HBP - spoilers - that textbook

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at e...> wrote:
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> 
> So I'd like to think that textbook was certainly there when TR was 
> at Hogwarts. Was it actually his, or was Hermione right that it 
> belonged to Eileen Prince? Either way, it's interesting that TR and 
> Miss Prince went to school together. You wonder what, if anything, 
> she told young Severus about her old schoolmate Tom Riddle.
> 
> Another book 'full of Dark Magic' could be an interesting plot 
> twist. Unlike Harry, Snape must have continued to use the book and 
> kept it through his lifetime (for reference?). He would be drawn to 
> the powers of a book with Dark Magic.
> 
> Harry did say, "In spite of the increasing nastiness of those 
> scribbled spells, he had refused to believe ill of the boy who had 
> been so clever, who had helped so much....." (US, chap. 30, p. 638). 
> Now that sounds like someone we all know and love after meeting TR 
> in HBP, doesn't it? Increasing nastiness under a veneer of 
> cleverness and helpfulness. Hmmmm.
> 

Good thinking; useful for folk grasping at straws.
If the book did belong to Miss Prince, and if the family were broke,
wouldn't it be likely that her textbooks would be re-used by her
beloved off-spring?

And if her textbooks with interesting marginal notes where propping
up the wobbly kitchen table, might this be how Sevvy learned all
that Dark Magic that Sirius accused him of?

And just to round off the tale, if in the RoR Harry finds an old desk
with "Eileen luvs Tom" inscribed on it, then we'll know where the spells
came from.

Kneasy