Hogwarts Houses: Unite! (was:Re: The Power of Harry ...)

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 163704

> >>Jen:
> <snip>
> That's how I read it anyway, that Riddle isolated Slytherin even   
> more by recruiting his first followers from his own house and      
> making it more likely the next generations would follow the same    
> path.  So by the time the Marauder/Snape generation arrived the    
> house situation had grown extremely divisive, esp. between         
> Gryffindors and Slytherins.

Betsy Hp:
Absolutely.  I totally agree with this.  In a sense Harry will be the 
anti-Riddle, uniting what Voldemort has so deeply divided.

> >>Jen:
> Plus there's that whole juicy tidbit about people being condemed to 
> repeat history, first when the DA formed and then with Draco        
> helping the DE's into Hogwarts.  In the first case the Slytherins   
> were excluded by the choice of both sides (my guess), another      
> battle in the ongoing war between the houses, and Slytherins chose 
> to retaliate by joining Umbridge and working against the rest of    
> the students. I'm expecting something similar happened to Salazar   
> Slytherin, that the other three Founders begin to exclude him long 
> before he was actually thrown out and he started to retaliate.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Hmm, I'm pretty pro-Slytherin so I tend to look at Salazar a bit more 
favorably.  Plus, the Hat sings that the Founders all turned on each 
other and "divided sought to rule".  Which suggests that Salazar 
wasn't the only Founder with an issue.  So I've always seen him in 
the role of sin-eater: taking the problem into himself and carrying 
it away with him when he left.  Until that point I don't think it was 
three on one, more one on one on one on one.  (Yeah, I had to count 
the ones. <g>)

But I think because Salazar left, his House foundered and weakened 
and became easy prey for someone like Tom Riddle.  And young Tom took 
all that was darkest about Slytherin and used it to his own 
destructive purposes.  I mean, isn't it ironic that an outsider half-
blood becomes the encouragment for pure-blood fanatics to unleash 
their xenophobic violence?  To me it shows that it's not about the 
objective, it's about the chaos.  If Helga had been the one to leave 
Hogwarts, the Death Eaters would be all over nonconformists for 
example. 

> >>Jen:
> So I'm thinking JKR will take the house unity storyline back to the 
> history of the Founders and then bring it forward to the current 
> generation to learn how to stop the cycle.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
That's what I'm hoping!  The history of the Founders is too 
intriguing to just drop, IMO.

> >>Jen:  I'm liking Neville here, especially if Luna is the          
> Ravenclaw since she's a little, um, strange to work with and       
> Neville understands her better than most if the end of HBP was any 
> indication.  But what about your favorite character, Ginny? Hehe,   
> you didn't mention her.  Gack, I sincerely hope not though it's    
> really unlikely she's letting Harry go on the quest without her if 
> Hermione and Ron get to go and *especially* if a whole crowd of    
> kids are involved.

Betsy Hp:
On the one hand: ick, Ginny. <g>  But on the other hand, it'd be a 
nice opportunity to expand her character, let us get to know the real 
Ginny.  However, it could possibly mean cutting out Neville.  If push 
came to shove I'd rather Neville front and center.  (Not that it's 
really my choice, of course. <g> 

> >>Jen: Luna's easier to work with from a conflict perspective, but 
> not in many other ways!  Cho and Marietta are gone from the story   
> imo, maybe one or two references.  Luna's proven she can offer      
> something the Trio--with their Heart, Mind and Soul--lack, meaning 
> the power of Intuition.

Betsy Hp:
Honestly, the only reason I thought of either Cho or Marietta was 
because of how Hermione left off with them.  I feel like there's 
something else to be done there (at least if JKR expects me to see 
Hermione as a decent humanbeing).  However, Luna could very well 
raise the issue herself.  And by being a total outsider with it (not 
the girl scarred, nor her best-friend) she might be unemotional 
enough to actually reach Hermione.  And in the end, much like Neville 
and the Gryffindors, I'd rather see more of Luna than any of the 
other Ravenclaws.

> >>Jen:
> You were talking about all this in terms of the Horcrux hunt--maybe 
> what will happen is when it comes to the actual locating of a      
> Horcrux for each house, one person will represent that part of the 
> quest, like soliciting Zacharias Smith specifically during the     
> seach for the Hufflepuff cup?  I'm not sure if that would work      
> since Harry and Co. know where the Slytherin locket is, not Draco.

> >>Magpie:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163698
> <big snip>
> I thought it might be possible that the reason no one could open the
> locket wasn't only due to its being a Horcrux but instead had
> something to do with Regulus charming the locket to only recognize a
> Black--perhaps a Pureblood Black. Regulus had subscribed to the
> Pureblood ideology and the idea that Black made you royalty, so it
> wouldn't be impossible for him to use it somehow even after he'd
> rejected Voldemort.
> <big snip>

Betsy Hp:
Combining these two ideas together (because I love both of them <g>), 
perhaps Zach and Draco and Luna(?) and Neville(?) will be needed to 
safely *destroy* the horcruxes.  Perhaps being somehow associated 
with the objects would help them recognize each object's weak spot.  
Just as Harry was able to easily figure out how to destroy the diary 
horcrux.

I've also had a theory that Draco might be a helpful source of 
information when it comes to finding the horcruxes.  He seems to 
eavesdrop on a lot of his father's conversations, so he may have 
heard something that will make sense in hindsight.  (Though I also 
like the idea of a mysterious Dumbledore-esque Patronus (phoenix, 
bumblebee) delivering horcrux locations to Harry. Hmm, just who is 
this mysterious helper? <bg>) 

> >>Jen:
> The prospect *does* makes the Horcrux hunt sound more exciting,    
> however it works out.

Betsy Hp:
Doesn't it though?  Much more meaningful, IMO.  (Which means I really 
hope this theory is correct, at least in general.)

Betsy Hp (moved some of Jen's text around to make my responses flow a 
bit better -- because it's all about me <g>)