The missing chapter

[Pat]

No: HPFGUIDX 105020

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pandrea100" <pandrea100 at h...> 
wrote:
> <gopotter2004 at y...> wrote:
> > One story that was vaguely mentioned that I can see being highly
> > important is that of a clash that leads to Salazar Slytherin leaving
> > hogwarts and making it never the same again... the sorting hat says
> > about this much and then goes on with the song in OotP... 
> 
> That's a very good point.  I did think that it was a little unusual 
> that the hat suddenly launched into this song, perhaps she was 
> setting up this 6th book knowing that she'd put the full story there. 
> And with the increasing importance of the theme of prejudice - 
> mudblood, halfblood, pureblood - the second half of the song about 
> how the school must unite and the Hat worries that it is making 
> things worse, could now take on greater importance.  After all, that 
> whole chapter was titled The Sorting Hat's New Song, which makes it 
> seem significant, but it didn't really prove to be in OotP.


You make a good point about the significance of the song being 
explained in HBP.  I kept waiting for more on that on OotP, but it 
really wasn't there, except that it did become obvious that the 
discord among the houses was not helping.  The founding of 
Dumbledore's Army was sort of the beginning of the unity that the 
Sorting Hat talks about, but there were no Slytherins in the group.  
And at the end of the book, we only see that the Slyths are still 
very against Harry--when they try to attack him on the train.  Of 
course, that doesn't mean that they all are.

It will be interesting to see if there is yet another new Sorting 
Hat song in the next book, that possibly elaborates on this one.  At 
any rate, I'm sure that the warnings the Hat gave will be crucial in 
the next book.

~eeyore (aka hollylawrence)