Hogwarts, Slytherin, Harry and Harry in Slytherin:
What it is, what it isn’t, and how to write it

An Essay.​

Blame @wooha for posting this. I wrote it long ago. Anyway, Harry Birthday Harry. Here's your gift, may you only be sorted correctly henceforth.

by SeriousScribble​

Outline:

1. “Their favourites” – The sorting and the Sorting Hat
2. “Those of great ambition” – Slytherin traits
3. “The virtue of selfishness” – Houses at Hogwarts in the context of morals
4. “It’s our choices” – Harry, the ideal-typical Gryffindor
5. “You could be great” – A different Harry for Slytherin

1. “Their favourites” – The sorting and the Sorting Hat

Perhaps it’s easiest to start with things the sorting is not: Arbitrary, guesswork, the student’s choice or an attempt to “put” a student in their “best matching house”.

The clearest indication as to what the sorting is supposed to achieve comes from the GoF Sorting Hat song. As it notes:

Now each of these four founders
Formed their own house, for each
Did value different virtues
In the ones they had to teach.

While still alive they did divide
Their favourites from the throng,
Yet how to pick the worthy ones
When they were dead and gone?
'Twas Gryffindor who found the way,
He whipped me off his head
The founders put some brains in me
So I could choose instead!

Originally, it was not a “putting”, but the precise inverse, a “picking”. A draft pick, if you will: The students arrive and the founders take their pick, each trying to get the most promising ones; and it leads to little conflict, as they simply disagree as to what “the most promising” means: It’s judged relative to their own idea of what a “worthy” student is.

Those ideas, the “different virtues” were radically different, as per the OotP song (see next section), and the whole House system was the solution to fit all those different ideas of “worthy” students into one school: Everyone picked the one they liked, and so, peace was restored:

These differences caused little strife
When first they came to light,
For each of the four founders had
A House in which they might
Take only those they wanted.

Consequently, the Hat now picks in the Founders’ image: It looks into the students’ heads to figure out their character and potential, and then picks the student the Founder would have picked. The sorting is still not done for the sake of the student (“putting” someone in Slytherin). It’s done for the sake of the House (Slytherin “picks” a new student considered worthy to be there).

This difference is all the difference in the world.

It’s that, because it clears up the confusion of “no one is a perfect Slytherin at eleven”, “missortings” and “how can the Sorting Hat possibly know …”: It doesn’t. It’s not omniscient. It can’t predict the future. But it doesn’t need to, either, since that is not its purpose: It’s a magical artefact that can look into heads and judge character and potential, and with that information, the student then is picked by one of the Houses – or, if no House wants them, by Hufflepuff, which “takes the rest”. As such, there is no “missorting” in a strict sense – an American Football player that doesn’t perform after draft isn’t “missorted”, he’s just not living up to the expectations.

And once sorted into a House, this House becomes the student’s family, as McGonnagall notes in PS, and, as in a family, they are raised with its values. Parents will have an especially keen eye on this one, since boarding school is outsourcing the raising of children: They would want the correct values instilled in them.

Hence, the students enter Hogwarts not quite as blank sheets, but still somewhat malleable, with early preferences, and a lot of potential, in a certain direction. The students most promising from the view of e.g. Slytherin are picked, and the following seven years, they are taught its values. When they graduate and are grown up, they are a full Slytherin.

Half nature, half nurture – as it always were.


2. “Those of great ambition” – Slytherin traits

At this point, it is useful to clarify what “virtue” and “valuing something” means to me. Most commonly, philosophers throughout history have allowed for a certain incongruence between beliefs and actions. One can believe being brave is morally good, and yet falter in the face of danger – the ancient Greeks invented the concept of Akrasia, the weakness of will, for instance. My belief is not that. It’s closer to Pragmatism, the way e.g. Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and later John Dewey consider it: “Belief is a habit of action”. And perhaps a dash of Existentialism, and Sartre’s deep scepticism of arguments like “deep down, I’m really …”: Choices reveal commitments.

