Ouroboros

by Novus Ars

Salazar Slytherin woke up in the body of a three year old boy with the most ridiculous head of black hair & a runic scar craved into his forehead. The last thing he recalled was dying. Now it is over 900 years in the future. There are a million things to deal with between new inventions, lost knowledge, missing spirits, & parasitic dark lords. (multi-povs. Unreliable narrator. AU)

21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

oooP1ooo

(Hogwarts)

"It didn't work!" cried out Hogwarts, stamping a foot down in outraged emphasis. She puffed up her glowing cheeks as she watched the heads master stand in a sitting room with various ministry people. The sitting room was one of many within her walls. He should be gone. He should have gone running after the humiliation at breakfast.

Hogwarts had given him a week to pack and run because he was old and in charge of lots of things. The heads master couldn't just drop everything and run immediately. She had understood that after all the past heads masters and mistresses.

Her bestest friend shrugged from his floating seat beside her, pulling her attention from the room she had been looking into and back to the room her primary self stood. It was one of many empty classrooms. Mama Wena would be disappointed at the emptiness of Hogwarts. There should be so much more. Things didn't turn out how they were supposed, though. The situation of Albus Dumbledore was just more evidence of that fact.

"Headmasters can be stubborn. We just gotta be more stubborn." Peeves said as he tapped his jester hat in emphasis, reminding Hogwarts of how he had gotten it in the first place.(1)

She slowly smiled, jaw set stubbornly. Hogwarts could be more stubborn than an old man. It would help if she had material though. Her switching doors out hadn't worked very well. There wasn't much else she could do that didn't immediately make a wizard question what was causing it. Moving an entire hallway was outside of a students, or even most fully trained wizard or witches, ability. Not even the heads master had access to do that without Mama Wena's guide book and the official room she had set up.

That meant she had to think outside of her domain. She had to be creative.

Hogwarts asked Peeves, "How do you get pranking material?"

"The kitchen gives me all the stale bread I want for throwing," said Peeves with a shrug before he thoughtfully tapped his chin. "The stink bombs are from deals with students. I just gotta get a student in a position to be needing such a deal. It's got to be one of them third years or older, though. They're the only ones allowed to go to the village."

Silver eyes lit up in excitement. She had forgotten about the village. "My papas will buy me pranking things!"

Peeves made a disagreeing sound at her excited claim. Hogwarts flashed her bestest friend a narrowed eyed frown. Her papas would buy her pranking stuff. She just knew they would.

The distant sounding voice of the heads master caught her attention before she could admonish the poltergeist. She shifted her attention from her bestest friend to the room all the way down on the first floor.

"He was fighting someone." Albus Dumbledore decided out loud.

"Appears that way," agreed one of the ministry people. (Hogwarts didn't recognize the woman. She must not have gone here for her schooling.)

Hogwarts focused her attention to a different view of the room so she could see what Albus Dumbledore was looking at. He had his wand pointed at another wand and sometype of magic was floating out from the secondary wand. It looked vaguely like a shield. (She recalled him casting a spell at the secondary wand which had pulled the floating shield out of the secondary wand. Hogwarts hadn't been paying close attention but she was aware. She knew about most things that happened within her walls, she just usually didn't care.)

Another ministry person snorted in disgust. (Hogwarts was pretty sure this one was a Ravenclaw from the 1976 graduating class.) At the heads master's sharp look, the Ravenclaw said in disdain, "That's only a protego charm, sir. You don't have to be fighting someone to want to use a basic shield charm!"

The first ministry personnel flushed in outrage for the heads master as she snapped, "You think you know better?"

"Well," the final ministry person said. (Hogwarts wanted to say this one had been a Hufflepuff but she was almost certain he also had siblings who had been in different houses so she was probably wrong. She mixed up siblings all the time. Their magic was too similar to tell apart from each other from the minimal attention she usually gives students.) "Quirrell was likely within the blast zone of the two magical artifacts. I'd throw up a protego too under the circumstances."

"Certainly a possibility to consider," Albus Dumbledore agreed. Cutting the argument off as he ended the spell from Quirrell's wand. The shield imagery faded away. "I'm afraid we may never know, particularly if this is the only hard evidence we find of the man."

Hogwarts shifted her focus from the distant room and back to the empty classroom she had found Peeves in. The poltergeist tilted his head at her curiously.

Her silver gaze narrowed in grim thought. The heads master was getting too close to things her papas wanted to stay hidden. She had to get rid of him before the old man figured anything out. She wasn't certain what the heads master would do if he found out but she knew her papas didn't want him knowing so he had to go sooner than later.

"You make what deals you can with students. I'll go ask my papas."

oooP2ooo

(Harry)

He knelt on one knee in the center of the empty foyer of his hidden suite and stretched out a hand coated in magic. A spiral of glowing runes rose out of the floor in response. He twisted his hand the opposite direction from the spiral pattern and the entire design followed, twisting backwards and visually unraveling into the air.

The spinning runes glowed, teasing his gaze with an illusion of grandeur and mystery, tempting him to dive in to find the treasure. Salazar didn't jump at his own creation's temptation. He recalled the protections they had placed. Responding to his illusion would be foolish and counter productive.

One of Godric's curses seeped into view when the magic triggered the next stage of protection. Before it solidified, Salazar pulsed his magic through the required pattern. Godric's curse faded, Salazar's illusionary trap dissolved, and the world shimmered as one of the more dangerous abilities they had endowed the school with unlocked.

As it did, the physical world faded from his sight.

A weave of enchantment solidified before him, entertwined with the runic markings, twisted all together in a complex mesh of magic built to allow the shifting of the physical world. He could feel Rowena's flair for creation intermixed with Helga's grounding presence as he reached out mentally.

This magic would allow him to change his old suite of rooms into any pattern of walls and doors and windows he wanted. With a twist of the weave he could shift the suite to an entirely different floor. He could exchange its position with any other room or set of rooms within the castle. The only limitation was the physical space taken.

Salazar supposed he could have asked Hogwarts to change his suite but he had wanted to do this himself. Not only had he needed to make certain the magic for this particularly delicate operation was still in working condition, but he had always enjoyed the rare moments where he had altered a floor's layout. There was just something fun making the changes within the weave and seeing the results in the physical structure.

He was pleased to see the entire enchanted work still whole, if not somewhat different looking. That was expected since it was a weave of enchantments. Enchantments were not as grounded and structured as runic magic. Without a proper grounding, such as the runes intertwined in the woven pattern, an enchantment could evolve into an unrecognizable mess. How it evolved depended on so many factors, it wasn't even funny considering it all. (There were reasons Salazar preferred runes over enchantments for long term projects.)

His runic work had kept it powered and grounded. The enchantments had not evolved beyond its primary focus of altering the physical structure of Hogwarts. Someone had added an interface, for a lack of a better description. It looked like said interface allowed easier access to altering the castle's structure while keeping people from reaching the heart of the enchantments.

That was probably for the best since, while the weave of enchantments looked close to its original form, its presence had grown. There was something unending about it all now. Salazar mentally stretched out and traced the pattern as far as he could reach. It felt like there was no end. He could spread his awareness across the weave of enchantments forever and never find its edges.

As he magically spread himself out to check the pattern for any inconsistencies or concerns, a thrumming rose up through him. It took a moment to realize that the bond with Hogwarts was reacting. A sweet giggle brushed against his mind was the final, terribly obvious, clue.

Salazar paused in his search, startled even though he knew he shouldn't be. Hogwarts was the school, this weave of magic was as much a part of her as the hidden passages and the doors and walls and windows. Of course she had noticed him poking around at part of her.

Green eyes widened as the weave seemed to flex and twist and wrap around him as if to give a hug. Warmth he had long associated with Hogwarts snuggled against his mind and magic. With it, the visual world shuddered and dissolved.

The weaved enchantments encompassed the entire school. One could alter the seventh floor while standing in the dungeons. This magic was interconnected to the physical structure. It was an aspect of Hogwarts. Having the weave wrap around his mental self, who was magically bonded to said school, left his mind open to her in a way he hadn't been before.

It was harder to protect your mind from something intimately connected to you. And he had projected himself into the weave. An aspect of Hogwarts's sentience hugged his consciousness.

