Disclaimer: Everything from hp books belongs to JK Rowling

Tarnished

"You owe me a dance, Salazar."

Whispered words hanging in the air as two pairs of eyes drown in the other's presence. Two eyes once so well acquainted with each other now looked upon as strangers.

"You promised me years ago. Do you not dance anymore, Salazar?"

Words yearning for years gone by yet foreign to this world they now inhabit. Time changes all things. Time changed the beautiful, new wonder of their castle into antique splendor. Tarnished gold that once shined brighter then the sun. Dusty frames of paintings that years ago were thought to be the essence of beauty. Exquisite chandeliers hanging from the ceilings that even then had the beginnings of cobwebs forming on the once illustrious glass. And even she represents how the once new castle has fallen to age. Her once flawless beauty now lined with age and her once glowing eyes now shadowed by sadness of years gone by.

"Rowena, I haven't danced in years."

Years have gone by, yet it seems as if mere moments have passed. Moments of too soft touches and airy kisses that now seem to be the ghost of what their passion could have been. Mere moments of his lips resting upon her own when his eyes weren't pools of cynicism and hatred. Moments when each could pretend they were not bound to the roles each have played.

She is Rowena Ravenclaw, the beauty, the intellect. He is Salazar Slytherin, the cunning, the truthful. Never were two people so horribly matched together by the fates. Never were two people so deeply in love as these ill fated lovers and never, never before or since, were two lovers so horribly thrown apart by the world evolving around them. And this, this tragedy is the work of destiny?

"Don't lie to me, Salazar. We used to dance all the time. You love it."

Things change and people change but the four founders of Hogwarts stayed mysteriously constant in each of their individual beliefs. It was their fortune, their shared dream of enriching the youths of the Wizarding World in all the talents of a powerful wizard. It was their downfall, the very thread that destroyed the purity of their dream and created discord and pain in a place that for them should have only bred goodness. Instead, jealousy and hate took the place of the four friendships that should have built an everlasting bond.

"Godric is renowned for his dancing skills. Go pester him, Rowena, I hardly have the time for your prattle."

"Oh Salazar. What happened to you? What?"

Can it ever be explained how a person can one day change everything they were yet never change one bit? How can it be explained to our beautiful Ms. Ravenclaw that his eyes were always cold, that his beliefs in purity have forever remained constant? That those moments when his eyes glowed and his smile lost the characteristics of a scowl were merely the consequence of him being near her? What happened, she asked herself again and again over the years they have been apart. Life happened, Rowena, and life continues to happen.

"I am who I am, Rowena. You never did understand that."

The stupidity of man. It would take years for you to believe that such a beast, as Salazar seemed, could love her. It would take years for you to believe that below his icy stare lies a heart filled with agony every time that cold glare falls on her face, faded through sadness that once glowed of life. The golden hues of the castle have tarnished with time. Oh how she has tarnished without his attentions, without his love.

For losing love can kill a person and although she has lived thirty, nay forty years without proof of his love, she still shivers when his eyes move across her form and still cries at night because the memories of their brief moment together haunts her. Oh the pain of a broken heart. Is it even worth it?

Is it even worth it? Each wonder as they look into their lovers' eyes and realize they are just strangers now. Two people who once shared a most intimate bond and now feel the awkwardness a simple hello could leave in its wake. And now still, after forty years of being apart.

It may be the aloofness which is most painful of all, to be a stranger to a person, a mere acquaintance, when once they had the pleasure of being each other's entire world. What could be a worse fate then living with the other's feigned indifference?

"You've never let me understand you, Salazar. You were always to busy being the mysterious lover. You never once allowed us to be friends."

Friends? To even think of them being friends should be seen as blasphemous for they were never friends and never could have been. How she hated him when she first met him. Arrogant and cruel down to his very core. She preferred Godric back then. Would it have been different if she hadn't? Would it had been different if she hadn't given her loyalty to brave Godric whose dreams for their school were so closely intertwined with her own? They have always been so similar, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Too similar to the point that the coldness of Slytherin, the darkness of that house, allured her and tortured her as brave, handsome Gryffindor fell in love with her.