In short: the arbiter of what a person “truly” believes in is the action they consistently perform. A person claiming to value generosity, but never giving time, money or help, even when it’s easy, should a priori not be considered as believing in generosity at all. This is also remarkably consistent with the view the Harry Potter books itself promote, with the famous quote:

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”​

… and, I personally add, far more than what values we profess to belief in.

This context is relevant, because it defines actions, stated and told, as moral concepts, rather than just the actions on their own. If Slytherin prefers pure-blooded ancestry, and values “any means to an end”, then this is more than just mere actions. It’s a codified virtue system, the way the Sorting Hat noted it, in which those actions are considered morally good.

Additionally, there is a certain mismatch in the books between traits we are shown and traits we are told embody Slytherin, even though it’s actually less than many assume, and if so, I would regard the former more telling than the latter. Specifically, however, if one is of the opinion that Slytherin is an “evil house”, it is this in both Show and Tell.

The Tell mostly stems from the Sorting Hat, and to a lesser degree to Dumbledore’s interpretation, which I consider slightly wrong. The Hat says this:

Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.

(PS)

And power-hungry Slytherin
Loved those of great ambition.

(GoF)

Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those
Whose ancestry is purest."

For instance, Slytherin
Took only pure-blood wizards
Of great cunning, just like him

(OotP)

And Dumbledore notes in CoS:

“You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his handpicked students. His own very rare gift, Parseltongue—resourcefulness—determination—a certain disregard for rules.”​

So these are the coordinates: Students with the purest ancestry – students with a lot of personal ambition – students willing to use any means at all to achieve their ambition, in particular cunning means.

The ‘true friends’ is a more interesting trait, which, for me, translates to “individual loyalty”, to be viewed quite distinctly from Hufflepuff’s universal loyalty. It separates people into in-group and out-group, and for the former, they will do anything, and for the latter, they will be the ones anything being done to.

Dumbledore, finally, is a bit wishy-washy, because his list of traits is a lot more generic.

Examining prominent Slytherin throughout the books, we actually do see a lot of the traits mentioned by the Hat, and can derive the ones we don’t see and that aren’t, from them.

Certainly, it is the case that nearly all Slytherins put value on blood and ancestry. The extent differs, and ranges from Draco’s “mudblood” ideology to Slughorn’s “She was Muggleborn but that’s okay, because she was brilliant”. The sole semi-prominent maybe-Slytherin not appearing to hold such view is Andromeda, in particular given how her daughter turned out, but then again, we know little enough about her so even she could simply have married Ted because she felt like it and consider every other Muggleborn vaguely inferior. Plus we don’t even know for sure she was in Slytherin; it’s just a reverse reasoning of Slughorn noting that of all the Blacks, Sirius, specifically, was not.

Ambition, here, means the selfish, personal kind of ambition: Not a dedication to an ideal, in the sense of, say, “making the world a better place”, but ambition to be something, to become powerful, influential, famous, or any other kind personal notability. It’s reflected in Slytherin’s own, “power-hungry” nature, it’s Tom Riddle’s desire to rule, it’s, as well, Slughorn’s network: The Quidditch Star, the high-ranking Ministry official, the wealthy entrepreneur, the famous author: All typical measures of ‘success’, and, for new members, the implied expectation that they be like them, and aspire to be like them.

Any means is often on display, and it means what it says. Flint cheats to win at Quidditch. Pansy is willing to kill Harry to save her own skin. Draco lies to get Harry & co into trouble, happily curses them into the back, and gives zero fucks about stray casualties with his HBP plan. Cheating, deceit, lies, murder, blackmail, backstabbing – nothing is off limits. Everything is justified in the name of ambition, and he who uses those means is not, in fact, reprehensible, but laudable, since this is one of Slytherins virtues, and the clever application of just the right tool from the above list to get people to act as you wish in the easiest manner, another one – being cunning.

Tying this up into a neat bundle is the value of true friends. Slytherins know loyalty. It’s on display when Bellatrix walks into Azkaban, rather than forsake her master; it’s Crabbe and Goyle’s dedication to Malfoy, it’s Snape’s pleading to save Lily, it’s Narcissa’s willingness to go against the Dark Lord himself to save her son. But as opposed to Hufflepuff loyalty, it’s individual, earned loyalty, not existing a priori; it’s a tiny, select group of family or friends, sharply separating people into in-group and out-group.

