Part eleven: The Bloody Baron
To most I am simply 'The Bloody Baron', the bloodstained ghost of Slytherin House. What most fail to remember is that I did have a life before becoming a ghost, and very, very few know anything about that life, but now, after nearly half a millennia of silence, I shall tell of my past.
My name, in life, was Satanael Slytherin. I was the only son of Azazel Slytherin, and the last of our line that bore our founder's name. I lived a life of the Dark Arts, honouring a tradition that we had held before the birth of Slytherin himself: it helped me greatly to trick my way through life, but it was also to be my downfall.
My wife, Gabrielle le Noir Slytherin, had never approved of my use of the Dark Arts, and it was that, combined with the insanity that befell her after a meeting with a dementor, eventually led her to kill me.
It was during the late sixteenth century, in the November of 1566 if I recall correctly, that I left my first life, my mortal life, to begin this second, immortal life as a ghost.
She murdered me and six of our seven children before turning her wand on herself. Only our youngest daughter, Serafina, survived. She later married one Henry Gaunt, and began the line of our House from which the Dark Lord himself is descended.
I have haunted the halls of Hogwarts ever since, only ever speaking to the Dark Lord himself and to the Grey Lady (who is, herself, a descendent of Gabrielle's eldest brother and the only member of the House of le Noir to have become anything other than a Slytherin.)
But what I meant to say is not only that, but this. Yes, I am of the House of Slytherin in more ways than one, and I too have thoughts on what being a Slytherin truly means. You see, to me, Slytherin means deceit, cunning, ambition and persistence, for it was all of those things that led me through my life and, eventually, to my death and my unrest.