What indicates to me that Slughorn is related to Harry

[lady.indigo at gmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 138935

> 
> Hermionegallo:
> >-- To close, (for the time being): Slughorn being Lily's grandfather
> >is far more palatable than him being a dirty old man.
> 
PJ:
> Might I suggest a possible third option?
> 
> Slughorn is a renowned collector of the talented, famous and influential. 
> He's attempted to get Harry into his inner circle since their ride on the 
> Hogwarts Express but Harry has refused the bait over and over again. How 
> better to win over an orphaned child than to heap lavish praise on one of 
> his parents and then compare Harry to this incredibly wonderful, charming, 
> 
> brilliant person?
> 
> I believe this would be in character for a Slytherin since the surest way 
> to 
> their heart is first and foremost by way of their ego :)
> 


Agreed on the grandfather thing - not possible, never even occured to me, 
completely destroys the Voldemort-Snape-and-Harry-are-all-halfblood parallel 
- but as probably the only person who'll call Slughorn her favorite 
character at the moment I just want to point out that he was still singing 
Lily's praises while he was drunk and emotionally feeling the weight of 
everything that happened with Voldemort. Unless the entire scene was a ruse 
(as some people believe it to be, but I think they're wrong), there was 
definitely some genuine admiration there for Lily, and it was for qualities 
that a sober Slughorn might not have necessarily found 'bankable', things 
like wit and (most importantly) bravery. He did love Lily, in his way.

I don't think that makes him a parental figure by blood and I don't think it 
means he checks out his own students. I do think it means he felt a kind of 
attachment nonetheless, maybe especially because that era of his many 
students grew up in a far more difficult time than the rest of them, and I 
have a feeling she's one of only a few that didn't go to the Death Eater 
side. So what a good woman she was would have built up along with the weight 
of his guilt and the fact that, perhaps, he admires things like bravery and 
genuine likeability because he doesn't really have those things himself. 
Hence she'd have weighed more on him than his other students, especially 
with her child sitting right in front of him all the time.

- Lady Indigo (who is oddly biased towards the poor guy and may well be dead 
wrong)