In-group, loyalty is unconditional. Your friend will be your friend, and if you kill someone, help you bury the body. Out-group is who they are facing: Those people are inconsequential, or means to be used, or adversaries to be overcome. And the only way to turn on someone is to move him from in-group to out-group, which is what Crabbe does in DH, when he moves away from Malfoy.

Reminding Slytherins of this can be helpful to convince them of an argument. This is how Harry overcomes Slughorn’s instinct of self-protection and selfishness: Lily is part of the in-group, and for her, he’s willing to risk it all, first with the memory, later duelling Voldemort. No other angle would have gotten him to act this way. Dumbledore, in turn, exploits this with Snape.

Of the traits that aren’t explicitly mentioned, but often assumed, probably the most notable are selfishness and self-protection. Selfishness can be derived from Slytherin’s idea of ambition – putting you own self-interests first is the principal means of fulfilling your ambition. Something that helps you is more useful than something that helps someone else. And if it does help someone else, then that is never in itself the motivation, but just another means: helping someone else in order to – appear helpful, acquire goodwill or a favour, gain prestige.

And self-protection, in turn, is certain form of selfishness: In threatening situation, you look out for yourself first. Either, of course, needs to be considered with the caveat of the in-group: Slytherins are never altruistic when it comes to out-group people; for in-group people, the loyalty principle applies.

So, in this sense, while it is never stated outright, selfishness indeed can be viewed as one way to unify what we actually see throughout the books, and help explain it. It is a nice short-hand, but not necessarily foundational: One might conceive of other terms to summarise. What matters, however, are the actual traits we are shown. To that end, the typical list of things people called Slytherin is roughly this: Slytherin is an evil house full of racists, bullies, liars, cheats, cowards, backstabbers, traitors and murderers. Slytherins are selfish, cruel, heartless and hateful.

This statement is two things: (1) a list of traits, (2) a value judgement.

The former, (1), has the caveat of being shaped by selection bias to a degree; we see Slytherin from Harry’s perspective, and he is focused on Malfoy & co, and Voldemort & co. It’s certainly possible that the rest of Slytherin is different, but it’s not altogether likely, at least not to a huge degree. For both in-book and out-of-book reasons: We must assume Rowling offers us a fair view of Slytherin – her view – and, notably, if there are some Slytherins different than Malfoy, they certainly never side with Harry, so at most one can suppose indifference instead of antagonism.

So the short of it is this: Yes, Slytherin is all those traits, even if those traits are perhaps the sometimes extreme end. Every Slytherin isn’t a murderer. Every Slytherin isn’t a bully. But those that aren’t are still indifferent to those that are and those that suffer, as long as they themselves – or the ones they are loyal to – aren’t the target or something is to be gained by caring. The in-group/out-group principle at work, once more.

And principally, someone valuing “pure ancestry” higher than an impure one is racist; “bullies, liars, cheats, cowards, backstabbers, traitors and murderers” sans coward is an outcrop of “any means to an end”, and “selfish, cruel, heartless and hateful” plus coward, to the degree it isn’t subjective, is essentially saying “selfish” five times and a rejection of selfish ambition, pursued by any means, by the speaker.

(2), on the other hand, needs to be examined in the context of a moral framework. It implies a standard against which behaviour like Slytherin’s is judged


3. “The virtue of selfishness” – Houses at Hogwarts in the context of morals

As the Sorting Hat notes, the Founders valued different virtues. That is, they didn’t just disagree on which students were worthy students, they disagreed what “worthy” meant in the first place. Or, in more general terms, they didn’t disagree on the qualities they saw the students exhibit, they disagreed which qualities were good.

