Disclaimer : If only I could own them, I would be rich beyond my dreams.... But I don't. Sigh.
Summary : History runs in circles, and circles go on forever. Learn the uncensored story of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, from his birth to his 'downfall', to his death, through a recollection of his memories.
ORIGIN
When he awakened, in the very early morning, there were still whispers of sounds in his mind suddenly wiped clean of any residual grogginess or weariness. Whispers of ancient foreign words he couldn't precisely put back together but whose sound was familiar and whose meaning was understood.
Swirling colours and snapshot of memories came alive before his eyes, sheltered by the vigilant silence of his thoughts, acquiring a definite shape and then confusedly retreating in the background.
A light sheen of gelid sweat covered his face and prickled his back, his racing heart was calming down; when those moments came , he didn't really know if he ought to hate them or not. He didn't cared neither, since when there was nothing he could do to prevent them and they didn't usually bother him until the next episode presented itself.
Nonetheless, it was a disquieting sensation, to feel another man's shadow occasionally rising within his.
All around him the tranquil stativity of a sleeping household reigned. The shadows of the night were shielding his bedroom, just barely lightened by the azure-coloured flames of two floating magical candles, but all seemed to be as it should be, from the curled body of his wife under the embroidered linens to few enchanted objects over the antique but simple furnishing. Nothing was amiss, but he yet felt the insistent need of getting up and abandoning his place, his nerves humming with electricity both expected and unnatural.
He indulged himself, sliding carefully away his companion and allowing his steps to lead him around the hallways.
He kept his pace light, not wanting to disturb the sleep of the other occupants of the estate even as walls and ceilings faded and he was plunged into a world of ghosts.
Lord Slytherin was a severe man, honest and fair but little prone to show emotion, observing of the traditions, caring in its very peculiar way but notoriously lacking in compassion where his enemies were concerned. His younger child –and only son- Salazar fiercely respected him and the only sign of defiance the boy came to show toward his father was starting to address him by his title, once he reached puberty.
The older Slytherin smiled sternly at that, but it was indeed only a part played by habit in their dysfunctional but solid relationship.
Born after three sisters consistently older than him, Salazar grew up without any playmates , spoiled by tender mother and tutored by a cold and diffident father. He was nine years old when he was introduced to a younger girl, Maia Silverspidel, who would be been raised by then on in the safety of his castle and became a second daughter to his parents; she was noble by birth, and her father and mother, deceased during last war along with her brother, had betrothed her to the heir of Lord Slytherin even before she was born. It wasn't like having a real ally in small disobediences, but Maia kept his secrets, although it wasn't possible to keep great mysteries from the Lord. Salazar had sneaked out with her to play with her near the forest when they casually found he was parselmouth: terrified to see a snake close her ankle, Maia had shrieked, as her knees weakly bended and caused her to fall down, while her companion ran to her hissing, without knowing how or even why, words of reproach toward the animal.
He was been surprised when the reptile actually seemed to listen to him, stopping his attack on the cue and cocking its head aside in apparently interrogative way.
He was been even more surprised when Maia started muttering about him being able to converse with beasts.
It didn't take much to find his gift was limited to snakes. Lord Slytherin was pleased enough with his son for receiving such rare and dark ability , among those so along ago possessed by Celts, to allow him to keep the poisonous snake of the forest with him.
Much for the Maia's dismay.
But Salazar was oblivious: he had found the first one of many faithful friends, able to talk to him without restrictions about ancient times, far away countries and villages and the world out his domain. About freedom.
Snakes were cunning animals- he found out- and the Elders were been right to consider them a symbol of wisdom and knowing.
Salazar Slytherin was a cautious young boy. Not arrogant - although he liked to act like it occasionally- and certainly not shy, but cautious. A determined and smart child with an insatiable hunger for knowledge and an inventive mind. He liked listening more than talking. He enjoyed the challenges and the feeling of victory cursing through his veins whenever he mastered a particularly advanced spell.
As the time went by and the difference between their sexes became more pronounced, he and Maia spent more and more time apart. She was instructed in feminine arts by his mother and his sisters. He mostly studied or stood among his peers at the Court, representing his family and acquiring a considerable hold on the public he loved to impress with his caustic eloquence and charming ways.
Even so, Salazar had few friends and many close enemies. It didn't bother him.
He was been taught to see life very simply: if he wanted something, he found a way to get it without worrying at all about the means he used. He was relentless, focused, and intense - if people had a problem with that, he couldn't care less.
Once, during a ball of court, a young wizard, probably a follower of one among the numerous political adversaries of Lord Slytherin, tried to stab him on the back, benefiting from the confusion. Salazar let him coming sufficiently close and swiftly turned around while a scarlet-scaled snake sprang from his harm, where she usually rested coiled under the hem of his tunic. The mercenary fell on the floor few seconds after, and the poison was deadly and painfully paralyzing him.
