WMG / Harry Potter Hogwarts

Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses produce fewer significant wizards because Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin rigged the Sorting Hat.

It's stated that the Sorting Hat originally belonged to Gryffindor, that the sorting system was his design, and that he was close friends with Salazar Slytherin, while Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff had a separate friendship on their own. Sorting people by personality was actually a ruse concocted by Gryffindor and Slytherin, designed to screw over Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff by having the Sorting Hat sort most children with the greatest potential for influence and power to Gryffindor and Slytherin, leaving Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw with the stooges and the oddballs. Occasionally the Sorting Hat will put someone of relevance in the other two houses or an unworthy in Slytherin or Gryffindor to divert attention from the hoarding that the two male founders were doing in order to extend their influence over the future ruling classes of wizarding Britain.

Bravery itself is not the defining value of Gryffindor House.

One of the sorting hat's songs includes the line: Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those / With brave deeds to their name." Notice how this line specifies that those taught by Gryffindor have brave deeds to their name. But why specify “with brave deeds to their name”? Why not just say those who are brave? It could just be poetic license, not meant to be thought about too much, or it could be the key to explaining why certain characters do belong in Gryffindor, while others, that people often think should have been, do not. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this line was a deliberate word choice that reveals something about Gryffindor values. This line makes a very subtle distinction which seems to imply that Gryffindor values the fame and glory of bravery more than bravery itself. Or, to put it another way, the appearance of bravery seems more important than the bravery itself.

• This explains why Pettigrew, though he was quite cowardly in actuality, truly did belong in Gryffindor. In fact, Pettigrew did become “known for his brave deeds”; ie: his renown for confronting Sirius Black and dying nobly trying to avenge his friends. It doesn’t even matter that it was all a sham; the loophole in the Gryffindor house is that it values the appearance and glory of bravery even more than actual bravery.
• This also explains why Severus and Regulus though they were both extremely brave, belonged in Slytherin. They didn’t seek honor and glory for their bravery. In fact, they deliberately tried to cover up and hide their bravery Theirs was the type of bravery that is subtle and hidden, the opposite of the Gryffindor’s showy bravery. To them, glory and recognition were subservient to achieving their ultimate goals, which makes them perfectly Slytherin at heart, which is not such a bad thing after all.
• As a last bit of evidence, consider how Gryffindor seems the most boisterous and extroverted of all the houses, indicating that it tends to attract the kind of people who like attention as typified by characters like Fred, George, James, and Sirius.
• Just to be clear, I am not claiming that bravery isn’t important in Gryffindor, but that Gryffindor seems to especially value the type of bravery that is ornate and that gets noticed. Consequently, those who appear brave, or want to appear brave for the fame and glory, can also find a place in Gryffindor.
• This brings up the perspective of each House having it's "light side" and "dark side" aspects. For example some people would ask why make a House of evil, Slytherin. It's not that Slytherin House is inherently evil, it's that it was taken over by the dark side. While we see Gryffindor as a 'good' house, from the stories we hear about James and the Marauders we can see an aspect of what the dark side of Gryffindor could look like. So perhaps a deeper part of the backstory is that Voldemort wasn't just infiltrating the wizarding world at large, but his teachings and dark influence were entering Hogwarts as well, and bringing out the dark side in the student houses where it could. Dumbledore was able to form the Order of the Phoenix and brings the Gryffindor's back into the light.
  • The fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort would have, in the beginning, been a very 'cold war' sort of conflict between the two of them as the each try to subtly out influence the other in Hogwarts.

Slytherin house was only kept open so that the sociopathic wizard children aren't mixed with the general population. It's the "special ed" section of the school.

Of course, it backfired; by now, it's become tradition, and nobody remembers the real purpose of the House.

• Maybe the "special ed" class was made into Hufflepuff since there's not much mention of it or what the common room is like in the books and the Sorting Hat said they'd take anyone who dosen't fit the other three houses' qualities.
  • That is definitely not true since Rowling herself has said that being in Hufflepuff is just as great as the other three and that plenty of accomplished and great wizards and witches have come from Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff is for the hard-working, smart and loyal ones after all. They have their own well deserved traits.
• There are more qualities than courage, ambition, and wisdom, though. And given that later interviews suggest Hufflepuff's fairly comfortable as opposed to Slytherin's dungeons, well...

