Mugglenet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died - Emerson Spartz [7]
Admittedly, it’s too bad that all the Slytherin students go to safety instead of fighting at the Battle of Hogwarts, but in an interview, J.K.R. said they all came running back from Hogsmeade with help, even if it’s not clear from the books. So again, she wants us to know that most of them are good, and the few twisted Slytherins are the exception. The actions of the entire house are more important than those of individual baddies like Crabbe, who tries to burn down the school or Pansy Parkinson, who stands up for Voldemort, as they did in DH. All the Slytherin kids could have run away to join Voldemort in the forest, but they never show up. It’s even possible in the Epilogue that Harry’s son Albus Severus might become a Slytherin. If J.K.R. leaves the door open for Harry’s own son, of all people, to be a Slytherin, there’s simply no way that house can be considered demonized.
Yes!
Slytherins are totally ostracized and demonized in every way throughout the books, never able to escape their image as the house of evil. Despite what J.K.R. may have said in an interview about Slytherins being “not all bad,” where’s the proof in the actual books? The Sorting System demonizes them, and once they are labeled rotten eggs at age eleven, they are stigmatized for the rest of their lives. Look at Snape—he was sorted at age eleven, separated from Lily, and tossed in with pureblood sociopaths. It’s not his fault his housemate Mulciber was a creep, or that Lily dumped him because he wasn’t sorted into Gryffindor like James Potter and Sirius Black. His life seems preordained to fail, and in due time he takes the wrong path to Death Eater-ville. Even when redeemed, Snape is still Harry’s most hated teacher, and, even if the others are just as strict or demanding, Snape gets all the hateful looks and snarky answers.
Uniting just three houses is a big failure. In SS, no one listens to the Sorting Hat’s song about finding “real friends” in Slytherin [SS p. 118]. We learn in the Epilogue that even when Harry’s children are in school nineteen years later, they still despise and fear Slytherins. Nothing has changed. Why doesn’t Harry reach out to the Slytherins when he has Dumbledore’s Army? Why doesn’t Neville offer to protect the Slytherins from the Carrows? People from “worthy” houses, of course, are safe in the D.A.’s Room of Requirement, but the green and silver Slytherins are not allowed.
The scene where the Slytherins are most obviously demonized is just before the Battle of Hogwarts in DH, when Pansy Parkinson screeches out that she wants to turn Harry over to Voldemort. And why is this a surprise? Hasn’t she always been a spoiled brat who hated Harry? The kids from other houses turn around and pull out their wands, as if to blast the Slytherins out of existence. Oh good, demonize and attack even the little first years because a pureblood idiot said something predictable. After that, is it any wonder that none of the Slytherins stayed to fight? Whatever J.K.R. says about their return to the battle, it’s not clear at all in the book. It says that Slughorn leads relatives of people who stayed to fight, and that can’t mean the Slytherins because none of them stayed.
From the beginning, it is drummed into us that Snape “favors” the Slytherins [SS, p. 135]. Meanwhile, in SS, McGonagall gives first year Harry a broom so he can be on her Quidditch team, and in PoA Lupin rewards the Gryffindors with loads of points for answering simple questions instead of facing their Boggarts. Dumbledore never expels or punishes Harry, no matter how many rules he breaks. In Harry’s first year, Dumbledore first awards the house cup to Slytherin, then turns around and gives the Trio and Neville