The Sorting Hat

[Jo Ann]

No: HPFGUIDX 95082

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "mcdee1980" 
<idrinkjameson at h...> wrote:

> The hat clearly states that the fighting ended after Slytherin 
> leaves.  We've discussed at length the possibility of people 
> switching houses to unite the school.  In theory, the hat tells us 
> exactly what has to happen.  All four founders have to return to 
> Hogwarts to lead a united school.  
> 
> How?  
> 
> Time turning? Possible, but I think this is unlikely because its 
> already been used as a major plot device.
> 
> I think the existence of Tom Riddle as the heir of Slytherin gives 
> us the likely answer.  In COS JKR gives us the clue that Harry is 
> the likely heir to Gryffindor.  Who are the heirs of Ravenclaw and 
> Hufflepuff?  I think Luna is a possible answer.  Sure she's a fun, 
> likeable character, but everything she's done in Book v could have 
> been accomplished using an already established character.  JKR 
> gives us a Ravenclaw who is accepted into the inner circle.  I 
> imagine that a similar Hufflepuff will be introduced or come into 
> the circle in Book VI.  All of this points to LV having to return 
> to Hogwarts (unless he has created his own heir already)... could 
> be interesting.


Personally, I don't think it's going to be something as formalized or 
as dramatic as an 'heir' of each Founder, or the Founders themselves 
returning.  I suspect the students as a group are going to draw 
together gradually, including at least some of the Slytherins, and 
unite the school without any such help.

Though the Heads of House may play a role...I find it interesting 
that they all seem to get along reasonably well, much better than 
their students do (even Snape and McGonagall seem to have more of a 
habitual rivalry going on than a mutual hatred.)

Something else has occurred to me with regard to the Sorting Hat's 
songs, the Founders, and the Houses.  The songs never seem to come 
right out and say "Salazar Slytherin was a horrible evil so-and-so 
who deliberately caused trouble and then took off, vowing to return 
and wipe out the muggle-born, etc."

Instead, the Sorting Hat seems to imply that Slytherin was a good 
friend of the other three Founders, he disagreed with them (note the 
Hat never says exactly *why* he favored the "purebloods," only that 
he did) and he left.  The line "And though the fighting then died 
out/He left us quite downhearted" seems to imply that the other 
Founders (and the Hat) were sorry to see him go.

So I have to wonder, was Salazar Slytherin really cut from the same 
cloth as his supposed "heir," Tom Riddle, and Lucius Malfoy?  Was he 
even the one who personally constructed the Chamber of Secrets, or 
could someone else have done that long after he was gone?  Facts have 
a way of getting mangled, and legends derived from those facts mixed 
up and confused over the years, and Hogwarts has stood for a 
millennium.  Even if Salazar did build the Chamber, it may not have 
been originally intended to house a Basilisk.

Could Salazar have gotten a bad rep because later Slytherins 
misunderstood what the fight was all about, and took his preference 
for purebloods as an excuse for bigotry?  Maybe he had wrong-headed 
but basically benevolent theories about why muggle-born wizards 
should be educated separately from "pureblood" wizards--that doesn't 
mean he coined the term 'mudblood' or thought that non-purebloods 
should be exterminated.

The main reason I wonder about this (apart from the fact that I can't 
picture Godric Gryffindor being close friends with a Riddle/Malfoy 
type) is that if the Houses are all eventually going to unite, 
*something* is going to have to cause at least some of the Slytherins 
to change their attitude.  Discovering that their own Founder would 
be horrified by the way they've warped his ideals would be one 
possible way it could happen.

J. Spencer