Author's Note: I am Chaser #2 for the Falmouth Falcons. This is written for Finals Round 1. My prompt is: Write about the previous player's OTP (Salazar Slytherin/Rowena Ravenclaw) and use a metaphor AND an example of foreshadowing in my story.

Chaser Prompts:

#4 (song) 'Not Today' by Imagine Dragons

#6 (word) forgive

#7 (word) warmth

Word Count: 2270

The Space Between Forgiveness and Goodbye

With all the beauty and arrogance of youth, Helena Ravenclaw danced around the drawing room as her mother sat at her desk, writing out a lesson plan. When a knock came at the door, Helena called out, "I'll get it." Rowena continued to write as she nodded her head.

Helena opened the door to see Salazar Slytherin.

"Good afternoon," Salazar said, bowing with his hat in his hand. As he straightened, he said, "My word, you are growing into such a beautiful young lady."

Helena blushed at the compliment. She didn't always like having Salazar in their home; she felt that he watched her too closely. But lately, he had been complimenting her as if she were now an adult, a form of flattery Helena was particularly vulnerable to.

"Thank you, Professor Slytherin," Helena said, stepping aside so that he could enter.

"Helena, haven't I told you before, when we are away from the school you must call me Salazar. You are mature enough now to speak to me as an adult."

Rowena leaned against the doorframe, and Salazar gave a little start when he turned around and saw her.

"Salazar, as I have said before, please do not ask Helena to use your given name. She is not yet an adult, and she will use my standards for her conduct, not yours."

Salazar held his hat in front of him with both hands and looked down, trying to personify chastened. Rowena laughed and put his hat on his head, then took his hands in hers. She leaned forward, giving him a kiss on first his left cheek, then his right, whispering, "Humble does not become you, my dear."

Salazar brought her hands up to his lips and gently kissed them. Rowena kissed Salazar on the mouth. They both smiled at each other until Helena broke the silence with a forced cough.

Rowena took one step back and, without looking at Helena, said, "Please send in tea, and ask Reeny for some of those biscuits she just made."

Continuing to look and speak to Salazar, she added, "How she knows when you are going to come calling and always has your favorite biscuits ready, piping hot straight from the fire, I'll never know."

Rowena took his hat and cloak and placed them on pegs by the door.

"The ways of house elves are mysterious beyond measure," he said, smiling.

Rowena and Salazar went to the drawing room while Helena went to the kitchen. After relaying her mother's instructions, Helena wandered around their rooms, ending up in her mother's bedroom. She picked up her mother's diadem, something that she had been doing since she was a little girl. She placed it on her head and looked in the mirror.

This is very becoming, she thought to herself, looking to the right, then the left, then chin down, then chin up. It really fit now, not like when she had been a child and it was too large to stay affixed to her head.

Salazar is right, she thought defiantly, I am grown up now, and Mother is just going to have to learn to deal with it.

Turning, Helena skipped out of the room but stopped as she approached the drawing room. I am too old to skip anymore, she thought, as she slowed to walk regally into the room.

Rowena looked at Helena and her eyes went up to the diadem perched ever-so-precariously on the top of her daughter's head. Her eyes narrowed, and Helena could see a rebuke coming. To try to forestall her mother's criticism, Helena reached up and pressed the diadem to her head, then twirled two or three times, ending with a low curtsy.

Salazar smiled and said, "Helena, that suits you beautifully. You will be a worthy successor to your mother."

Rowena stiffened as the meaning of his words became clear. She felt herself rise unbidden, her back ramrod straight, as she addressed Salazar directly. "Please do not begin planning my succession while I still stand here, hale and hearty."

Salazar realized his mistake immediately. "Do not misunderstand me," Salazar said, rising and walking over to stand in front of Rowena, anxious to rephrase his statement. "Admiring your daughter does not mean I am anxious for your demise."

"Helena, go put that away. How many times do I have to tell you that is not a plaything?"

"Yes, Mother," Helena said as she walked out of the room.

Helena stood in front of her mother's mirror, admiring herself with the diadem. Salazar is right, she thought. I will inherit this from my mother and it will be mine. I am the logical person to succeed my mother; I don't know why I haven't thought of this before. She always knew that she would receive the diadem, but the idea of succeeding her mother at Hogwarts, possibly even becoming head of Ravenclaw house, was a new direction of thinking altogether.

She took the jewels off her head and carefully placed them on their stand. This is a good place for the diadem, she thought, until they become mine. Here they will stay, safe and sound, waiting for me and my turn as the new, rightful owner of the diadem and head of Ravenclaw.

"Salazar, stop putting foolish ideas into Helena's head, she is already too full of herself."

"Rowena, surely you are not jealous of your own daughter?" Salazar said.

Rowena turned to stone, her voice to ice, the words shattering as they tumbled out of her mouth.

"Salazar Slytherin… How could you say such a thing... Do you know me so little, after all this time?"

Salazar swallowed first, then said, "I am ridiculous, and an old fool. Please forgive me, I don't know what came over me."

Rowena's eyes, a cold gray, narrowed as she peered into Salazar's soul.

"Surely you do not think that you will be able to get Helena to join you in banning Muggle-borns from Hogwarts after I am gone?"

Salazar stood stock still, yet one eyebrow betrayed him with a shadow of a twitch.

"Do I mean so little to you, as well as the friends with whom we founded this school, that you are hungry for the next generation so that you can implement your scheme?"

