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Hello, everyone!
I would like to get your opinions on whether Severus attended a Muggle school before going to Hogwarts or was he home-schooled (by his mother)? Or perhaps he mainly taught himself?
Everyone attends Hogwarts at age 11 or 12. By this age, students know how to read and write, etc. Given that Severus is a half-blood and resided in a Muggle town, do you think he went to Muggle school? If so, he should've met Lily there and need not introduce himself in the playground (it is possible, of course, that their town has more than one school and they went to different ones). He seems to be totally into his wizarding roots that he dislikes anything Muggle. His mother could've taught him the basics (along with his quite extensive knowledge of magic, etc.). On the other hand, he seems to be very neglected so I'm not very convinced that his mother or father spent a lot of time with him (besides Tobias not liking anything much as he put it)....
I'm very interested to hear your take on this.
I would like to get your opinions on whether Severus attended a Muggle school before going to Hogwarts or was he home-schooled (by his mother)? Or perhaps he mainly taught himself?
Everyone attends Hogwarts at age 11 or 12. By this age, students know how to read and write, etc. Given that Severus is a half-blood and resided in a Muggle town, do you think he went to Muggle school? If so, he should've met Lily there and need not introduce himself in the playground (it is possible, of course, that their town has more than one school and they went to different ones). He seems to be totally into his wizarding roots that he dislikes anything Muggle. His mother could've taught him the basics (along with his quite extensive knowledge of magic, etc.). On the other hand, he seems to be very neglected so I'm not very convinced that his mother or father spent a lot of time with him (besides Tobias not liking anything much as he put it)....
I'm very interested to hear your take on this.
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I've always thought of Severus as having attended a Muggle school, ever since HBP at least, and my main reason was because he is described as a very logical thinker, which is supposed to be a rare thing for a powerful wizard to be according to Hermione. In PS/SS we see Hermione solving that puzzle that Snape devised, which Quirrel (or Voldemort) also managed to solve so it wasn't *that* rare for a wizard to be able to handle logic after all, but to me it seemed significant that Hermione is the one putting down wizards' lack of logical sense and solving that puzzle at such a speed. Hard-working mindset aside, I think Muggle education is where she got a training in that kind of thinking processes, because Hogwarts surely never teaches anything constructive to the kids' logical thinking capacity. Yet Snape is narratively described as not only quick-witted but also extremely logical in his thinking process -- as in GoF when Harry observes that he "put two and two together as only Snape can." (Although "only Snape can" was probably just his panicked exaggeration -- I would hope that most teachers at Hogwarts have at least enough wits to see the egg and the Marauder's map and immediately know it's Harry.) Then we have HBP Ch.2, where the way Snape manipulates the conversation to dig for information while defending and reinforcing his own believability requires not only guts and quick thinking but also logical thinking abilities.
Also, if Snape had to attend a Muggle school in that kind of attire and suffer constant bullying, it would make more sense for him to end up joining the Death Eaters than if his sentiments about Muggles came solely from his resentment of his father. He did know of Lily's love for her sister, after all, and must have seen her parents too, even if it was only from a distance. But if his view of "all muggles" had already been set from his five years of schooling, it's more understandable that he completely disregards Petunia from the first moment he set eyes on the Evans sisters.
So I never thought of the possibility that Severus might have been homeschooled, but that's a very interesting idea. Certainly goes well with the level of wizarding knowledge he already had before attending Hogwarts, including possibly enough DADA talent to garner him a bad name among the Gryffindors... Although in my own view I always assumed that was just a product of his curious and studious nature, the same as in Hermione's case (only, Severus got a head start, since he could get his hands on wizarding reading material and live demonstrations -- his mom -- from a way earlier age than she).
Also, I kind of took for granted that all muggle-born children (and some half-bloods like Harry) attend their Muggle schools without much incident, even if they have random bursts of magic from time to time. Harry's magic went off even as his aunt and uncle tried to make him suppress it, but that didn't really get him into enough trouble to get him kicked out of school. And, in the case of children that don't get as much punishment for performing wandless magic as Harry did, I'm suspecting that they have greater ability to control their magic, at least when they're not too emotional. Lily could control her magic to fly off swings and make flower petals open and close: those were conscious things she did. Tom at the orphanage, too, did things with his magic that he consciously aimed to do. So I kind of thought Severus must have done fine at school as long as he kept his anger in check -- which, though, might have been a very hard thing to do, considering his temperament and probable circumstance. But, you know, unlike Harry and Hermione whose guardians were mere mortals, Severus had a witch mother. Surely if he did something too disastrous to let the matter lie, it would have been an easy work for her to hop over to the school and obliviate the people involved before it got out of hand?
--- Hogwarts surely never teaches anything constructive to the kids' logical thinking capacity.
Oh, I *fully* agree with this! It seems to be that all the kids need to do is (mainly) memorize a bunch of spells, practice wand movements, learn how to take care of plants and creatures, and they're all set. For all their pride in their magical heritage and skills, their education -- even at the NEWTs level -- is sadly lacking to me! No wonder young Severus improved his potions book and invented some spells of his own.
I also don't doubt that young Severus was made fun of/bullied in Muggle school--- at least starting from an age when kids become aware of social class and what's 'cool' and 'uncool', plus when his 'weirdness' (uncontrolled or controlled magic) became very apparent. Those, coupled with his temperament (as you pointed out), definitely would've made things unpleasant for him in Muggle school. I also wonder if he had such 'weird' bursts of magic, like Harry turning his teacher's hair blue. With Severus, it's possible that he could've done more than that, so I can imagine Eileen quite busy obliviating people.