A/N: Don't own, don't sue. Reviews are much appreciated!
Chapter 1
Salazar
If you want to understand the story of Hogwarts – and I mean truly understand, not just have a passing knowledge of the facts – you must understand all four of the founders. The past several hundred years have not been kind to their memories, reducing them to two-dimensional archetypes for the purposes of a simplistic view of history and an even less nuanced house system.
If anyone wanted to know the truth about the founders – that they were messy, complicated, and unapologetically human – they could just ask me. But no one ever does. No one really wants to know. People prefer their simple, cut and dry idols; they want to feel comfortable hero-worshipping these people they never knew and to believe their word (which is, mind you, about a thousand years old) somehow has more value in these modern times than those born in the last century or two.
It's unnerving how content people are with their ignorance. But, since you asked, I guess I'll start with Salazar.
HDHDHDHD
Salazar was born in Norfolk sometime in the tenth century. I would give you an exact date if I knew it, but not even he knew exactly when he was born. He and his parents lived as serfs, but their magic meant that they could complete their necessary labor with little effort, so long as no one else was watching. All in all, I think he rather enjoyed this part of his life; or, at least, he heavily romanticized it when I knew him. Who can say?
This idyllic life lasted but a few short years.
Salazar, like all children, looked at the world with starry-eyed wonder for the first several years of his life. Though the daily life of a serf boy was, in reality, quite banal, to young Salazar, each new day brought new joys – the yellow, fluttering wings of a butterfly, a hug from his mother, the newfound ability to make things levitate.
Though all children, as they grow, must come to see the world for what it is – a place that is more dark than light, for young Salazar, this revelation was forced upon him rather early.
One day, when he was just seven years old, his mother did not come home. She had gone to visit their nearest neighbors, to help the mother of that household care for her newborn daughter. When she left, she had kissed Salazar on the forehead and told him she'd be home for supper.
Instead, a few hours later, Salazar and his father were drawn out of their home by the commotion. A crowd was gathering near the road, their shouting too garbled for either of them to pick anything out.
Suddenly, screams of agony cut through the din, and a pillar of fire erupted from the middle of the crowd, which shifted outward, giving the flames a safe berth.
Salazar and his father broke into a run, a sense of urgency quickening their pace. The screams continued, and the unintelligible shouts of the crowd rose up to meet them. As they finally drew level with the scene, the auditory chaos overwhelmed Salazar, leaving him dazed.
One last anguished cry rang out, and he looked up.
"Salazar! Close your eyes!"
His father roughly yanked his arm and turned him around, forcefully pushing Salazar's head into his torso.
But it was too late.
It was his mother who screamed in agony as she burned alive. It was her charred, burning flesh that he smelled.
It was her that their neighbors had tied up and gathered round to watch die, jeering all the while.
Salazar had no recollection of the hours that followed. He somehow found himself back in their home, sitting on the floor, staring blankly into the distance, as his father conversed in frantic, hushed tones with a red-haired man, the only other wizard for miles.
"I don't understand, Fabian – what happened? How did they find out?"
"I asked around, and I've pieced together as much as I can. She was visiting with the Sullivans. On her way home, little Franny Beauchamp was playing in the road, when a careless carriage driver nearly ran her over. Penelope put the horses in a Full Body Bind, which saved the girl, but…"
"But gave her away. Marked her, as a witch."
"Yes."
"Why didn't she—she could've stopped them! Why didn't she save herself?"
"Before they burned her, they beat her. I think she didn't want to fight back, I don't think she wanted to hurt them, but they did some real damage, from what I heard. By the time they tied her to the stake, I don't think she could do anything, her brain was so addled…"
"So, my Penelope saves this little girl, and they—they repay her by beating her and burning her at the stake? These Muggles, they—they're ungrateful shits. They don't deserve to live, they're nothing more than animals!"
"That doesn't matter!" Fabian snapped, turning his attention from Salazar's father to Salazar himself. He pulled the young boy to his feet and, gesturing emphatically, said, "Your son is what matters now! He needs his father, he has no one else left. You need to leave here, unless you want to see Salazar burn next!"
"Nowhere is safe," whispered his father.
"No," agreed Fabian, "but anywhere is better than here."
HDHDHDHDHD
Salazar and his father moved to Lincolnshire, just far enough away that they could be sure that rumors of a widower and son of a witch would not reach their new neighbors ears. Though Lincolnshire was, for all intents and purposes, no different from Norfolk, young Salazar saw a threat in the eyes of each villager.
The grisly death of his mother at the hands of people he had once considered friends colored his view of the world and he faced the challenges of each day with distrust and fear.
I wish I could tell you that Salazar's father was his rock during those troubling times, that the two relied on each other to work through their grief and return to some semblance of a life. But while Salazar wore his grief like a shield, his father was undone by it.
Driven mad with grief, his father sought solace in the bottom of a bottle – and then another, and then another. He found himself incapable of crying or mourning the death of his beloved Penelope. Instead, he was like a man who had been Kissed.
He rose, he drank, he worked the fields as required, he returned home, he drank, he slept.
Day after day.
He stopped doing magic entirely. Salazar was never quite sure if his father did this out of fear of discovery and meeting the same fate as his wife or out of apathy. He suspected that his father was no longer able to perform any magic.
As for their relationship, it was a non-entity. The two would often go days, even weeks, without exchanging so much as a word. His father did not seem to care about or even notice his presence, and Salazar, after a time, was openly disgusted by him.
Salazar struggled to fill his own days with intellectual pursuits. He rose, he ignored his father and was ignored by him, he worked the fields as required, he ignored his Muggle neighbors and was ignored by them in return, he returned home.
He maintained their home as his father used to do in Norfolk, since his father was never in any fit state to do anything except drink. He cooked for them, he cleaned, he chopped wood. He struggled to remember how his mother had done things and did his best to imitate her.
With no human companions, he befriended the snakes native to the area. Like his mother, he was able to speak Parselmouth. Though his conversations with adders were not particularly riveting, it was still preferable to going days or weeks without any sort of interaction.
He taught himself how to use his own magic. When he was younger, his mother and father would take turns– teaching him spells, showing him how to brew Potions, introducing him to magical creatures. He longed for the intellectual stimulation of days. He was perpetually frustrated—he knew he was talented, he knew he was powerful, but there was no one to guide him.
Without a teacher, he resorted to experimentation. He strung together words and wand movements, subtly changing and shaping each incantation, each gesture until it gave the desired result. Throughout his childhood, lacking any other resources or source of entertainment, he invented hundreds of his own spells, an effective but inelegant form of magic.
He swore to himself that he would find a way to leave Lincolnshire; he knew he could become a great and powerful wizard, if only he was given the opportunity to leave this suffocating hellscape. He watched as his father drank himself into a stupor night after night, and he feared that if he stayed there, he would meet the same pathetic fate: an unremarkable life followed by an unexceptional death.
And just before his seventeenth birthday, he was presented with an opportunity. But perhaps, before we go on, I should tell you about Rowena.