Slytherin

"Or perhaps in Slytherin, You'll make your real friends, Those cunning folk use any means, To achieve their ends."

- The Sorting Hat

Slytherin is one of the four Houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, founded by Salazar Slytherin. Salazar instructed the sorting hat to choose a few particular characteristics he most valued. Such character traits are cunning, resourcefulness, and ambition (during the time period the books and films take place in, this house is mostly of pure-blood pure-blood supremacy, due to his mistrust of Muggle-borns, but this discrimination does not last). Its emblematic animal is a snake and its colours are green and silver. The Head of Slytherin is Horace Slughorn (who left the role to Severus Snape for fifteen years before taking it up again in 1996) and the House's patron ghost is the Bloody Baron.

Slytherin corresponds roughly with the element of water due to serpents being commonly associated with the sea and lochs in western European mythology, as well as serpents being physically fluid and flexible animals. The colours also correspond with waters around lakes and lochs often being green, and silver being often associated with grey rain water.

Qualities
"You could be great, you know, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that."

- The Sorting Hat addressing Harry Potter

Slytherins tend to be ambitious, shrewd, cunning, strong leaders, and achievement-oriented. They also have highly developed senses of self-preservation. This means that Slytherins tend to hesitate before acting, so as to weigh all possible outcomes before deciding exactly what should be done.

According to Albus Dumbledore, the qualities which Salazar valued in the students he chose included cleverness, resourcefulness, determination, and "a certain disregard for the rules." Dumbledore noted that all of these were qualities possessed by Harry Potter, who was in Gryffindor.

Another interesting characteristic many Slytherins share is a tendency towards deep, unrequited love. According to legend, Merlin was said to hold a deep unrequited passion for the Lady of the Lake; and Severus Snape and The Bloody Baron held abiding but unreturned feelings for Lily Evans and Helena Ravenclaw, respectively. Although some Slytherins, such as Tom Riddle, were incapable of feeling love at all, those that did were known to cherish their passion abidingly and unconditionally, although often tragically due to an inability to act appropriately on their feelings.

Blood purity
"I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted old loony, but I never knew he started all this pure-blood stuff. I wouldn't be in his house if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I'd've got the train straight back home..."

- Ron Weasley expressing his claims about Slytherin's views The Sorting Hat claims that blood purity was a factor in selecting Slytherins. This suggests that it based its decisions more upon the views of its members than on any accurate test of a student's lineage. Muggle-born Slytherins exist, but are very rare, as noted insultingly by Scabior the Snatcher. There have also been definite examples of half-bloods sorted into the house, including Tom Riddle, Dolores Umbridge, and Severus Snape. Harry Potter was nearly sorted into Slytherin, but because he asked for it, he ended up in Gryffindor instead. Also, pure-bloods are not automatically placed in Slytherin. There have been various examples of pure-bloods sorted into other houses; the Weasley family, Sirius Black, Neville Longbottom, and James Potter were all sorted into Gryffindor house, Ernie Macmillan was sorted into Hufflepuff, and Morag MacDougal and Stephen Cornfoot were both sorted into Ravenclaw.

Contrary to the wishes of the other founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Salazar Slytherin wanted a stricter policy of admission to the school —one limited strictly to pure-blood students. The controversy this created apparently led to him leaving the school and the Chamber of Secrets behind. A millennium later, the house's students are still considered affiliated with Salazar's reputed views, and open expression of pro-blood purity sentiment does seem to be more common in Slytherin than in other Houses. Also, no one can really blame him for not letting Muggleborns into Hogwarts, when Muggles were actively trying to kill all wizards, regardless of intent at the time.

This disagreement over blood purity, which caused Salazar Slytherin's friendship with Godric Gryffindor to break, is the origin of the feud between Slytherin and Gryffindor, the two most competitive of the houses. Slytherin and Gryffindor are generally rivals in Quidditch and for the House Cup, which the former had won seven years in a row prior to Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts in 1991. It is also rare for Slytherin and Gryffindor students to be friendly with one another, and common for them to share animosity. This was particularly the case during the First and Second Wizarding Wars. During the second war, no Slytherin students joined the association known as Dumbledore's Army; however, this could be because only those Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Harry Potter trusted were invited, as the three shared a deep mistrust of any Slytherins. Some Slytherins declined to defend their school in the Battle of Hogwarts, (although they were forced out of the school when Voldemort attacked) with some joining their families in becoming Death Eaters. However, there are exceptions, such as Slytherin Severus Snape and Gryffindor Lily Evans, who were best friends (and Snape even fell in love with Lily) until Snape's use of the slur "Mudblood" and his aspirations to be a Death Eater caused Lily to sever their ties.

Reputation
"There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin."

- Wizarding prejudice against Slytherin House



It is said that all Dark Wizards were in Slytherin (though this is untrue, as Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor and Quirinus Quirrell was a Ravenclaw), though how many were from this house before Tom Riddle began recruiting Death Eaters there is unstated. As Slytherin was his own House, it was certainly most easy for him to recruit there.

It might also be possible (though quite unlikely) that the Sorting Hat simply sorts anyone with ill intentions into Slytherin, regardless of whether they possess cunning and ambition, giving this house it’s bad name. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were both incredibly stupid and did not have clever or cunning minds, but were still sorted into Slytherin. Though it does appear that perhaps they had more of the minor Slytherin traits since the cowardly Peter Pettigrew was obviously not brought into Gryffindor by bravery, but by chivalry instead. It is also likely that Crabbe and Goyle were simply placed there by process of elimination, since they exhibited virtually none of the qualities valued by any of the other houses (lacking the work ethic or honesty of Hufflepuff, the academic prowess of Ravenclaw, or the bravery of Gryffindor). Or the sorting hat simply took into account what house they wished to be placed in, which with their family history was most likely Slytherin.

