Slytherins come back WAS: Re: My Most Annoying Character

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 180228


> > zgirnius:
> > Harry never expressed an opinion as to whether any Slytherins 
> > returned with Sluggie or not. 
> 
> Magpie:
> Harry's not expressing any opinion in this sentence (though if 
> you're referring to that one sentence I don't see why Harry's 
> opinion wouldn't be that it looked like shopkeepers, Charlie, 
> Slughorn and friends/family of non-Slytherin students were there, 
> period). The narrator is telling us, using the usual limited pov, 
> what's going on. And all I'm saying is that when I read the scene I 
> read the way I always do, which is to read the words that are there.

Pippin:
JKR is being ambiguous about the status of the houses. It's not clear
till we get to the epilogue that there still *is* a Sorting Hat or
that the house system will be preserved. Then we have to go back,
re-read, and realize that text never said the Sorting Hat was
destroyed, just like it never said there were only non-Slytherins with
Slughorn. 

The Slytherins with Sluggie are important in the first place only if
you think all the Slytherins leaving proved they were no good. But no
one ever said that either.

Voldemort claimed the rest of the Slytherins joined him which turned
out to be a lie because Crabbe and Goyle did not.  But the text never
points that out, we have to deduce it. We're being asked to use our
heads here, not believe only what a stressed and distracted Harry has
observed.

Albus is worried about being sorted into Slytherin because his brother
has been making him think Slytherins have cooties and because it may 
still be the preferred house of kids whose parents would name them
Scorpius. Harry can counter the second worry by invoking Snape. But he
can't prove there's no such thing as cooties.  Albus will  have to
find that out for himself.

Pippin