Maybe you’ve also decided that Slytherin, Hogwarts’ home to Malfoy, Tom Riddle, and numerous other villainous characters, is totally evil. Hey, it’s not hard to draw that conclusion. After all, nearly every bad character that Harry Potter encountered wore the house's signature green and silver at one point or another. Still, there’s a lot more to the Slytherin house than meets the eye. It’s been home to some truly amazing wizards, and has a rich and storied history

if your house is responsible for helping to mold the most evil Wizarding mind of all time, you’re going to get a bad reputation. Despite having to claim Tom Riddle, a.k.a. Voldemort, as a notable alum, Slytherin isn’t automatically the house for “bad” or “evil” wizards. In fact, when it was founded by Salazar Slytherin, it was done so with the hope of training and educating the most resourceful, cunning, and ambitious witches and wizards at Hogwarts. Yes, these traits can be dangerous in the wrong hands, but they’re not inherently awful.

a concrete reminder that you can’t judge a Hogwarts House by the megalomaniac serial killer it spawned.

The rivalry, or should we say never-ending feud, between Slytherin and Gryffindor is a constant thread that runs

There was Nymphadora Tonks’ mother, Andromeda, who married a Muggle to the horror of her family and former housemates.  Harry’s sixth year potions instructor, Professor Slughorn, was vehement in his disdain for the blood purists amongst him and stood up against Voldemort and the Death Eaters when push came to shove. Plus, for all their complaints about wizards with muddled family trees, there were a lot of famous half-blood Slytherins: Dolores Umbridge, Severus Snape, and though he’d loathe to admit it, Tom Riddle himself.