Salazar S Slytherin

Salazar S Slytherin (fl. c. 993) was a pure-blood wizard, noted for his cunning and determination. He was regarded as one of the greatest wizards of the age, respectively as a Parselmouth and as a skilled Legilimens. Slytherin was one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry along with Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw. He was also the namesake of the Slytherin House.He mistrusted Muggle-born students to the point of proposing that they should not be accepted at Hogwarts. However, when he expressed his opinion to the other Hogwarts founders, they did not agree with him. In response, he left the school, never to return.Slytherin died sometime after creating the Chamber of Secrets, concealing a Basilisk. His intention was to have his heir return to the school and unleash the horror within the chamber. The Basilisk would therefore purge the school of those who, in Slytherin's view, were unworthy to study magic.
==Biography==
===Early life===
Salazar Slytherin was raised into a pure-blood family in either Ireland or Great Britain, where he was either born or raised in a fen-land area. He and his family had the rare magical gift of speaking Parseltongue. During his youth, he was best friends with Godric Gryffindor.
At some point, Slytherin created his own wand, made of Snakewood with a core of Basilisk horn. He taught it the unique ability to "sleep" when commanded in parseltongue.
===Hogwarts founder===
In 993, Salazar Slytherin founded Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in his adulthood, with friends Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw, though he later severed ties with Gryffindor. He even appeared to have carefully selected members of his own House.
The qualities which Slytherin prized in his "handpicked students" included resourcefulness, determination, and a certain disregard for the rules, along with the ability to speak Parseltongue. He also selected his students according to their cunning, ambition, and blood purity.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) His House within Hogwarts was symbolised by a serpent, with House colours of green and silver.
Salazar Slytherin was responsible for the construction of the Chamber of Secrets beneath Hogwarts dungeons. It was specifically created for the purpose of purging the school of all Muggle-born students. The Chamber contained a Basilisk which could be controlled only by his own "true heir", and be used it to purge the school of all Muggle-borns. At least part of the legend was revealed to be true in 1943, when Tom Marvolo Riddle, the heir of Slytherin, opened the Chamber and used the Basilisk to attack Muggle-borns. In the end, this reality turned into mere legend, as recounted by Professor Cuthbert Binns to his students one-thousand years later.
He also constructed a secret Scriptorium, which could only be accessed by those who spoke Parseltongue and had the willingness to cast the Cruciatus Curse on somebody else to enter. There, he wrote Slytherin's Spellbook, a tome that recorded his life and gave further insight into the Dark Arts. (In the Shadow of the Study)
===Leaving Hogwarts===
After founding Hogwarts and co-existing for years, a rift began to grow between Slytherin and the other founders. Slytherin disliked taking students from Muggle families, seeing them as untrustworthy and unworthy of being taught magic, and tried to persuade the other founders to only take students from pure-blood families. However, the other founders didn't agree with Slytherin, particularly Godric Gryffindor.
Eventually, Slytherin and Gryffindor had a bitter and possibly even violent argument over the subject, it is possible that they duelled, or that a civil war of sorts broke out between the houses). Slytherin chose to leave the school eventually, but he had left the Chamber of Secrets and his Basilisk behind, and he later died at an old age.
===Post-mortem===
While it is factual that Slytherin constructed the Chamber, a popular historical theory mentioned on the Wizards' Ordinary Magic and Basic Aptitude Test was that towards the end of his life Salazar reconciled with the other founders and returned to the school and eventually died there.WOMBAT Test 3 from JKRS (Archived at The Harry Potter Lexicon) However this theory had never been proven and the presence of the Basilisk at the school long after his death would suggest such a reconciliation did not occur as he likely would have removed the Basilisk from the school otherwise.
One girl the Basilisk actually killed was a ghost known by the name of Moaning Myrtle. The opening to the Chamber of Secrets is located in the bathroom she now haunted, and can only be opened by speaking Parseltongue, as Slytherin could. Riddle opened the Chamber again in 1993 through the use of one of his seven Horcruxes, his diary. Using the bit of his soul encompassed by the diary, he possessed Ginny Weasley and forced her to do his bidding. While he still attacked Muggle-born students, his ultimate goal was to lure Harry Potter into the Chamber and kill him.
