Written for Hogwarts' Triwizard Tournament, Task 3: The Maze - 1. (AU) Medieval, 2. (dialogue) "It takes a very special kind of idiot to pull off what you just did.", 3. (word) Protection, 4. (word) Shine, 5. (emotion) Angry, the Muggle Studies Assignment: Task #3: Write about a witch or wizard saving another witch or wizard (or Squib) from the persecution of Muggles, the Writing Club: Character Appreciation: Going through a hard time, When You're Good to Mama - (object) Basket, Count Your Buttons: "Dying to Live" by Scott Stapp, Basket, "I can't take this anymore.", Lyric Alley: but we took the step, and we took the leap, Liza's Loves: Darkblade - Medieval!AU, Sophie's Shelf: strength, longer, penetrate, pound, undone, pliant, the Crafty Cooking Cocktail Corner: Water - AU: Medieval, Jewel Challenge: Alexandrite - Ring: Write a Founders Era Fic, Necklace: Write about someone who experiences good fortune, Library Lovers: Six of Crows - Leigh Barudo: (dialogue) "I will have you without armor, [Name]. Or I will not have you at all.", (object) Knife, (quote) "The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.", (object) Gloves, the Scavenger Hunt: Write a fanon pairing, the Insane House Challenge: Pairing - Salazar/Godric, the 365 Prompts Challenge: Era - Founders.
Word count: 2303
got flowers for all my wounds
Salazar woke up with a headache and sore arms. His head pounded more than that time he'd let Godric ply him with some truly terrible alcohol what now felt like ages ago (he had sworn off any Godric-related beverage after that) and he was so disoriented it took him a good minute to realize that if his arms were sore, it was because they were tied behind his back.
Salazar tugged at the bonds but they held — clearly whoever had tied them had known what they were doing and used enough strength to restrain him.
It was only when he tried to move that he realized that the steady wall behind him wasn't a wall at all, but a pole.
He couldn't see it, but he knew it would be wooden.
(They always were — wood burned better.)
He couldn't help it: he froze. Suddenly, it was as though the last ten years had never happened, and he was back to being a fifteen-year-old boy, on the cusp of becoming a man.
A boy whose only family had been a little sister, too young to control her magic or understand why she had to — and that had been his fault too, hadn't it? If he had told her about what the villagers had done to their mother, maybe she'd have been safe.
Maybe then they wouldn't have done the same thing to her too.
He could see it so clearly now. The unknown faces of the crowd gathered before his pyre blurred together into familiar faces he'd thought he had forgotten — here was Mr. Petterson, who had always had bread to give to two poor orphans in exchange for some works around his shop; here was Mrs. Sylvia, who always refused to let them draw their own water from the well, insisting it was 'too hard of a work for young ones like yourselves'.
The list went on and on, and all of them were people Salazar had once trusted with the protection of the one thing that mattered most to him — his sister.
He had been so stupid — sneaking off into the forest for a day to gather herbs, would he ever learn?
He had asked Selene if she wanted to go with him, but someone — Salazar couldn't even remember who anymore — had promised to teach her how to sew, and she had said no.
She had been so eager, so happy, that Salazar had let her go with a smile.
And then, hours later, he had stumbled out of the forest, carrying a basket filled with herbs and even some flowers he knew his sister would find pretty — she always made the best flower crowns, even though she delighted in putting them on his head instead of her own — but instead of the peaceful town he'd been expecting, he'd seen smoke, thick and black rising from where he knew the central plaza was.
He had dropped everything and ran, but it had been too late already. His sister had been gone, all that was left of her ashes and a fire slowly burning out.
He could still hear the voices, telling him how sorry they were, how they had tried to find him but in the end they hadn't had a choice. His sister was a witch, and witches were evil. She had had to burn.
He didn't remember anything after that, but he knew his magic had lashed out. He had lashed out.
