Slytherin

"*Or perhaps in Slytherin,
 You'll make your real friends,
 Those cunning folks use any means,
To achieve their ends.*"
— The Sorting Hat[src]

**Slytherin** is of the four houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was created by one of the founders, Salazar Slytherin. The emblem is a snake with its common room located in the Slytherin Dungeons. Its colours are green and silver.

## About

The house was created by one of the four founders of Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin. He chose students who were cunning, ambitious, determined, clever and with a sense of fraternity. Salazar was a proponent of pure-blood supremacy, preferring students with the blood status because he thought they were more worthy of learning magic. The house has produced more Dark witches and wizards than any other house.

The common room was the Slytherin Dungeons. The entrance was a wall which opened after hearing the password.

## History

Salazar Slytherin thought Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry should only accept pure-blood or half-blood students. He advocated for the banishment of Muggle-born students who he felt were untrustworthy. The other founders refused his proposal. Slytherin left the school after he argued with Godric Gryffindor, creating a great rivalry between the Gryffindor and Slytherin students which persisted for centuries. Before he left, he built the Chamber of Secrets in a secret location beneath Hogwarts Castle with a Basilisk lurking within it. He hoped the Serpent of Slytherin would be unleashed by his heir to purge the school of those he considered unworthy of studying there. With the values and legacy he left, members of Slytherin tended to pure or half-blood. It was very rare for the Sorting Hat to put a Muggle-born in Slytherin.

In 1942, his heir Tom Riddle opened the Chamber of Secrets. When a student was killed, he closed it out of fear Hogwarts would be shut down. Half a century later, his diary possessed Ginny Weasley who reopened it. Several students were Petrified but Harry Potter of Gryffindor killed the Basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor. Riddle created the Death Eaters while he attended Hogwarts. The group consisted of a few Slytherin "friends", while many future Death Eaters were mainly from Slytherin. At the Battle of Hogwarts, very few Slytherins fought. They chose to leave the school before it began.

### Heads of House

Salazar Slytherin
 Founder, 10th century
* Horace Slughorn - Potions Professor. Unknown - 1981, then 1997 - unknown.
* Severus Snape - Potions Professor, Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Head of House by September 1991 until 1997.

## Notes and sources

1. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*, Chapter 5
2. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*, Chapter 12
3. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*, Chapter 9
4. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows*, Chapter 23
5. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*, Chapter 16
6. ↑ These students would have graduated in 1998, but the seventh and final year of education was taken over by Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and at the end of the year the Battle of Hogwarts took place. The offer was made for students to come back and take the year again, but it's unknown whether any of these pupils accepted.