Title: Four Houses, Alike in Dignity
Author: Greensl33ves
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: HP and friends aren't mine.
Cover: Created and designed by me. Don't steal. (Though honestly, if you like it all that much, just ask...)
There's a very obvious problem with putting a lot of students with alike personalities and values together in a small isolated place for several years. Certain…irregularities tend to arise due to the Hogwarts sorting system, and the funny thing is that they always arise from the same places. Well, not always. Sometimes a student from another house manages to do something spectacular, but that's rare. Ridiculously so. It's gotten to the point where we actually have a chart we can consult to help us narrow down the suspects when there's major trouble. I suppose that's what happens when you have a school for a thousand years: you can find some patterns. And there are big patterns.
It's amazing how generation after generation houses live up to their stereotypes. I guess that's why there are stereotypes.
For example, Hogwarts, like any school, has its fair share of rule-breakers in the form of selling and using substances not allowed to minors, or anyone for that matter. If drugs are being imported into the school from an outside source on a large scale, it's Slytherins, and chances are we've caught them within six months of the beginning of the operation, probably the first three.
However, if they're originating from inside the school, it's the Ravenclaws making and growing them, and maybe a Hufflepuff or two that they've gotten on their string for a good cut. Gryffindors will only work with the Ravenclaws on this if they're junkies; Slytherins if there's blackmail involved (though not necessarily aimed at them). They never make a huge operation, just something big enough to satisfy their curiosity and line their pockets, their trunks, and, once, the entire Shrieking Shack. It's a fine line between getting rich and being caught, and they are good at it, to a T. It's almost a guarantee that by the time a successful ring is caught and shut down, it has existed for at least a year and a half, probably longer. I believe that there's only been one functioning Ravenclaw drug ring that's been caught within the first year of operation in the entire history of Hogwarts, and they were making some of the most potent and mentally degenerating hallucinogenic drugs that have ever been recorded.
Even then, they only got caught because one of their junkies was stupid enough to take some at breakfast in the middle of the Great Hall. Via injection.
Standard procedure for dealing with these outbreaks is to take the perpetrators into custody. Slytherin drug ring leaders are generally given enough detention to last them until they graduate, along with summer and holiday probation and a discreet note to their parents requesting that because we have been so generous as to not expel and publically humiliate their child, they should be so generous as to give a large donation to the school. And they do, always, as it is always the rich kids who are arrogant enough and have gold enough to start a large-scale operation like this.
On the other hand, Ravenclaw drug rings are dealt with quite differently. Depending on the nature of what they've been brewing, growing, crossbreeding, etc, and how creatively they've been going about it, we either hand them over to the healers at St. Mungo's experimental department to start finding cures to seemingly impossible diseases, or they go to the Department of Mysteries to do whatever it is that the Department of Mysteries does. We've never had anyone sent back, either, so I mostly figure that I probably don't want to know what they do with those kinds of recruits.
Hogwarts deals with a lot of cases like this. It doesn't have to involve drugs; there's plenty of nasty somethings that can arise when you stuff a thousand magical—some very powerfully magical—teenagers into an isolated school and give them not nearly enough staff as is needed. Things get overlooked, problems arise, and some fairly terrible things have happened in the past. This is why we have developed a standard procedure for dealing with cases where someone has crossed the boundaries with power and intelligence:
Rule #1: Don't expel them, as they will most likely only end up in a crime ring, filthy rich, or in a ditch, dead. Or worse, controlling the Ministry.
Rule #2: Don't hand them to the Ministry Aurors, as it's a shame to waste talent in Azkaban and would prompt inquiries into the school that would cause…problems.
Rule #3: Find something they will be good at that channels their talents in a positive way.
Rule #4: Get them out of school for good. Not expelled, but they're not allowed back, no matter their age. If what they've done is outstanding enough to get them to this little list and not simply expelled, then obviously they aren't the kind of children interested in school anyway. Make their dreams come true.
The list goes on, but the fact that there is a list at all says just how often cases like this have come up, approximately one every two to three years. This is for extreme cases only. Professors dealing with cheating rings do not refer to it; teachers dealing with cults do. How do people think that Rubeus Hagrid was allowed to stay on as gamekeeper? He made the list, so we gave him an occupation outside of school to keep him out of trouble.
