Salazar couldn't help but turn around to etch the memory of the majestic Hogwarts castle into his mind with every few yards he managed to walk away from it.

There would be no going back now. This was no longer one of the adventures Godric decided on the night before, nor was it an urgent mission to save a few witches and wizards from mobs of Muggles.

Salazar wished it was. He wished the others could see what he did, that they could understand where all of this was going. He hoped they realized sooner rather than later and hid the castle at the very least.

When the towers had finally been covered by the mountains and Salazar could no longer feel the magic of the castle's wards, he could feel the weight on his chest. His eyes burned and he forced himself to stare at the sky to calm himself down.

It hurt.

It hurt that his friends, his family, didn't believe in him.

It hurt that they would believe hearsay instead of listening to his reasons – that they wouldn't try to understand. They had been eager to be convinced by others, but Salazar still couldn't bring himself to resent them for that. The three of them had been home, just like Hogwarts had become home.

Had he not realized over the last ten winters that his word had meant so little after he had been the one to put forth the idea of a school?

Whatever had happened to the four of them, everything that had happened since they had met over twenty summers ago, young and eager to learn, meant that Salazar was exactly where he had started when his village had been pillaged and torched just because they had been different.

Alone.

But that didn't mean that he would have to stay that way. That didn't mean he wouldn't try to make a little second home: nothing as grand as a castle but whose students would be just as capable.

He wasn't the bravest, smartest, or most loyal, but that didn't mean he had none of those qualities either.

It wouldn't be the same, nothing ever would compete with the great Gryffindor castle, but it would be something more than nothing.

Salazar could still pass on whatever he was able, as he had always wanted to.

Only the location needed to change… and companionship.

Perhaps he would try for some place further south.

Perhaps he could make a place for people like him, who had never before managed to find somewhere that was their own.

For those who were always left behind.

Written for: [436 words]

Hogwarts Assignment: Cryptology – task 1: Write about a substitute

Would you rather? Write from a Professors POV OR from a Founders POV?