conuly

No, not of Slitherins, of Slitherin, old Salazar himself.

For right now, we're going to assume that everything we've heard about him in the books is true, that it's not 1. an outright lie 2. a mistake or 3. poetic license. Except when Ron called him a loony. We'll consider that undereducated hyperbole, because he really didn't know too much about the guy, and was picking up on his family's prejudices* about the matter.

So, really, what do we know about Salazar?

1. He was Godric's best friend.
2. He was a founder of a school devoted to finding young wizards in a time when wizardry was distrusted.
3. He thought muggleborn wizards were "less trustworthy" than pureblood wizards.
4. He prized students with ambition.
5. He could talk to snakes.
6. Voldemort is descended from him.
7. He built a secret chamber with a basilisk in a girl's bathroom. Okay, this is kinda loony.
8. After that, and for the past 1000 years there's been a great rivalry between Slytherin and the other houses, especially (it seems) between Slytherin and Gryffindor.

Okay, so we know quite a bit about the guy. We can add idle speculations on his nationality (Salazar is not an English name) and personality (Is there a *reason* he put his favored students in the dungeon? Or was the choice for the Slytherin Dormitory's location made after he left?), but none of that seems to be especially relevant.

Now, it's easy to write Slytherin off as an early racist. After all, the Death Eaters certainly are. There's a lot of racism in the Wizarding world, in fact. Even our beloved Weasleys aren't immune to it (think back on what Mrs. Weasley was saying when Harry first met her....) But is that really true? Remember, we're assuming that everything said about the guy (other than "he's loony") is absolutely true. Mostly because otherwise this whole post falls to pieces. Professor Binns put his reason for not wanting to accept muggleborn students as one over a concern of security. Muggleborns, he said, weren't trustworthy.

And he may have been right.

Think about the world they live in. People fear wizards. And, while centuries later children will learn that their anti-wizard actions were largely futile - do we know that this is true? If it's really true, why on earth would wizards still be hiding out? Don't give me Hagrid's explanation, I don't buy that. It's possible that muggles were more effective than modern wizards would admit, or even know.

Even if adult wizards really were immune to anti-wizard activity, this is a school for children. It seems reasonable to believe that children would be in danger from anti-wizard activity even when adults weren't, because children aren't in control of their magic.

So, here you are in the dark ages, and you have your little sanctuary against the people who want to kill you and all your kind. And somebody is trying to bring in children of the muggles to learn! Okay, fair's fair, they should learn - but what about when they leave? Are they really going to abandon their families? Why should they? So they talk to their families, and what if they let something slip? Or just outright tell their families about where the school is, what it's like, et cetera? These are their families! It's safe!

But it's not safe. People are scared of wizards. You can't trust them not to want to harm you. And you can't trust children not to tell their families about you.

It's not safe.

So Salazar goes "look, we can't stop them from talking to their families, or their muggle friends, and have you forgotten why we're here? Are you MAD, people???" and then, knowing he's about to be kicked out, he builds a secret chamber.

Now, from the view of history, this looks crazy. But maybe he didn't mean for it to be opened and for the basilisk to just randomly kill people. Maybe he meant for it to only be opened when his dire prediction came true, and the muggles were at the gates with pitchforks and torches.

Or maybe he was just nuts. Whatever.

*_{Yeah, his family's prejudices. Not the icky kind like "all muggleborn - excuse me, mudbloods are scum" but the kind like "muggles are just as good as we are, and people who don't think so are loonies".}