Slytherin doesn't have more evil people than the other houses; it's evil members are just more ambitious.

There are immoral people in all four houses. But, only a really ambitious immoral person would rise to become a murderer, or a dark lord, like Voldemort. In real life, most sociopaths are not violent, because nothing is motivating them to do anything violent, though they will do smaller cruel things to others. There are Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws who would sell their mothers into slavery if they thought it would benifit themselves. But they don't try to take over the world or kill anyone, because they aren't ambitious enough.

• Looking out for yourself above others is specifically said to be, a Slytherin trait, as much as ambition is. I generally agree with your logic overall, though.
  • Except looking out for yourself above others is not really a Slytherin trait. Slytherins take care of each other, Ravenclaws are the backstabbing ones.
• This is probably canon; I mean, look at Wormtail—clearly an evil person, but can't stand up for himself to save his life and always follows around the bigger, more powerful people. And he's a Gryffindor.
• The Slytherin house probably wasn't ALWAYS the dark wizard house. Or at least considered such. In the years shortly following the founding of Hogwarts it was probably know as the conservative/isolationist house. Considering the traits associated with being Slytherin, the house probably became known as the house for future politicans, spies, and aristocrats - and who likes them? (JK) It's probably not until the Wizarding Wars start that Slytherin starts to become known as the 'dark/evil' house. Give the Harry Potter world enough time and a lack of dark lords and I'm sure the stigma against the house will fade back to the usual.

Gryffindors and Slytherins normally leave each other alone.

The two houses have a long history of being completely awful to one another; because of this, members of the two houses tend to avoid each other. In each house are a few complete jerks who go out of the way to screw with members of the other house, becoming representative of it in the process. As a result, each House seems to the other to consist only of the most evil students to the other.

• To clarify this a bit: as observed in the movies, Slytherins and Griffindors will happily associate with everyone except each other.
• There are several things that could explain why this is true: for one thing, the obvious fact of the books being from Harry's perspective means we see the Slytherins at their worst, because he commands such a high profile that he attracts excessive attention anyway, both good and bad. Also, the Malfoy wields a great deal of influence, and given the way Harry snubbed him, some of his year-mates probably found it easier to fall in line. (This ties in with a related argument that less Slytherins are Death Eaters than it appears, for similar reasons: the ones who aren't feel less reason to antagonize Harry, and so simply don't interact with him much and get little screen time.)
  • Probably an even better explanation - Slytherin has as many "evil" or unsavory characters as it does because it is filled with the children of Death Eaters, a wave of kids loyal to their parents and/or bent on revenge. If Harry had joined Hogwarts in any other generation (besides the one immediately before his), he probably wouldn't have found so many antagonistic Slytherins. This may or may not extend to his kids' terms, as some of the children of Death Eaters may have held grudges to adulthood, while others did not (I.E, Malfoy's lack of antagonism).

Hufflepuff House is actually the most dangerous one.

According to the Sorting Hat, Hufflepuff gets the students that are the most hard-working, loyal, and trustworthy. It would stand to reason that they'd be taught magic that's too dark to be entrusted to a Slytherin. They're tailor-made to be the black ops of the Ministry of Magic, and if one in a million of them do go bad, they never get caught. After all, who would suspect a Hufflepuff?

• So while Aurors are like a cross between the CIA and Green Berets, and mostly come from Gryffindor, there's an even more secretive group of back ops members (possibly related to the Unknowables) comprised almost soleley of Hufflepuffs? Cool.
• Tonks was a Hufflepuff. Hmmm.
  • So was Hogwart's champion, Cedric.
• Also, their mascot is a flippin' badger: They SEEM all cute and cuddly and harmless... until they rip your face off. The honey badger is the most fearless creature on the planet, and can take bites from a friggin' cobra and all that happens is it takes a freaking nap, and goes right back to eating the cobra like nothing happened. Honey badger don't give a shit indeed. Nothing can stop them. Fear the Hufflepuffs. Fear them.
• Alternately, they could make up the majority of the Unspeakables. If Aurors are the Black Ops of the wizarding world, then the Department of Mysteries' 'Unspeakables' would have to be something like Area 51. As Book 5 clearly shows, the Department of Mysteries deals with stuff that's abnormal even by wizarding standards, and they are sworn to secrecy. Note how Hufflepuffs are often the 'forgotten' house among the four. Not to say that a Gryffindor couldn't do the job, but Gryffs would probably tend toward being more on the frontlines. Additionally, one of the apparent 'weaknesses' of Gryffindor is that some of its members have a tendency to be brash, bullish, or even outright cocky.
• Or, instead, ask yourself who exactly they are 'loyal' to? They're loyal to Hufflepuff. Nothing more, nothing less. It's obvious...they're the wizard mafia.