Slytherin would hardly deny he desired power, for instance, or that he was selfish. He would simply consider these good, virtuous traits, something for others to aspire to, while Gryffindor would strongly disagree and, in fact, consider the literal inverse virtuous. And this disagreement runs right through the centuries, all the way past Voldemort to today, cemented by the structure of Hogwarts, that in turn produces wizards who then continue to keep the structure alive. A self-reinforcing cycle, since, as a side note, the often-posed question, “why don’t they just disband the House of Slytherin”, can perfectly be explained by this: Leaving aside possible magical restrictions we can only speculate about (perhaps you literally cannot change Hogwarts?), it’s enough to consider what the Board of Directors does. Hogwarts, as we see it, is, for one, not ruled by any higher authority than itself, and for another, a simple reflection of the world it exists in, with people such as Lucius Malfoy on the board; and if roughly a quarter of the population has the above-described world view, then never mind the board blocking changes, even if they somehow did remove Slytherin, that quarter has to go somewhere, so all that would happen is moving the “problem”. The original disagreement between the Founders persists.

So, the answer to the question as to whether Slytherin is an “Evil House” is yes – if the speaker is a (sufficiently narrow-minded) Gryffindor. A Gryffindor would consider bravery, courage, chivalry and so on as virtues, traits that make up a good person, whereas cowardice, self-interest, power by any means are vices, bad traits – marks of an “evil” person.

But there is no new information in this statement: A “good Gryffindor” is necessarily a tautology, because for a person subscribing to Gryffindor ethics, this is one and the same; whereas a “good Slytherin” is necessarily an oxymoron, because Slytherin ethics are the literal inverse of Gryffindor ones. A “good Slytherin” – a Slytherin that is brave, noble, self-sacrificing and so on – cannot, by definition, exist, because such a person would not be a Slytherin, but a Gryffindor.

And thus, the answer as to whether Slytherin is the “Evil House” is yes – provided the speaker is using a Gryffindor mindset. And not merely because there happens to be lots of assholes in Slytherin at some point in time, but principally, because the very virtues Slytherin champions are antithetical to anything (a sufficiently narrow-minded) Gryffindor would ever accept as a “virtue”. Slytherin cannot be anything other than “the evil house”.

Of course, the opposite is true if the speaker is using a Slytherin mindset. Here, a “good Slytherin” is the tautology whereas a “good Gryffindor” becomes the oxymoron.

And, importantly, it’s perfectly possible to synthesise these two poles; Slytherin and Gryffindor themselves were friends: All it requires is to cease judgement, respecting different values and virtues, and exercising your own ones in moderation, in particular inasfar as concerns claiming them to be universal.

Gryffindors need to accept – not understand – that there exists more than one way to view the world, more than one set of morals, and that to live together is to cease judgement. And Slytherins need to accept – not understand – that caution needs to be exercised when living. Just because you can advance by exploiting others’ goodwill, their generosity and altruism, perhaps naïveté, does not mean you must or even should. Moderation, restraint and self-discipline are not behaviours that invalidate Slytherins’ ideals.

Or, in case studies: The extreme end of Slytherin is a sociopathic mass murderer. The extreme end of Gryffindor is a fanatic zealot. We see both: Tom Riddle and Barty Crouch Sr. Those two are two peas in a pod, more alike than either would admit, and neither is a useful person for society at large.

The Sorting Hat in OotP now can be understood as a plea: To unite by accepting Slytherin, not by demanding change, but in accepting them as they are. With a different outlook on the world, yes, but still as part of it because people are people, and you cannot change a quarter of the population, but instead have to work with what is there, take reality as it is, if you want to create meaningful works.

Of course, this never happens, and the epitome of this is one of the best scenes in DH, Pansy’s moment.

“Give me Harry Potter,” said Voldemort’s voice, “and none shall not be harmed. Give me Harry Potter and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter and you will be rewarded.

“You have until midnight.”

The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him forever in the glare of thousands of invisible beams. Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he recognized Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed, “But he’s there! Potter’s there. Someone grab him!”

Before Harry could speak, there was a massive movement. The Gryffindors in front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins. Then the Hufflepuffs stood, and almost at the same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them with their backs to Harry, all of them looking toward Pansy instead, and Harry, awestruck and overwhelmed, saw wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and from under sleeves.​

This is peak Slytherin, and at the same time showing just how different the Houses are, and how broken the understanding between them is.

