EmeraldSeaFrost: I hope you'll be happy to note that they're alive and well.
Wild-one08: Thank you! That's exactly what I was going for.
Veronik: Thanks for your vote of confidence.
Fire Dolphin: Here it is!
Dsjfr1190: Thanks for your review, but whether I establish Harry/Ginny is utterly my prerogative. My plans will not be altered by your active interest in my stories; that is, please appreciate that while I write to please my readers, I am at complete liberty to weave the plot in the way that tickles my fancy. However, I suppose it is fortunate for your viewing pleasure that HG isn't my favourite ship either.
Ravenclaw: I've updated =D
Kirsten: blushes Thank you.
Illeanah: Thanks! I hope you like this chapter, too.
Socdel: Thanks for your review.
A Father's Sin
Chapter 1 Slytherin
"It is not flesh and blood but the heart that makes us fathers and sons." - Johann Schiller
They had argued again.
He had lost his temper and she had cried.
Presently, she was lost in her broodings by her customary thinking spot in the remotest of corners in her private quarters. There were bay windows here, through one of which her unseeing eyes stared listlessly out into the night.
The moonlight slanted in through the glass and clashed discordantly against her pale skin. She looked ashen, almost gray in the white-washed light. There was no expression on her face to lessen the severity of her appearance.
As she nursed the cup of chrysanthemum tea and its saucer in her hands, the glassware clattered and grated against each other gracelessly. She noticed, then, with a touch of indifference that her fingers were trembling.
It had all become something of a sadistic routine.
Two years into her married life, she had not spent a day without regretting her decision.
Back then, everything had fallen deceitfully into place. He had proposed to her, and she had accepted. Who was she to refuse this handsome, affluent and influential man?
But the true selling point had been that he sincerely loved her and still did. And that was all that would matter, she had thought. Her mother's personal mantra was that the man who loved you could make you happy in the way that the man you loved would not.
She had never known the sage matriarch to stand corrected.
Until now.
Her shakily exhaled breath disturbed the steadily ascending steam from her tea, and the hands raising the cup to her lips faltered in their actions.
Below, a tall hooded figure disrupted the still and tranquil scene of Hogwarts' grounds. The man's smooth, powerful gait was not lost on her; it was one that she could recognize a mile away.
Though they were not nearly on the best of terms, the figure was, after all, her husband and long time friend before that.
It had been this past attachment that she had clung to with every fibre of her being. Time and time again she had consoled herself, deluded herself into thinking their marriage harmonious, by recalling all the good memories that they'd shared as children.
But no longer.
As scandalized as the wizarding society would be, she would divorce herself from this man and… and then what?
She had had grand goals of academic and societal achievements as a child; in the centre of that plan, however, were a happy marriage and a family. Fiercely intelligent and almost deplorably dedicated to her studies, she had honed herself to become the kind of woman she'd envisioned herself to be in her childhood aspirations and had thus become what she was today.
Turned out, she had succeeded in everything but the very core of it all.
How could she have been so foolish and naïve?
Her hands revived themselves once more and she sipped carefully on her tea, eyes still trained on the lone figure of her husband that plunged through the unruly forest's periphery.
He would not return for a while yet, and when he did, she would break things off for good.
Eyes flickering closed, she tore herself away from the window to settle with outwardly calm onto a nearby chair.
She needn't worry over him begging her to stay.
Salazar Slytherin would never even entertain the idea of groveling. Even for her.
Besides, once he caught wind of what she had done–the horrible crime that she had committed against him–he would no longer covet her presence anyway.
Rowena's lips curled upwards, bitterly and mirthlessly. The numb smile ill-suited her delicate features.
And she sat in the shadows, wallowing in her cold uncertainty as she waited, the heavy ticking of the magical clock pounding the seconds by until her husband's return.
. . .
Salazar Slytherin was furious.
Women, he thought, as he drew his sword to fell the offending branch of a wayward pine, were the most infuriating, conniving, manipulative….
