Harry, like any well-rounded character, does have some evil tendencies. He keeps them under good control, but he does. Most of his Slytherin-ish traits are the more neutral ones, though.

His time with the Dursleys left him with little respect for authority or for Muggles in general. Because Harry is a generally decent person, he will respect authority figures who prove their trustworthiness, and he will risk his life for a Muggle like Dudley when necessary. But he certainly does a lot of sneaking around, probably more than he needs to do.

He has a temper. If he's angry, he'll let you have it. Most of the time, Harry gets angry at people who deserve it, but his friends get caught in the crossfire too, like when he smashed up Dumbledore's office after Sirius died. And he'll often create a fight where there doesn't need to be one, because he is too proud to back down from a challenge.

Harry is also quite ambitious. Becoming an Auror is a difficult goal and Harry initially states that as his career plan mostly to mess with Umbridge. That same ambition lets him take on challenges that are much more than any person his age should be expected to conquer, without more than occasional doubts as to whether he is up to the task.

He can be pretty sneaky when he needs to be. Hiding a brewing Polyjuice potion, convincing Ron that he's sneaked him good-luck potion, spending all that time under the invisibility cloak, using secret passages, etc. He had good reasons for most of those things, but he did choose the sneaky method rather than the straightforward charge-into-battle Gryffindor style.

And of course, he's a Parselmouth who's got a bit of Voldemort in him. That, too.

I always thought it was a bit of a pity that we never got to see more of the non-evil Slytherins. It doesn't make much sense that fully a quarter of all wizards are evil wizards. Slytherin can mean sneaky, ambitious, proud, competitive. There are probably good Slytherins. Except, for the most part, they didn't come into the story much--Harry probably never thought too much about getting to know them.

... that given Gryffindor is identified as, what, 'brave' or 'corageous', and Slytherin as 'evil', er... something like 'cunning' or 'sly', that it means Harry actually starts thinking for once acts... you know... more like that. [Shrug] I don't think it necessarily means 'evil', since in theory you can have good Slytherins.

Of course, in the stories, it may well mean 'Harry occasionally hits his friends for no reason' or some such, in which case it's a charge all by itself.

hS

As has been mentioned before, the Sorting Hat almost put Harry into Slytherin. Furthermore, let's not forget that Harry is a Parselmouth. I'm guessing that that is what is being alluded to by his "Slytherin side."

The Sorting Hat wanted to put him in Slytherin, and the fans likely interpreted that as "Harry has repressed Slytherin qualities!" or something like that, rather than "the Sorting Hat noticed Harry was part Voldemort and decided to roll with it". While I'm still doubtful about my skill at deducing what is or isn't a charge, I'd guess that yes, making this sort of mistake would indeed be charge-worthy.

...that it's just people using a phrase they think sounds cool to describe Harry behaving in a way other than the Gryffindor stereotype. I'm not that active in the Harry Potter fandom, so I can't say for sure, but that's what it sounds like to me.

It probably originated from the fact that the Sorting Hat said he might do well in Slytherin, and Slytherin has been stereotyped as the "bad guys" of the Wizarding World. In other words, Harry does something morally questionable? Clearly it's his "Slytherin side."

What do other people think?