Sirius as Gryffindor (Was: good and bad Slytherins)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 175388


Julie wrote: 
<snip>
> Still, it's obvious that Sirius did already have a sense of
rebelliousness toward his family at age 11. We just don't know why. I
think it is more for reasons of personal affront than for an
overreaching general principle, though we are not likely to get the
answer. It is notable though that Sirius said his favorite aunt was
Andromeda, who was struck off the family  tree when she married a
Muggle-born. Sirius would have been a young child at the time, and
that also could have had personal ramifications for  him, not to
mention that Uncle Alphard was apparently a renegade from the Black
family ideology too. So Sirius was at least exposed to  opposing views
on the subject. <snip>

Carol responds:
Andromeda was Sirius's cousin, not his aunt. She's younger than
Bellatrix (born in 1951 according to the Black family tree, which
doesn't fit the canon that says she was part of the gang that little
Severus joined when he got to Hogwarts) but older than Narcissa (born
in 1951 according to the BFT and therefore the same age as Lucius
Malfoy). So Andromeda was probably born in 1953, which would make her
a seventh-year when Sirius arrived, and even if she married right out
of school, he would have been about twelve years old, not "a young
child" in the sense that I think you had in mind. It would have
happened after, not before, he entered Hogwarts. "Dora" Tonks is about
five years older than HRH, which suggests that she was born in 1975,
when Andromeda was about twenty-two. Sirius would have been fifteen at
that time. As for Uncle Alphard, he wasn't written off the family tree
until he left Sirius money when sirius was sixteen.

I see no evidence that Sirius at age eleven was at odds with his
family, whose values he would have been raised with--and he was almost
certainly educated at home. He has the same arrogant air as the rest
of the family, and he never loses it. On the Hogwarts Express, he
doesn't seem to have any preference as to Houses (except that he'd
like to be in the same House as James). The decoration of his room and
the adolescent rebellion comes *later.* He certainly did not have
Gryffindor banners or posters of bikini-clad Muggle girls or a photo
of the Marauders on his walls when he left for Hogwarts!

Sirius sees two boys, one clean and well-cared for and confident,
primed to be in a House he (James) associates with courage, the other
greasy-haired and sallow-complexioned, wanting to be in Slytherin,
which he associates with brains. Perhaps Sirius, whose parents are
Dark wizards who keep jars of blood and poisons and serpent-shaped
artifacts lying around, has a slightly better idea than Severus what
Slytherin can teach, but I see no evidence that he has rejected it,
only surprise that James doesn't think it's "all right." And then he
says jauntily that *maybe* he'll break tradition. Had he not met
James, the only thing that might have put him in Gryffindor (to this
own surprise) would be that reckless streak which matches so well with
James's mischievousness.

At this time, Slytherin was not the House of Death Eaters and the HoH
was the blustering and greedy but innocuous Horace Slughorn, who would
have happily "collected" Sirius.

Carol, not attacking Sirius, just stating that his choice to be in
Gryffindor (if it *was* a choice) and his contempt for the equally
young Severus had nothing to do with principle and everything to do
with personality and choice of friends