Observations in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"

In which it’s time to start keeping track of the Death Eaters.

Name	House	Comment	Source
Tom Marvolo Riddle	Slytherin	Slytherin’s heir	CS
Peter Pettigrew	?	Were all Marauders Gryffindors?	PA
Igor Karkaroff	?	Was he ever a student at Hogwarts?	GF 19
Evan Rosier	Slytherin	Yes, I trust Sirius on "Slytherin"	GF 28
Wilkes	Slytherin	And I also trust Sirius on "Death Eater"	GF 28
(Bellatrix) Lestrange	Slytherin	(we don’t know her first name yet)	GF 28
(Rodolpus) Lestrange	Slytherin	(we don’t know his first name yet)	GF 28
Avery	Slytherin		GF 28
Antonin Dolohov	?		GF 30
Travers	?		GF 30
Mulciber	?		GF 30
Augustus Rookwood	?		GF 30
Severus Snape	Slytherin	Head of House, reformed?	GF 30
(Rabastan Lestrange)	?	The fourth defendant. (We don’t know anything about him yet)	GF 30
Crouch junior (?)	?	may have been accused wrongly	GF 30

7 out of 14 confirmed Death Eaters are confirmed Slytherins
6 out of 8 confirmed Death Eaters were confirmed Slytherins at the end of Chapter 28. Will this ratio drop further?

In which Harry Potter is 'DISTURBED AND DANGEROUS' and HG may be overanalysing semantics.

Slytherin observation Nr. 33

Malfoy was holding a copy of the Daily Prophet, too. Slytherins up and down the table were sniggering, twisting in their seats to see Harrys reaction.

Okay, these are not just Draco’s close friends, who would probably be huddled around him. I should add some more students to my list of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], if I only knew their names.

But – Merlin’s pants! I hope I don’t get this wrong, because I’m not a native speaker, you know. "Slytherins up and down the table" are not "The Slytherins", right? They are an unknown number of students spread up and down the table, and Harry eventually realizes that therer are other Slytherins, also up and down the table, who at least ignore Malfoy or may even glare at Draco in disgust.

A very interesting thread. Why didn't I notice it before?

I've just finished reading the posts, and this is what I'd like to contribute to the topic:

It is canon that Pettigrew was a Gryffindor. We are told in The Prince's Tale that he was sorted into Gryffindor.

The roll call continued. Harry watched Lupin, Pettigrew, and his father join Lily and Sirius at the Gryffindor table.

I like to count Phineas Nigellus Black among good Slytherins. It is true that we only know his portrait version and we know that portraits in the circular office owe loyalty to the current Headmaster, but I think that while he seems to have issues with Dumbledore as a person, he also seems to be quite happy to assist Headmaster Snape and, if anyone, the portraits know what Headmaster Snape is up to. I realize that Phineas uses the M-word, which is a pity; but he also seems to be happy about Harry's victory at a moment when there is no Headmaster to be loyal to - Snape is dead and the new Headmaster / Headmistress has not been appointed yet.

What about Andromeda Black? If we take Slughorn's words literally - "The whole Black family had been in my house, but Sirius ended up in Gryffindor!" - we must conclude that Andromeda was a Slytherin. I can imagine that at the age of eleven, and being new at Hogwarts, she wanted to be in the house where the rest of her family were, and the Sorting Hat granted her her wish. She may even have had some obvious Slytherin characteristics (even Sirius did!). She may also have accepted (consciously or not) the pureblood ideology as the only one she knew at the time, and it is possible that it was Ted Tonks (and love) that opened up her eyes. In any case, just like Snape, she had the ability to love a Muggleborn despite all the prejudice that had been planted in her heart, which shows that she probably never absorbed that prejudice too deeply. Of course, that's only speculation in her case, but I think Snape, too, had the ability all along to love a Muggleborn (whom, if he had really believed in the DE ideology, he should have despised) and to love her more than he loved Voldemort (so to speak) and everything that Voldemort meant to him. Andromeda, too, loved Ted more than anything her family meant to her.

I think the same goes for Regulus: in his heart, he was able to love a despised, humble creature, a house-elf, more than anything Voldemort and his power could mean to him. It is one thing to say that Regulus and Snape turned away from Voldemort "only" because he threatened someone they loved - but it is also important that they were able to love someone that genuine Death Eaters should have despised or hated.

Lucius is different - in his case it was really "only" because his own family, and especially his beloved son, became a sort of target that he got disillusioned with Voldemort. Another (and perhaps related) difference is that he wasn't able to do much for said family / son and against Voldemort.

