Chapter 2
"Where's Sal?"
Rowena's eyes narrowed dangerously as she looked up at the sound of the voice she'd grown to truly despise over the last few months.
"Salazar, as I'm sure you know, is teaching fifth year Potions right now," she informed Cordelia with an icy glare.
"Oh yes, of course he is," Cordelia replied with a simpering laugh. "I completely forgot."
"Sure you did," Rowena muttered under her breath.
She'd quickly discovered that Cordelia had not only memorised Salazar's timetable, she had even managed to somehow persuade Godric to alter her own classes around so that more than half of her free periods coincided with Salazar's. Rowena had tried to persuade Godric to change them back to their initial slots, using the moving staircases as the primary reason for her insistence, but he was not to be persuaded.
Cordelia also insisted on calling Salazar Sal, much to Rowena's annoyance. She'd pointed out to her that only she and the other founders ever called him Sal, and Godric and Helga only used the name when they were teasing him, but Cordelia had merely ignored her advice and continued to call him Sal even more frequently.
"I have a letter from his father," Cordelia said with a smile as she sank gracefully onto the couch.
"You shouldn't be reading Salazar's personal correspondence," Rowena said as she held out her hand for the letter. Cordelia moved it out of her reach before she could touch the parchment.
"It's not Salazar's letter, it's mine. I just thought he might like to know all the news from home."
"He received a letter from his mother a couple of days ago," Rowena informed Cordelia loftily. "I'm sure he's already been appraised of anything important."
"Well I think I'll just pop down to the dungeons and see if he can spare a few moments," Cordelia said. "His father has written pages and pages and I don't think I'll be able to cover all the important points over lunch."
"I'll take it to him," Rowena insisted as she snatched the letter from Cordelia's hand. She silently dared her to take it back from her. Cordelia looked for a moment like she might wrestle Rowena to the floor for the letter but her venomous look cleared and she was soon back to her usual falsely charming self.
"I think I'd rather see him personally," Cordelia said with another small laugh. "We just don't seem to have any time alone together."
"Good," Rowena snapped as she marched out of the room. Of course Cordelia hadn't managed to find too much time alone with Salazar, Rowena had done her utmost to make sure of that. Not that it had taken a great deal of effort since Salazar was avoiding Cordelia as determinedly as she was tracking him down.
Rowena arrived at the Potions lab and poked her head round the door. Smoke billowed out into the corridor and Rowena used the letter to try to fan away the more noxious of the fumes.
She stumbled her way through the smoke, her eyes watering more and more with each step she took. She reached the first desk and promptly stubbed her toe on one of the legs.
"Bugger!" she swore.
"Professor Ravenclaw!" chided the student whose desk she had walked into
"Rowena?" Salazar's voice drifted towards her from the far side of the classroom. She tried to aim herself in that general direction but the fumes were becoming worse and she was starting to feel dizzy.
She'd just stumbled over a pile of books that one of the students had left on the floor when she finally saw Salazar heading towards her.
"How can you work in this?" she asked as she tried to waft the smoke away from her.
"You get used to it," Salazar replied with a shrug. "Plus I have this to help me out a little." He pulled a small clear vial on a chain from out of his robes and Rowena immediately recognised the amortentia inside it.
"But the smoke," she said between coughs.
"Well it's not usually quite this bad," Salazar admitted. "The potion we're making today is just a particularly smoky one, and the class is one of the largest we've ever had. Anyway, why are you down here? Is something wrong?"
"You mean besides the usual?" Rowena asked.
"What's she done now?" Salazar asked tiredly as he steered her away from the ears of the far too attentive students.
"She's got a letter from your father." She waved the letter in question for emphasis.
"Good," Salazar muttered. "If he's writing to her it leaves him less time to be bothering me. But why do you have it?"
"I took it off her to stop her coming down here."
"Of course you did." Salazar sighed and took the letter from her outstretched hand. "The usual venomous rubbish I imagine."
Rowena waited patiently as Salazar skimmed through the letter.
