Hi all, this is a bit of a monster of a chapter, but things are heating up a bit. Thanks to the amazing theedgeofnight (please check her out on Tumblr) who has agreed to beta for me and managed to wade through sixteen pages of writing in two days!
TW this chapter for panic attacks as well as physical abuse and discussions of abuse - nothing too graphic (I will never publish anything overtly violent), but the psychology of abuse is very much explored.
Please read and review and let me know what you think!
The next few days had been surprisingly normal for Harry and his friends, considering that the founders of Hogwarts had crash-landed in their time and taken up residence for the foreseeable future. It seemed that the almost supernatural ability to adapt to any and all weird circumstances that all Hogwarts students cultivated over the course of their education was still going strong. Harry had spent the whole of Saturday building up to the Quidditch match, trying to jostle Ron into playing well. His trick with the Felix Felicis had worked like a charm, and he'd won his first match as Gryffindor captain – against Slytherin, no less! If it weren't for the fact that Ron and Hermione had fallen out cataclysmically in the aftermath, he might have even been able to enjoy the win and the celebratory party. Instead, he stood in the corner, being handed cup after cup of a vile tasting liquid that he realised to his dismay, three rounds in and with the edges of the world starting to blur, was cheap nettle wine.
Between his feuding friends and the headache from hell, he'd spent most of Sunday hiding behind the curtains of his four-poster bed and squinting blearily at his Charms homework. Neville had poked his head round some time in the early afternoon to bring him a leftover sandwich from lunch; Harry had eaten it gratefully, and then spent the next half an hour trying not to throw up. All in all, it was one of the least productive days he had ever led in his life and he swore to himself that he would never, ever drink again. He hadn't even been able to go sleuthing for news about the time-travellers, and it was killing him not to know anything. He thought that Ron and Hermione might have made some headway, but he found Ron curled up in a dark corner of the Common Room with Lavender Brown; Harry beat a hasty retreat before he was further traumatised. Hermione, on the other hand, had disappeared to the library at the crack of dawn and he didn't have the energy or the stomach to track her down and face a lecture about the dangers of alcohol, even when he finally started feeling vaguely human again around dinnertime. She didn't reappear until breakfast on Monday morning, and Harry half-suspected that she'd slept there overnight, though he had no idea how she'd managed to avoid the ever-vigilant Madam Pince. In hindsight, he realised she'd probably spent most of Saturday there too, whilst he was caught up in last minute preparations for the match. The last time she had spent that much time in the library, she had been revising for OWLS. He'd surmised that she was researching something to do with the boy, Sal, but she'd only stayed in the Great Hall long enough to grab a slice of toast, once she'd caught sight of Ron and Lavender's entwined hands. Harry couldn't blame her, as the sight put him off his food a little too, but he really would have liked the chance to compare notes on the time-traveller situation.
It wasn't until Potions that he managed to catch up to her, by which time he'd massively fucked up and was in need of a bit of help. He'd passed Sal a couple of times in the corridors that day; he had been determinedly pushing a straggly looking grey mop up and down the stone floors, dragging a bucket of water behind him and looking completely miserable. The second time that Harry stumbled upon him working, he had tried to talk to him. The boy had been so startled that he knocked the bucket over and soaked a good section of the third floor corridor. He'd dropped to his knees immediately, apologising profusely and soaking his threadbare trousers. As the puddle expanded, he'd jumped up and tried to mop up the worst of the spill. Harry had pulled out his wand to help when Filch appeared. The miserable bastard of a caretaker then immediately started yelling at Sal, clipping him around the back of the head and threatening to do much worse if he made any more mess. It was only Sal's pleading look that finally made him leave for Potions. Harry was late in the end, but Professor Slughorn let him get away with it; the professor had only winked conspiratorially at him and told him that a young Gwenog Jones had also once pushed the boundaries of school rules.
