Salazar Slytherin

**Salazar Slytherin** was a medieval wizard and one of the four Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

## Biography

### Family Lineage

Salazar Slytherin was of Spanish Wizarding descent.

### Family Lineage

When he was young Salazar taught himself Parseltongue from ancient written texts. When he later met with Sardeth, the last of the Naga, who offered him a boon, he asked that Parseltongue become a natural gift to his descendants, as he feared it could become a lost art due to it's obscurity. Despite Salazar's wish that it be passed down to all his descendants, Sardeth's lack of comprehension of gender resulted in only Salazar's male descendants inheriting Parseltongue.

### Hogwarts

In the late 10th century Salazar Slytherin founded Hogwarts alongside Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw. Slytherin often quarelled with his fellow Founders over the status of Muggle-born students, but not, as is commonly believed in the 20th century, because of blood purity. He argued that Muggle-raised students would be uneducated and highly superstitious, and that they should be taken from their families at a young age to be raised among wizards, which was opposed by both his fellow Founders and the Wizards' Council. This argument would later be taken up by the British Slytherin Solution Society until it's dissolution in 1978, and adopted as a full-on policy by the Eastern European Balkan Alliance.

Around a decade after it's founding, shortly before the year 1000, the Founders began to look at improving the castle's defenses. At this point in time giants, trolls, and dragons still freely roamed the land, the Goblins quarelled with the Wizards' Council, and no less than three Dark Lords plagued England. The most powerful and most controversial defense was created by Salazar, who combined aspect from various magical creatures, including the Thracian Gorgon, the Mountain Troll, the Welsh Green Dragon, the Great European Strix, the Phoenix, and possibly more, into the Great Basilisk. Rather than kill, this Basilisk would petrify, which could allow it to end an attack on the school before it ever began, without risking the lives of Hogwarts' students.

Salazar understood that although the greatest virtue the students in his house was Ambition, it was also their greatest vice. As such, he created the position of the Prince of Slytherin as a way to help guide both his house and the wizarding world from the shadows. In order to achieve this goal, he created the Hydra Throne which was tasked with bestowing the title upon worthy future Slytherins. He also gave the Bloody Baron the task of selecting potential candidates for the position.

### Later Life

At some point in the eleventh century Salazar's wife contracted Dragon Pox and he took both her and their minor children back to his ancestral home in Spain for the warmer climate, remaining there for the rest of his life. He continued to live there for over twenty years, where he kept up correspondence with Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw until his death sometime before 1100.

### Legacy

Over the centuries Slytherin House became a Pure-blood bastion, and through that Salazar himself also became associated with blood purity and pure-blood supremacy.

In 1588 the King Philip II of Spain allied with the Spanish Wizarding government, led by Salazar's descendant Duke Esteban de Cortez y Slytherin, in an attempt to conquer England, which would end with the entire Wizengamot being forced into vassalage to the Spanish House of Slytherin. Thanks to the intervention of British wizards and witches the invasion failed, but the Wizengamot grew paranoid at the presence of several of Salazar's other descendants in the Wizengamot, and passed the Inheritance Act of 1588. The Slytherin-descended families were forced to change their names and disclaim their heritage. The Inheritance Act also included the Ultimate Sanction, which was meant to be used to prevent any members of those families from still using their resources to benefit the Spanish Slytherins, but it would later be abused by Tiberius Nott to disinherit his younger son Theo.

In the 1942-1943 school year Tom Riddle managed to take control of the Great Basilisk, using it to petrify Muggle-borns to garner sympathy for them at the suggestion of Nobby Leach, until the accidental death of Myrtle Warren led him to destroy his emotions with his occlumency. In the 1992-1993 school year a fragment of his soul took control of the Basilisk and tried to use it to facilitate his resurrection, but he was foiled by Harry and Jim Potter.

Sometime after graduating Tom Riddle gained possession of Salazar Slytherin's locket, which he turned into a Horcrux. This Horcrux would be destroyed by Harry Potter in 1993.

## Physical Description

The Chamber of Secrets contained a forty feet tall statue of Salazar Slytherin, which depicted him as looking fierce yet noble, with a long, flowing, beard. Harry Potter noted that, unlike many official depictions of him, the statue did not portray him with a "monkey-like" appearance.

## Personality & Traits

Salazar did not judge people by their physical appearance, and wrote in his memoirs that *"Appearance is no guarantee of character or competence."*.

## Magical Abilities & Skills

Salazar Slytherin was an extremely skilled wizard, as he was responsible for combining several magical creatures into the Great Basilisk and building the Hydra Throne.

## Behind the Scenes

According to TSM none of the Founders went by their birth names, as in their time there was a superstition that other wizards held power over you if they knew your birth name.

## Canon Divergence

Canon-Slytherin has several key differences from his POS counterpart, though most of these differences still make their way into POS as historical misconceptions. Unlike his canon counterpart, POS-Slytherin was not a blood purist, and even had several Muggle-born students who gained his respect for how hard they worked to fulfill their ambitions and assimilate into magical society.

## References

Book 3 - HP&DEM - Ch. 87 - Prelude (Ron),

Ron Weasley meets Sardeth.
Book 1 - HP&PoS - Ch. 27 - Who Is the Prince of Slytherin?,

Harry leads Rodney Montague and Olivia Kolumbiko into the Prince's Lair.
Book 3 - HP&DEM - Ch. 96 - Back to School (Finale),

Eleanor Burke's research on Dolores Umbridge.
Book 4 - HP&TRG - Ch. 147 - The Quidditch World Cup (Pt 2),

Dan Granger expresses disgust that in Bulgaria and Albania Hermione would have been taken by wizards who would obliviate him and Emma of her existence.
Book 2 - HP&TSE - Ch. 75 - Endgame (Pt 2),

Hogwarts: A History , 1st Edition (publ. 1485) Chapter 14, Page 193 – "Slytherin's Basilisk".
Book 2 - HP&TSE - Ch. 82 - Goodbyes,

Explained during discussion between Bloody Baron and Fat Friar.
Book 2 - HP&TSE - Ch. 59 - Family Dysfunctions (Pt 2),

Blaise explains the Spanish Armada.
Book 2 - HP&TSE - Ch. 83 - Prelude (Theodore Nott),

Theo is disinherited by Tiberius Nott.
Book 2 - HP&TSE - Ch. 76 - Revelations in a Disused Lavatory,

Myrtle reveals Tom and Nobby's plot.
Book 2 - HP&TSE - Ch. 77 - The Chamber of Secrets,

Harry and Jim confront the Diary Horcrux in the Chamber of Secrets.
Book 3 - HP&DEM - Ch. 92 - Reactions & Overreactions (Pt 3),

Harry talks with the Locket Horcrux before destroying it with Regulus.
Book 3 - HP&DEM - Ch. 90 - Reactions & Overreactions (Pt 1),

Harry goes to his first Wizengamot Session.