Salazar's retirement career

[sunnyskywalker]

It's interesting that we never hear what happened to Salazar Slytherin after he "departed" that fateful morning. Jodel suggested a couple of possibilities (included below). As a slightly tongue-in-cheek exercise, here's a quiz on his possible post-Hogwarts activities.

(a) He founded Durmstrang.
(b) He founded the Department of Mysteries (whatever it was called pre-Ministry).
(c) He started a war (maybe with pureblood supremacist ideology, maybe something else).
(d) He retired and lived a quiet life of scholarship and contemplation.
(e) He served on the Wizards' Council.
(f) He started a pet shop specializing in exotic snakes.
(g) He accidentally got killed by his own basilisk. The other Founders covered it up out of respect for his memory.
(h) The other Founders killed him and buried him under the foundations of their new Astronomy Tower.
(i) Other, explained in comments.

Comments

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Which option I vote for depends on how I happen to be feeling at the moment about the other three Founders. If I’m in the mood to think of Godric, Rowena, and Helga as moderately decent human beings, I’ll go with (g). If I’m in the mood to think of them as complete assholes (which is more often the case), I’ll go with (h).

And there’s always (j): He went back to Spain, married a nice Jewish girl, and lived happily ever after.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

I like (b), kind of a Masonic group that investigated magical mysteries and lost arts and secrets

[kahran042]

Personally, I'd go with (b) followed by (d).

[torchedsong.livejournal.com]

(b) and (e) sound like they could be interesting. I'd also go with (d) but maybe that wouldn't be exhilarating for an ambitious person like Salazar? Or maybe he did have enough of the craziness inherent in the Wizarding world and enjoyed going off the grid and chilling for the rest of his life.

(g) sounds like the type of poetic irony JKR would probably find fitting or amusing, but she already did that with Snape - the whole "Slytherin getting put down by their own house emblem" thing....

In a weird way, the story of the four Founders of Hogwarts reminds me a tiny bit of Avatar: The Last Airbender, especially the opening narration. "Long ago, the four nations founders lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked Salazar Slytherin distrusted Muggle-borns."

I'm being silly, but I do wonder what would drive a man like Salazar to disappear, especially after putting so much work in his Chamber and basilisk.

[chantaldormand]

Salazar's retirement plan? Alright let's take a crack on this.
Well considering that he was petty and skilled enough to secretly build CoS under existing castle without weakening it's structural integrity he most probably stayed in UK a few more years creating a political body that was precursor to the Ministry (I'll have the last word, Godric!) while on side starting his own business: designing and building magical buildings! Quickly Salazar became very popular among purebloods. Rowena became jealous. The rivalry between two old colleagues resulted in A)Hogwarts becoming Murder Castle TM and B)Salazar being covered in so much of political mud that he had to emigrate back to his homeland: Iberian peninsula.
Sadly that didn't end well for Sal. A few years after he came back he was murdered to death by good Allah fearing Saracen.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I'll go with (d) but am also attracted to (h) and (g) in that order.

Reason for (d): If Salazar had spent little time at Hogwarts, say just a couple of decades given the supposedly long lifespan of a wizard, I think the other founders would have said, 'Good riddance to bad rubbish' and gotten rid of Slytherin House, tweaking the Sorting Hat to just assign to the three houses and redistributing the then-current Slytherin students to the other houses. Since they didn't, I'll say that he stayed a good many years and the split came when they were all nearing retirement age so Salazar's ambitions channeled into a more sedentary post-Hogwarts occupation of scholarship with the aim of writing amazing and oft-cited theses on the various magical arts.

(g) is just wild. Love it! Blood on all those good, pure hands.

(h) hoist by one's own petard? Lovely.