Of course, how would people know? Very few professors besides the Headmaster and Deputy Headmaster even know it exists. If it were widely known how often these incidents occurred there would be riots. As it is, we have trouble enough to deal with. The list exists because the list works.
Drug trafficking isn't the only activity that emerges in patterns, though. The house most likely to form cliques is Hufflepuff, more even than Slytherin, because while Slytherin alliances change (one could say that Slytherin House itself is a clique) Hufflepuff's are set in stone. Hufflepuffs who cause trouble among the cliques by not being in one, or being thrown out of one, are most likely to pair up with Ravenclaws. This is always bad news, because either the Hufflepuff isn't up to Ravenclaw standards and they get squashed, or they are, and that's where most drug rings, random attacks, illegal duel clubs, and cult movements start. Again, not something that happens often. Usually they get squashed and go crying to the Gryffindors, who love them, or get picked up by Slytherins and inducted (that, however, largely depends on blood lineage. If a less than full-blooded Hufflepuff gets picked up by the Slytherins, it is probably to torment them and then send them on, a little worse for wear, to the Gryffindors. Gryffindors secretly thrive on this; it gives them something not-too-scary to be brave about).
Gryffindors make the best prefects and Heads. Slytherins are too easily bribed or have no trouble letting things slide, Ravenclaws don't care, and Hufflepuffs would rather tend to their social lives. No, if something needs to be done for the sake of being done (which is what prefect duties in large part are) a Gryffindor is best for the job. If you need a connection in the castle, go to a Hufflepuff. For outside connections, try Slytherin, and to be told that you are an idiot and that your impossible project will be finished by them next week/month/tomorrow, check Ravenclaw—if you have enough gold for it. In fact, you will need gold to get help from most of these people, or at least some big-time favors that you're willing to do. Not many people are nice enough or naïve enough to do without. Probably only a Gryffindor or a very young Hufflepuff. Very young. Or a Muggle-born from a happy family. Maybe.
Trouble in the form of pranks usually comes from Slytherin and Gryffindor, and those are easily separated by intention. Slytherin pranks hurt certain people very much; Gryffindor pranks tend to either not hurt anyone, or to hurt everyone. Ravenclaw pranksters, after a certain age, don't get caught and don't leave signatures unless they've crossed over into the realms of terrorism or guerilla warfare. Hufflepuffs don't play pranks as a rule, and if they do the troublemakers are quickly stifled by their own. Again, Hufflepuff polices itself.
Honestly, of all the houses, I'd put Hufflepuff down as the most self-sufficient. They punish their own, glorify their own, take care of their own. You get into the working world after Hogwarts and you have two things to watch out for: the Slug Club and the Badgers, because both are being propelled up by a force you don't want to mess with. Ravenclaws have their own ways of recommending themselves that aren't much talked about. Gryffindors, for the most part, must go on teacher recommendations and not much else. Perhaps this is why they work so hard as prefects; they know that's all they have going for them.
And yet I'd rate Gryffindor as the happiest house. Without the big cliques, like in Hufflepuff, the shifting alliances of Slytherin, or the constant pressure and danger of Ravenclaw, Gryffindors may choose their friendships based on what they really feel, and may change those friendships as they wish. In the end, it is Gryffindors who are the first to forgive, and always the first to jump at injustice. It is unthinkable for the rogue politics of a large clique to stand more than a few days in Gryffindor Tower. People say that you'll make your real friends in Slytherin, and that's true, but you'll make your best friends in Gryffindor.
Gryffindor, without many of the social problems of the other houses, is also the healthiest house, if counting colds and not bruises or magical maladies. Slytherin is the best at staying out of physical fights, Hufflepuff out of magical. Actually, Ravenclaw has the worst overall health. That's where the direst magical injuries come from, and bruises and cuts of the usual kind are really not that uncommon. Ironically, it is also from our "brightest" house that most of the eating disorder cases come from, girls trying to shine in any way possible, if not by brains alone, then by beauty. Next is Hufflepuff and its clique politics, closely followed by Slytherin, where marriage looms by seventh year and those who don't have a betrothal turn to desperate measures. Gryffindor sends very few sick children to the Hospital Wing in comparison with other houses; most are the "got in a fight and broke my arm" sort of problems that are easily fixed. Long stays are rare, and being sent out to St. Mungo's is rarer still. Nervous breakdowns come from Ravenclaw, and then from Hufflepuff. Students faking illness to stay out of the common room tend to be Slytherins and are usually allowed stay, simply because if they're running, they're doing it for a good reason.
