A/N: Written for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry ( Challenges & Assignments ) forum for the fairy tail classroom. Task: It takes some time and playing around until the princess and her king find each other. Write about how much it took your choosen pairing to finally get together! It should be obvious that it was a hard way.
Prompts: (dialogue) "You are behaving like a fool. All you do is read these poems that keep you away from the important things in life! This woman/man completely confused your mind!", (activity) dancing a waltz, (AU) Elizabethan Era, (word) connection
Pairing: Helga Hufflepuff/Salazar Slytherin
A huge thank you to LittleTee for giving me ideas for this story.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters of Harry Potter or the story behind them. I neither own the poems I'm going to use in this story.
Gegenteile ziehen sich an
It is not, Celia, in our power
To say how long our love will last;
It may be we within this hour
May lose those joys we now do taste;
The Blessèd, that immortal be,
From change in love are only free.
Then since we mortal lovers are,
Ask not how long our love will last;But while it does, let us take care
Each minute be with pleasure past:Were it not madness to deny
To live because we're sure to die?
By Sir George Etherege
"Helga! Helga where are you?!" shouted a voice through the castle.
Said young woman looked up from the poem she had just read, being ripped out of her daze by the shouts from her best friend. It took not long for footsteps to approach her room and for the door to be opened by the other young woman that lived in the castle.
"There you are. I was worried about you. Come on we have to go. Salazar and Godric have ordered a meeting, regarding our Project."
"Alright, alright, I'll come." Helga said raising from her seat near the fireplace where she had made herself comfortable(as good as it was possible in her dress) and followed her friend down the hallway and downstairs into a grand hall.
Rowena threw her friend a disaproving look: "You have been reading poems again, right? One of those romantic muggle poems, didn't you?"
"What is it to you what I read? I'm an adult, I can read what I want. And you are not my mother!" argued the other, blushing heavily while doing so.
"So it has a reason why you're reading them, huh?" questioned the black haired Rowena with a raised eyebrow and a smirk on her lips. "So who is it? One of those Muggle boys from the village?"
"That's nothing that concerns you, Rowena." replied the brown haired, stalking past her friend and into the grand hall, where they planned to talk about their 'project'.
Helga stopped shortly meeting the eyes of him, before going further in taking a seat next to him; Salazar. Salazar Slytherin. During their whole planning she barely listened, whenever she was asked something she would reply shortly, mostly agreeing with what the others had said. Their meeting took hours reaching late into the night. When it finally finished and everyone had said their goodnights and headed for their rooms, Rowena forcefully took her friend by the arm and dragged her into her room, planning to interogate the smaller woman.
"What was that?!"
"What?! I don't know what you mean."
"The meeting. You were barely paying attention to what everyone said. You had your head in the clouds, you weren't thinking straight. And you agreed with most of the stuff that snake Salazar said!" snapped Rowena putting especially much venom in the word snake.
"No...I...I didn't I swear. I would never do that.." stuttered Helga.
Her black haired opposite still looked critical and slightly mad, before realisation slowly struck her. "It's him the guy you are in love with, isn't it?"
Helga blushed trying heavily to deny it, without any use, as the red colour of her face gave her away imidately.
"Come on, you have to forget him. He's cruel and...and he doesn't respect muggles or halfbloods. You deserve better than him."
"But..." she began
"No buts Helga, he will only bring you misery. I don't want to see you hurt when he crushes your feelings." voiced Roweny her worries out. "Now you should probably go to your room and sleep. Think over your love for him, it will pass."
But her love didn't pass. It only grew stronger and stronger. Salazar never noticed his lovely brown haired partner, never noziced how she always sat next to him, gave his ideas a chance, or the dreamly looks she gave him. But Helga didn't care. He could have ignored her for all eternity and she still wouldn't care. She would still love him, no matter what. Even after that one day in fall when he came in. A young, pretty woman under one arm. He marched with her straight into their meeting hall, where they were just having lunch.
"My dear comrades, may I intrduce you Astoria O'Connor. We are officially together." he announced his voice laking his usual arrogance and being soft and friendly instead.
