Author's Note: Thanks to Sophie for betaing and support. Thanks to Bex and the Hogwarts crew for all the sprints that went into this beast.

Written for...

Hogwarts Assignment #3. Lesson: Muggle Art. Task: write about someone 'dark' or in a dark space encountering something/someone light or hopeful

Hogwarts Auction 2021 - Prompt: Salazar/Molly II (for the lions)

Warnings: sexual themes (fade to black), mentions of witch burning, themes surrounding death and bigotry

just a little too long

5,600 words

"Are you sure you want to do this again?"

Molly nodded quickly, busying herself with adjusting her headscarf. She checked her reflection in the mirror before her, making sure the medieval dress she'd borrowed from the costume department was laced and buttoned properly, and that she'd remembered to switch out of her runners and into the uncomfortably hard, flat shoes.

The man next to her shuffled nervously, his eyes scanning over her body. "It's just… after what happened last time."

She held up a hand to stop him. "I knew what I was getting into when I joined this department — this division, even. And Uric was a sweetheart. It's not his fault his pets didn't like me."

"He kept a jellyfish as a hat, Molly!"

"Well, that is why they called him odd, Darren. Anyway, I completed the interview, didn't I? And Bones has cleared me for another assignment, so…"

Darren sighed, crossing his arms over his standard issue Ministry robes. "I don't like it."

Molly rolled her eyes, pushing past him in the tight room to reach the door. She placed a hand on the knob and turned back to him. "Shall I inform Madam Bones of your direct refusal to follow her orders, or would you like to do that yourself?"

"I'm just looking out for you. Slytherin is nasty."

"He's a man; same as any other. I can handle him. Now, give me the Time Turner, or I'm getting out of this corset."

Begrudgingly, Darren handed over the small, golden device on a chain.

Without a second thought, Molly threw the chain around her neck and began turning the hourglass.

:-:

She had hoped to get to see Hogwarts in its heyday when she took this assignment, but alas, interviewing Salazar Slytherin in his dying days meant traversing to the north of England and locating a secluded cabin built in a thick forest. It had taken her weeks of research to even learn of the existence of said cabin. Suddenly standing before it, the filtered sunlight streaming down on the simple thatched roof, she couldn't help but let herself smile proudly.

Her smile faltered a moment later, as she felt the unmistakable point of a wand digging into her neck.

"I've warded this grove against unwanted intruders. Only those I permit can enter. But I don't know your face. State your name," growled a deep voice in her ear, sending shivers down her back.

"Molly Weasley," she answered in a whisper. She chanced reaching for the wand hidden in her skirts, moving inch by inch to avoid startling her assailant. "I'm here to speak with Salazar Slytherin."

"What for?"

"I have questions for him. I swear, I mean him no harm."

Molly felt the pressure ease from her neck, and she took the chance to slip her hand into the hidden pocket and pull out her wand, holding it down by her side as the man came into view. Molly let out a soft gasp at his appearance. She had assumed, as this was a private grove, that she'd been caught by Slytherin himself. But, as this was meant to be an interview close to his death, she'd expected to find an old man.

The man staring at her suspiciously, wand trained on her head, was thirty at most. Long black hair cascaded over one shoulder. A neatly trimmed beard accentuated his strong jawline. Grey eyes watched her intently, boring into her soul, trying to figure her out. He was much more handsome than the artists did him credit.

"Molly Weasley," he muttered, eyes narrowing. "I do not recognize your name, yet you carry a wand. Not of a notable family, nor one of my students."

"My family is quite well known where I come from, actually." She smiled at him, well aware of what he was trying to deduce, but she wasn't ready to give him that information. "I've been assigned to come here and attempt to ask you a few questions, to be noted for history's sake."

He scoffed, finally lowering his wand. "What does history care about me for? I am nothing, wasting away in these woods."

"You are one of the founders of the world's best wizarding school. Your name will be known for generations to come, and yet so much is still a mystery. Do we not owe it to the future to lay out our lives so there are no questions left unanswered?"

Slytherin quirked an amused eyebrow at her. "'No questions left unanswered?' An obviously learned woman in pursuit of knowledge? You remind me of an old friend."

Molly tried not to let her pleasure at the compliment show, at the risk of insulting her host. "Then you're aware of the lengths I'm willing to go to for my cause? I don't intend to go home empty-handed, sir."

