First lesson WAS: Re: Marietta, was Slytherin's Reputation

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185711

Carol earlier:
> 
> > This is the context in which Lily asks her question, "Does it make
any difference being a Muggle-born?"
> > 
> > Exactly what she means is unclear. Severus hesitates, taking time
to look over her face and hair with his eager eyes before answering,
"No. It doesn't make any difference."
> 
> Magpie:
> Ah! That's the moment I meant. She asks if it makes a difference and
he hesitates. I think he does understand--or think he does- what she
means and he hesitates--not because he's outright lying. It reads to
me like he's making a declaration about specifically her after eagerly
gazing at her hair and face.

Carol responds:
Well, yes, but what he understands may be different from what you
understand. "You have loads of magic" doesn't make much sense as an
answer to "Will I be discriminated against?" which, in any case, is an
odd question for Lily, whose probably never experienced prejudice in
her life (as didtinct from sisterly jealousy).

Magpie: 
> A scene that's just showing little Snape is totally ignorant of this
stuff I'd expect would underline that ignorance with Snape saying,
"Why would it matter?" Or maybe asking, puzzled, "What do you mean?"
It's a clear, efficient way to show Snape as innocent before he was
corrupted. <snip>


Carol:
Maybe, *if* she's talking about anti-Muggle-born discrimination. But I
don't think she is. All they've been talking about is getting a letter
from Hogwarts. Severus tells her that *they'll* get one (because
they're magical). Petunia won't (because she's a Muggle). Lily asks if
the letter will really be delivered by owl, which causes Severus to
realize that maybe hers won't be because her parents are Muggles and
will need someone to explain what Hogwarts is and what Lily will learn
there. and that's the whole context of her question.

I think it's completely clear from the conversation, including his
remarks about only Wizards who do something a whole lot worse than
underage magic being sent to Azkaban, that he's knowlegeable but
uncorrupted.

Magpie: 
> Snape's view of Slytherin is probably somewhat skewed--as is James'
view of Gryffindor, but I think they both learned from their parents,
who were members of those houses. If Snape was just that confused, I 
think the Hat would have put him in Ravenclaw. The Hat wasn't wrong 
where it put him. I could believe his mother had brought in the good 
family bloodline in some way.

Carol responds:
I think that the hat knows that his mother was a Slytherin (I agree
that she had the approved Blood-line--obviously *the Half-Blood Prince
indicates that the others were Pure-Bloods) and that he wants and
expects to be Sorted there himself. It might have hesitated between
Ravenclaw and slytherin and gone with young Severus's wishes. It might
even have thought that this talented and ambitious little Half-Blood
will thrive in Slytherin (much the same thing that it tells Harry). 

As for his view of Slytherin being "probably" somewhat skewed, the
fact that he perceives it as the House of Brains and thinks that Lily
can be Sorted into it removes "probably" from the equation. He's
disappointed when she's sorted into Gryffindor, but he still wants to
be Sorted into his mother's House, just as James wants to continue
what is obviously the family tradition of being Sorted into
Gryffindor. The only one who starts to doubt his family tradition is
Sirius, and, if it weren't for his meeting and befriending James, he
would probably have been Sorted into Slytherin just like Regulus
(later) and Andromeda (earlier) and all the rest of his family. He
must have wanted to be placed in Gryffindor, where he knew James would
be placed. Lily must have been placed in Gryffindor *against* her
wishes since the Hat knew, as she didn't and Severus didn't, that she
could not be Sorted into Slytherin.
 
> > Carol, resting her case that Severus did *not* hesitate to expect
Lily, a Muggle-born, to be Sorted into Slytherin along with himself,
and that, to do so, he could not have known that Slytherin did not
accept Muggle-borns
> 
> Magpie:
> Conceding that it wasn't whether or not Slytherin accepted 
Muggleborns about which hesitated,

Carol:
Good!

Magpie:
> but still thinking the hesitation about the more straightforward
question of whether it made a difference indicated there was already a
conflict between things he had heard and his friendship with Lily. It
reads to me as young Snape making a declaration of his feelings about
Lily, whatever her background.