The weave dissolved from view. What replaced it was hard to follow but it was distinctly similar to the painful attack from the psychic ward when he had investigated the hearthstone. A hundred of thousands of things rushed past him at once instead of snapshots of a moment. It was worse than the ward.

He could catch only a few bits and pieces as he struggled against the onslaught of sensory input occurring all at once for a thousand different parts of the school. Sounds—snores and hissing cat and chirping of rats—Smells—baking breads and blooming tulips and beeswax candles just set to burn—Touch—rough, cold stone and the fluff of a box of feathers and the cool slickness of dried paint across canvas—Sight—

Peeves, the Poltergeist, was singing a dirty ditty as he flew about the fourth floor. The headmaster and a group of ministry officials were saying their goodbyes before the Great Hall, early morning light streaming in through the open double doors warmed the wood and stone (him). A group of Slytherin seventh years were up working on some midterm group project. One of them sat on the stone floor and kept tapping his quil against the stone.(Tap–Tap–Taptap–Tap vibrated through him.) Draco rolled over in his bed, a foot falling over the edge as the boy drooled into his pillow and mumbled in his sleep. Ronald was in a similar position, though his pillow had somehow moved to under his feet during the night. A cat curled in a ball on Hannah's chest as she snored away.

Their voices mingled and strung together in a chatter he couldn't understand. It was all happening at the same time. He couldn't focus on one thing over the other but he tried. Focus was the only way he'd escape.

Hannah's cat: Omorose was curled up in a closet of moth eaten robes. She was entirely too pleased with her nest.—The visual of a hundred different cats stalking the morning halls fluttered through his mind as he tried to focus. (Another group curled in hiddie holes, suits of armor, and sparkled across beams of light rushed past just as fast, at the exact same time.)

Mipsy would have a panic attack at the sight of the makeshift nest: Some of the House elves were already fixing breakfast.—Others were dusting the halls. A number were working through the constant supply of laundry. Some fed pets. A few oiled the wooden furniture. A particular pair seemed to be brooming up rat droppings behind a wall of shelves.

A rat with a missing finger scurried out of one of the Greenhouses.—Salazar frowned as he tried to focus on that for a second. The Greenhouses were enchanted against rodents so it was odd.—Trying to focus on a single rat only pulled his mind a hundred ways to see all the different rodents scurrying through walls. This led to seeing the mice and that led back to the cats.

He tried to focus on something else.

Even with most of the school population sleeping, there was too much to take in all at once. The mental strain was harsh for a human. He couldn't make heads or tails of all the information flowing through the bond from Hogwarts to him. Salazar needed it to stop. He was only looking to change the structure of the suite.

Salazar tried to pull away from the enchantment. If he separated from the magic, maybe the connection to Hogwarts would fade to something normal. (As normal as having a connection to a sentient building could be.)

The connection went haywire in a different direction as he tried to focus on the enchantment.—All the ancient charmwork and enchantments and curses whispered against him. He could taste and smell and feel all types of hints about the various magics within the school. Salazar could tell where a section of magic was broken or breaking or worn thin. He just couldn't focus long enough to tell where that section was at before another hit him and distracted him.

This needed to stop. He finally thought to mentally project that need out at Hogwarts. It was hard to focus enough on that. All he could send was 'Stop!'

Hogwarts mentally pulled away from him with a vague sense of sorry and a stab of clear panic. The warmth of her hug slipped away, as if she was reluctantly stepping back from him.

Salazar yanked himself out of the magical weave and snapped his physical eyes open. A gasp sliced sharp through his throat. It felt like he had been screaming. He stared up at a stone ceiling for a long moment, blinking uncomprehendingly. There was a ringing in his ears. It was almost like an echo of all the chatter vibrating, trapped in the ear canal.

When had he fallen over?

He licked his lips and paused at the metallic taste. Salazar rolled over and spat into his hand. Pinkish-red saliva glinted back. The eleven year old rolled his tongue about but couldn't feel a place he might have bitten himself at.

Two drops of vibrant red splattered on his palm. Green eyes widened even as he pressed the hand up to his nose. The glow of runes floating across the floor came into focus. The pulsation of magic thrummed about him as he snapped upright and searched the foyer. Runes floated in a spinning, glowing pattern about him.

Panic spiked through himself. Salazar sprang up and dodged out of the circle of magic, one hand firmly pressing against his nose. It was only as he exited the magic circle that he recalled what the circle was for. He relaxed and huffed a faint laugh.

His blood wouldn't have caused any problems. This wasn't a ritual, just an existing bit of complex, multi-disciplined magic.

Salazar slumped back against a stone wall and stared over at the still active magic floating about the foyer. He'd take a moment. Then he'd move some walls and go laze about the midmorning study group.

Maybe he'd hunt down Godric and see what the Gryffindor had been doing all weekend. His brother had bowed out of study groups for the last few days but he had still seen Godric in passing. Salazar assumed Godric was dealing with memories and unpleasant ones at that. At one point the bonds had seemed to shudder, but only for a short time. (He would have interrupted if it had lasted more than a few moments.)

Godric could probably use a distraction soon.

"Papa?"

"Hmm?" Salazar responded as he tried to distract himself while taking slow, steadying breaths.

The little glowing girl skipped over to his side, gave him a long look over as if checking for wounds, and then asked sweetly, "Can you get me one of the premium Zonko's boxes for Christmas?"

Salazar hummed in agreement, "I suppose." An ache was slowly spreading across his face as if he had a sinus infection. Even his scar seemed to throb.

After a moment, his school spoke once more, "Papa?"

"Premium Zonko box for Christmas." Salazar croaked out, before he paused and looked up at his school in confusion. "We don't celebrate Christmas...or, do we?"

Technically the Dursleys had always celebrated Christmas and he had sort of participated. His relatives had never given him a gift but he had baked all types of holiday treats and ate a decent amount of them. So he guessed he had been celebrating the holiday. He had never really thought about it since he had also done a little Yule celebrating too when he could.

She blinked owlishly at him. "Um, I don't know. I've never gotten a present before Papa. Yule does gift giving too, doesn't it? Everyone celebrated Yule for years and years but it became Christmas at some point."

He shook his head, decided it was not worth worrying over, and smeared the drying blood off his face before he checked the time. He had a few more hours. That could be enough time to actually change the layout of his rooms and move some of the furniture in.

"Well," he said as he stared down at the blood on his hand, "I suppose we'll get Christmas gifts this year." He looked up at Hogwarts as he asked, "You want a zonko box? Just one?"

She bounced excitedly, drawing his attention. "Oh Papa, you should surprise me with something else! I've not gotten any surprise gifts before!"

Salazar raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you just say you've not gotten any presents before?"

Hogwarts stuck her tongue out at him before she skipped away, "Have fun Papa! I'll leave you be and not interrupt again." She paused and turned back to him with a sheepish smile. "Promise I'll not give you a bloody nose next time!"

He watched her fade away, amused. Then he rubbed his smeared blood from his hand onto his shirt and climbed to his feet. Salazar watched the runic magic float about almost lazily in the air. The weave wasn't visible beyond a slight ripple between floating runes. He took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders and reentered the circle.

This time, when he reached out to the weave, Hogwarts didn't respond back. He probed carefully at the magic, conscious that it was definitely an aspect of her existence. Salazar had the sense that it wasn't her mind so much as one of her original abilities. (He wasn't certain he'd feel comfortable probing at Hogwarts's mind, no matter how interesting it would be to understand how she came to be.)

He could taste the age of it, like a worn piece of parchment. Salazar knew this wasn't the first bit of magic they had done in building Hogwarts but he got the impression that it might have been the first bit that gave her the ability to interact with the world. She had since grown beyond this weave, being able to take a physical form, but the ability to change her interior must have been the first few things she could do. It might even explain the moving stairs and how Rowena and he couldn't undo that mess of magic.

It was fascinating but he wasn't here to analyze Hogwarts's evolution. One day, with her agreement, he would delve into it all. He could imagine the lifetime of research involved. Now wasn't the time to start it though.

After confirming that there was nothing particular concerning he could find (beyond the whole becoming part of a greater, intelligent being), he turned to the alterations he wanted done to his rooms.

Helga had convinced him and Godric to proactively set aside room for their future wives and children. By her recommendations the suite had been set up with almost identical mini suites on either side of the foyer. Acadia must have used the ladies side of Godric's suite.

