[HPforGrownups] House assumptions

[Sherry Garfio]

No: HPFGUIDX 45249

Barb said:
> I'm baffled.  I have no clue as to why folks regularly bring up the 
> possibility that Lily or any of the Marauders might not have been in >
Gryffindor.  Where are you getting this idea?

First, the easy one: Hagrid's comment in PS/SS (sorry, don't have the book with
me) that states that there was never a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't
in Slytherin.  Since at that point Sirius was in Azkaban (although we, the
readers, didn't yet know it, Hagrid did), we must assume that Sirius was in
Slytherin.  Now, I usually don't put much faith in such blanket statements,
especially from Hagrid, but there you are.

Now for some more thoughtful reasons.  Perhaps the Marauders had a higher
purpose in mind, such as uniting the four Houses, or forming a group that would
benefit from the strengths of each House's iconic virtue.  A group with talents
that include intelligence, bravery, loyalty, and ambition would undoubtedly
achieve more than a group that only exhibits one of these features.  This would
make it necessary to recruit a member from *each* house, perhaps even with the
goal of defeating Voldemort, since his Reign of Terror had presumably begun
while the Marauders were still in school.  By killing James, winning Peter over
to his side, and having Sirius put away, Voldemort has effectively crushed the
Marauders.

While it does seem unlikely that members of different Houses could form such a
strong bond, it seems even more unlikely that the Sorting Hat saw Pettigrew as
a typical Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw for that matter.  As for putting him in
Hufflepuff, since he was always "tagging along" after the Marauders,  maybe he
is loyal indeed, but his loyalty is to Voldemort *from the very beginning*, and
he weaseled his way into the Marauders to create for himself an opportunity to
do Voldemort's bidding.  The Marauders knew he was a Hufflepuff and therefore
loyal, and they naively assumed that his loyalty was to *them*.  This same
assumption led them to name him as Secret Keeper, and we all know the
consequence of that.  Just as ambition is not always evil, neither is loyalty
always good.

Later in her post, Barb said of Pettigrew:
> Bravery, on the other hand...He may seem like a craven coward so far, but I
> think we've already seen one instance of rather gruesome bravery that >
contradicts the idea of cowardly Peter: his cutting off
> his own hand to give Voldemort his body back.  How many people would have the
> nerve to do that?  We might not agree with his motivations (helping the 
> evilest dark wizard there is) but it took a great deal of bravery
nonetheless.  > I also believe it took some bravery to learn to become an
Animagus in
> secret in order to accompany a werewolf.

IMO, he does these things out of loyalty (to Voldemort), not bravery. 
Voldemort accuses him of wavering, which causes him a great deal of
consternation precisely *because* his dominant trait is loyalty, and he is now
very willing to do anything necessary to redeem himself in Voldemort's eyes. 
And although Voldemort disparages him for disloyalty, it is Peter, and no one
else, who is still by Voldemort's side to bring him back to full strength. 
Voldemort calls attention to anything that could be construed as disloyalty on
Peter's part to goad him: "If you were *truly* loyal to me, Peter, you would
cut off your hand to strengthen me."  His actions could also be motivated in
part by cowardice - better to assist Voldemort than to invite his wrath.

Susan said:
> If I am not mistaken when Lupin had Harry in his
> office he said something about the next quidditch
> match.  Although he was not supposed to take sides. 
> This to me indicated that Lupin is a former Gryffindor.

I took this to indicate simply that he was rooting for Harry.

Now James' son has a little group of his own, but this time they're all
Gryffindors.  It should be pointed out that although the Sorting Hat saw enough
bravery in each of them to put them in Gryffindor, it wanted to put Harry in
Slytherin, and we have ample evidence of Hermione's intelligence and Ron's
loyalty.  So now instead of one person from each House, we have three people
whose primary trait is bravery, but each has a different - and very strong -
secondary trait.  This gives them the double advantage of strong ties from
being in the same House, and each being brave enough to do what must be done. 
Whether this combination will ultimately be more or less effective than the
previous generation remains to be seen.

Sherry


=====
"The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers."

      -Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"

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