The reason for all of those empty classrooms and that there are maybe eight teachers for the entire school, ten or twelve if the AP classes get their own specialist?

There used to be a lot more teachers, and probably but not necessarily a lot more students, but most of the teachers would have been involved with the wars against Grindlewald and Voldemort. Especially since they and the best students would be most likely to join the Order of the Phoenix or the Aurors, who had the highest death rates during the last war, many of Hogwart's faculty ended up dead during the forties and seventies. There are so many spare rooms, not just because of fluctuations in population over the thousands of years Hogwarts was probably planned to run (Chaos Architecture could have solved for that, and probably did), but also because many of the classrooms were places to hold other advanced and optional classes, and split up the houses into their own classes instead of having doubles classes all the time. In another few decades (or more, since wizards live so much longer than nonmagical humans and thus require longer to be considered a master of a craft), they might be able to hire up more teachers, split up the doubles classes (or put doubles classes on a rotating schedule, since it probably encourages inter-house fraternization), and go to having a Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum with multiple specialists who teach shorter terms instead of a single teacher giving completely different aspects of the DAtDA lessons each year.

• That completely makes sense, when you think about it: comparable to the "lost generation" in post-WWI France (an enourmous hole in the population where all the young men who should have been starting families were dead); considering that the books suggest the first war went on a lot longer than the second, the entire Wizarding population might be a lot smaller than it ought to be (which would explain a lot in and of itself, like how almost every adult seems to know one another).

Or they're not classrooms. Don't forget, Hogwarts was founded when witchburnings were a reality. So given that Hogwarts is a CASTLE which are typically built to hold off invading armies, which magically defenses, it's entirely possible that it was built to fit as many people as possible just in case. If you're gonna hide in magical castle from the crazies wanting to burn you alive, you would want some room and not be crammed into very limited space. Or it could both this possiblity and the one above. Who says there can only be one explanation?

There is no curse on the DAtDA professorial post, it was planned that way.

The reason that no teacher has held the job for more than a single year in a row since Tom Riddle asked for it is because no teacher has held the job for more than a single year in a row since the class was founded. Instead of trying to find one, decent, well-rounded teacher and teach a little bit about lots of things each year, they hire a new specialist each year and work on a five to seven year cycle of subjects (GenEd, Specific Spell Defense and Charmbreaking, Mythical Creatures above level 3 [and thus not suited for Care of magical Creatures], Paranoia [defense against general spells and scrying]...) Maybe there was a Poison and Mind/Body Altering Substances Defense subclass, but it got absorbed into Potions and Snape got locked out of the job he became potions master to get to. Lockhart not doing his job and the war and job snatchings going on from book five onwards probably screwed up the curriculum a bit.

Hogwarts is somewhat sentient.

The castle has over time used the enormous amount of magic inside it to form some sort of consciousness. It would explain why Dumbledore always seems to know everything that's going on there. The castle obviously does, and he - as the headmaster - is tied to the castle to the point where he knows what the castle knows.

• I think this has been all but verified by Rowling.
• I believe this theory, because if Hogwarts is sentient, who knows, it could an Eldritch Abomination, which make the story creepier, and I love creepy things.
• At the least, the Room of Requirement is definitely intelligent.
• You guys are gonna love this one...
• In the Prisoner Azkaban Harry does note that Professor Flitwick is teaching the doors to recognize a photo of Sirius meaning that this theory is very likely.
• It probably doesn't even realize its sentience. It's alive, but more like an animal than a thinking being.

Hogwarts magically seems to have a larger student population than it actually has.

