and being "loved for her charming ways". According to an interview between Rowling and staff from The Leaky Cauldron, Hufflepuff introduced house-elves to Hogwarts, where she offered them refuge. Both the famous wizard card and the illustration on Rowling's website depict her as a plump woman with red hair. One relic of Hufflepuff, a small golden cup emblazoned with her symbol of a badger, is passed down to her distant descendant, Hepzibah Smith. This cup is stolen by Riddle and made into a Horcrux. The Hufflepuff Cup was destroyed by Hermione who stabbed it with a basilisk fang in Deathly Hallows. Rowena Ravenclaw Rowena Ravenclaw was a witch noted for her cleverness and creativity, and was described by Xenophilius Lovegood as beautiful. The Sorting Hat introduces her as "Fair Ravenclaw, from glen", suggesting she was from Scotland. Ravenclaw devised the ever-changing floor plans and moving staircases in the Hogwarts castle, and coined the proverb "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." Ravenclaw is described by the Sorting Hat as having selected students according to intelligence and wisdom. "Rowena Ravenclaw was the most brilliant witch of her time, though legend has it that a broken heart (cause: her daughter Helena left her with the diadem) contributed to her early demise." It is revealed in the Deathly Hallows that the broken heart contributing to her untimely death was most likely the loss of her daughter, Helena Ravenclaw, who is, in fact, the Ravenclaw House Ghost (nicknamed The Grey Lady), and the lost diadem, the very relic to which Ravenclaw's astounding wisdom was attributed. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry learns that an artefact of Ravenclaw's became a Horcrux: her lost diadem, which granted enhanced wisdom to its wearer. The Ravenclaw Diadem is destroyed near the end of the book as a result of exposure to Fiendfyre summoned by Vincent Crabbe, who is killed in the process while trying to control the fire. Salazar Slytherin Salazar Slytherin is described as power-hungry by the Sorting Hat, and was known as "shrewd Slytherin from fen". Salazar Slytherin was one of the first recorded Parselmouths, an accomplished Legilimens, and a notorious champion of pureblood supremacy. The pureblood supremacy angle may have been exaggerated over a thousand years. Slytherin is the only founder whose physical appearance is described in any detail; his statue in the Chamber of Secrets depicts a man "ancient and monkey-like, with