"Seems to think Cordelia is going to be his daughter-in-law by this time next year," Salazar commented with a snort.
"Is there anything in the letter I'm going to want to hear?" Rowena asked.
"It's from my father, what do you think?"
"Is there anything in it I should be worried about?"
"Other than the possibility of senility running in the family?" Salazar asked with a grin.
Finally he reached the end of the letter and passed it back to Rowena with a grimace. "I imagine you'll want to take this back to Cordelia?"
"Not really."
"You'd prefer me to deliver it to her?"
"I'll take it back to her right away."
Salazar grinned at the easy manipulation of Rowena who was at her most predictable when she was jealous. Of course she was also at her most amusing at these times as well.
He watched her disappear back within the smoky fumes from the students' cauldrons and turned to the nearest table to see how the students there were progressing with their potion.
He dimly heard the sound of a thud from somewhere out of sight but it wasn't until several students started to call for him that he realised it wasn't the usual clumsiness of a student dropping books or a cauldron that had made the noise.
He hurried towards the sound of the voices and saw several students crowded around Rowena who was out cold on the floor.
"What happened?" he asked as he checked whether she was still breathing. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realised that she'd only fainted.
"I don't know," the boy at the nearest desk replied. "She was waving some parchment at the smoke as she walked past and then suddenly she was on the floor."
"I guess the fumes were a little much for her," Salazar said as he gathered her into his arms. "Class is nearly over anyway. Place your potions on my desk for marking and then hurry to lunch. I'll take Professor Ravenclaw to the hospital wing."
Madam Gudgeon was looking rather harassed when Salazar arrived at the hospital wing. Apparently a major collision on the Quidditch pitch had resulted in the admission of four students with various cuts and bruises and two more with broken bones.
Salazar placed the still unconscious Rowena carefully onto one of the few remaining spare beds as he waited for the healer's attention.
"I think she's just fainted," Salazar said as Madam Gudgeon hurried past. "I'll wait with her until you're free. You carry on sorting out that lot."
Madam Gudgeon nodded as she set about mending the broken bones. She'd certainly improved in her healing in the last few years, probably through the many hours of practice that the students provided her with. Her misdiagnoses were getting fewer and fewer and although she still got a little shaky around serious injuries that involved blood she hadn't fainted at the sight of them in almost a year.
Rowena came round well before Madam Gudgeon was free and she looked around in surprise at her surroundings.
"How did I get here?" she asked as she rubbed her head.
"You fainted," Salazar replied. "Back in the Potions classroom. Don't you remember?"
Rowena frowned in concentration. "I remember the fumes and the smoke were really bad in there and…"
"And you fainted."
"What time is it?" Rowena asked. "I'm supposed to be teaching Transfiguration right after lunch."
"It's still the lunch hour. You've not been out of it for that long."
"Oh good. Well now I'm all better let's head downstairs for something to eat."
"Not until Iris has looked you over," Salazar insisted as he put out an arm to prevent her from rising from the bed.
"But I feel fine," Rowena said. "It was just those fumes and the smoke…it was just a bit much."
"You're still going to be checked over so you might as well stop whining about it. I'll put you under a full body bind if I have to."
"You wouldn't dare!"
"You know very well that I would."
Rowena folded her arms and sat back with a sulky expression on her face to wait for Madam Gudgeon to tell her she was free to go. She sincerely hoped that she wouldn't be missing lunch entirely. It was all right for Salazar, he had a free period right after lunch – along with Cordelia – but she had a class to teach.
Salazar leaned back against the tree near the edge of the lake. The water was shimmering in the moonlight and it was unseasonably warm for the time of year.
Rowena was pacing back and forth along the edge of the lake. She stopped every few minutes to sigh and mutter under her breath.
"How did this happen?" she asked for the tenth time.
"Would you like me to draw you a diagram?" Salazar asked with a smirk.
"That's not what I meant and you know it," Rowena snapped. "Why now? After all this time?"
"Are you really that upset about it?" Salazar asked quietly. "You're not even the tiniest bit happy?"