A thousand years of magical classes have come through its halls, leaving a good bit of residual magic. Hence though the actual student population may vary from year to year, there always seems to be students around the corner, behind you, everywhere - though if you actually forced yourself to look there would be nothing. This varies by time of day - the halls are crowded and noisy when they are expected to be crowded and noisy, but it doesn't get noisy in the middle of the night. So when the book mentions throngs of students it's actually just some students and the feeling that there are many more around. This residue reacts to emotions, so when Harry feels like the school hates him, most of the real students really don't take a side but the phantom throngs reflect Harry's feelings about how everyone else feels about him.

Hogwarts is bewitched so that all students are confronted with a mystery to solve each year.

This happens the same way the DADA teaching spot is cursed — it guarantees the teacher will be forced to leave after a year, but from completely external, logical reasons. In the same way, a completely accounted for and external mystery will present itself to every student. For example, a fellow student has a problem that he is hiding, and his friends spend the year figuring it out what it is. The books detail Harry, Ron and Hermione's particular mystery. All the other students are investigating similar, but much less consequential ones. This is why no seems to think it remarkable, bizarre, or huge news that the trio have these massive adventures every year — they're just wowed by the type of adventure, because their's are always more mundane. Possibly, one of James, Sirius, and Peter's was figuring out that Remus was a werewolf.

• I suppose Ginny certainly had a mystery of her own in Chamber of Secrets. And what Malfoy went through in Half-Blood Prince might loosely count as a mystery.
  • This is my favorite WMG ever, and makes perfect sense.
  • If the school came up with Cedric's and Myrtle's mysteries, it's more Fridge Horror...
    • Those two failed to solve their mystery. ...Because the solutions were “you will die by the end of the year.”
• Percy was assigned the exact same mystery as the Trio in Chamber of Secrets, with the same clues and connections to the main players (It was his sister, and his girlfriend was petrified), but failed to solve it. Possibly he was supposed to work with the Trio.
• And a student named Tom Riddle once took a year to learn his heritage, another year to find the Chamber of Secrets, another year to learn how to become immortal...
• And obviously a large group of students had several offscreen in the last book, namely, what the heck Harry was doing, how do we stop the insane people who are running our school, and whose side is Snape really on? Possibly different students got assigned different mysteries, and perhaps there's an untold story about some third-year Hufflepuffs who figured out Snape was a good guy.

Slytherin isn't always the "evil" house.

It depends largely on the student body at the time. There are phases where the rash and jock-ish Gryffindors are the most antagonistic, same with the Ravenclaws, who would mock the other houses for being stupid. Hufflepuff probably does this the least.

• Except Hufflepuff would be the most likely to gang up on an individual. Remember, 'Puffs stick together.

Slytherin House was much 'worse' than usual during Harry Potter's school days for a very simple reason.

A large portion of Slytherin House were probably not just children/grandchildren of Slytherins, but (grand)children of the first generation of Death Eaters, who obviously had all of the pureblood supremacy, except cranked up to eleven. This is obviously confirmed with Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, so it would probably follow with many of the Slytherin children, to an even greater degree than other generations.

Hogwarts is a House Elf sanctuary.

• When Hogwarts was founded, one of the Founders, most likely Helga Hufflepuff, decreed that any house elves who were "freed" and had no where else to go could come to hogwarts for work and the headmaster of the time had to welcome them. It explains why Hogwarts has so many, why they like it there so much, and why both Dobby and Winky both ended up there after being freed by their respective masters (other than Dumbledore's tendency to pick up strays). This means that if Hermione wants to fight for Elf rights, she's starting in the wrong place.

The House Cup point values are deliberately skewed to give and take points in greater amounts as students age.

A first year is expected to have a bit of leeway, so they get a few points taken off when they get in trouble. However, older students have gotten used to that sort of point reduction and should know better, so they get more points taken away for infractions, and are given more points (when they are given points) for having supposedly had to use more ingenuity/luck to stand out instead of simply getting points for following the rules.

There were many other traits - not all of them positive - associated with each house that factored into the Sorting process. The Sorting Hat and staff just didn't talk about them.

