[HPforGrownups] The Houses Mystery

[Olivia]

No: HPFGUIDX 44414

Chris said:
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Ive often been puzzled by the contradiction between Hagrids assertion that
all the dark wizards came from Sythenian house and the existence of Peter
Pettigrew, who was a close friend of James Potter and a dark wizard,
betraying them.  If he was, as is genially assumed, in Gryfindor, then he
should not have been a dark wizard, and if he was in Sythenian, why would he
and James be friends?  Harry and Co. appear to have no close friends from
any of the other houses. I think I have solved that problem.
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Actually, it's Slytherin, not Sythenian. Named after Salazar Slytherin. Just
think of how a snake slithers. :) Unless you're reading translated versions
of the books and that's how it's written, in which case, I apologize.

The point has been made before that not all Slytherins are bad. And not all
Gryffindors are good. A Slytherin is someone who is ambitious and wants
power and will do anything to achieve that power. Yes, that sounds bad, but
it's very possible to be ambitious without calling yourself a Dark Lord and
killing off innocent people.

Just look at Harry. Harry is clearly good, the chances of him going over to
the "bad side" are slim to none, but he was still almost put into Slytherin
by the Sorting Hat because he IS very ambitious and he does have a lot of
power. But he's also courageous and does the right thing by nature, yet
still the Sorting Hat put him in Gryffindor only after Harry begged.

As far as Peter is concerned, I believe he was a Gryffindor along with the
Marauders: James, Sirius, and Remus. And I go along with those who thing
Snape was the fifth roommate and part of his bitterness stems from being
left out of their clique. Peter may be slimy and sneaky and a horrible
little rat, but I don't consider him Slytherin material. He seems more than
happy being Voldemort's servant. He hasn't shown any ambition in
overthrowing Voldemort in anyway or doing anything to become more powerful.

Chris said:
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Snape, who was in Sythenian, showed no loyalty to Voldemort and betrayed him
to Dumbledore.  Lucis Malfloy did not search for Voldemort either.
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Actually, I'm 99% sure we don't have any canon proof that Snape was in
Slytherin house while he was at Hogwarts as a student. It seems like the
obvious because it was said that he hung out with a gang of Slytherins and
he is now the Slytherin Head of House, but, like I said, I believe Snape was
a Gryffindor and that Rowling is saving this as a shocking revelation for
later on.

You can say that Snape showed no loyalty to Voldemort and ultimately
betrayed him, but on the other side of that coin, he also showed tremendous
bravery and he ended up doing the right thing. After all, Dumbledore said
that Snape became a spy at (I don't remember the exact quote) "great
personal risk to [Snape]." To me that screams Gryffindor. Or if you want to
be go even farther, maybe Snape was a Hufflepuff. :) But maybe that's
pushing it.

Chris said:
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Therefore, I think that only the boss dark wizards have to be in Sythenian,
such as Tom Riddle, and they corrupt the other houses, using their traits to
ensnare them.
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Again, I gotta say, not all Slytherins are dark wizards. Yeah, Ron said so,
but that's hardly an accurate statistic. With all the Slytherins who have
come through Hogwarts, it would be a pretty large army of dark wizards with
a bunch of new soldiers each year.

Olivia