Inconceivable - More thoughts on Secrecy, wizarding politics, and Severus Snape
I started replying to a comment posted to "I Would Sell Out the Nation," but it developed into a rather long post thinking my way through some things. And talking more about Snape, of course. I’m just thinking out loud here though
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Dean's birth father was a wizard who married and had at least one child with a muggle woman and NEVER told her he was a wizard. Not even after they married, nor once they had a child. Perhaps he might have told her once Dean began exhibiting accidental magic, but we do not know if he would have or not, since he was killed by Voldy while Dean was a baby. Obviously, Dean's father was living as a muggle (since his magic was hidden from his family). I have a great deal of trouble with the idea that he not only never mentioned his magic, but that the DEs might want to kill her and their child just because he married her.
We know very little about the Lupin marriage -- only the small bit from Pottermore. Hope Lupin is supposedly a muggle married to a wizard (Remus' parents). I do have a very uneasy feeling about it, even though nothing is overtly said about the power imbalance in it. But, then they married in the 1950s and so, Hope leaving her job to become a stay-at-home mom wouldn't have been unusual even if she married a muggle.
I think, truthfully that the time period these couples were in mattered a great deal for the success (despite imbalance) or non-success. Note that the only marriage (where the muggle is male) that seems healthy is Seamus' family -- who probably married in the '70s -- a time when the balance of power between a couple was becoming more level, even in the muggle world.
The question is very difficult to decide regarding TomSr/Merope because she not only had more power (magic) she actually used it over him (love potion). No way that would have worked.
The most obvious 'failure' was the Snape marriage. Not only did she have a power she COULD use over him, but Tobias presumably did have trouble with that, since he apparently expresses his physical power over her. We have no idea if she ever used magic to defend herself or Sev, but I tend to think that eventually her magic weakened (like Tonks' when she couldn't get Remus to love her (or at least admit to it depending on whether one thinks he did or didn't).
I do find it interesting that IF this theory is right, neither Seamus nor Remus (both literal halfbloods) had any real problems in Gryffindor. Whether that is because they were in Gryffindor or merely because Remus had powerful protectors/friends and Seamus' parents marriage is more accepted because it is later in time (much as mixed-race marriages are much more acceptable now than they were in the '60s
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We have no indication that Tobias Snape physically abused his wife or son. We know they had an unhappy marriage, though we don’t know exactly what form that unhappiness took. We know little Sev witnessed at least one argument in which Tobias was able to cow Eileen verbally despite her superior power. (I like to believe it was from Toby that Severus inherited the force of personality that allows him to intimidate people by his mere presence.) We don’t know that Toby ever beat either of them, or that he was a drunkard, or that he couldn’t keep a job, or any of the other things one sees in fanon. All of them are possibilites, but no more than that.
I believe it was JOdel who posited that that particular memory was of Toby’s discovery of his wife’s and son’s magic. He was enraged at her deception, and she was cowering, not in fear of his violence (which she could easily counter) but in shame, because she knew his anger was justified. Severus would remember it as especially traumatic because it marked the point at which his da never loved him again. If, as seems likely, the discovery was due to Sev’s accidental magic, he would be sure it was all his own fault.
Again, this is only speculation, but it makes more sense than the idea that emotionally traumatized witches (but somehow never wizards) lose their magic and can be beaten up by muggles. If depression and heartbreak made wizards lose their power the way it seems to do with witches, Snape would be pushing a broom next to Argus Filch.
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As for Eileen's 'cowering', I really don't think that people appear that way from a verbal attack without a impression of physical menace. Upset, guilty, shamed, yes, but not usually frightened. And 'cowering' means frightened.
Although I will admit that she might be frightened if this is an argument where he is threatening to leave them? But I think she would appear more desperate than cowering.
Expressing physical power does not necessarily mean beating them. It can be very intimidating and frightening if he towers over her in anger or breaks objects near her (Sev got that throwing a jar of cockroaches from someone)
Perhaps I'm wrong and the scene described her as 'cowed', not 'cowering'? But I'm pretty sure that the 'cowed' was for Fenrir on the Tower.
The alternative to the idea that Eileen did NOT lose her magic is that she simply never cared that little Sev had to dress 'funny' and in ill-fitting clothes. Yes, she was a witch, however, even if she never left the house (unlikely, I doubt Tobias went out to get the groceries), she would then have also never have looked out the window either. Their home was surrounded by other homes, all filled with muggles.
She either could not adjust his clothes with magic or she simply did not care that he was probably subjected to at least derision if not outright physical bullying by the boys in the neighborhood. Sev's life was bad enough. I must admit that I prefer to think she couldn't, over the idea that she wouldn't.
Although, again I admit that it IS possible that she didn't care at all. She certainly seemed uninterested in him at the station on his first trip to Hogwarts.
I suppose the only other alternative is that ALL the boys in his neighborhood were also possibly dressed just as badly?
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I quite agree that Severus is giving Tonks his version of a friendly warning when he comments on the weakness of her Patronus, not simply insulting her out of sheer nastiness, as Harry assumes. It’s hard to know whether he’s pointing out the on-going loss of her magic due to hopeless love, or warning her against the moral weakness of her love object. It may be both. He really does know Lupin’s spineless ways a lot better than she does, and would be the person in the best position to warn her against him, if his caustic manner didn’t guarantee his advise would be disregarded.
Severus’ mental strength and skill with occlumency may be protecting him from heartbreak-induced magic loss, but I find it a suspicious coincidence that it is the male character who has the mental discipline to resist such loss, while the poor weak female characters (Merope, Tonks, and possibly Eileen) crumble.
P.S. I’m four-foot-nine (144cm); I know all about how towering over someone is a form of intimidation, whether the taller person intends it conciously or not. But if I had magic powers to compensate for my genuine physical weakness, I would have less need to feel intimidated.
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