Rules at Hogwarts seem both very lax and very strict at the same time, from an outside perspective. Talking too loudly in the hallways means that points are taken off, but the common rooms are left to their own devices, with neither chaperone nor curfew. Stories from time to time reach the staff of late-night games of strip-poker between sixth-years, of drunken dares that end in things being set on fire.
Then there's the Room of Requirement, which not only has its own laws, but will also keep out any authority if the user so desires. Gryffindors are most likely to know of that room, and to use it for their needs. Ravenclaws don't usually find out, but when they do, they tend to take up residence in it. This isn't interfered with. If they need a haven that badly, then they should have one. Slytherins use it for covert meetings. Hufflepuffs throw parties that they don't want younger students attending or teachers stopping, wild things with mixed results between those who ended the night well and those who had nothing short of a disaster.
Parties are yet another place to find pattern. Hufflepuff parties aren't exclusive, per say, in perhaps anything but age, yet inside, one will still find the social circles that persist in everyday life, only melded with what other cliques exist in other houses at the time. Gryffindor parties are big, rare, all-inclusive things, mostly for Quidditch games, usually for all ages. The rare times that the Gryffindors put on an age-exclusive party, everyone old enough clamors to come, no matter the house, and the event is talked about for weeks before and months after. Slytherin parties, on the other hand, are always exclusive, and yet are also rare, simply because the important events are held off school grounds, behind closed doors. Anyone necessary to the party will be invited, and not a single stray. Ravenclaw parties are frequent, un-exclusive, and notorious. Many students regard it as a right of passage into the wrong side of the school to have attended one and be able to tell the tale without either omitting detail or incurring deep humiliation. Whenever one Ravenclaw party location is shut down, another pops up in an even more hidden cranny.
The most interesting part of these parties, however, is the alcohol that is ordered for them, and how it arrives. It is a very quietly acknowledged fact that most older and well-bred Slytherins keep a small, private wine cabinet with four or five good vintages at any given time, just in case. But what is not well known is that the most packages containing cheap alcohol in large quantities arrive for Slytherins. In fact, Slytherin is where most teenage alcoholics come from in Hogwarts, despite popular opinion pointing to Ravenclaw. Ravenclaws drink, but it mostly drifts towards funny cocktails, or anything harder than the average liquor that can be gotten ahold of. Much more common than Ravenclaw drug rings are Ravenclaw breweries, which often churn out delicious and highly-alcoholic beverages with interesting magical effects—and that make you go blind if you steal so much as a sip. While the occasional clever Hufflepuff has been known to set up an apple press and make a few galleons off of home-made applejack, they don't usually enchant their brews, and otherwise stick to beers and hard liquor. Gryffindor, without a doubt, will always have Firewhiskey and Butterbeer in all its strengths somewhere in their parties, with more hard liquor and simple mixers to be found. For their big parties, they tend to hire a savvy Ravenclaw or Slytherin—or both—to run the bar.
Quidditch teams, and how they are regarded, are another interesting aspect of Hogwarts. Hufflepuff teams are loved, regardless of whether they win or lose, but are loved more when they win. Slytherin tends to treat its team as heroes, as does Gryffindor. They are almost identical in their hero-worship win attitude and not-our-fault defeat stance. Ravenclaw teams are regarded almost as knights, going forth to do battle against rather stupid beasts, expected to win, scorned if they don't. Their teams are well enough regarded, but it's yet another of the haphazard and twisted social power games they play amongst themselves. The best Aurors were once Ravenclaws.
Ravenclaws also seem to have that attitude about the House Cup. Every once in a while, approximately every thirty years or so, some Ravenclaw will get the urge to win the cup and will get the whole house to go along with it. That year is guaranteed to be one of the most dangerous for other students and hectic for the professors as the house that usually doesn't care pulls out all the stops to win the Cup by at least two hundred points, a standing tradition from the days of Rowena Ravenclaw. If in the final hour before the Cup is rewarded it is determined that it cannot be won by this sum, spectacular stunts will be pulled to make sure that it isn't won at all. The last time this happened was 1820, when three students were expelled the day before they would have graduated for setting fire to the tables in the Great Hall, despite the eight hundred years' worth of fire protection wards on them. All five hundred and fifty-two points were lost and the students were snapped up as Curse Breakers for Gringotts the next day, but the legend lives on and the current tables in the Great Hall are replicas of the originals. Other than the occasional spectacular Ravenclaw win, the House Cup is mostly claimed by either Slytherin or Gryffindor. Hufflepuff is notoriously bad at winning it, and will almost always come in third. If they win, it's by a scratch, and usually a happy accident.
