Author's Note: Written for...
Hogwarts Assignment #13. Lesson: Elemental Magic. Task: Include the importance of the number five into your story. Prompts: soul, holding an old ritual, Rowena/Salazar
Leaving
582 words
Leaving was hard but necessary. There was no sense in pretending everything was alright enough to stay when he had everyone against him now, even the woman he'd sworn his life to.
Salazar missed the school that had been his home. He missed Godric, who had been his brother in every way that mattered. Occasionally he would even find himself missing Helga, who so often annoyed him with her never ending optimism. But nothing compared to the pain he felt at leaving Rowena behind.
He tried to dull the pain with drink and hide in his work, but the pain only grew until one night it was so unbearable that he knew he wouldn't be able to last another night without seeing her face. But by then some months had passed and he was back in the fen where he'd grown up, millions of miles away from the school. Even by apparation, hopping from point to point across the country, it would have taken days.
There was another option, an old ritual his grandmother had taught him to open one's inner eye and prompt visions. It was a long shot, but he was willing to do anything to see Rowena for just one moment.
He set about getting the necessary soon as he thought of the ritual. He fondly remembered collecting them for his grandmother as a small boy, digging up a bucketful of dirt and fetching marsh water. He did the same now, placing them in a circle he'd drawn on the floor, next to a lit candle and a glass which he'd spelled to hold smoke from the candle. The four elements would grant him limited sight, but it was the fifth item that mattered the most: something that he cared for deeply in order to establish a bond with his soul. Fittingly, he chose the silver locket Rowena had given him as a gift and laid it out on the floor with the other elements. With the five combined, he would be able to see whatever or whomever he wanted.
Surrounded by these powerful beacons, Salazar repeated the incantation and waited for the vision to take hold of him, pulling him into darkness and then light. And when the light faded, there she was, standing atop the highest tower of the castle, overlooking the grounds with pride. Salazar saw her clearly as if he were right beside her, and he watched for as long as she stayed on the tower. He prepared for the vision to end when she turned to go back inside, but as she did so her heavy winter cloak shifted, revealing a noticeable change in the size of her abdomen since the last he'd seen her.
"Impossible," he muttered, watching as she placed a hand to her stomach and went inside.
The vision ended quickly, leaving Salazar alone on the cold floor of his house. With a short jerk of his wand, he sent the smoke and dirt and marsh water from the room and returned the locket to around his neck.
He would need to go back, he knew. The pain he felt at having left Rowena was nothing compared to what he felt now knowing that he'd left her alone while carrying his child. He would leave first thing in the morning and, at best, make it back to the castle in a month's time.
And in the meantime, he would pray that his friends were more forgiving than he would be.