 |
|
An Old Rivalry Reborn
An original editorial by Mary Jo
In the Beginning
Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin, the four founders of Hogwarts, were considered to be great friends:
"'Together we will build and teach!'I like to think of the four founders as similar to the Marauders. Even their surnames, if they are truly that, sound similar to the nicknames that the Marauders called each other. Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor had a great friendship that ended in an even greater rivalry. Their differences in opinion about how Hogwarts should be run resulted in Slytherin leaving the school:
the four good friends decided
and never did they dream that they
might someday be divided,
for were there such friends anywhere
as Slytherin and Gryffindor?
Unless it was the second pair
of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?"
(OotP, pg. 204)
"Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school."Salazar left Godric and the other two founders to manage without him. However, Salazar didn’t entirely leave the school, did he? In fact, it was rumored that Salazar Slytherin left behind a horrific monster that would fulfill his plan for the school when he himself could not. Harry discovered in Chamber of Secrets that this was true. Slytherin’s monstrous plan was to “purge” the school of all those he deemed unfit to attend (CoS, pg. 151). In fact, he wanted children who were Muggle-born to be killed and possibly eaten by a Basilisk. He left behind something that would attack Hogwarts and enforce his will against Gryffindor.
(CoS, pg. 150)
Is it possible that Gryffindor also left something behind to protect the school? Very possible! In fact, Gryffindor and the other two founders did leave behind the sorting hat:
"Yet how to pick the worthy onesBut I think Godric left behind something even more powerful. Something that could specifically guard against an attack by Salazar Slytherin. I’m talking about Fawkes the phoenix.
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!"
(GoF, pg. 177)
Fawkes resides in Dumbledore’s office on a perch. He is very old; we don’t know how old exactly, as he is really immortal. He has played several key parts in Harry’s trials and adventures, but I believe we need to ask ourselves what his true purpose really is. Is he just Dumbledore’s magnificent pet?
“They can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers, and they make highly faithful pets."Or is he really the key to the whole mystery? Let’s examine some mysteries and see if Fawkes fits.
(CoS, pg. 207)
What Really Chooses the Wizard?
First, I’ve recently begun to wonder about the assertion that the wand chooses the wizard:
" Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember..."This bit of information has not proven to be extremely useful so far, except in Harry’s case. Both Ron and Neville have been mentioned to be using someone else’s wand. Ron was using Charlie’s old one, and Neville was using his father’s. Ron received a new wand in the summer before his third year:
(SS, pg. 85)
"Look at this," said Ron, pulling a long thin box out of a bag and opening it. "Brand-new wand. Fourteen inches, willow, containing one unicorn tail-hair."But we have not seen a noticeable difference in his magical abilities since then. Neville’s wand was broken at the end of his fifth year and we have yet to see if receiving a new wand will drastically change his magical ability. So why is it so important for us to be told that the wand chooses the wizard? It’s important in Harry’s case because the wand that chooses him happens to contain at its core one of only two feathers that Fawkes the phoenix gave - making his wand a “brother” of Voldemort’s.
(PoA, pg. 56)
"I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother - why, its brother gave you that scar."Notice it is not the wood, nor the length of the wand that makes it a brother, it is the core. I believe it is the core of the wand that chooses the wizard.
(SS, pg. 85)
This line of reasoning inevitably leads to the question: Why would Harry and Voldemort receive brother wands? There are several ways to answer this question that I have heard. The funny thing is, it usually has to do with why Harry received his wand and not why Voldemort received his. If you answer the question of why Voldemort received a wand with Fawkes’ feather core, the answer for why Harry received the brother quickly falls into place.
Isn’t it odd to anyone else that a wand containing Fawkes’ feather would choose a wizard like Tom Riddle? Tom Riddle, a half-blood, was placed in Slytherin house because the sorting hat sensed that he was Salazar Slytherin’s heir. Wouldn’t the wand also be able to detect this? It seems to me that Tom Riddle stood against everything that Fawkes is. Dumbledore proclaims that Fawkes went to Harry’s aid in the Chamber of Secrets because Harry showed true loyalty to him:
"You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you."Yet Tom Riddle/Voldemort hates Dumbledore:
(CoS, pg. 332)
"Perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore?"As Salazar Slytherin’s heir, he sets himself up as the enemy of the ideals of Godric Gryffindor, Albus Dumbledore and, therefore, Fawkes. Perhaps that wand chose Tom Riddle specifically to be a weakness to him knowing that “Godric’s Heir” would come later and receive the brother.