Notice the development: Voldemort promises no harm to all and reward to the one to hand him over. Then there is a silence. And then Pansy rises – finally, full of disbelief that no one has acted yet, something so inconceivable to her mindset that she needs to speak out: Of course they must hand over Harry, it’s blindingly obvious that this is the best course of actions for anyone present here – so why is no one acting?!

And of course the response is equally full of disbelief that someone could even suggest something like that, and this is a clash diametrally, radically different set of values and virtues, it’s the same clash that existed between Slytherin and Gryffindor since the Founding: Utterly different notions about what is right and good.

Ideally, Pansy would have learned other people care more about morally right causes and trust and universal loyalty than self-interest, rewards and survival, and ideally, Gryffindor would accept that Pansy will always place herself and her in-group before the rest of them, and subsequently, be almost painfully rational in the sense of “which outcome produces the least harm for everyone”. But Slytherin, ostracized as it is, has become a silo in which no differing thought will reach, and which people always condemn for what it is, while Gryffindor, led by Harry, is so ideologically pure that even the mere notion of rationalist, rather than idealist, considerations, is unthinkable. The result is literal speechlessness: Two sides that stand opposed to each other, and lack the means to even communicate.


4. “It’s our choices” – Harry, the ideal-typical Gryffindor

Knowing what Slytherin is, we can finally turn to whether Harry is or could ever be sorted into Slytherin. Spoiler: No.

As an example, consider Hermione. When she arrives, she is a reasonable fit for Ravenclaw and for Gryffindor. Ravenclaw sees her love of knowledge and wants her. Gryffindor sees her courage and loyalty and wants her. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor are having an argument, Gryffindor wins, and now Gryffindor begins to raise her according to his values, which, if she didn’t have them already, she embodies at the latest by the end of PS, when she notes:

“Me!” said Hermione. “Books! And cleverness! There are more important things—friendship and bravery and—oh Harry—be careful!”​

This is the epitome of Gryffindor, and vindicates Gryffindor’s pick.

Could she have gone to Ravenclaw? Sure. She would have been raised differently, but probably done Ravenclaw less proud than she did Gryffindor, which was why the latter would have been more insistent to have her, to the degree they could tell at the Sorting, anyway – and thus the reason she went to Gryffindor, not Ravenclaw. Many students could in theory fit in more than one House, just like Hermione. By far most students, however, will fit in one House more than the others, and thus the Hat (or the Founders) have a reasonably easy time to find their respective best picks.

However, for some people, those relative differences are clearer than others. And Harry would have been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Slytherin. Recall the Slytherin values: Harry emphatically rejects them four times before even sorted.

Most of this has to do with Draco. Draco is arrogant and spoiled, but most of all, he embodies most of Slytherin’s values. When they meet at Madam Malkins, Harry is reflexively reminded of Dudley and instinctively recoils.

“Hello,” said the boy, “Hogwarts, too?”

“Yes,” said Harry.

“My father’s next door buying my books and mother’s up the street looking at wands,” said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. “Then I’m going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don’t see why first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”

Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.​

It’s the spoiled brattieness, but then there’s also the getting-someone-to-do-something-they-don’t-want-to angle, which Dudley does all the time: Manipulating his parents to get his will, be it by fake-crying, lying, using violence or any other means: Dudley would be a Slytherin indeed, the comparison between Draco and Dudley – and Dudley and any Slytherin – is apt. Harry sees this, sees Slytherin, and recoils.

Note that this is not a priori a given. Harry could just as well take a look at Dudley, see how effective the tactic is, and use it for himself. In meeting a wizarding-Dudley, then, and one that appears to be friendly to boot, he could see a great chance and latch onto him. But he doesn’t, because that is not who he is, and so they clash:

“That’s Hagrid,” said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn’t. “He works at Hogwarts.”

“Oh,” said the boy, “I’ve heard of him. He’s a sort of servant, isn’t he?”

“He’s the gamekeeper,” said Harry. He was liking the boy less and less every second.

“Yes, exactly. I heard he’s a sort of savage—lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed.”

“I think he’s brilliant,” said Harry coldly.​

Draco, judging people value by blood and usefulness – Hagrid, half-giant, servant: Useless until proven otherwise – Harry, holding everyone in equal worth – Hagrid, kind, friend: Good until proven otherwise.

