A letter to the heads of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to be printed in the Daily Prophet and witnessed by any whose minds have been swayed by recent allegations against the House of Slytherin and its members, present and past, and particularly those discussions concerning the future use of Houses as a means to judge the virtue of an individual's soul.

12th February, 1977

Dear Sirs,

The deepest green grows farthest from the sun, one step above the fungus feeding on decaying things: death-eaters. They have gone beyond the day. Many of us fall; it is the risk we take to live where our natures allow us to thrive. Do not mistake the unlife of the fallen ones for what we all are, or how we began, or our intentions.

You are the blossoms of the world, the trembling ferns, and the trees, all reaching in your own ways eternally towards the embrace of the sun. But you are burned to the bare earth by fire of drought or lightening, or your leaves and petals frozen at summer's end, and finally, we survive, in the cold beyond frost, the wet beyond rain, the places beyond sunlight's sour stare. That is the essence of our House, our courage. We dare to deviate from the lovely coveted gardens and forests, we set down our roots on bare rock and sand and soil no gardener will ever till. We are the moss in the shade and the glistening algae in the cave pools. We may live all our lives and only ever see a reflection of reflected sunlight on a far wall.

But that light is still what we seek, our sustenance. All green things need the light, and we are the deepest green: we catch the faintest light. We are the strong and hidden things. You bold ones who fling yourselves carelessly towards the sky are defeated into hibernation by an hour's less sunshine full upon you, and by autumn all the shade plants wither and sleep in stasis until the seasons turn again. We cannot be obliterated save by total darkness—a darkness too complete a force for you who so fanatically love the sun to imagine. How many times have you shone a light into the deepest cellar and found there emeralds on the walls instead of cobwebs? It is inconceivable to you that anything green should dwell in those places. But they do. We do. We know how to feed ourselves on forgotten light.

The snake is cold-blooded: it takes only what it needs of brightness and warmth, and no more. It is not much. The filtered dappling that reaches the underbrush is enough, and we return to our hidden places, our cold caves. We flee from the brightest, warmest part of the day, and we are night-stalkers.

We find you greedy, who require all the comforts of a fair day in order to flourish. Even lavished with our greatest luxuries, you would starve and grow heart-sick for your sky-fire, yet you call us greedy because we take what we can get of our own devices, and hold it and hoard it. That is our right, more justly earned than the sucrose surplus you live in, where what you call virtue is so common it is wasted. 'Good deeds' are over-done, noble gestures become three-act plays (badly cast and stifled with melodrama), and thus do you render them all meaningless. You lack subtlety, style, cunning, a sense of worth. Is it any wonder what you call humility stems from self-loathing? Why do you permit yourselves to be your own worst enemies? You only make it easy for us to believe you deserve to be treated as inferior.

Real power is to realize that weakness is a self-fulfilling prophesy—and so is its opposite. You deserve only what you believe you deserve enough to take it for yourself, with your own skill, your own cunning.

The essence of Slytherin is to get what you deserve.

I hope I have made clearer to you the nature of the so-called 'evil' whose evidence you so eagerly re-create in us. If it seems to you that evil must be present in all hearts in a House from whom so many have turned to actual darkness, it is only because in such dim light as we have the strength to dwell in, it is impossible to see the difference between green and black—or red and gold.

I remain, sirs, yours sincerely,
The Half-Blood Prince