Prologue
The day seemed to be inappropriately sunny and lovely for the proceedings to come. All the townsfolk across the mountains were gathered on the lawns of the great stone ruins, which no one dared to go anywhere near on a regular day. Today, however, a platform had been erected among the grasses. Scaffolding rose up and up and up, and four ropes dangled in equal spacing from the wooden beams. Nooses, they were. They seemed to match the haunting mass that was the black ruins of a Saxon church, the shadow of which fell not on the makeshift gallows but on the mass of water beside it. The villagers thought perhaps, with a shadow, that this might be a little grimmer. That they might have more reason to look away.
Somewhere in the nearby village, a church bell tolled. As promised, right after the sound started to fade into the trees, four figures with potato sacks over their heads and their hands bound were marched from the church ruins and onto the platform by Saxon knights. They were placed beside each rope and one by one the sacks were removed from their heads, so they may watch the colors of their world fade away as they hanged.
The first, all the way to the left, was the eldest son to the Lord of the Hollow. His hair, red as if kissed by fire, was grown long past his eyes and ears and was unruly. The wind blew the thick strands across blazing brown eyes that roamed the crowd for a familiar face. There was one, in the front, taking shape of a woman grown with the same hair and face that he had. Even as the knight placed the noose around his neck and he practically stared death in the face, Godric Gryffindor showed no fear. He even spared a smile at the woman in the front, his younger sister, who looked aghast and horrified all at the same time.
The next revealed to be a woman. She was much shorter than the man beside her, and even so compared to her companion on the other side. Someone had to produce a stool to get her neck to reach the rope. Besides the height, she was not missing much of anything else, as she was fair of face and eyes with curling locks of golden hair. Helga Hufflepuff did so much as nod courteously to the knight who set her sentence, and sweet Helga thought he deserved all the respect she had. She turned her glance quickly to Godric, who was quick to catch her eye and throw a saucy wink her way.
Another woman was under the third potato sack. This one, however, did not smile. She stared coolly ahead, with the patience of a lady, her highborn pointed features amplifying her impatience. She did not spare the knight who noosed her even a glance, even when he had the courtesy to move her curtain of black hair to one side so it was not caught in the rope. At one point she did snap, "Too tight." as the knight fiddled with the knot. It eventually loosened and he stepped away. Even to her impending doom, Rowena Ravenclaw would not tolerate mistakes that were easily fixed. Apparently they now took anyone into knighthood.
And the last was another man, and when his face was revealed the crowd became restless. Not only was he the last in line, but also his crimes were the most surprising. Salazar Slytherin was the youngest of five sons to a jealous lord at court to the king himself, and also a Saxon knight. He stared evenly at the man putting a rope around his neck, one of Salazar's so-called "brothers", and then walked away to watch him die. Pathetic, the lot of them, thought Salazar. He was a champion of cold, stormy eyes and indifferent expressions and that had always been easy, until now when he was on the other side of the law. Now he was frowning, but he did not look at his companions as he stood. He only glanced once, briefly, towards Helga in her pale yellow dress about to be executed. That was what sickened him the most, past the betrayal of his fellow knights.
Forward came the executioner then. "Lord Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Lady Rowena Ravenclaw, and Sir Salazar Slytherin, you are sentenced to death upon the allegations of the use of witchcraft. Do you accept these charges?" he said, loud enough for the crowd of villagers to hear across the grounds.
This was the part when most unlucky enough to be executed for witchcraft would plead and cry that they were innocent. But not the four. In tandem, they said, "I do."
Slightly taken aback by the blatant acceptance of their crimes, the executioner put his hands around the lever that would hang them all. "What are your last words?" he asked. A grim custom it was, really, but the four seemed unperturbed.
"Draco," said Gryffindor.
"Dormiens," said Hufflepuff.
"Nunquam," said Ravenclaw.
"Titilandus," said Slytherin.
There was a beat of silence, confusion and surprise in the executioner and the villagers, but then there was a distant beating of what sounded like giant wings. Subsequently a giant roar followed, then fire swallowed the gallows and sent the villagers screaming.