He sent an acromantula skidding into the nearest bush with a well-placed snarl.
Cloak bellowing out behind him, he sheathed his sword and stalked towards the heart of the forest. The shadows themselves pulled away from his crackling aura and bushes parted as he spread his magic ahead of him to fashion himself an unobstructed path.
He knew exactly where he wanted to be, and it wasn't here at Hogwarts where his wife was fuming in her self-righteous anger.
So when his senses detected that he'd exceeded the extent of Hogwarts' apparation barrier, a sigh of relief brushed past his parted lips. He thrust his magic forward, the image of his manor in mind, to temporarily disable the protective wards around his own residence in preparation for his return.
A moment later, he found his feet connecting gently with the pristine marble floor of his study.
The room was just as he had left it when he had departed for Hogwarts at the beginning of term. The house elves knew to clean around, above, and below the items in the chamber.
Salazar Slytherin, after all, was a precise man, and his manor reflected that; nothing was to change without his express permission.
Yet even this familiarity failed to reassure him as it always did.
The solace that he had believed would be rendered upon his arrival dissipated without a fight, and his mind continued to summersault uncontrollably within itself, still frustrated and restless.
It was with this inability to quell his frothing despair that had him on the move again, pushing aside the opulent double doors into the hallway where he promptly followed a winding, richly carpeted path towards the dueling room several floors below.
The fire swaying in the torches hissed as he passed, as if bowing in welcome at his return. Paintings hushed their murmur in solemn respect.
He slowed by a stone door inlaid with protective, intricate runes only long enough to roughly shed his traveling cloak. At his unspoken command, the door groaned apart to reveal the dueling hall.
His father had trained in these walls, and his grandfather before him. This was where the Slytherin men had perfected their dueling skills, one of the many aptitudes for which they were revered and lauded.
Charcoal grey eyes traced the accustomed space as he settled in the centre of the cavernous chamber and slid into a meditative stance. Eyelashes fluttered closed then snapped back open. A faint tingling at the edge of his senses had made him pause.
Severe eyebrows creased in astonishment as Salazar felt the wards around his manor press inwards.
Something was seeking its way in.
And not knowing what in existence could penetrate the wards his forefathers had established, he was momentarily stunned by the sheer impossibility of the situation until a burst of blinding light jerked him free of his chagrinned musings.
With his wand already trained on the intruding source, Salazar let his magic flare forward to assess the threat. It was only when he noted with no sparse amount of askance that his impromptu visitor had a benign aura did he allowed himself to relax enough to blink away the vestiges of the light still dancing in his eyes.
The tidal wave of energy and light had been extinguished instantaneously, leaving a lone traveler in their wake.
Salazar visibly gathered himself and flicked his wand to levitate the small, squirming bundle towards him.
It was crying, he observed with mounting alarm. Why was it crying?
When the infant floated close enough for him to peer over what was in his opinion a ghastly shade of periwinkle blankets, charcoal grey eyes narrowed to search the child's face in the poorly lit chamber.
The baby blinked guilelessly at him in the darkness, the tears pooled around his eyes already forgotten as his face broke into a disarming, toothless smile.
The Slytherin could only stare in incredulous stupefaction. This was what had broken past defences that had guarded the Slytherin manor for centuries? A mere babe?
The infant must have been impatient at his lack of response because he gurgled pleasantly in what Salazar hazarded to be a greeting.
Just then, the clouds parted in the sky beyond the windows, admitting through a shaft of wane moonlight that slithered into the room and illuminated the child's face.
Salazar took sight of the boy's eyes in an instant and the cold wizard could not begrudge himself a slow, albeit reluctant smile.
However displeasing the colour scheme of the child's blanket, the boy had beautiful eyes – deep and bright and so intensely emerald that they sparkled with a light of their own.
. . .
A smile to her lips, Rowena sighed with a contentedness and warmth that she had not even realized that she'd missed until now.
Her emphatic eyes swirled with affection as they gazed fixedly into the face of the slumbering infant. The babe himself was swathed in blankets that she had had custom-made and placed in a crib several hours earlier that evening.
She stood vigil beside him ever since.
There was no need for her presence, of course; the child was simply sleeping and only that. But if he awoke crying, she desired with an unnatural, overwhelming pang to be there to appease him.
She could not believe that only a few weeks had been sufficient make one so attached to another being, however special and adorable that other was.
Yet here she was. Here they were.
Salazar had presented the infant to her the night of their vicious, turbulent disagreement. When the man had returned to the quarters they shared at Hogwarts, a bundle nestled with uncharacteristic tenderness in his arms, Rowena had realized the change in atmosphere immediately.
Her determination to end their relationship had instantly obliterated with just one glance into the child's eyes.
They had mutually agreed to raise him as their own, possessed and giddied by the future that the child promised.
And she had decided to give the relationship another go. Perhaps she could salvage her dream of having a family after all.
She was, after all, a high-achiever.
Pulling herself away from the newly furnished nursery in the Slytherin manor, Rowena traipsed down the hall towards Salazar's chambers. She gently pushed the door ajar and entered the sleeping quarters of her husband, a discomfiting weight in her mind as she scanned the room.
She had never encountered a more austere, self-disciplined man.
His bedroom was practical and served its purpose. There was a bed covered with silken sheets in surgical neatness, a shelf of various books, an exquisitely gilded mahogany desk with neatly arranged paperwork and a lone window shaded with green and silver-trimmed curtains.
The items were few in number and simple to a fault, though undisputedly upscale and elegant.
They had not shared the same sleeping quarters since their marriage had been on the rocks, and she inhaled the subtle, masculine and unsettlingly foreign scent of her husband that lingered in the air.
It was oddly electrifying.
Before she could renege on her own decision, she took off her outer nightgown and pressed herself onto the silken sheets of his bed. Her eyes closed reluctantly.
Sleep had almost taken her when the door to his room opened once more, and the figure of her husband framed the doorway, silhouetted by the dim torchlight in the halls.
She propped herself up on her arms and slowly–hesitantly–raised herself. Trepidation gnawing at her pounding heart, she shouldered off the thin straps of her gown.
His face was inexplicable.
"Salazar," She breathed, "Come to bed."
Neither spoke in the silence that ensued, and his charcoal eyes never left her face. Something akin to comprehension danced across the fine angles of his features and with an almost inaudible sigh, he stepped forward and closed the door behind him.
In one swift motion, he had her trapped in his arms, and they kissed with awkward fervor in the darkness.
Her lips, Salazar would never forget, were cold.
. . .
"Master Viridis! Master, where are you?"
The middle-aged retainer with scraggly blond hair and weary gray eyes doubled over his knees in defeat. He inhaled greedily and nursed the stitch in his side. As young as he was by wizarding standards, he felt nearly twice his age each time the first-born Slytherin ran him through the gutter like this.
Why couldn't he have been put in charge of managing the younger of the two Slytherin children, who was only six and couldn't escape nearly as swiftly?
Ah, but Master Filius would also grow, and he would soon be eight, just as Master Viridis was now. Then, he would be the one enjoying the suffering of Filius' retainer. He couldn't wait until the tables were turned. Until then…
"Master Viridis? Please, where are you?"
Oh sod it, he sighed in exasperation: when Viridis was determined to do something, not even Master Slytherin senior could stop him. Shade chalked it up to a lost cause and headed for the manor, head hanging as he imagined relaying to Mistress Rowena that Master Viridis had fallen off the face of his radar.
Again.
. . .
"Now listen, Filius. This is a basilisk egg. It's almost ready to hatch so you don't go near it, you hear?"
"Basiliss?'
Viridis grinned at his young companion and patted his unkempt mane fondly, "Basilisk."
Filius' tongue floundered as he continued to stare down at the egg with the same fascination as did his brother.
The egg quivered just as it had been for the past day or so, and by now, all that trembling was not as impressive as it had been initially to the impatiently waiting boys.