Next, Harry encounters Slytherin ideas at Ollivander’s.

“Yes, thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember… I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter… After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things—terrible, yes, but great.”

Harry shivered. He wasn’t sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much. He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.​

Harry does not at all think “terrible, but great” is a correct way to describe Voldemort. Understandably, perhaps, but nevertheless, again, it’s not a priori necessary to reject Ollivander out of hand. It reflects who Harry is, and Ollivander uttering those words puts him, too, into the ‘less-liked’ bucket.

The third time is the second meeting of Harry and Draco on the train. And again, the two sets of values clash. Draco approaches Harry in the only way he knows:

He turned back to Harry. “You’ll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”

He held out his hand to shake Harry’s, but Harry didn’t take it.

“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks,” he said coolly.

Draco Malfoy didn’t go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.​

For Draco, this is a no-brainer. He knows Harry lacks information and connections and offers both: A great opportunity for any person even remotely connected to Slytherin values, but unfortunately for him, Harry is the literal opposite. He doesn’t care about hanging out with someone, merely because that would be advantageous for him.

He doesn’t judge friends by usefulness. He’s not even interested in equivocating and keeping his options open, hedging his bets, letting Draco down gently: He brushes him off, completely and with no regrets because Draco – and by extension Slytherin – is everything Harry is not and does not want to be.

And the fourth and final time is during the sorting itself, when the Hat tries to tempt Harry with “greatness” – which is so uninteresting and irrelevant to Harry that he doesn’t even let the Hat finish thinking.

“You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that—no?”​

So, it might well be true, as Dumbledore says, that Harry possesses traits that Slytherin would have prized – resourcefulness, say, deceptive, consider the trick with the Felix potion in HBP – but if he never uses those traits in a way Slytherin would, then this is perfectly irrelevant. It’s the embodiment, as well as the limitation, of the famous Dumbledore quote in CoS:

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”​

Harry chooses to consider, again and again, Slytherin virtues as morally wrong, and at the same time, he is limited by it: Because he cannot be Harry Potter, and not chose such. Harry, at the moment of the Sorting, is already a splendid fit for Gryffindor, and every other House, but in particular Slytherin, doesn’t even come close. You thus cannot sort Canon!Harry into Canon!Slytherin, unless you are writing a crack fic. The plot of this story would be about all the ways Harry is utterly at odds with his House and being a Gryffindor for some reason stuck in Slytherin. You cannot be a Slytherin, not with a mindset like Harry’s.

Thus, if you want to write a Slytherin!Harry, you have to either change Slytherin House, or change Harry. Personally, I prefer the latter, and the final section looks at how this might be achieved, and how a Slytherin might behave at a few Canon stations.


5. “You could be great” – A different Harry for Slytherin

We saw, in the previous section, four instances cementing Harry as a Gryffindor. Invert them, and you have a Slytherin. The degree varies. The most boring version is to make Harry a carbon copy of Draco, so let’s pick a more interesting approach: Harry still doesn’t like Draco.

They meet, and Harry is still reminded of Dudley. But instead of recoiling, he sees a chance: Instead of getting bullied, he can be on the bully’s good side. Thus, when Draco insults Hagrid, Harry disagrees, but says nothing. His thoughts are his own; there is nothing to be gained in sticking up for Hagrid here, not when Hagrid won’t know, Draco doesn’t agree, and Harry right now needs every shred of credibility for himself. Hagrid is nice. Harry comes first. Sorry, Hagrid.

Hearing Ollivander mention Voldemort being terrible, but great, and Harry himself being possibly destined for greatness then creates butterflies in his stomach. He hasn’t been as happy, ever. Instead of having to fear being at the bottom of the pack here, as he was in the Muggle world, maybe he can be at the top. Maybe he can be great. He’ll remember that part, not the bit about Voldemort.

