James' house (was Marauders' Houses)

[Sam Brown]

No: HPFGUIDX 25755

Martin wrote:
> We know from canon that James was in Gryffindor.

Josie wrote:
> James - Gryffindor (fact)

and Cindy wrote:
> We know Potter is Gryffindor.

Sorry if I'm just missing a very obvious canon reference, but how do 
we know that James was in Gryffindor? I don't remember it ever being 
stated in the books - AFAIK the strongest evidence for James being in 
Gryffindor came from a chat with JKR, where the question: 'what 
position did James play on the Gryffindor Quidditch team' was asked, 
to which she replied, 'chaser' (I'm paraphrasing here, BTW). IMO, 
while this is strong evidence that James *was* in Gryffindor, it 
isn't conclusive evidence. The question is too roundabout - that is, 
it doesn't specifically ask what house James is in; rather, the asker 
just makes the assumption that James was a Gryffindor. Just because 
JKR doesn't refute the assumption doesn't mean it's true.

Martin wrote: 
> I wouldn't call Peter brave... this would put him on low priority 
on the Gryff and Huff lists.

I'd say that to cut off your own hand, you would have to have a lot 
of courage indeed. Of course, you could always argue that it's 
Peter's loyalty to (or, more likely, his fear of) Voldemort which 
made him do it.

Personally, I think it's likely that all four Marauders were in 
Gryffindor - not because their personalities have a definite match 
for Gryffindor, but because of JKR's propensity to put all of the 
characters into her 'favourite' house. I mean, Hagrid in Gryffindor? 
Come on...

Sam