Salazar called back his pet, looked down on that ashen face and blue lips without recognizing its rigid features, and demanded with an unreadable expression that the corpse was taken away.
He was just fifteen, and since then gained a reputation of being colder and more ruthless than his father.
A little later, his life reached a turning point : his meeting with Godric Gryffindor.
It was another attempt of murderer who drew them together. That day, Salazar was to accompany his mother touring in the great city. Along the path, they were unexpectedly attacked by group of five hooded wizards, and although they were both trained for the battle, Lady Slytherin was assassinated as her son watched, struggling with his adversaries to reach her. The scene of the older woman collapsing on the ground, of himself kneeling by her spent body, unaware of the screams of his falling and dying enemies while his cry of frozen agony drew something of powerful and untameable out his material, unaware of anything else but the fact his mother had left him and wasn't coming back, would haunted him until his own death. His pain had set free his wild magic and it had avenged him, but if only he had found a way to do that before... his beautiful mother wouldn't need dying. If only he was been more capable... if only he was been stronger...
He passed out from exhaustion, surrounded of bodies hideously disfigured, holding on the soft figure who was once his mother.....the column around which he had build his strength.
His sight clouded, the ache in his hearth numbed... and Salazar fainted over her, so suddenly than he wouldn't anticipated it even if he wasn't been so distraught. He would die as well, if few hours after a stranger with sandy blonde hair and twinkling eyes had not found him, and provided to revitalize his magical core with some effective healing spells.
When Salazar regained consciousness - three days after- he was in his bed, with Maia embroidering as she sat beside him. She explained him that a young orphan by name Godric Gryffindor had taken him back to home along with the Lady Slytherin's body. Lord Slytherin had offered him a place in his home and his protection, adamant about paying back fully what he considered a Wizard Debt, and therefore the ultimate obligation among his peers.
As for the Lady , she was been buried the same day.
Lord Slytherin wasn't the same anymore. He looked more distant than he was never been, preoccupied only with thoughts of revenge and perhaps guilt. Some said he finally went barking mad. Salazar simply didn't care at that point ; he kept away from everybody but his snakes, and they guarded well his secrets.
It was Lord Slytherin who taught his son and protégée about the restless practice of Dark Arts and pushed the two boys constantly together, in spite of their opposite personalities. Salazar was the slightly younger one, but anybody knew them swore the contrary because he was contemplative and introverted as much Godric was easy-going and impulsive.
Yet, there was not and there would never been no alliance stronger than theirs: only Salazar could pull Godric back from the edge, wherever he embarked in one of his crusades, reminding him how ideals were supposed to compromise with reality and that only because the most of things could be done, it didn't mean that all of them should have.
Only Godric was able to tease Salazar out his foul moods and his studies, to get him to let himself relax.
Soon, they were like the brothers they claimed they had never wanted.
"Your principal problem, Salazar , is that you benefit others with the same indulgence you benefit yourself with : none"
One said often.
"Your -and therefore mine, disgracefully- principal problem is that you have the pretence to strategize when you are so obviously unable to do so. "
The other refuted constantly.
Godric was insanely curious about the Muggle world, and managed to persuade Salazar in disguising himself to look like one of them, following him in his ' explorative excursions' in street markets . Salazar made a point of snorting and mocking along whole the way : for what concerned him, Muggles were forms not-quite- intelligent of life. The few miraculously gifted with an amount of intellect above the norm, who tried bringing their blasted species to progress, were shunned aside like if they were the one at fault.
They considered a threat everything what escaped their limited grasp on reality. Especially magic.
Their hysterical claim that it was the Devil's doing simply because they weren't able to use it, disgusted Salazar like only their bloodthirsty perseverance in persecuting each other could.
The only time he didn't voiced much complaint was when Godric dragged both of them in Muggle brothel.
Godric being Godric, Salazar never heard the end of it, because his friend used it as leverage every single time he needed.
Then their path came at another turning point. Two years after, a messenger of Lord Catchart, who had married the Lord Slytherin's second cousin and lived beyond the Raveleen Mountains, came to the castle with an urgent request for help. His land was devastated by a clan of Giants and two Muggle villages were already been exterminated until last woman and child.
Lord Slytherin sent back with the messenger his two boys and three of his best guards .
"Your honour and your life above everything " – he admonished them ( or was it meant as en encouragement? Godric and Salazar never came to know) before their departure. A rather cryptic statement, and rather open to interpretation, like almost everything the older man said.
The journey was long and not without complications- especially when the group had to pass through the Whitewood Forest to reach its destination more rapidly- but for the youths was an exciting adventure .
Before their eyes, there was whole a new world, and endless possibilities to conquer glory.