Snape´s childhood

We all must have thought a lot about our beloved Professor´s childhood ever since we got the first hints of it in the Pensieve. And when we read how he was stalking Lily as a kid, it might have occurred to us that he must have been a rather lonely child.

Actually we don´t really know much. It is obvious that what we see in the Pensieve are the incidents with the strongest emotions, either good or bad.

Now I want you to release your imagination. What do you think it was like for our dearest Severus as a child? What Hogwarts meant to him as a kid? What did his father do for a living? Did he have any pet?

All the bits of information Rowling herself might have revealed in interviews are welcome, too. But the main thing is what do you think.

The topic has been suggested by half_blood_prince

I thought Severus was a sweet loner when he was a child, but you can tell from when he calls Lily a mudblood he has a bit of his father in him. Hogwarts, I think he'd rather be at Hogwarts than home with Lily, but after he knew where he belonged, against muggles, against his father, after all he had a broken heart. After he realised what Voldermore was really doing I think he stopped, then asked for forgiveness.
I never thought he had any pets, as then he would have someone else to worry about, and he would of loved his pet aswell...

It kind of sounded, to me, that Severus may have suffered a bad reputation from a comment Petunia made. (Something like "I know who you are - you're that Snape boy!") It could have been that his father had developed the reputation and, knowing how people can be, spread down to the son although he had done nothing but look rather poor, skinny and unwashed. Kids can be cruel to those who look like he did...greasy long hair, etc...and labled an oddball from the start as well. Obviously, Lily was one of the few, if not the only one who Severus let his guard down with. He opened his heart to her as much as he possibly could for such a wounded soul.

To me I thought he had a messed up reputation. kids are kids though, but i think it has to the with the parents and how they bring up their children. but i think he got his rep cuz of his father. Mostly i think cuz he was mostly and outsider and kept things to himself.

His tragedy is that he resembles his father. A Muggle who mistreats his mother. Why does Eileen teach her son all those unpleasant curses? As a precaution for him, for her?
Hogwarts must be a paradise, even though this institution separates him from his best friend at the very beginning.
It’s difficult to understand why he keeps the house. In spite of everything he must have good memories of his childhood.


Ps. About heredity vs milieu (HP-Lexicon)
Finally, the fact that Snape probably comes from the industrial north of England defuses a lot of his apparent harshness and nastiness, because it means much of it is just cultural...
I have no idea if that’s true or if it’s even allowed to state such a generalisation.

I'm sure he was very happy to escape from his childhood home, I don't see it as being any pleasure palace by any stretch of the imagination from what we know of his background. It sounds like his family had little money and his father was quite mean, who wouldn't want to get away from something like that? At Hogwarts he was able to discover who he really was, much like Harry, and he realized how important it was, almost like being granted a new life and yet, at the root of things, I think he still felt inferior in a way. It's hard to get rid of that feeling, even when things change for the better, or change completely, as in his case. I think Lily was the first friend he found at Hogwarts and he grew quite attached to her. I doubt if he had any pets when he was a young child, he probably wasn't allowed.

Your thoughts are pretty much similar to mine. I might later comment more detailed, but until now I´ll just say that many of us resemble our parents, whether we want it or not and both in good and - unfortunately - bad.

Those unpleasant personality traits of our parents are the most difficult ones to admit we have. We also tend to refuse seeing the similarities between our loved ones and their parents, at least if we don´t like their parents. And this might be why I´m a tad unwilling to admit our beloved Professor is a bit like his father.

I wouldn´t admit I myself am like my mother at all. Even though I´ve found some similarities between us.

i think shanape had a hard life i think his parents struggled was he an only child?

i think also well it struck me that his father didnt know at first that his partner was a witch! and that it caused loads of problems as they got together and stayed there for longer

Having read about other Muggle men´s reactions to their spouse being a witch, I believe Karen is right. Poor they probably were, too, since people tend to talk about weird poor people the way Petunia did. She would´ve used a different tone, if they were rich.

At least in the books there is no mentioning about any siblings. The scene in the pensieve, when Tobias is mistreating Eileen, might be right after the moment he realized his wife was a witch. Maybe their marriage wasn´t quite the same after that. Severus would have probably spent time with his siblings in his childhood, if he would have had any. I doubt he had any elder sisters or brothers, and younger were not very likely to be born. Unless his father or mother made some with some other person.