However, it must be noted that Slytherins who oppose use of the Dark Arts and discrimination based on blood purity do exist, such as Horace Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks; Tonks was related to many Dark wizards and witches (most notably her sister Bellatrix Lestrange, her brother-in-law Lucius Malfoy, and her nephew Draco Malfoy), but chose to forsake the loyalty to her family in marrying the Muggle-born Ted Tonks. Also, the allegiance of Severus Snape was found to be ultimately towards Albus Dumbledore, serving as a triple agent for the Order of the Phoenix. Furthermore, there have been Dark wizards from other houses; Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed James and Lily Potter to Lord Voldemort, was a Gryffindor.



Cunning and ambition are easily turned towards ill purposes, but are not inherently negative; furthermore, daring, intelligence, and loyalty can as easily become negative. Slytherins may be thought less of by people because many of them seem to value their own lives more than the lives of others, but that is not always the case. When Harry was trying to run away, because he was afraid that his presence was putting his friends in danger, Phineas Nigellus saw him and said, "We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, when given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks". There are exceptions to this rule, however, such as Snape, who Harry said was a "Slytherin and... probably the bravest man I ever knew", and Regulus Black, who gave his life in an attempt to destroy one of the Horcruxes of Lord Voldemort.

The truth is that while most Dark wizards are Slytherins, many members of Slytherin House do not have Dark leanings and are even kind and accepting, and smaller groups of Voldemort's supporters are aligned with other Houses. During the Battle of Hogwarts, while all of the Slytherin students left the school before the fighting started, several of them did return with Professor Slughorn as reinforcements to join the fight against Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and some decided to fight as a part of Dumbledore’s Army.

Common Room


The Slytherin common room is in the dungeons of Hogwarts Castle and underneath the Black Lake. Because of this, the light in the common room is green. Harry Potter along with Ron Weasley entered the common room in his second year to find out if Draco Malfoy was the one opening the Chamber of Secrets. To enter the Slytherin common room one must merely speak aloud the current password in front of a stretch of damp stone wall; once the word is uttered a concealed stone door will slide aside leaving a rectangular hole in the wall leading to the Slytherin common room. The only known Slytherin password is "pureblood", used in 1992.

Head of House
Slytherin's head of house for Harry's first six years of school was Severus Snape; however, as he fled with the Death Eaters in 1997 at the end of Harry's sixth year, Potions master Horace Slughorn became the head of Slytherin House. Upon Snape's return as Headmaster later that year, he apparently approved of Slughorn's appointment, as he did not assign any Death Eaters as a new head of house.

Translations
In many translations they have changed the name:

Behind the scenes

 * The fact that J. K. Rowling intended to place a character named Mafalda, a half-blood who was the daughter of a Squib and a Muggle, in Slytherin, suggests that Rowling at least does not view the Slytherin House desire for blood-purity as particularly influential upon the Sorting Hat. Also as Voldemort and Snape are both half-bloods there seems no reason to suspect a racially pure Slytherin.
 * Slytherin students might possess a certain skill in Potions. Harry's two Potions masters, Severus Snape and Horace Slughorn, both belonged to the Slytherin house. However, it is possible that this talent in Slytherin students could merely be a coincidence, as students from other houses at Hogwarts also shared this talent, such as Harry Potter's mother, Lily Potter (nee Evans) (whose skills were shown through Slughorn's many references to her skill in the subject throughout most of ) and Hermione Granger who were both Gryffindors.
 * Slytherin students also seem to be gifted in Occlumency. Most of the known Occlumens in the books come from Slytherin (namely Voldemort, Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange, Draco Malfoy, and Horace Slughorn).
 * Elizabeth Burke was most likely a Slytherin.
 * J. K. Rowling stated in a PotterCast interview that some Slytherins were among the reinforcements brought by Slughorn during the Battle of Hogwarts.Screenshot_884.png
 * J. K. Rowling stated that by 2017, Slytherin is no longer the pure-blood bastion that it once was. However, its dark reputation still lingers, hence Albus Potter's fears.
 * It is interesting to note that Slytherin is both the first Hogwarts house mentioned in the series (by Draco Malfoy), as well as the last mentioned in the series (by Albus Potter).
 * In early drafts of PS undefined, members of the Slytherin house were known as "Slytherites".
 * Slytherin House was the winner of the first house cup and the third house cup on.
 * The Sorting Hat considered placing Gilderoy Lockhart in Slytherin. It finally chose Ravenclaw.
 * In the Game Boy Advance Game Mother 3, there is an enemy called Slitherhen. The name is a reference to Slytherin.
 * Peter Pettigrew was a Hatstall and considered for Sorting into Slytherin, but, in the end, was Sorted into Gryffindor.
 * Scarlett Byrne, the actoress who portrayed Pansy Parkinson in the films, was sorted into Slytherin on Pottermore.

House Cup

 * Slytherin won the first house cup with 72,734,274 house points.
 * Slytherin came second for the second house cup with 48,495,275 points.
 * Slytherin won the third house cup with 26,990,924 points.
 * Slytherin came second for the fourth house cup with 24,865,387.
 * Slytherin came second for the fifth house cup with 27,795,479 points.
 * Slytherin came fourth for the sixth house cup with 31,926,625 points.
 * Slytherin won the seventh house cup with 52,652,850 points.
 * Slytherin came second for the eighth house cup with 26,564,159 points.

Appearances

 * PS undefined
 * PS F
 * PS G

Notes and references
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