He broke eye contact, rolling his eyes to the sky and heaving a long sigh. "Well, you might as well come in, then." He turned to the cabin swiftly, whipping his hair as he went. Giddy at having broken through Slytherin's barriers, Molly fell in line behind him.

Slytherin stormed inside, the wooden door banging against the wall in his haste. He left it open, and Molly slipped inside quietly. He waved his hand in frustration. The darkened room came to life as several candlesticks lit at his gesture. Molly closed the door, but remained rooted to the spot, taking in the room.

In a lot of ways, it reminded her of the first flat she'd moved to straight out of Hogwarts. The cabin appeared to be one large room. A bed situated against the far wall took up most of the room, but there was a small sitting area, and a fireplace that Salazar made himself busy tending to, lighting and stirring the cauldron hanging from a hook. He glanced over his shoulder at her and shook his head.

"Sit."

It sounded like a command, in much the same way her father sometimes barked at her and Lucy when he was engrossed in paperwork. She didn't take the tone to heart, but calmly took a seat at the table. She pulled her notebook, inkpot and quill from her bag, neatly arranging it all before her, and pulling a candelabra closer.

"Did you come a long way to ask these questions of yours?" he wondered, continuing to stir the cauldron. Molly pondered how best to answer the question.

"It did take a lot of time, yes."

"Mmm."

Shrugging, Molly flipped to the most recent page, finding the list of questions she had prepared for this interview. She scanned the list, mentalling culling it in the event the meeting was cut short. Slytherin didn't seem like the sort to sit for a lengthy chat. Uric had spoiled her in that way.

"Well, get on with it," he said. Molly watched him move on from the cauldron, sifting through stacks of books by the bed. He plucked a few out, lifting them to a shelf above his head. He glanced over at her and raised an eyebrow, a small smirk beginning to form. "See something you like, Weasley?"

"Oh, I — I didn't mean to stare. Sorry. Um." She looked down at her notes. "Right. Well, let's start with something easy. Where were you born?"

He dropped a book onto a nearby stack. "Boring. Near the eastern wetlands."

She smiled triumphantly as she wrote down his answer. Norfolk. She'd been right in her deductions. "Do you have any family?"

The crack of a book being snapped shut rang through the room. "None that I care to be tied to."

Molly scribbled his answers quickly, unsurprised by his hostility. She hadn't even expected to be let in the door.

"Okay, let's try something more interesting. Why did you resign from Hogwarts?"

The room fell into a still silence. Molly risked a peek over at her subject, but found him staring into the flickering flame of a nearby candle. "No," he said quietly. "Next question."

Molly wrinkled her nose in disappointment. It was the key question of the whole interview. Without it, the assignment may as well have been over.

"Since you left, have you started any new endeavors, or have you just been… here?"

That seemed to get Slytherin's full attention. He dropped the books he'd been perusing onto the bed and stomped his way over to the table, eyes narrowed at Molly. "'Here?' What do you mean by here?"

Molly waved her hand in a sweeping motion, taking in the cabin once more. "Well, you know, coming from Hogwarts, I didn't exactly expect you to be a recluse in the woods. Have you been here the whole time? Have you been working on any projects? There really isn't much known about you since you left Hogwarts."

He ran a hand through his dark locks. "Perhaps I like it that way, without people coming and going, interfering in my work!" He paused in his ranting to let out a wheezing cough that built and had him doubled over, fighting to breathe. Molly rushed to his side, guiding him into a chair at the table. She waited close by as his coughing subsided and he caught his breath.

"Do you need anything? Water?"

Slytherin shook his head roughly, shooing her away as he closed his eyes and took several long, labored breaths.

Molly dutifully returned to her seat, discreetly making notes about the founder's condition. It seemed her intel had been correct — this was close to the end of his life. She had just assumed he would be much older.

Eyes still closed, he rested one arm on the table, leaning in close across from her, a silver locket fell from its place tucked inside his shirt and hung in the space between them as he began to speak in a hoarse whisper that grew stronger by the minute.

"I have apprentices who come often to have their work catalogued or corrected. I have… many projects. Botanical. Alchemical. None of it matters. Future generations will know of them if they are of any use."

Molly hesitated. "Are you certain?"

He blinked up at her. "You are not from this time, are you, Miss Molly?"

Quill hovering above the parchment, she laughed. "What makes you say that?"

