Chap. 9 Summary: The Writing on the Wall

[foxmoth at qnet.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 24627

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Zarleycat at a... wrote:
>
> 1. What was Snape's "peculiar expression"?  If he really was trying 
> not to smile, what about this situation did he find so amusing?
	I think Snape hates the cat, out of jealousy perhaps, but is 
hiding his feelings for Filch's sake...<g>
<<snip excellent questions where I have nothing to add>>
>
> 7.  Why wouldn't an heir to Slytherin have appeared sometime in the 
> last 1000 years?  Or can the heir only open the Chamber when there is 
> a particular need to do so?
	It could be that not every heir is a parselmouth. We also don't 
need to assume that Slytherin's descendants stayed in the British 
Isles. They might have been attending some other wizarding school. 
Perhaps Slytherin changed his name to avoid a curse (a bit of "real" 
magic) and was a founder of Durmstrang. The legend of the chamber might 
have been passed on to his descendants, but  have been given no more 
credence by the heirs than it was by Prof. Binns. Dumbledore's 
statement that Tom is the last remaining  intrigues me...maybe 
Grindelwald believed that the Slytherin heir would be his undoing (or 
was a Slytherin heir himself) and tried to exterminate the family, 
leaving only one daughter who escaped to England. There she  lived as a 
Muggle, fell in love with Tom Riddle Sr. and suffered her disastrous 
fate.

Pippin