Haunted
Dedicated to Helen (she knows who she is)
for she is the only reason that this got written (at eleven o'clock at night).
I loved you, Salazar.
"It's okay. I forgave you." He pressed hot kisses to her neck. She didn't protest, didn't tell him to stop, but she couldn't look at him either. Because looking would mean remembering that he was dead. And above all else, she didn't want to remember that he was dead. Tears welled up in lily pad green eyes as Rowena stared at the mirror. The mirror was her only addition to the room since his death. She loathed adding it, but it was the only way to banish the madness, the delusions, and keep her sanity in her grief.
"Do you really think a mirror can protect you from me Rowena? Is this your new tactic? I noticed you gave up on the rosary. When will you see Rowena? I am only obliging your wishes; I'm only doing what you want. Why do you insist on pushing me away? Surely, you've realized that death doesn't mean gone." Rowena pushed the black silk skirts away from her body and stood up from the bed. Her favorite brush lay on the vanity in front of the mirror. Sitting down on a stool, she grabbed the silver brush and pulled it through long black hair. She kept her eyes firmly on the inlaid raven on the brush and watched its smooth movements through her hair.
"So now you're ignoring me Rowena. How ironic. That's the point though isn't it Lady Rowena. You chased after me in life and now, in death, I'm forced to pursue you. Is this some petty revenge scheme?" The brush was lifted involuntarily out of Rowena's hands. She closed her eyes in denial, wincing as the brush pulled too hard at her scalp.
"Look at me Rowena!" he hissed, "Look at me. I did not come here so that you could deny my existence. You cursed me here, you will pay you little tramp! I will haunt you until your death, even when you are on your hands and knees begging my forgiveness, I will never give you peace. You can run to Godric like the little slut you are, but he can't protect you. No one can Rowena. Do you hear me! No one can save you." Rowena cried silently as he turned from seductive to angry. Night after night she sat through this, depriving herself of sleep because the dreams were even worse. And she couldn't speak, couldn't protest her innocence, for fear of what acknowledging his presence would cause. There would be no reprieve she feared, and eventually, she would give in and she would beg for him to stop.
"You're crying. Have I made you cry my sweet? Good. Now you know the sorrow I felt when you turned on me. You! My wife! My love! You turned on me and threw your lot in with that pigheaded wretch and his insipid lover. Was it worth it Rowena? Was one night worth this? Being cursed by my presence the rest of your miserable existence?!" Rowena fled the room, her black hair a banner behind her, but his voices faded into still silence. She leaned against the wall, her chest heaving in and out with her exertion. He couldn't leave her… their room. She had discovered that by accident. But she didn't dare use the escape as much as she could for fear he would exert himself and project himself into another room. He was a very powerful wizard after all.
"Rowena," She wheeled around and looked at Helga's concerned face, illuminated by a flickering candle, "what are you doing out so late?" Helga had always been the gentlest of them all. The comforter, she was the one they turned to when the world felt as though it was crumbling down around them. Insipid, ignorant, foolish, condescending, she could hear his words dripping as if he was right there. But Rowena couldn't care less at the moment. He wasn't there, and at the moment all Rowena could see was Helga's expression, wishing that Rowena would just open up and all Helga to help her.
In seconds, Helga held the sobbing woman in her arms. The candle gently floating toward the ground, as Helga bent her knees slowly bringing Rowena and her to the ground. Helga petted Rowena's hair, but said nothing, only waiting for Rowena to speak or to cease crying, whichever happened first.
"I can see him Helga. I can hear his voice, yelling at me, begging to know why I did it. He torments me Helga, and I can't send him away." Rowena whispered. Helga closed her eyes, sympathizing with Rowena's grief. There was no need to ask who he was. She already knew. And she had already guessed that he was using the afterlife to drive Rowena crazy. The poor thing looked like she hadn't gotten any sleep in weeks. Helga stood up and headed toward Rowena's chambers. With a start, Rowena followed her, looking down and desperately regretting running into Helga.
"Why haven't you passed on? Why are you insisting on tormenting her?" Helga asked the seemingly empty room. She was greeting with a familiar laugh.
"So the little whore brought in her friend. Too much of a coward to face me on your own Rowena? You'll regret interfering Hufflepuff. She deserves everything I do to her after what she did to me." Helga could hear the venom in his voice.
"She did nothing to you. She didn't betray you. You were wrong, and she knew it. You should never have put her in that position to choose. Now leave her."
"Or what? You'll get Gryffindor to come do battle with a ghost. I would enjoy that. Go fetch him. Come bring that bastard to his death. For surely, you don't believe I could be killed by that imbecile." Rowena winced as she felt his gaze turn on her. "And as for you, Delilah, I will not leave until you so desire it."
