Nineteen years later

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191591



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Eric Oppen <technomad at ...> wrote:
>
> I've had a theory for a long time that house-elves' bond to their  
> masters/mistresses is more like a familial bond than anything else.   

Pippin:
Trouble is, slavery-as-we-know-it is sometimes more like that than we like to think. Rescuing people from slavery is the easy part, seeing  them  fail to thrive in freedom is heartbreaking. There's no easy answer if people are that damaged. 

> 
> > Snape's dead.
> >
> >  Harry won't let anyone say that Slytherin isn't a legitimate   
> > choice, but he thoroughly sympathizes with  Al's fervent desire not   
> > to be one.
> 
> *mega-sigh*
> 
> Think about it for a few minutes.  Slytherin's going to have a lot of  
> kids in it whose parents were on the wrong side of the war, whether  
> out of loyalty, fear of change in the WW, or fear of the consequences  
> if they didn't side with their kin.  Now imagine being the son of the  
> guy who won eternal renown by defeating their Great Hope.  Not a  
> pleasant existence, I don't think.

Pippin:

And  all those kids are in Slytherin?  

*mega-sigh*

Think about this: Harry had a lot of enemies at the Ministry of Magic too, you know, not to mention the Daily Prophet. There's probably a lot of kids who've heard dinner table conversations that start out, "I'm not saying You Know Who was right, but--"

And I'd imagine there's  Slytherins  who believe that their families were on Harry's side in the war, whether they really were or not. I don't suppose it was any easier to sort out who was genuinely under the Imperius curse, who was a sympathizer who was never caught, who was  really changed sides, and who's been convicted in error, than it was last time.

It's going to be a complicated existence, whatever.

Pippin