And then he'd run. Godric had found him soon after that, and then they'd found Helga and Rowena, and then they'd started to build Hogwarts, and Salazar had never, ever looked back or told anyone about his sister.
His mind was jarred back to the present when a stone hit him in the forehead. It dissipated the ghosts of the past that were clinging to him, but it jarred his headache badly enough that he thought he saw black spots dance in his vision.
Something wet trickled down his forehead, along the line of his nose and to his mouth, and Salazar licked his lips reflexively, before spitting out as he recognized the coppery taste of blood.
Down there, in the crowd, someone shouted, "Are you mad? He'll curse you! Just let him burn, we'll be safe that way."
Safe.
Salazar would show them safe. He might be too stunned still to free his hands properly, but curses had always come to him more easily than charms anyway.
It wouldn't take much to prove that man right, to curse whoever had thought it brave or clever to throw a stone at him.
And he was going to do it, too — the spell was at the tip of his tongue, itching in his mouth — but then he saw who he would be cursing. It was a child. A little girl, who looked so much like his sister that for an instant he felt himself come undone, going pliant against the pole at his back.
The vision passed as quickly as it had come, but Salazar found that he no longer had the heart or energy to go through with his curse.
(Godric had made him soft.)
Another Muggle was talking now, spewing insults Salazar's way, telling the crowd that he'd caught this 'witch' practicing dark, forbidden magic in the forest.
Salazar almost rolled his eyes — he had been gathering Potions ingredient. That was hardly dark magic, though he guessed that to these Muggles any kind of magic would seem forbidden and dark.
The man kept talking and talking, until it suddenly hit Salazar that he should be trying to get away. But what could he do, when his wand was probably still in the forest and in his state, a cutting curse managed wandless would be as likely to cut his wrist off than to cut his ropes?
He didn't know why it hadn't registered until then that he might not actually be able to get away from this alive, though it was probably because he already felt like his head was killing him. It made it hard to keep track of his thoughts; they slipped through his fingers like mist.
The Muggle stopped talking only long enough to light a torch, and Salazar's breath caught in his chest.
He couldn't move. It wasn't just that he was still tied up — all thought had left his mind. He couldn't look away from the fire, dancing before him and growing closer as the man walked up to Salazar's pyre.
He didn't even feel afraid. He was beyond fear now, his entire world reduced to that fire.
He tried to brace himself for when that torch would light his pyre. Feebly, his mind tried to grab for threads of his magic — anything that'd help him leave, help him escape — help him live.
But even for all his adrenaline-fueled desperation, Salazar could tell that it was useless. His headache made it too difficult to focus. The fire was, ironically enough, the only thing that seemed to be able to penetrate through the fog in his mind.
He almost wanted to laugh, but instead he forced himself to focus on it until his eyes burned.
Go out, he chanted, go out.
The flame wavered but didn't go out.
Not that it mattered, as another part of the village suddenly went up in flames. The man dropped his torch and hurried after the crowd, who was suddenly more concerned with putting out the fire than starting one.
The torch was still frighteningly close to his pyre — it would only take a strong gust of wind for the wood to catch fire — but Salazar didn't even care anymore.
Instead, all his attention was focused on the gloved hands he could feel squeezing his tied hands gently, pressing a cool knife against his palms.
"What?" he said, head dizzy with relief as he mechanically started to cut his ropes.
"You're an idiot," Godric's voice came from somewhere near his ankles, "but you told me you'd be back for tea. It's almost night, Salazar, and you never break your promises."
Somehow the words warmed his heart, even if the 'idiot' comment made him want to bristle.
He almost stumbled and fell the instant his bonds were cut, but Godric caught him and Apparated them away. Just in time too, as the last thing Salazar saw before the world vanished was smoke, starting to rise from his pyre.
There were so many things he wanted to say, but the instant his feet touched the ground he bent down and threw up.
Godric's hand pat him gently on the back. When Salazar managed to stand back up, his friend was slowly turning visible, and Salazar let himself be pulled into a tight hug.
