OOP: Sorting Hat

[J]

No: HPFGUIDX 64606

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rach" <rachrobins at h...> wrote:
SNIP:
I think it is at the end of CoS that Harry admits to Dumbledore that 
the sorting hat wanted to put him in Slytherin. Dumbledore's reply I 
think applies to Sirius also - that its our choices that matter.  

It didn't matter how much Black blood Sirius had, or that his family 
had been in Slytherin for generations (don't forget Phineas Nigellus, 
the most unpopular headmaster Hogwarts ever had) he, like Harry, 
chose to be a Gryffindor. He chose to be brave, stand up to his 
family and fight for what is right.
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REPLY:
I have read this before-- that the sorting hat wanted to put Harry in 
Slytherin.  This is NOT true.  Reread the sorting in SS and Harry's 
conversation with the hat in CoS.  

At sorting, the hat talked about Harry's qualities and then 
asked, "But where to put you?"  To which, Harry begam begging "Not 
Slytherin...." and then the hat **tempted** the inner slytherin in 
Harry by telling him he *could be great, you know* and that he *would 
do well in Slytherin* and that *Slytherin could help you on your way 
to greatness*.  Harry never waivered in his mantra of "Not 
Slytherin...".  A student meant to go into Slytherin would have been 
tempted and lured by Sorting Hat's talk of greatness; it would have 
appealed to the ambitious.  But Harry never cared for it.  He was not 
a Slytherin at all.  

It is my opinion that the sorting hat never WANTED to place him in 
Slytherin, it simply tested his proclivity to BE a slytherin.  In 
CoS, Harry asks the hat if it made a mistake and it replies: "I stand 
by what I said.  You would have done well in Slytherin."  Which tells 
us not much at all.  I think it says that it stands by the decision 
it made (to put him in Gryffindor) and that **IF** Harry had waivered 
upon the lure of 'greatness, then he would indeed have done quite 
well in Slytherin.  

Does the hat use a 'Legilimens'-like technique to do the sorting??

Arya