Hey everyone :) This is my first Founders fic, and I love writing all of them already!
Written for QLFC Round 7, Reserve for Chaser 1 with the prompt of Slytherin's locket.
Written for the Fault in Our Stars Competition: Augustus Waters - "I fear oblivion."
Hope you enjoy! :)
"It's a pretty thing."
"The mechanisms are polished. It does open quite nicely."
"It feels rather powerful."
"Yes, that's true, Helga and Rowena, but the real beauty lies in what it does," said Godric Gryffindor, who was sprawled on a ruby red armchair with his hand stretched out so that the two women could see the ornate object in his hand. "See, my ladies, this particular lo-"
"Oh, stop acting as if it's yours," Helga Hufflepuff said, carefully picking up the object and weighing it in her hand.
"Well, I did help with the design-"
"Liar," said Rowena Ravenclaw, her deep blue gown rustling against the stone floor as she swept closer to Helga. "You couldn't create something delicate as this."
"Or elegant," giggled Helga. She swept her wavy blond hair over her shoulder.
Godric, who had been pretending to be deeply wounded at Rowena's remark, suddenly grinned slyly and said, "Well, you wouldn't happen to think that because of the person who made it, would you?"
"Oh, shush," said Helga, blushing as she glared at Gryffindor.
"Where is Salazar, anyway?" asked Rowena, tearing her eyes from the object to peer at the door.
"Being fashionably late, as always," said Godric lazily.
"Well, this time I actually was rounding up a handful of our students," said a deep, silky voice from the door of the large office. "Sometimes I think our students are too well-matched for each other."
"Of course they are! It's absolutely perfect!"
"You Gryffindors and Slytherins," said Helga, shaking her head. "Your students are so close to each other, it's sometimes hard to distinguish who's from which House."
Salazar Slytherin gave one of his rare smiles as he stepped from the shadows and joined the other three Founders.
"So what exactly does it do?" Rowena immediately asked, gesturing towards the silver object.
"I take it Godric hasn't enlightened you?"
"They wouldn't let me," said Godric. "I did want to."
"There doesn't seem to be any special charms on it," said Rowena, obviously puzzled. The gears spinning in her vast brain of knowledge were almost palpable through her perplexed expression. "There's the preserving one, of course. Protection, so it won't rust. But I can't sense anything else on it."
"That's because there's nothing else on it," said Salazar, taking the object from Helga's hand.
"So I take it it's not something to destroy more Dark artifacts?"
"As if I would make a weapon look anything like a girl's trinket," said Godric, proving Rowena's previous point. "Sal here didn't even let me touch this while he was working on it."
The two ladies raised their eyebrows at each other. This was unusual, seeing as Godric and Salazar always worked together on their little projects.
"It's not a weapon," scowled Salazar, looking offended at the thought of it. "Actually, Rowena, you'd like this a lot as opposed to our other projects."
Rowena smiled; she, out of all the Founders, approved of fighting and weaponry the least - of course it was necessary, but that didn't mean it was pleasant.
"Oh, is it like my cup?" asked Helga, waving her hand in the air. A golden cup appeared in her hand and the light from the window illuminated the shining gold. Helga smiled fondly at it.
"Well, they're both trinkets with special abilities," said Salazar. "Except while yours is more for the general public, mine is for personal things."
"Personal things," Helga snorted, but her eyes were sparkling fondly.
"For things that have meaning to me. Well, not that the public doesn't mean anything to me. Just-"
Godric prodded Salazar's back with his wand. "Salazar, if you don't get to what it does soon, Row's going to have a fit."
True, Rowena was staring at the object with a mix of deep curiosity and impatience. "But if it's like Helga's cup…" she was muttering, a gleam in her eye that arose when she was determined to figure something out.
Salazar nodded and Rowena stopped murmuring, her attention on Salazar. "I wanted to create something to complete us four," he began. "You, Godric, have your sword of yours that you won't stop swinging around."
Godric proudly patted his belt, where a long, ruby-encrusted sword hung, glittering and casting light red patches around the room.
"And scaring the living daylights out of students in the process," added Helga reproachfully.
Rowena motioned for Salazar to continue, and he did. "Rowena, you have your diadem. And Helga, of course, your cup. I only thought it natural that I should perhaps have something for myself to wrap it all up."
"And this is it?" Helga inspected the object again. "But it's so…"
"Feminine," completed Rowena, raising her eyebrow at the delicate structure.
"Exactly what I said," said Godric with a firm nod.
Salazar shrugged. "It's elegant. And it serves its purpose." When nobody interrupted him, he continued. "See, when I was making it, I wanted to have it connect to us somehow. As the last piece of the four, I felt like it should tie us all together to keep our memories…collected."
