Why did the founders retain Slytherin's house?

[luna_loco]

No: HPFGUIDX 117810


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <bob.oliver at c...> wrote:
> 
> 
> Lets delve a little into that ever-popular topic, Slytherin House.  
> We know that Salazar departed in a huff when the other founders 
> didn't agree with his pureblood policies.  Why then, did the other 
> founders allow his House to remain part of Hogwarts.  Here are a few 
> possible reasons.  They aren't necessarily exclusive, so a 
> combination of several of them is possible:
> 
<SNIP>

I believe that the primary reason the remaining founders kept the
Slytherin house was a combination of political and practical
convienence.  Consider the immediate issues of closing the house once
Salazar left:

I)   What to do if Salazar returned? The possibility for a
reconciliation must have existed for at least a short time after
Salazar left.  Closing or removing his house would make for a lot of
hard feelings if Salazar came back.

II)  What to do with the students in the Slytherin house?  After
Salazar's students had been in a seperate house for several years, it
would seem unfair to just scatter them among the remaining houses.

III) How do you reprogram the Sorting Hat?  The Hat's songs imply, if
not prove, that it was created before Salazar left.  Could the
remaining founder's retrain the hat to only sort into three houses
instead of four?

When you consider these issues from the founder's prespective versus
some future events that they would have no knowledge of, it seems
quite reasonable that they kept the Slytherin house around.

Allen