When Harry and Draco meet at the train, Harry is in a pickle. He likes Ron and dislikes Malfoy, but quite evidently, the former has a low reputation. Can Harry afford not to take Draco’s offer? At the very least, there is nothing lost by shaking his hand, thanking Draco, and responding that he’ll consider it. By now, at the latest, Harry has realised the value of his Boy-Who-Lived status, and thinks of ways to exploit it. Draco is here because he wants to be seen with him; likely others will want the same.

The rest of the train ride by our Slytherin!Harry is therefore spent touring compartments – which includes Draco’s, but not exclusively. Harry starts to learn about blood status and judgements based on it: And while he does not agree, he is perfectly able to compartmentalise, because for now, he has to look out for himself, and as long as it’s not directed against him, he can ignore it.

Finally, the Sorting. The Sorting Hat doesn’t even have to tempt him with “Greatness”, Ollivander already did that, it’s perfectly clear where Harry belongs: In Slytherin.

The rest of the year is a variation of the theme. When Malfoy picks on Neville, Harry stays silent; he doesn’t yet have the luxury of defending others, he needs to defend himself. Not all of Slytherin is as positively interested in the Boy-Who-Lived as Draco is; Harry did cause the fall of the (insane, megalomaniac and sociopathic, but still) champion of Slytherin’s values.

By now, he’s accepted Draco’s offer, because he truly needs the knowledge and tries his best to divide everything in true halves and propaganda halves, and also started to feel out his fellow Slytherins, of which there is slim pickings. Draco parrots his father, Blaise is blood supremacist himself, Vincent and Gregory are Draco’s henchmen, and what’s left is Theo, who’s not any less certain of his superiority due to being a pureblood, but at least not as obnoxious as Draco – cleverer, and somewhat of a loner.

Harry probably would strike up a friendship (an actual one, not one of convenience) with Tracey, the only other halfblood. Which works as well as anything else, in the end.

Things that happen from here on out: Hermione is killed in a bathroom, Hagrid’s hut combusts, and Quirrelmort destroys a mirror.

Or do they?

Harry has no reason to care about Hermione, so he doesn’t. Hermione still dies. He does have a reason to care about Hagrid – he likes him. So he invents a better plan than carrying a dragon through Hogwarts when Draco tells him he wants to bust Hagrid: It involves sneaking out of Hogwarts, up a mountain, and performing the handover there.

And finally, by then, Quirrellmort is equally interested in this version of Harry as the stone, so Harry doesn’t have the luxury of not going after the stone: Quirrelmort takes the mirror and Harry into the Room of Requirements, where they have a long chat. How it ends? I have no idea. You start writing the story. I’m partial to a resurrected Voldemort, though


Final Note: All of this is my opinion, subject to change, and naturally can be discussed in this thread.

 

So I think there are two things we need to separate in your response. One thing I agree with, the other I don't. It's meta-level/writing choices, vs. in-universe logic.

First

this. It's very true. The story is written in the perspective of a Gryffindor, of course, but the author herself also takes that perspective, very obviously so. The question then is, if that is true, how did that same author ever create the setup, which implies a somewhat fair treatment of all houses -- a place where Slytherin is allowed their own ideology, and it's not judged? I couldn't tell you if I tried. It's as if there are two Rowlings here. Her setup is leagues above what she made out of it. It's an insane potential that just goes nowhere. It's Harry's story, true. But even for his POV, adding a line here and there that makes use of this setup isn't hard. She does world-building like that all the time. Why not here?

In fact, she herself remembers it wrong. There is this funny quote by her, from an interview:

except this ... never happens. Maybe she wrote it, and it got cut, or maybe she never wrote it at all, but all we see is Slughorn returning with what the book calls Hogsmeade residents. So this is the kind of care she has for Slytherin.

So that's the meta-level where I agree. Where I disagree is the meaning of the in-text stuff.

It's a legitimate way to read the scene. I disagree with it, though. And I disagree with it in two ways. One, as I noted, I tend to precisely think that our values are revealed when under pressure. There is no better way to see what "truly" motivates you than your behaviour when everything is on the line. Some people rise. Others fall. For me, that is the most intimate, honest, and direct look at a person, because all layers of the usual pretense are stripped away. So, yes, I think this is the true Pansy. Scared, sure, but when facing her fear, her instinct is to sacrifice a person to save herself (and the people she cares about). It's selfish, it's ruthless (she knows she's sending him to die), it's all sorts of attributes that are not commonly considered "good".

