Salazar Slytherin stood on the balcony, wind furiously whipping at his fur-lined black cloak. He was largely oblivious to the chill, partly because he had devised a tricky, albeit highly useful charm for staying warm, and partly because Salazar Slytherin preferred cold. His familiar, a python whose growth had stopped short of the usual mark, loathed it, and so the wizard was alone in the true and final sense.
He tapped the stone railing before him with his wand, and was rewarded by a pale green image of a raven flying toward him... toward the school. He wondered if the news it undoubtedly carried would make any difference to the others. Somehow he doubted it.
Godric was the worst of them. Bravery was all well and good, but there was no telling what the Muggles could do en masse. The Chinese had had gunpowder for ages, and assiduously the wizards had kept it from the Europeans, whose desire for destruction (preferably other people's) had led to improbably large crossbows and siege weaponry. Someday they would begin using it as a weapon (the divinations had been quite clear on that) and then what would the wizarding world do?
"We can't, Salazar," Ravenclaw had said, in that irritatingly calm voice of hers. "There are too many muggle-born with the talent, the potential to succeed. Besides, there won't be enough purebloods to keep the school going."
She had intellect, certainly, but lacked the vision to use it. That was his particular gift: Vision. They called it ambition when he wasn't around, and sneered at so crass a motive, all the while conspiring to allow more and more muggle-born into their haven. Oh yes, the raven might help with that. News from the continent. News that he already knew, from long hours of staring into the fire and steeping his mind in magic.
"Excluding them wouldn't be fair," Hufflepuff had pointed out. For some reason Slytherin had begun to find her less insufferable than usual, and if she hadn't been so unspeakably jolly he might have found it in him to actually like her. But she too (jolly or not) was strangely blind to the consequences of the decision that was to be made.
The four of them had built the school, work on the building was nearly complete (but for one wing) and all that was left was finding students. Students.
"For heaven's sake, Sal," Gryffindor had started, and paused briefly when he noticed Slytherin's pointed look. The nickname was an old one, and like many old things, in Salazar Slytherin's opinion, it needed to die. "Er, Salazar. You can't let fear get in the way of business. Try to show a little backbone!"
The meeting hadn't gone well. It was apparent that Slytherin was in the minority. All three of the others disagreed with him openly enough.
On the balcony, he held out an arm, and the raven flapped onto it exhaustedly. There was talk of switching over to owls, who could fly at night, and were thus less likely to be seen by hostile muggles. Slytherin preferred ravens on the whole, but then again, if a muggle ever managed to bring down one of the birds...
He unrolled the little bit of parchment attached to the bird's leg, and let the raven go. It climbed into the air, having to fight a bit against the wind, and flew in the direction of the new rookery, where a boy waited at all hours of the day and night to take care of the birds. Two of them had arrived bearing wounds, in the past few days; one had an actual arrowhead embedded in its wing.
Yes, owls were something to think about.