Hey everyone! I'm really sorry for the long wait. I had to rethink and rewrite this chapter quite a few times, and after much consideration, I decided to split the ending into three parts. It was originally going to be just one more chapter, but I thought that came as way too long and overcrowded, hence why I chose to split it. So... rather than 4 chapters as I had planned, this fic will be 6 chapters long. Don't worry, I promise the next two parts won't take as long as this one did.
With that said, thank you so much for reading and to everyone who has faved/followed! I hope you like the chapter!
"You're not yourself today, Salazar."
The cobra's piercing yellow eyes were fixed on his. The coldness of its moist skin had his forearm warped in an increasingly forceful embrace.
Salazar stared back at the animal. The trapped pulse beating eagerly on his wrist was turning painful. Soon, his hand became heavy with numbness; yet, he didn't allow any trace of discomfort to show on his face.
When dealing with snakes, the slightest display of weakness was the prelude of a certain death.
"Something's changed within you. It's made you less than you were." The cobra's tongue danced along with its words. Its mouth became wide open, exposing a couple of sharp fangs coated with venom. "You were a fool to seek me in this state."
"I know not what you speak of." Salazar smiled. He raised his free hand and caressed the cobra's body, tracing his index finger along the animal's skin as if it was a dog eager for its master's attention.
The cobra hissed at his condescending touch and jerked its head forward when Salazar's finger passed insultingly close to its mouth.
Salazar didn't flinch at the feint, and simply watched as golden drops of venom rained down on his skin and the damp grass underneath them.
"My heart is at peace. I've merely come here to see my dear friend one last time." Salazar's voice rang smooth as he stroked the cobra's head. "As powerful as we both are, neither of us can defeat time. Our days are counted, and I merely wanted to make sure to see you again before you passed, or I did."
"A noble sentiment. One all snakes can understand and respect." The cobra closed its mouth and tightened its grasp on Salazar's arm. "But we do not tolerate lies and weakness, and right now, your heart is festering with both, Slytherin."
A soft laugh hatched in Salazar's chest. It was not the first time his own legilimency paled in comparison to a snake's natural intuition, but he had never felt so vulnerably exposed before. No matter how venomous, prideful or savage, no snake had ever managed to impose itself against Salazar's power and strength of will.
His relationship with his fellow wizards and witches and even his own family had been no different. Most of the time, there had been fear; others, respect and admiration, and in the rarest occasions, even love, but never submission, not on his end.
For once in his life, his fate was at the mercy of someone else.
Helga.
The name sprouted from his mind and threatened to break his bravado.
How long had it been since he had thought of her since their last awry encounter?
Perhaps years, or maybe he had never stopped thinking about her at all.
It was an answer he couldn't define.
"I sense great doubt in you."
The cobra intruded his thoughts and forced him back to reality, away from the memories of the carefree days when his ambitions and hopes were yet to be soured.
"You're right." Salazar said before a bitter laugh escaped his lips. The burden of his broken pride was nothing compared to the comforting release of the revealed truth he had tried to bury inside him.
I lie too well, especially to myself. And yet, a snake cannot be deceived, even less a cobra.
"This change in you is shameful. To think I once respected you as much as your fellow humans do. Unforgivable. You are no longer worthy of mine or any snake's respect." The cobra extended its head closer to Salazar's neck.
Salazar could feel the burning touch of its fangs resting right above his pulsating artery.
"Still," the cobra whispered, "I'd be lying if I said I'm not intrigued about what could reduce a man like you to this sorry predicament. What happened to you, Slytherin? As evidence of our fading friendship, you shall answer, and I shall listen. "
"I'll answer, but not out of duty to you and our broken bond." Salazar replied. "I'll do it simply because I wish to do so."
Because I need to. Because I would never dare to confess this to someone else without killing them afterwards. You are as old as you are irrelevant, my friend; that's what makes you the perfect vessel of my confession.
