Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any recognizable characters/events.
Rowena Ravenclaw had been reborn many times. Her most recent rebirth was absolutely exhausting. Hermione Granger was going to be a quiet, bookish sort. But she had figured it without a boy known as Harry Potter. Now, in her third year, she had already had more near-death experiences than most of her other personas had had at age twenty! She was in the potions classroom, halfway through a shrinking solution. However, she wasn't thinking about the potion at all. She was to busy convincing herself that thousands of years old magic now considered to be lost was not worth using on one greasy haired potions master.
Severus Snape swept across his classroom, "What is this Mister Thomas, I said we were making shrinking solutions. This is a smoking mess," he sneered and vanished Dean's potion, "Begin again,"
Meanwhile, Rowena's mind was racing. She would know that sneer anywhere. Could it be? Could Snape really be Salazar? She decided to test it. She extended her legilemency. And began searching the potion master's shields for a flaw. If she remembered correctly, he always had trouble right, about, there! It had taken her hours to find it, the weakest point in all of his shields was the one that only master legilemens from the from their time would be able to access, so he had never bothered to fix it. The only masters from their time were the four of them. She squirmed past his shields and called, "Salazar!" in Anglo-Saxen, just in case she was wrong and Snape really was just Snape. The man paused and blinked very slowly, "Rowena?"
"Salazar! It is you!"
She immediately launched into a verbal, well, mental tirade about how awfully he was treating the Gryffindors, and from what she heard, the 'puffs and her 'claws weren't doing much better. Salazar stood in the front of the classroom, smirk plain on his face. After she finished, he queried, "Done?" Once she had given the affirmation, his eyes scanned the students, "And who are you this time Rowena? Ah, Miss Granger. I should have known,"
She gave a mental smirk, "Have you found any of the others yet?"
His smirk turned to an unpleasant grimace, "Godric,"
Rowena's eyes widened, "Salazar! What happened? Please tell me you two aren't feuding again," She and Helga absolutely hated it when the two got in arguments, it usually took them decades to make up again.
He began to sweep around the room once more, awarding Pansy 5 points for the state of her potion, "I would if I could Rowena,"
She shook her head as she added the peeled shrivelfig, "Oh Salazar, what happened?"
He went to his desk to grade some essays, "I'm afraid that at school, he was a part if a group that had a tendency to bully my younger self,"
Rowena snorted, "Knowing you, you gave as good as you got,"
A pleased smirk appeared on Salazar's face, "Of course my dear, what else would I do?"
Rowena turned the flames beneath her cauldron lower, "Please tell me you two have made up, I don't think Helga and I could handle another few lifetimes of your arguments so soon after the last one,"
He nodded, "Yes we have, for the most part anyway. Besides, it is really more our personas that don't get along then our actual selves,"
Rowena sighed as she completed the last stir of this step of her potion, "Good. You two are worse then children the way you fight. What is Godric's current name?"
Salazar smirked, "Why, he is none other than your Defense Against The Dark Arts Professor. Remus John Lupin."
She blinked, "Professor Lupin? Really?"
He sent a mental image of nodding.
She blinked once more, "I never would have guessed. Isn't he a werewolf?"
"He is. You figured it out."
"Could you have made it any more obvious Salazar? I swear! It's like you wanted us to find out!"
He sighed, mentally, of course, "My current persona would. Of all my different incarnations, Severus Snape, greasy haired potions master of the dungeons, is far from the best,"
She finished crushing her sliced mandrake root and tossed it in the blood replenishing solution, "I know exactly what you mean. Hermione was supposed to have a quiet life, of course, I factored without Harry in the mix,"
The four founders had quickly realized that allowing anyone to figure out who they were and that they were being revived again and again would not be wise at all. They had also had some fun over the centuries by playing with different personas. None of them had ever tried to take over the world, of course, though they had all gone "dark" so to speak at one point or another. Each time, they switched to the side of the light as a spy or a double agent. The reincarnation had made life into more of a game for the four of them. Not that they manipulated others for their own amusement, but rather that they would have fun designing their personas and behaving as that person would. It gave them a sense of recklessness to be secure in the knowledge that they could give up their life for a friend without truly dying. They were also very careful when it came to emotional attachments. They knew how easy it would be to fake a sense of affection, but they didn't, it would be too cruel to those around them. It hurt to know that any friends they made would be outlived buy themselves, but it would be too hard to go through life without friends. Of course, they always had each other as well.
"Salazar?" she asked tentatively.
"Yes, Rowena?"
"You don't really hate Harry, do you?"
He sighed mentally, "Of course not, but my persona is absolutely foul. Of course," he mused slyly, "It doesn't help that I was in love with his mother,"
"What?!" She was so shocked, that she nearly chopped off her finger with the potions knife as she attempted to slice the caterpillars.
He chuckled softly in her head, "Yes, my poor young self grew up abused by his father and ignored by his mother. When the little girl from down the lane was willing to be friends with me, well..."
He let the sentence trail off and Rowena laughed in his head, "Did anything ever happen between you two? If love to see the look on Harry's face if he found out you dated his mom,"
Salazar sighed and quickly covered it up by glancing at Pavarti's cauldron, which he was walking by. Even from where she was sitting, Rowena could tell that she had added hedgehog spines instead of knarl spines, causing the potion to turn blue instead of the deep red it should be, "No, nothing ever did. But now is not the time for tales. Meet us in our room tonight?"
"Yes," Rowena thought, adding the knarl spines herself, "Should you let Godric know, or shall I?"
"Luckily enough we had already planned to meet tonight, Rowena. Let's let it be a surprise, shall we?"
"Alright, Salazar," Rowena replied mentally, "I suppose we shall,"
AN: And there's the prologue. I'm very sorry to say it, but please don't expect any updates for a... long time. It was just something I needed to get out of my head at the moment, but it will be continued... Eventually.