Tonight, We Are Young

by AStrangeVessel

Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin knew each other long before the founding of Hogwarts. In fact, they'd grown up together. Set during the founders' childhoods and teen years (most likely). (Please disregard the suckiness of this generic plot summary. I'll eventually go in and fix it once I get to writing the finer details of the actual story.)

3. I Never Saw Blue Like That Before

I was so exhausted from running away from my burning home and my family's murders that, after going to bed in my rescuers' manor home, I remained unconscious for days.

When I eventually woke up, I saw a pair of blue eyes staring into my own brown ones. It scared me half to death.

It turned out that the eyes belonged to a dark-haired boy not much older than me. Realizing I was staring at him, he backed away from my face and grinned.

"I found you in here after mummy and daddy brought you here a week ago. I like you. I've been waiting for you to wake up, so you could be my friend. But mummy says I have to ask you to be my friend first."

I heard someone come into the room. It turned out to be the lady of the house, the woman who insisted to her husband that they take me in.

"Mummy! Mummy, look! He's awake!" the boy said, bouncing on his knees while in the bed next to me.

The woman kindly shushed her son as she sat down in a chair next to the bed. "I see that, Salazar." She turned her attention to me and said, "I apologise for my son. He's been rather impatient while waiting for you to recover. We live a rather secluded life, and his younger siblings unfortunately never survived infancy; you can imagine he's been rather lonely."

The woman introduced herself as Lady Slytherin, and her son as eight-year-old Salazar; their family was apparently a prominent Pureblood wizarding family, but they'd been living in seclusion due to increasing Muggle oppression. She then asked if I was feeling well enough to tell the story of how I'd come across her and her husband the week prior.

I started my story. "I'm Godric Gryffindor. I'm six years old. I don't know how long it's been, but I've been on the run since my whole family was killed." I'd told them everything.

"Oh, you poor child! My husband told me that he had heard that your family had died, but he didn't know what had really happened. Everything he'd been told was speculation, even the part where you'd also been killed."

It was that day that Salazar Slytherin became my best friend.

And later that night, once her husband had come home from his position in the rudimentary magical government that had been forming, the Slytherin family had taken me in as their ward.