"So it's sort of like a Pensieve?" asked Helga.
"Not quite. I didn't put any of our memories in here, but rather… I put human nature itself inside."
The silence that followed as Helga and Rowena processed this stretched for quite awhile before Godric said wryly, "You always like a dramatic entrance, don't you?"
"You put human nature inside?" repeated Rowena, trying to work out exactly how that would be possible.
"How is that possible?" Helga tapped her chin before saying slowly, "Is it like the Hat?"
Salazar flashed her a look of admiration. "Precisely!"
"Oh," said Rowena with dawning comprehension. "So you combined the elements of thought using magic so that it could affect the thoughts of whoever was wearing it?"
"But why isn't it like that Hat? Why can't it talk?"
"This is where it differs," began Salazar, but Rowena cut him off, her eyes shining with realization.
"Because there's so much magicput into it. Objects can only verbalize if they're in a certain range of powerful magic. There's too much in this here, because it has to cater to the wearer."
"Well, they don't have to technically be wearing it," said Godric.
"So how come when I was holding it, nothing happened?" asked Helga.
"Because it's Salazar's," said Rowena, turning to Slytherin. "It recognizes him as his owner."
"What, is it a wand?" Godric asked sarcastically.
Rowena shot him a glare. "Of course not. It recognizes him because Salazar made it out of us. He created it with memories, and since all of them were most centric to him, it recognizes him most."
"So when will it…recognize someone else?"
"When I die," said Salazar, "there won't be a master to it. It'll just be a regular object, but if it can, it'll attach itself to someone for a short period of time. In that period, it'll bring up the person's most personal memories."
"And do what?" Rowena tilted her head to the side.
Salazar shrugged. "I don't know."
Helga picked up the object from Salazar's hand. "It's a pretty thing," she said again, observing the emeralds on the surface.
"It's not really meant to be pretty," said Salazar, waving his hand and shaking his head.
"It's very interesting." Rowena took the item from Helga, holding it between her and Godric. "Incredible magic, Sal."
"Thanks," said Salazar.
Rowena looked up at him, her dark eyes searching his face. "I know you said that you made this to complete the quartet, but…" She furrowed her eyebrows. "Why not settle for something practical and meaningful, like Godric's sword, instead of just meaningful? And using so much magic for this…"
Godric sighed. "Told you they'd ask."
With that comment from Godric, plus the stares he was receiving from both Helga and Rowena, Salazar knew that he could not lie. He sighed and said truthfully, "I wanted to keep something about us. Hogwarts will forever live on, but in the case that one of us should leave… I would not prefer to forget the bond we have created. I fear oblivion of this bond of ours. I want to remember it."
Silence followed his speech, until-
"Oh, Sal!
Helga's eyes filled with tears and she flung her arms around Salazar, nearly knocking off him off his feet.
Godric got up and looked as if he was going to hug Salazar as well, but decided against it. "And why would you think one of us would leave? Of course we wouldn't do that!"
"Salazar," said Rowena, putting a hand on his arm, "don't dare think that we would leave this school."
"Of course not," said Salazar slowly. Helga's arms tightened around him, and though he wanted to, he could not relax in one of his best friend's embrace.
They could not see. They could not see that he was the one who was going to leave.
His object was warm in his hand despite the cold that swirled around him.
The metal pressed into his skin, a familiar, wonderful feeling that Salazar could not bear parting with. Then again, once, he would have thought he could not part with Hogwarts, but here he was, walking away from his three best friends in the entire world and the world that they had created together.
He almost could not bear it.
It was so painful, but so necessary, necessary. He and Godric were too different. He could not stay where his opinions clearly deviated from the rest.
Every step felt like a step from home. The metal in his hand was only going to be a thread tying his past and his future together - it was going to be the end of him, he knew. And yet he could not part with his object. It was his, his alone, and he couldn't bear to leave it with Helga or Rowena or Godric.
"Salazar!" Helga's heartbroken scream cut through the air from the Ravenclaw Tower, where she and Rowena stood watching him leave. Godric would be on the other side of the castle in his office, probably cursing his name for leaving.
He wanted to yell back to Helga. He couldn't. He didn't.
Instead, Salazar Slytherin's locket dug further into the skin of his palm, the only source of warmth as he left the school he helped build behind.
How was that? I know Slytherin seems more sensitive in here, but after reading this amazing fic called "Strange Visitors From Another Century" by Isilarma about the Trio being sent back to the Marauder's time, my views on Salazar and his relationship with the other three have changed drastically, and I don't see him as the books made him out to be anymore.
But that's just my preference, and despite that, I hope you all enjoyed! :D
Also, I might extend this into a collection of how all of the Founders' respective objects came to be, but I'm not sure about that yet!
-Summer