The locket was recovered by Harry Potter, and was later destroyed by Ron Weasley with Godric Gryffindor's sword. This act of destruction removed all of the Horcrux's power.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film)
There were also portraits of Slytherin hung at Hogwarts Castle, one guarding a secret shortcut between the dungeon's antechamber and the Entrance Hall side room. The password required to gain access to said shortcut was Mortal Dread. The other was hung at the Headmaster's office, part of the Headmaster portraits gallery. DVD (Disc 2 - Dumbledore's Office)
In the 1997–1998 school year, Slytherin's heir, Riddle (now known as Lord Voldemort), realised his ancestor's wish of purging the school of Muggle-borns via another method: by taking over the Ministry of Magic and using falsified propaganda.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film) Voldemort managed to have Muggle-borns evicted from the wizarding world,Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film) and at the end of the year, Voldemort even claimed that Hogwarts no longer needed Sorting, and that Slytherin's symbols, shields and colours would suffice. After Voldemort's death, all of this was repealed, and Slytherin's ultimate desire ended in failure.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film)
However, even after Voldemort's death, Salazar Slytherin's bloodline survived through Voldemort's secret daugther Delphini, whom he conceived with Bellatrix Lestrange. As of 2020, Delphini was the last known survivor of the Slytherin bloodline.
==Physical description==
The statue of Salazar Slytherin in the Chamber of Secrets depicted an "ancient and monkeyish" man with a "long thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of his sweeping robes". His beard was white in colour. Marvolo Gaunt, a blood relative, was similarly described as being monkey-like in appearance.Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
==Personality and traits==
Salazar Slytherin was known to possess great cunning and determination, qualities he prized in students of Slytherin House. At one point, the Sorting Hat referred to him as "power-hungry Slytherin". He seemed to stop at nothing to get what he wanted; this was proven when he constructed the Chamber of Secrets to purge Muggle-borns, despite the fact that the other founders disagreed with his beliefs. This unrepentant ruthlessness mixed with pure-blood supremacist views would later be adopted by numerous descendants of his, the infamous Voldemort not least of all.
Slytherin was also quite proud and vain, as he went to the trouble of immortalising his image in the Chamber of Secrets in the form of a titanic statue standing several dozen feet tall, something that the other three founders were never known to have done. An effigy of such proportions would certainly reflect a grandiose image of oneself. This love of grandeur was apparently passed onto his bloodline as well, as the descending Gaunt bloodline ended up squandering their fortune for self-indulgent lavishness long before the generation of Marvolo, who continued to flaunt the little heirlooms he had left in front of others.
Slytherin was said to be one of the greatest wizards of his age, with extensive magical abilities, particularly in Legilimency. When considering Sorting a student into Slytherin, the Sorting Hat looks for Slytherin's traits in the student, including cunning, determination, ambition, and resourcefulness.
==Magical abilities and skills==
*Parseltongue: Salazar Slytherin was one of the earliest recorded Parselmouths and used this ability to control a Basilisk. His house's symbol was a serpent due to this, and he passed this trait on to his descendants.
*Legilimency: Slytherin was said to have been a skilled Legilimens.
*Dark Arts: There are rumours that he originally built the Chamber of Secrets as a place to teach students Dark magic as an academic class. Indeed, he was capable of casting the Killing Curse and the Imperius Curse, which were not unforgivable during his lifetime, and was skilled in the handling of cursed objects, showing him to have been a powerful Dark wizard.
*Wandlore/Wandmaking: Slytherin created his own wand of Snakewood and Basilisk horn. He also taught it the unique ability to "sleep" when instructed.
*Basilisk breeding: Slytherin managed to breed a Basilisk and kept it alive in the Chamber of Secrets for over one thousand years, surpassing its average nine-hundred year lifespan.
*Charms: With the combined abilities of the other founders, he helped to bewitch the Sorting Hat into a sentient and talking magical object with personality, to sort students well after their lifetime. He could also produce at least a non-corporeal Patronus.
==Possessions==
*Wand: Slytherin owned a wand made of Snakewood with a Basilisk horn core. It was passed down through the generations until it was stolen from Gormlaith Gaunt by her niece Isolt Sayre, and later buried on the grounds of Ilvermorny School in North America.
*Locket: Slytherin owned a locket which he passed down to his descendants.Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film) It was later turned into a Horcrux by his descendant Tom Riddle.Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
*Basilisk: Slytherin owned a Basilisk and kept it in the Chamber of Secrets.
==See also==
*Rowena Ravenclaw
*Helga Hufflepuff
*Godric Gryffindor
*Serpent of Slytherin 
*Slytherin's Locket
*Tom Riddle
*Chamber of Secrets
==Etymology==
The name Salazar is originally a Spaniard name. Salazar is a surname meaning old hall (from Castilian Sala (hall) and Basque zahar (old). The name originates from the town of the same name: Salazar, in northern Burgos, Castile. Although nowadays northern Burgos is not a Basque-speaking region, it was during the early Middle Ages when the surname appeared. Its origins are also related to a certain noble family, the Salazars, that held a fief in the area. During the 10th century, the surname appears as mentioned in Navarre, where it spread and there even exists a Salazar Valley. It later also spread to the rest of the Basque Country, being specially common in Biscay during the 15th century. During that time, Lope García de Salazar, a famous writer, took part in the Reconquista of Cuenca, where he was granted a fief and founded a notable family.
