About Slytherin House and Muggle-borns

[judyserenity]

No: HPFGUIDX 33473

I *think* it was Alexander Lomski who said:
> >   Ah, and a question springs up to my mind. What if we have
> > a magic-wielding, ambitious, treachery, evil-inspired,
> > cowardly, etc etc, *muggle-born*? Would he be sorted into
> > Slytherin despite Salazar's ideas? And if not, what house
> > would he hit then?

There have been a number of interesting replies -- too many for me to 
quote here. 

My opinion is that Muggle-born students can *not* be sorted into 
Slytherin House. They would have to go to the house that was the "next 
best fit." 

The Sorting Hat reflects the preferences of the four founding wizards, 
and Slytherin seemed quite adamant that he didn't want Muggle-borns at 
Hogwarts *at all*, let alone in his own house. I think the story that 
Slytherin left Hogwarts because he objected to having muggle-borns 
there is supposed to be a true part of Hogwart's history. Binns says 
it happened that way, Tom Riddle says it happened that way, and 
Dumbledore doesn't contradict the story. 

Well, that raises the obvious question of why half-blood Tom Riddle 
was in Slytherin House. One possibility is that half-bloods are 
generally allowed in Slytherin House.  Slytherin's objections to 
muggle-borns may have been related to his fears of exposing the 
wizarding world to unknown muggle families whose responses could not 
be predicted.  This would not be an issue with children from mixed 
wizard-muggle families.  Also, there may just not be enough ambitious 
pure-bloods to fill up Slytherin House.

It's also possible that Tom Riddle was a special case.  He wasn't just 
any old half-blood; he was Slytherin's own descendent.  Also, he was a 
parselmouth. And boy, was he ambitious! So, perhaps he was an 
exception.  

By the way, I can't resist putting in a comment about my favorite 
character, Snape.  People have speculated on his parentage.  I'm 
convinced he could not be muggle-born, because I'm convinced there are 
no muggle-borns in Slytherin.  And how can I be sure Snape was in 
Slytherin?  (Other than that he's head of Slytherin House, of course.) 
 Well, Sirius describes Snape as having been "part of a gang of 
Slytherins" as a student. If the gang were all Slytherins, and Snape 
was a part of it, then Snape was a Slytherin.