I am Salazar Slytherin

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made."-Genesis 3:1

Prologue: Draco Dormiens Numquam Titillandus

I came up with that motto, you know. It's exactly the right representation of the spirit that created our school: "Never tickle a sleeping dragon". If only the other founders had paid more attention to the advice of our motto and didn't tickle the sleeping dragon of my resentment, of my hostility which was waiting to burst forth from its cave and devour all that I and my friends held dear.

Forgive me, I am Salazar Slytherin. You'll see me in the upper right corner of that picture. It's not a very good representation which is a pity, as I was standing there holding that snake for hours while the artist painted it. I am lucky to be a parselmouth, for I would have been bored to tears otherwise. But snakes are a good conversationalist when your portrait is being painted and you're being shouted at not to move every millisecond. It is a pity it couldn't be a better representation, but there you are. And while it is not a GOOD representation, it is certainly an accurate one if a little harsh. I am afraid that even at the best of times I cannot help looking like a dementor with a serpentine face, but to portray it that blatantly is a little cruel, if you will.

But enough about the portrait and more about who it is of. Me. The man born Salazar Scelestus Sordidus Mendax Slytherin. Few people don't know me, just as few understand me. Many of my contemporaries see me as an opportunist, a Machiavellian, a nihilist. As cold blooded as the reptile that is my house emblem, that's me (at least in their eyes). Well, that is half me and half not me. They have touched only on my dark side, but there is more to me. I am the most recent member of the most prestigious wizarding family in existence: The Slytherins, a line of powerful wizarding aristocrats descended from Morgan LeFay herself. But beyond that there is the true me, the me that gives great gifts and takes terrible tribute, the me that swallows up power and regurgitates it in the classroom for my students to learn from, and the me that desperately wants nothing more than the truth...about me, about my life and about my family.

Yes, my family. I have lost them. My love married by the man I once loved but now hate with a blazing fire that consumes my heart daily at the sight of them. And my daughter...my daughter being raised under the same man's hateful eye. My precious Genevieve stolen from me by that upstart Godric Gryffindor. You'll find him next to me in the picture though we really never stood united. What poor fool thought it accurate to put us in such close proximity as that is lucky he was only working with portraits. Why, Godric would have gladly sunk his sword into my heart. Serpent's tongue and Devil I was to him and though he had once embraced me and called me friend I was now his greatest enemy. He knew he had only had what I left him, only married my leavings, only raised my child. This made him hate me so that he never trusted me or even respected me again. He antagonized me at every turn and for that I hated him and still do. We stayed allies for ages while hating each other and when I broke the alliance he was the first to turn. I do not blame him. I would have too and now I still do not blame him, though he will soon have me at the foot of his sword. Before I am forced to kill him I feel I must make peace with the vengeful conscience that inhabits every fibre and molecule of my body and possesses my mind with pain. I will set it to rest by writing this history of what has caused my fall from grace, my fall from Eden. But unlike Adam it was the Lion, not the Serpent, who made me fall into the grip of vice and sin.