Carol responds:
But it isn't a straightforward question. The pronoun "it" has no
antecedent, nothing to refer to, certainly not prejudice or
discrimination, topics that have not come up in the conversation. Does
*what* make a difference? Or, rather, does being Muggle-born make a
difference *in what way* (other than having a representative of
Hogwarts come to the House to explain the school to her parents, which
is the context of her question).

You may think that it's a clearcut question because, in your view, it
*must* relate to prejudice. But prejudice and Houses have nothing to
do with the conversation. The question seems to relate to magical
ability. her question, "Does it make a difference being Muggle-born"
provides no context. What kind of difference? Does being a Muggle-born
make a difference in what? The way she'll be treated or perceived? If
that's what she means, why would Severus (not "Snape," for crying out
loud! He's nine or ten years old, and she calls him "Sev" or
"Severus") answer with, first, "No, it doesn't make any difference"
and then "You've got lots of magic"?

Here's the whole conversation, minus any commentary, the narrator's or
mine:

Severus: You're Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to
come and explain to your parents.

Lily: Does it make any difference being a Muggle-born?

Severus: No. It doesn't make any difference.

Lily: Good.

Severus: You've got loads of magic. I saw that. All the time I was
watching you.

It seems to me that he's reassuring her that she's just as magical as
any kid with one or more magical parents. How she'll be perceived or
treated has nothing to do with the conversation. (JKR makes the same
point with Hermione: Being Muggle-born makes no difference *in magical
ability.* Slughorn makes the same discovery: Against his expectations,
Lily is just as talented at Potions, if not more so, than most of his
Pure-Blood or Half-Blood students--a bit of a surprise, perhaps, since
she could not have inherited the talent from her parents or been
taught Potions at home.)

I think that any other reading, especially considering that Severus
has said nothing about "blood" or Houses or prejudice, only that
Petunia won't get a letter and someone will have to explain to Lily's
Muggle parents about Hogwarts, is reading in implications that didn't
exist in the original conversation, in which Severus is clearly
innocent of any prejudice except the all-pervasive prejudice against
nonmagical Muggles, first illustrated for us by Hagrid in dealing with
Vernon Dursley (unless we count McGonagalls' remark about the Dursleys
being "the worst sort of Muggles," which, sad to say, indicates her
underestimation of the human capacity for evil). Dumbledore, as we
know, started off with the very same prejudice. 

But Lily's being a Witch, especially having "loads of magic," sets her
apart from her Muggle family. (Sidenote: I suspect that if little
Severus had Wizard or Witch playmates, he wouldn't have paid any
attention to Lily. But he's an only child. We see no evidence of, say,
Prince cousins as occasional playmates. When he's not with Lily, after
she breaks off their friendship, he has nothing better to do at home
than shoot down flies in his bedroom.)

If Lily were "only a Muggle" like Petunia, he wouldn't have spent
hours watching her. There would have been nothing to watch other than
a pretty little Muggle girl in a swing. But this little girl is
clearly different from her Muggle sister. She's magical, like him, and
he overcomes his shyness and social awkwardness to speak to her and,
eventually, to teach her all he knows about the WW, from underage
magic and the MoM to Hogwarts. But not once does he mention prejudice
against *Muggleborns* (as opposed to Muggles). He expects her to be
Sorted into Slytherin along with him. Clearly, he has no idea that
Slytherin doesn't accept Muggle-borns or it would be absurd to say
eaglerly "You'd better be Sorted into Slytherin" (Just as James, if
he'd been her friend, might have said, "You'd better be Sorted int
Gryffindor"). As for prejudice in the WW, Lily's first experience with
it is the prejudice of wannabe Gryffindor James against Slytherin, a
prejudice that is quickly passed on to his new friend, Sirius, who has
until that moment, as far as I can see, never once questioned his
family's Slytherin heritage. (BTW, I'm not sure that James has a
skewed perception of Gryffindor, but I think that he and Sirius both
have a skewed idea of what constitutes true courage and chivalry.)

To get back to the original point, if I were a student from a
nonmusical family with a scholarship to Juilliard and I asked a kid
whose mother had attended Juilliard, "Does it make any difference
having a nonmusical family?" I wouldn't necessarily be worried about
being discriminated against by the other students or the teachers. I'd
probably be more worried about my own ability to keep up and my lack
of training and experience in a family that didn't know B flat from a
flat tire.

Carol, wondering how we would read that question and answer if we had
first met Severus and Lily as children