Slughorn "clearly good"?

[Wood, Susan]

No: HPFGUIDX 137754

Prep0strus wrote:

"And I always think of Slugworth as well... Slughorn really is a gross 
name. It just doesn't seem slick enough a name for a networking 
Slytherin.  But, then, he's not very slick really.  I think 
Dumbledore's affection for him is strange.  He's clearly a 'good' 
person, who doesn't go in for actual evil.  But he's not a nice 
person, not a fair person, and not a person who stands for much that 
Dumbedore stands for - but then, neither does Snape.  When will we 
see a TRULY good slytherin."



I'm interested in your reading of Slughorn as 'clearly a 'good' person'.
I agree that he is not nice and not fair, but I don't see what evidence
there is that he is a good person. 

Who was he hiding from when DD and Harry visit him? Was it Voldemort and
the Death-eaters - or was it Dumbledore? I rather thought that he was
hiding just as much from Dumbledore as from the Death-eaters. It was
only after Harry told him that he didn't have to join the order that he
consented to return to Hogwarts. In other words, apparently he didn't
want to take sides.

Has he actively done anything to help the good side since being at
Hogwarts? On the other hand we saw that he attempted to thwart
Dumbledore by tampering with his memory.

Also does anyone else think that it is significant that Slughorn seemed
to recognise Slytherin's ring in the scene where DD and Harry visit him
at the start of the book? How and why would he know anything about that
ring, since it was supposedly hidden in the ruin of the Gaunt house for
all those years?

That makes me very suspicious of him.

OTOH, I think we will see a Slytherin (or several) standing on the good
side at the end because the sorting hat has repeatedly told us that the
houses have to stand united.  

Sue W