• Gryffindors were known for being brave and chivalrous, but also were capable of being brash, stubborn, and even cocky at times. James and Sirius are prime examples. Even characters like Fred and George were brash in a sort of endearing way.
• Ravenclaws have a reputation for being knowledgeable and quick-witted, but seemed to have a tendency toward mental and emotional problems - not to mention they had little luck in maintaining relationships (romantic or otherwise) with people. Luna was obviously presented in a sympathetic light, but it's very possible she wasn't all there in the head. Cho had obvious problems handling her emotional issues, and even Roger Davies, a minor character, had hints of being a bit too obsessed with dating girls for his own good (was Fleur's date in Goblet of Fire, asked Cho out but was turned down, and then was seen not long afterward with a new girlfriend in Order of the Phoenix). It's also notable that it took both Cho and Luna (if you're following the movie canon as well) more time to find husbands than it did for anyone else.
• Hufflepuffs are seen as hardworking, trustworthy, loyal, and fair, but they tended not to stand out without extra effort. That may indicate a lack of luck, a lack of charisma, or both. This may or may not have been part of Cedric's reason for entering the Triwizard Tournament, but that's a completely different WMG.
• And then you have Slytherin. Cunning, strategic, and ambitious - in other words, people that knew what they wanted and also tended to know how to get it. Let's forget the reputation for turning out dark wizards for a second and observe some of the personality traits. Yes, Slytherins tended to be more willing than others to step on people in order to get what they wanted; but Slytherins valued more than anything their connections - whether it was with their pure-blood ancestry or great wizards and witches around them. As a result, though, they seemed to be an even more closed social circle than the other three houses. Occasionally you would see Gryffindors interacting socially with Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, and vice versa. But Slytherins only interacted positively with other Slytherins.

Hogwarts Castle was initially built as a refuge for wizards and witches.

The year 1000 AD, the year of the school's founding, was mainly dominated in Britain by the blood-soaked battles between the Saxons, Britons, Vikings, and anyone else who cared to join. Naturally, the wizarding folk of Britain would want to avoid this, and they did so by hiding in the spacious, well-fortified, spell-soaked castle of Hogwarts. In time, the refuge that was Hogwarts Castle saw the arrival of children, and they needed to be taught the magical arts. The founders themselves began giving lessons to some of the children, and once things in the mainland calmed down, Hogwarts morphed from a stronghold to a school.

The giant squid in the lake at Hogwarts is there for a reason.

It might be guarding something within the lake, or was made to keep the violent aquatic residents of the lake in line. Or maybe it really is Godric Gryffindor, who's a giant squid Animagus, and returns to his former self on the eleventh hour of every night.

• It could be a Tentacruel. Not sure what a Japanese magical creature would be doing in Britain, though.
• Since I don't think they there are freshwater squids it might be another gaint Kelpie that likes to think it's a squid.

Hogwarts had several "upgrades" throughout it's existence.

In the year 1000 A.D. there were no stone castles anywhere in Europe, nor did they have any of the fully metal armors we read about and see in the castle. What they had was wooden castles and only chain mail armor. However, many of these simple wooden forts were constantly upgraded and rebuilt throughout the middle ages as new siege technology demanded better walls and fortifications. It would stand to reason that wizards would do the same to their "fortress," adding towers and thicker walls. Sometimes in the late middle ages, the castle stopped having it's physical defenses increased, since England was becoming a much more peaceful country and the school was confusing enough to navigate without constantly adding to it, so the castles remained in the form we see it today, with only minor magical upgrades to the schools defenses done by powerful headmasters when they were bored or times of war.

• Alternately, it was because of magic that magical castles already had access to these upgrades.
• This is of course absolutely Truth in Television for a school building. Finding one more than, say, 50 years old that hasn't been added on to, renovated and/or modernized is the exception, not the norm.
• Not to mention it's heavily implied if not stated outright that the Burrow was similarly built in stages as the Weasley family's needs changed (i.e. as they had more children and the children they had grew up).

The layout of Hogwarts is enchanted by the same magic fueling the Room of Requirement.

