Of Sorting and Snape

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 175812

> Jen: That's not the point, that Kreacher is somehow Slytherin.  
It's 
> that he's healing and preserving the memory of the Black family 
since 
> they can't.  Without the piece about Kreacher telling the story of 
> Regulus and how he wasn't able to fulfill his master's dying 
request, 
> kindness from Harry might have helped Kreacher's disposition but 
the 
> secret of Kreacher's failure and Regulus's last act remained 
hidden.  
> What was important was that the kindness involved helping Kreacher 
> give meaning to Regulus's death, not the kindness itself.

Magpie:
I still don't see what that has to do with the metaphor that's being 
put forward, that Grimmauld Place being cozy while the Trio lives 
there shows the beauty of the Slytherin nature. Yeah, it's great that 
Kreacher got to tell his secret and that we found out Regulus did 
something brave. I'm still not seeing the transformation of the house 
reflected in Slytherin or Slytherins. The Blacks don't even resolve 
their family issues since they're all dead. (Harry watched the 
Crouches disintegrate as well.) We know Mrs. Black was wrong for 
zapping people off her tree--Harry already knew that.

> Magpie:
> > And of course, avoiding anything where Harry has to seriously 
> > reconsider his own behavior or ideas in the ways people have 
> > described--that goes without saying. Even if this is some clue 
that 
> > Harry's treating his Slytherin enemies with kindness and respect 
> > would turn them into fluffy bunnies, he still never has to do 
that.
> > He just has to treat the talking pet better and makes a servant 
for
> > life. 
> 
> Jen: He did realize from Regulus's example that he was wrong about 
> Sirius, that Sirius had paid for not treating Kreacher as a being 
> with feelings.  Regulus's empathy toward Kreacher was not in name 
> only: he chose to drink the deadly potion instead of making 
Kreacher 
> do it and went to his watery grave, protecting the family he loved 
by 
> ordering Kreacher not to tell.

Magpie:
He accepted Sirius' behavior towards Kreacher was a mistake that 
contributed to Sirius' death, but Harry is not Sirius. He also 
accepted that Regulus loved Kreacher. I still don't see that big of a 
challenge for Harry here, or how this shows the good side of the 
Slytherin nature beyond that they are capable of loving people, which 
is what we see with many of them. Is that what the metaphor is 
supposed to be showing? That if you're somebody a Slytherin loves 
they...well, thing won't necessarily be very cozy at all, actually, 
given the examples we see.


Pippin:
What I meant is that when the House is restored to what its Slytherin
founders intended it to be, it's not creepy, gloomy and full of 
traps. It's
warm, gracious and welcoming. 

Magpie:
Gloomy and creepy was more a factor of nobody living there for years. 
Malfoy Manor is not gloomy or creepy--that doesn't make it gracious 
or welcoming to outsiders. And who says Slytherin founders didn't 
intend it to be full of traps? The Slytherins put the traps there--
just as Slytherin himself put a big snake in Slytherin house as a 
trap to kill Muggle-borns. The idea that we're not seeing the real 
Slytherin because it's been perverted by something and that it was 
really supposed to be warm, gracious and welcoming in general is a 
theory that did not pan out. Slytherin has always been unwelcoming to 
the wrong people. 

Pippin:
Sirius's ancestors had not designed their
house to look like a place where Dark Wizards live (which is the way
it appeared to Sirius and Harry.) Harry no longer see the house as an
enemy, which prefigures his change in attitude towards Snape and
Slytherin House.

Magpie:
The place was full of Dark artefacts. Malfoy Manor doesn't look like 
a place where dark wizards live, it is a place where they live. 
Harry's attitude towards Slytherin barely changes at all.--for good 
reason. He notes that some of them can be brave and that's something 
he respects. Snape turned out to be working for him all along and in 
love with his mother and Harry accepted that. He accepted that 
Slytherins were not always totally bad, but that doesn't say much. In 
case it's not obvious, no I do not see Harry's line to his son as 
indicating some huge change in his attitude towards Slytherin, and 
have found explanations of how it's now more integrated completely 
unconvincing. Slytherin's under control at the end of the story, but 
still has the reputation for being the house of Dark Wizards that 
it's earned. Slytherins and Slytherin did not transform like the 
Black House under Kreacher's renewed cleaning and it was never 
intended to be warm, gracious or inviting to Mudbloods. Not one of 
them rises to even the level of someone you'd really want to be 
friendds with.

Pippin:
The thing is, we already know that Harry can treat people he doesn't
particularly care for with kindness and respect. He just never saw why
he should make the effort where Slytherins are concerned, very much
like Sirius was kind to House Elves generally but didn't see why he
should make an effort with Kreacher. IMO, we do see what brings this
change about for Harry. But that's another post.

Magpie:
He saves the lives of people he doesn't care for. I don't see him 
treating them with particular kindness or respect or feeling that he 
needs to; maybe I'm forgetting what you're referring to. He never saw 
the need to where Slytherins were concerned and had no reason to 
change his mind on that. Years after Snape's death he felt it was 
fitting to name his kid after the guy for what he did, but I doubt he 
regretted not treating him with kindness and respect while he was 
alive given how Snape treated him. Snape was wrong, Harry wasn't. 
Draco was wrong, Harry wasn't. 

He saw good reason to make a change with Kreacher--Kreacher had 
something he wanted. (And Kreacher wasn't one of Harry's major hate 
objects, he was Sirius'.) Then he heard the portion of his story that 
made Kreacher worthy of respect and kindness so he gave it to him and 
was rewarded hugely for it. This didn't seem to cause any great 
introspection on Harry's part. Actually, I remember finding it 
interesting that when Harry saw the picture of Regulus and his 
Quidditch team he automatically made the connection between them 
because they were Seekers (as opposed to connecting him with 
Slytherin seekers)--I thought that was unsurprising since we already 
knew Regulus was going to turn out to have done something anti-
Voldemort.

-m