Sorting- Sirius's prank- Snape and the Longbottoms- Speechless Harry

Tue Jan 22 11:21:13 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 33888

Katze wrote:

<<Anyway...my point is simply that if we look hard enough, all of our
characters will have traits of each house. I think the sorting hat
assesses the qualities of each house in the person, and then looks deep
in their mind to see what kind of choices the person has made, and
that's what causes a house to be chosen.>>

But even if this is a very valid explanation, something still boggles my mind: After all, what we are talking about here are 11 YOs! What “choices” can a child of this age make or have made that would truly justify him or her being put into a house with as doubtful a reputation as Slytherin? Come to think of it, what WAS Harry’s “choice”? What had he heard about Slytherin so far? Hagrid’s “There isn’t any wizard who turned bad who didn’t come from Slytherin” (Pettigrew- ha,ha!), and Malfoy’s appraisal of Slytherin being the best house which rather backfired because of Malfoy being such a snobbish slimeball. But I would hardly call Harry’s “Not Slytherin!” a choice, because you can only choose if you have previously seen your alternatives. 

So, again, what are the Sorting Hat’s methods for categorizing 11 YOs? In the case of “purebloods” and “half-bloods” (much as I hate the term), it may be partly based on the parents’ houses, though I would not hesitate to call that extremely unfair. But what about Muggle- borns? As far as family tradition is concerned, they are a blank sheet. And to speak of “character” which in a child of that age is not yet fully formed but on the contrary might still be influenced in a most important way, would be an exaggeration. More I think about it, more the house system based on a student’s character seems questionable, particularly where the Slytherins are concerned. But maybe I’m overlooking something? If somebody cares to enlighten me, you’re welcome to do so.

Eileen wrote (about Sirius’s prank): 

<<Not to scare him, as his defenders insist. Not to kill him, as Snape 
insists. But to have Lupin bite him, making Snape a werewolf. Maybe, 
Sirius thought that arrogant, bigoted Snape deserved to see the world 
from the point of the down and out like Lupin. This could especially 
work if Snape was close on Lupin's track, and had almost figured it 
out. Now, that's a way of silencing somebody. And to Sirius's mind, 
it's not as bad as we might think. After all, his best friend, Lupin, 
was a werewolf, and that didn't spoil HIS life. (Though, of course, we 
know that it did... later.) Think about it.>>

I did, but what does it change fundamentally? If not for the worse? To condemn a person to lead the life of an outcast would be even worse than the intention of “just scaring” him. Assuming that by the time of his “prank” Sirius already knew Remus’s whole story, he must also have been aware of how difficult it was to have one werewolf at Hogwarts; having two of them seems quite impossible (finding another hiding place, keeping everything secret). So I hope your theory wasn’t there to defend Sirius, for it makes him look even more irresponsible- not only towards Remus and Snape, but towards the whole school who would have been in potential danger, had Snape really been bitten.

Rebecca wrote:

<<Now, granted we don't know a whole lot about Snape's motivation for switching sides. However, I find it hard to believe that one day Dumbledore turned invisible, headed over to a Death Eater's BBQ, dragged Snape out by they hair and commanded him 'spy for our side or I'll kill you.' Given Dumbledore's trust of Snape and the fact that he stresses that Snape risked life and limb to spy for their side, it would seem that what Snape did took enormous courage and conviction -- the opposite of Peter.>>

I agree with you and just wanted to ask Elkins (was it you who wrote that in the first place?) about the somewhat enigmatic statement that “Snape would be a flat character, in case he had turned away from Voldemort because of a conversional experience”. Did I get that right? And if I did, what did it mean? Or, to re-formulate: What could, in your opinion, have caused Snape to change sides, if not an event or a series of events that made him open his eyes? It might be a worn-out pattern, I agree on that, but I don’t see many other possibilities. To assume that one fine day Snape woke up and said to himself: “Well, today is my 3rd DE anniversary and what’s enough is enough, so let’s change sides” doesn’t strike me as a particularly well- motivated decision, from the psychological POV. 

Eric Oppen wrote:

<<One thing to keep in mind about Snape's attitude toward the senior
Longbottoms is that during the latter stages of the First Voldemort War, the
Aurors were about as ruthless and hair-triggered as the DEs themselves.  We
don't _know_ how Mr. Longbottom, or both Longbottoms if they were both
Aurors, approached their duties...were they like Mad-Eye Moody, and at least
willing to _try_ not to kill, or were they more like Judge Dredd on acid?>>

That’s one of the many nagging questions: Just who and how were all these persons from the past, who now are dead or as good as, but cast long shadows over the present? What were the Longbottoms, the Marauders, Lily, the Lestranges like? In the case of Harry’s and Neville’s parents, the answer, even if highly speculative, is so difficult to find because we tend to be prejudiced to their favour: We know that they were on the Good Guys’ side and that they suffered at the Dark Lord’s hands, which automatically makes them martyrs whose negative aspects we tend to consider less or not at all. Apart from the fact that the Longbottoms had their brains fried by fanatical Death Eaters which is deplorable, they might have been everything from “Judge Dredd on acid” to near-saints. Same goes for Lily and James (seems to become my favourite topic, though I thought that was Snape). So, there’s the possibility that they were just the first ones in what was planned to be a long series of victims- imagining that the Lestranges had a list of Aurors they planned to visit to extort information about Voldemort’s hiding place. And it’s equally possible that Frank Longbottom was one of the most fervent supporters of  “Don’t ask them, AK them” and therefore the DE’s no. 1 target.

lipglossusa wrote:

<<Okay, with all this discussion of Lily and MWPP, I have to bring up 
something that continuously bugs me in every single book:  why 
doesn't Harry ever ask any questions about his parents?  He does ask 
in SS why Voldemort wanted to kill him, and Dumbledore tells him that 
he isn't ready to know yet.  But other than that, he never seems to 
express any desire to know much else, unless it has relevance to the 
immediate situation.>>

Ahhh, you touched a nerve here: I already wanted to do a post about “speechless Harry” some days ago, inspired by listening to GoF: What struck me was the phrase, referring to Harry’s third letter to Sirius, after having been picked as fourth champion: “He would have liked to tell Sirius how much this whole situation was weighing him down, but somehow he didn’t know how to put it into words” (inexact quote, but that’s it, more or less). So, (rolling up my sleeves for major writing and thinking effort), it seems that the Dursleys’ “upbringing” of Harry has left traces after all: Otherwise, why should an intelligent 14 YO boy be unable to write: “And Ron is convinced that it was I to put my name into the Goblet- he doesn’t speak to me and this makes the situation even more complicated and unbearable.” Is that so difficult? I don’t think so. It is difficult for Harry who, until the age of 11, evidently didn’t have anybody to confide in. Ron, who isn’t the most mature of  teenagers, is able to communicate his feelings (“I hate being poor”), he is capable of apologizing- it’s Harry who doesn’t want him to continue. So, everybody, what do you think of Harry’s inability to talk about his own emotions? Interesting for the SHIPpers among us, isn’t it?

Susanna/pigwidgeon37 (having once again dumped work for pleasure) 

"And how come those portraits seem to be alive?"

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"No, they don't. We have lots of paintings in our villa, among them a real Chagall, and none of them..."

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