He did draw the line at Godric patting him down for injuries, though, and he took a step back, pushing past the pounding in his head and the blurry edges of his vision to look at his friend.
Godric was frowning. He almost looked scared — his already pale face was even paler than usual, making his freckles stand out somewhat dramatically.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Salazar replied instantly.
Godric rolled his eyes. "Your head is bleeding and you haven't insulted me once. Yes, clearly you're fine."
"I'm fine," he repeated. His hand reached up to touch his face, and his fingers came back glistening red with blood. The red shone almost as much that the ruby on that sword Godric loved so much, but that it was so wet when it had been who knew how long since he had sustained that wound probably wasn't good.
He forced a smile on his lips, wiping his fingers on his sleeve. "I don't suppose you have some kind of healing potion, or perhaps my wand?" he asked, warily hopeful.
Scowling, Godric reached into the satchel tied at his side, pulled out a small vial and handed it to him.
Drinking it, he felt his mind clear up and he let out a sigh of relief as he rolled his shoulders. Finally, he could think again.
"Helga's?" he asked absently, handing Godric back the empty vial.
Instead of the usual 'I don't understand how you can always tell that,' Salazar was faced with heavy silence, and his forced smile froze on his face.
His heart raced — something was wrong.
"You know, it takes a very special kind of idiot to pull off what you just did," Godric said, voice as cold as ice.
"Excuse me?" This was wrong, Salazar's mind screamed. Godric wasn't supposed to be angry at him.
"I — You know this place isn't safe yet. We haven't put up the wards yet, you know how the Muggles react to even the smallest act of magic — how could you just go out alone like this?"
"I can handle myself," Salazar snapped back. "I'm not a child."
It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Godric's nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. "You can — you can handle yourself?! Salazar, I just found you tied up to a pyre that was two seconds from bursting into flames, and you were just standing there, doing nothing."
"I had it under control." The lie tasted bitter on his tongue. He didn't even know why he said it — just that he couldn't say anything else.
"You?!" Godric's voice cut off in a strangled yell. His face was turning red, and for a moment Salazar almost thought he'd implode — but instead, he took a deep breath, clenched his fists and stepped back.
"I can't take this anymore," Salazar thought he heard him whisper, but no, that couldn't be right. It just couldn't.
When his eyes looked at Salazar again, they were so cold Salazar could almost feel it radiating from him.
"Merlin, Salazar, do you ever tell the truth?" Godric sounded pain and Salazar's hands reached out to him instinctively at the same time as his heart twisted painfully in his chest.
I do. The words were already on his lips, ready to fall; but they would be a lit now, wouldn't they?
Not knowing what to say, Salazar stayed silent.
Godric's eyes turned pleading. "Don't you know you don't have to lie around us?" he said, and Salazar's breath caught in his chest. It hurt, this tangled thing that almost felt like hope. "Around me?" Godric added, stepping closer once more.
Godric's hand on his shoulder burned like a furnace. "I will have you without armor, Salazar. Or I will not have you at all," he said.
Godric's eyes searched his, but all of Salazar's words were lost, too far for him to reach — a frustratingly common occurrence around Godric. He couldn't say anything to revive the hope he could see dying out in Godric's eyes, and eventually, the other man sighed and squeezed his shoulder once. He started to walk away, down the path where their half-repurposed castle laid.
It felt like Salazar was losing him.
He couldn't lose Godric — and suddenly his words were back, burning like acid at the back of his throat.
"I have a sister."
Godric stopped and turned around. His expression was painfully hopeful, and all thoughts of pursuing with the present tense that had escaped his mouth before he could stop it died with it.
"I had a sister," he corrected himself. "She… She died like this. Burning." It felt like he was reopening a wound inside his chest, each word raw and aching, but if it made Godric stay by his side even just a little longer, it would be worth it.
Any pain would be worth feeling if it meant Godric would stay.