Thanks to Sherza who was my beta reader for this story. Don't own anything.
Legend: a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated
A long time ago, a thousand years to be precise, four friends came together and build a school which they named Hogwarts. Their stories have survived the ages, though the truth of it has gotten lost in time. For legends are created, somebody, somewhere, had taken the different parts of the stories that were left and created a new one. A legend, a story, which was now, so many years later, perceived as the truth, even though it was not.
Time had erased it all, leaving nothing but stories, legends.
But even those have some truth.
The legend says that many years after the creation of Hogwarts Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin had an argument about the allowance of muggleborn witches and wizards inside their school. The argument was so big that when it ended Salazar left the school, never to return.
The biggest problem with the legend is that there is some truth in it, no matter how small; for Salazar and Godric did have an argument and Salazar did leave the school shortly thereafter. The argument itself however had nothing to do with muggleborn wizards and witches, nor did Salazar leave the school forever.
It all began on a Wednesday, though in its early stages Godric and Salazar had nothing to do with what happened. In fact they didn't realize there was a problem until it had already gotten completely out of hand. It started, for a change, with Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Huffelpuff or, more specifically, their students.
It began when one of the pets of a Ravenclaw girl attacked the pet of a Huffelpuff boy. That is what Salazar managed to find out, though neither he nor Godric ever managed to find out what exactly happened. He also never managed to find out what the big problem was, seeing as both pets made it out of the fight with just a few scratches.
The argument, naturally, started between the owners of the pets who were, both, backed up by their respective friends. It was not the first time it happened nor was it the last time, but this time it completely snowballed out of control. Somehow, though nobody really ever figured out how or even why, by the time lunch came around the whole of Ravenclaw and Huffelpuff had, in some way, gotten involved in the whole affair. Even some Gryffindor and Slytherin students had gotten involved, though at that point they were still in the minority.
After the end of what had to be one of the tensest lunches in Hogwarts history Rowena and Helga decided to get involved and solve the problem, which as a rule didn't happen very often, for they believed that the students should be able to fix their own problems (at least such trivial arguments as this). Clearly however the whole thing had gotten way out of hand and they needed some assistance. Whatever they had planned on doing, and Salazar never did find out. It had backfired, and soon they had found themselves in an argument as well, complete with shouting and hexing. This was very strange because Helga and Rowena, unlike Godric and Salazar, had disagreements but, to that day, they had never had an outright fight.
Salazar figured out later, once the dust had settled and the fight was mostly over, that their biggest mistake had been trying to intervene. They should have just let them blow off steam and then, once the shouting had ended, they would feel guilty and forgive and forget. But of course he thought of that after it had all ended and, admittedly, he had already been in a rather foul mood when the whole thing started. It was Godric however who got involved first and he, as his best friend, had to back him up. That, he thinks later, is Gryffindors for you, act first think later.
Somehow, and he still doesn't know how, he and Godric ended up arguing, loudly. Their biggest problem, as everyone had always known, was that they were both stubborn and neither would admit defeat or any wrongdoing. The absolute worst part of it all, nobody was even sure about what they were fighting about.
When they all calmed down, and it took several hours, they quickly realized that they had all been acting rather childishly. They also realized that since they had all somehow gotten involved in the whole story, they couldn't even give out detention. It's not like they could give detention to every student and themselves.
They also realized that they had been living together for way too long and they needed some time apart. Which was how it was decided that each founder would go on a well-deserved vacation. They could not, as a rule, all go at once because they needed to protect the students, but one of them could go and have some fun and when he (or she) returned one of the others would leave. It was decided that Salazar got the first vacation.
The book had been Rowena's idea, which if one thinks about it was somewhat logical. Her idea had been to have a book, several by the time the year was over, in which they would write down important things that happened that day as well as future events, if future events were important, of course. The book was found years and years later, after the founders and their children had long since died, leaving nobody to explain the truth behind the entries, not to mention that they never found all the books.
Since it had been her idea, it seemed logical to allow Rowena to fill in every day's events, if she was at Hogwarts of course. She did, dutifully, sitting down every day before going to bed and filling in the pages. She never saw a reason, which would in years to come prove to be a problem, to give long explanations as to what had happened. They would do that later, when they had time in a different book. Seeing as it had happened to them, and was only important to them. It was not as if they could forget the day's events, not even if they tried.
On the day of the huge argument she wrote simply: 'Argument between Huffelpuff and Ravenclaw students, Helga and Rowena, Godric and Salazar.' The day after the argument read: 'Salazar leaves the school.'
It doesn't help, in any way, that the entry of the day before was a list of student names, as well as their parents' names and where they lived, so that they knew where each student was, and the name of the parents, as there were a lot of students, and a note that Salazar was supposed to pick them up. It goes on to say that Salazar managed to pick up all but one of the students, which happened to be a muggleborn witch and was never seen at Hogwarts again.
What it didn't say, what nobody knew, was that Salazar had gone to the house of the twelve-year-old girl, but when he arrived, with four other students, he found that he was too late. Muggles of the town had found out a witch was living among them and had gone to attack the house. The father had, valiantly for a muggle, which Salazar readily agreed too, attempted to protect his children, but they had killed him. Salazar couldn't save the girl, he was too late for that, but he did manage to save her two younger siblings, which was something at least. It also didn't say that Salazar never managed to forget her name or her face, and dreamed of her for years to come.
What nobody read, mainly because the other pages and books were lost through the ages, never to be seen again, is the entry some weeks later which read 'Salazar returns from his vacation.'. Nor does anybody ever read the entries which indicate the leaving and returning of all the other founders.
The legend goes on to say that Salazar left a secret chamber inside the school in which he imprisoned a monster. A monster which only he could control, and someday one of his heirs would unleash the beast and cleanse the school of all those that Salazar had deemed inferior, of all those Salazar had not wanted to teach. Many headmasters have searched for the entrance but it has never been found and probably never will.
The idea of the chamber came, oddly enough, from Helga. It had occurred to her, after they finished building the school, that they would need special ways of protecting the students. The school was alive of course, which meant that it would be able to protect itself, primarily by using the statues, but they needed more. Their school would, after all, be filled with children and they were responsible for them. It seemed prudent to her that, above the already existing protection spells, they should each give some kind of protection, a protection that only they could control. They should also make sure that whatever they came up with was hidden far away from any and all students, so that none of them could, in any way, get hurt. Their protections were of course the last resort. After a long discussion they decided that Godric and Helga should focus on the outside while Rowena and Salazar would focus on the inside.
Rowena had, of course, opted for various spectacular and complicated spells which would, in some way, be able to protect the students. Helga had, for her part, used several plants in such a way that they would attack any intruders that came to harm the students or the founders. Godric had placed the giant squid, which he had trained, in the lake on the grounds. And Salazar, well since he is a parselmouth, it seemed logical to use a snake, a big snake. He could control it, if it were necessary, and insure that no students ever got hurt.
It was Rowena who had told him to hide the chamber deep under the school, so nobody but them could enter it. Salazar had decorated it with several statues of snakes but it was Godric who placed the giant statue of Salazar in the middle of the room. It seemed like a good idea then, of course it had never occurred to them the truth would get lost over time.
Time changes everything, stories which we all think are logical and will forever be known, are altered by it, some so much that of the truth nothing remains. The more time passes the less is known about what actually happened, and since barely any artifacts remain of those times there is no way to prove or disprove them. The fragments of the story that are left are, at some point, woven together to form a new story, a legend. Years later that legend will become the truth.