally provided by Dumbledore. As for her explanation of another
character's psychology, we can take it or leave it, as we do when she
explains Cho or Sirius Black, both of whom she probably understands
better than she does the enigma that is Severus Snape.

Jen:
> In fact, she goes on to defend Snape from Harry's accusations a few
 paragraphs later.  Her research into the Prince, learning Snape was 
the author of the potions books, appears to have changed her mind 
somewhat even in the face of Snape AK'ing DD.  She never despised
Snape as Harry did.

Carol responds:

Here I agree with you. She had refused to use Muffliato when it was
the invention of an unknown boy whom she regarded with suspicion, but
now that she knows it's Snape's, she adds it to her repertoire of
protective spells in DH--very odd since she considers him to be DD's
murderer (but Harry, the future user of Crucio and Imperio, has no
hesitation in retaining Levicorpus and even Sectumsempra as part of
his arsenal). It's interesting that she argues--in the face of the
AK--that the boy Severus Snape wasn't evil ("'Evil'" is a strong
word," or something to that effect). But that doesn't change the fact
that the only Dark spell in the book that either she or Harry knows
about is Sectumsempra, and I see no reason why Snape would be afraid
to show the book itself, Sectumsempra and all, to DD if he wanted to
get Harry in trouble for using it. He *could* have ruined Harry's
reputation as Potions genius with Slughorn if he'd wanted to, as well.
(See below.)

Jen: 
> Snape doesn't openly associate himself with the potions book during
the story when he's well within his rights to do so.  He could've 
gone to Dumbledore when Harry refused to give him the book but he 
didn't.  Snape could've proclaimed much earlier on, to a wider 
audience, that Harry was using his own invented spells.  Snape 
doesn't lay claim to the book or the spells until pushed too far by
Harry, when the two of them are alone. He doesn't act like someone
who's entirely proud of his inventions.

Carol again:

But what, besides Sectumsempra, is there to be ashamed of in that
book? The spells are clever and none but Sectumsempra is Dark, and the
Potions improvements are brilliant. "Just shove a Bezoar down their
throats" is snarky, but it's a teenage boy's snark.

I think--and this is just my opinion as I have no canon to support
it--that Snape is being honorable in his way. He suspects as early as
Slughorn's Christmas party that Harry is using his old Potions book to
get results he doesn't deserve, and after Sectumsempra, he *knows* it.
The Legilimency just confirms what he already knows.

He doesn't tell Slughorn that Harry has been cheating, using his old
Potions book, which he could have proven without the book in hand by
mentioning the shortcuts and additions to the potions. He could also
have used Legilimency on Harry to find out where he hid the book and
show it to Slughorn, carefully refraining from showing him the
Sectumsempra page, but he didn't.

So either Snape has his own code of honor, which does not include
revealing to other teachers that Harry is, in his words, "a liar and a
cheat," only that he used a dangerous spell that could have killed
Draco, or he's ashamed of a single spell, Sectumsempra, which he
(understandably) does not reveal to Harry is his own invention. But as
I said before, I doubt that *Dumbledore*, who knew all about Severus
Snape's DE past and about his remorse, would have judged a teenage boy
for inventing a Dark spell, especially since (as I didn't say earlier)
he later invented or found the complicated countercurse that saved
Draco's life.

Jen: 
> I doubt Dumbledore would judge Snape for inventing the book but he
might have had a problem with Snape not destroying it, that he left it
either carelessly or deliberately where a student could run across it. 

Carol:
I doubt it. He must have done that as a boy of eighteen, eager by that
time to run off and join Voldemort's service. And, as I said, there's
only the one dangerous spell, which Harry found only through
diligently studying the cramped marginal notes (which Ron for some
reason couldn't read). The book had apparently lain forgotten for
twenty years. I doubt that DD would be unduly harsh over so minor a
matter, and Snape has endured many a rebuke from Dumbledore for more
serious matters. Again, who is Dumbledore to judge the young Severus
considering his own plans for world domination with a budding Dark wizard?

Jen:
 Harry stops reading the book after the Sectumsempra incident.  What
else was in the rest of the book as Snape's life grew darker? We'll
never know but I doubt it was the fairly benign spells he started out
creating.

Carol:
But Hermione, AFAWK, is not hypothesizing about what else might be in
the book. As far as she or Harry or the reader knows, Sectumsempra is
the Darkest spell in it. Snape is certainly never given credit (if
that's the word) for inventing any other Dark spell. Besides, Severus
would have left the book behind after his seventh year. It's not as if
he kept it with him in his DE days.
> 
> > 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: 

>How could Lucius sense anything about Snape from his sorting?!? I
don't think that moment means anything more than a prefect welcoming a
new house member.  Lucius doesn't motion Snape to sit beside him even,
there just happened to be an open space next to him and Lucius patted
him as he sat down.  

Carol responds:

I don't know the answer, but it seems like a significant moment, the
beginning of something. (And that space next to Lucius still available
after Avery and Mulciber and all the other male and female Slytherins
who would have been Sorted before the Hat reached the letter S, almost
as if it was reserved for Severus. Lucius could have arrogantly
frowned at him for daring to sit there. Instead, he pats him
affectionately.) And soon afterwards, Severus must have become what
Sirius Black snidely referred to as "Lucius Malfoy's lapdog," his way
of indicating the devotion of a little boy to a big one and the older
boy's friendly condescension. We also, from the same anti-Snape
source, that Severus as a first year knew more hexes and jinxes than
most seventh years. (How many were his own invention at that early
date is never made clear.) It makes me wonder whether Lucius could
somehow have heard of or even previously met the Prince family's
little Half-Blood grandson. He doesn't treat him like a stranger.

