Salazar Slytherin

**Salazar 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, regarded for his abilities 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 Slytherin House.

He mistrusted Muggle-born students to the point of proposing that they should not be accepted at Hogwarts. 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, and constructed the Chamber of Secrets to house a Basilisk, so that one day, the Heir of Slytherin could purge the school of Muggle-borns in his name, and fulfil his long-lasting wish of having only students with at least one wizarding relative.

## Biography

### Early life

Salazar Slytherin was raised into a pure-blood family in either England or Ireland, 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.[*citation needed*]

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

During his adulthood, in 993, Salazar Slytherin founded Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw. He appeared to have carefully selected the 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. His house within Hogwarts was symbolised by a serpent, with house colours of green and silver.

As a professor, he was in favour of teaching the Dark Arts. He sent one student on a task to study a Dark relic in the nearby Feldcroft Catacomb, which had the power to summon Inferi, which Slytherin recorded in his Spellbook. He also taught the Unforgivable Curses, such as the Imperius Curse, which were not illegal at the time.

He 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 kept his Spellbook, a tome that recorded his life and gave further insight into the Dark Arts. The secret of the Scriptorium passed through his descendants, the House of Gaunt, for generations, until it was eventually opened by Ominis Gaunt, along with Sebastian Sallow and their mutual friend, in the 1890–1891 school year.

Finally, and most famously, Salazar Slytherin was responsible for the construction of the Chamber of Secrets beneath the Dungeons of Hogwarts Castle. The Chamber contained a Basilisk which could only be controlled by his own descendant, the "*Heir of Slytherin*", to be used to purge the school of all Muggle-borns. In 1943, Tom Riddle, the Heir of Slytherin, opened the Chamber and used the Basilisk to attack Muggle-borns, resulting in the death of Myrtle Warren. It was opened again in 1992, by Ginny Weasley under the influence of Tom Riddle's Diary, which contained a fragment of his soul.

As time advanced, however, the Chamber turned into legend, as recounted by Professor Cuthbert Binns to his students one-thousand years later.

### Leaving Hogwarts

"*I fear we shall never come to an accord. I cannot persuade even one of them to listen to reason. I had dared hope that Godric's thoughts aligned with my own; that he understood why the calibre of students needed to be exceptional. But he has fallen prey to the ridiculous notion that Muggle-borns are somehow as capable as pure-bloods.*"
— An excerpt from Salazar Slytherin's note, in his own hand
After founding Hogwarts and co-existing for years, a rift began to grow between Slytherin and the other founders. Slytherin disliked taking students from families with only Muggles, seeing them as untrustworthy and unworthy of being taught how to use their magic, and tried to persuade the other founders to only take students from pure-blood or half-blood families. However, the other founders didn't agree with Slytherin, particularly Godric Gryffindor.

Eventually, Slytherin and Gryffindor had a bitter argument over the subject. Slytherin chose to leave the school completely, but he had left the Chamber of Secrets and his Basilisk behind.

### Post-mortem

#### Artistic representations

There were 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. Slytherin featured on various Chocolate Frog Cards.

#### Lord Voldemort

In 1943, Tom Riddle, the "*Heir of Slytherin*", opened the Chamber of Secrets to conduct a purge on Muggle-born students. This resulted in the death of Myrtle Warren, who eventually returned as a ghost. Riddle opened the Chamber again in 1993 through the use of one of his seven Horcruxes, his diary. Using the fragment of his soul within the diary, he possessed Ginny Weasley and forced her to do his bidding. While he still attacked Muggle-born students (none of whom died, and were simply petrified), his ultimate goal was to lure Harry Potter into the Chamber and kill him.

Salazar Slytherin owned a locket emblazoned with the letter "*S*", which became an heirloom of his last known line of descendants, the Gaunts. Merope Gaunt sold the locket to Caractacus Burke. It was then bought up by Hepzibah Smith, who had a love for antiques. It was subsequently stolen from her by Tom Riddle, later known as Lord Voldemort. Riddle would later turn the locket into a Horcrux and conceal it in a seaside cave he had visited in his youth. The same locket was removed from the cave by Regulus Black with the aid of his house-elf, Kreacher. Kreacher was ordered to destroy the locket, but was unable to do so.

It was later stolen from the Black family home at 12 Grimmauld Place by Mundungus Fletcher, and found its way into the hands of the Ministry of Magic bureaucrat, Dolores Umbridge. Umbridge claiming the "*S*" stood for Selwyn, a pure-blood family line. She either did not know better or intended to conceal its real meaning from the public.

The locket was recovered by Harry Potter, and was later destroyed in the winter of 1997 by Ron Weasley with Godric Gryffindor's sword. This act of destruction removed all of the Horcrux's power.

In 1997, Riddle, now known as Lord Voldemort, realised his ancestor's wish of purging the school of Muggle-borns by another method: by taking over the British Ministry of Magic and using falsified propaganda to ostracise and eradicate Muggle-borns in the British wizarding population. Voldemort managed to have Muggle-borns evicted from the wizarding world, 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 Last Stand, where he was defeated by Harry Potter, all of this was repealed, and Slytherin's ultimate desire ended in failure.

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.

#### Theories

While it is true 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, where he eventually died.

## 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.

## Personality and traits

Salazar Slytherin was known to possess great cunning and determination, qualities which 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, which was proven when he constructed the Chamber of Secrets to purge Muggle-borns from the school, despite the fact that the other founders disagreed with his beliefs. This unrepentant ruthlessness mixed with his pure-blood supremacist views would be adopted by numerous descendants of his, the infamous Lord Voldemort most 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 looked 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 because to this, and he passed this trait on to his descendants.
* **Legilimency**: Slytherin was said to have been a skilled Legilimens.
* **Dark Arts**: 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.
* **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. It was later turned into a Horcrux by his descendant Tom Riddle.
* **Basilisk**: Slytherin owned a Basilisk and kept it in the Chamber of Secrets.
* **Spellbook**: Slytherin wrote a book which he kept in his Scriptorium, recounting his life and knowledge of the Dark Arts.
* **Scriptorium**: a secret office in the Dungeons of Hogwarts Castle, the knowledge of which was privy only to his descendants.
* **Slytherin Lock**: Sentient locks used to guard his Scriptorium, invented by Salazar himself.
* **Chamber of Secrets**: the underground chamber which Slytherin constructed at Hogwarts to house his Basilisk