On the subject of talents and dedication to clubs, all houses are mostly on equal footing. While Hufflepuffs might be slightly more likely to join an academic club than Ravenclaws, Ravenclaws are more likely to join a frivolous club such as choir then, say, Slytherins. At the moment the school has thirty-one official clubs, ranging from a symphonic choir to the Gobstone League to Practical Muggle Studies, which takes trips to local Muggle villages to observe in disguise. However, leadership of clubs, like prefect positions, tends to fall on Gryffindor shoulders, or the occasional Hufflepuff. No one likes it when Slytherins lead anything too objective, and Ravenclaws can once again be accused of not caring, or it is assumed that they have their own clubs. There is a fiction writing ring that's been running in the school for years that has been the start of many fights, as its primary material is written about other students. It is rumored to be run by the Ravenclaw prefects out of their Tower, which would explain why none of them ever seem to have time to perform their duties.
One of the problems with Hogwarts is that it is a comprehensive school. Yes, everyone gets the chance to be whatever they think they want to be, but it is very difficult to specialize and it is a very…nationalistic school. We produce what England needs most, not fine-toned craftsmen or master workers, but well-enough educated young people who are perfect fuel for mass production and not thinking. I don't mean to be cynical, but a hundred years ago we offered classes in Hindi, Mandarin, French, and German, with required Latin. Now, we have just Ancient Runes, a dead language at best, which will do majority of students no good. Hogwarts itself is run by a skeleton staff left from war-time and never replaced. There have not been enough teachers since the Dark Wizard Grindlewald started attacking in the 1920's, and it has been generations. Most don't even know what they're missing, and the rich old-blood parents supply what their children should have while the poor or ignorant get nothing. We have a free school to make everything equal—equally ignorant—yet we are not even that.
Few students drop out of school after 5th year anymore, even though it is perfectly legal. Only those with neither breeding nor aptitude take their leave, or those with too much aptitude and someone to guide them through an early apprenticeship. For the most part, though, there are few fields which require no NEWTs. Slytherins have the lowest drop-out rate, period. Next is Hufflepuff. Ravenclaws and Gryffindors are about equal on their drop-outs, though the reasons vary, from being sick of formal education to running from the law.
Pregnancies are also equally distributed throughout the houses, though reactions tend to be predictable. Slytherin girls get married and are either sent to a day-time finishing school, or are tutored for the rest of their education. Hufflepuffs do almost the same thing, only they wait to marry until after they finish school. Gryffindor girls have their babies and return while their child is cared for by relatives. Ravenclaws are most likely to either drop out and disappear off the grid for a few years, or try to raise the child in secret in their dorms. In the past century, three girls—that we know of—have tried this and succeeded. I could ask the house elves about any others, because the house elves always know, but I'd rather not. It wouldn't change anything to know.
Most fields after Hogwarts are equally distributed between houses, but there are a few that are dominated by witches and wizards from one house. Aurors, in majority, are Ravenclaws, and it shows in their older ranks, because it is the former Ravenclaws who manage to survive to old age. Slytherins make excellent politicians, the bureaucracy of the Ministry a piece of cake for those who managed to stay on top of the social chain in their Hogwarts days. About forty percent of healers were once Hufflepuffs, a significant amount in such an important profession. Anything to do with Muggles is likely to be made up of mostly Gryffindor alumnae, as they get the most Muggle-borns.
Dress code infractions are never perpetrated by Hufflepuffs. Ravenclaws have been known to wear the occasional inappropriate clothing under their robes, and Gryffindor girls are particularly bad about adding accessories while the boys are nearly always messy. Slytherins, however, are the worst of them all. Look closely at their robes and find that they're subtly made out of silk in summer instead of cotton or linen, and lined in green cloth in winter rather than the mandatory black. There are trims on their hems, their buttons are embellished, their socks are embroidered, and they're often to be found at Sunday dinner wearing dress robes brought from home instead of uniforms. Their cloaks have hidden pockets and jeweled clasps. It's always difficult to spot, but against the rules nonetheless, and if anyone cared enough to dock points surely they would lose the cup forever, but of course no one does.
