I sit quietly in the Slytherin Common Room, staring into the hearth. My pet adder, Nyx, is coiled in front of the fire. I wonder why my father hasn't remembered my birthday today. I suppose it's rather selfish, but my birthday only comes once a year.

Salazar Slytherin strides confidently into the common room, a wide grin on his face. His elaborately embroidered green robes sweep behind him. I look up from the fire, elated. He hasn't forgotten!

He sits down next to me and says, "Happy sixth birthday, Adalinda!" I beam.

"I have many presents for you, I hope you'll love them all. Your sixth birthday is special, as is your seventh. I'd like to think that you are mature enough to handle all that I will tell you right now, and not on your seventh birthday. Do you think you won't overreact, Adalinda?"

"Yes, father," I say, without showing any emotion. I know he loves me more than anyone, but he hates when I overreact. He treats me like an adult, for all the fact that I'm six. I wonder what's so important that I can't wait to know until my seventh birthday, the magical birthday.

"Now, your first present may sound tedious and boring, but I think you'll like it. Me, with other Slytherin pureblood students, are going to teach you to read and write. You talk very well, but you must know how to read already to go to Hogwarts." I nod. He doesn't know it, but I've always wanted to learn to read. I've actually privately asked Slytherin students to teach me the basics, so whatever my father teaches me now shouldn't really be too hard.

"Your second present is this," he says, pulling out a simple cloak. "You may be wondering what use you have for a cloak, especially one this big for you. It's an Invisibility Cloak, so you can roam the halls of Hogwarts." I take the cloak gingerly from his large hands, looking at it in wonder.

"I also have one more gift, one that I hope you will use for the rest of your years until you reach age 11." He waves his wand, cherry wood with a dragon heartstring core, and a doorway appears in the back of the common room. "It is a room, directly underneath the Black Lake. Now, instead of living in a secret room near my quarters, you will live here, amongst others nearer to your age. However, the door is only known to people either you or I tell, and cannot be seen otherwise. I hope you like the furnishings, you may tell me if you would like a change in decoration." At this, I can't contain myself. I reach out and hug him tight. He gives me a slight smile, lifts me off him, and sets me on the couch beside him again.

"Now, for this story I'm going to tell you, you must be very mature. You mustn't overreact. Most would disagree, but I think you are old enough to hear this. Do you promise not to do anything rash?" I nod eagerly, wondering why I would need to be mature to hear a story.

"Six years ago, in the year 1000, the Ministry of Magic granted Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and me a large area of land and instructed us to build a school of magic. We wanted to clear the area of Muggles and wizards alike so we could use it for schooling and the keeping of magical creatures. Now the Dark Forest lies on that land. Then, however, it was inhabited by many farms, owned mostly by wizards. The other founders had a huge debate about how to get the people off the land. I decided to take matters into my own hands, and solve my own little problem at the same time.

"You see, a few weeks earlier, I had bragged to Godric Gryffindor about my abilities as a Parselmouth. I said that I had chosen a snake to be my symbol because I could speak Parseltongue. To this day, he believes it to be true. However, I am not a Parselmouth. I found a baby snake, an adder, one day, abandoned and alone. I quickly snapped its mouth shut temporarily with a handy spell I created, and picked it up." When he says this, I look at my own adder, twining around my hand.

"I took the adder to all the houses, looking for a Parselmouth. Any babies born in the year 1000 I took into my custody, erasing the parents' memory of that child and forcing them to move off the land without a memory of having lived there. Imagine my disappointment when none took to the snake. Then I found a child, a baby almost like any other. She had bright, happy emerald eyes. I held the snake up to her, and, unlike the other babies, she did not shrink away. She laughed, and the baby adder cuddled with the human baby happily. Then I tried to take that baby away from her family. I quickly erased the parents memory, but her brother, then four years old, fought. He bit my finger almost clean off, and then ran as I nursed it. His memory wasn't erased. He might yet live, plotting revenge. I might never know." An absurd idea forms in my head. The adder, the year, the eyes. They all add up, but I cannot bring myself to believe it.

"I told the other founders that their information was false. I told them the houses had been abandoned and the people relocated before the land was given to us, and they believed me. The children I took into my custody now live in the basement of the castle. Most of them are six or seven. They live like any other children, almost like an orphanage with better food. There are maybe twenty. Except one. One of them, that baby girl, has lived with me. I know you're a smart girl. Can you guess who she is?" No. It can't be. It couldn't. He was my father, my mother died in childbirth, my whole life has been here.

"You wouldn't. You couldn't."

"Adalinda, you are of an age—"

"No, I am NOT of an age. I never would have understood this. What did you expect me to say: 'Alright. You erased my parents' memories and almost killed my brother and I love you anyway.' I HATE you. I can't believe I ever called you my father, Professor Slytherin," I yell at him, tears welling in my eyes. I say 'Professor Slytherin' with extra malice, to let him know that I will never call him father again.

I pick up Nyx and turn my back on Slytherin. Then I storm into my room, slam the door, and lock it behind me, finally letting my tears roll down my cheeks in silent sobs.

A/N: Hi everyone. I'm rewriting this story and adding much more detail. I'm also thinking about her character more, and making it slightly more realistic. And don't forget about her brother.

~Rebecca