"Salazar, where are you going?" came a demanding and stern voice from behind. Curse it, he was so close! And he was already so late! Reluctantly, he lowered his hand from the gate and turned away from the entrance of the castle to meet his Father's reproachful gaze.
"Father… I was going to go hunting," he responded timidly.
"Hunting?" the other man laughed. "That is unnecessary. The servants can do that for us. And with this equipment?" His Father eyed the bow and arrow that was slung across his shoulder. "The equipment of a Muggle?" The last word was spoken with a tone of resentment and anger, and Salazar involuntarily flinched. "What's wrong with your wand, boy?"
"But Father… I enjoy hunting. And it's too foolish to go about brandishing my wand without discretion, what if I am seen?" Salazar spoke imploringly.
"I know a few spells that would take care of that problem…" his father replied ominously.
"Please Father, you know that will just create unwanted attention, and anyway, it's more fun this way, it's more intimate… the death lasts longer, you can watch as the creature takes its last breaths, struggling to remain conscious until finally it accepts its fate and is overcome by its own mortality…" he whispered seductively. He knew appealing to his Father's masochistic nature would be a more progressive route to take than any other.
He was correct; his Father looked down at him with a mixture of pride, relief and contentment. "Very well, Salazar. I hope you have an enjoyable outing." With that, his Father turned away from him, and made his way up the stairs to his study. Salazar breathed a sigh of relief, and reached out for the gate for the second time that afternoon, before pushing it open and stepping outside into the warm air.
He quickly rushed to the stables, and, once he had mounted his horse, Penelope, made his way to the usual meeting place, hoping that his lateness would not earn him much scorn.
Ten minutes later, he arrived at the secluded clearing in the middle of the forest, dismounted Penelope and tied her up to a nearby tree. He made his way over to their tree, the tree which invoked so many precious memories, and smiled when he caught sight of the familiar figure waiting for him there. She was a petite girl of 18 years, one year younger than he himself, with long, curly and golden hair which flowed freely from her shoulders and rustled silently in the wind. His heart then sunk when he focused his gaze upon her face, and saw the uncontained anger shown there which distorted her usually pretty features, and he halted his footsteps. He dropped his gaze guiltily, as he spotted a prominent yellow dandelion at his feet. With nervous, shaking hands, he picked the dandelion from the grass, and continued to walk towards the girl standing by the tree.
An anxious smile found its way to his lips, and he held the dandelion out to the girl as a peace offering. "I'm sorry –"
"No. You're not!" the girl snapped, as she smacked the dandelion out of Salazar's hands and watched it fall to the floor. "If you were really sorry, you would not continue to be late EVERY SINGLE TIME WE PLAN TO MEET UP!" she yelled. "What's the problem, Salazar? Do you enjoy making me wait here for you for hours at a time? Does it make you feel powerful? Watching me wait for you time and time again? I do have other things to do you know, your Father makes sure of that, we're all tremendously over-worked!" she shouted, breathing heavily, glaring accusingly at Salazar.
"It's not my fault Melody!" Salazar shouted angrily as she scoffed unbelievingly. "I don't mean to keep on being late; it's just that it's really hard to get away without my Father becoming suspicious! You know that I just want to be here with you… That's all I ever want… When I'm not here with you I'm thinking about being here with you, I think of nothing else." Salazar stretched out his arm, and put a finger to Melody's lips to silence her oncoming protests at his words. "And I told you…" his words become more pleading, more sincere, "… you don't have to do the work by hand. If you'll just let yourself use the wand I gave you, I can teach you how to use it, how to control your magic… You'll never have to lift a finger again."
Melody closed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair, obviously in deep distress, and Salazar sensed the familiar disbelieving thoughts surging through her mind. He took her hand in his, and Melody's eyes flicked open to stare at him suspiciously. As if to answer her unspoken doubts, Salazar removed the bow and arrow from his shoulder with his free hand, placed the items at their feet, retrieved his wand from his coat pocket, and, with a swish, transformed the bow and arrow into a luxurious picnic set and blanket.
Melody gasped quietly next to Salazar, she was still unused to seeing magic, and was fighting against accepting its existence with all of her might. She was even more reluctant to believe that she herself might be magical. But Salazar had seen the signs. A few months ago, the first time they had seen each other in his kitchen as Melody was washing the dishes, when she had just started working for his Father in the castle, there was an instant attraction, and Salazar knew that the resulting quivering cutlery and dishes was not solely a result of his own magic, but the combined effect of both his and hers. Later, as he watched Melody discreetly from a distance, he also witnessed the way she had caused a bucket of soapy water to spontaneously explode after his Father had criticised the way she had mopped the floors and had docked her two days' pay. He noticed that the look of shock on her face was slightly subdued, and overcome by a greater look of acceptance and familiarity, and when Salazar invaded her mind, he heard only the bored and annoyed sounding thought of "not again…"
Salazar's interest in the young witch grew, and he became heartened by the appraising thoughts he often found of himself within her mind. She had been easy to woo, once he had decided it was time to make a move he left a simple note with a single rose in his bedroom which she was due to clean with the words:
Melody, meet me in the garden by the pond at midnight tonight. S
He must admit… he was pleasantly surprised when she had actually shown, but since that night their meetings had become more and more frequent, and their relationship had become more and more intimate. Melody was a poor girl from a muggle household, working and living as a servant in his Father's castle in an attempt to provide for her parents while they were bedridden with sickness, who she only got to see for two days every month while she was working at the castle. Eventually, Salazar felt the time was right to tell her the truth about her status as a witch.