Think about it. We know now that there seems to be a mode of five students of each gender to a year, per house. We know now, for example, that the five boys that entered Gryffindor house in 1991 were Harry himself, Ron, Neville, Dean Thomas, and Seamus Finnigan. It's also implied that students stay in the same room their entire school careers, barring any special circumstances. But there's no way there could be exactly five wizards and five witches for each new year across the board. TT is prepared to bet that, like in most post-bellum situations, there were baby booms in the wizarding population right after Voldemort's first (1981) and second (1998) falls, which would have presumably produced larger wizarding classes being accepted into Hogwarts. In short, there had to be at least one instance where more or less than 5 boys or 5 girls entered the same house at Hogwarts in one year. How would the school prepare for this except for dormitories magically altering themselves to fit the needs of the student populace? Otherwise there would probably be letters sent out that sound a lot like, "Congratulations on being a wizard/witch, but you're S.O.L. because Hogwarts doesn't have the space for you this year."

The Chamber of Secrets wasn't originally in the girl's bathroom.

Originally, maybe it was just some secluded area or a lounge for say, Slytherins. Or maybe a public bath or something. The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was a fountain. Sometime in the early 20th century or late 19th century a couple liberal wizards decided that Indoor Plumbing was a good thing and that it was a necessary change to Hogwarts. (Or maybe it was directly or indirectly invented by wizards.) During this process, a couple lounges or worthless rooms were changed into bathrooms and connected to the sewers. Unknowingly, the fountain that later became a sink became the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

• This still doesn't explain why the sink was a fake, with a mechanism to explicitly open the passage, why it was a passage in the first place and not a 5cm diameter pipe....

  • The ancient Romans had potable water and ways to remove waste I imagine the castle's upgraded itself since then, to modern toilets and sinks as opposed to latrines and dug sewers with stone pipes.

Voldemort also jinxed the Gryffindor/Slytherin relationship

Just like how he jinxed the Defense Against Dark Arts position. That's why the two get along better after the end of the series.

The REAL reason Slytherin is so prejudiced

• Voldemort attended Hogwarts in the 1940s. In real life at the time, many or most people held racist views. This may have been the case in the Wizarding World as well, with most people being at least somewhat prejudiced against Muggles and Muggleborns. This was the case in all four houses. However, since Tom Riddle created his pureblood supremacy movement, most of his recruits were Slytherins, simply because most of Riddles associates at the time were Slytherins. Therefore, just as racist views gradually faded away through generations in real life, the same happened in the Wizarding World for the other three houses. But while the members of the other houses simply held those views, many of the Slytherins were members of an organisation who actively enforced them, and so while these views faded away for the other houses, the Death Eaters made sure they were preserved in their own children. Perhaps any of the early Death Eaters who were not in Slytherin encouraged their children to get in there in order to socialize with likely future allies.

The Beatles song "Come Together" was really written by the Sorting Hat, about the four Hogwarts founders.

Verse 1 is Rowena Ravenclaw

• ''Here come old flat top" - Rowena's diadem (tiara)
• He come groovin' up slowly - She is often portrayed as the most elegant and thoughtful of the four
• He got joo-joo eyeball - Could refer to her skill with clever spells and charms
• He one holy roller - Erm...rolling dice is often used in games of intellect?
• He got hair down to his knee - She is often regarded as the more elegantly feminine and attractive between her and Hufflepuff, with long flowing hair
• Got to be a joker he just do what he please - She loved riddles, and Ravenclaws are often eccentric (Luna Lovegood, Sybil Trelawney...)

Verse 2 is Helga Hufflepuff

• He wear no shoe-shine - Hufflepuff didn't go in for fancy or showy things, plus people who love nature often go out barefoot
• He got toe-jam football - Hufflepuffs are known to work in the dirt and mud; football could also refer to group activities, referring to Hufflepuff's social nature
• He got monkey finger Hufflepuffs are not only hard workers, but "good finders." Probably good with their hands, in other words.
• He shoot Coca Cola - A double entendre: the soda refers to Helga Hufflepuff's goblet; the drug, to Hufflepuff's being the "stoner house" (as they're all chill, love plants, have their commonroom near the kitchen for munchies, and what sober person would think of a badger for a symbol?)
• He say "I know you, you know me, one thing I can tell you is you got to be free"- Hufflepuff's social nature, and free spirit

Verse 3 is Godric Gryffindor

• He bad production - Gryffindors often cause trouble with their bold natures
• He got walrus gumboot - A line that describes a tough dude who wants to know exactly what's going on
• He got oh-no side board - Gryffindors address trouble that they see, and characters in that House often have dangerous missions or mischievous pranks on the side of their schoolwork
• He one spinal cracker - A badass
• He got feet down below his knee- Stands his ground, "kneels" before no one
• Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease - The Gryffindor common room is a place where trouble is often discussed, or caused.