"Leave her alone!" Helga shouted vehemently. Laughter rang in the vaulting tower room.
"Oh Helga, you cannot banish me so easily. She must make her own decision. She must make me leave, Helga. Ask her to banish me. She cannot. She desires this, don't you Rowena." Rowena didn't lift her, didn't make any attempt to brush aside the tears in her eyes, didn't move. Helga was almost sure that Rowena would never say anything, never stop this internal torment. But Rowena raised her head and stared at his ghost with tearful green eyes.
"I loved you, Salazar."
Flashback
"We have to attack them Godric. We can't just let them get away with this. They have crossed the line. We have done everything to keep peace with them, and they've gone and killed our students…STUDENTS Godric, not even capable of defending themselves. This is a test; they will come and attack the rest of the school. We should destroy them before they attack us again. I will not have the blood of innocent children on my hands!" Salazar slammed his hands down on the table in front of Godric. Rowena admired his strength, his determination, his devotion to his students, but her mind and heart both knew that this logic was futile. Helga must have already explained it to Godric, for he would never have seen it by himself. However, attacking the Muggles would only give them cause to attack Hogwarts.
"And that would be playing into their hands, Salazar. We attack them and we make the martyrs. No one in the world will care about their poor neighbor, but everyone pays attention to a martyr. We cannot give them further excuse to attack us." Helga said, trying to reason with the distraught man. Rowena shook her head as she sat in her chair, refusing to partake in the discussion. She already knew that there was nothing they could say to Salazar to make him change his mind. After all, it had been three Slytherins who had been killed by the pitchfork and torch carrying Muggles who lived in the village on the other side of the Lake. The whole thing had been an accident waiting to happen. This was why Salazar had been so set against taking wizards born to Muggle parents. "They just wouldn't understand." He had explained to her. Rowena bowed her head.
"Keep your excuses, Helga. I knew you hated the Slytherin house and my ideas, but I didn't know that this dislike could carry so far that even when children, children, are killed you refuse to budge. Just because they are of a different house, you forsake them and allow those responsible to go free. I will avenge their deaths…with or without your help." Salazar stormed from the room, only stopping to grab Rowena's arm and pull her to her feet. Rowena sat promptly down and looked at Salazar mournfully.
"Rowena?" he asked, incredulously, with a tint of fear and anxiety in his tone. Rowena closed her eyes to brace herself for his temper, but soon she stood.
"They are right Salazar. If you just waited, let it settle, you would see they are right. I understand your agony, loosing your students who are so precious to you, but I cannot with good conscience allow you to put the rest of the school at risk if you go through with this plan. I cannot follow you, Salazar." Rowena knew she had lost him when she mentioned the dead students, and tried to grab his arm before he pushed her away. He stepped back, looking at her with hurt and disbelief shinning from his eyes, the only part of him that revealed any emotion. Rowena felt as though he was piercing her heart with daggers instead of his gaze.
"Salazar." She entreated feebly. Salazar shook himself, taking several steps back.
"Agony? You know nothing of how I feel Rowena. Nothing! I should have seen this; Godric seduced you into betraying me. I loved you Rowena, I loved you. Obviously that was not enough. As I am nothing to you, now you are nothing to me. You are no longer my wife." And with that, Salazar stormed out of the room, out of the castle, and out of Rowena's heart. Too soft for him to hear, Rowena muttered.
"SALAZAR!" Rowena's skirts and cape billowed behind her, tangling around her feet and making it almost impossible to navigate her way to the shore side where Salazar had gone down. She had watched the entire thing from the Ravenclaw Tower. Salazar had gone out with the entire Slytherin house to attack the Muggles. Godric had led a pack of fifth, sixth, and seventh year Gryffindors to attempt to stop the attack on the Muggles. Rowena had watched as Godric had engaged Salazar into battle, determined to delay the inevitable. Rowena hadn't even noticed she was crying until the tears had fallen on her hands. Helga had stayed behind to watch Rowena, a request from Godric when he noticed how thin Rowena had become.
When Salazar had gone down, shot by an arrow that couldn't have come from any other source than the Muggle village, Godric had screamed for the wizard children to run to the castle where there was relative safety. Rowena only saw Salazar stagger with the impact and fall to the ground. She didn't even realize that she had run down from the tower all the way to the front entrance until she had run into the door, and than tumbled down the stairs, ripping the lace hem from her dress.
"SALAZAR!" She screamed, before Godric grabbed her around the waist, determined to send her back to the castle rather than permit her to die in cross fire trying to get to Salazar. Rowena screamed again, banging her wrists on Godric's arms in an attempt to release his grip on her.
"Stop it Rowena, have some sense. You go done there and you'll be shot down just as quickly."