Alonso de Salazar Frías was a 16th-17th century Spanish inquisitor who is famous for convincing the Spanish Inquisition that most of the witchcraft cases were based on insanity and confessions made to stop torture, rather than accurate cases of people associating with the devil. He was able to stop convictions based solely on testimony.
According to J. K. Rowling, however, Salazar Slytherin was named after the Portuguese dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar, who ruled from 1932 to 1968.https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/852974465587847168
Meanwhile, Slytherin may refer to the words "sly" as well as "slithering", which is the form of locomotion of snakes, possibly referring to his rare ability to talk to snakes called parseltongue.
==Behind the scenes==
*Despite the quote attributed to him of Slytherin "only teaching those whose ancestry is purest", Slytherin has long accepted half-blood witches and wizards into its ranks (most famously Severus Snape and Tom Riddle), and in rare cases, Muggle-borns.
**However, the above is likely done as a matter of necessity, as there are presently no longer enough pure-blood families in existence for Slytherin to sustain itself on just them (something even the genocidal Voldemort and Death Eaters understood, if only begrudgingly).
*Slytherin was the featured "Wizard of the Month" for June 2007 on J. K. Rowling's website, where he was profiled thus: "One of the four celebrated Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Salazar Slytherin was one of the first recorded Parselmouths, an accomplished Legilimens, and a notorious champion of pure-blood supremacy".
*In the film, the statue of Salazar Slytherin only covers his head, compared to the book where it was full-body. It was revealed in Page to Screen that the Chamber is flooded so that the rest of the statue below his head is submerged beneath the water.
*Both pictures of Slytherin in the Wizard of the Month and at the Famous Cards depict Slytherin with steepled fingers.
*Salazar Slytherin appears as a portrait in the "Forbidden Journey" ride at Universal Orlando, where he expresses his dislike for Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore. He is also the only one of the four Founders to appear in behind the scenes footage of the ride. A DVD extra shows the actor being dressed up on set.
*Although it was briefly speculated in The Chamber of Secrets, Harry is not, in fact, a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin, though he is still distantly related to him; Voldemort is descended from Slytherin and the second Peverell brother, while Harry is a descendant of the third.
*Though Voldemort is a descendant of both Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell, there is no evidence that Slytherin is an ancestor of Peverell.
*The depiction of Salazar on his Chocolate Frog Card bears a striking resemblance to Verminous Skumm, an antagonist from Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
*Slytherin built the Chamber of Secrets to allow his heir to purge the school of Muggle-borns. However, after the chamber's failure, Voldemort accomplished Slytherin's wishes with another method: by taking over the Ministry of Magic and creating the Muggle-Born Registration Commission.
*Although it has been suggested that Salazar Slytherin was from the Fens in eastern England, it is not confirmed. It would make sense if Slytherin came from Ireland, as that would mean that the four founders of Hogwarts would have originated from the four main countries that make up a vast majority of Hogwarts students. Scotland (Ravenclaw), Wales (Hufflepuff), England (Gryffindor) and Ireland. Ireland does not have snakes, it is unknown when and where Slytherin discovered his Parselmouth abilities, and the Gaunt family, his descendants, have lived in both England and Ireland.
*He is played by actor Ken Bones in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film).Ken Bones's profile on IMDb
*His dislike of wizards and witches with Muggle parentage may have stemmed from the political climate he lived in, where magic users were persecuted and actively hunted by Muggles.
*Since snakewood is not naturally found in what Muggles call the Old World,Wikipedia - Snakewood it is likely that Slytherin travelled to North or South America or to Australia to acquire the wood for his wand. Given that travel between the continents at the time being exclusive to the wizarding world and the vikings of the muggle world, this is not an implausible scenario.
*In 2019, a new species of pit viper discovered in Arunachal Pradesh, India was named Trimeresurus salazar, after Salazar Slytherin.A new species of green pit vipers of the genus Trimeresurus Lacépède, 1804 (Reptilia, Serpentes, Viperidae) from western Arunachal Pradesh, India
*Although his only known descendant in 2020 was Delphini, Salazar may have descendants in America via Martha Steward.
**Martha, however, was a Squib, and she married a Muggle, so if there were descendants of hers in America, they most likely would be Muggle-born wizards, or Muggles, so ironically Salazar Slytherin may have had descendants who were in the two categories of people he hated most.
==Appearances==
* 
*Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban (film) 
*Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film) 
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 
==Notes and references==
Category:Basilisk Valuable Owners
Salazar S
Category:Slytherins
Category:Statues
Category:Wandmakers
Category:Wizard Of-The Month