Oh the torture of being loved by two wonderful men. Oh the pain of choosing what was easy over what was real.

Did any person know of the passion hiding between Salazar and Rowena? It was the best kept secret. Known only by the two who now stare upon each other as if they never before met.

The most beautiful secrets are the most painful lies to live. To outwardly seem to give your life to one man and yet in the shadows of darkness to show that your love, your soul, belongs to another. To be in the arms of a secret lover, to relish in the excitement and passion never to be felt again, yet always looking behind you and wondering when that ominous choice would have to be made. Always wondering when the perfect moment would be shattered and lost.

It was the hardest moment of her life when she stared into his icy eyes knowing that the sudden warmth that spread inside of him at the sight of her would forever be extinguished. "I belong to him, Salazar," She had said that night. "I promised myself to him and I… I'm sorry." She walked away crying tears of pain and already forming regret because she never could choose Salazar.

It was the right thing to do. Who in their right mind would choose to bind themselves to Salazar Slytherin over perfect Godric Gryffindor?

Yet the pain has been haunting her and even in tiring middle age when their moments have long since become tarnished memories, she still cries when she thinks of that night. She still cries and asks him, "Oh Salazar, why didn't you stop me? Why did you let me go?" Yet what choice did he have?

"I never wanted to be your friend, Rowena. I wanted to be your heart."

Has it even been noticed how trite the words 'I'm sorry' have become? She thinks it, has spoken it, and yet it seems to mean nothing when she looks into his tired, hard eyes knowing that for all his callousness and cynicism she hurt him all those years ago. Knowing that for all his cunning and bravery he has been slowly dying over the past forty years as he watched her in the arms of another man, a better man. And you would think it would get easier day after day wondering if he ever really had her. Yet tonight, with, a very different yet in every way the same, Rowena Ravenclaw in front of him, her betrayal has never hurt more.

"You've always been, Salazar, didn't you know?"

Does it hurt more to know that he no longer had her love or that he had it all along? To pine for something and think it could never be his only to be told that forever he had owned her heart. To realize his forty year long friendship with pain was a sham, a fake, so that she could play doll house with Godric!

Oh the agony he must have felt on that night. The pain of the future that would never be theirs and the past lost to lies of the heart. The pain of what could have been, it never stops hurting, does it?

"Forty years have passed, Rowena. Do you not realize that it is too late?"

For it is because the neatly sewn thread that held these four together has finally fallen and he, the shadow of the school, no longer belongs at the high table with his old friends. The dream is over, destroyed. She is too late.

She is no longer a young girl bound to break down at the confession of what each has known to be true. Forty years have passed and, though their love and their different beliefs remain constant, the changing world has forever barred their love for coming to light. It is condemned to the darkness he thrives in. The darkness she will forever be a stranger to.

A light as bright as hers could never live in the dark. Yet she loved him.

Love, has there ever been a more ambiguous and painful emotion known to man. She loved Godric. Loved him for his constant companionship and joy she found within him. Loved him because in every way possible he was her best friend. She loved Salazar. Loved him with the passion and blindness of true love. Loved him fiercely with childish zeal yet that wasn't enough to make her forget her identity. She loved him more than she could ever realize and yet still she would not sacrifice anything in order to be his. She would not sacrifice all she knew just so she could forever live in his heart. She couldn't do it.

He would have risked it. They are strangers now.

Is it funny to know that the man whose namesake has come to represent pure evil would have given anything up for love? Is it ironic that the houses of the "good" could make no such sacrifice and condemned two souls to a lifetime of pain? Is it any wonder he hates his own creation for the memories it continues to bring him? Is it any wonder she will spend her life only knowing regret?

But maybe for tonight, they can forget. Maybe tonight he could take her hand in his own and dance with her under the stars until the first signs of sunrise. Maybe tonight forty years could be stripped away before the truth of life returns with the morning sun.

But it could never be.

"Just for tonight, Salazar, for I fear it is all we have."

He turned away from her and the next day fearsome Salazar Slytherin had disappeared. Never was he seen again.

Maybe the saying is wrong. Maybe love, even one that has survived through the trenches of time, does not conquer all. For how else could we explain the breaking of Rowena Ravenclaw's heart?

END