1 Dumbledore: {outdoors, pointing his wand at Cthulhu} Banisho Cthulhu! {Cthulhu vanishes}
2 Steve: Crikey, Dumbles! What'd yeh go and do that for? I 'ad 'im under control!
3 Dumbledore: He had eaten three Ravenclaws... I hardly call that under control.
4 Harry: {to Steve} Yeah, I said Slytherins!

2013-09-13 Rerun commentary: Having just reread the Harry Potter books, I'm struck once again by just how vilified the Slytherins are. Sure, they're not the nicest bunch in general, but it's a little disturbing how some of the other characters in the novels generally write them all off, and how the houses don't actually unite to stand in defence of Hogwarts at the end of the last book. (The book is over six years old... we're well past spoiler territory now.)

Professor Slughorn is generally okay, and even Draco Malfoy is not all as bad as he could have been.

I wonder if any real schools have developed house reputations along the lines of Hogwarts, since the books appeared. Imagine being branded as a bad egg just because you got put into a certain house at school.