"You don't talk as we do. You don't hold yourself as we do. You talk too much about the future." He pushed off from the table, sitting upright in the chair and crossing his legs easily, recovered from his coughing spell. "And if I am to die of this illness, as I have suspected for some time, then it would make sense that someone from the future, perhaps a historian, would come to speak with me. I am, against my best intentions, a figure of note, am I not?"

Molly set the quill back in the inkwell and sighed. "You are, sir."

"Do me the honor of calling me Salazar, I beg you. So few do these days. Might I beg in return to call you Molly?"

"You may."

The briefest smile graced his face before he stood and returned to the fire, stirring at the cauldron once more. He sniffed and tasted the concoction, leading Molly to believe it wasn't a potion, as she'd first expected, but his lunch.

"Are you hungry, Molly?"

"I could be tempted to eat." She slid the notebook aside as he brought a bowl of steaming stew and set it before her.

Molly had experienced her fair share of medieval food — most notably with Uric — but Salazar's cooking was infinitely more flavorful. She savoured every spoonful, and even permitted her host some limited questioning while they ate.

"What year are you from?"

"2030."

"Goodness, they still care about my accomplishments so far into the future? Has so little been done in my stead to overshadow me?"

"You're something of a mystery to a lot of people. Besides your founding and then quitting Hogwarts, hardly anything else is known. It was only by chance I even learned of this cabin — one of many supposed burial sites."

Salazar nodded in understanding, but still refused to elaborate on his past decisions. "How is it you've come by magic to turn back time?"

Decidedly against revealing anything of the Time Turner hidden in a secret compartment of her bag, Molly chose the briefest of details. "I work for the ruling government of wizarding England, in a department specialized in dealing with things that are dangerous and need to be controlled. Once we mastered control of time, we couldn't help but want to get answers for some of history's biggest mysteries."

"Like me."

"Like you," she confirmed.

"Do you enjoy your work?"

"I do. You're my thirty-first interview."

"I would toast you but, alas, I'm without any wine."

When they'd finished their lunch, Salazar stood and dumped their bowls into a basin by the door, to be cleaned later. He collected a basket overflowing with picked herbs and flowers and brought it to the table with jars and a mortar and pestle. He began sorting and crushing them as he answered her growing list of questions.

There were rare pockets of information that Molly quickly learned she could milk him for hours on — namely when dealing with other people. She mentioned having interviewed Uric, and Salazar went off on an hour—long tirade about the man, herbs forgotten. They spent the rest of the afternoon like this, Molly quietly studying her subject, trying to gauge his interest in the questions and when she should make her exit, and Salazar puttering around the cabin, doing odd jobs when sitting at the table became too boring for him.

Molly was careful not to circle her questions back to Hogwarts, or even the other founders. Every time she tried, Salazar would clam up again, and that was anti productive. She hoped, if given enough time to warm up to her and the questioning, he would open up in time, but as the hour grew later and the candles melted considerably, the less confident she became of this ploy. Nevertheless, she was pleased with the amount he had provided her with. At least the assignment wasn't a complete loss.

They broke up again for dinner, Salazar feeding her more of the aromatic stew, and she again allowed him this time to curb some of his own curiosity. Though, surprisingly, he didn't ask much of the future world at large, as most of her subjects tried to. There wasn't much she would have been able to tell him if he did, of course, and she thought that perhaps Salazar was smart enough to know this. Time travel in itself was dangerous without adding historic figures bent on changing the future.

But he did ask more of her family. At first she sidestepped some questions, worried that he was just after her blood purity, but the questions went deeper. She talked about Lucy who, at twenty-two, was already an accomplished Healer, just like their mum, and he wanted to know all about her and how she and Molly got on. He wanted to know more about her as well. Did she enjoy reading? Did she have any companion creatures? The questions became familiar, personal. Soon, she realized they had long since stopped eating but were still on the topic of her life. She blushed and tried to get them back on track, but it occurred to her that this was going better than most of her dates ever had.

Not long after their supper, Molly found she had exhausted her list of questions. She closed the notebook with an air of finality, dried her quill, and began packing up her bag, all as Salazar watched on.

"That's all you have for me?"

She smiled, shrugging a shoulder. "I didn't think I'd even get this far. You've been a gracious host, Mr. Slytherin. Thank you."

"Salazar, please." He extended a hand to her. Molly accepted and he pulled her to her feet, though he didn't let go.