Verse 4 is Salazar Slytherin

• He roller coaster- His Basalisk, slithering through the pipes
• He got early warning - "Enemies of the Heir Beware"
• He got muddy water - He wanted to "purify" the school from "mudbloods"
• He one mojo filter - Slytherins have egos...but also call other people out on theirs
• He say 1 and 1 and 1 is 3 - Was the first founder of the four to leave the school
• Got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see - Slytehrin is the most secretive and mysterious of the four founders. Slytherins are often concerned with outward appearance, but don't always have the most to offer in personality

The Beatles song "Come Together" was actually written by the Maruauder's Map, about its four founders.

Verse 1 is James Potter

• Here come old flat top" - "Flat top" could be a type of Quidditch broom, or a joke about how un''-flat his messy hair was
• He come groovin' up slowly - James was cool, and carried himself with an attitude
• He got joo-joo eyeball - His glasses
• He one holy roller - Was a star in Quidditch, and later, considered a wizard war hero
• He got hair down to his knee - Exaggeration about James shaggy hair
• Got to be a joker he just do what he please - James was a mischievous prankster

Verse 2 is Sirius Black

• He wear no shoe-shine/He got toe-jam football - Refers to his alias, Padfoot
• He got monkey finger Sirius escaped Azkaban, and no one knows how
• He shoot Coca Cola - Double entendre: both the soda and the drug together refer to Sirius's implied drinking problem
• ''He say "I know you, you know me" - Harry is shocked to learn about his connection to Sirius
• One thing I can tell you is you got to be free - Sirius was wrongly imprisoned

Verse 3 is Remus Lupin

• He bad production - Remus has a serious issue he's trying to keep secret
• He got walrus gumboot - Werewolves...are vicious and have fangs...like a walrus...?
• He got oh-no side board - His wolf transformations that he must manage on the side of his school and career
• He one spinal cracker - His body undergoes painful changes
• He got feet down below his knee- Despite his condition, he is a human being, and (usually) has feet, not paws
• Hold you in his armchair/arms yeah you can feel his disease - Being a werewolf is essentially a magical disease, but Tonks loves him anyway

Verse 4 is Peter Pettigrew

• He roller coaster- Peter's inconsistent loyalty, or simply his weak emotions
• He got early warning - He was the first servant to return to Voldemort
• He got muddy water - Referring to what a "dirty rat" he is, in more way than one
• He one mojo filter - He puts his own well being before his friends and their families
• He say 1 and 1 and 1 is 3 - Counting his number of former comrades he is betraying to his new master Voldemort
• Got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see - Stays hidden for 13 years disguised as a rat, and is wrongfully given a great reputation as a martyr in the wizarding world; in reality, he's not very talented and is a dirty little rat with nothing useful to offer anyone.

The curse on the DAtDA job was completely accidental.

We know that even powerful magic doesn't always need active intent to be cast (as seen with child magic or the sacrificial ward protecting Harry from Voldemort), so the curse on the position might have just been a purely subconscious result of Tom Riddle's anger and resentment at being denied. It might explain why we don't see him try such a curse on other important positions; even if he knew he cursed the position, he might not be able to replicate it consciously.

Slytherin's basilisk is meant to be a Godzilla Threshold.

It's possible that Salazar's negative reputation is a case of Historical Villain Upgrade, plus it's hard to believe that someone evil enough to want to sick a basilisk on Muggleborns because of Fantastic Racism would've ever been close friends with Godric Griffyndor. Salazar intended the basilisk to be used in case muggles and muggle-born threaten to destroy Hogwarts itself or some other major catastrophe, and expected his descendants to only use in a worst-case scenario. Unfortunately he never thought someone like Voldemort would use it for far more pettier reasons.

Slytherin's poor reputation was the reason so few good people were sorted into it resulting in a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.

Slytherin gained a reputation as the "Evil" house, causing everyone who could be a good match for it to decide 'screw that' and subconsciously sorted themselves into Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. This ramped up when Voldemort inspired so many Death Eaters and continued into the next generation when their children started joining. Snape helped to reverse this trend after the full scope of his efforts became public.