An interesting fact that has never been much pursued but is important to note nonetheless is one aspect in which the houses are alike: grades. One would think that Ravenclaws, being so smart, would prevail, or Hufflepuffs with their hard work, or Slytherins and their extra tutors, or Gryffindors and their habit of mentoring each other, but…that solves the mystery, doesn't it? It all evens out in the end. Students at Hogwarts are not sorted by sheer intelligence; they are sorted by personality.
Gryffindors are given a house that loves them and hates them by turns. It's an immature house, an extension of family, a warm red and gold common room with a cheery fire where friendship is encouraged. It's also the biggest producer of turncoats of any house. Peter Pettigrew was following a long tradition. Bullies come from Gryffindor as well. They are a careless lot, whether in freely handing out their affection or dismissing the opinions of those they disagree with. Gryffindor is a bold and reckless house, where one follows one's heart and consequences be damned.
A Ravenclaw is an unpredictable person, open-minded and experimental. Ravenclaws will go where no one has gone before, armed to the best of their ability and determined to survive. In fact, it can be said that Ravenclaw is a house of survivors. Their entire education is a battle, to be smart, to be savvy, to live as they like, yet not with their hearts on their sleeves. Ravenclaws make connections, and know too much. In their quest for knowledge, too often they are sucked in by the need for results and become hardened to the methods they use as they watch their peers do the same. Ravenclaw doesn't care about its students, and so they must care only about themselves. The house of Ravenclaw is a place where facts and knowledge mean the difference between happiness and ruin.
When a student is sorted into Hufflepuff, they become one of a mass, a hive. The colors yellow and black are fitting for a world where the good of the many is put high above the good of a few. Hufflepuff is a safe house that holds its students close, embracing them, with a place for everyone and for everyone a place. An external attack on a Hufflepuff is an attack on the entire House, and they act accordingly. Internal attacks are just as badly tolerated, and anyone caught causing discord—justly or un—will be treated as the threat they are and ostracized, Hufflepuff's worst punishment. There is no such thing as a lone Hufflepuff. It is a house that grants many mercies and no forgiveness. To be a Hufflepuff is to fulfill a duty and a place, and in turn be secure in one's life.
Slytherin house is full of miniature adults, who have little time for games and fun when there are reputations to be seen to and grades to be kept up. The need to be the best is impressed by all sides. Those who cope with the pressure and succeed are rewarded by not only points but recognition and popularity. Likewise, a Slytherin in need of help will always find it in their house, for to help a fellow Slytherin is to help oneself. Then again, Slytherins also realize that were the person to ask outside the house, it would be perceived as a weakness, and reputation is everything. What happens in Slytherin stays in Slytherin, or else. Slytherin house is a place where the closets are full of skeletons and the only thing that binds tighter than blood is true friendship.
Put a powerful student in a room with neither an exit nor access to Apparation. A Hufflepuff will send to their friends to help them get out. A Gryffindor will swear and yell and then blast out a wall. A Ravenclaw will charm something and be gone in less than ten minutes. A Slytherin will make you wish that you'd never put them in that room to begin with.
This experiment has been tried twenty-odd times by various headmasters, researchers, and teachers over the millennium, with the biggest variation in the results being what charm the Ravenclaw will use. Some things, it seems, never change.
What would happen if the houses were sorted differently? What would happen if it were random, or if there was an entirely different set of values that they were placed upon? Does sorting the students actually help them, or are we only causing more damage? It's a question asked perhaps not often enough. Will it ever change? I can't answer that either. But sometimes I wonder. We have a list to categorize offences. Should we be worried about that?
Author Note: Thanks for reading! Yes, this is a repost of my essay from 2010-if it looks familiar, that's why. Old and new readers alike, if you enjoyed this, check out my story Girls In Glass Houses, about Ginny and Luna in the direct aftermath of CoS.
And, of course, if you enjoy reading my fan fiction, check out my original novels. To find them, search Saint Flaherty on a well-known website for purchasing books (hint: it's named after a rain forest). You might find you enjoy them too.
Don't forget to review and favorite! And older readers, if you have any requests for fics you want brought back, please feel free to let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Thanks!
-S.