Slytherin

Slytherin
House information
Founder	Salazar Slytherin
House colours	Green and silver
Animal	Serpent
Element	Water
Traits	Resourcefulness Cunning Ambition Determination Self-Preservation Fraternity Cleverness
Head	Horace Slughorn Severus Snape † Salazar Slytherin †
Ghost	Bloody Baron
Common room	Slytherin Dungeon
Members	Merlin Tom Riddle Severus Snape Bellatrix Lestrange Rodolphus Lestrange Regulus Black Horace Slughorn Andromeda Tonks Phineas Nigellus Black Bloody Baron Draco Malfoy Lucius Malfoy Narcissa Malfoy (née Black) Abraxas Malfoy Vincent Crabbe Gregory Goyle Pansy Parkinson Blaise Zabini Rita Skeeter Marcus Flint Terence Higgs Adrian Pucey Millicent Bulstrode Tracey Davis Hestia Carrow Flora Carrow Black family (Exception of Sirius Black) Malfoy family House of Gaunt Rosier family Lestrange family Greengrass family Goyle family Gamp family Crabbe family Blishwick family Nott family Several Death Eaters Adelaide Murton Gemma Farley Dolores Umbridge Salazar Slytherin Peter Roy Bridget Rachel Zubeida Khan Zoe Accrington Yurika Haneda Yatin Bhagat Viola Richmond Astoria Greengrass (most likely) Daphne Greengrass Scorpius Malfoy Albus Severus Potter

"Or perhaps in Slytherin,
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means,
To achieve their ends."

— The Sorting Hat

Slytherin is one of the four Houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, founded by Salazar Slytherin. In establishing the house, Salazar instructed the Sorting Hat to pick students who had a few particular characteristics he most valued, including cunning, resourcefulness and ambition.

The founder highly valued and favoured pure-blood students, and the sorting hat admitted that it can be a factor, but students of any blood status can now be placed in the house (however, a muggle born student is rare).

The emblematic animal of the house is a snake and its colours are green and silver. There were two notable heads of the house, Horace Slughorn took the role twice (first leaving in 1981 and then taking the role again from 1997 until leaving before 2016), and Severus Snape. The patron ghost of the house is the Bloody Baron.

Slytherin corresponds roughly with the element of water due to serpents being commonly associated with the sea and lochs in western European mythology, as well as serpents being physically fluid and flexible animals. The colours also correspond with waters around lakes and lochs often being green, and silver being often associated with grey rain water.

Traits and values

Qualities

"You could be great, you know, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that."

— The Sorting Hat addressing Harry Potter

Slytherins tend to be ambitious, shrewd, cunning, strong leaders, and achievement-oriented. They also have highly developed senses of self-preservation. This means that Slytherins tend to hesitate before acting, so as to weigh all possible outcomes before deciding exactly what should be done.

According to Albus Dumbledore, the qualities which Salazar valued in the students he chose included cleverness, resourcefulness, determination, and "a certain disregard for the rules." Dumbledore noted that all of these were qualities possessed by Harry Potter, who was in Gryffindor.

Another characteristic some Slytherins share is a tendency towards deep, unrequited love. According to legend, Merlin was said to hold a deep unrequited passion for the Lady of the Lake; and Severus Snape and The Bloody Baron held abiding but unreturned feelings for Lily Evans and Helena Ravenclaw, respectively. Although some Slytherins, such as Tom Riddle, were incapable of feeling love at all, those that did were known to cherish their passion abidingly and unconditionally, although often tragically due to an inability to act appropriately on their feelings.

Blood purity

"I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted old loony, but I never knew he started all this pure-blood stuff. I wouldn't be in his house if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I'd've got the train straight back home..."

— Ron Weasley expressing his claims about Slytherin's views

Slytherin's founder, Salazar Slytherin

The Sorting Hat claims that blood purity was a factor in selecting Slytherins. It is not the main factor but it suggests that the sorting hat takes in account the lineage of the student as well as traits. Muggle-born Slytherins exist, but are very rare, as noted insultingly by Scabior the Snatcher.

