[HPforGrownups] Voldemort and Slytherin

[Kathryn Wolber]

No: HPFGUIDX 50779


--- "Tom Wall <thomasmwall at yahoo.com>"
<thomasmwall at yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the
> Chamber of Secrets so 
> that none would be able to open it until his own
> true heir arrived at 
> the school." Professor Binns (CoS 151)
> 
> Does anyone have any idea why Slytherin's
> descendants weren't watched 
> with the utmost scrutiny?
> 
> Obviously, the rumor of the Chamber of Secrets was
> enough to cause 
> many wizards and witches to search for its location
> in the school.  
> In other words, they took it seriously enough to
> believe it might be 
> there. So, if they took it seriously enough to
> entertain notions of 
> its existence, how come they didn't take it
> seriously enough to trace 
> Slytherin's lineage through to the present day?  
> 
> After all, Riddle's mother would have also been a
> descendent of 
> Slytherin. In fact, there were probably tons of
> descendents of 
> Salazar Slytherin. There are any number of
> generations between 
> Slytherin and Riddle. And the likelihood of there
> being a single-to-
> single family tree is pretty minimal, I mean,
> one-to-one all the way 
> down *is* a fairly rare occurance. And although we
> don't know this as 
> fact, we must assume that some, if not all of them
> attended Hogwarts.
> 
> So with all of those generations of little
> Slytherins bouncing 
> around, why was Riddle the only one to open the
> Chamber of Secrets?  
> 
> I can only settle on three solutions:
> 
> 1) Slytherin's descendents didn't attend Hogwarts
> until Riddle did 
> (this seems totally ridiculous to me.)
> 2) The other descendents didn't figure out that they
> were Slytherin's 
> heirs (this also seems silly to me.)
> 2) Riddle was the only one who was a Parselmouth,
> since that's 
> supposed to be a very rare ability, so it's possible
> that none of the 
> other descendents possessed the skill.
> 
> I like three the most, but it still doesn't settle
> well.
> 
> All the same, it just seems, well, *irresponsible*
> to not follow all 
> of Slytherin's descendents very closely,
> particularly if they 
> attended Hogwarts, knowing that there was a
> potential for said 'heir' 
> to unleash evil upon the school.
> 
> -Tom
> 
I think that *maybe* the current headmaster when
Riddle was there, Dippet, thought the CoS was just a
rumor as many others did.  So he didn't really worry
about the CoS being opened because he didn't think it
existed.  Or, since he didn't believe it existed, he
didn't bother keeping track of the Slytherin
descendants.  But our seemingly all knowing Dumbledore
did know something was up, and he was keeping an eye
on Riddle.  Dumbledore obviously knew what was going
on because he knew that Hagrid was not guilty and
always stood up for his innocence.  I'm beginning to
think that Dumbledore knows what's going on, but tends
to let nature take it's course, and doesn't use his
knowledge to interfere.  

~Kathryn


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