"Never trust something that can think...

[brooksindy]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C7496
From: brooksindy
Subject: "Never trust something that can think...
Date: 8/21/00 10:38 pm  (ET)

...for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain". Good advice,
and Harry remembers it with the Marauder's Map (but eventually decides
that is safe enough) but we have all been wondering....

Yet there are many things at Hogwarts that do think for themselves
without visible brainpans - the Fat Lady, various other paintings,
and a couple of password-monitoring statues or gargoyles. There is a
preconditioning among wizard kids at Hogwarts
*to* trust such things - so Arthur's advice is good to remind them that
just because they are familiar with the CLASS of thing does not mean
they can trust the individual specimen.

Speaking of the Fat Lady. We seem in msgs and IIRC yesterday's chat to be
swinging back towards "Well the Marauders MUST have been in Gryffindor
because Harry is there and it is our favorite". Granted Sirius had an
inportant reason for trying to break into Gryffindor, but don't you think
sentiment might have deterred him from slashing the Fat Lady's portrait
if he had indeed been a Gryffindor? Of course the portraits might have
been changed since he was there, but consider that thought. Also -
Hagrid says every wizard who was ever seduced by the Dark Side - well,
something like that - was in "stinkin' Slytherin" - but I bet they keep
Slytherin around for reasons other than tradition. As the Hat said, for
some Slytherin is the path to Greatness, and not necessarily Terrible
Greatness, to paraphrase Ollivander about moldy old Voldy. Sometimes
you need a tough, persistent, ambitious person to get things done.

I wonder if the crop in Slytherin has been particuarly unpleasant since
the Voldemort years just because *of* those years (and perhaps because
Snape lets them get away with too much).