The Elder Wand / the Elder Wand / Dean Thomas / Snape

[pippin_999]

> Pippin wrote in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5044>:
> 
> << We know of at least four descendants of DE's at Hogwarts: Malfoy,
> Crabbe, Goyle and Nott, with Dean Thomas a quasi-canonical fifth. >>

Catlady:
> Is there new canon on Dean Thomas's missing late father?

Pippin:
I think I got confused between Dean Thomas story having Death Eaters
in it somewhere and JKR saying there were Death Eater kids in the other
Houses. Sorry about that.


> << There were no Reguluses or Snapes in Generation H because (duh)
> Regulus and Snape didn't get a chance to produce them. >>

Catlady: 
> Even in the Potterverse, I hate to think that a person has to always
> make the same choices as his/her parents.

Pippin:
I was thinking of leadership abilities, not choices. To declare for Harry,
 a Slytherin would have to be persuaded not only to fight but to fight
in a very non-Slytherin way. The Slytherin way is  concealing one's
purpose, waiting for the right moment and striking from the shadows--
this is of course precisely the strategy which Dumbledore led Harry to adopt
in DH. As Harry discovered, it takes as much nerve to fight in this
fashion as it does to rush the enemy head on. Can we really assume
that the Slytherins who left were all cowards or opportunists?

But just as it took a skilled leader to persuade Harry to fight in 
Slytherin fashion, it would take a skilled leader to persuade a
Slytherin to *openly* take a side that wasn't winning -- to fight
Gryffindor style, as it were.

Harry showed that skill with Slughorn (in HBP) , and Slughorn came back to
fight for him. But as far as the other Slytherins, I think that Harry dropped
the ball -- if he'd followed Dumbledore's lead and told the Slytherins 
that they didn't have to go, that they'd always be welcome in the
hall, then some of them might have stayed to fight with him, and the
cause of House unity would have been furthered. 

But within Slytherin itself, there weren't any such gifted leaders, IMO,
because Regulus and Snape didn't get a chance to pass on their abilities. 

Pippin