And two, what I do not do, however, is judge her for that. I do not hold that her position is morally inferior to mine, or anyone's. In fact, I think this is the ultimate hubris, because who of us knows how he would react? More likely than not, in fact, I might react like Pansy. So really, I accept this as-is, and a priori find nothing wrong with it in a moral sense. I'd need to deal with it, because choices have consequences (and getting told to leave Hogwarts is the very least that needs to be done, here), but that's a different level of reaction.

And in the same way, I do not think there is a priori anything wrong with Hogwarts and Slytherin. Nothing you need to fix:

So yes, this is true, but it's the feature, not the bug. Or, at least, it is when considered from the perspective of the people living in the wizarding world. That was my point about boarding schools: Usually, as a parent, you want your children to learn values when growing up. IRL, by and large, there is (at least nominally) little disagreement about which values are "good". It's different in the wizarding world, if we take the idea I sketched out. There are conflicting ideas about that. And so, if you're a parent and 10 out of 12 months your children are away, you de-facto cede control over how your children are raised -- and therefore want to be sure, whoever and whatever environment is doing the raising, is doing it in accordance with your values. And that's where the House comes in.

Perhaps I also didn't spend enough time on the reconciliation here. Yes, the differences between Houses exist, but they aren't that dramatic, or, more precisely, they aren't dramatic enough to make living together impossible. The wizarding world would have collapsed ages ago if so. The assumption here is that Slytherin does not, 9 out of 10, produce Dracos and Pansys. Rather, it produces Slughorns. (Or different variants, of similar non-criminal/bully kinds.) And neither does Gryffindor only produce Harrys, for that matter.

It's absolutely possible to work with Slughorns (in the Ministry, in other jobs), to be friends with them, even (if you aren't Harry). You needn't look further than the Slug Club, which precisely brings together all Houses, and people get along. Or Gryffindor and Slytherin themselves, who were friends, until they weren't. Can McLaggen, Cho, Zach Smith and some rando Slytherin not get along? They absolutely can.

Of course, we run into the problem of the writing again, here. There just isn't a Slytherin shown during Harry's Hogwarts years that is explicitly the Slughorn (or some other variant), rather than the Draco and Pansy kind. Side characters that are Slytherin but do not want Voldemort back, for instance, would have made a big difference! Note that this is perfectly possible -- you can be ruthless in your methods, fuck over everyone to achieve your aims, even be blood purist and think all Muggleborns are inferior, and not want Voldemort back, because he is an insane sociopath. That's a perfectly coherent view! Just take care not to do this:

Because, yes, I agree that the scene where all of Slytherin is marched out of Hogwarts is a questionable choice at the meta-level, and also an unfair -- if understandable, given all the other writing choices up to then, the way Slytherin was described -- decision. I just disagree with you as to why that is.

Slytherins shouldn't be judged as a group, true, but they also shouldn't be judged individually either, not in the moral sense. If legitimately no one wanted to fight Voldemort, then that's okay. But we don't know, as you note, because they are just removed wholesale, and at the meta-level, it would have been a better decision to write some of them staying. It would, however, also have been a very different book then. And probably you'd have to have started laying the groundwork for that in GoF at the latest (which, incidentally, was when Rowling cut a Slytherin Weasley, that would have played a major role in helping the trio).


So these are the two levels I'd separate. One, Slytherin and the Sorting as set-up, which I consider fine, in no need of fixing at all. And two, writing failures (or choices) that kinda break the set-up, and make it appear as if it needs fixing. The appalling lack of Hogwarts Slytherin side-characters that are not Draco and Pansy, for one. And of course that, taking her setup, Rowling chose to write a tragedy instead of a happy end: The Hat tries to bring everyone together -- and fails. That's a legitimate choice, but it does limit the Houses, because we have no view to counterbalance it. Perhaps the Hogsmeade residents that Slughorn brings include quite a few people from all Houses. And they work together fine. But we'd never know.