"Rowena, my dear," he said as he stepped closer to her, yet did not dare reach out and touch her. "You know that I am only looking out for the future of the magical community. Our very survival rests on what we do in the next few years."

Rowena could not stop herself, although she feared that each word was a stone that would lay on her heart until it cracked from the weight.

"You are alone in this opinion. Why do you persist when everyone around you, a group which includes the brightest witches and wizards of this age, so violently disagrees with you? You are fostering a schism that will, if left unchecked, destroy the very foundation of Hogwarts as well as the entire Wizarding world."

"When you see what is happening all around us, the witch hunts, the burnings, the abject fear and hatred that Muggles have towards us, why are you not more worried? I cannot believe that you do not see the danger we are all in."

Rowena said, "Because I know that they cannot truly harm us. They do not have the power to do so. I cannot believe that you have so little faith in your own power and the power of the entire Wizarding world."

"You are deluding yourself!" Salazar began to pace the floor. "How can you be so blind? Why don't you believe me when I tell you what danger we are in? Do you know who you are talking to?"

"I thought I was talking to my oldest friend and the man to whom I have given my heart."

They looked at each other, silently measuring the space between what can be forgiven and what cannot.

Rowena marveled that two such strong and opinionated people had managed to develop a relationship at all, but by the gods, she loved him. She loved him heart and soul, and it was only this that could soften her anger. She closed her eyes and then felt her muscles relax, slowly, fiber by fiber, returning to their human form.

"We should not be fighting like this," she said smoothly. "We have too much to do to let this issue come between us."

"You brought it up, and it was you who decided to diagnose my failings." There was no warmth in his voice.

"Darling, I might have been a bit dramatic in my pronouncement. But you wounded me by what you said about Helena, and please don't think it will ever be acceptable for you to insult my daughter or myself when it comes to her."

The muscles in his jaw and neck working furiously. He swallowed and said, "I see that we have both become a bit overwrought this afternoon, so I suggest that we leave this distasteful topic and move onto something more pleasant. I originally came to invite you to dinner at a new establishment in Hogsmeade. I understand they actually have wild dragon steaks, as well as a few cases of a heady new wine from France, the first shipment ever to come to our shores."

Rowena was too exhausted to hold onto her anger. "That sounds fine, Salazar."

"How about just the two of us, a late dinner?"

"Perfect. I will feed Helena here, and be waiting for your return," she said and gave him a kiss.

"I can see myself out," Salazar said.

"Thank you," Rowena said.

Helena was waiting at the door with Salazar's hat and cloak.

"Goodbye, Professor Slytherin."

He gave her a long, appraising look that raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.

"One thing that you have that your mother did not is Hogwarts," Salazar said. "You will now have the ability to be trained above and beyond what any young person could ever hope for at any time in the history of the world. With this training, your magical inheritance, and your mother's diadem, you will be the the greatest witch of your age, if not every age."

"Do you really think so?" Helena asked. "Really, truly?"

"Yes. I never lie, and I am never wrong." He walked out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

Helena leaned against the door, the wood cool and soothing on her face. He sounds like he means it, she thought, like he knows me inside and out and can tell what I am capable of. He is a great wizard, after all.

Helena did not hear her mother come up behind her and was startled when she began to speak.

"Salazar Slytherin is very clever, talented, and powerful; all that and more. But he is not infallible, and he is wrong about the Muggle-borns. Don't let yourself be fooled by his flattery," Rowena said, then turned and walked back to her desk. She didn't see the look on Helena's face, or else Rowena might have taken the time to have a longer conversation with her daughter.

Salazar was right; that evening the food was good and the wine was delicious, and together they worked their old-fashioned magic, wiping away the awkwardness from earlier that day. It did not take long before the couple were laughing and holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes.

Rowena never knew what had originally attracted her to Salazar. Her late husband had been handsome, charming and popular. With Robert Ravenclaw, what you saw was what you got, and she had felt herself quite lucky to have married him at the time. But then he had died so young and she had been left alone to raise their daughter, and Robert had faded into the past until he seemed to have little more substance than the ghosts that called Hogwarts home.

Salazar Slytherin, on the other hand, was tall, thank goodness, but not traditionally handsome. He was strong and powerful, he commanded the attention of every room that he was in, and he was more than just smart; she would have to say he was brilliant, so much so that it was a little frightening. Her respect for intelligence was enormous, and far outweighed other considerations such as looks and popularity. Beyond that, Rowena's heart always beated a little faster when he was there, and she had to admit to herself, though maybe not to others, that this was also important.

Rowena realized that today was the perfect example of the push-me-pull-me nature of their relationship. He would say something wonderful and insightful, followed by something that teetered on the wrong edge of acceptability.

Her second insight of the evening was that Salazar also didn't appear to have allowed enough time to percolate his thoughts, for he had not quite risen to the level of wisdom in his thinking. Wisdom meant looking out for others and looking out for the future. Salazar claimed to be doing what he did for the betterment of all Wizardkind, but Rowena had grave doubts about that.

Rowena looked at Salazar across the table, his face bathed in candlelight, a warm smile on his face, looking as handsome as he had ever been and she wondered what the future would bring. Was it possible that Salazar would go too far, and if he did, what would she do? What might she be forced to do? How much space was there between forgiveness and goodbye?