The Dark Side/Sirius' house

[psychic_serpent]

No: HPFGUIDX 58140

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "addictedtobass2003" 
<katie.jarvis1 at n...> wrote:
> This has probably been brought up before, so sorry, but it has 
been 
> playing on my mind for ages now.
> 
> In PS/SS whilst in Diagon Alley, Hagrid says:
> 
> "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in 
> Slytherin."
> 
> (PS UK paperback p62)
> 
> What about Sirius?  He was believed to be a supporter of Voldemort 
> for over a decade, the one who betrayed the Potters infact.  
Surely 
> Hagrid couldn't have forgot him?  After all, he was so upset at 
the 
> fact that he comforted Sirius the night he "murdered" the 
Potters.  
> Hagrid didn't believe Sirius was innocent, no one did, so that 
isn't 
> a possibilty.  Was Sirius in Slytherin? I always imagined him to 
be 
> a Gryffindor. as he was so close with James, and we have not 
> encountered any strong inter-house friendships.  Very misleading.
> 
> Just wondered what people's views on this topic were
 
We've gone through this very thing many times, and many folks are of 
the opinion that 

a) You can't put that much stock in what Hagrid says because of his 
bad experience with Tom Riddle when he was in school (Hagrid was 
expelled both because Riddle really caused Myrtle's death and 
because he set up Hagrid to take the fall for him).

b) Hagrid probably spoke hastily and isn't likely to backtrack and 
qualify his remark by saying, "Oh, except for that no-good traitor 
who's responsible for your parents' deaths," since that would unduly 
distress Harry and open up a can of worms JKR didn't want opened up 
until PoA.

c) All bad wizards couldn't have been in Slytherin, as it would have 
been a pretty simple case of just watching all former Slytherins all 
the time to work out where and when dastardly deeds would be 
occurring.  They'd be outnumbered in the wizarding world by about 
3:1.  

Another reason why Sirius was probably not in Slytherin: too 
obvious.  No one saw the betrayal coming for a good reason.  If 
James, for very mysterious reasons, had had a best friend in 
Slytherin, afterward everyone would have been saying things 
like, "What could he expect?  He should never have trusted a 
Slytherin..."  This is not the sort of thing we hear about at the 
Three Broomsticks.  Because of this and other things that the trio 
overhear at the pub, I think that it is highly unlikely that Sirius 
was in any house other than Gryffindor.  

So what purpose did Hagrid's statement serve, other than to confuse?

I think that the real purpose of Hagrid's statement was probably to 
give Harry such a strong negative opinion of Slytherin without his 
having any other experience of it other than Malfoy voicing a desire 
to be in that house that when Harry is wearing the Sorting Hat he is 
desperate to be anywhere else.  If Hagrid had hedged or admitted 
that his statement was an exaggeration, it wouldn't have had the 
same effect.  This way, it's easier to understand Harry's aversion 
to Slytherin.

However, I'm not completely certain that Hagrid's statement, given 
it's hyperbolic aspect, is in fact 'canon' for Riddle being in 
Slytherin, as was recently suggested.  Instead, it seems that 
everything good that Riddle says about Slytherin when he is in the 
Chamber strongly implies that that is the house he is in.  
Everything he did would lose all sense and logic if he'd been Sorted 
into a house other than Slytherin.  Added to this is the fact that 
we have no proof in canon that Hagrid actually knows that Riddle and 
Voldemort are the same person.  He's very nervous about saying the 
name "Voldemort" and claims not to be able to spell it.  He could 
have mentioned that he'd gone to school with him and that he used to 
be called Tom Riddle, but Hagrid didn't do that.  While it might 
have constituted a spoiler for CoS for Hagrid to use his exact name, 
he COULD have said that he'd been to school with him, or something 
equally vague, but he did not.  So while we have a very, very strong 
implication of Riddle having been a Slytherin based on things he 
says about his ancestor when he's in the Chamber, I wouldn't call 
Hagrid's highly-suspect statement "canon proof."   

--Barb

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