[HPforGrownups] Re: When will the ministry start kicking butt and taking names?

[Kathy King]

No: HPFGUIDX 146859

Miles:
If you re-read Slughorn with an eye towards someone who'd not really
decided which side to play on, you get a much different picture.
Being at Hogwarts can easily be read as a move on his part to gain
information for the other side. Or to keep an eye on Severus. Not
everyone who is at Hogwarts is a good guy and I think Slughorn has
lots to answer for. But he's not an interesting character at all,
just something that crawled out from under a rock. His release of
the horcrux memory was an extremely calculated thing, not a triumph
for Harry.


Snow:



Interestingly enough one of the first hesitations Slughorn had with becoming
a teacher at the school was the fact that he didn't want to be seen as a
member of the Order:



"Still…the prudent wizard keeps his head down in such times. All very well
for Dumbledore to talk, but taking up a post a Hogwarts just now would be
tantamount to declaring my public allegiance to the Order of the Phoenix!…"
HBP pg. 72



Does this mean that all the teachers at Hogwarts are indeed Order members or
are they seen as such (birds of a feather flock together)? I wandered about
this from the first time I read it.



Slughorn is, undoubtedly a ministry official type of guy, so why would he
have been introduced but to give us information about Voldemort(?)…I think
he may have given us a whole lot more; like Lily being one of his all time
favorites despite the fact she was muggleborn.



I wouldn't discard Slughorn so quickly if I were you he is very giving of
information.



Snow


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