The Wizarding Times
Hufflepuff Symbolism
Hufflepuff House's symbolic animal is the Badger. This mammal is well-known for its excavating prowess (it can outdig any other mammal, including a human being with a shovel) and its stubborn ferociousness (it has tremendous reflexes, powerful muscles, and formidable claws). For example, badgers have been documented digging through two-inch thick concrete! But, for all of that, it can be a gregarious animal since it belongs to the weasel family (as do otters), even though males are often found alone in the wild. Therefore, it represents quite a number of attributes for our House members.
First, it stands for loyalty to an idea — standing up for what you believe in and not being too quick to "go with the flow" of the majority opinion "just because." Hufflepuffs, if put to the test, would be fierce warriors since a Badger hardly ever "backs down" — even facing up to opponents many times its size and number — but, if necessary, it often can burrow its way out of danger. They are determined and persistent in their beliefs and in their actions and ferociously "dig for the truth" of situations. In T. H. White's The Once and Future King, he describes the badger this way:
If you are feeling desperate, a badger is a good thing to be. A relation of the bears, otters and weasels, you are the nearest thing to a bear now left in England, and your skin is so thick that it makes no difference who bites you. So far as your own bite is concerned, there is something about the formation of your jaw which makes it almost impossible to be dislocated — and so, however much the thing you are biting twists about, there is no reason why you should ever let go.
Second, at the same time, Hufflepuffs have the Badger's sense of "fair play" and playfulness. Badger cubs have been observed in the wild playing tag with each other and tumbling about with abandonment and joy. Hufflepuffs are happy as well as hardy — they like parties and social groups and make many friends.
Third, since they are thick-skinned, they can be slow to take offense and often serve as "mediators" in the wizarding world. Neither side of a contentious issue wants to risk being
And, an added note. The colors of Hufflepuff are yellow, black, and white. White's "good" symbolic powers are those of purity and neutrality. Hufflepuffs would, usually, have these attributes. White can also represent sterile conditions and death. Yellow has a dual nature, as so many colors do. It is a sign of happiness and warmth — the sun's color, along with gold. But, it can also represent illness and apathy (jaundice) and cowardice. Many Hufflepuffs would not ever exhibit these latter traits, but the chance is always there that they might. Black has many symbolic meanings. It is created when all light is absorbed (white is created when all light is reflected). Thus it, too, can be seen as a neutral color. But, in western European cultures, black has been given the onus of representing evil, while white represents good. In other cultures, this is not always the case. Black generally represents the "pre-conditional" state — the situation at the onset of some thought or action — before it is fully developed or performed. Thus, it might represent the "resting" state before activity. There is no "inherent evil" attached to its meaning, nor is it automatically "negative," with white being "positive." In fact, for some cultures, black is the maternal force (evocative of the darkness before the light of birth), with white being paternal. Neither is to hold sway over the other but be equally balanced — the Yin and the Yang, etc. Thus, Hufflepuffs — like Ravenclaws and Gryffindors — may exhibit both goodness and evil in their actions, but it is more likely that they will be the ones to act decisively, and usually for the good, only after due consideration of the truth as far as they can find it — the colors of white and black being balanced on the face of the Badger, their symbol.