Salazar frowned as he reconsidered that possibility. If their relationship had been bad enough for her to murder Godric, maybe she hadn't. Or she had and literally living with Godric had made her want to murder him. Salazar knew he'd have the same desire if he had been made to live in close courts with, say, Rowena. Of course, he would have just moved if that had been the case. There was an entire castle to pick a room from.

He shook his head as he found himself wondering in a circular pattern about his brother's marriage while knowing basically nothing. There was nothing productive debating over their living situation when all he knew was they had two kids, she was from Normandy, their marriage had been political, and she had killed Godric. There was clearly something he should talk to Godric about. The living situation from a thousand years go wasn't really one of them, though.

The reincarnated man focused on the matter at hand and brushed through the weave until he found his suite. It was on the kitchens level. He paused for a second as he noted the long hallway that had once gone to the Slytherin dorms now ended in a kitchen closest. He nixed the idea of moving the hall back to the dorm common room. Easy access to the kitchens sounded far more appealing than resetting it to the traditional position.

Salazar pulled a thread, representing one of the many walls, and moved it to a different part of the weave. It was delicate work shifting the walls, and doorways in the weave. He considered adding back some windows but decided against it. They could just add them later, once they knew what they wanted for a view.—Maybe the sitting room could have a view from the Astronomy tower. Though, he also liked the view under the lake. There were so many options but he didn't want to decide now.

Just before he thought he was done, he decided to move the stairs. Magic would keep the stairs going to their original destinations while moving them to a more convenient place. He would still be able to travel down stairs to his ritual rooms and upstairs to wherever.—His magic traced the thread of the stairs up as he shifted the physical form over to a wall, curious where it actually went.

Eyebrows furrowed. The stairs appeared to go up into nowhere. The top step seemed to end outside but it wasn't an escape route. There was no magic hiding the opening.

The founder opened his physical eyes as he separated from the enchantment. Salazar pushed his hand against the floor and pulsed his magic in the pattern to reseal the weave while moving his hand in the correct direction of the original swirl. Floating runes and weave all faded away as it swirled back into the floor.

He rose and took in the changes. There wasn't a true foyer anymore. He stood in a large empty sitting room with his study's old fireplace, enlarged, against one wall. Salazar knew that the right held two nearly identical studies, bedrooms, and bathrooms. There was also a meditation room attached to Godric's bedroom, a dining room because he had the space (a short walk to the kitchen meant it was unlikely to be used), and a room for his runic work. To his left, where the ladies suite had once stood, were the stairs and empty rooms he imagined turning into a shared study they didn't really need, a potions lab neither had the skills for, and a future study group room to keep connecting with their peers. Finally he had tossed a dueling room on the other side of the fireplace.

His emerald gaze turned toward the stairs. They were directly opposite the hall that led to the kitchens. He had a painting or mirror to place in front of the hallway entrance. All the doorways would be either covered up or given actual doors. Then he'd create a few more entrances. He needed one from his dorm to his bedroom. Godric would need the same.

But that was for later. Salazar stopped at the foot of the stairs that led up. Now, he wanted to understand what was going on with these stairs to nowhere.

oooP3ooo

(Neville)

The smell of sage wafted through the tower room. Godric stared at the smoke floating about him, thoughts stuck on the memories uncovered most recently. His family had attempted to murder him.

A shudder rocked through him as he admitted that fact to himself. It had taken him a few days to accept the facts of his newest memories. The attempted murder had been one fact. The other had been the fact that his few good memories were tied to the bad ones and the bad ones were connected to the horrifying ones.

He had not had a good childhood.

It was time for him to finish this. Godric had been hunting for the good and the neutral memories but he doubted there were many left to find. He had to find the rest, no matter how bad they were. There was no good reason to postpone it. It was time to remove the gauze and see the scars underneath.

The Gryffindor settled onto his pouf and glanced down at the small box he had brought along. Within was a stack of carefully flattened candy wrappers. It was the last personal item he had. It was his last chance to find good memories.

It was unlikely to work. He doubted anything good would be revealed. But it was a place to start and he would hope for more good than bad to start this end.

And it was the end of something. He could feel edges fading away. It was hard to think of himself as just Godric. It was harder, even, to think of the eleven year old form as Neville. He was just...himself. And he was tired of holding pieces. Godric wanted to feel whole.

He carefully pulled the stack of wrappers from the box. At the bottom was the very first wrapper he had ever been given. He remembered his mother giving it to him years ago. The memory had settled amongst the old memories of his first mother. It was a bittersweet moment, looking back with older eyes. (Gran should have sat him down and explained before taking him to the hospital. She hadn't so he had spent so long feeling worthless, more worthless than usual. He hadn't understood that his parents had been ill instead of mad.)

Godric didn't know if there were other important memories of Alice Longbottom but it seemed like a good place to start today. Remembering visiting his mother and father seemed important, even if nothing much happened in any of the memories. It was right to focus on learning as much as he could about them.

Wrapper after wrapper was carefully handled. His fingers rubbed over the waxy paper. He felt each fold and crease embedded within the small squares and rectangles.

It felt like a familiar ritual. He had done this a million times before. He just didn't remember the specifics but that was likely because of the mundane ritual of it all and not from the memories being repressed. Some things, some moments, were just not memorable enough to keep in any substantial form. They remained as impressions on the mind but nothing more.

Godric focused his thoughts on the wrappers and his memories of Alice Longbottom.

These were his only gifts from the woman. It was all he had of her, besides the single framed photo that sat by his bedside. Alice Longbottom was his mother. Under different circumstances, she would have been as much a mother to him as Godgifu had been in his last life. She was responsible for giving him life in a time of war and strife where more than one woman would prefer to avoid bearing a child. It had to have been a hard decision and he would honor her in the only way he could—considering her his mother now.

As he traced the map of age and wear across the last wrapper he looked up into the candle directly before him. Her worn face, hallowed out and missing any true sense of the individual, came to the forefront of his thoughts. Aged beyond her years, short hair lank and thin, Alice Longbottom was as good as dead.

What had happened to her?

He knew. It was just stuck in the depths of his mind. Part of him was glad to have forgotten but ignorance led to nothing good. Alice Longbottom was his mother. He had to remember. And maybe, if he recalled, he could find a way to help her.

A sterile room surrounded him as he sat beside a bed. He wasn't looking at the bed's occupant though. He couldn't convince himself to do so. It hurt. Instead he occupied his time rubbing the little wrapper between his fingers.

He hated coming here. It hurt so much seeing them like this.

"...certain?"

Godric paused in turning the wrapper about between his fingers. A whispered conversation between his gran and the healer filtered over to him.

"...change...I'm sorry."

"You said...new trial...Frank would…"

"Yes...A trial...no guaranteed results...didn't take…"

He slowly turned his head towards the other bed and stared at his gran, careful not to really look at the waste of a man stuck in the actual bed. Angry tears streamed down her gran's face as the healer tried to comfort her over yet another failed trial that promised to heal Frank Longbottom's mind.

"...Alice may…"

"No!" snapped Gran, "We've only the income to pay for one of them. Frank takes precedence. You have to be able to heal his mind!"

"But Alice might take to–"

"I said no," she hissed out before she returned to her whispered volume to berate the healer some more.

A flash of hate washed over him as he realized what she had done. He turned back to the seemingly mindless woman beside him and truly looked at her. His mother had a chance with the trials. His gran was refusing any attempts, too focused on her son to care.

Gran didn't care that he could have a mother again. She didn't care about him. All she cared about was her precious Frank.

Memories flowed from there, each of that same sad hospital room with the same little routine. Only the age of the people, of him, seemed to visually change. As the last moment faded to the back of his mind—there for him to recall but a little tarnished and frayed from time—Godric forced himself back to the present and stared blankly at the candy wrappers in front of him for a long few minutes.

His heart ached. The memories were all the same. Some he had already recalled but had been pulled forward again because of the hospital setting. These all focused on Alice, though.—Her giving him a wrapper. Him seated beside her bed attempting to both ignore and accept the situation with his parents while listening into his gran's conversations with the healers.

At least he knew a little of the problem. Brain damage was a difficult thing to fix. Salazar might have an idea but he'd need to visit his parents to figure it out. That probably meant gaining permission from Gran.