Filius grumbled each time the egg settled back to its dormant state after a bout of shivering.
"Viriiiiiidis, how long 'til the basiliss comes out?"
"Basilisk," He reminded his brother, distractedly, "and I estimate another half-hour should do it."
The younger boy pulled out his lower lip in a show of discontent but shuffled closer to his brother just in case, as another superficial crack joined its brethren on the surface of the spherical, oversized egg.
"This one's going to be an impressive one, I can already tell. And like I said, Filius, don't look into its eyes when it hatches. Young basilisks aren't yet lethal, but one glance into its eyes will knock you out like a stupefy would for a few hours."
Filius scrunched up his button nose but nodded, "Mhm."
True to Viridis' prediction, the egg began to shudder violently until the crevices on the surface deepened and yielded with an audible crack just thirty minutes later.
The brothers watched with bated breath, and Filius ducked his head to avoid the squirming creature's glassy stare, just as he had promised.
Viridis, however, persisted, his eyes fixated with inexorable intensity on that of the snake.
For an untold second, neither seemed ready to submit until Viridis opened his mouth and hissed. The basilisk swayed momentarily as if it were as mystified as Filius was, then willingly extracted itself from the remains of its previous home to coil around Viridis' proffered hand.
"Viridis?" Filius tentatively lifted his head and watched the exchange, confused and frightened for his brother's physical and now mental well-being. As always, however, he trusted Viridis implicitly, and if his brother said he knew what he was doing, then he did.
A victorious grin dusting his lips, Viridis clasped the younger boy reassuringly on the shoulder.
"We did it," He said – and promptly fainted.
. . .
"I'm sorry, mother."
"Viridis Merlin Slytherin, what have I told you about experimenting with dangerous animals?" Rowena glowered down at her oldest son who was currently occupying his own bed and being injected with every known healing and pepper-up potion under the sun.
She reached forward to lay a tender hand on his forehead to check his temperature, contrary to her stern words.
"I know, I'm sorry." He turned mournful, wide eyes in her direction.
When she sighed resignedly, he knew that he had her.
"Should there ever be a repeat performance of such reckless behavior, I will have your father—oh, I shan't even bother with a reprimand. You've your next exploit already planned out behind that innocent smile of yours," Rowena tapped her son's nose smartly, "Just try to be careful and avoid trouble, especially of the cataclysmic sort. If you give Shade any more grief, that's one month void of dueling and weapon sparring. Am I understood?"
His emerald eyes widened at her threat and he hastened to accept her terms that were as favourable as could be under the circumstances; of course, father would never allow him to skip an entire month's worth of dueling and sparring lessons, but she would certainly make good on her promise to prevent him from attending at least a week of them.
While the disapproving stare of his mother continued to tunnel a hole through his broadly smiling face, he benevolently stroked the slumbering baby basilisk curled around his bicep. He knew father would secretly approve of this adventure.
Satisfied with this conclusion, he leapt from the bed to dab a wet kiss onto his mother's cheek before bolting out of the room to find Filius, who would undoubtedly be pining for news of his older brother.
"Viridis Slytherin, cease your foolish meanderings and march yourself back into bed this instant!"
"No harm done, mother, I'm fully repaired!" He paused just long enough to holler this over his shoulder before sprinting down the hallway and out of sight.
Rowena rebelled futilely against the smile that threatened to break out onto her face. Only her Viridis would manage to make a basilisk submit to his will.
Only Viridis–only her incorrigible son.
. . .
End of chapter 1.
Your reviews make me type faster ;)
Also...
Preview – because you've been patient, and I couldn't resist.
"…..Why can't you be more like – " Her breath hitched as she stopped abruptly, turning away before she could continue.
"What? Why can't I be more like what? Say, it, Rowena. We both know you want to. You wanted to say why I couldn't be more like him – like Gryffindor!"
"Stop, Salazar, I didn't mean – "
"Yes you did mean it, wife," The bottles of wine next to him shattered as he thundered on, "All these years you've been married to me; you wished you were married to him."