Tobias Snape & Eileen Prince
My understanding in the Spinners End scene is that all three of them--Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Snape--knock back their drinks *together*, like it's part of Dark Lord follower tradition.
Snape pours another glass and takes a drink--which on my second listen after I learned the "big reveal'' about Snape's true loyalties, I read as related to the need to steady his nerves. He knows what this conversation is going to be about. And the questions Bellatrix is going to ask. Bellatrix is the lynch pin, because she's still Voldemort's favorite girl, even if she's fallen out of favor after the fiasco at the Ministry. Snape knows that if he can convince Bellatrix, then handling the other Death Eaters talking behind his back will be much easier. And it proves true--he does convince Bellatrix and secure his standing unequivocally--as we see (or, rather, infer behind the scenes by connecting the dots) that she ends up trusting him with the transfer Godric Gryffindor's sword.
So yeah...I might need a glass of wine to steady myself in that situation, too. It's a lot easier for me to pull words out of my arse typing here on a chat board than come up with the words to say in the moment face to face with someone...which we know Snape struggles with in certain situations. With Lily, how many times does he open his mouth and say nothing?
(Though, it is satisfying to see him find his voice and poke back sarcastically at Sirius in Book 5.)
And the additional wine his pours for Narcissa...he's genuinely trying to help calm her.
I do have Gestaltation on my Kindle and plan on reading it. I also enjoy the other one he has where Snape is a single parent. Thanks for reading my fic. I need to re-read it myself, because I forgot what I wrote. I also have to find that Ginny and Bellatrix confusion scene. Maybe I will be inspired again. I also wonder if there is an evil Severus and evil Lily fic where they want to be in power. That has been going through my head since I saw this picture on pintrest:
I don't know what the picture says or what it is about, but it put that story plot in my head. So if anyone knows any fict like that let me know. Or if anyone can read the language it is written in, I am assuming Russian, please let me know what it says.
Quote from Snoopy on September 10, 2026, 8:00 amI think everyone's interpretation will always be a bit coloured by their own direct/indirect experiences. So I love hearing how different people fill in the gaps that JKR left.
For what it's worth, my own head-cannon is very much constructed from tidbits I heard or experienced growing up in England at the same time as Harry, with part of my family that came from a similar background/era as Snape in the midlands.
For me, my assumptions were always that there was abuse and alcohol involved on his father's side, but also religion (or the use of it to justify bad behaviour). Back in the 60s, it wasn't 'swinging' everywhere, and most of the smaller rural or industrial towns outside of main cities would have still been living how they had always done, with the town 'chapel' being the central social point. People may not have been strictly religious about it (actually believing every word), but it was still seen as suspicious/morally dubious behaviour if you went against the church (and working class communities were very tight knit, so it would have been noticed). Working class pride was built very much on the idea of 'respectability', with the church setting the standard for what was 'proper' and most people were still getting dressed up on Sundays to attend church and getting married in front of a priest/vicar.
I can imagine that being a point of tension if Tobias knew his wife was a witch (even if no one else did). He might have brushed it off as an unimportant detail when they first started dating (like many people do while still in that 'honeymoon phase'), but then grew more frustrated by it over time and considered it a moral failing/embarrassment and shaming her about it during fights and/or forbidding magic in the house. I recall the amount of haranguing my aunt got when she didn't want to get baptised as a teenager (and her parents weren't that religious compared to some people in their community, it was just 'the done thing'). If his son turned out to be a wizard too (which he would have started to show signs of as he got a bit older), then I imagine this would have aggravated their relationship even further.
Since Snape grew up in a muggle house/area, I doubt he would have had a private tutor or whatever pureblood kids have before Hogwarts. So we can assume he was sent to a local muggle school from 5-11. And primary schools in areas such as the one he grew up in would definitely have been deeply religious back then. I believe the 1940s Education Act actually mandated that schools were legally required to begin every day with religious worship (prayers, hymns, etc in assembly) and HAD to teach Religious Education as part of the curriculum (which meant Bible study back then). In a lot of the industrial mill towns like his, the catholic church actually owned/ran the schools directly. So it would have been strictly enforced with crosses everywhere, grace before lunch, and so on. You could technically withdraw your child from certain lessons, but that would have been extremely rare and would have turned them into an easy target for bullying/isolation as a result (and, of, course, all the other parents would quickly find out and gossip about 'that family'). I can imagine little Severus coming home and asking questions and his parent's having very different opinions on things such as 'witchcraft' and other 'immoral demonic practices'. Perhaps he'd made certain innocent comments in class (that he'd heard from his mother) and received punishment for it (corporal punishment was still widely used in schools, especially strict ones like his would have been), and that had contributed to Petunia's overall view of him as 'that awful boy'. The UK had only recently repealed its legal ban on practicing witchcraft, so public suspicion was still very high. Tobias would not have been happy having to deal with constant comments and scrutiny about his family (and as the male 'head of house', he would have been deemed responsible). If he already had anger issues, that would have probably sent him over the edge.
For some reason, I always assumed Tobias and his family were Irish and came over to England for work (like many did back then). I later went back and re-read the books and can't find any reference to this, so I'm not sure where it originated. Alan Rickman had Irish ancestry on his father's side. So maybe I heard that in an interview and mixed up the actor/character's background as their ages weren't too far off. Either way, it stuck. My own relatives moved from Ireland to England around the same time for the same reason, so that just made sense to me.
The alcohol thing is interesting, as there are a few subtle nods in the books to Snape having at least some over-attachment to wine. His task in the first book involves nettle wine, he's seen drinking wine on a school day with meals in the hall, and he knocks back an entire glass in one go as if it's water when Narcissa visits him. So at minimum, he's a 'regular' drinker. Not necessarily the drunk and disorderly type, but I could see him using alcohol as a crutch to keep from going entirely mad from his life and building up a higher and higher tolerance over time. Considering there are probably a myriad other more effective ways of magically 'burning off steam', it seems odd that he'd still have an attachment to alcohol. Unless this was a vice he grew up around that still feels 'normal' to him. I think 'functional alcoholic' would be the term - a couple of glasses of wine during the day at lunch, 1-2 more in the evening with dinner, maybe a couple while he's marking work in his office. Maybe a few extra at the weekend. Not enough to be noticed or get drunk, but easily 50+ units a week. Which he perhaps doesn't see as a problem, as he saw his father drinking far more and getting aggressive.
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, but that's my HC for now!
interesting background! thanks for sharing 🙂
