[HPforGrownups] Sorting Hat Stool/School Song

[Neil Ward]

No: HPFGUIDX 23587

Nethilia said:

<<Also, that first year everone sings the school song. Why Never again? Did
Dumbledore think about the awful cacophony of all those people signing in
whatever tune and tone they wanted and decided this was a bad idea? (I doubt
this, he clapped hard after the song.) But still...>>

I have two suggestions:

(1) In PS/SS, it's clear that Dumbledore is delighted by the cacophony of
the school song, but that the other teachers don't enjoy it at all.  ("Harry
noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed").  Perhaps,
after Harry's first year, they finally persuaded Dumbledore that it was time
to put this tradition to bed.  Even a Headmaster has to listen to his
colleagues once in a while.

(2) I'm not sure that the singing of the school song would always happen at
the end of the Sorting.  In PS/SS, Dumbledore says, "And now, before we go
to bed, let us sing the school song!"  Perhaps he requests this
sporadically, depending on the event and his mood.  He was feeling quite
playful in PS/SS, but, as has already been noted, he had reason to be
feeling more sombre in PoA and GoF.  It may be that the other teachers'
smiles became fixed, not because they'd been dreading the school song all
evening, but because they were caught off guard by Dumbledore's request and
were trying hard not to cringe.

Neil
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