Harry's hands shook slightly as he furiously measured out armadillo bile, relating the scene that he'd just witnessed to Hermione. He knew there was very little that he could have done without making it worse for Sal. Whenever Dudley had deliberately messed up Harry's work to get him in trouble – traipsing mud through the hall just as Harry had finished vacuuming, spilling drinks over the freshly cleaned worktop, and other such petty irritations – it was usually better to try and get the mess sorted out before his uncle saw and then hope for the best; no good ever came from other people interfering. One time his aunt had been screeching at him for leaving the hosepipe running and nearly drowning the roses. Next-door-but-one had been walking the dog and stopped to tell her that he'd seen Dudley messing around with the tap and that, just this once, it might not be the local delinquent's fault. His uncle, when he'd come home from work, had been furious and accused Harry of being a nasty little liar. The ensuing argument was nasty, even by Uncle Vernon's standards; Harry didn't leave his cupboard for a week afterwards. He wasn't going to get Sal into more trouble by having a blazing row with Filch, particularly when the git of a man had seen quite comfortable hitting him in front of half the third floor corridor.
Hermione didn't follow his logic and had refused to speak to him for the rest of the lesson, which Harry thought was a bit off. He loved Hermione dearly, but, he bitterly reminded himself as she glared at him out of the corner of her eye, she always thought she was right, even about things Harry had a hell of a lot more experience with. She took her anger out on her potions ingredients, obliterating coriander seeds between her pestle and mortar and chopping doxy wings into minute particles. The whole time, she'd been glaring as Harry followed the additional instructions in the Half-Blood Prince's potions book and his potion steadily turned the correct shade of pale pink. Her own potion was nearly identical, which Harry thought was bloody miraculous, considering she'd reduced most of her ingredients to pulp before they touched her cauldron. He wisely kept this thought to himself and tried to swallow down his own anger.
"Perfect work as usual, Mr Potter," Slughorn had commented as he'd walked past their desk. "And you, Miss Granger. Exemplary, both of you." Harry ducked his head and kept his book and its helpful notes hidden under his parchment of lesson notes, deliberately ignoring Hermione's reproachful glare.
As soon as the lesson finished, she stormed out of the classroom. Ron shot him a commiserating look and rolled his eyes in exasperation. Harry scowled and reminded himself very firmly that Ron was his best friend and that he was not getting embroiled in another row between the two of them. He turned away from Ron with a bland half-shrug, packed his bag with more force than was really required, and sulked his way through the rest of the day's classes.
The rest of the week plodded steadily onwards and soon Friday was upon them. He'd seen precious little of either of his best friends outside of classes, and was starting to suspect that their fight would last all the way through to Christmas. Harry hadn't seen Sal again all week, either. He'd tried hanging around outside Filch's office to try and run into the other boy, but had been foiled at every attempt by the sudden appearance of Snape, who'd accused him of loitering and made him leave. After this had happened three times in one day, he suspected that Snape was deliberately keeping him out of the way, either that or the ex-potions master was heavily invested in protecting Filch's stash of confiscated dungbombs. Having not seen Sal since the altercation over the mop bucket, Harry was beginning to get concerned that something had happened to him; he had mentioned as much to Professor McGonagall the day before. She had told him unequivocally that things were under control and advised him to put his thoughts to his studies for once, especially as he was now in his NEWT years. She'd left him with nothing more than a stern look and a promise that the teachers were monitoring the situation with the visitors. Harry had been hoping for a biscuit.
He had also made absolutely no headway into figuring out what was going on with the time-travellers. They were the topic of conversation everywhere he went, but no one seemed to have any reliable information. The general consensus was that the founders had come to help fight Voldemort, but he'd heard any number of eyewitness accounts – from Gryffindor battling a manticore in the trophy room, to Hufflepuff coming through time to fire Snape for being a terrible teacher – so he couldn't trust the rumour mill any more than usual. His nocturnal wanderings had yielded precious few results; he still didn't know whereabouts in the castle the group were staying. The only thing he'd been able to confirm was that it was all three of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor who had fallen through time, and that they hadn't even thought about building Hogwarts yet in their own era. He only knew that much because he'd heard the Fat Friar bragging to one of the Headless Hunt that the Bloody Baron had recognised the younger founders. Even the ghosts didn't know any more than that. The other members of the party, Lord Gryffindor and his servants, had apparently locked themselves away in whatever part of the school Dumbledore had put them up in, as Harry hadn't seen hide nor hair of them all week; the only evidence that they were still in the school was the word of a second year Hufflepuff, who couldn't even say how many servants were with Lord Gryffindor, or much more beyond the fact that they were near the astronomy tower and had looked like they were in a hurry. Harry had staked the tower out for the next couple of nights after that rumour broke, but they didn't return (if they'd even been there in the first place). He'd also had no luck on the Sal front. After his chat with McGonagall, Harry had begun to think that the other boy was going out of his way to avoid him. Harry's second-best option, the Hogwarts rumour mill, had apparently decided Sal was an undercover Auror who was helping Filch to look for contraband, so most of the students were giving Sal a wide berth; this was not helpful to Harry's investigation.