Narcissa is certainly a very proud pureblood, but we don't know if she was ever really enthusiastic about Voldemort and Death Eaters in general. She may have only accepted these things as part of being a Black and a Malfoy, so when Voldemort started to threaten them, she managed to defy him eventually. In fact, I think Narcissa is ready to sacrifice anybody for her family's interest. She forced / tricked Snape into an Unbreakable Vow, she had no problem with Dumbledore being killed and she would have handed Harry over to Voldemort in the Malfoy Manor. She may have regarded these cases as "emergency situations". (Xeno did something very similar, but apparently with much more inner struggle.) So, I don't think it was difficult for Narcissa to betray Voldemort in another emergency - she probably never cared about either Harry or Voldemort, only about her own family. It took, of course, some courage to defy Voldemort, but Narcissa, as a mother, could probably sense in that critical moment, what was best for her son, and that gave her the necessary courage. She may also have noted that Harry had once more survived an AK, so he must know something, and perhaps, ultimately, it may have been wiser to be on his side all along. It doesn't really make Narcissa 'good' in my eyes, but at least better than Death Eaters.

Thank you, Julia. I didn’t remeber that "Wormtail is a Gryffindor" was confirmed at last. And I always forget Andromeda Black when I try to think of Slytherins who didn’t become Death Eaters. Maybe I should start keeping another list for them.

In which we meet Voldemorts most faithfull servant.

Slytherin observation Nr. 34

Death Eaters known so far:

Name	House	Comment	Source
Tom Marvolo Riddle	Slytherin	Slytherin’s heir	CS
Peter Pettigrew	Gryffindor?	probably, but not yet confirmed	PA
Igor Karkaroff	?	Was he ever a student at Hogwarts?	GF 19
Evan Rosier	Slytherin	Yes, I trust Sirius on "Slytherin"	GF 28
Wilkes	Slytherin	And I also trust Sirius on "Death Eater"	GF 28
(Bellatrix) Lestrange	Slytherin	(we don’t know her first name yet)	GF 28
(Rodolpus) Lestrange	Slytherin	(we don’t know his first name yet)	GF 28
Avery	Slytherin		GF 28
Antonin Dolohov	?		GF 30
Travers	?		GF 30
Mulciber	?		GF 30
Augustus Rookwood	?		GF 30
Severus Snape	Slytherin	Head of House, reformed?	GF 30
(Rabastan Lestrange)	?	The fourth defendant. (We don’t know anything about him yet)	GF 30
Lucius Malfoy	Slytherin	Family tradition	GF 33
Macnair	?		GF 33
Crabbe	?	Slytherin student Crabbe’s father?	GF 33
Goyle	?	Slytherin student Goyle’s father?	GF 33
Nott	?	Student Nott’s father (we still don’t know Nott’s first name and house)	GF 33
Third of "Three dead in my service"(*)	?	First and second are Rosier and Wilkes (GF 28)	GF 33
Barty Crouch junior	?		GF 35
More Death Eaters at the graveyard and at Azkaban	?	"Some of the Death Eaters he passed in silence"	GF 33

^(*)These three would fit into one big gap in the circle of Death Eaters together with Karkaroff ("too cowardly to return"), Snape ("left me for ever"), and Crouch jun. ("most faithful servant"), but Voldemort may have passed more gaps, not talking about other Death Eaters who died in his service. He definitely passed gaps for more Death Eaters who are imprissioned in Azkaban, but talked only about two Lestrades.

6 out of 8 confirmed Death Eaters were confirmed Slytherins at the end of Chapter 28.
7 out of 14 confirmed Death Eaters were confirmed Slytherins at the end of chapter 30.
8 out of at least 21 confirmed Death Eaters are confirmed Slytherins now.

Well, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Shall I dare to utilize my seer abilities to predict that, at the end of the seventh book, if we payed attention we will have seen that twentyfive per cent of the Death Eaters (like twentyfive per cent of the wizarding population) have been Slytherins?

In which everyone in the Hall raise their goblets to Cedric Diggory..

Yes, this includes all Slytherins, even Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.

Slytherin observation Nr. 35

Dumbledore turned gravely to Harry, and raised his goblet once more. Nearly everyone in the Great Hall followed suit. ... but ... Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and many of the other Slytherins had remained defiantly in their seats, their goblets untouched.

So, how many are "nearly everyone"? Shouldn’t this be at least ninety percent? Lets try to do some maths:

We assume an equal number of students for every house and ignore the teachers, whose number is small compared to the number of students. This makes 75 % of "everyone in the Great Hall" non-Slytherins, who all raise their goblets to Harry.

But 90 – 75 = 15 % of all students are Slytherins who raise their goblets to Harry.

Since all Slytherins are only one quarter of all students, this makes 15 * 4 = 60 % of the Slytherins raise their goblets to Harry.

This isn’t too bad, and it would become even better if I dared to assume that "nearly everyone" is 95 % of everyone (only just every fifth Slytherin hates Harry), or 99 % of everyone (only 4 % of the Slytherin students don’t raise their goblets to Harry, but could this still be called "many"?).

This was the last observation for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". I have to take a break before I start rereading "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", but I hope it will not last as long as my previous break.

Woa... although I had pondered that question, I never calculated. I like your reasoning!