Home Is (Calling You Back)
Completed for the forum Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)
Assignment #2: Geography: Fact or Fiction - Task 7: write a story set after death (reincarnation is acceptable). Alt: Write about an angel/wing!fic
(Unedited)
When one thinks of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they think of a castle standing strong and proud. They think of towers that ascend into the heavens. They think of grey stone bricks on top of bricks, all connected. They think of learning, of teaching. They see Hogwarts as a place, a location, a school.
Here is the thing that everyone has forgotten – because many things have been forgotten over the years, disappearing into the abyss of blackness known as time – Hogwarts is magic. Without a doubt, it has magic in it, for it is a school where magic is doubt. However, Hogwarts is magic, made from magic, made with magic. Its wards are written into its brickwork. They're hidden in crevices, behind paintings – but the words are there.
See, this is something that needs to be understood, Hogwarts had been a school second. Hogwarts had been, at first, a place of refuge, of safety. Its history may have been forgotten, but Hogwarts had never forgotten. The four greatest witches and wizards of their time – possibly the greatest witches and wizards of all time – created Hogwarts, pulled it together brick by brick. They created wards, used magic in a fashion that it had never been used before.
Remember this – Hogwarts had been a refuge first, and a school second. Hogwarts had been – and it still is – a place to be safe, before anything else. So when danger crept into Hogwarts, infiltrating in the shadows, slipping around wards, it did not go unnoticed.
Hogwarts may seem silent, inanimate, but it is sentient even if such a thing goes unknown, unnoticed, forgotten. It is Hogwarts that sends out a call, reaching out with magic, doing something that had never been seen. It reaches through to a place of mysteries, reaches beyond a veil into something else, reaches and reaches and finds something that it had been looking for. In 1980, something strange happens. In 1995, everything changes.
In 1980, a child is born. In 1980, a child dies. In 1981, a war ends. In 1981, two parents die. In 1981, there is the Boy-Who-Lived. In 1991, Hogwarts watches and finds something that shouldn't be walking with loud footsteps down its hall. In 1992, one of Hogwarts' greatest protectors turns once more into a monster, its own teachings lost to it. In 1993, fear cloaks corridors and rooms, and Hogwarts learns something like hate. In 1994, something is wrong but Hogwarts knows not what it is. In 1995, something comes back that should have died a long time ago. In 1995, Hogwarts activates one spell that had been left waiting for its time.
In 1995, one student steps into Hogwarts and nothing is ever the same. In 1995, Blaise Zabini steps into Hogwarts. In 1995, Salazar Slytherin remembers.
One could say that the magic world shudders in that moment, that it twists and changes and everyone feels the vague knowledge that nothing will be the same. One could say a lot of different things, but that doesn't make it necessarily true. A few things would change, because change is the only constant in this world, but very little changes straight away.
This is what does change – Blaise stands in Hogwarts' entrance and senses the stones beneath his feet humming their welcome, the wards singing in response to his return. Hogwarts has always been a home, and it opens its metaphorical arms to Blaise.
Blaise acts like everything's normal, sitting at the Slytherin table, close enough to Draco Malfoy to participate in his conversation, but far enough away that his neutral position is evident. He eats his meal quietly, barely able to concentrate on anything else but Hogwarts who blares its own messages to Blaise, warning him of everything it knows, sharing secrets that it has held to it itself for too long.
Over that first week at Hogwarts, that first week of Harry Potter's fifth year, it seems as if everything is the same as ever. Yes, there is a new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Yes, the new professor isn't a great teacher, but the defence class has always been a weird one – such a professor is noticed, but it is ultimately ignored.
Not all things are as they seem, especially when one lives in a magical world. By the end of the first week, word in the magical community is that the Slytherin ancestral house has reappeared, no longer hidden by old magic that left it in status after the death of the last accepted member of the Slytherin line. By the end of the first week, the Slytherin common room has gained a book that will not be moved from the table in front of the fireplace. By the end of the first week, the Slytherin house is full of whispers surrounding the notion of the Slytherin's return – not a Slytherin, but the Slytherin. No one can say where the rumours arise from.
