More Slytherin heterodoxy (was Slytherin, Basislsk, Chamber)

[David]

No: HPFGUIDX 47097

Catlady (Hi, Rita!) wrote:

>How could all the 
> people who were Sorted into Slytherin House, and all the other 
> wizards, and especially Tom Marvolo Riddle, consistently have such 
a 
> WRONG idea of Salazar Slytherin and what his "noble plan" was?

A couple of months ago I wrote this, but didn't post it as I knew I 
wouldn't have time to follow any responses:

Snape, Slytherin, Harry and the Sorting Hat

I want to try to put a slightly different spin on Snape's treatment 
of Harry.

Can I suggest that Snape sees that Harry has great potential to be, 
not just swollen-headed, but a Death Eater or Dark Wizard in the 
future.  When Dumbledore makes his famous remark in COS about 
choices, there is actually more than one way to interpret it.  For 
Harry (as no doubt Dumbledore intended), it is reassurance that he 
has not made a bad choice, and he is not destined to repeat the 
pattern set by Riddle.

But Dumbledore never says the converse, that Slytherin would have 
been a *bad* choice.  Had Harry chosen Slytherin, it is the Hat's 
considered opinion that he would have 'done well'.  Possibly it is 
the function, in part, of membership in Slytherin to provide the best 
possible opportunities *not* to turn out as a dark wizard.  Yes, 
people who later turned out bad were preponderantly in Slytherin, it 
seems.  But that doesn't mean that Slytherin made them bad, any more 
than the fact that a hospital is full of sick people means that 
hospitals make people sick.

Of course, the teaching staff can't let on about this to the student 
body, or all the Slytherins (and their parents) would take umbrage.  
(Or it may be that there is a essential component of DADA built into 
all four choices, so that the main function of Hogwarts education is 
moral: all lessons and houses are DADA, so to speak.)

Snape, Dumbledore, and the Sorting Hat have slightly different 
concerns over Harry.  Dumbledore encourages the positive in Harry.  I 
suggest that Snape, OTOH, sees the dangers and wants to avert them as 
far as possible.  He may feel that Harry needs a good dose of 
Slytherin to reduce the chances that in later life he will make 
really bad choices.  At times these imperatives may conflict.  The 
Hat is more neutral: more challenging than Dumbledore, more positive 
than Snape, but at the same time perhaps seeing further than either.

But what the Hat is up to takes us into a whole new area too big to 
start here.

David