A/N: This was written for the Hogwarts Games: Mountain Biking.

She tied her hair up, a blue band holding the brown locks from her face. Her eyes glared at me, acknowledging my presence. I watched as her deep blue robe swayed around her feet, the royal color of it hypnotizing me.

Rowena is beautiful. There is no denying that. But does she know it? She knows everything. Absolutely everything about anyone and anything. But she goes day in and day out, her eyes blank and her gaze empty.

However, she's stubborn as a root. She, I was told, convinced Godric and Helena to refuse to listen to my propositions about how to change Hogwarts for the better.

My brow rose as I further examined her appearance. She carried in her hand a notebook of regulations for the school to follow, and a second notebook of equations and curriculum for the school to teach.

"Yes, Salazar?" she questioned, her hollow stare piercing through me.

And I thought I was supposed to be the intimidating one of the four.

She thinks she can go questioning why men look at her? Men look at her because she's beautiful. But that was the only fact in the universe that she would fail to comprehend. If only she had shown a bit more interest in my efforts for this school, maybe I would have been the one to tell her how beautiful she really was. Maybe I would have been the one to help her understand more than concrete facts. I'll try one last time, I will. But if I do not succeed...

"I did not ask a question. Nor did I attempt to proceed in a conversation. Perhaps those were precisely your intentions?"

"They were not." She turned her back to me, and walked forward, her robe following behind her.

"I'm leaving, Rowena," I said. I smirked as I watched her diadem nearly tip from her head as she jerked her head behind her.

"What?"

"I'm leaving." Her eyes darted from the tiles to me. We stood in silence. I thumbed at my beard. "Just know that not all of me will be leaving. I will leave something here as a legacy."

"What do you mean?"

I smiled to myself, and turned around. I nearly laughed at my ambiguity. She likely thought I was being sentimental, romantic even.

But I think romance was far from what my implications were. Vengeance, however, is a bit more like it.