Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. It is the property of Ms. J.K. Rowling.
Prologue: Nightmare
...as soon as they broke down the old cabin door, Godric Gryffindor immediately regretted charging in.
The two women, not too far behind him, entered the room.
Helga's hands instantly flew to her mouth, stifling the coming scream. But will won over instinct and she instead sobs softly, dropping to her knees as the strength to stand fled her. Rowena, standing beside her, quietly draws up the hood of her robe and with grave solemnity, kneels by the other witch's side, placing a steadying, consoling hand upon gentle Helga's trembling shoulder...
Godric bowed his head, ignoring the faintly tickling irritation as stray strands of his flame-red hair brushed against his cheek.
His golden eyes surveyed the scene sadly.
Here was an upturned cauldron, long emptied of its contents... The ancient smell of dust and mold prevalent throughout the small room. There, his sharp vision could make out cobwebs in the filthy corners, tiny spiders scurrying about in all directions ever since the first sign of intruders. But that was not what had horrified them so: this sorry cabin for a dwelling was one matter. Rather, what had been the gruesome finishing touch to this nightmarish scene was a rotting skeleton in squalid dark robes, most flesh long having become the food of maggots, leaning upright in its seat against the wall. There were a few remaining strands of once rich, dark hair protruding almost rudely from the whiteness of the skull.
As Godric drew closer to the corpse, he noticed how the worms scattered, disrupted from their feeding, alerted to a living presence. Angrily, he crushes the heel of his boot viciously down on one as it fled, grinding it into the rotting wood of the floor...
The unseeing, gaping eyes of the corpse bore accusingly into his own.
Wincing, he averted his gaze. Embedded in an odd pattern on both the rotting boards of the floor and the wall that supported the corpse were several throwing knives.
His blades, his favorite...
Godric quickly shakes the thought away.
Bending low, he pulls strongly on the silver-inlaid handle of one, freeing the dagger from the ground. There was something dried and dark caked all over the blade, tarnishing it. Gingerly, he presses a finger against the substance. What met his touch cracks and crumbles into nothingness but the tall-tale hints of the same substance, which now clings to his fingertip, had mixed with his sweat, turning faintly crimson.
Suspicious, and suddenly filled with terrible dread, he slowly brings the blade itself up towards his nose. The distinctive scent of dried blood and ancient, tall-tale traces of poison tells him everything that the corpse could not.
The dagger falls from his hands.
Salazar Slytherin had committed suicide.
Too late they had come.