It was therefore with a heavy heart that he sat down to breakfast on Friday morning. He helped himself to some toast and idly looked round at the half empty table around him. He was up early, and half the school would still be in bed for another hour. He smiled and awkwardly thanked the few Gryffindors that came over to congratulate him on last week's match and searched for a good excuse to divert attention away from himself. He noticed immediately that the usually inseparable Creevey brothers were sat at opposite ends of the table, and very deliberately not looking at one another. Some sort of feud had developed between Colin and Dennis. Harry asked a group of third years what was going on. After they got over the shock of being spoken to by Harry Potter, and Harry had stopped blushing in humiliation, he got his answer. Or rather, answers. One girl had heard that it was definitely over a girl, another that it was over a game of gobstones, and a third that it was part of the ongoing Rotfang conspiracy. That last one had sounded so earnestly like Luna that he just knew that she was a Quibbler subscriber. After coughing up the goblet of pumpkin juice that he'd just inhaled, Harry decided that, whatever had happened between the Creeveys, it was probably best left alone and not really any of his business.
"Dennis is pissed off with Colin over the other night," Ginny whispered in his ear, sliding onto the bench next to him. Harry dropped his goblet in alarm and soaked his bacon and eggs with sweet juice as Ginny laughed outright at him.
"Fucking hell, Ginny," Harry exclaimed, trying to still his beating heart and failing as his brain finally processed just how close to him she was sat. "Warn a bloke next time, wouldn't you?"
"Constant vigilance," she reminded him tartly, and reached over the table to pour herself a cup of tea. Harry looked mournfully at his breakfast, before pushing it away from him and grabbing a nearby bowl of porridge.
"Hilarious, Ginny, really. But what has Colin done now? Anything I need to watch out for?"
Ginny shot him a weird look, taking a gulp of tea. Harry watched her swallow, idly noticing how beautiful the line of her neck was. He stopped himself abruptly. He had to stop thinking about her like that; he was beginning to get a bit weird.
"No, Harry," she told him slowly, looking at him as if he were being particularly dense. "Not all problems at Hogwarts are yours to solve, you know? It's just Dennis being a brat because Colin dragged him up to bed before he got to find out all the juicy gossip about our mysterious time travellers."
"Ah," Harry replied sagely. He supposed that these were the sorts of things that siblings argued about. He did get angry with Ron and Hermione (well, more Hermione in practise) when they dragged him away from things that interested him. He had long since accepted that Dudley would prevent him from enjoying anything fun; his name was Dursley, after all, but he'd never really thought of him as a sibling, an equal. "But there's not really that much to miss," he protested quickly, forcing himself back to the conversation. "Nobody really told us anything properly. Besides, the whole of Hogwarts knew what was going on by the end of breakfast the day after. It's not like anything stays secret around here!" Harry ran his hands through his hair in exasperation, messing it up even more than usual.
"It's the principle of the thing." Ginny brushed aside his objections with a wave of her hand. Harry deferred to her superior knowledge; she was the youngest of seven and certainly knew more about sibling rivalry than he ever could. If the way that she smirked at him as she sipped at her tea had anything to do with his sudden refusal (or inability) to speak, then he would not be admitting to it, even under Snape's strongest Veritaserum. He quickly shovelled porridge into his mouth to buy him some time to recover his thoughts.
He was still chewing when Hermione burst through the doors of the Great Hall and practically ran the length of the Gryffindor table to where he was sat.
"There you are, Harry," she said with an air of admonishment, "I've been looking everywhere for you."
"Are we talking again then?" he asked her sullenly and Ginny elbowed him in the side.
"What, Harry? Of course not." Hermione was clearly distracted. "I've been in the library all week, researching life debts, and I've just found the most incredible book! I think it might have a way to help Sal!"
Harry smiled widely, joining Hermione in her enthusiasm; he had spent most of last year arguing with his friends, he was happy to find an excuse to let bygones be bygones on this occasion. He pushed his plate away and stood up. Sensing Ginny's curiosity, he beckoned for her to join them, and they made their way up to the library to go and see what Hermione had discovered.
