Peter + Sorting Hat

[rja.carnegie at excite.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19057

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Rita Winston" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., rja.carnegie at e... wrote:
> > --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Doreen Rich" <nera at r...> wrote:
> > > --- In HPforGrownups at y..., captain_debrowe at y... wrote:
> > > > --- In HPforGrownups at y..., aasta2000 at y... wrote:
> 
> The way the citations stack up is so pretty.
> 
> > Also, Lupin swears to Harry that he won't do anything more than tie
> > Peter up.  Perhaps promises are more binding among wizards, or
> > perhaps Lupin personally feels bound by that.  Peter doesn't make
> > any promise not to escape that I can see...?
> > 
> > Lupin's promise could also account for his not attacking Peter as
> > soon as he transformed to wolf.  This hypothesis requires that 
> > Peter doesn't move to escape until wolf-Lupin isn't an immediate
> > threat to him, otherwise he'd be dog meat - and the action is
> > consistent with that hypothesis.
> 
> In that case, the wizard's promise must be magically binding, not 
> merely Remus's severe sense of personal honor. Because when he 
> transforms into wolf without Wolfbane Potion, he loses his human 
> mind (with the sense of honor and knowledge of which human is friend 
> and which is foe) and it is replaced with an overwhelming compulsion, 
> hunger, desire, rage, reflex response, to attack and try to kill any 
> human that the wolf perceives.

But it's not instantaneous - or he couldn't handle boggarts.
In this case, his attention is on the manacle he's wearing;
having got rid of that, he _would_ have jumped on the nearest
human, I dare say - Pettigrew or Ron - but Sirius Black jumps
on him first.

IRL, wolves supposedly don't attack humans unless they're provoked,
or, possibly, hungry.  Werewolves are evidently different there,
though.

Uh oh - did Lupin bite Black?  Oh, [expletive deleted], poor old Sirius.  It just wasn't his lucky day - although perhaps werewolf
bite doesn't work on a transformed Animagus?
 
> > So are all the Marauders in Gryffindor, too? James surely is.  I 
> > think the school _really_ need to get that hat fixed - half of 
> > Harry's friends are in the wrong House, too.
> 
> I'm sure that all the Marauders were in Gryffindor, that they were 
> all roommates in one dorm.
> 
> Peter may have been quite brave until 12 years of life as a rat 
> turned him into the snivelling coward we saw in PoA. (If his motive 
> for betraying his friends was something other than fear for his own 
> survival, as he claimed in PoA, what was it?)

???  My POA (unless you meant GOF?) has "He would have killed me,
Sirius!" as Pettigrew's only apology.  Black doesn't consider that a
good excuse, and while I hope I never face a similar test, I can see
Black's point.  However, Black also points out that Pettigrew is
attracted to people who are stronger than himself.  How Pettigrew
really felt and feels about Voldemort may be made more clear in GOF.
Excuse me if I don't go looking for the slash fanfic, I've read
the (original) adventures of A. J. Raffles and that was quite enough.
 
> There has been much talk of why Hermione isn't in Ravenclaw. It is 
> generally agreed that, much as she loves books and loves to just know 
> stuff, she loves even more to use her knowledge to save the world, 
> and that Ravenclaws tend to be more passive than she is. Who else 
> do you think is in the wrong House? Btw, Hermione wanted to be in 
> Gryffindor (she said so on the train) and Draco wanted to be in 
> Slytherin, and I suspect that the Sorting Hat takes the student's 
> desire into consideration as well as personality.

On reflection, you're right.  The hat does conduct a dialogue with
each student; it pointed out to Harry the advantages of Slytherin;
it took a long time over Neville - he was my other misplacement,
I'd have put him in Hufflepuff.  I'd guess that while the hat has
the final say, it probably lets everyone into the house that they
want to go in, unless the candidate is totally unsuited to the House
ethic.  Let's say that the hat decided to give both Harry and Neville
the chance to try to live up to Gryffindor standards.  And before
hat, it gave Pettigrew a chance, too, but in the end he flunked.

And the difference it makes to Neville, I suppose, is that he's
encouraged by the others in PS to stand up to Malfoy's gang.  That
probably wouldn't happen if he was in Hufflepuff.

All right, the hat stays.

Robert Carnegie
Glasgow, Scotland

"I read them all when I was seven and I hated them" - unnamed American
office worker on the Harry Potter books (www.dilbert.com, List of
Stupid Things Overheard)