Rowena turned round and sank onto the grass next to him. "It's just that I thought that…" Her voice trailed off, she was reluctant to put her thoughts into words but knew that she didn't really need to. Salazar could read her far too well.
"Are you going to write and tell your parents?" Salazar asked instead of following up on her unspoken words.
"Heavens no!" Rowena exclaimed. "They can find out through the usual channels of gossip, the same way I found out that Grandma Ravenclaw had passed away. They'll just add it to their long list of things I've done to disgrace the good name of the family. Are you going to tell your parents?"
"I'll write to my mother and tell her. She can tell my father. He'll no doubt react in his usual predictable way."
"What do you think you're mother's going to say?" Rowena asked. Out of all the Slytherin relatives she'd met over the years the only one who would give her the time of day was Salazar's mother, Katelyn Slytherin. Sometimes she actually thought the older woman approved of her, maybe even liked her. Salazar was sure she did which went a long way to convincing her as well.
"She'll be pleased," Salazar assured her with a smile. Rowena looked at him doubtfully. "Why wouldn't she be?" he added.
"I don't know," Rowena replied. "I doubt anyone else will be. Godric will probably be furious."
"It's none of Godric's business," Salazar snorted.
"He'll say it'll give the school a bad reputation…just you watch. He'll have something to say about it!"
"Godric can rant and fume as much as he likes," Salazar said. "He'll get over it. And Helga won't mind."
"I guess…"
"Stop worrying so much about what everyone else is going to think or say," Salazar ordered. "What about you? Are you happy?"
"I don't know," Rowena admitted truthfully. "I think I'm still in shock."
"Well I'm pleased," Salazar assured her. "And I don't care about anyone else's opinion except yours."
"I'm sure we'll find out everyone else's opinion pretty soon. They'll say a lot and think even more," Rowena muttered.
"Well if anyone says anything to upset you, just tell me and I'll go silence them with a nice effective curse or two."
Rowena smiled. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad. "I don't mind you writing to your mother, but can we not tell anyone else just yet though?" she asked. "Just for a few days?"
"I've already asked Iris to keep quiet," Salazar confirmed.
Rowena breathed a sigh of relief.
"They'll find out eventually though," Salazar pointed out.
"I know," Rowena said as she looked out towards the lake. "I just need time to get used to the idea before I have to deal with all the sneering and gossip."
Two mornings later the secret came out in a way neither of them had anticipated or imagined.
"That's a howler," Rowena said as the Slytherin family owl landed on the table in front of Salazar.
"My father's handwriting," Salazar said as he glared at the envelope. "I'll go open it somewhere out of the way," he whispered.
"Oh is that from your father?" Cordelia asked with a bright smile as she approached the breakfast table. "What a pretty colour of parchment though wouldn't green be more appropriate?"
"No!" Rowena shouted as Cordelia reached for the howler and casually opened it.
"SALAZAR SLYTHERIN, YOU FOOLISH BOY!" the howler echoed round the room and the eyes of all the staff and students turned to the high table. "HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID AS TO GET THAT SILLY LITTLE HUSSY KNOCKED UP! DON'T THINK I'M GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND ABOUT YOU MARRYING HER EITHER. YOU'LL MARRY THAT PUSHY LITTLE STRUMPET OVER MY DEAD BODY! YOUR MOTHER'S DISTRAUGHT AT THE NEWS. IT'D SERVE YOU RIGHT IF I DISINHERITED YOU RIGHT NOW! AND DON'T IMAGINE FOR ONE MOMENT I'M GOING TO BE WRITING SOME RAVENCLAW SPAWN INTO MY WILL EITHER!"
"Oops," Cordelia said with a nervous smile around the room. "I didn't realise it was one of those letters. I've never received one myself."
Rowena was torn between throttling the woman standing on the other side of the table and running from the room. Thankfully she was saved from making the decision by Salazar who had the foresight to grab her arm and steer her into quiet of the antechamber.