How likely was it that Salazar knew something about healing the mind a healer didn't?—He fought against the immediate 'not likely' answer that jumped to the forefront of his thoughts. Salazar was not a healer, no matter that he understood a great deal about the mind. It was unlikely Sally knew more than the modern day mind healer.

Godric made a face. All he had seen of Alice Longbottom were memories of neglect. Where was her family? He had multiple memories of Gran and others degrading the Bargeworthy family. So where were they?

Gran hadn't cared about Alice Longbottom. She hadn't cared that she could potentially return his mother to him, give a life back to a woman. Only Frank had mattered. (Always Frank.)

Had no one cared about Alice? It didn't seem like it.

Godric grimaced down at the wrappers as something in the back of his mind seemed to nod in simple acceptance. The sharp, bitter pain of betrayal the recently regained memories brought forward stabbed through his chest once more.

His family had failed his mother. His family had tried to kill him in the name of forcing his magic out. His family weren't much of a family at all. (But they were his family, his only family: He had Sally. He had a brother.)

He tousled his hair in aggravation and rose. The reincarnated man paced around the room as his mind rolled the relationship he had with his family over and over. He felt trapped in the tower room, pacing about in a cage as he circled just within the runic protection.

His shoes clunked against the stone as he paced. A waxy wrapper was twisted and rubbed between his fingers as he circled the one thing he hadn't investigated yet. There was one linchpin to his childhood.

Godric pushed through the anxiety clawing against his mind. (He could do this. He could.) He swallowed spit as he tried to swallow back the anxiety slowly rising as he neared the heart of the matter.

Augusta Longbottom both loved and hated him. His uncles and aunts and cousins had all cared for him and held him in disdain. Pater Longbottom looked at him with dimming hope and quiet disgust later on. There were likely many reasons for their reactions and treatment of him.—The loss of Frank. Gran being forced to raise a child again when she was old. Godric not taking after Frank. Him looking more like Alice Longbottom.

The Gryffindor stilled beside one of the thin windows and stared out. It was barely midmorning. Godric juted his chin out stubbornly, forcefully ignoring the tide of nausea rolling through him, and returned to his pouf. He relit the smudge stick and waved the smoke around the immediate area. Then he focused on one single fact; the fact that influenced his entire life; the main reason for his family's treatment of him.

People thought he was a squib. Family had nearly killed him because they feared he was a squib. Children bullied him in the belief that he was barely more than a squib.

He had avoided this fact. He suspected most of his remaining buried memories centered around it. And he had one terrifying question related to this fact.

What had his family done before they resorted to attempted murder to force his magic free? (What had they done to cause the devastation he saw in his core?)

There had to be so many memories tied to that mistake. He just had to force it forward.

Godric didn't have any personal object that pronounced he was a squib.—But he hadn't needed physical objects to pull forward the very first memory he had recalled. He had just focused on his training while thinking about the lost memories and it had cascaded from there. He just had to be open to the memories while considering experiences he did recall.

oooP4ooo

(Harry)

The stairs didn't open to the outside. They ended at the base of a large, circular room. There were no windows, no doors. It was entirely empty. The smell of stale, stagnant air was the only thing present. There wasn't even dust, though that could have been because of House elves.

Salazar walked the perimeter of the room with his wand held high, a lumos illuminating the very empty, very clean room. The walls were the same stone Hogwarts was made of so it had to be part of the castle. He just had no idea where it was situated. The magic weave had indicated his suite sat beside the school's keep, hidden in the depths of the earth instead of some odd hallway. That didn't mean the stairs went directly, physically, up. This room could be anywhere. Or even nowhere: as in, not on his home plane.—Though, Salazar liked to think he'd notice if he had accidentally walked through a portal to another dimension. He was certain he knew where all Rowena's pocket dimensions were. (Not that pocket dimensions were quite like alternate dimensions. They were more in between plans and places.)

He reached out, physically and magically. The stone was cold against his fingers. Magic thrummed deep within it. Salazar could tell that the room had not been built during his previous life. There was not a drop of his runic magic in the structure. He could feel nothing of his favorite magical discipline. What magic hummed within the stone was old and faint.

Without his runic arrays, whoever had built the room had relied on enchantments to ground familiar charms, curses, and other enchantments. The builder knew all the other layers and combinations of magic used to build the physical structure of the castle. They had just failed to find a way to ground the magic to a charger that lasted the centuries. The fading magic was too thin and aged to feel much of anything personal about it or even if it was done well.

Salazar walked the circle with his hand pressed to the wall once more. All he could feel were echoes and fading magics. It didn't make any sense. This had to be part of Hogwarts but it didn't feel like her. It felt like an ordinary room.—He had only ever taught his runic battery to Rowena but it should have been used here...Unless Rowena hadn't taught it to another.

"Hogwarts?" he called out. She'd know more than he could speculate.

Green eyes swiveled about the room. A frown spread when he didn't spy the little girl. Hogwarts didn't skip into view. The eleven year old narrowed his gaze before leaning against a wall and focused inward. The bond with Hogwarts spun almost lazily from his core, looking like an innocent little thread of magic until he grew mentally closer and it became a rainbowed rope thrumming with complex magic.

He grasped the multi-colored rope. Hogwarts's emotions sang through him in response. Contentment and patient anticipation dissolved through him as she seemed to since his attention. Confusion, intrigue and then irritation. She had not heard his original call, that was clear.

Letting go of the rope, he opened his eyes and found the room still empty. A pop-click rang through the room.

Mipsy frowned up at him, looking a little huffy for some reason. "Master Sally be wanting Hogsie?"

"...yes," Salazar answered slowly, "What's going on?"

"Hogsie be in your suite, Master," she answered without explaining. Then the little elf pop-clicked away.

With a sense of another high priority issue looming, like the bleeding spider infestation, the Slytherin founder reluctantly descended the stairs to his suite of rooms. Hogwarts stood staring into the now lite fireplace. She was unnaturally still before the blazing flames. Her red hair seemed to dance like fire with the lighting and shadows flickering about her curls.

"Hogwarts?"

She turned from the fire. Silver eyes reflected the warm light from the fire and Salazar's lumos. She looked intent as she considered him. "Papa, you need something?"

He pressed his lips together until they became a thin line. He didn't like this serious version of his school. Still, there was no point in avoiding the topic. "Where do the stairs go, going up?"

"One of the towers."

Salazar's eyebrows shot up. "But...it's not...well, you."

"No Papa," she agreed with a sad little smile, "They didn't know how to make it part of me...But!" Hogwarts straightened and puffed out her chest, proud. "I've almost connected to it!"

"What?...How?"

Hogwarts's smile grew. "I'm not just the keep and the three towers Mama Helga finished before she died! I'm the land under the greenhouses, the metal and glass of those buildings, and the courtyards and all the hidden passages! The boat house is part of me too—that one was tricky, tricky to claim. I can't claim water, it's too slippery but I wanted to see it up close. It's so pretty from far away, and I wanted to know if it was as pretty up close, so I worked extra hard and carefully to claim it."

She paused in her ramble, took a breath and then continued at a slower pace, "I've been growing up, Papa." Hogwarts stepped towards him and leaned in with her arms tucked behind her back as she spoke earnestly at him. "You've seen! I've claimed all the turrets that were added and I've been working on all the towers. I can feel the stone and the glass of the windows with three of them and...I'm so close with some of them! It'll just be a little longer..."

Her smile faded slightly at a thought and she asked, "I should focus on the refurbished rooms, though, right? You're worried about the Heads master and you don't like the Potions master."

It took a moment to connect the dots but it did. Salazar's eyes widened and he blurted out in horror, "You cannot hear what's going on in the headmaster's room because it wasrefurbished?"

She shrugged, seemingly not concerned. "They do strange things to make places look nice Papa. Too much magic and layers of new stuff, and it does not connect properly. The room becomes muffled if there's enough new things and new magic. Each heads master refurbishes their suite. I just sort of stopped trying to see through it all.—I can, though! It just takes time, Papa." Hogwarts wrinkled her nose. "But not the pipes. Those are yuckie and no ones in them beside rats and Myrtle, anyway. You don't need me to see inside them, right?"

