Slytherin Entire Family

> The pure-blood families are all interrelated. If you're only going to let your sons and daughters marry pure-bloods your choice is very limited; there are hardly any of us left.
>
> Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

**Slytherin** was the surname of a pure-blood wizarding family with several notable members, particularly Salazar Slytherin. Salazar was one of the four co-founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the founder of Slytherin house. He lived in the ***10th century***.Template:Family
The family had the ability to speak Parseltongue, which was passed down for generations. While very little was known about the family, it's very likely they had a tendency of marrying their cousins to keep their blood pure and to retain the traits of their ancestors like their descendants, the ***Gaunts***, and several other pure-blood families did.
The family was known for producing Dark wizards and witches, including Salazar, Voldemort, and their last descendant, ***Delphini***.

## History

### Early history

The Slytherin family was a prominent one in the wizarding world, as demonstrated by their famous ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. However, over time their gene pool became unstable due to a habit of inbreeding. By the time their last descendants, the ***House of Gaunt***, they had slowly squandered their wealth, which was completely non-existent.

### Recent history

 File:GauntFamily.jpeg
By the early twentieth century, the family was extinct in the male line. ***Marvolo Gaunt***, their last known descendant from the female line, had only two children, ***Merope*** and her brother ***Morfin***. While Morfin regularly used magic to terrorise Muggles and spoke almost exclusively in Parseltongue, his sister exhibited no dark qualities. She was so traumatised by emotional abuse inflicted upon her by her father and brother, that she was barely able to use magic and often presumed to be a ***squib***.
Merope later ended the pure-blood line of her family by marrying a Muggle from a nearby town, ***Little Hangleton***, and having a half-blood son, Tom Riddle, who later became the infamous Dark wizard, Voldemort. When she died, the female line of the Slytherin family continued until the death of Riddle in ***1998***. However, twenty two years later, the Ministry of Magic discovered the existence of ***Delphini***, the secret daughter of Voldemort and ***Bellatrix Lestrange***, a scion of the ***House of Black***.

## Family members

### Salazar Slytherin

Salazar Slytherin was a great wizard of Medieval times. He was a Parselmouth (a wizard with the rare ability to speak with snakes), and skilled at Legilimency. Salazar was one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As he didn't trust Muggle-born students, he expressed his opinion against accepting them at Hogwarts. However, when the other founders didn't agree, Slytherin left the school and did not return. It is unknown when he died. Salazar Slytherin's portrait still remains at Hogwarts.

### Descendants

 File:Toujours Pur.jpg
The Slytherin family, like many of the pure-blood families, had some relation to many other families in the wizarding world. The ***Peverells***, ***Gaunts***, ***Blacks***, Malfoys, Potters, Weasleys, ***Prewetts***, and other families are all linked to one another through bloodlines and intermarriage.
The only known direct descendants from Salazar Slytherin were the ***Gaunts***, who for the most part shared their ancestor's beliefs in the purity of wizard blood. They also spoke in Parseltongue between themselves. Tom Marvolo Riddle and his daughter, ***Delphini***, were the last known descendants of the Gaunt family and spoke Parseltongue as well.
The Gaunt family was also descended from the Peverells, although it is unknown if one of the two infamous bloodlines preceded the other or if they simply merged at some prior point.

 Isolt Sayre
 Martha Steward
 Rionach Steward
 Marvolo Gaunt
 Morfin Gaunt
 Merope Gaunt
 Delphini

## Heirlooms

Branches of the Slytherin family held onto Slytherin's possessions for many generations. Gormlaith had his Basilisk horn wand until she died. Her niece, Isolt, buried it shortly after.
The Gaunts had two family possessions. One was a ***signet ring*** passed down from their ***Peverell*** ancestors, which also contained the Resurrection Stone. The other was a locket passed down from their Slytherin ancestors. Merope sold the locket to ***Borgin and Burkes*** in order to support herself while she was pregnant. ***Hepzibah Smith*** later possessed it, and after showing it to a young Tom Marvolo Riddle, it was stolen from her, she was killed to cover up the theft.
Riddle eventually turned both artefacts into horcruxes. Both were eventually destroyed in order to strip Voldemort of his immortality. The locket was stolen from its hiding place by ***Regulus Black*** and later destroyed by Ron Weasley, while the ring was destroyed by Albus Dumbledore with Godric Gryffindor's Sword.

## Etymology

*Slytherin* may refer to the words "sly" as well as "slithering", which is the form of locomotion of snakes, possibly referring to their rare ability to talk to snakes called parseltongue.

## Appearances

* Template:PS Template:1st
* Template:COS Template:1st ID
* Template:POA Template:Mention
* Template:GOF
* Template:OOTP
* Template:HBP
* Template:DH
	+ Template:DH
	+ Template:DH
* Template:JKRS
* Template:PM
* Template:WW
* Template:HM Template:Mention
* Template:WU

## Notes and references

Template:Reflist

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Template:COS
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Template:HBP
3. ↑ Template:DH
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Template:WW