Discussion: Sorting Hat, Founders, and the Hogwarts Houses

[peterhbrine at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26357

> 
> 2)	What houses do you think some of the people belonged to when
> they went to Hogwarts? Such as, what house produced batty ol' 
Trelawney
> anyways? 
> 
I've spent the last hour scouring the message boards for someone to 
ask this question!  (I should have started at the end).  Following 
are some of my ideas - note that I have not conducted an exhastive 
search to verify or deny these speculations, thus my rather vague 
references to events in the books - so take them with a grain of salt.

Hagrid: Hufflepoof - loyal and hardworking.  Hagrid is big and 
strong, but I would not characterize him as overly brave as 
demonstrated by his running and hiding when Rita Skeeter reveals his 
parentage in GoF, so Griffindor is out, not the smartest bulb in the 
pack so not Ravenclaw and absolutely not a Slytherin. 

Molly Weasley: we know she was in Griffindor

Arthur Weasley: though not stated I think we can say for sure he was 
NOT in Griffindor.  Why?  When Molly visits Hogwarts to watch the 
third task in GoF she refers to the Fat Lady being at Hogwarts in her 
day.  The fat lady gave Molly a severe telling off for returning to 
the dorm at 4:00AM after being out for a stroll with Arthur.  Why 
wasn't Arthur told off as well?  He got caught by the caretaker. Why 
wasn't Molly caught as well?  Because Arthur was returning to another 
dorm (my speculation).  My first guess would be Hufflepoof - 
demonstrated by the fact that Arthur is hardworking, friendly, loyal 
and not particularly ambitious, but he could also be Ravenclaw - as 
demonstrated by his dedication to his studies.  

I'd also like to second the opinion that Arthur is secretly a member 
of the Department of Magic.  He seems much more important than 
his "lowly"  (other character's opinion, not mine)position in the 
Muggles Affairs office would suggest.  He also seems to know 
EVERYTHING that goes on in the Ministry - just a good beaurocrat or 
something more?  

Dumbledore: we know Griffindor

Ludo Bagman: Slytherin - He's too inept for Ravenclaw. I can't see 
any Hufflepoof convincing a student to cheat in clear violation of a 
binding magical contract in order to ensure they win a bet.  And a 
Griffindor would face their problems head on instead of continuously 
running away from them as Ludo does when constantly pestered by the 
twins for their winnings.  This leaves Slytherin.  This would also 
help explain why Ludo was mixed up with a bunch of Voldmort's 
supporters (he knew them in school).  Ludo was certainly ambitious 
enough to put the work into making the British Quidditch team, rising 
to the head of Deparment of Magical Games and Sports and organizing 
the Tri-Wizard tournament (a task that was argueably just beyond his 
capabilities)  Remember - you don't have to be evil to be in 
Slytherin, just ambitious.

Bartimus Crouch, Sr.: Sltherin - see the evil statement above - and 
Sirius takes great pains to emphasis Crouch's ambition while filling 
in the back story in GoF.

Snape: Slytherin, obviously.  A word about Severus.  I believe deep 
down he is truely good.  His obsession with the dark side has more to 
do with a fascination with right and wrong than evil.  Severus is 
obsessed with Harry and co. breaking the rules - both the school 
rules and the "social" rules (children are to be seen and not heard, 
kids Harry's age shouldn't be getting press attention) on the few 
occasions he had to refer to Harry's father he harped on the idea 
that Harry's father (like Harry) felt that rules were not meant to 
apply to him.  Severus sees following rules as paramountly important 
even to the point of idiocy (e.g., his fascination with where the 
Lupis went every month when they were in school).  His obsession with 
the Dark Arts is a manifestation of this - he does everything he can 
to learn about them because it is the forbidden fruit, the ultimate 
breaking of the rules.  However this fascination does not mean he 
wants to use the Dark Arts, quite the opposite - given the 
opportunity to use it for evil ends he will balk (my speculation).  
In the end he must obey the rules.  

Given that ambition did not drive him to learn the Dark Arts he may 
have actually come out of Ravenclaw.  The fact that he "ran with a 
Slytherin crowd that almost all became Death Eaters" (my impercise 
quote) may have been all the more noteworthy because he was NOT a 
Slytherin.  However, in the end Slytherin is the logical house for 
Snape, though I can imagine the Sorting Hat had quite a time deciding 
where to sort him.


Cornelius Fudge:  You'd think Slytherin, but I think Hufflepoof.  I 
am not convinced he is overly ambitous - he only got the job of 
Minister after Dumbledore refused - you get the feeling he was 
a "safe" choice people felt comfortable with after the horrendous 
days of Voldemort.  He values tradition, is a friendly sort, not 
particularly brilliant and again, though he may appreciate his 
position now, not ambitious enough to set out to achieve it.  His 
head in the sand approach to Voldemort's return could be seen as the 
flipside of the Hufflepoof personality qualities - stubborn, 
unwilling to accept change, too involved in keeping things running 
smoothly to stick his head up and see what is really going on.

Moody:  Griffindor (obviously NOT the Barty Crouch, Jr. Moody) 
Honest, courageous, fair.  Need I say more?

Barty Crouch, Jr.:  Ravenclaw, not much to go on here except smart 
(Barty Crouch, Sr. refers to Jr.'s 12 O.W.L.s while shaking off the 
Imperious charm when he comes to Hogwarts to find Dumbledore) and he 
seemed to be motivated to join Voldemort not because of ambition but 
because of revenge.  This in a way makes him more dangerous than any 
of the other Death Eaters, he isn't motivated but his "rational" self 
interest, but something much more twisted.  If he was a Griffindor he 
would have confronted his father head on, if a Hufflepoof he would 
have suffered his father's neglect silently.

McGonagal - Griffindor  (I am assuming that besides character traits, 
the heads of the houses were members of those houses when they 
attended Hogwarts)

Flitwick - Ravenclaw

Sprout - Hufflepoof

Marauders - I really like the idea that the Marauders belonged to 
different houses; Potter - Griffindor, Black - Slytherin (couldn't 
you just see some early Sirius/James rivalry evolving into an 
extreemely close friendship?), Lupin - Hufflepoof and Pettigrew - 
Ravenclaw, for all the reasons outlined in earlier posts.  However, I 
don't think JKR has that in mind.  It makes things much simpler to 
put them all in Griffindor.

Those are my thoughts - any other suggestions?

-Peter