The Order of the Phoenix Re-Read: Chapter 11

[slowfox]

And suddenly, in the midst of Harry fretting about him being able to see the Thestrals when nobody else can, Neville rematerialises with the Trio (plus Ginny). He can't have been with them earlier, since otherwise surely he'd have volunteered the information that he could see the things too.

Then we have the Sorting Hat's new song. Now, if I remember correctly, the Sorting Hat's the culmination of all four Founders' brains, so when it sings

...For instance, Slytherin
Took only pure-blood wizards
Of great cunning...

it seems to imply that only pure-bloods are ever sorted into Slytherin. A half-blood wouldn't, shouldn't stand a chance, no? Or was the half-blood Prince not sorted into Slytherin?

Of course, we all know that Hufflepuff taking 'the rest', and being one who 'taught them all she knew' is absolutely not a euphemism... although I remember a fic-writer once commenting that you never hear of students complaining that they'd been sorted into Hufflepuff, so there have to be some compensations, right? :p

I do like Ron's commentary (aside from JKR's ubiquitous 'said' tag):

"Branched out a bit this year, hasn't it?" said Ron, his eyebrows raised.

You can see why JKR engineered things to make sure Harry was present for as few Sortings as possible: writing new songs for the Sorting Hat wouldn't be something I'd look forward to, for sure.

We have Umbridge's stultifyingly dull 'welcome' speech, and then we have Harry's altercation with Seamus, which leads to Neville and Ron firmly declaring their allegiance to the Boy Who Lived, Dean trying to keep out of it, and Seamus most definitely signing for the sceptics' camp.

There's also, of course, reference to the other students' suspicious glances at Harry, so it is definitely starting to feel like Hogwarts might not be the welcoming home he was expecting it would be.

Comments

[aome]

It's clearly NOT true that Slytherin only takes pure-bloods, given that Voldemort and Snape were in there. (I think we can assume that a Head of House was once in that House, him/herself.) However, it might be that Slytherin took the ones he thought were pure-blood, but might not necessarily have been so. And while the Sorting Hat does seem to be a culmination of the Founders' thoughts, it also has the ability to make those decisions on its own - witness how Hermione almost ended up in Ravenclaw, and Harry in Slytherin. So there might be some sort of weighted system, where, say, being cunning might outweigh being pureblood, especially since Slytherin is not there to put his foot down one way or the other.

I do feel bad about Harry being treated like some sort of crazy freak by most of the school. Talk about isolating - and even worse when it's at the one of the few places he has ever felt at home.

[slowfox]

I do feel bad about Harry being treated like some sort of crazy freak by most of the school. Talk about isolating - and even worse when it's at the one of the few places he has ever felt at home.

Absolutely! I think the whole whispering campaign against Harry was well done - and there were warnings of this in Chamber of Secrets.