i hope lee jordan carried on potterwatch after the war
like, just reporting on the incredibly mundane things that harry is doing, interspersed with bad puns
ok but harry secretly loves it? in the middle of all that media attention and ridiculous claims by Rita Skeeter and everyone else, there’s a radio show that concentrates on headlines like “POTTER CAUGHT WEARING MISMATCHED SOCKS!” instead of pairing him up with every girl he talks to. For years he only agrees to give interviews to Potterwatch, and they’re all on silly subjects. “Ginny made me degnome the garden, but I’m rather bad at it, so I have to pay my kids in chocolate frogs to do it, they just augmented their prices…” Sometimes when he gets bored he calls Lee: “Hey, I got an exclusive for you, I just learned how to change a diaper one-handed!” and somehow Potterwatch becomes a parenting show?
Here it is, canon evidence that Salazar Slytherin was NOT a racist bigot. He was concerned for the well-being and safety of the magical community, which could have been compromised by letting the “common people” know that wizards and witches existed.
Shoutout to this fine lady for bringing this to my attention. Let’s further the argument:
Hogwarts was canonically founded around 990 A.D. – The Christians were finally taking hold of Scandinavia, meaning that all of Europe was now Christian. It was towards the end of the Dark Ages, or else the Early Medieval Period, which (In Europe) was famous for its intolerance of non-Christiandom, which included the teachings of Ancient Rome, Greece, and of course any Eastern countries. People were publicly defamed and in many cases killed for as much as considering these old ideas and teachings. These teachings really didn’t come back to light until the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.
So when people did things the Christians couldn’t explain, they blamed it on Witches; people they believed to be inhabited by the devil, sent to earth to wreak havoc on every God-fearing man, woman, and child. So what did they do? Imprison or kill those people.
Now, here comes Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, who all agree to take pureblooded witches and wizards and teach them. But then they have to discuss magical folk who aren’t born from magic folk.
Gryffindor is brave and brash, and imagines the glory of having an entire society of witches and wizards with great command of their powers.
Hufflepuff is kind and loving, and wants to provide a sanctuary for all those who are under duress from the population at large.
Ravenclaw sees the merit in bringing all these different people together – the amount of information regarding magic that can be shared is the stuff of her dreams.
Slytherin is cautious. He recognizes that there is a great possibility for individuals to play spy for the Muggle community, in hopes to gain favor by outing them all the while hiding their own powers from muggles. He sees them as a potential threat, and instead of risking the safety of not only their own lives,but the countless volumes and tomes of ancient wizarding knowledge tucked away in their castle (see The Burning of the Great Library at Alexandria), Slytherin says “I really don’t think we should allow people with connections to Muggles in here. We could lost *everything.*
Gryffindor calls Slytherin a coward, saying they would fight back and beat down any who try to oppose them. Slytherin suggests they do all they can to avoid confrontation. Hufflepuff can’t bring herself to deny that sanctuary she’s built. Ravenclaw sees endless potential in bridging that gap between worlds with learning. And this is what drives them apart. Future racists and pureblooded elitists will take and twist Slytherin’s words, having heard only the story that has been passed down for a thousand years. They use words of caution to justify their want for genocide.
Slytherin isn’t the bad guy, here. And I am so down for clearing his name.
To continue the crusade to clear the name of Salazar Slytherin, I have more evidence for your consideration. This is regarding the Chamber of Secrets.
Now, the scene pictured above is one of Harry’s slightly less dull History of Magic classes, in which Professor Binns is asked to talk about the Chamber of Secrets. What we get from him is that the Chamber is a myth. There is legend surrounding it, no one is sure if it exists, etc etc etc.
Here is the VERY NEXT PAGE in the book, in which Professor Binns again admits to the Chamber (as we know it today) to be a complete myth. We find out, obviously, that the chamber isn’t a myth, but I believe that the purpose of the chamber has been fabricated over a thousand years by misinformation and slander.
Let’s check it out. Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Godric Gryffindor all know Salazar Slytherin and say “yep, he’s an upstanding man. Let’s start this school with him!” For a number of years, they had a school together and it worked out great. What we know is that there was a falling out, not Slytherin declaring they needed to murder muggle-borns! A disagreement that may have ruined friendships but did little else, I think.
