I have started listening to the audiobooks again while I clean house (gosh my life is exciting) and I am still troubled by why the sorting hat "debated" putting HP in G or S. Maybe someone could offer an explanation on why the sorting hat was confused, if the scar is not a horcrux?
As far as deaths, I don't think I can handle it if any of the students die. I just don't think she will sacrifice HP because of all the children. I hoe she writes a DD biography next.
Sharon
We do know from the sortings that for some students, the hat sorted them into their house pretty quickly (for Ron, it basically said "another Weasley. Better be Griffindor"). For some (like Draco Malfoy), it was so quick that the hat was barely on their head. But there were others where the hat took a long time before announcing which house to put them in. Harry was not the only one that the hat apparently debated on, but Harry is the only one who we know what the hat had to say to him.
I think the sorting was the first big time where Harry had to decide between what was easy and what was right.
Someone earlier had posted that they thought the scar was a Horcrux because the sorting hat had said to Harry, 'it's all in your head."
I'd like to suggest that to the sorting hat, everything is all in each student's head. And, the hat is looking at the students' thoughts and what they choose to do. If their thoughts are not clear, the hat needs to consider a little more where to put them. in fact, Hermione says in the 5th book that the sorting hat considered putting her into Ravenclaw, but she asked to go into Griffindor, so that's where she ended up.
The hat told Harry he'd do well in Slytherin. Some of what the books says about Slytherin seems like Harry (the underlined parts):
Slytherin is the house for students known as being 'resourceful...with a certain disregard for rules,' also 'shrewd' and 'cunning folk [who] use any means to achieve their ends.'
Those parts could also describe Harry's father (it would be interesting to know if the hat had a similar conversation with
him).
The hat told him that Slytherin could make him powerful and help him on his way to greatness, which would have seemed like a tempting proposition for someone who grew up in the Dursley's house. I don't think Harry is shrewd, cunning or would use any means to achive his end. He had seen a taste of Slytherin during his meeting with Draco Malfoy before the sorting and did not want to go in that house.
'Gryffindor welcomes those students known for their 'chivalry,' and who are willing to fight for what is 'right and good.'
That fits Harry too (although it's not always easy for him to choose what is right and good.
In the end, Harry was who chose where to go because he told the hat "not Slytherin".
At the end of Chamber of Secrets, when Harry tells Dumbledore that he is a fraid he
should have been sorted into Slytherin, DD askes him why he was not placed there. Harry tells him it was because he asked the hat NOT to put him there. Then DD says something to the effect of it being our choices, rather than our abilities that make us what we are (making it sound to me like Harry's choice to not go into SLytherin was what we were supposed to get out of the hat not knowing where to sort him.)
