radio / Snape / childhood magic / obsolete religion?

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Anita akh wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/761 :

<< Usually, I'm an NPR junkie, but I have little patience for any
political convention coverage, and I'm not a Republican, so I've been
avoiding them this week. When NPR is not running conventions or fund
drives (that was also this week; what a combination!), I try to catch
"This American Life" and "Fresh Air." >>

You can listen to Fresh Air archived on-line with NO pledge breaks at
http://freshair.npr.org/  and This American Life appears to be
archived at http://www.kcrw.org/show/ta and let me recommend to you
Studio 360 at http://www.wnyc.org/studio360/archive.html

Oh, how I *love* not having to be on-topic!

Kneasy wwrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/762 :

<< Sirius claimed Snape had a greater knowledge of dark arts at 11
than most of the sixth year. Who taught him and how? From what we know
Snape wouldn't get a wand until he received his Hogwarts letter and
he seems pretty contemptuous of 'wand-waving' anyway. >>

Sirius in GoF: "Snape's always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he
was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid, he was.
Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in
seventh year."

>From Dark Arts to Greasy-hair is generally agreed to be a non
sequitur, so to me it makes a different that Sirius said more *curses*
not more *Dark Arts*, It puts me a little bit in mind of the famous
ninety-seven pound weakling who wants to learn ju-jitsu because of the
bullies beating him up. 

In my own private Potterverse, he learned those curses from books in
his parents' (or father's) library. He could have "borrowed" a
parent's wand, or an old broken wand in the attic, to practise with
(was the two year old who "borrowed" Daddy's wand to enlarge a slug
named Kevin?). In my own private Potterverse, he studied them because
the only time his father ever showed any approval of him at all was
when praising him for being precocious at curses. 

I had been thinking that he was from an old pureblood Dark Arts
family, with father and mother both obsessed with Dark Arts and not
particularly interested in the child they had produced only out of
duty to perserve the family name, but modifying that to an abusive
Dark Arts father and an intimidated Muggleborn mother who had been
careless with her contraceptive charms isn't a very big change.

Carolyn wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/764 :

<< Look at Gred & Forge turning Ron's teddy into a spider - sounds
like pretty advanced transfiguration, and (I assume) wand-less magic
by five year-olds, and they may have nicked a wand to do it. >>

It was Fred, not George, and SURELY it was spontaneous magic, typical
of wizarding children when they get emotional, like Harry somehow
found himself on the roof of a school building but still does not 
know how to Apparate. It happened when Ron had broken Fred's toy
broomstick, so I'm sure Fred was quite angry at the time. As far as I
can tell, the Ministry has no way of tracking children's spontaneous
magic. Whether they actually have any way of tracking magic at a
particular location (i.e. Privet Drive) and ASSUMING that the only
known wizard living there did it, or Mafalda just believes and acts on
every malicious tip someone tells her, is another question.

<< the Weasley boys didn't get MoM howlers after rescuing Harry. And
Ginny, flying on her brothers' broomsticks without permission since
the age of six? >>

I feel that flying a broomstick or even a flying car counts as using a
magical artifact rather than as doing magic -- the littlest witches
that Harry had yet seen were riding toy brooms that hovered just over
the blades of grass. And the twins were careful to use Muggle
lockpicks to open Harry's window. 

Pippin wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/766 :

<< We have hints of an obsolete aristocracy, just as we have hints
of an obsolete religion--something that used to be important in
the past but which most people don't consider relevant nowadays. >>

Hints of an obsolete religion? You mean secular celebrations of
Christmas and Easter, and Draco making a crack (which book?) about St
Potter, patron saint of Mudbloods?