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Hogwarts Houses - The four houses of Hogwarts, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff & Slytherin.
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Slytherin. House of the cunning, amoral and selfish
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Slytherin house
Slytherin is the bad guy of the Harry Potter books, from whom all vileness seems to descend. According to Hagrid,
Slytherin house is the ONLY house to have students who went on to become Dark Wizards, which doesn't square at all with
Peter Pettigrew's treachery or Sirius Black's supposed alliance with Voldemort. Perhaps Hagrid's statement that "There's
not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin." refers only to those who were any good at it, such as
Voldemort.
Harry's arch rival, Draco Malfoy, is a leader in Slytherin house as Harry is in Gryffindor. All of the Slytherins in
the books seem to be unpleasant people, and the Head of Slytherin house is none other than the despised Professor Snape.
The symbol of Slytherin is the serpent, which is "often used in the worst kinds of Dark magic" and is "historically
associated with evil-doers." even though the first snake Harry ever spoke to was perfectly polite.
Slytherin's big argument with Gryffindor, which resulted in Slytherin's building the Chamber of Secrets and leaving
Hogwarts, was to do with students of pure and mixed ancestry. Slytherin believed that wizards born of wizard families were
better than wizards of Muggle descent. Since magic is hereditary and therefore genetic he may have had a point, but if
there really was some solid reasoning behind his belief it has long been lost in prejudice.
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