Harry Potter House Descriptions - Part One

Everyone most likely knows about the House Cup Competition going on in the high school English classes with Ms. Kruse, but not many people know about the Houses themselves. The order for the grades go Freshmen – Slytherin, Sophomores – Hufflepuff, Juniors – Ravenclaw, and Seniors – Gryffindor. The original plan for the houses were that you would stay with your house all four years. That means this year’s 8^th graders would be Gryffindor next year, and they would keep rotating; this year’s Freshmen would still be Slytherin next year, and so on. But due to lots of comments about people wanting to be Gryffindor, Ms. Kruse decided to keep the houses based on the grade. That would make next year’s Freshmen be Slytherin, and next year’s Seniors still be Gryffindor. Now we are heading onto the descriptions of our first two houses: Slytherin and Hufflepuff.

Slytherin 

Slytherin is just one of the four houses at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The founder of this house was Salazar Slytherin, hence the name “Slytherin.” As seen on the House Crest, the animal is a Serpent, or snake, and the colors are Green and Silver. This house corresponds with the element of water since serpents are commonly associated with the sea and locks in western European mythology, along with serpents being physically fluid and flexible animals. The colors also correspond with it; lakes and lochs often being green, and silver often associated with grey/gray rain water. The Head of Slytherin is Horace Slughorn; he passed the role to Severus Snape for fifteen years before taking the job up again. The House’s patron ghost is the Bloody Baron, and the common room for this House is the Slytherin Dungeon. The common room is also known as the dungeons of the Hogwarts Castle, and is underneath the Black Lake. Because of this location, the lighting is green, which is ironic considering the colors of the House itself. The only way to enter the common room is to speak aloud the current password in from of a damp stone wall. After the word is spoken, a concealed stone door will slide open, revealing the entrance. The only known Slytherin password is “pureblood”, and was used in 1992.

The Head of House is the person ruling the Slytherin House. Salazar was the Head of House in the 10^th century. Horace Slughorn was in position from the 1920s-1982, and Severus Snape from 1981-1996. Snape was the Head of Slytherin for the first six years of school for the protagonist, Harry Potter. Potions master Horace Slughorn, the former Head of House, took up the position once again in 1997 when Snape fled with the Death Eaters at the end of Harry’s sixth year. When Snape returned later that year, he approved of Slughorn’s appointment, and didn’t assign any Death Eaters as a new Head of House.

The founder, Salazar, instructed the Sorting Hat to choose a few specific characteristics that he himself most valued. A few of the traits include being cunning, have resourcefulness and ambition. The Sorting Hat itself said:

“Or perhaps in Slytherin,
You’ll make your real friends,
Those cunning fold use any means,
To achieve their ends.”

According to the wikia, “Slytherins tend to ambitious, shrewd, cunning, strong leaders, and achievement-orientated.” They also contain highly developed senses of self-preservation, meaning they tend to hesitate before acting to weigh out all possible outcomes before they decide what should exactly be done. Another strong piece of information about the qualities of Slytherins is “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.’”

Blood Purity is claimed as a factor for selecting people to be Slytherin. Muggle-born Slytherins do exist, but since they are not pure-bloods, they are very rare. Despite this, there have been very definite examples of half-bloods in the Slytherin house, these people including Tom Marvolo Riddle, Dolores Umbridge, and Severus Snape. There have also been pure-bloods sorted into other houses besides Slytherin.

There is a superstition that all Dark Wizards were in Slytherin, but this is not true. Wizards like Peter Pettigrew, who was a Gryffindor, and Quirinus Quirrell, who was a Ravenclaw, were Dark Wizards. Though, there were Dark Wizards from this house. Tom Marvolo Riddle, who later became “Lord Voldemort,” is an example, as he began recruiting Death Eaters. Since his own house was Slytherin, it was difficult for him to recruit them there. There is a possible, though unlikely, claim that the Sorting Hat simply puts the people with bad intentions into Slytherin, regardless of the qualities they possess. It must be noted that Slytherins who oppose the use of Dark Arts and discrimination based on blood purity do exist; some of these include Horace Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks.

The traits of being cunning and ambitious are easily turned towards evil and ill purposes, but are not automatically negative traits; furthermore, being daring, and having intelligence and loyalty and also easily become negative traits. A quote about from Phineas Nigellus is: “We Slytherins are brave, yews, but not stupid. For instance, when given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks.” There are exceptions to this rule, such as Snape, who Harry claimed was a “Slytherin and… probably the bravest man I ever knew”, and Regulus Black, who gave his life when he attempted to destroy one of the Horcruxes of Lord Voldemort.

The overall truth is that while most Slytherins turn out to be Dark Wizards, many members of the House do not have Dark leanings, and Voldemort has supporter groups in other houses. During the Battle of Hogwarts, although all of the Slytherin students left before the fighting started, many of them returned with Professor Slughorn as reinforcements to join the battle against Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

There are many known Slytherins, especially the Bloody Baron, who later became the House Ghost. Another famous person you might recognize, but did not know was a Slytherin, was Merlin. The list continues, including Phineas Nigellus Black, the rest of the Black family except for Sirius Black, Horace Slughorn, Tom Marvolo Riddle (aka Voldemort), Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, Regulus Black, Draco Malfoy, and more. The list stretches on. If you want to see everyone who was a part of Slytherin, check the wikia (linked in the paragraphs above). Now on to Hufflepuff.