myqueerass:

fuocogo:

sashaforthewin:

brosequartz:

queerandgrumpy:

headcanon that since the slytherin common room is under the lake there’s a room where the walls and ceiling are glass and you can just see into the lake like an aquarium

headcanon that when this was first done the mermaids got really aggressive and hateful about it and started ramming the glass but since it was magic this just caused them injuries

until a deaf/hoh slytherin started to teach them sign language and it took a long time bit by the time they left hogwarts they and the rest of the house were communicating with the mermaids and on good terms

eventually it becomes a part of slytherin house culture you’re a slytherin you know sign language because if you don’t chat with the mermaids they get grumpy

this helps a lot of deaf/hoh students

this also gives slytherin the best grades of any house on all aquatic magical studies

the mermaids give terrible dating advice do not trust them

The most common mermaid dating advice, of course, being “Drown him”

(DROWN HIM <3)

((HE’S SURVIVED THAT ALREADY))

I love this because it’s such a completely Slytherin thing to do. Not just learning to communicate with another species living next-door because it’s the polite thing to do, but they also most likely made full use of that skill – I betcha Slytherins would all make use of signing outside of the aquarium as well, to use in class when the teacher has their back turned, or to sign stuff across long corridors or when the Great Hall is too loud to be heard through.

And it becomes a tradition in Slytherin to teach first years signing. It’s only polite to the neighbours after all. Not to mention to all the deaf/hoh students. None of the other Houses catch on, and neither does the teachers, but the Sorting Hat makes a point out of always sorting deaf/hoh children into Slytherin, where they will never have a problem fitting in. (Well, no more than any other teenager anyway.)

Because of signing, Slytherin students are uniformly good at charms and spells that demand delicate wand movements. It also works the other way around; as post-Voldemort discrimination against Slytherins is being dealt with, and amongst other things result the ostracized former Slytherins becoming less guarded, people realise how close wandmovement is to signing. In the end, former Slytherin students have made a big enough impression on society that using signing becomes a norm to the magical community, who are so used to hand movements being important to spellwork anyway and adapts to this easily.