Rowena threw ger friend a look as to make sure the other was okay. The young woman swalloed hard, but like the others she managed to force out a 'congratulations', before the two lover dissapeared. That voice he used while introducing her. 'Why can't he use it with me? Why her? What has she ever done to deserve this?' The normally so gentle and kind woman grew slightly angry and that anger grew only with every time she those two flirting around and kissing. But at the same time, as angry as she was, she was also happy for him. Happy that he managed to find a woman so perfect for him. With the same characteristics as him and the same interests. Who was she anyway. She was just loyal, and favoured hard work, she would love to take anyone in her future house at their planned wizarding school. Brave Godric would favour those who were strong, those who had courage and knew right from wrong. And wise Rowena would teach only the best, those who were wise and had a clear mind. Was she the one that needed to change? Would he notice her if her goals wete different?
So Helga sat in her room almost the whole day, reading her poems and hoping, that one day Salazar would maybe turn away from Astoria. That maybe he would recognise her instead. The day never came. Almost half a decade past and they began more and more to realize their dream, they had begun to bring Salazars girlfriend into their project. And the more they did, the more Helga began to hate Astoria. She knew it was wrong, but still no matter what the brownheaded woman did she couldn't bring to like Salazar's friend.
Another year passed. The planning for their wizard school project was finally finished. They had a location and soon they would begin to build it. There was a huge festival held in their home castle. With all their friends from the surrounding villages coming and waltz music playing by enchanted instruments. From the corner where Helga was sitting she watched Salazar and Astoria gracefully sweaping over the dance floor in an elegant waltz. 'It should have been me dancing with him, not her' she thought bitterly. Again, she hated herself for these thoughts, but she couldn't stop it. She just couldn't stop feeling jealous of that woman.
She thought her heart couldn't have been more broken until Salazar stopped the music with his wand turning the attention of the guests on him. He dropped down infront of Astoria. Helga didn't even stay to hear what he would say, she already knew. Barley registering where she ran through her tears, she walked out of the open doors, running to her room. No one really noticed she was gone.
For weeks noone really saw Helga, except for meals. Her colleagues were starting to get worried. It was Salazar who finally decided to do something. The black haired wizard had grown concerned for her. The normally so babbly and lively woman just sat in her room for weeks now, only joining them for meals, which she never ate up. Was the young woman cursed by someone? Or was she maybe poisoned by a potion?
One day he marched up to her room, entering after knocking and hearing nothing. Helga was sitting in her armchair by the fireplace, without the usual victorian clothes, just wearing a simple gown. She was edaing poems again, a love that the old fool Godric had infected her with. Wait. Godric. Godric Gryffindor. That was it. He was the one causing her to withdraw to her room all the time. He and his rejection for all love. The fool never even spareed a look at the beautiful, brown haired woman, who always stood loyal to everyone, breaking up their fights and working hard to get her ideas through. He may not have agreed with her ideas of teaching everyone who wanted to magic, but it didn't bother him. Not as much as it bothered him right now, that this wonderful lady, would be ignored by such a stupid fool.
Stalking over to her he growled: "That's enough."
Her head shot up. She hadn't noticed him entering, poor girl it must be really bad when she was so focused on her tasks that she didn't even notice someone entering.
"You are behaving like a fool. All you do is read these poems that keep you away from the important things in life! This man completely confused your mind!" he snapped snatching the poems book away from her.
"What do you mean!" she snapped at him jumping up from her chair
"You know what, you love Godric, but he ignores you there are other people out there too. People waiting for a lovely woman like you!" he shouted back
"And who would that be?!" she shouted back.
Lacking an answer he just grabbed her by the arms pressing his lips frocefully on hers. He broke away shocked and looked in her equally shocked eyes.
"I..I'm sorry I really shouldn't have.." he spurted, turning around and running off. What was he thinking? She was just his colleague and he had lost Astoria to an accident just a few days ago. He came to a stop on a balcony of their castle that overlooking the sea. Could it be that he had feeling for her? But she was just partner, with copletely different views than him. It couldn't work right?
"Salazar, wait!"
He turned around just in timr to catch the slightky out off breath Helga and stopping her from running into him.
"Helga what I did..." he began, but was interupted by her putting a finger to his mouth.
"Look. Ther's something I wanted to tell you for a long time now. I don't want you to think I'm using Astorias deqth as a excuse to tell you this but...I've always loved you. More thatn as a friend, you know. But I know you won't be returning these feelings. I just wanted to get this off my chest." she burst out, then turning to leave.
He grabbed her arm. Softly, not hard like he usually did. He finally knew what the feeling was he got whenever he looked at her, when she sat next to him or supported his ideas. Pulling her closer, he leaned in giving her another kiss, this one being soft and returned by the receiver.
Maybe it could work out with them. After all some say Opposite attracks.