"Salazar…" Molly was keenly aware of the little space between them now, and was overwhelmed once again with how unexpectedly handsome he was as she found herself lost in his stunning eyes. It took every ounce of her will to pull her hand free and look away. "I should go."

"You don't have to go so soon," he offered, a hint of a smile in his tone. He followed her to the door, a few paces behind her. She kept her eyes averted as she paused.

"I appreciate that, but I've taken up enough of your time. And I really ought to get home."

Molly opened the door, only to be startled by the loud rumbling of thunder. She felt Salazar walk up beside her as she pulled the door open wider, and they both looked out into the dark, wet woods. A brief flash of lightning illuminated the now-muddy path Molly had traveled that morning. She grimaced at the thought of having to take it now. These simple shoes weren't exactly water-proof.

"I have silencing charms on the hut," Salazar explained, reaching around her to close the door again. "The wildlife awakes very early, and sometimes I enjoy a lie in."

She caught the door with her foot, risking a glance at him. "I still need to go."

"It's probably been storming for hours. You'll lose your way in the dark. You'll get lost and catch your death in this weather."

"I've played Quidditch in worse weather," she retorted. She had played on the house team for her last two years at school. She hadn't been the best, but they'd been desperate.

"What's that?" Salazar wondered.

"Nevermind. Let me go."

He crossed his arms, releasing the door, and stood back. "When you go back, will they know how long you spent here?"

Molly sighed. "No. I'll show up maybe a minute or two after I left them."

Salazar shoved an exasperated hand through the door, water collecting in his palm. "So why, then, would you chance this weather when you can simply wait the storm out and go later?"

Molly couldn't answer. She bit her lip as another flash of lightning hit. If it were any other mission, she would have accepted the offer already. She wouldn't have second-guessed staying a few extra hours with Uric.

Defeated, she turned back to Salazar and met his gaze. "I suppose I'm not in too much of a rush."

Gently, Salazar took her hand once more, pulling her away from the door so he could close it. Back in the silent, warm cabin, far from the pressures and time constraints of the Department of Mysteries — yet inches from Salazar's hypnotic gaze — Molly felt like time itself had stopped. For once, there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. So when Salazar leaned in, she didn't pull away, instead meeting him in the middle.

It was like a dam breaking. Her hands found their way into Salazar's hair as he led them to the bed. She didn't protest, only untangling a hand from his hair in order to drop her bag and begin tugging at the laces of her dress.

:-:

Molly woke hours later, still wrapped in Salazar's arms. She tried to lay still to not wake him, but it seemed he was a light sleeper, already stirring as she laid her head back down on the pillow.

He smiled sleepily at her, releasing her as one hand reached beneath the pillow for his wand. "I'm glad you stayed."

"So am I," she admitted quietly, returning the smile. It was a complete and utter mistake, of course, but she couldn't tell him that. Surely Salazar was smart enough to have figured out already that she'd broken rules by sleeping with him. Not that she had any intention of telling work about sleeping over. Still, through the voice in her mind berating her for giving in, she couldn't deny that she'd had fun.

Salazar propped himself up on an elbow, hovering above her, and pointed his wand at the black cloth covering a nearby window. It lifted enough for them to see the sunny, dry woods around them. The curtain fell once more and Salazar sighed. He tossed the wand onto the blankets and reached down a hand to brush a strand of red hair from Molly's forehead, placing a kiss there as he pulled away.

"It seems that nothing is blocking your path today."

She couldn't be certain if she was imagining the tone of disappointment. He laid back down, but his eyes remained on her, studying her every move.

"I wish I could stay, but it's better that I go." She left the warmth of the bed and collected her clothes, giving them and herself a once-over with a refreshing charm, leaving no trace for the costume department to berate her over. It took a few minutes to sort out the corset and laces once more, and then she found a hand mirror to fix her hair.

"My sister died when I was eight."

Molly stilled at his words, turning back to the bed. Salazar was facing the ceiling, but his eyes were shut.

"I told you last night that I didn't have siblings, but that's not true. Violet was thirteen. Too young to apparate, but not to be burned for witchcraft, according to the Muggles in our village." He grabbed at the blankets, hands tightening into fists as he recounted the worst moments of his life. Molly returned to the bed, stunned into silence.

"My mother tried to stop them, but they didn't listen. They'd seen Violet practicing, or so they claimed, and she admitted to it. There was no way to change their minds. They… they turned on our mother, so they took her too. She couldn't defend herself; she didn't even have magic."