There have also been definite examples of half-bloods sorted into the house, including Tom Riddle, Dolores Umbridge, and Severus Snape. Harry Potter was nearly sorted into Slytherin, but because he asked for it, he ended up in Gryffindor instead. Also, pure-bloods are not automatically placed in Slytherin. There have been various examples of pure-bloods sorted into other houses; the Weasley family, Sirius Black, Neville Longbottom, and James Potter were all sorted into Gryffindor house, Ernie Macmillan was sorted into Hufflepuff, and Morag MacDougal and Stephen Cornfoot were both sorted into Ravenclaw.

The concept of blood purity playing a part in picking students for Slytherin house stems from the founder Salazar Slytherin who wanted a stricter policy of admission to the school — one limited strictly to pure-blood students. This was contrary to the wishes of the other founders at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, who wanted to accept students of any blood status.

This created great controversy at Hogwarts and it was the root of a feud between former friends Salazar and Godric Gryffindor. Salazar would later decide to leave the school when an argument started between him and Godric and they either duelled or started a civil war between the two houses. It was the origin of the feud between their two houses who are the two most competitive of the houses.

When Salazar departed Hogwarts, he would leave behind the Chamber of Secrets with the purpose of an heir one day opening the chamber and unleashing a means of purging the school of any muggle-born students. The chamber was opened twice and the monster was killed the second time by Harry Potter in 1993. Salazar’s views at the time could be attributed to the persecution of witches and wizards at the hand of muggles in that century.

It is important to note that not every student in Slytherin agrees with the idea of blood purity, but every member would still be affiliated with their founder’s reputed views a thousand years later. Since the house would nearly always select students who share his view for that house, many members would still give that impression of that house during their time at Hogwarts. For example, in December 1992, the password for the common room was pureblood.

Slytherin and Gryffindor are generally rivals in Quidditch and for the House Cup, which the former had won seven years in a row prior to Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts in 1991. It is also rare for Slytherin and Gryffindor students to be friendly with one another, and common for them to share animosity. There are exceptions, such as Slytherin Severus Snape and Gryffindor Lily Evans, who were best friends until Snape's use of the slur "Mudblood" and his aspirations to be a Death Eater which caused Lily to sever their ties.

Their rivalry was particularly the case during the First and Second Wizarding Wars. During the second war, no Slytherin student joined the association known as Dumbledore's Army; however, this is likely the fault of Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Harry Potter who only invited people they trusted. The three shared a deep mistrust of any Slytherins.

The behaviour of Slytherin house at the Battle of Hogwarts is also debated. The majority of their members departed Hogwarts before the battle started and a few joined their families in becoming Death Eaters. However, many of them returned to Hogwarts to fight against the Death Eaters and were led back by their Head of House, Horace Slughorn.

Reputation

"There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin."

— Wizarding prejudice against Slytherin House

File:Slytherin symbol.png

A serpent, symbol of Slytherin House

Slytherin has a such well-known reputation for creating dark witches and wizards that many would even say that every dark witch or wizard was actually in Slytherin. While it is true that many were in the house, it is untrue to say every single one of them was, as Peter Pettigrew was in Gryffindor and Quirinus Quirrell was in Ravenclaw for example.

It appears that reputation has led to an ironic prejudice against the entire house. It is unknown how many dark witches and wizards were from this house before Tom Riddle began recruiting Death Eaters but many of them came from a family that valued blood purity and would prefer like Tom, to be in the house and recruit from there.

In fairer terms, there were many good witches and wizards in the house who oppose the use of the Dark Arts and discrimination based on blood purity, such as Horace Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks. Andromeda was related to many dark witches and wizards such as her own sister Bellatrix Lestrange and brother-in-law Lucius Malfoy, but she chose to forsake the loyalty to her family in favour of marrying the Muggle-born Ted Tonks. Also, the allegiance of Severus Snape was found to ultimately be towards Albus Dumbledore, serving as a triple agent for the Order of the Phoenix, in stark contrast to Peter Pettigrew, the former Gryffindor who became a double agent for the Death Eaters instead.

It might also be possible (though quite unlikely) that the Sorting Hat simply sorts anyone with ill intentions into Slytherin, regardless of whether they possess cunning and ambition, which helped to unfairly give this house a bad name. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were both incredibly stupid and did not have clever or cunning minds, but were still sorted into Slytherin. They could have possessed one of the minor traits as even Peter Pettigrew was not placed into Gryffindor for bravery, but by chivalry instead.

