Some of you may be wondering why I decided to call this site the Hippogriff Theory. I must first off, give credit to Gwendy from QuillsNspills, I saw this and fell in love with it...
Hippogriff Theory
By: Sirius83
As we all know, There was a Hippogriff in the Prisoner of Azkaban by the name of Buckbeak who played a fairly major role, to say the least. Now many of us Harry/Hermione fans love the scene near the end of the book where Harry and Hermione flew on Buckbeak, with Hermione clinging to Harry, on a moonlit night no less, to rescue Sirius. Yes, some very nice romantic imagery there.
In The Order of the Phoenix, when Harry has locked himself away during Christmas, Hermione arrives, still wearing her jacket, pink faced from the cold and with snow in her hair and manages to get Harry to open up and go with her. Nobody else was able to even talk to Harry, much less make him open up without protest and follow them. However, what is even more interesting is this. JKR decided to have good old Beaky present in the room!
So what is so significant about this? Well, as it turns out, the Hippogriff is in fact a creature out of Greek mythology. To be more precise, it is the Greek symbol of love. Yes, love.
Furthermore, the Hippogriff of greek mythology is half horse and half Griffin. A Griffin is a creature with the head, beak and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, sometimes with the tail of a scorpion or a snake. From this we see characteristics that can be taken to represent Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Slytherin - the 3 houses represented by Harry and Hermione. After all, while Harry and Hermione are both Gryffindors, Harry was almost placed in Slytherin (as we found out at the sorting ceremony in The Philosopher's Stone) and Hermione was almost placed in Ravenclaw (as she tells us at the Hog's Head in The Order of the Phoenix) - both because they showed traits of those houses. The lion is the symbol of Gryffindor, the symbol of Ravenclaw is an eagle and the snake is a serpent which represents Slytherin. Convenient coincidence or deliberate writing by JKR? I believe there is too much here for it to be just coincidence, and there are other instances where JKR has used symbolism in her books - and had them work out.
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