For Sammy, whose comment about a certain lion was partly the inspiration behind this C:
"You know, don't you?"
She looked away from the stars, turning to look up at him instead. "You didn't think the two of you could hide it forever, did you?" she asked softly, patting the patch of grass next to her.
"We had hoped…"
Instead of replying to him, she turned her gaze back to the stars. "It's something we should think of teaching here," she said. "Astronomy, I mean. It might not be as grounded in theory as Potions, but it will still teach the students something valuable."
"And what is that?" he asked, thrown by the sudden change in subject. "How will they ever use Astronomy in their real life?"
"I don't mean in terms of academics," she said, a faintly mischievous smile on her face as she tilted her head, looking him in the eye once more. "You can't conduct Astronomy classes during the daylight hours, you know. If nothing else, it will teach them to push themselves to stay awake when they'd rather not. A valuable life lesson, don't you think?"
He hummed in reply. "When did you know?" he asked abruptly. "We were careful."
"You did perform very well in your role as the lonely one," she acknowledged. "For the longest time, I never suspected, given how you liked to keep yourself aloof from the rest of the world – aside from us, of course. But, well…let's just say even you're not good enough an actor to keep up your charade for five years, and leave it at that, shall we?"
"Does…?"
"Of course she knows," she replied, sounding amused. "Who do you think figured it out?"
"I didn't mean to imply that you wouldn't…" he sounded awkward, a rarity for him.
"It's okay, I'm used to it," she said, the glint in her eye letting him know that she wasn't serious. "But, honestly, Salazar, what on earth were the two of you thinking, hiding this from us? Did you honestly think that you'd manage to hide this for the rest of your lives without somehow arousing our suspicion?"
"You know-"
"Of course I do," she interrupted, sighing. She closed her eyes, letting her head fall back on to the grass. "But you and Godric – you could have trusted us, you know. How long have we known each other now? We wouldn't have turned you over to those- those- you know what I mean!" she finally exclaimed, unable to produce a word heinous enough to describe the men behind the prosecutions of the people they deemed heretics, who were more often than not also witches and wizards.
"Not nearly," he said in reply, snorting at the thought of the two of them betraying him and Godric to torture and death. "But we definitely didn't expect to have any form of approval from you either. And seeing as we've decided to go forward with out little project, the last thing we needed at the start was divide between the four heads."
"Sal…We only want the two of you to be happy, you know," she sighed. "And while I wont pretend to understand, if being together makes you happy, neither one of us will breathe a word about it to anyone else – or to you, either."
"I won't deny you did a particularly good job of keeping it quiet," she said after a few moments of silence. "It was only when Rowena noticed Godric acting strangely that we started to pay more attention to you two. You chose your house well."
"Of course it was him," he muttered, shaking his head. "Still – What about you? You're the only one of us who hasn't decided about her students."
"I don't need to," Helga replied. "The three of you can pick and choose – I'll take them all, regardless of anything and everything."
Salazar smiled, his yes fixed on the skies above him. "You know," he said, voice completely serious, "I think that maybe you're right about this. Astronomy would teach the students some important life lessons."
A/N: I've messed with history a bit - the Medieval Inquisitions were from the 1100s onwards, while Hogwarts was built (according to the HP Wiki) circa 993 AD.
I hope you guys liked it! As always, please don't forget to drop a note on your way out C:
Written for the Hunger Games: Fanfic Style Competition, using the word, emotion, dialogue, word count and subject. According to MS Word, this is 666 words exactly C: