Main Characters in Slytherin

Periodically you see a fan fiction author try to deal with either Harry, Ginny, or both being sorted into Slytherin (the same problems occur with other characters this is done with). In doing this, you have a few possible ways of handling Draco. If you stick very close to cannon, then your character, now in Slytherin has an enemy in their very house making their lives miserable all the way into the common room.¹ Alternately, you can try to make the members of Slytherin less evil, less the villain of the story.² This varies from they are actually the good guys and everyone else is actually the bad guys, with hand-wavy explanations for how they ended up following Riddle,³ to stories where the parents remain just as evil as cannon,⁴ but the children are not yet corrupted, and everything in between.

The problem with Harry, Ginny, or both having significant numbers of friends in Slytherin house who do not hate their own parents is that these are not nice people.

• Blood status prejudice is exactly equivalent to racism, and these are not mildly racist people, these are the kind of racists that make racism both deservedly hated and clearly a vice.
• Slytherin house espouses achieving your ends “by any means.”⁵
  • Draco steals - Neville’s remembral in book one; presents in the common room in book two for example.
  • Their Quidditch team is known for cheating.
  • The Inquisitorial Squad in book five

Ambition is not a bad thing. Cunning however, at least in English, does have a shady slant to it. It implies, though not all definitions require, trickery and deceit. I can see someone like Percy or even Ron sorted into Slytherin for their ambition, or Fred and George for their willingness to deceive when pranking. Giving the Sorting Hat its due, I believe that Percy went to Gryffindor because he is not at all cunning in his ambition, nor nearly ruthless enough to overcome that lack. Ron avoided Slytherin because his ambition is too unformed, a desire to be admired, but no idea what for. Fred and George on the other hand may only be in Gryffindor because the Hat is lazy.

But why is Draco in Slytherin? I believe that is not laziness on the Hat’s part. Draco has a very good idea of his ambition - he wants to be his father. He has no work ethic, and very little actual intelligence about achieving that end, but that is his ambition. And it is precisely Draco’s cunning, again, admittedly without a ton of intelligence to back it up, that gets Harry and Ron in trouble over and over. Draco consistently tricks them, pushes their buttons, just out of sight of the teachers that might actually punish him, and sure enough they rush into it every time. It is no wonder the fannon idea is that Gryffindor students lack brains. And keep in mind that intelligence is a Ravenclaw feature; cunning is not at all the same thing. Far too many authors conflate the two traits.

It says nothing ultimately positive about Draco when you realise that it is cowardice and stupidity that hold him back from achieving his ambitions.

While I have only really explored Draco in depth, you can ultimately make the same case for anyone who befriends him. Saying that the rest of Slytherin house is afraid of Lucius only goes so far. For if Lucius can cow that many families that effectively, then he ultimately controls a full quarter of the society entire wizarding society. Since we know that Slytherin students do not exclusively marry other Slytherin students (the Black family tree has intermarriages with the Potter, Longbottom, Crouch, Prewett, and Weasley families), his influence would then extend far further than just that quarter. Riddle would have no need of a revolution.

https://www.mugglenet.com/harry-potter/little-things-harry-potter/sorting-hat-songs/

Harry’s Sorting in Particular

The sorting is increasingly a sore point for me. A huge body of fan fiction authors want to put Harry in Slytherin. I know why - they are listening to the Sorting Hat:

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting… . So where shall I put you?”

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.

“Not Slytherin, eh?” said the small voice. “Are you sure? 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? Well, if you’re sure better be GRYFFINDOR!”⁶

However, are cunning or ambition really defining traits for Harry? He might have liked his scar in the first chapters, but do not let the movies fool you, that does not last long. Even in that first Leaky Cauldron scene the books describe a very different Harry, one who is overwhelmed, not pleased by his fame. Once at Hogwarts, Harry finds the attention annoying pretty much right from the start, and will spend the next 7 years hating his fame. This dislike of attention will grow so strong that Harry will have trouble accepting praise not only for being the Boy Who Lived (understandable, he does not remember doing anything to earn that) but even for his skills on a broom, the fight with the basilisk, and the Tri-Wizard Tournament. He keeps switching between being annoyed when he’s babied (by Mrs. Weasley or other adults), and crediting everything to luck precisely because he does not seek fame.

This does not mesh well with the ambition that Slytherin is known for to me. Indeed, Harry’s loyalty to his friends, his willingness to forgive them with very little in the way of a real apology, and readiness to risk everything for them speaks more strongly of Hufflepuff than any of his actual actions do of Slytherin.

Originally I thought that Rowling tried too hard to force the parallel between Harry and Riddle, playing up that Harry could have been in Slytherin but for his choices. A different theory was presented in an interview.⁷ The Sorting Hat accidentally attempted to sort Riddle and not Harry in attempting the placement in Slytherin. The Sorting Hat was not intended to sort a person with a bit of someone else’s soul in them. This confused the hat, and as a result it wasn’t sure which person’s traits to sort based on. The hat, not being truly alive, is not really able to reconsider or learn, so it stands by its opinions. It will do so until/unless it were to be placed on Harry’s head after the bit of Riddle’s soul is removed.

In short, perhaps the boy that Harry could have been - abused as he was in reality (see more here) - should have shown more Slytherin tendencies, but the actual Harry that we see in the books would make a really really poor Slytherin, a fairly good Hufflepuff, and an uncertain Ravenclaw (depending on how much he would have been willing to use that “not a bad mind” mentioned above away from Ron’s influence).