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The Half-Blood Prince was none other than

Severus Snape

Pursuant to this question:

Was there anybody who knew the Half-Blood Prince's true identity? (Before the events in HBP)

It doesn't strike me as something that was well-known (or known at all).

When the true identity of the Prince was revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Chp. Twenty-Eight, Flight of the Prince); Harry is alone with the Prince, and so no one other than the two of them know.

It seems also that the information was kept well secret; no one made the connection between the book and any spells invented in it to the creator (the Prince).

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Möoz
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    Being in slytherin - especially during his school time when death-eaters were being formed - I doubt Snape would've advertised himself as being half-blood. – mustard Apr 30 '14 at 06:23
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    one could strictly answer the question with "Snape" and technically be correct :) – NKCampbell Apr 11 '17 at 15:32
  • @NKCampbell That's what I came here to say... though I would have said Severus or Severus Snape instead. – Pryftan Mar 01 '18 at 23:36

1 Answers1

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I could be wrong, but nobody actually knew the term "Half-blood Prince" in the first place as far as I recall. It was a private nickname that Snape made for himself. So the question's answer is "nobody COULD know the identity of that name since nobody knew the name in the first place".

I can see only 5 candidates:

  1. He clearly wouldn't be likely to reveal his nickname to Muggle-hating "friends" of his (Mulciber etc...).

  2. There is zero information that Lily Evans knew it. She could have but we don't have any canon confirmation.

  3. Same can be said of Dumbledore. If anyone knew, my money would be on him but as with Lily, there's zero canon evidence that he knew.

  4. Pretty much nobody else was close enough to Snape that they would even know his mother's maiden name.

  5. That only leaves possible random students who used Snape's textbook like Harry - which was again not a common occurrence (even the poorest ones like Ron Weasley bought their own; and Harry was given the class copy because he unexpectedly was readmitted to the class by Slughorn on short notice. Since Snape was the Potions teacher most of the intervening years, he was not likely to have given anyone his own potions textbook if he ran across it).

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  • As I expected. Good to get confirmation. +1 Great answer. – Möoz May 02 '14 at 02:01
  • I think you’ve left one option out—perhaps the most likely of them all (though still no evidence). There is no indication in the book that the old, battered school book Harry got from the cupboard had ever been used by anyone but Snape—at least, no one else seems to have written in it. It seems reasonable to assume that it was new when Snape got it, and that he just at some point left it in that cupboard. If that is so, anyone who had Potions with him could quite easily have seen “This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince” written on it in class and made the connection. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 14 '16 at 01:37
  • if anyone knew it i would suspect lily, not that she knew he called himself that, but she would have known he was halfblood, and his last name was prince, so she could have potentially figured it out after seeing it. – Himarm Jul 31 '16 at 02:14
  • @JanusBahsJacquet It wasn't new. It was 50 years old. He used it when he was in school and he modified it. – Pryftan Mar 01 '18 at 23:38
  • @Himarm His surname wasn't Prince though; that was his mum's name. I'm sure she knew he was half blood but I'm not sure he told the name Prince to anyone and why would he? Yes he writes the name down but he's certainly not proud of his father. – Pryftan Mar 01 '18 at 23:39
  • @Pryftan The book itself was presumably fifty years old (unless it’s a reprint and Harry doesn’t know how to read reprint years), but there’s nothing in the book that indicates it was used by anyone else before Snape. No one else had written their name in it before him, for example—given how much attention is paid to the name inscription, I’m pretty sure that would have been mentioned. So to Snape’s classmates, it wouldn’t make a difference whether it was a new book or an old one. If they saw it with the inscription, they’d assume Snape wrote it. They’d also probably recognise the handwriting. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 01 '18 at 23:58
  • @JanusBahsJacquet So you're saying it was published 50 years ago? That's not at all how I interpreted it. But what is certain is his upbringing wasn't all that great and one of the things Petunia felt horrible about Severus is his inexpensive clothes and clearly poor family. Which would suggest he might have shared books his mother had. – Pryftan Mar 03 '18 at 01:38
  • @Pryftan That’s what it says in the book: it was published nearly fifty years ago. It makes sense that it would have been his mother’s. Given what little we see of her in her school days, she seems like a bit of a Hermione type—likely to be someone who would not desecrate a book by writing in it (leaving it quite pristine for her son). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 03 '18 at 08:06
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Indeed. That's what I was getting at - that it was his mum's copy (but your comment suggested that he was the only one to use it - well that or write it in it but it's imo heavily implied he wasn't the first to use it). – Pryftan Mar 03 '18 at 23:40
  • @Pryftan When I wrote the original comment, I’d forgotten the part where he reads the publication date, so that was what I originally suggested. But the second bit I stand by: there’s no indication of anyone else writing in it, so Snape’s classmates—if they ever happened to look—would likely have assumed the HBP was him for the simple reason that everything in the book, including that name, was written in his handwriting. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 03 '18 at 23:43
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Agree 100%. – Pryftan Mar 04 '18 at 15:42