According to Dumbledore, Snape spent most of each year at Hogwarts Castle. During the holidays, he returned to pass the time at his home in Cokeworth, a large town in central Britain-to be more specific, in an alley on the outskirts of Cokeworth called Spinner's End.
By something of a coincidence, Brian discovered that he had heard the name Spinner's End long ago, when he studied a lesson called "The plight of small-town residents during the Industrial Revolution." His teacher had said that most of the locals worked in textiles, but now most had left their homes behind amid the roar of machinery, leaving only a river running black and heaps of stinking rubbish for company.
Now Brian's visit to Snape had taken on another purpose-reviewing what he had learned as a student. Putting the Beer Festival gathering out of his mind, he bought some gifts at the shop on the top floor of St. Mungo's and set off that very evening.
It took him some effort and two changes of Floo fireplaces via St. Mungo's to reach the Floo transport point in central Cokeworth. After asking local passersby for directions, he found a filthy, winding river and followed it. According to a helpful Muggle passerby, he would reach Spinner's End as the river approached its end.
Brian noticed something along the way: the farther he followed the river, the blacker its waters became, and the thicker the weeds grew on either side of the road. Discarded fish-and-chip wrappers occasionally stirred in the heavy breeze, but failed to escape the rubbish heaps that held them. Everything he saw confirmed what he had once learned. Whatever glory this place had enjoyed in the past, its surroundings were now appalling, almost deserving the name "rubbish dump."
As he continued walking, Brian saw