What we know is that one of Slytherin house’s key virtues is self-preservation. As I discussed earlier in the thread on this post is that Slytherin was afraid of muggle-born witches and wizards acting as spies for the larger muggle community during a time in which wizards and witches were killed for their “demon powers.”
And so, when it comes to the Chamber of Secrets, I believe Slytherin built a Panic Room, not an Evil Lair.
Think about it. Slytherin is horrified that any day there might be an attack on the school. So he builds a secret chamber that only he (or another parseltongue, an incredibly rare magical ability) can open. He doesn’t want any double agents or spies to know about it, so he tells no one. He hopes, of course, that he never has to use it, but in the event that there is an attack, he can get the school to safety while he sets the basilisk on the attackers.
But I’m sure you’re looking at the basilisk and thinking “what sane man would put a monster in a panic room?” Glad you asked. I can consider two possibilities.
1) Slytherin put a basilisk that was under his control in the chamber, a creature that he could set loose on his enemies, aka, anyone attacking the castle. The basilisk would annihilate any army of thousands just by looking at them, and what’s more, it could get almost anywhere in the castle through the goddamn walls! That kind of power is exactly what you need to defend your castle. And again, ONLY HE or an heir could control it. I’m sure at this point he was thinking about himself and his potential progeny, not Tom Riddle some thousand years later.
2) Slytherin didn’t put the basilisk there, and it was instead placed there later by Tom Riddle while he was at school. I don’t have evidence supporting or disproving this.
So how does this get so misconstrued to modern-day Hogwarts lore? Maybe toward the end, the founders did find out about the Chamber. Maybe Slytherin said something to them, maybe he let it slip…maybe as they were cleaning out his room after he left, they found some journal entries about it. It could have been anything. But perhaps, in their wisdom, seeing no way to access the chamber, felt it best that no one knew about the existence of a (now) useless panic room, nor did they want anyone to worry about the basilisk.
Maybe word *did* get out, though. And not one of the founders wanted to admit that Slytherin didn’t trust their students, and so to most of the student body, Slytherin’s departure was suspect. And the moment they heard about a secret room that no one was quite sure about, they started inventing campfire stories about it.
Fast forward ONE THOUSAND YEARS and now everyone assumes Slytherin was always evil (despite being a good friend and founder of Hogwarts with three other lovely people) and created a secret evil lair to murder muggle-borns, which he could have easily done without a lair if that was *ever* his intention.
The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry’s first thought was that this was not someone to cross. – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Ok but someone tell me why Harry didn’t grow up to be the best Defense Against Dark Arts professor Hogwarts has ever known
RIGHT??? what is up with this he becomes an auror crap?? Harry would have loved being a teacher and watching his students improve throughout the years. Revamping the curriculum because if he could teach kids as a child himself how to cast a patronus, perhaps everything they think of as only NEWTs levels and beyond really just weren’t taught well before.
Making him become an auror just makes him continue the fight he was forced into as a child and didn’t enjoy, Harry enjoyed teaching the DA. Why wouldn’t he chase after doing something he loves with his life????? And then he’d be able to train the next generation to make sure that they can protect the world, too.
thisthisthisthisthis
YES. I can just picture Professors Potter and Longbottom joking about students and the other teachers during meals, playing mini pranks on Headmistress McGonagall, who’d purse her lips and remind them that they were adults, then look away before they could catch the twinkle in her eye. All the students would either have a massive crush on them or admire them or both. Harry is the only teacher capable of taming Teddy (who became known as the prank king, comparable to the Weasley’s twins) and eventually James, Al, and Lily. He develops connections with each of his students and teaches them according to the way he’s noticed they learn best and his classroom becomes a usual hangout for students, as he’s always got food and a “lame dad joke” that everyone secretly loves.
I could go on, but I have to stop myself before I get too into this.
Okay, this now officially drives me nuts because this would have made SO MUCH SENSE. And not only because of Harry’s temperament. Yes, he would have LOVED teaching DADA, but do you know who else wanted to teach DADA?
Tom Riddle.
Voldemort cursed the position so no one could stay for over a year, and Rowling said that the curse broke upon his death. It would have brought the Prophecy’s plot line to full circle, because it shouldn’t have been anyone other than Harry who became the first un-cursed DADA professor.
