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Did Severus attend Muggle school?

prinzheinelgirl

7/4/08 05:08 pm

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.

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• mary_j_59

  7/17/08 10:15 am (UTC)

  Eileen is an Irish name, not Jewish,and Prince is a very old Anglo-Saxon name from Yorkshire, based on the research I did. Of course, that doesn't mean that either Eileen or Tobias couldn't be (partly) Jewish. It's probably (but not entirely) because I'm Catholic that I get such a strong Catholic vibe from Severus Snape.
  
  Back to the original question - I always thought Severus went to a Muggle primary, and was bullied and made unhappy there. That he and the Evans girls would have gone to different schools makes a lot of sense - thanks for explaining that this is typical for different religions. We don't get that so much in America.

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  • persevero

    7/17/08 10:52 am (UTC)

    I realise that Eileen is an Irish name and somewhat more likely to be found in a Catholic family, though it is a fairly common name in all communities here (mostly for people over about thirty). It was Prince I meant - it turns up as an anglicized form of Prinz as well as being a native English surname. All speculation, anyway - I'm not trying to collect Eileen for the chosen people! My own favourite is the theory (overtaken by canon) in Hinge of Fate that Snape is half Rom - a reasonable explanation for his exceptionally dark eye-colour.

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    • mary_j_59

      7/17/08 12:10 pm (UTC)

      I am also a true believer in Snape as part Rom (though, in my mind, it goes along with his being part Irish!). As I said to Anne-Arthur in when we were talking about our fanfics, I always pictured Severus as being a thorough mongrel - Irish and English, Protestant and Catholic, Muggle and Wizard*, on boith sides of the family. I am convinced that Eiileen is not a pureblood. (*There is, of course, no reason why Jews and Muslims and Hindus shouldn't show up on one or both sides of his family, too. :))
      
      I wonder, though - could you do the same analysis on the name "Prince" that you did on "Snape"? I don't have access to these old British census records, so I tried a modern-day online phonebook and got tons of "Princes" in the Leeds area-
      
      (and I do realize I'm wildly off topic now. Sorry! I'll stop-)

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      • persevero

        7/17/08 12:49 pm (UTC)

        I'll have a shot. Snape was easy because it's rare - Prince is less so.

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