Are there muggleborns in Slytherin?

[conuly]

You'd think there wouldn't be, seeing as how Slytherin was opposed (possibly even for good reasons, read a great fic about that a while back which I should've bookmarked....) to having muggleborns in the school.

But... Slytherin isn't the one deciding who goes where. Everybody believes the hat is. The hat which *Gryffindor* made. (And I, personally, believe that the hat is just confirming the student's own choice as to which house they belong in, but that's another issue.)

The hat only lists "ambition" as the requirement for getting into Slytherin, right? Not some degree of pure blood, that sort of thing...? So couldn't some naive muggleborn who hasn't somehow heard what "all Slytherins are like" think that it's just the place for them?

They'd regret it, but... is it possible?

Comments

[darkpoole.livejournal.com]

In Book 1, the hat says of Slytherin:

Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends

So it seems the criteria are cunning and ... amorality, maybe?

Then in book 4, the hat says

Power-hungry Slytherin
Loved those of great ambition

So there's ambition, but no reference to cunning.

And in book 5, it becomes

For instance, Slytherin
Took only pure-blood wizards
Of great cunning, just like him

So that's two references for cunning (which doesn't fit about two-thirds of the Slytherins we've seen), one for ambition, one for a lack of moral inhibition, and one for genetic purity.

My guess? Whatever Slytherin's original criteria, maybe the hat can't read either intellect or bloodlines, and just sorts people according to personality.