It would have been just another part Harry vanquished.
And how important would it be to the students as well, and to him being able to progress with a comfortable, normal life? Because every witch/ wizard in the UK goes through Hogwarts. The first year after the war, he starts, and the students all come home at Christmas or in the summer and their parents are all ‘WOW you’ve been taught by HARRY POTTER what was he like?” And all these students who are totally over it already like “I don’t know, just… he’s just Professor Potter. He’s just Harry. He makes shit jokes and hands out chocolate in lessons. He’s just a really great guy.” And over the years it stops being people yelling ‘The Chosen One’ or ‘The Boy Who Lived’ in the streets. He goes in to Diagon Alley with his family and everyone’s like ‘Oh my god, Sir! Hi! Look, it’s Professor Potter!’ And no-one wants to know how it felt to die or what vanquishing Voldemort was like- they want to tell him how their doing, and chat with him about how they want to go into the Aurors or Dragon taming, or what they’re doing now. They want one of their favourite teachers to meet their kids, reminisce about old lessons.
But of course, everyone still knows it’s Harry Potter. And it becomes like a thing among the students, whenever anyone feels low on confidence or like they’ll never achieve things in life, and someone’ll cut in like ‘Of course you can. Harry defeated the greatest Dark Wizard in memory, and he’s a massive dork who’s a little bit frightened of his wife and kids, still trips over the trick step, didn’t get the date he wanted to the Yule Ball and spills pumpkin juice all over his robes regularly. He’s human just like you, and if he could do that, you can sure as hell make the DMLE if that’s what you want.”
Like Harry and Neville being constant reminders to all their students that heroes are just people- just real, normal, faulty people.
(And then can we also have Ginny Weasley, taking some time off from playing professional Quidditch so she comes to do a few years as the flying coach. And her first year Harry goes down to the pitch with a few of the 7th years he has under his wing, and Ginny being, as always, vaguely terrifying but in an incredibly attractive way. And all these 7th years just gaping at her like ‘Woah. You are married to her?!” And Harry just massively smug like ‘Yeah, I know right?’)
controversial: dumbledore would’ve made the right decision taking the 1991-1992 house cup away from slytherin even if harry and co. hadn’t saved the school and stopped voldemort from returning to power
Can I ask why? Genuinely curious here
Slytherin students didn’t have better academic performance and they certainly didn’t have better behavior than the other houses. What they did have was a head of house who would award his own students points for almost no reason while handing out penalties to other houses like candy. If Draco Malfoy answered a question correctly in potions, he’d be awarded ten points, while Hermione giving the same answer would lose ten points for being a know-it-all.
That’s the thing, the game was rigged in Slytherin’s favor. Snape set his own house up to win, through absolutely no merit of their own, seven years in a row with no penalty. Meanwhile Dumbledore is made out to be the one who “just hands victory to his own house” after four members of his house put their lives on the line to save the school from a genocidal mass-murderer.
Gryffindor deserved the house cup because their students saved the school, but even if they didn’t, Slytherin should have had it taken away from them because they didn’t earn it.
I can’t even condemn Dumbledore for letting Slytherin believe they’d won, sit in a green-and-silver dining hall, and then changing it when he announced they’d actually lost, because after seven years of cheating, it’s not enough for them to just lose. If they’d just lost, they’d think they were cheated out of something that’s rightfully theirs. Allowing them to believe they’d just once again been handed an award they didn’t deserve, and then giving it directly to the house that actually did something to deserve it, teaches a valuable lesson.
Anyway, if we’re going to criticize Dumbledore’s abilities as a school administrator for anything, it’s how unchecked he left Snape’s treatment of his students. Even putting aside the emotional and physical abuse he inflicted on his students, there should have been some provision in place to prevent his abuse of the points system before he had a chance to hand it to his own students for ONE year, let alone seven.
There should have been a provision that the current holder of the house cup is ineligible for participation in the next year’s competition. There should be an upper limit on how many points you can take away from another house’s students, and how many points you can give to your own students. Students should be able to appeal unfair penalties to the headmaster.
Point is, Slytherin shouldn’t get an award just because their head-of-house refuses to play fair
I never thought of it like this before. Thank you so much, OP
what i do is not up to you 