(GoF, pg. 648)
Family Ties
Is Harry Godric Gryffindor’s heir? There are a few things which may suggest he is. First, when Harry’s wand is first put into his hand, this is what happens:
"He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls."Red and gold are the Gryffindor house colors, yet Harry has not been sorted yet, and he doesn’t even know what colors represent Gryffindor house. Second, when James and Lily Potter went into hiding from Voldemort, they were in Godric’s Hollow (SS, pg. 12). Is the name purely coincidence? I say, not likely. Third, after Harry defeats the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets with Godric Gryffindor’s sword, Dumbledore tells Harry "Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat," (CoS, pg. 334).
(SS, pg. 85)
According to Mugglenet, in the Facts about Books 6 & 7 section, "something HUGE will be revealed about Lily Potter." Could it be that we will learn she and Petunia were adopted and that her true surname was Gryffindor? This would fit with the idea that wizards sometimes name their daughters after flowers. This would make Harry’s heritage parallel Tom Riddle’s as he states "I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother’s side?" (CoS, pg. 314). That’s a pretty wild theory, but even if she were not adopted, is it possible that she was from the Gryffindor line? I’m not exactly sure how the genetics work in the Harry Potter world. Is it possible for a muggle-born to have wizard blood somewhere in their ancestry? I think it’s probable. There is also the possibility that the Potters were in the line of Godric Gryffindor.
The Rivalry Emerges
JKR said at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August 2004 that something we should be asking ourselves is why Voldemort didn’t die when the Avada Kedavra curse rebounded.
"You should be wondering what he did to make sure that he did not die."Voldemort says in the graveyard scene in GoF:
(www.jkrowling.com)
"it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked...for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it."Just what did he do to himself? I’ve heard many theories on this also. There’s no way for us to know for sure until we are told - but let’s venture a guess based on what we know.
(GoF, pg. 653)
Dumbledore tells Harry in CoS:
"Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He disappeared after leaving the school...traveled far and wide...sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind, underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognizable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here."So just what did Voldemort end up looking like after his transformations? Before he was restored to a physical body, he floated around as "vapor-mort," having the ability to possess animals.
(CoS, pg. 329)
"I sometimes inhabited animals - snakes, of course, being my preference."Also, in the Sorcerer’s Stone, when he possesses Quirrel, his face is described as “the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake,” (SS, pg. 293). At the beginning of GoF in his nasty “baby” form he is described as “hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face - no child alive ever had a face like that - flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes,” (GoF, pg. 640). And after he receives what he describes as his “old body” back in GoF (pg. 656), he is described as “whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake’s with slits for nostrils" (pg. 643), and again in OotP: “Tall, thin, and black-hooded, his terrible snakelike face white and gaunt, his scarlet, slit-pupiled eyes staring” (OotP, pg. 812).
(GoF, pg. 654)
As we can see from these quotes, Tom Riddle transformed himself from a good looking, dark-haired boy into something resembling a snake/human hybrid. What could he have possibly done to himself to look like that? I believe Voldemort altered himself with traits of the Basilisk, the King of Serpents, the weapon of choice of Salazar Slytherin.
Finally, let’s take a look at this interesting passage from Chamber of Secrets:
"Now, Harry, I’m going to teach you a little lesson. Let’s match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him..."A tiny little phrase could be easily added to this quote that would make Tom Riddle’s statement symmetrical. What if the passage said, instead:
He cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away."
(CoS, pg. 317)
"Let’s match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, Heir of Godric Gryffindor, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him."It could be foreshadowing the final conflict between Voldemort and Harry. It would also be the final conflict between Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor!
Parting Thoughts
Finally, let’s consider the following: If Dumbledore dies, will Fawkes become Harry’s new pet? JK Rowling said in an interview that Harry might receive a new pet. Will Harry acquire some of the Phoenix's powers? They certainly would be useful in the final conflict with Voldemort. Also, why is the secret group formed by Dumbledore to fight against the Heir of Slytherin called the Order of the Phoenix?
4/8/05
Posted by: Sara
Discuss this editorial.
 
|
|
|
 |
MuggleNet is an unofficial Harry Potter fan site. Please email us if you have any questions or concerns. MuggleNet's original layouts were designed and created by Navy. All subsequent layouts by Dylan Spartz.
© 1999-2008 MuggleNet.com. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy | COPPA Policy | Feedback | Credits
Random Addresses
|
1,976 muggles currently online |
|
| |||||||||||||||
|
Advertisement 
| ||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||