Salazar tugged at his wild hair as he considered everything, distractedly answering her last question, "No...no, I don't see why we'd need you to see inside the pipes."

The headmaster hadn't done anything to hide himself from Hogwarts. It was just a limitation on her part. That made him feel slightly better about the old man. It also meant he and Godric would have to find a way to help Hogwarts connect to the rest of the physical castle.

He furrowed his brow. Did that mean Hogwarts the castle and Hogwarts the little girl before him weren't one and the same? Hogwarts the little girl was the lifeblood of the physical castle, though. They had to be the same, on some level.

"How long does it take to connect yourself to another part of the castle?" Salazar asked as he caught one other uncomfortable aspect. She had been working to claim the remaining four towers. Those towers had been built centuries ago, probably not long after Helga had died.

Hogwarts shrugged. "Stone can be stubborn, Papa."

"Centuries, then?" Salazar prompted.

She flushed a soft pink glow. "Weeellll...technically I've not connected to a tower yet without help. But the last turret connected a few years ago!" They stared at each other for a moment. Then Hogwarts added, unhelpfully, "It varies Papa."

Salazar puffed out air, aiming it at an awry curl. He watched the black strands dance in the air, firelight reflecting off it, before he sighed and said, "Just keep focusing on what you want to connect with next. Godric and I'll see what we can do to help you connect quicker."

oooP5ooo

(Neville)

The eleven year old reincarnate hesitated. There were so many reasons why he'd rather not recall memories surrounding his supposed squib status but they couldn't be worse than the attempted murders. Probably.

Godric grimaced at a flickering candle.

Humans could be terrible to each other. Most of the supposed witches burned and drowned and hung had been non-magicals. So many of them had been proclaimed witches because of someone else being spurned or jealous of the poor person. Then there were the children beaten and starved by their family because magic was considered evil. The ones that survived years of the abuse ended up killed by their own suppressed magic when it inverted on itself and they became obscurials.

What made his situation that different? His family just wanted proof he had magic but they had abused him in the pursuit of that proof.

These missing memories were not going to be pleasant but he needed to recall them. He had to so his mind was whole. The founder of Hogwarts straightened his back, pivoted away from the window, and stalked to his pouf.

He didn't have a physical object to start with but he did have a recent event.

Godric considered the moment he had run into the three Slytherin boys on the steps down to the boathouse. If he had been a real eleven year old, Godric couldn't help but wonder if he would have survived being spelled like that by stairs. It would have been so easy to fall.—He should probably have a talk with Sally about those boys.

He shook his head and refocused on the moment itself. The blond had been clear in his opinion about squibs. The conversation filtered forward in little pieces as hre recalled the most striking part of the moment first, 'Squibs don't belong here.—I'm not a squib. My name is Neville Longbottom.—Amazing how they kept you.'

Those words pulled the conversation during quidditch forward before he could think more on the first memory. 'It's best they aren'tpart of society.—...families letting squibs go with only their clothes on their backs!'

"–squib" filtered into his hearing as he blinked awake. It was his gran speaking. He'd recognize her old voice anywhere.

Godric rolled out of bed and padded barefoot across the carpeted floor. The voices were just outside his door. It was ajar so that he had some light since the nightlights didn't work. (He was too old for it anyway. Big boys didn't need nightlights.)

Pater Longbottom and Gran were in the hallway. Some elderly man, dressed like the healers that cared for his parents, stood with them. The four year old stared out at them, uncertain of his welcome since it was so very late. None of them looked happy. Unhappy relatives meant he should hide. He had long learned that fact.

"There are some tests we can do," the healer said in a gravelly voice, "A...few are suspect."

"Suspect?" Pater demanded.

"Illegal in most cases."

"And?"

The healer shrugged. "You should be able to argue their use if anyone brings the Ministry's attention to the matter."

His gran finally spoke up, "Will they harm him?"

"There should be little to no damage," sniffed out the healer, clearly wondering at his gran's presence. He turned back to the Pater to add, "It would be best to complete them at the ancestral house—"

The memory blurred into another.

He was dressed in stuffy clothing and stuck in some obulant foyer. The same elderly healer was there. Gran gave a short, barely there nod at said healer as she clenched her purse before her waist and left him there.

The healer clenched his hands over Godric's shoulders and pushed him towards one of the side rooms. A familiar couch sat near one wall (He had hidden behind it once and overheard something he shouldn't have). He was guided onto it.

A vial of swirling turquoise and blue was shoved towards him. "Drink," ordered the healer with no fanfare, no explanation.

He obeyed.

It took only a moment for pain to spike across his stomach. He curled over himself with a moan. The healer said something but he didn't catch it as the world tipped onto its side. The pain expanded up across his chest. He was burning. He was so cold. Sweat dripped down his nose onto the floor.

The world went black.

More memories of the healer and his strange potions rushed by in a blur of pain and terror. After the first potion, he refused to drink them but that didn't stop the testing. It simply meant he was restrained and forced. Each potion caused discomfort and pain. Most led to him falling unconscious. One had him awake in the hospital.

Eventually that first healer was replaced with another and another after that. They went from potions to transfiguration.

He hated this sitting room. He abhorred this couch. The six year old shifted in discomfort as he waited like told. All he could do was imagine the next disgusting potion he had to drink.

What pain would he have to experience this time? The question vibrated through him whenever he came to Longwood Manor.

The door opened and closed with a click while he rumulated over his lot in life. A flash of deep purple was his only warning before the world shifted. Everything was suddenly smaller. Another flash of light and he felt the strange shift again. This time the world lost all its color.

Godric tried to turn towards the caster and figure out what was happening, but his body didn't work like it should. Another flash of light hit him while he tried to find a new equilibrium. The world shifted once more and he saw some colors. Some of the colors he had never seen before, who had no names he knew. He was distracted by this for a long moment, enough time for another flash of light.

Then he could not breathe.

He gasped but the air he pulled in didn't work like it should. Godric tried to move and fell off the couch. The mirrored end table came into view from the fall. All he could see was a large fish flapping in desperation. Its gills fluttered as it suffocated.

A spell hit the fish and the world shifted. Godric realized he had been the fish as he found himself able to breathe once more. The fish had been changed into a mouse.

He was a mouse.

On and on it seemed to go till finally he turned back into himself once more. Panic bubbled in his chest as he stumbled up and hugged himself. An elderly wizard stood by the door with a bland look. His wand was drawn but no longer pointed at Godric.

"Well boy?" the wizard asked.

Godric stared blankly, unsure what the man expected him to say. He backed away as the elder scowled and stepped towards him. He didn't want to experience any more transformations. He wanted to stay a child, himself.

"Simple headed little ingrate, eh?" scoffed the elder, "Do you feel your magic yet?"

Godric started. "What?"

The elder's scowl deepened. His wand shot up and a blue light shot out at Godric. The child dived to the ground in answer and the light hit the couch. Said couch shifted partly into a bear.

From transfiguration to charms and on. Expert after expert came and went. Godric was pulled through all these horrific memories. It was as if he finally popped the lid holding them all back.

He gritted his teeth together. He forced himself to keep going. He needed to finish this. (He didn't know if he could stop it now that these last memories were rushing forward.)

Godric sat on the couch. It was different from before. After the transfiguration incident, Pater had to replace it. He hated the new one just as much though. His latest "healer" entered and sat in a chair across from him. Some of them did that. A couple actually explained the charms or enchantments or what not they were going to use on him.

Some of it was uncomfortable. Much of it was painful but no one cared about that. What mattered was that none of it ever worked.

He never showed any sign of magic. He never felt a spark.

This expert was a witch. She was pretty and young compared to the usual elderly healer that visited. The witch offered a sweet smile and Godric hesitantly offered one back.

Her wand snapped out too quickly to follow. Purple strands wrapped around him and tickled him. Godric giggled and laughed.

This wasn't so bad: Except the spell didn't end.

It kept going and going. Tears fell and he gasped for breath. Black spots flickered across his sight. He would faint at any moment from the lack of air.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the spell ended and he sucked in a proper breath. He had a second to realize he had fallen from the couch, then another spell hit him. A sneeze exploded out of him and released all his desperately claimed air. Each time he sucked in a breath it was forcefully ripped from him by another sneeze. It lasted only a few moments but Godric found the black spots back before his eyes.