Not surprisingly, she refused to accept his words at first. There was so much fear and suspicion among muggles these days surrounding witchcraft and wizardry, and Melody did not want to be labelled as an unnatural freak who was worthy of death by hanging. In time, though, Salazar had convinced her to accept who she was, and had even gifted her an elegant Willow wand with Dragon Heartstring core, with the promise to teach her how to use it if she so wished.
As ever, Melody was reluctant to accept. Witch hunts were occurring with ever-increasing frequency, and even Salazar had to admit that they were walking on dangerous ground. He performed an anti-detection charm on her wand, with the promise that no one but a witch or wizard would be able to see it for what it truly was if they happened upon it by chance. He wanted to ensure that he was not putting her at risk from the muggle attacks.
A month later, she had yet to use her wand, and still acted astonished and amazed at every bit of magic Salazar performed when they were alone. Still, they were making progress, at least she no longer started pinching herself and insisting it was all a dream. Instead, after her initial slight shock following the transformation of the bow and arrow, she seated herself upon the blanket and eagerly began filling a plate high with sandwiches and cake.
Salazar, still standing by their tree, lifted an eyebrow at her activity in amusement, and she said defensively "What? I've been waiting here for you for TWO HOURS, I'm hungry, okay?" before beginning to eat her sandwiches. Salazar settled on her left hand side on the blanket, and picked up a green apple for himself, not feeling quite so hungry.
After Melody had satisfied her desire to eat, Salazar tapped the bottle of water that lay next to them with his wand, and it transformed into a bottle of red wine. "How do you do that?" Melody asked, amazed. "Can you just make food transform from anything? You can help so many people! Do you not realise how many people die every day from poverty?" Melody's voice had adopted an accusatory tone, and Salazar felt the need to defend himself.
"I can't make food appear from thin air, when I transfigured the bow and arrow into the picnic set I simply swapped the bow and arrow with a picnic set that was waiting for us back at the castle… the same with the wine," Salazar explained.
"But what if someone sees you?" Melody asked anxiously.
"They won't. The picnic set and the wine were locked in my room. And even if they do… they won't believe their own eyes, they'll think they were going mad, and they wouldn't want to believe that or risk other people thinking they were mad if they tell them what happened and draw attention to themselves." Melody still looked uneasy, but accepted the full glass of wine that Salazar had just poured for her, swallowing half of the glass in one gulp.
Salazar looked inquisitively at her, slightly entertained by her behaviour, and she replied sheepishly, "You still manage to make me feel nervous. Salazar laughed, and poured himself a glass, before taking a small sip, setting the glass down, and leaning backwards with an expression of ease, supporting himself with his two hands resting on the blanket behind his back.
He shifted slightly towards Melody, and turned to look at her with a slight smile. Rethinking his position, he removed his hands from behind his back, sat upright in a similar fashion to her, and reached out to hold her left hand with his right one. Removing the glass of wine from her right hand, he then held that hand in his left, and repositioned his body so that he was sitting opposite her on the blanket. He looked into her loving brown eyes and slowly and deliberately lowered his gaze towards her lips, before locking eyes with her again. Melody knew what he was asking, and, in answer to the unspoken question, leaned her head closer to Salazar's until their lips met, and Salazar smiled internally at the accomplishment. Melody closed her eyes to lose herself more fully in the sensation of the kiss, and Salazar followed suit.
Slowly, Salazar opened his mouth and prodded at Melody's closed lips with his tongue, until her mouth also opened and accepted his tongue. They eagerly explored each other's mouths as their kiss deepened, their desire intensified, and they pulled each other close, unwilling to let go.
They were truly submerged in their kiss, the outside world fading into unimportance and irrelevance, when suddenly they were being pulled apart by coarse hands. Salazar's eyes opened in shock, and he saw with growing dread Melody being pulled away from him by two of his Father's servants, and her eyes going wide in horror as she looked behind Salazar's shoulder. Someone was holding his hands in a tight grip behind his back, and he didn't have to turn around to look at who it was to know that it was his Father.
His fears confirmed, he heard the voice of his Father call out from behind him, "Arbert, chain her and take her to the dungeons. I have reason to believe she has been using unholy witchcraft to seduce my son. He will come to thank me in time."
With horror, Salazar watched as the servant Arbert produced two sets of manacles, one for wrists, and one for ankles, and roughly fasten Melody into them despite her ineffective, loud and frantic protests. He then picked her up, placed her over his shoulder, and dragged her laying on her stomach over a waiting horse, before mounting the horse himself behind her and riding off towards the castle.
Tearing his eyes away from the horrible sight, encompassed with shock, guilt, worry and dread, Salazar made eye contact with his Father and braced himself for what he was about to face. All he received was a look of contemptuous disgust.
"Do you need to be manacled also, or can I trust you to ride back by yourself?" he inquired smoothly.
Salazar stared defiantly back, before wordlessly walking away towards the tree where he left Penelope, mounting her, and riding back towards the castle. He could hear the horses of his Father and the other servant, Espan following close behind, and fought back frightened tears, desperately searching for a way out of this dire situation.