Molly gasped and covered her mouth in horror. She remembered a statistic about the witch trials from her history books, that for every successful execution, there were five evaded with illusions and the like. The books didn't have statistics about how many Muggles were executed instead.

"It was my fault. I was the one they'd seen do magic, I couldn't control it. Violet confessed in order to protect me, and she and Ma paid with their lives. I ran…" Salazar opened his eyes at last, wet with guilty tears. Molly offered her hand to him and squeezed as tightly as she dared as he continued. "My father was long dead by then. I didn't know what else to do. I ran, and I let my fear turn to hatred."

"You had no choice," Molly soothed quietly, holding back her own tears — sympathy for his hopeless plight. Salazar shook his head.

"You asked why I left Hogwarts. I didn't want to go. It is my greatest achievement, and still my favorite place, though I haven't been there in some time. I consulted a Seer shortly before I left. I was obsessed then with my legacy, and what history would remember of me. The Seer told me that people would think of me as a bigot and pureblood supremacist." He choked out a forced laugh. "I'm not even pure. I loved my mother, more than anything, but more people like her were going to die because of the hate I was filling their minds with. So I made the choice to leave."

Molly looked away, a lump forming in her throat as she thought of her own mother, blinded by Death Eaters when she was barely nineteen. By all rights, Molly should have been furious with him for that, and for her uncle Fred, and all the other thousands of lives lost. But what would it solve? The one responsible for those attacks died long before she was born. He may have shared blood with the man beside her, but they were not the same.

Salazar got her attention again, pulling his hand free from her grasp to cup her face, gently wiping away her tears. He studied her for a moment.

"I've hurt you too, haven't I?"

"No, Salazar, never." He didn't look convinced, so she forced herself to elaborate in basic terms. "There have been people who share those… hateful ideals. They're not you. You changed, you're apologetic, and you're not responsible for other people's actions."

He nodded his agreement, suddenly climbing out of bed and getting dressed, though Molly doubted it'd really gotten through to him. She wished she had the time and words to make him believe that she truly didn't hold him responsible for the damage done, but that just wasn't the case. She had to remind herself that he probably didn't have enough time either— he was still dying, after all.

That thought brought her to her feet once more, driving her to leave the cabin as fast as she could. As much as she had enjoyed her time with Salazar, Molly couldn't bear to stay and watch him wither away. She collected her bag from where it'd been dropped on the way to bed the previous night. She quickly riffled through the contents, double-checking that she had everything she needed. Leaving her notebook in the past would be such a headache.

Salazar was standing by the door, waiting for her, it seemed. He held out a purple flower to her as she drew nearer. Molly smiled, twirling it between her fingertips.

"A violet?"

He nodded. "Now your work is complete, you know the whole truth of who Salazar Slytherin really is." He gave her a wide smile. "More than anyone else, in fact. Will you tell the people of the future that I'm sorry?"

Hesitantly, Molly reached out her free hand to rest on his cheek. He leant into the touch, his eyes closing. "They don't need your apologies. I wish they were able to know the real you."

They stood there, silent and contemplative, for several long moments. At last, Salazar straightened, placing one last kiss to Molly's palm, before returning her hand to her.

"Be safe, Molly Weasley."

Behind him, the door opened of its own accord, flooding them both in early sunlight. Clutching the bright violet to her chest, Molly forced herself through the door, unable to get over the feeling like she was leaving something important behind with every step she took towards the future.

:-:

Salazar watched the mysterious woman walk into the woods alone, fighting every urge to make her stay. He'd almost asked her to stay when they were by the door. He'd been trying to get up the courage to find the words. But words had never been his strong suit, nor was he ever particularly brave. He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face in frustration as Molly disappeared from view completely.

The door slammed behind him a little harder than he'd meant as he returned to the dark comfort of the hut, mind racing with everything he needed to do. Alistair, his apprentice, was due to arrive in a few days' time, and Salazar intended to have this latest batch of flora crushed and catalogued by that time. He also had some ideas for elixirs he wanted to try out before Alistair distracted him with questions over his latest findings.

But despite all this work running through his mind, Salazar found himself frozen in place. Everywhere he looked was different now, altered by Molly's brief presence. The table where she worked, where they shared their meals and he could still hear her laughter filling the hut. The bed, where he held her and poured out his heart to her. He had never told anyone about his family before, or why he chose to leave Hogwarts and his friends.