It is also likely that Crabbe and Goyle were simply placed there by process of elimination, since they exhibited virtually none of the qualities valued by any of the other houses (lacking the work ethic or honesty of Hufflepuff, the academic prowess of Ravenclaw, or the bravery of Gryffindor). The sorting hat simply could have took into account what house they wished to be placed in, which with their family history was most likely Slytherin.

File:BaronHP.jpg

House ghost, The Bloody Baron

The traits of the house are considered obvious examples of people turning toward an ill purpose such as cunning and ambition but they are not inherently negative. Furthermore, traits from the rest of the houses such daring, intelligence, and loyalty can also become easily negative.

Another trait which is could be such a negative is self-preservation. The idea that many of them seem to value their own lives more than the lives of others can make them less thought of and trusted, but that is not always the case. Phineas Nigellus gave that impression when he saw Harry Potter trying to run away, because he was afraid that his presence was putting his friends in danger. He stated that "We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, when given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks".

There are exceptions to this rule, however, such as Snape, who Harry said was a "Slytherin and... probably the bravest man I ever knew", and Regulus Black, who gave his life in an attempt to destroy one of the Horcruxes of Lord Voldemort and told his house-elf Kreacher to save himself and leave.

The truth is that while most Dark wizards are Slytherins, many members of Slytherin House do not have Dark leanings and are even kind and accepting, while smaller groups of Voldemort's supporters are aligned with other Houses. During the Battle of Hogwarts, while all of the Slytherin students left the school before the fighting started, several of them did return with Professor Slughorn as reinforcements to join the fight against Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and some decided to fight as a part of Dumbledore’s Army.

Common Room

Slytherin common room

The Slytherin common room is in the dungeons of Hogwarts Castle and underneath the Black Lake. Because of this, the light in the common room is green. Harry Potter along with Ron Weasley entered the common room in his second year to find out if Draco Malfoy was the one opening the Chamber of Secrets. To enter the Slytherin common room one must merely speak aloud the current password in front of a stretch of damp stone wall; once the word is uttered a concealed stone door will slide aside leaving a rectangular hole in the wall leading to the Slytherin common room. The only known Slytherin password is "pureblood", used in 1992.

Head of House

Salazar Slytherin
(10th century)

Horace Slughorn (1920s-1981)

Severus Snape
(1981-1996)

Slytherin's head of house for Harry's first six years of school was Severus Snape; however, as he fled with the Death Eaters in 1997 at the end of Harry's sixth year, Potions master Horace Slughorn became the head of Slytherin House. Upon Snape's return as Headmaster later that year, he apparently approved of Slughorn's appointment, as he did not assign any Death Eaters as a new head of house.