Once the spell ended, he tried to get up but his pants were stuck to the ground by some green sticky material. He trapped a hand in his attempts to free himself. Godric looked up at the witch for help. Another spell slammed into him before he could ask.

His eyes began to itch. Slowly the itch grew and he found it hard to open his eyes between the tears and the stinging. With his free hand, he tried to wipe his tears away. He couldn't help but scratch even though he knew he shouldn't. Godric could feel his raw eyelids swell shut.

"Please stop." croaked Godric as panic bubbled up.

The sensation of something tickling him returned in response. The swelling didn't go away. His pants and hand were still glued to the floor. The tickling made him squirm, or at least try to squirm. He hit his free hand as he tried to blindly find a way to make it stop.

Godric soiled himself.—She didn't care.

His hand and butt ached from the struggle against the sticky goe. He couldn't breathe properly. His chest hurt. He couldn't see.

The smell of his poop smeared across his backside filled the air. Tears welled down in shame and pain and terror as he squirmed. His free hand throbbed from hitting things in his attempt to free himself.

The cycle of spells, besides the glue, continued for ages before they slowed to an end. He laid across the floor in a trembling mess as he tried to catch his breath. Some potion was poured onto his eyes and he could see again.

The witch stared down at him for a long time after. Godric watched with a headache from the continuous rounds of near suffocation.

When she finally moved, she conjured a large flame near his head, far too close for comfort. The witch contorted the fire, twisted it menacingly toward his face until it was so close he could feel his skin bake. (It was oddly comforting.)

A hiss of outrage rang out. (He didn't understand the hissing. That bothered him, though he didn't know why.)

Hazel eyes jumped from fire to a shadow at the corner of his sight. A mouse crawled over his arm. Another followed and another until he was covered in little mice. He could feel them crawling all over him.

Godric couldn't stop the whimper at the uncomfortable sensation. The fire curled and rolled in the air like a long, wingless dragon. Sweat trailed down his face. A mouse crawled up his chin and headed for an eye.

He screamed silently as it opened its little mouth and moved to bite. The fire flared overhead. The mouse dissolved, revealing it to have been a mere shadow. (Sally's illusions were harder to break through. All these little mice were illusions pulled from shadow. They were a mere parlor trick that he shouldn't fear.)

The rest of the mice dissolved into a hundred tiny spiders. The sensation of their tiny legs were goosebump raising. He tried to scream louder even as he squeezed his eyes shut. Something, probably a spell, forced his eyes back open.

Finally, the horrible illusions and their terrible crawling sensation faded away. Godric was given a moment to recover as the witch paced, irritated at her apparent failure.

Godric switched between watching her wearily, pulling at the goo holding him to the floor, and ignoring her to stare up into the large flame bobbing above his head. The flame was dangerously close but that was likely the point. She didn't want him to get too comfortable between her attempts.

She paused as some thought seemed to cross her mind, dragging Godric's gaze from the flames at the sudden stillness. Her wand snapped out a second later, a word he didn't catch fell from her lips, and a vibrant red light shot at him.

The light was familiar but he didn't know where he had seen it before.

Pain exploded through his entire body. He screamed silently. His back arched, clothes tore as the goo kept the clothes against the floor instead of flexing with his body. A crack resounded as his stuck arm tried to move too.

He wanted it to stop. He needed it to stop. Hazel eyes glared up into fire as every nerve end danced with pain.

—"Ya gotta out stubborn the flame, lad. Push through any pain ya feeling and take control!"—

Neville reached out for something, anything to end the pain and latched onto something that wanted free of its confines. He yanked it from its position, freeing it.

Fire roared. The world exploded into flames.

The witch screamed.

Her scream seared through his mind. It echoed out and twisted into another voice.

The memory jerked. There was more to the torture scene but his mind forced a new memory forward. He couldn't stop it, a mental wall had crumbled. It was unnatural. Someone had made him forget. (This had happened last time, when the witch had first cast her pain spell on him all those years ago.)

oooP6ooo

(Harry)

Salazar slowly came to a stop as he entered the Great Hall. Something was off. He tilted his head, lips curled into a frown. An ache throbbed across his sinuses. It could just be a shift in the almost-cold he had from Hogwart's mental hug.

He closed his eyes and sighed. A nap would help but he had promised to go to the study group. His lips curled down into a frown as something fluttered through him. Either he was on the edge of not feeling good at all or something else wasn't right. Something–

"Harry,"

The founder reluctantly opened his eyes. Draco stood before him. At Salazar's attention, the blond latched onto his arm. The rest of his fellow first year Slytherins seemed to swarm him. He had somehow gotten to the Great Hall at the same time.—He should have gone to the kitchens instead.

Salazar had planned to visit his cousins during a late breakfast and then tag along to the study group. His more friendly Slytherin peers hadn't been part of the plan. "Draco, I've a study group with the Hufflepuf–"

"That's later! You can't go sitting with the Puffs now. I want to see the box of seeds you won from Longbottom–"

"Can I have food first?" Salazar asked as he was dragged towards the Slytherin table.

The pale blond gave him a flat look. "I know that you got it in your bag. And I bet Longbottom told you all about the seeds! You must tell me. Father gave me a list of seeds he'd be happy to purchase off you if you've got any of them."

"I don–"

"We aren't dull, Potter!" Theodore Nott insisted as he claimed a seat under one of the stained glass windows. "We know what type of satchel you've got."

Blaise huffed out in agreement as he claimed a spot between Vincent and Theodore, "Mother insisted a trunk was tradition. She won't believe me that you've gotten one!" He leaned over the table towards Salazar. "Maybe a photographed demonstration will convince her? They're so much better than a trunk."

"I could carry all my clothes with me," giggled one of the girls, Pansy Parkinson if he recalled correctly. She batted her eyelashes towards Draco. "Then I'd be able to keep my appearance up to mother's expectations!"

"I expect I'll receive one for Christmas," Draco announced, mostly to Pansy, puffing his chest out as he settled into a seat.

Salazar tried not to roll his eyes at them all as he sat at the table. He had been carrying his entire livelihood around with him at least. Actual children running around with such an enchanted bag was ridiculous.

His apparent peers settled about Salazar as they continued to debate over who had the best likelihood of receiving such a bag and what they'd do with it. None of them seemed to notice the bulk of his satchel. It might hold more than normal but it did not hold the near infinite amount the original bag had. There was no featherlight enchantment on it either. He had made it lighter than it should be but not so light he didn't have any heft to the thing.

The feeling of being watched drew his gaze. He found the twins staring from the Gryffindor table, the great fireplace roaring with vibrant flames behind them. Salazar frowned, feeling suddenly wary as he realized the Weasley twins were watching and waiting. That realization didn't come quickly enough.

Water dumped onto him. Blinking away clinging drops of water, Salazar found himself meeting the mystified expression of Gregory. The kneazle enthusiast was also utterly drenched. A glance around revealed all the first year Slytherins had been hit with enough water to soak their hair and clothing through.

He flicked his gaze back to the Weasley twins as Draco jumped from his seat with a wail. The twins stared back at him, waiting for some reaction. Other children joined Draco in dramatics over the prank but the redheads boys didn't react. This prank was directed at Salazar; the other children had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Professors and prefects rushed over, interrupting his view of the thirteen year olds.

Salazar frowned down at the table, feeling more and more certain that something wasn't right. He ignored the adults' efforts to dry and calm the children, and caught an iridescent gleam. The founder stared at one of the plates covered in water before he picked up his cup and looked inside. He was met with the shimmer of purified water. It wasn't to the standards of his cleansing baths but it was more than he had expected two untrained thirteen year olds to achieve.

There could be only one reason the boys had attempted this. Too bad for them, purified water didn't do anything against possession—not that he was possessed. (He should have made a bet with Godric about this.)

Salazar glanced back up at the twins, found them still watching, and tilted the cup at them in a silent salute before he drank it. Their expressions sored. He turned away so the Weasley's didn't catch his smirk.

The feeling of something wrong spiked. His gaze flicked back to the twins, first thoughts going towards some secondary prank, but they were no longer watching. He squeezed his gaze shut and focused on the feeling.

The ache radiating from his sinuses spiked, as if reminding him that he had over stimulated his mind and senses an hour ago. He ignored it even though it likely meant a migraine or really coming down with a head cold later.

