Round 8
Ilvermorny
Year: 4
Theme: Look at the experience of half-bloods, or those that live in two worlds at the same time.
Word count: 1761
Buzzwords: Question of belonging, Hiding your identity, Representing two worlds
Main Prompt: [Word] Superior
Optional Prompts:
[Setting] Medieval Britain
[Plot point] Unlikely friendship
AU for the language used by the Founders. It is not Old English because I cannot write in Old English. It is not even 19th century English, because even that's not accurate to 10th cent Britain. Also AU for the whole Salazar/Rowena relationship of course, as well as Rowena being Halfblood. The events of the HP books do not change much, however.
The Golden Snitch:
Emoji challenge:
The kiss with an eye closed emoji: Write about a secret love.
"Salazar, perhaps this is not such a great idea." Rowena looked at him, hoping something, anything, would make him change his mind. She did not see this ending well for either of them.
However, the wizard continued to prepare to head outside. He put on his billowing dress robes, decorated with the colours of his house, dark green and silver. He seemed quite busy, and would have likely not even turned back to look at her before he left, had Rowena not sighed loudly.
"Please think it through. You know Godric will not stand for it." She herself did not stand for 'it' either, but she was not nearly bold enough to tell him as much. She pulled up the covers closer to herself, her head reeling with the information he had told her.
"Rowena, this will hardly be the first thing that Godric does not approve of." He looked pointedly between them, and at the bed that they had spent the night in.
Rowena knew that Godric had always, and would always consider him to be a bad influence and unsuitable for Rowena. In fact, Godric himself had tried to court her once, but she had snubbed him as politely as she could. "They're hardly the same kind of thing," she tried to counter, but she knew what Salazar would reply.
"Knowing Godric, they might as well be. He has a strange belief that he is superior to the rest of us."
Rowena held her head between her hands. The irony of his last statement wasn't had not been lost on her. Besides, she did not want to tell Salazar the secret she had kept all her life. Especially now since she knew it would destroy everything. She had always known he had a strange dislike for the Muggleborns among their students, but she did not know that it ran this deep for him. She had even gone so far as to support him when he had implied that it might be better if they studied in separate classes, a system they had tried following for a year before Godric had raged otherwise. She had never expected that one day he would intend to throw them out of not just Hogwarts, but the wizarding world itself. According to Salazar, they should not have existed in the first place, and neither should half-bloods. She wondered what he would say if he knew about her childhood—about her life.
Her younger self had rebelled strongly when her father had first insisted she study with the Muggle children. She had thought that they were filthy and foolish. Even the word 'Muggle' had seemed ugly to her. Her time with the other children, who also disliked even the thought of Muggles, had influenced her already, in her short life.
But then she had bitten her tongue on hearing that her mother had been one of them too. Her father had never told her as much, before, and he pretended she was a pureblood, at least in front of the rest of the wizarding society. That was the day that she had questioned everything, her whole life and identity. She wasn't who she had thought she was. She had been lied to, and she had been lying to her friends. In fact, according to her father, she would have to keep perpetuating that lie, for the sake of their reputation, because even if her own father was not one of them, the world was filled with wizards who considered themselves superior because they were Purebloods. Her father had promised that he would, going forward, would always keep a part of her upbringing Muggle, to honour her mother. If anything, all the chaos had made her dislike Muggles more, and her own self less.
Her opinion had flipped very quickly when she had actually gone to the aforementioned Muggle school. She had met someone, finally, someone, who she could talk to, and was on her level—another girl, by the name of Mithian. The two got along marvellously, much to everyone's surprise, as they all had assumed their headstrong natures would have clashed. They had betrayed all expectations, both in their work, as the two to excel most in their fields, and in their lives, as they had always stayed close.
Rowena looked up suddenly, her train of thought broken. Salazar had left, of course, while she had been lost in her memories. However, thinking of Mithian had reminded her of the fact that they had not met in a fair amount of time. And who better to confide her troubles in, and perhaps even clear her head with, than her best friend?
Minutes later, she was all dressed and standing inside Mithian's house. Her hostess had generously offered to brew her tea and was now busy setting the fireplace, while Rowena sat down and made herself comfortable.
"Salazar? What happened between you?" Mithian asked, rustling the firewood. She seemed to be having some trouble with it.