"Such arrogance." The cobra's tongue caressed his skin. "It would cost you your life if it wasn't already lost to me thanks to your weakness. Please, omit the pretenses and answer me at once, before I lose my patience and strike you down. It wouldn't take long, just a single bite for my venom to corrupt all the blood in your body."
"Do it then. I know I've got no escape." Salazar said, looking up to the sky painted red with the setting sun. "Whether I answer or not, you will kill me."
"Yes." The sudden mellowing in the cobra's voice took Salazar aback, but it soon returned to its dominant tone. "It's only natural that I do. We cobras do not allow a weakened prey to escape. To do so would be to act against our instinct. You know this Salazar, and yet you came to me. You've got no one to blame but yourself."
Salazar's eyes widened at the last statement. The cobra's words stung more than its venom did as it burned his skin.
"I cannot allow you to escape death, but I am granting you the chance to confess whatever burden is devouring your soul. It's up to you whether you accept this last generosity of mine or refuse it. So what will it be, Salazar Slytherin?"
Salazar remained quiet for a moment. His wandering thoughts returned to Helga. It was only for a fleeting second, but it was more than enough for him to muster the courage he needed to speak.
"It's not a matter of something that happened to me." The words flowed limply from his throat. Each was a blow to his crumbling pride. "It's a matter of what I've done."
The cobra raised its head and rested it against Salazar's forehead. The eyespots formed by the scaly pattern on each side of its hood stared deeply into Salazar's gaze.
"Isn't this surprising?" The cobra said with its own version of a mocking scoff. "Salazar Slytherin, the master of dark magic, the harbinger of his so-called new age of magic superiority and blood purity, is consumed by regret of all the atrocities he has comitted against muggles—"
"No. Regret has indeed tarnished me, but it's not because what I've done to muggles and their mudblood kin."
"Are you sure about that, Salazar?" The cobra inquired, the sides of its hoods further expanding like a pair of flesh wings. "Are you?"
To his own shock, Salazar's tongue became stale.
Curse you.
The hatred he intended for himself found a better vessel in the discord-sowing cobra.
"I am." He said with a conviction so strong that the cobra retreated slightly away from him. He smiled at his small victory, but it didn't take long for him to realize how hollow it really was.
There was no pride in managing to trick a cobra when he had failed to convince himself.
I hate you, but you were right. If these feelings are truly blooming inside me, then it's true. I'm not myself anymore. How can I be the man I was now that I know the truth of what's to come?
"Very well." The cobra said, its grip on Salazar loosening as token of its respect for Salazar's display of confidence. "Tell me then, what have you done that troubles you so? Who have you wronged?"
"My family, my followers... my people. I've failed them." Salazar felt a lump forming in his throat. He swallowed it before the tears it contained could find a way to his eyes. "I've failed everyone."
"How so? Are you not loved and admired by them all? Have you not guided them whenever they were lost? Did you not spend all your life fighting so theirs could be better?"
It was impossible for Salazar to define whether the animal intended to comfort him or mock him. One could never be completely sure with snakes. He had spoken to them all their life, and still their natural ambiguity was something he had never fully understood.
"All is true." Salazar answered, his heart clenching inside his chest.
"Then, why?" The cobra insisted, its fangs overflowing with venom. "Why do you—"
"Because I was weak and full of doubts." Salazar couldn't keep a tear from escaping his left eye. "And in my weakness, I sought an answer. Not for the present, but for the future."
"Humans. Always so worried about the legacy of your actions and the fate of your blood. Yet, it is not surprising coming from you. You always were, after all, the man most obsessed with this kind of nonsense, Slytherin."
"I was. I am." Salazar said with contained anger. "I'm not ashamed of it. If I care about the legacy of my actions, it's because I want them to be meaningful for the world. If I care about the fate of my blood, it's because all I've ever done was for their sake. All I ever wanted was for them to grow strong and to keep prospering even after I'm gone. I wanted them—"
Salazar bit his tongue. He did not dare to finish, too aware of how childish and naive his wish would sound if spoken out loud.
