Slytherin

"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, and is traditionally home to students who exhibit such traits as cunning and ambition. Founded by Salazar Slytherin, the house is comprised mostly of pure-blood students, due to its founder's mistrust of Muggle-born witches and wizards. The house has a negative reputation, with many claiming that it is the source of most dark wizards in Britain, notably Tom Riddle (Voldemort).

Personality
Most notably, Slytherins value cunning and ambition, but 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 of a decision (and how these outcomes would personally impact them), unlike Gryffindors, whose chivalrous natures would likely lead them to react immediately and instinctively.

According to Albus Dumbledore, the qualities which Salazar valued in the students he chose included Parseltongue, 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).

Slytherin, along with Gryffindor, was one of the most competitive houses at Quidditch, and won the House Cup six years in a row prior to Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts.

Slytherin corresponds roughly with the element of water.

Blood purity
The Sorting Hat claims that blood purity is a factor in selecting Slytherins. This suggests that it bases its decisions more upon the views of its members than on any accurate test of a student's lineage. 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 Voldemort, Severus Snape, and Millicent Bulstrode. Another half-blood, Harry Potter, was nearly sorted into Slytherin, but ended up in Gryffindor instead.

Contrary to the wishes of the other founders of Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin wanted a stricter policy of admission to the school &mdash;one limited to strictly to pure-blood students. The controversy this created apparently led to Salazar leaving the school and the Chamber of Secrets behind. A millennium later, the house's students are still considered affiliated with Salazar's reputed views, and open expression of pro-blood purity sentiment does seem to be more common in Slytherin than in other Houses.

Reputation
It said that most dark wizards were in Slytherin (though how many were from this house before Tom Marvolo Riddle began recruiting Death Eaters there is unstated: as Slytherin was his own House, it was certainly most easy for him to recruit there).

However, it must be noted that good Slytherin wizards also exist: most notable was Horace Slughorn, a member of the House prior to the entry of Tom Riddle. Another notable Slytherin member was Andromeda Black, who while related to many different dark wizards (most notably her sister Bellatrix Lestrange, her brother-in-law Lucius Malfoy, and her nephew Draco Malfoy), chooses to forsake the loyalty to her family in marrying the Muggle-born Ted Tonks. Also, the allegiance of Severus Snape was found to be ultimately towards Albus Dumbledore, serving as a triple agent for the Order of the Phoenix.

Cunning and ambition are easily turned towards ill purposes, but are not inherently negative; furthermore, daring, intelligence, and loyalty can as easily become negative. A reason Slytherins may not be thought of as the best kind of people is because many of them seem to value their own lives more than the lives of others. When Harry was trying to run away, because he was afraid that his presence was putting his friends in danger, Phineas Nigellus saw him and said, "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". Rowling herself has defended Slytherins, claiming that while most Dark wizards are Slytherins, most Slytherins are not Dark, and that smaller groups of Voldemort's supporters are aligned with other Houses.

Common room
The Slytherin common room may be found in the dungeons of Hogwarts castle, and are located underneath the lake in the school grounds.

Head of House
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, Potions master Horace Slughorn became the head of Slytherin House.

List of known Slytherins

 * The Black family (with the exception of Sirius Black & Nymphadora Tonks)
 * Miles Bletchley
 * Millicent Bulstrode
 * Vincent Crabbe
 * Marcus Flint
 * Gregory Goyle
 * Daphne Greengrass
 * Bellatrix Lestrange
 * Draco Malfoy
 * Lucius Malfoy
 * Narcissa Malfoy
 * Montague
 * Theodore Nott
 * Pansy Parkinson
 * Albus Severus Potter
 * Adrian Pucey
 * Tom Riddle / Lord Voldemort
 * Horace Slughorn
 * Severus Snape
 * Andromeda Tonks
 * C. Warrington
 * Cedrella Weasley
 * Blaise Zabini
 * Nott Sr.
 * Mafalda (The infamous Weasley cousin who was cut from the books was identified by J.K Rowling.)
 * Tracey Davis

Translations of the name
In many translations they have changed the name.


 * French: Serpentard
 * Norweigan: Smygard
 * Finnish: Luihuinen
 * Dutch: Zwadderich
 * Portuguese (Brazil): Sonserina (taken from "Sonso" a term to someone who pretends to be innocent or harmless)
 * Czech: Zmijozel
 * Hungarian: Mardekár
 * Romanian: Viperini
 * Italian: Serpeverde
 * Slovenian: Spolzgad

Behind the scenes

 * 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. Mafalda was intended to be a relative of the Weasley children..