Known Slytherins

Slytherin	Period Attending Hogwarts	Notes
Bloody Baron	Middle Ages	Hot-tempered lord and squire who remorsefully committed suicide for inavertentally killing his unrequited lover in a fit of rage when she refused to come home from Albania with him, leaving his clothes stained with her blood. Later became the house ghost.
Merlin		Member of King Arthur's court, advocate of Muggle rights, and arguably the most famous wizard in history.
Elizabeth Burke	Unknown	Her Portrait hangs at Hogwarts, and tells Slytherins to be "Nasty to Mudbloods".
Phineas Nigellus Black	1858 - 1865	In later years he was a Headmaster, his portrait hangs in the Headmaster's office.
Black family		Except Sirius Black
Horace Slughorn	Unknown	Later became Potions teacher and Head of Slytherin.
Tom Riddle	1938 - 1945	Gave himself the alias "Lord Voldemort" and later began to use it openly. Later became the most powerful Dark Wizard in history. Finally defeated by Harry Potter during the Battle of Hogwarts.
Lestrange		Later became one of the first Death Eaters.
Avery, Snr		Later became one of the first Death Eaters.
Dolores Umbridge	Unknown	Later became Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Hogwarts High Inquisitor, Headmistress of Hogwarts (1996), and Head of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission. Imprisoned for her crimes against Muggle-borns.
Rodolphus Lestrange	1960s	Later became a very loyal Death Eater.
Bellatrix Black	1962 - 1969	Later became one of Lord Voldemort's most loyal Death Eaters alongside her husband Rodolphus Lestrange. Killed by Molly Weasley during the Battle of Hogwarts.
Lucius Malfoy	1965 - 1972	Prefect; later became a Death Eater (defected).
Narcissa Black	1966 - 1973	Sister of Bellatrix, who eventually married Lucius Malfoy and became the mother of Draco.
Evan Rosier	1960s or 1970s	Became a Death Eater. Killed by Alastor Moody.
Avery	1960s or 1970s	Later became a Death Eater.
Severus Snape	1971 - 1978	Became Death Eater, but defected to the Order of the Phoenix; later Potions master and Head of Slytherin, and became Headmaster for one year. Murdered by Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts.
Regulus Black	1972 - 1979	Became Death Eater but defected and gave his life in an attempt to destroy one of the Horcruxes.
Gemma Farley	1980s and 1990s	A Prefect
Marcus Flint	1986 - 1994	Captain and Chaser of the Slytherin Quidditch team and he repeated a year.
Lucian Bole	1988 - 1995	Beater for the Slytherin Quidditch team during the 1990s.
Peregrine Derrick
Cassius Warrington	1989 - 1996	Chaser of the Slytherin Quidditch team from 1993 to 1996; member of the Inquisitorial Squad.
Graham Montague		Chaser of the Slytherin Quidditch team during the 1990s
Adrian Pucey	1990s	Chaser of the Slytherin Quidditch team until 1993.
Flora Carrow		Member of the Slug Club
Hestia Carrow
Miles Bletchley		Keeper of the Slytherin Quidditch team from 1991 to 1995.
Terence Higgs		Seeker of the Slytherin Quidditch team in the 1980s and 1990s.
Urquhart		Captain and Chaser of the Slytherin Quidditch team during the 1996–1997 school year.
Vaisey		Chaser of the Slytherin Quidditch team in 1996.
Draco Malfoy	1991 - 1998	Prefect, Seeker for the Slytherin Quidditch team, member of the Inquisitorial Squad and later blackmailed by Lord Voldemort to become a Death Eater (defected). Eventually married Astoria Greengrass.
Vincent Crabbe		Beater of the Slytherin Quidditch team from 1995 to 1997; member of the Inquisitorial Squad; became a Dark Wizard in his seventh year. Killed by his own Fiendfyre during the Battle of Hogwarts.
Gregory Goyle		Beater of the Slytherin Quidditch team from 1995 to 1997; member of the Inquisitorial Squad; became a Dark Wizard in his seventh year.
Millicent Bulstrode		Member of the Inquisitorial Squad
Pansy Parkinson		Prefect and member of the Inquisitorial Squad.
Blaise Zabini		Member of the Slug Club.
Daphne Greengrass		Sister of Astoria Greengrass.
Theodore Nott		Was supposed to be a member of the Slug Club.
Tracey Davis
Bridget	1992 - 1993	Duelling Club member
Peter
Rachel
Roy
Harper	1992 - 1999	Reserve Seeker of the Slytherin Quidditch team in 1996.
Graham Pritchard	1994 - 2001
Mafalda		The infamous cousin of the Weasley family who was cut from the books.
Malcolm Baddock
Albus Potter	2017 - 2024	The second son and child of the famous Harry Potter. The only member of his family to be sorted into Slytherin House.
Scorpius Malfoy		The only child and son of Draco and Astoria Malfoy.
Tabitha Bainbridge
Sadie Baldock
Tristram Bassenthwaite
Darius Berrow
Kinjal Bhatia
Cameron Boyle
Sebastian Daley
Damon Gosforth
Amrish Gupta
Niles Hanley
Manami Ichijoh
Sourav Kartik
Hirohisa Kubo
Gertrude Meads
Sylvia Melville
Byron Miller
Titus Mitcham
Garrick Newbourne
Ona Parangyo
Mildred Peebles
Horatio Pershore
Poonima Shah
Bhupen Shastri
Archana Shetty
Reiko Sibazaki
Norman Stacey
Atsushi Takagi
Spencer Whiddon
Phylis Whitehead

Translations

In many translations they have changed the name:

French	Serpentard
Norwegian	Smygard
Finnish	Luihuinen (taken from the adjective 'luihu' which means 'deceptive' or 'sneaky')
Dutch	Zwadderich (taken form the old dutch noun ''zwadder'' which means snake poison)
Afrikaans	Sibberin
Portuguese (Brazil)	Sonserina (taken from "Sonso" a term to someone who pretends to be innocent or harmless)
Czech	Zmijozel (taken from "Zmije" = viper snake)
Hungarian	Mardekár
Russian	Слизерин [Slizerin](Sleezerin - Слизь means slime), Слайзерин [Sluytherin], Пресмыкайс [Presmykais] (Пресмыкаться means to slither)
Bulgarian	Слидерин [Sliderin]
Greek	Σλίθεριν [Slitherin]
Serbian	Слитерин/Sliterin
Slovak	Slizolin
Romanian	Viperini
Italian	Serpeverde ("Green Serpent")
Albanian	Gjarpërblertit (Green snake)
Slovenian	Spolzgad
Hindi	Nagshakti नगशक्ति (Sanskrit naga-shakti = "snake-power")
Macedonian	Змијолик (Zmijolik, which means "Snakeface")
Welsh	Slafenog
Traditional Chinese	史萊哲林 (Shi-lai-zhe-lin)
Simplied Chinese	斯莱特林 (Si-lai-te-lin）
Thai	สลิธีริน (Sa-li-thee-rin)
Lithuanian	Klastūnynas (taken from the noun 'klasta' meaning 'guile' or 'ruse'. Also could be translated as 'viper' or 'scoundrel'.)
The same name is used for the Arabic, Croatian, German, Hebrew, Swedish, Spanish, Danish, Turkish, Icelandic, Irish, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), and Indonesia languages.	Slytherin

Behind the scenes

Slytherin Banner

• The fact that J. K. Rowling intended to place a character named Mafalda, a half-blood who was the daughter of a Squib and a Muggle, in Slytherin, suggests that Rowling at least does not view the Slytherin House desire for blood-purity as particularly influential upon the Sorting Hat. Also as Voldemort and Snape are both half-bloods there seems no reason to suspect a racially pure Slytherin.
• Slytherin students might possess a certain skill in Potions. Harry's two Potions masters, Severus Snape and Horace Slughorn, both belonged to the Slytherin house. However, it is possible that this talent in Slytherin students could merely be a coincidence, as students from other houses at Hogwarts also shared this talent, such as Harry Potter's mother, Lily Potter (nee Evans) (whose skills were shown through Slughorn's many references to her skill in the subject throughout most of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) and Hermione Granger who were both Gryffindors.
• Slytherin students also seem to be gifted in Occlumency. Most of the known Occlumens in the books come from Slytherin (namely Voldemort, Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange, Draco Malfoy, and Horace Slughorn).
• Elizabeth Burke was most likely a Slytherin.
• J. K. Rowling stated in a PotterCast interview that some Slytherins were among the reinforcements brought by Slughorn during the Battle of Hogwarts.

  

• J. K. Rowling stated that by 2017, Slytherin is no longer the pure-blood bastion that it once was. However, its dark reputation still lingers, hence Albus Potter's fears.
• It is interesting to note that Slytherin is both the first Hogwarts house mentioned in the series (by Draco Malfoy), as well as the last mentioned in the series (by Albus Potter).
• In early drafts of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, members of the Slytherin house were known as "Slytherites".
• Slytherin House was the winner of the first, third and seventh house cup onPottermore.
• The Sorting Hat considered placing Gilderoy Lockhart in Slytherin. It finally chose Ravenclaw.
• In the Game Boy Advance Game Mother 3, there is an enemy called Slitherhen. The name is a reference to Slytherin.
• Peter Pettigrew was a Hatstall and considered for Sorting into Slytherin, but, in the end, was Sorted into Gryffindor.
• Scarlett Byrne, the actoress who portrayed Pansy Parkinson in the films, was sorted into Slytherin on Pottermore.

House Cup

• Slytherin won the first house cup with 72,734,274 house points.
• Slytherin came second for the second house cup with 48,495,275 points.
• Slytherin won the third house cup with 26,990,924 points.
• Slytherin came second for the fourth house cup with 24,865,387.
• Slytherin came second for the fifth house cup with 27,795,479 points.
• Slytherin came fourth for the sixth house cup with 31,926,625 points.
• Slytherin won the seventh house cup with 52,652,850 points.
• Slytherin came second for the eighth house cup with 26,564,159 points.

Appearances

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (First appearance)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (play)
• Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
• Harry Potter for Kinect
• Wonderbook: Book of Spells
• Pottermore
• Harry Potter: The Character Vault

See also

• Salazar Slytherin
• Salazar Slytherin's Locket
• Slytherin Quidditch team
• Gryffindor
• Hufflepuff
• Ravenclaw