The cobra waited for him to complete the thought. Its curious gaze turned into a glare once it realized Salazar would say no more.
"Alas, whatever you wished for them, it is not bound to happen. You are sure of it... Oh Slytherin, have you really fallen so low that now you seek comfort in the prophecies of centaurs? Are you so desperate that you went to those star-gazing fools in search for an answer?"
Salazar winced. The cobra laughed at his reaction.
"Please, as if you would ever seek the help of your own kind. The great and ruthless Salazar Slytherin cannot allow his fellow wizards and witches to see the man behind the reputation. If anyone ever did, you'd have no choice but the kill them afterwards... just like you did to those lowly centaurs after they revealed to you your family's wretched fate."
Salazar said nothing, but his eyes said more than words would have done.
"And you plan to do the same with me once your self-pitying confession is over, do you not? After all, what worth is a centaur's or a cobra's life to the powerful Salazar Slytherin?"
The cobra's eyes didn't flee from Salazar's insolence, and both man and snake remained trapped in a visual struggle.
"You may think of yourself as cunning, Slytherin, but you've always been awfully predictable to us snakes, cobras above all. Humans are all the same. Once, I thought you were different, but I thought wrong."
The cobra moved swiftly, with an elegance that didn't match the nature of the act.
The bite came without further warning.
As Salazar had expected, the cobra aimed to his neck.
Salazar gasped as the burning flush of venom mixed with his blood and spread to his body, transforming it into what felt like thick streams of lava.
"A simple victory. Too simple... Slytherin, did I best you, or did I simply do as you desired?" The cobra said as soon as its fangs departed from Salazar's flesh. His coagulated blood coated them like a crimson lacquer. "Perhaps it doesn't matter now. It's done. You spoke to your heart's content and I listened, but now it's over. There's nothing left to say or do for either of us."
The cobra freed Salazar's arm and nimbly slid down to the grass. Despite the venom corroding his body, Salazar retained his kneeling posture.
"Not even in death will you allow yourself to fall." The cobra said as it admired him as if he was the statue of an idol."Farewell, Salazar Slytherin. A shame your death failed to be as glorious as your life."
The cobra slithered away into the same forest it had come from when Salazar had arrived to their meeting. He followed its trail until it disappeared from his sight.
His only witness was gone, but even so, Salazar refused to collapse on the ground.
His pride, the only constant companion of his life, became also his only pillar of strength. Slowly, Salazar raised a trembling hand and put it over the blistering scars the cobra had left behind on his neck.
He smiled.
Indeed. This is what I desired. Now that I know what will happen, I wish for nothing else.
The image of the cursed child forever trapped between life and death returned to him, so fresh and vivid that for a moment, Salazar swore he could hear his whimpers.
His smile shattered. Tears filled Salazar's eyes as the creature's laments echoed louder in his ears.
"Stop." Salazar muttered in anger. "Stop crying."
The creature disobeyed him and started to wail, the same way children do when they seek their mother's comfort.
"Stop it. Don't cry!" Salazar howled as his tears came streaming down his cheeks. "Voldemort!"
His free hand rested violently over the one covering his wound.
Salazar fell, the venom in his body finally overpowering his pride.
"Mother..."
His fading scream was followed by the merciless silence of the nature that surrounded him.
My family, this is not what I desired for any of you.
Shaking beyond his control, one of his hands found its way to the pocket of his robe and desperately searched inside.
All that I ever wanted was for you to be—
His thoughts became a frenzied collage of images and words he couldn't weave together. Before he lost himself in the painful euphoria of the cobra's venom, Salazar saw her.
For a blissful moment that lasted little more than nothing, the wailing creature from the distant future was replaced by the woman of the past.
The woman that had loved him and he had loved back in return.
Helga.
The name remained trapped in his lips; his tongue paralyzed by the foreign toxin.
His hand emerged from his pocket with a tiny flask.
I want to see you.
Salazar thought as he handed his fate to the elixir.
Right now, that's my only desire.