He thought about all the letters Godric had sent him over the years, trying to entice him into coming back. The others had tried as well, but Godric's were always the most persuasive. They'd stopped since Salazar had moved into his current hovel, and he wondered if they'd finally lost his trail. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to send them one letter, a farewell, so they knew that his departure was not their fault.

He shook his head roughly. Godric wouldn't have crossed his mind if Molly hadn't brought Hogwarts up, and that meant he couldn't write the letter. He couldn't risk changing the future and getting Molly into trouble with her strange work.

"She was only here for a day," he told himself. She probably wasn't even all that special, and it was only because it had been so long since he'd had the company of a woman that he felt so lost now that she was gone. And yet, as soon as he'd thought as much, he knew it wasn't true. Molly was special, having taken a true interest in him like no one else had, and that went beyond her duty to her job.

He sank down onto the side of the bed and sat for several long minutes with his head in his hands. At least before she'd come, he could delude himself into believing that his choice to leave had spared the future from the consequences of his youthful vendetta. Now he was forced to face the truth while being too ill to do anything about it.

The slight creak of the door opening broke Salazar from his thoughts. He jolted upright, squinting against the bright light to make out the figure standing in the doorway. He thought briefly that he was imagining things, but his eyes soon adjusted to the light and confirmed that it really was her.

She was dressed differently, in tight-fitting blue trousers and a sleeveless green blouse. Her auburn curls were now pulled back in a single long plait. This, he deduced quickly, must be the style of her times. He wasn't opposed to it.

Molly stomped over to him the moment their eyes locked, her knee-high boots making much more noise than the simple shoes she'd worn before. She yanked him from the bed by the wrist, and he swayed, trying to gain his balance as she pulled him toward the door.

"You're coming with me," she said breathlessly.

"Coming where? Molly, you can't be here. Why have you returned?"

She turned to look at them as she passed over the threshold. "You can do so much good in my world. All those things you wanted to prevent? You can help to undo their damage. It would be a greater legacy than Hogwarts. Better than dying alone and miserable at thirty because you've been working with a poisonous plant."

Salazar scoffed. "I'll have you know I'm only twenty-eight. What was that about the plant?"

"Twilight Polkweed. I saw you crushing it last night. I'm willing to bet you never washed your hands after touching it, because I had a very interesting reaction to it when I got home. Luckily my sister, the healer, worked out that I'm allergic. But even if you're not, prolonged exposure can have deadly effects, like difficulty breathing."

Feeling an unfortunately-timed coughing fit coming on from the exertion, Salazar removed his arm from her grasp and leaned against the door frame, taking in deep breaths. "You can't really believe those two are connected."

"I do." She pulled a small vial of green-tinted liquid from her pocket and held it out to him. "If I'm right, this antidote will cure all of your symptoms within twenty-four hours, and save your life."

Beginning to wheeze softly, he eyed the vial hopefully, just as she began to slide it back into her pocket, a sly grin on her face.

"Of course, if you take it, you also have to come with me, because I'm not trying to change the past here."

The coughing fit began then, wracking his body to the point that he could hardly breathe, and Molly led him back to the bed and held his hand until the coughing subsided..

"Please," she said, staring into his soul with bright blue-green eyes. "You don't have to suffer anymore."

"How long since you left?" he wondered hoarsely.

"Two weeks. It took me that long to work out a plan where I can bring you back without my coworkers seeing you. Salazar, please, come back with me. Don't waste your life."

"You'll get in trouble."

Molly shrugged, that sly grin returning. "They can't arrest me if they don't know I've done anything wrong. I'm not saying it'll be easy, but if we give you a new name, I don't think they'll be able to prove that I did anything."

He paused, taking in the pain and discomfort that came in the aftermath of the coughing. It was only going to get worse… unless.

"Would people care what I had to say, if I wasn't the Salazar Slytherin anymore?"

"I would think you have more to offer than a silly name."

"And we would be together, there, yes? You didn't mention a husband last night…"

"No, no. I don't have anyone." She blushed, but tightened her grip on his hand. "We could be… whatever we wanted. We don't have to worry about that just yet."

"Alright," he said, his voice stronger now. He shakily stood, Molly supporting him until he found his footing. He looked around the hut that had been his home for seven years, built with his bare hands. He heaved a sigh and down into Molly's eyes. "Let's go home then."