"I have to go to him, Godric! Let me go! He needs me! I love him!" Rowena cried, because some part of her knew that it was a lost battle, pitting Godric's and Rowena's physical strength against each other. Godric shook his head at Rowena's irrational behavior. If Salazar had said what he had to Godric, Godric would never have been able to come after him the way Rowena was. Still, he had to keep Rowena safe, or Salazar would never forgive him.
"SALAZAR!"
Helga had never been one for research. The books that she never had time to dust made her sneeze, and Rowena's organization system was unintelligible, and she got very annoyed if a book was out of place. It was easier to ignore Rowena's books and ask the woman herself if a tidbit of information was required. But Helga resorted to actual resource because Rowena had been a wreck since Salazar's death. Helga believed it had less to do with the fact that Salazar was dead and more to do with the way they had last parted. Helga could have kicked Godric for not permitting Rowena to go to Salazar's body at the battlefield. Rowena was a full-grown witch and quite capable of taking care of herself and now Rowena was acting the part of a wraith. She stumbled through classes, ate little and mechanically, and locked herself into her room when she was not teaching or eating. Helga had heard multiple times Rowena's sobs from inside her chambers and her students were growing awfully concerned about their Head of House.
So Helga searched amongst the old textbooks of forbidden-to-students magic and searched for a spell that would allow Rowena to communicate to Salazar and get the forgiveness needed for Rowena to move on. Helga was divided on the idea that she would ever find the solution. It was quite possible that there wasn't one and that Rowena would be forced to forgive herself and pray that Salazar did as well. Somehow, Helga doubted that Salazar would be so easy to forgive. But Helga continued her search despite all that, and was eventually rewarded with a ritual that would bring a person temporarily back. It would only last twelve hours, but Helga decided that that should be enough for Rowena to say what was needed to Salazar. Helga copied the page, and began to make sure that all the ingredients necessary where there. She wasn't sure if Rowena would perform the spell, but Helga decided it was best to make sure she could, if she did.
Rowena examined the alter and made sure that everything was correct. She wasn't sure that this would work, but desperation and the desire to please her worried friend caused her to make the attempt the night Helga had slipped the ritual under her door. Rowena had made perfect note that the summoner had to dismiss the summoned at the end of the spell, and that the slightest mistake could have unknown but grave consequences. But Rowena knew what she had to do, so she hurried into the ritual.
"So you called me back into existence. Couldn't stand the guilt of betraying me? Or was it that Godric wasn't enough to sate you and you desired me back. Too late, Rowena, you killed me when you refused to join me to kill the Muggles. Didn't I tell you that they would attack us given the chance?" Salazar smirked. Exhausted, pale, and feeling painfully shattered, Rowena had no strength to protest. She barely had the strength to breathe out his name before passing out to the ground. Salazar stared at her collapsed form, and after waiting for her spirit for a few moments to decide she was not dead, he moved from the stone floor to their bed only a few feet away. He should have ranted and raved at her, but Salazar was captured by her shallow breathing and remembered that he still loved her, even if she was torturing him. As she turned in her sleep, Salazar thought he heard her whisper his name.
Rowena had discovered that something had gone wrong when Salazar was still there when she awoke. Having not dismissed him before the twelve hours were up, Salazar was now permitted to stay, for it seemed, as long as he pleased. And nothing pleased him more then his seductive torment of his living wife. Rowena sat there, hiding the tears, wishing to explain, but unable to fight. She refused to acknowledge him, figured out he couldn't leave the room, wept and shouted at him, but was unable to force him to leave. Perhaps, she had thought, she just didn't want him to leave.
End Flashback
"I loved you, Salazar." Rowena whispered, looking up into his onyx eyes. Salazar stared at her, disbelief and suspicion littering his expression. Then he softened.
"And I loved you. What terrible things we do in the name of love. Shall we end this farce?" Salazar held out his hand. Rowena's eyes closed half way, the room swimming around her. She reached her hand out to touch his, but recoiled at Helga's shout.
"Rowena, no! Don't listen to him, this is not the way. You shouldn't torment her so, Salazar!" Helga accused him. Salazar's arm dropped as he turned to face the irate woman.
"Hardly torment Helga, it seems paradise. Or do you fail to notice how Rowena has gotten to thin, her looks ravaged prematurely. One could say that what you give her, life itself is torment." Salazar spoke softly. Rowena's vision swam, but she saw enough to grab Salazar's arm, the first time she had touched him in this form.
Helga protested, but by then it was too late. The two of them were already gone; the only thing left was Rowena's voice echoing in the room. And even that would fade, leaving nothing but a memory that would rot away in time. Or maybe not, Helga thought hearing the words reverberate around the room, after all, if love had conquered death…why not time as well. It seems a much simpler thing to defeat.
"I loved you, Salazar."