Meanwhile, Blaise goes about his normal school routine, as he has the past four years. He walks through corridors, without a hair out of place, a cool expression fixed on his face. He appears to take no notice of the rumours that fly under the radar. Except…
Salazar Slytherin lived until he was 87-years-old when he was killed by a muggle in a confrontation between muggles and those of his own kind. At the time, he was trying to avoid the murder of a six-year-old wizard whilst dealing with twenty muggles who were trying to kill the child. Salazar lived much of his life using magic, developing his own spells.
Whilst magic had been developed further in the years afterwards, just as much magic had been forgotten as well. Some spells fell out of use since they were no longer needed for the reasons they had once been needed for. Some spells had never been recorded and were simply forgotten. This meant that while Blaise knows one set of spells from a long time ago, he also knows less modern spells, one he's still learning.
Here's the thing, though, it hadn't been their magic that made the Hogwarts founders famous. It had been their ability to manipulate their magic, to do things that no other witch or wizard had ever done. They had been geniuses, and with their intelligence, they had shaped the magical world into a place where magic had been used to save people, to keep them hidden. They had created the idea of a magical location made not only for safety and refuge, but also made as a place where magic could be taught.
Thus, it's not terribly difficult for Blaise to combine modern spells with archaic ones. Even though Salazar's speciality had been dealing with magical creatures, he knew his fair share of spells that would defend, and spells that would – at most – cause an opponent to falter and usually caused paralysis or unconsciousness. Blaise, on the other hand, grew up as a Pureblood in a country that is not one he owes blood to; as a Zabini, his heritage lies elsewhere, but still, Blaise calls Scotland home. Growing up as a pureblood meant that Blaise learnt many spells that would never be taught. As a pureblood, he had a library of books to go through, to learn from – and he had done all of that when he had been younger.
Now, beneath the combination of two lots of memories, beneath the morals of Salazar and prejudice of Blaise, his personality not only shifts, but outright changes. Once neutral, Blaise takes a more active role in a war that shouldn't have been his.
Here's what really matters, Hogwarts was meant to be a home, and this is what Salazar and all the other founders had attempted to do. Hogwarts is not a home, not in Blaise's time. Yes, it's a place that's loved and cherished, but it isn't the home it had once been – it is not safe.
So, this is what drives Blaise, what drives Salazar to action. Hogwarts is not what it is meant to be, and for that, Salazar will create ripples in what had once been a still pool. For Hogwarts that had been a home but is no longer, for Hogwarts that should be a school but instead has danger lurking in its halls.
Salazar has always tended to be passive first, active second. Very few things are enough to trigger him emotionally to make him want to take action straight away. Hogwarts has always been enough, the friendship Salazar shared with the other founders has always been valued enough to motivate Salazar, even after their fallout. The strongest friendships can become tattered, but in the end, fights had never ruined any of Salazar's friendships with the other founders.
History had a way of becoming warped, twisted, changed beyond all recognition. Salazar Slytherin had left Hogwarts, but he had always returned. Something compared to the present doesn't mean it was uncalled for in the past. Many forgot this.
Blaise Zabini remembered. Salazar Slytherin returned.
The ending is always going to be this – Salazar Slytherin will take what is his and with one of its four defenders back, Hogwarts was never going to fall.
(It ends like this – a boy, moulded to be a soldier, is finally allowed to be a boy, because children should not have to fight in wars made by adults. It ends like this – Hogwarts a home once more, safety and refuge first and foremost, teaching and learning second. It ends like this – the Slytherin house not confined to the shadows, not confined to people carved out of prejudices. It ends like this – Salazar Slytherin taking back the Slytherin name and remaking it into something good.)
(It starts like this – Blaise Zabini disappears halfway through his fifth year and very few people notice.)
Okay, so I think I just really like reincarnation stories, but my problem is I don't have the time currently to take any of them further. I also don't really have many ideas for taking it any further currently. Nonetheless, feel free to message me or comment/review any ideas you have? I'm willing to use people as a sound board as well - even if I take ages to get back to people since I'm mainly over on AO3.