"He has certain views I cannot condone," Rowena said, taking out her wand. She muttered a spell under her breath, and the firewood arranged itself. She motioned for Mithian to move back and lit the flames with her wand.
Mithian joined her on the seat next to hers, now that the kettle was boiling. "Are his views that...extreme? Could you not overlook them?"
Rowena sighed loudly. "I did, for all this time. But now-" She shook her head. It was starting to throb again. "I think, perhaps, if—when he hurts someone, that ought to be the moment when I cannot ignore it anymore."
Mithian put a hand on Rowena's, trying to comfort her. Rowena turned to her, smiling, just as a boy walked into the chamber.
"Mother! You didn't tell me Aunt Rowena would be here?" he exclaimed when he saw her sitting there. He ran up to her and threw his arms around her. She embraced him back.
"That is Mistress Rowena to you, Stefan," Mithian chastised.
Stefan made a cheeky face at her, and Rowena laughed. "We're not in Hogwarts anymore, Mith. It really is all right."
"See?" Stefan said to his mother, full of childish glee that he had 'won' Rowena's support.
The kettle whistled loudly, making Rowena jump. "Oh, look," she said. "I'll get the tea from the pantry, now that it is done boiling." Truth be told, she had been hoping to avoid Stefan while she was here. He was one of the Muggleborns that Salazar wanted to… She did not want to even think about it. Stefan being a wizard had been a shock to them all, but in a way she was glad of it, because it meant she could share all of her life with Mithian, now. She did not have to hide half of it, as she did with Godric, Helga, or Salazar, pretending to be a pureblood. So now, even though a simple Accio, or a call to the maids, would suffice, she wanted to spend her time, walking to the rather distant pantry, just so she could clear her thoughts.
She was only halfway there when a loud crash startled her and made her run back with worry. "Mithian? Stefan?" she called out, as she entered.
Standing there, wand pointed at Stefan, was Salazar, and a few of the men she knew believed in ideals similar to him. Men, she had never approved of. Mithian was on the ground, hurt by a spell that had left a gash across her cheek, and immobilised. "Rowena?" he asked, clearly taken aback. His hand was shaking now.
"Salazar...please," she begged, positioning herself between him and Stefan. "What are you doing?" Her own wand was now pointed at him. "Salazar," she tried again.
His face hardened, and his surprise quickly turned to anger. "Why are you here, Rowena? At one of our students' houses?" He looked down at her, steely grey eyes boring into hers.
She shivered slightly. Those same eyes had been filled with something akin to love the night before. "Mithian is...a close friend of mine. We have known each other for years."
His eyes widened. "A Muggle? You were close friends with a Muggle? For years? How is it that I was not aware of this?" He turned to point his wand to Mithian. Some of his companions were still aiming for Rowena, however, and she knew any sudden moves on her part would be dangerous. "How would you even know her? Surely someone of a superior standing as you would have had no reason to visit this..." he paused, looking around with distaste. "Filthy Muggle estate?"
"Salazar, I," she began, and then took a deep breath, steeling herself. She knew her next few words would change her relationship with Salazar forever. "I am a half-blood. My mother was a Muggleborn witch." She swallowed, terrified of the look in his eyes. "You know me, Salazar. Better than anyone else, perhaps. You know what I am. This...nothing can change that." She braced herself for the tirade she was sure was coming, closing her eyes. He would call her names. He would purge himself of all relations and emotions related to her. He would tell her she was beneath him, and that she deserved to be outcast, live like the betwixt-and-between that she was. His voice was ugly in her head, and she knew soon enough, she would hear it aloud as well. Instead, all she heard were two words, hissed with a venom she did not know anyone could possess.
"Avada Kedavra."
Her eyes shot open, and she turned her head to see Mithian, no longer breathing and staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. An unearthly howl escaped her lips, at the same time that a few other figures walked in. However, before Godric, Helga, or the Aurors could do anything, she screamed the words herself, the syllables escaping with desperation and pain.
The green spell hit Salazar Slytherin and he fell to the ground with a loud sound, never to rise again.
Rowena crouched next to the man she had once loved, one hand placed on her stomach. Salazar Slytherin had left her a souvenir, and he would never even know.
It took hours for them to clean everything up, ensure the men who were accomplices were taken care of, and make their apologies to Stefan and his father.
It took years for the remaining Founders to regain trust in themselves and each other.
It took a lifetime, perhaps more, for Rowena to find herself again.