Nothing seemed wrong with Hogwarts. There wasn't anything noticeably new with the ward anchors. The triple bond with Godric was vibrating.—Something was wrong with his brother.

He pivoted about the bench to head to the doors and almost walked into Snape.

"Potter," sneered the man, "liked your prank?"

"What?"

The potion master offered a nasty smile. Salazar became aware of various children listening in. He glanced toward the main group of wet children and spotted multiple hurt looks.

"Detention for assaulting your fellow first years."

Salazar scowled and turned back to the professor, "I did not–"

Snape snapped back, "A second detention for talking back!"

A counter remark was on the tip of his tongue, he was just as wet as the rest of the first year Slytherins, but the sense that he needed to reach Godric ten minutes ago stopped him from escalating the moment. Instead, he swallowed the retort and bit out, "Very well–"

"Sir." Professor Snape added.

Green eyes narrowed. The temptation to snark died as the feeling from Godric spiked once more.

He bit out, "Very well, sir. If you'll excuse me." Then Salazar stalked past his fellow first years, shoes squeaking from the water soaking through them, and out the Great Hall. He paused for a second as he felt out where to go through the brother bonds, tilted his head up and right as he followed the connection. Then the Slytherin founder stalked towards one of the hidden passages for an upper level.

"Hogwarts, anything odd going on? Where's Godric?" Salazar asked as he found the hidden passage empty of others.

Hogwarts mentally pressed against him and the image of a cloud of owls flying from their tower flashed across his mind. An image of Godric walking through the sixth floor to a bridge to one of the towers came next. The last image flickered past was of their recent conversation.

Godric was in a tower Hogwarts hadn't connected to yet. The owls probably meant the owlery.

The boy stepped out of the hidden passage onto the fifth floor, flicked his gaze at some of the curiously staring paintings. With no human in sight, he ran down the hall and about a corner to another hidden passage, leaving a trail of watery foot prints and drops across the floor as he rushed through the hall. This passage brought him to the center of the sixth floor and almost right into a crowd of seventh years.

"Ah, excuse me." Salazar flashed a smile up at the (ridiculously) tall should-be-adults and moved around them. His shoes squished and squeaked with each step.

One of the seventh years caught his arm and turned him about, "Everything alright Potter?" Ravenclaw and prefect badges gleamed on the boy's chest.

Salazar blinked twice as he shifted his focus from the slowly rising roar of 'wrong, wrong, wrong' vibrating from his bond with Godric and to the boy before him. "Fine–"

"Uncle Florean said to keep an eye on you," said the boy sharpily, "Something isn't right–"

"Oh leave off him, Phil!" laughed one of his companions, "What's a itty bitty firstie going to get involved in?"

Phil, probably Fortescue, let Salazar go as he scowled at his friends. "He's sopping wet!"

"Doesn't mean somethings wrong–"

A light flush on Phil's face seemed to grow as he glanced at one of the girls of the group. Salazar rolled his eyes as he slipped away, thankful for hormonal children for the first time in a long while. He could hear the seventh years continue to argue over his apparent situation until he turned a few corners.

He couldn't just sprint across the floor. There were too many students. The sixth floor was the primary location of most clubs so it wasn't particularly surprising for a Saturday. That many of the upper years caught sight of him and decided it was prime Boy-Who-Lived viewing time didn't help.

After what felt like an eternity, he reached the bridge. Hogwarts sent a mental push to hurry and the image of a notice-me-not like barrier falling over the bridge entrance. Salazar listened, dropped his bag on a window still just within the notice-me-not barrier and ran.

Cold winter wind blasted into him as he sprinted through the interior bridge and out into the exterior part as the bridge transitioned from castle to tower. He skipped up the steps into the owlery and paused in surprise. His feet splashed into water.

Warm water.

All the owls were gone. There wasn't a hint of snow on the owlery until he looked up to the roof. His breath escaped in puffs of visible air while his feet heated in their shoes. The floor was warm.

Godric was not in the owlery. He was not on the circular balcony surrounding the exterior room.

Where?—He had to be below.

Salazar snapped his gaze about searchingly as he trotted around the exterior of the owlery once more. He spied the door, rammed through it, and hopped down two steps at a time. A small amount of smoke billowed out around him and escaped up into the sky. His skin heated. Curls fluffed up from his view as water evaporated from them. His clothing lightened as they lost the weight of water also.

Magic shimmered at the foot of the stairs. The runic circle he had taught Godric ages ago pulsed and struggled as it fought to hold Godric's elemental magic at bay.

As he stopped on the step before the barrier, the last hint of water in his shoes vanished. Salazar couldn't feel any waterlogged pieces of clothing. All of it had evaporated. Instead, he wished he had less on. His throat burned with each breath. Sweat slid down his forehead but never reached far before evaporating.

Through the shimmering barrier, Salazar could see that the room was molten red and literally melting. Patches of ceiling were rolling downward in a weird sort of waterfall effect, creating stalactites in various parts of the room. Stones in the walls were dragging down towards the ground.

He couldn't help but stare. How hot did it have to be to melt rock?

oooP7ooo

(Neville)

Someone was screaming. Someone was cackling. He wanted his mamma.

It was black. There was no light.

There were only screams.

Godric screamed too. (Mamma came when he screamed: Mamma didn't come.)

A strip of light blinded him. With a blink, the light was blocked by a twisted face framed by dark, wild curls. The woman looked crazy. She grinned a demented smile when she spotted him. (Her smile filled his nightmares.) "Itty bitty baby Longbottom!"

"L-l-leav-v-v-e him be." stuttered a voice.

"Where is our Lord?"

"Crucio."

Screams. So many screams. His screams mingled with his parents.—His screams mingled with the young witch healer that was trying to prove he had magic.

The end of a dark wand pointed at him. The demented woman with wild curls smiled wide as she said, "Crucio."—Her face morphed into an elder healer who morphed into another elder healer and on until the young female one that had used the same spell on him appeared.

Pain. So much pain, until suddenly there wasn't.

Arms wrapped around Neville. His mamma had finally come.

Daddy was yanked off the demented woman. The red spell was cast again: on Daddy. He spasmed across the floor. Neville felt like trembling with him. All he could do was scream for them to stop.

They didn't.

The broken memory, too old and jagged to be the whole event, repeated itself. He couldn't pull away from it. When he tried, pieces of other memories seemed to entangle. It became a mess of torture scenes until he couldn't tell where one started and the other ended.

oooP8ooo

(Harry)

Runic marks churned to life and glowed with power as it crawled across his body. Soothing magic rippled up across his throat and cooled the burning sensation of the air. The discomfort of heat hot enough to bake a person alive faded away.

Godric was sprawled across the floor in the middle of the room. He looked alright but that was probably only because a person's inherent magic was disinclined toward directly harming itself. Ritual marks glowed across his visible skin, enhancing his natural tolerance of heat and protecting him from indirect harm as best it could. The odd spots of black on the floor around him and a pool of some type of glowing metal made clear that the direct area was still extremely hot, just not magma hot.

The reincarnated eleven year old grimaced and dropped down onto a step. He pressed a hand to the soles of each of his shoes and sent magic out into a concentrated runic design that would, hopefully, protect his feet from the bright red rocks spreading out across the room. There was no clear pattern for why sections were hot enough to melt rock compared to other areas that appeared stable. The floor below and immediately around Godric looked fine.

He would have to chance it.

With that wonderful thought, Slytherin flicked his hands out towards the barrier. Runes flared across the air, glowing golden and white as they shifted outward from his hands into a rectangular design. The rectangle of runic magic expanded out and settled against Godric's barrier, turning into a door that let him step through without disrupting the barrier's containment of the fire elemental magic. Then he ran across the room, squatted before his brother's head, and pressed a hand to the unconscious boy's throat.

Godric was hot to the touch. He was unconscious and unresponsive.

Sweat rolled off Salazar as he took all his brother's vitals. It was the last check that revealed the probable issue. He should have checked Godric's mind first. Salazar had known Godric was meditating and searching out his hidden memories as Neville.

The founder of Hogwarts stared down at his brother, feeling undecided. This was a mental issue. He should really leave Godric to it but his brother was literally melting stone while in a stone tower. He didn't know how long it would take before the tower became unstable.

