Horace Slughorn
by J.K. Rowling
BIRTHDAY: 28th April
WAND: Cedar and dragon heartstring, ten and a quarter inches, fairly flexible
HOGWARTS HOUSE: Slytherin
SPECIAL ABILITIES: Accomplished Occlumens, expert Potioneer, advanced self-transfiguration
PARENTAGE: Wizard father, witch mother (family one of the so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’)
FAMILY: Never married, no children (although the Slughorn family continues through a collateral line)
HOBBIES: The Slug Club, corresponding with famous ex-students, fine wines and confectionery
Horace Eugene Flaccus Slughorn was born into an ancient wizarding family, the only son of doting and wealthy parents. Although a fundamentally good-tempered boy, he was educated to believe in the value of the old boys’ network (his father was a high-ranking Ministry official in the Department of International Magical Co-operation), and encouraged to make friends ‘of the right sort’ once he arrived at Hogwarts. The Slughorn family is one of the so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’, (a select list of the only families designated ‘pure-blooded’ by an anonymous author in the 1930s) and while Slughorn’s parents were never militant in their pure-blood beliefs, they encouraged a quiet belief in the family’s innate superiority.
Horace was sorted instantly into Slytherin upon arrival at Hogwarts. He proved himself an outstanding student, and while he did not follow his parents’ implied instructions to the letter (numbering among his friends several talented Muggle-borns), he practised his own brand of elitism. Horace was drawn to those whose talents or backgrounds made them in any way distinctive, revelling in reflected glory, and dazzled by celebrity of any description. Even as a boy he was an embarrassingly loud name-dropper, and would often refer to the Minister for Magic by his Christian name, happy to imply that the family were on closer terms with him than was really the case.
In spite of his considerable abilities, his admiration of those who enjoyed the limelight and his parents’ ambitions for him at the Ministry, Horace Slughorn was never drawn to the cut and thrust of politics. He enjoyed his creature comforts and revelled in the vicarious delights of having high-achieving friends, without much wanting to emulate any of them. Perhaps he knew in his heart of hearts that he was not the stuff of which great Ministers are made, aware that he preferred a less taxing and more comfortable existence. When offered the job of Potions master at Hogwarts he was delighted to accept, having a great flair for teaching and a deep fondness for the old school.
Subsequently promoted to Head of Slytherin house, Slughorn remained a good-tempered and easy-going man. He had weaknesses – vanity, snobbery and a certain lack of judgement when it came to the good-looking and talented – and yet he was devoid of cruelty or malice. The worst of which he could be accused during his teaching career is that he made far too great a distinction between those students whom he found amusing and promising, and those in whom he saw no flicker of future greatness. The institution of the ‘Slug Club’ – an out-of-hours dining and social club for his selected favourites – did nothing to assuage the feelings of those who were never invited.
Slughorn undoubtedly had a good eye for latent talent; over a fifty-year period numerous members of the Slug Club, hand-picked by him, subsequently had dazzling careers in the wizarding world, in fields as diverse as Quidditch, politics, business and journalism.
Unfortunately for Slughorn, one of his very favourite students, a handsome and exceptionally talented boy called Tom Marvolo Riddle, had ambitions that were far removed from the likes of the Ministry or proprietorship of the Daily Prophet. Manipulative and charming when he chose, Riddle knew exactly how to flatter and cajole his doting Potions master and Head of House into parting with forbidden information: how to create Horcruxes. Most ill-advisedly, Slughorn gave his protégé the knowledge he had been lacking.
Although it is not shown in the novels, we may deduce, from what Professor Dumbledore tells Harry Potter about his own suspicions about Tom Riddle during the latter’s school days, that Dumbledore would have warned his colleague Slughorn against allowing himself to be used by the boy. Slughorn, secure in his own judgement (which had been vindicated so many times), brushed off such warnings as paranoia on Dumbledore’s part, believing the Transfiguration teacher to have taken an unaccountable dislike to Tom from the moment he had fetched the boy from the orphanage in which he had been brought up.
Slughorn remained in thrall to Riddle right up until the latter’s departure from the school, when Slughorn was disappointed to discover that his prize pupil had not only turned down every wonderful job offer made to him, but vanished, showing no desire to keep in touch with the master with whom he had seemed to feel such an affinity. Slowly, over the ensuing months, Slughorn had to admit to himself that the affection Tom Riddle had seemed to feel for him might, after all, have been a pretence. Slughorn’s guilty feelings about having shared a piece of dangerous magical knowledge with the boy intensified, but he suppressed them more determinedly than ever, confiding in no one.
When, a few years after Riddle’s departure from the school, a Dark wizard of immense power called Lord Voldemort became active in the wizarding world, Slughorn did not immediately recognise him as his old pupil. He had never been privy to the private name that Riddle was already using to his cronies at Hogwarts, and Voldemort had undergone several physical transformations since last they met. When Slughorn realised that this frightening wizard was, indeed, Tom Riddle, he was horrified, and on the night that Voldemort returned to Hogwarts, seeking a teaching post, Slughorn hid in his office, frightened that the visitor would come and claim acquaintance. Voldemort did not trouble to greet his former Potions master on that occasion, but Slughorn’s relief was short-lived.
When the wizarding world fell into war, and rumours swirled that Voldemort had, somehow, made himself immortal, Slughorn was sure that it was he who had made Voldemort invincible, by teaching him about Horcruxes (this guilt was misplaced, as Riddle already knew how to make a Horcrux, and had feigned innocence in order to find out what might happen if a wizard made more than one). Slughorn became ill with guilt and fright. Albus Dumbledore, now Headmaster, treated his colleague with particular kindness at this time, which had the paradoxical effect of increasing Slughorn’s guilt, reinforcing his determination never to tell a living soul what a dreadful mistake he had made.
Lord Voldemort made no attempt to seize Hogwarts on his first ascent to power. Slughorn believed, correctly, that he was safest remaining in his post rather than risking the outside world while Voldemort was at large. When Voldemort met his match upon attacking the infant Harry Potter, Slughorn was even more jubilant than most of the wizarding population. If Voldemort had been killed, Slughorn reasoned, then he could not have made a Horcrux, which meant that he, Slughorn, was innocent after all. It was Slughorn’s extremity of relief, and the disjointed phrases he let fall in the first rush of emotion after hearing of Voldemort’s defeat, that first alerted Dumbledore to the possibility that Slughorn had shared Dark secrets with Tom Riddle. Dumbledore’s gentle attempts to question Slughorn, however, caused him to clam up. A few days later, Slughorn (who had now completed a half century of service to the school) tendered his resignation.