#snetaweek

Location:

Both houses are located in the middle of muggle towns. The surrounding areas are dirty and decaying, with nearby homes sporting broken windows and lights. However, the framing of each location conveys slightly different things about their inhabitants:

Grimmauld Place is situated in the middle of the “huge, sprawling, crisscrossing mass, glittering in lines and grids” that is the city lights of London. The shining promise of the destination is abruptly dissolved when Harry lands in a small, unkempt square where 12 Grimmauld Place is hidden:

“The grimy fronts of the surrounding houses were not welcoming; some of them had broken windows, glimmering dully in the light from the street-lamps, paint was peeling from many of the doors, and heaps of rubbish lay outside several sets of front steps.”

The area has clearly seen better days, much like the family (and its last remaining heir) who own the house located there. The juxtaposition between the vibrant lights and the tired square fosters a sense of disappointment, disillusionment, and decline, recurring themes in Sirius and his family's stories. All that glitters is not gold, and though the family may believe that to be a Black is to be “practically royal,” a closer look reveals fractures and decay. Sirius's disillusionment with his family's views provided him with the chance to escape his family's decline, only for his promising future to be cut short by twelve years in Azkaban. Lost potential is one of the great tragedies of Sirius’s story.

Spinner’s End is also in the middle of a muggle town, though even from afar we can tell this is no glittering London:

"A dirty river wound between overgrown, rubbish-strewn banks [...] An immense chimney, relic of a disused mill, reared up, shadowy and ominous. There was was no sound apart from the whisper of the black water and no sign of life [..] Side by side they stood looking across the road at rows and rows of dilapitated brick houses, their windows dull and blind in the darkness"

Like the square near Grimmauld Place, the area surrounding Spinner's End (Cokeworth, we are told in supplementary materials) has also experienced decline. But as the address was considered a poor recommendation even in Snape’s childhood, it likely didn't have far to fall; the current dilapidation of the row houses reflects a disadvantaged start rather than a fall from glory.

The mist, the maze-like streets, the ominous shadows and eerie lifelessness—Cokeworth portrays Snape's isolation and inscrutability. What is he doing here? Why is he living like this? These questions plague many of Snape’s appearances throughout the series. But the framing of Cokeworth as a ghost town gives us some clues; the man who lives there must be haunted.

Integration with Muggle Surroundings/Protections:

Each house's relationship to its muggle surroundings captures a key source of conflict for each character in their youth.

Grimmauld Place: Harry notes that the area around Number 12 is is not welcoming, and Sirius confirms that his family ensured it:

“My father put every security measure known to Wizard-kind on it when he lived here. It’s Unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call — as if they’d have wanted to”

The house is hidden away from the muggles surrounding it with an almost paranoid intensity. Enchantments reminiscent to those of well-known magical areas separate Grimmauld Place and ensure that only wizards can find it. When emerging into view, the house pushes aside its clueless muggle neighbors. This level of anti-muggle protection reflects the family’s belief in its exceptionalism and its desire to segregate between the magical and the muggle to remain "always pure". His family's ideology is one which Sirius vehemently rejected and from which he went to great lengths to escape in his youth.

Ironically, as Sirius notes, the family's ideology has resulted in the place being useful to the Order (and, while he chafes against it, to protecting him while he is a wanted man). Like himself, in fact, whose exposure to his family's ideology inoculated him against blood supremacist rhetoric and ensured that his prodigious talents were channeled towards the Light.

Spinner's End, on the other hand, is just one of many row houses set deep in the middle of the abandoned town. In stark contrast to the Black residence, there seems to be nothing exceptional about it, and it is fully integrated into its muggle surroundings. Like the house he resides in, Snape cannot separate himself from his unexceptional origins, though he was keen to escape from these roots in his youth.

As an adult, however, Snape is not trying to hide his origins and instead makes the blood supremacist Death Eaters who need his help stoop to his level. From what we can see when Narcissa and Bellatrix visit him, Snape doesn't use extensive magical enchantments, but instead takes advantage of the place's isolation, unpleasant atmosphere, and maze of twisting alleys to deter uninvited visitors and gain the upper hand. Rather like Snape’s own tendency to hide in plain sight, in fact. Snape's true self is protected by isolation and obfuscated by unpleasantness, and his confidence in his cover rests in his ability to lead unwelcome visitors astray in his thoughts and emotions.

Inhabitants

Both houses contain a servant with whom the residents are forced to live—a character they detest, who embodies what they have worked to overcome and who serves as a reminder of their painful past. The servants, unhappy with their lot, spy on their masters, reflecting the way that these characters are still stalked by the long shadows of the past.

Grimmauld Place passes into Sirius's control with a family house-elf, Kreacher. Kreacher parrots the family values that Sirius is ashamed of. He reveres Sirius’s mother’s portrait, and, having spent years taking orders from her, has internalized her views and says that Sirius is a hated disappointment. Sirius looks down on Kreacher, whose bigoted remarks and servility towards Sirius's family represents everything Sirius renounced and fights against. Being back at Grimmauld Place, with his mother's screams and Kreacher's mutters carrying his family's hated words through the house, is difficult for Sirius. “I don’t like being back here [...] I never thought I’d be stuck in this house again," he confides in Harry. Sirius treats Kreacher poorly and with disdain, and Kreacher ends up spying on Sirius and carrying valuable information about his relationship with Harry to the Malfoys.

Snape, while residing at Spinner's End, has been assigned a fellow Death Eater to "assist" him: Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail), the mole in the Order and the other half of the equation that led to Lily's death. Snape looks down on Wormtail, whose cowardice, squirming selfishness, and fawning ambition represent everything Snape has renounced and has dedicated his life to atone for. Wormtail's tendency to "listen at doors" for information to carry to Voldemort must be a particularly painful reminder for Snape, whose own spying resulted in him overhearing the prophecy and conveying the contents to Voldemort. Snape treats Wormtail poorly and with disdain, assigning him household drudgery, mocking his cowardice and lack of status, and jinxing him when he attempts to spy.