CHAPDISC: DH32, The Elder Wand

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184758

> Potioncat:
> OK, I know we've discussed this before¡K"like the rest of the
Slytherins." You know, there just aren't that many of them, because we
know at least 3 didn't show up. I can take this to mean, "like the
rest of the anticipated Slytherin DEs" and not just a blanket "the
whole house/6th and 7th years." So, who thinks Theo and Blaise are in
the DE camp as this conversation is going on? Do we believe (based on
this bit of conversation) that most of the 7th and 6th years reported
to LV? JKR tells us there are Slytherins with Slughorn, but she must
mean Slytherin old boys and old girls.
>
Carol responds:

I don't know what just happened, but my previous response came back
with a bunch of stuff I thought I had cut and without my response to
this question. I had a whole bunch of stuff about Theo Nott (and a bit
acout Blaise Zabini) that I'm too tired to attempt to recreate.

I'll just say that this onnversation occurs before Snape's death and
before Harry's little excursion to King's Cross, so it certainly
occurred before Slughorn's return, with or without Slytherins in tow. 

At any rate, Voldemort is a liar, and he was also in the Shrieking
Shack, not taking part in the battle. I think he only knew that Draco
wasn't in the battle from using Legilimency on Lucius. I do think
you're right, though, that "the rest of the Slytherins" doesn't refer
to all of Slytherin House, little kids and all, or even to older
Slytherins like Pansy Parkinson who aren't Death Eaters and (unlike
Phineas Nigellus, who says that Slytherins are brave but not stupid)
seem to care primarily for their own skins. I think he meant,
specifically, Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle--ironically, "the rest of the
Slytherins" to whom he seems to be referring didn't show up either.

We have only two Slytherins in DH who seem to be gung ho about Death
Eating, the dumb and deluded Goyle and the dumb and evil Crabbe.
They're the only two whom Neville reports as using the Cruciatus Curse
on other students.

Theo Nott, the intelligent loner, may have a Death Eater father, but
that father is an older man (fifty? sixty?) injured at the MoM and
abandoned by his fellow DEs. Whether he's dead, ill, injured, or still
in Azkaban, we don't know, but there's no mention of him taking part
in either the Seven Potters chase or the Battle of Hogwarts. Blaise
Zabini, though he's an arrogant Pure-blood supremacist, expressed
disdain for Death Eaters in HBP. Neither of them was a member of
Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad in OoP. Neither of them is mentioned as
casting Crucios in DH. We don't see them returning with Slughorn
(though Harry is in a hurry and the narrator gives no clear idea of
which students are following Slughorn. I see no point, BTW, in their
being "old boys and girls" of no interest to the reader; the only
slytherins we're interested in, if any, are the ones we've met.) But
we don't see them, or any other schoolage Slytherins, fighting for
Voldemort.

IOW, I think that Voldemort was just bullying and taunting and
humiliating Lucius, knowing full well that the wandless Lucius wants
only to get into Hogwarts and find his son. 

And, as I said in my lost post (may it give Yahoo!mort indigestion!),
I choose to believe that at least some of the of-age Slytherins who
weren't members of the Inquisitorial Squad, in particular Theo and
Blaise and Daphne Greengrass but perhaps some older sixth-years as
well, returned with Slughorn. I'll believe it until JKR informs me
otherwise.

Carol, whose path was crossed today by a gray-and-black cat--hope that
means only semi-bad or neutral luck! ;-)

Carol, apologizing to the List Elves for the mangled post and
wondering why the part that got cut was the part I wanted to keep!