At any rate, it's certainly an important moment for Severus, and it
seems symbolic of his future relationship with Lucius Malfoy, which is
often alluded to but not, IIRC, actually shown. (I'd be grateful to
anyone who can show me an interaction between the adult Snape and the
adult Malfoy before DH, but I think that JKR deliberately refrained
from showing them together until after Lucius Malfoy's fall from
Voldemort's favor. And even In DH, we don't see them interacting, IIRC.)
> 
Jen: 
> I don't know, he's already pretty crazy about Lily.  Snape's 
hesitation when Lily asks if it makes a difference that she's Muggle-
born means something.  It might not mean anything about Slytherin 
house, but to me it indicates Snape knew some reason why Lily being
Muggle-born made a difference.

Carol:
But still, he tells her that she'sd better be in slytherin, which
indicates that he really believes that she could be Sorted there, and
we see his disappointment when the Sorting Hat puts her in Gryffindor.
So clearly, he doesn't know that the House he wants to be in would
reject his best friend. Maybe he would have adjusted his hopes,
choosing Lily over Slytherin or Slytherin over Lily, at an early age
if he had known it. (If only James had said something like, "Don't you
know that Slytherin House is associated with Dark magic and blood
prejudice?" intead of vaguely insinuating that it was a House for
rejects!)

Yes, he does hesitate when she asks if it makes a difference, but that
doesn't mean he's been told that it makes a difference. He may be
trying to formulate an answer, torn between his contempt for Muggles
(read Tobias and Petunia) and his feelings for Lily, as well as his
awareness that she's a talented little witch. I doubt that his mother,
who married a *Muggle*, would go around insulting Muggle-borns, and
she clearly didn't tell him that blood prejudice was traditional to
Slytherin. (She must have liked her House while she was in it; she
wasn't a "blood traitor" then.) Also, whe she was in school, the HoH
of Slytherin was Slughorn, who would have had Muggle-borns among his
favorites if his later record is any indication. It's possible that
little Severus, sneered at by his Prince relatives, sensed that the
antagonism of some Pure-Blood (not necessarily Slytherin) Wizards
against Muggle-borns would be even worse. But we don't know what he
knew, what he experienced, or what he was thinking. We only know that
he confidently hoped and expected that his Muggle-born best friend
would be Sorted with him into Slytherin, the House of "brains." (It
must have rankled that she was Sorted with those bullying little berks
he met on the train and gratified by Lily's refusal to sit by Sirius.)
> 
Jen earlier:
> > 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 earlier:
> > 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.
 
> Jen: What's wrong is I see some truth in Harry's statement.  Not in
scope, as you said he's misjudging Snape and assuming the superficial
resemblance to Voldemort makes the two exactly alike.  They're not.
But there's more evidence that a half-blood might have trouble 
fitting into Slytherin than there is evidence against it.  Lucius 
Malfoy certainly cared plenty about it, enough to make sure he 
married a pureblood and passed the beliefs on to his son <snip>.  As
for Snape making himself feared using the Dark Arts, again I don't
agree with the extent of Harry's statement but do agree Snape used
dark arts as a DE. 

Carol:
You concede that Harry is misjudging Snape and that he's exaggerating
about the Dark Arts bit, for which we see no evidence at the time of
his Sorting, so we agree there. And as I said earlier, Lucius Malfoy
had no trouble accepting the young Severus (though I suspect that
there was always a slight class distinction between them, rather like
a medieval lord recognizing and honoring a talented commoner).

I still don't think that Severus Snape "played up the Pure-Blood side"
to anyone except himself, for the reasons I expressed earlier. He may
well have played up his *talents* from the outset, and he must have
felt uncomfortable if the Slytherin common room had passwords like
"Pure-blood" in his day; he would have felt as if he were being put in
his place.

But none of that makes Harry's judgment correct. Later, he comes to
identify not only with Snape but with Voldemort as "the abandoned
boys" who found a home at Hogwarts.

At any rate, I think that Harry's comment, based as it is on hatred
and misunderstanding, is meant to be invalidated. Snape is not "just
like Voldemort" (and young Severus was not "just like" Tom Riddle).
The resemblance (witch mother, Muggle father and an apparently
self-invented nickname) is superficial and does not lead to the
conclusions Harry thinks it does based on the "murder" of Dumbledore
and the invention of Sectumsempra. We see no evidence of the truth of
any of his assumptions (using the Dark Arts so that people would fear
him, playing up his pure-blood side to "get in good" with Lucius
Malfoy). IMO, the reader is meant to accept Harry's misinterpretation,
which *seems* to follow from the events and revelations in HBP, just
as we're meant to believe that Snape betrayed and murdered Dumbledore.
But Harry's interpretation is set aside and replaced by Snape as the
"abandoned boy" who loved his mother, repented his part in her death,
and courageously opposed Voldemort--a man worthy of honor, for whom
his second son is partly named.

Jen:
<snip> I see a grain of truth in Harry's angry statement at the end of
HBP even if he draws the wrong conclusions about Snape's loyalty to
Voldemort.

Carol responds:
A grain of truth is by definition tiny amid the falsehood of the rest.
(Harry's mistaken assumptions usually contain a grain of truth. He's
seldom *completely* wrong--much like Severus Snape's mistaken
assumptions about Harry and his godfather.) That tiny element of truth
aside, however, I see a judgment, based on false assumptions, to be
reversed at the end of the series, after Harry knows the facts about
Snape and his perception is cleared. YMMV.

Carol, thinking how dull these books would be with a consistently
reliable narrator and a Harry who was always correct in his judgments!