They had enough problems without destroying the owlery by accident.

Salazar hesitated still, though. He was a master of the mind arts, at least in his last life. It wasn't a skill taught before the mind had developed and settled from puberty. Technically neither Godric nor he had hit that fun time of life yet.

To mess with a mind was a dangerous thing for everyone involved.

Godric made a wounded sound and the stone seemed to melt faster in response.

Salazar sighed, shoulders slumped as he accepted the possible repercussions.—If he was fast enough and careful enough, there shouldn't be any. And they didn't exactly think like children so maybe it would be fine. Maybe their minds were more adult and settled than a child's, but not so set that damage was irreparable.(2)

He pressed his hands down onto his brother's shoulders. It took precious minutes to push his magic and mind into the unconscious boy. Eye contact was not necessary but it made things so much easier. Without it he had to travel through the pathways of magic, to the core of the person and then veer off to the mind.

oooP9ooo

(Neville)

The memories shifted and twisted. Screams and laughter—Demands for knowledge and more torture—None of it followed any clear path. It all blurred together.

Some foreign presence pressed into him and the memory tugged and pulled, twisted and blurred.

He couldn't disconnect from the horror.—His mother was screaming.—The young female healer (torturer) was screaming.—An old man sneered when it became clear he couldn't use magic still.—Another potion was forced down his throat.—Daddy was spasming across the floor in agony.—Uncle let go and he fell.

The presence pulled the entwined memories from around him. It slowly unraveled the mess of memories. The process was long and excruciating.

Fire roared all around him, searing through his very core.—He hurt. It hurt.

The memories clung to the forefront of his mind. They were free and would not leave him be. The foreign presence could not push them back into the recesses of his mind.

He wasn't allowed to forget again.

Some memories should never be recalled in full. The mind cannot take them. And memories sealed away by magic were difficult for the mind to re-assimilate. Those memories were out of pace and misshapen from the magic that had pulled them from its place.

Godric had recalled a memory he should never have recalled. He had recalled it once before and it had been sealed away.—The foreign presence began to slice the specific memory apart so his mind could more easily reclaim it.

Manic laughter—screaming—pain

It was an endless cycle of pain and terror and fear.

The torture curse slammed into him.

He was on the floor in Longwood Manor with a witch casting spells at him. The deranged witch was hunting for her dark lord. His parents protected him with their own bodies...except...except there was no one there. Just the witch in the manor room with that hated couch.

No one ever came.

The world exploded with pain. His body arched. Fire filled his sight. Screams filled the air.

Daddy spasmed across the floor.

Mamma screamed.

He was in a room with screaming people. Neville couldn't help but scream too.

They need to make it stop. It had to stop.

It never did.

A hissing washed over him, overlaying the memories' auditory sensations, forcing the horrible sounds to fade to the background. The horrific torture filled memories faded around the edges. The fractured images were less pronounced without the sound—most of the oldest memory had been sound only.

The world was hot. He trembled on the ground. Hands gripped his shoulders. Neville opened his eyes and stared into emeralds. Lines of blood traced down a lightning cut. They dripped down emeralds. Eyes.

Those eyes meant something. They belonged to a person of importance but he couldn't recall who. He couldn't think properly.

He had opened himself to memories he had been made to forget—memories forgotten a very long time ago. It took a long moment to recall.

Something pressed to his lips. He didn't have the forethought to fight it. Vile liquid slid down his throat. The phantom pain and terror, and actual searing pain, faded. A heaviness grew across his limbs. His eyelids drooped from the emeralds.

Sleep was a good idea.

Godric offered a grimace for a smile as he fought off sleep long enough to connect the dots.

His broþor had come. Sally had stopped the nightmare consuming him. (The ass had drugged him.)

oooP10ooo

(Harry)

Salazar shook with effort as he leaned over Godric. Mipsy clung to his back as she offered another potion. He forced Godric to drink the painkiller and then gave both empty vials back to the House elf.

"Master Sally–"

"Back to the stairs." Salazar ordered.

Mispy huffed against his ear but nodded, her cheek rubbing against the side of his head as she did so. Her weight vanished as she pop-clicked away. He imagined she slipped through the runic door he had set in the barrier.

"I've got burn cream, Master Sally."

Salazar nodded, gaze flicked down at his knee where molten rock had grazed him. He could tell it wasn't the only place he had burns his ritual marks hadn't protected him from. Adrenaline pumped through him, numbing him to the pain for the moment.

Godric had never created molten rock in all the years he had known the man but he knew Godric had been pushed to an extreme to learn to control his elemental abilities as a child. The once redhead had almost burned an entire forest down, or something like that. Salazar would be having words with the man for skipping his melting rock abilities. That was something their ritual marks could have taken into consideration and protected against.

Complaining was for when his brother was awake, though. (And, after what little Salazar had glimpsed, he wasn't certain he would actually complain.)

The parselmouth blinked away blood and focused on the overly hot room. He could feel Godric's magic shimmering through it. Salazar reached out a hand covered in his magic. The tattooed brother bond glowed gold across his forearm as he connected with the free moving elemental magic. His hand unconsciously closed into a fist as he pulled the fiery magic into himself and dampened the heat as best he could.

Slowly the room's stone darkened and cooled back into a solid state. Cold November air was finally able to rush in through the window frames, the glass long since melted beyond repair. Puffs of overly hot air escaped Salazar's lips. He would have to expel all this excess, fiery magic soon.

Emerald eyes turned down to the unconscious boy. The study group would survive without him. Godric was his priority.

oooPooo

1. Peeves is referencing a backstory Rowling posted on one of her various sites. The full details are available here:

wizardingworld DOT com \ writing-by-jk-rowling \ peeves

but, basically, Peeves had a standoff with Hogwarts faculty where he forced them to evacuate Hogwarts in response to an attempt to remove him. The end result was him receiving the hat, rights to throw stale bread from the kitchens and swim in the boy's toilets on the ground floor.

2. Salazar is referencing the stages of brain plasticity here.—Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt to situations.—The older a person is, the less plastic their mind is, though it does depend on the person and their personal lifestyle. The knowledge that adult brains still have plasticity is a very recent development in the study of the mind. Salazar wouldn't know it (as it's 1991 in story), just like he doesn't actually know the technical facts about it all outside what magical study determined a 1000 years ago.

Let's just say that the high level facts of plasticity wouldn't be surprising to Salazar but also some of Salazar's beliefs on mind magic might not be entirely accurate due to his inaccurate understanding of a brain's plasticity = to physical age.

** I didn't mark this in the chapter but wanted to note a little about Neville/Godric memories. From comments last chapter, I think there are a mix of people that remember and don't remember this specific comment from Neville in the first book:

'Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch,' said Neville, 'but the family thought I was all Muggle for ages. My great-uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me – he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned – but nothing happened until I was eight. Great-uncle Algie came round for tea and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my great-auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced – all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased. Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here – they thought I might not be magical enough to come, you see. Great-uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad.' (PS7)

Obviously, I tweaked age and expanded on the Longbottom family a bit but this is why Godric has recalled what he has. The entire comment from Neville comes across as a little boy repeating things as he was explained to by an adult—"oh of course it was an accident! I didn't mean to drop you! You weren't supposed to drown!".—That Neville even thinks it's a perfectly normal thing to tell someone says something about the adults in his life (and probably about magical society in the books).

When I researched what canon revealed about Neville and came across this specific quote, a question popped in my head and I chased down an answer with the expanded magical world I created for this fanfiction in mind. You are welcome to disagree but you've read where the answer led me. The question is one that Godric thought of in story: If these adults were willing to attempt murder to prove Neville was magical, multiple times, what did they do leading up to those murder attempts?

Rowling hints at it with the comment "My great-uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me" and gives the two attempted murders as examples. That could mean those are the most memorable of the attempts but some of the others might have been near murders too. They couldn't have been particularly pleasant, even if the instances weren't murder attempts.

With the expansion of the Longbottom family and turning them into Houses/sort of lordships, I thought it made perfect sense that the attempts to pull magic out of Neville would occur in a more hands off fashion by the Longbottoms at first. Hence Pater Longbottom having "healers" take a stab at it first.

It's only when Neville is getting closer to eleven that his family joins in on trying to force his magic free.