Had Sal known the frustrations of the week that lay ahead of him, he would have run and hid somewhere very dark the minute that the students had found him in the kitchen.
He'd left the office after the meeting with the headmaster, trailing behind Dunstan and the boy with hair so blond, he had to be a Saxon. The boy looked to be very rich; his robes were a deep black that must have cost a fortune to dye, and were much neater and well-maintained than those of the other students. Sal wondered why someone so fine would condescend to be sent away to be apprenticed, rather than tutored at home, and filed away the question to investigate later. As they walked further away from the meeting room, Sal sensed that Dunstan was getting frustrated and was impatient to shake off their chaperone so that he could kick Sal around a bit before bed. A moment later and he confirmed Sal's suspicions.
"I'm sure you're tired," the bastard stated suddenly. The blond boy turned his head to acknowledge the remark, but kept on walking. "If you point us the rest of the way, I am sure I can see this wretch where he needs to be." The boy pondered this for a moment, slowly stopping in the middle of the corridor. He let the pause drag on and Sal felt his shoulders slump in resignation. He should have known this was coming; he had no right to be so surprised.
"Thank you for your consideration," the boy finally replied and Sal had to bite back a groan, "but I can't leave you stranded in the middle of the corridor, especially when you're disorientated with the shock of travelling so far into the future." Sal's head shot up in surprise and he was startled to find the other boy appraising him with a piercing look. Their eyes met. "Who knows what might happen to you if I let you wander off alone." The boy's tone was level, as he turned to address Dunstan, "it would be terribly remiss of me to allow you to get lost at this time of night. The school is rather large." The moment was broken and the boy had gone back to ignoring Sal with an air of polite disinterest, but Sal knew that the boy had known what Dunstan was trying to do, and so had interfered on Sal's behalf. No one had done that in a very long time.
They walked the rest of the way to the office of Mr Filch with Dunstan silently fuming behind him. Sal ignored him, and the half-formed curses that he was muttering under his breath. His mind was racing. If this boy had stepped in to save him from a beating, what could he possibly want in return? Sal was a slave; there was precious little that he could do for anyone else without the approval of his master. It would have been far easier – and ultimately more productive – for the other boy to have outright asked Dunstan to borrow him, than to try and play games of manipulation. Sal wouldn't have been allowed to say no.
As they finally stopped in front of a door, Dunstan knocked against it heavily. Muffled curses from inside sent a thrill of foreboding through Sal and he winced. The other boy shot him a look that seemed both superior and reassuring. The door swung open as Sal had a sudden moment of clarity; the other boy had interceded on his behalf upstairs too, suggesting a course of action that stopped the headmaster and Dunstan arguing over his head for half the night. That would not have ended well for Sal once news got back to his master.
Sal stumbled into the office as Dunstan and the other boy lingered outside, Dunstan explaining to Filch that he was leaving Sal at his disposal. The man was dressed in a long cotton nightgown and seemed immensely displeased to have been woken up. He grunted at Dunstan, grumbled at the other boy, cursed the headmaster, and then shut the door in Dunstan's face. He grabbed Sal's arm and pulled him through a door in the wall, into a very drab, but immaculately clean, hallway. He pointed Sal to a side door and stomped off back to bed.
The room that Sal had been granted was small but well furnished, with a thick rug on the stone floor, a couple of small tables, and an exceedingly comfortable looking bed on the far wall that was heaped in soft-looking, woollen blankets. He knew that he wasn't meant to touch it, and the rug would have been far more comfortable than his usual sleeping arrangements, but Sal was buoyed by the victory of an escaped beating and was feeling a little rebellious. He threw himself on the bed and wrapped himself in the blankets. He moaned softly in comfort and curled up in a ball of warmth; his eyes drifting shut within moments.
The next morning, he woke up startled as Filch pounded on the door and ordered him up. Sal rushed to comply, smoothing the sheets out as best as he could and hoping that the caretaker didn't notice that the bed had been used. He tiptoed out of the room and followed the sounds of Filch's coughing and shuffling, to a small room at the end of the corridor. He stood and waited silently for the other man to notice him.
Filch sat at a table, humming to himself and spreading thick, yellow butter on a slab of white bread. Sal's eyes widened, not even Lord Gryffindor ate bread that pale. The quality of the flour must have been very fine indeed. Sal wondered how rich these people must be, if even the servants ate like kings. Filch looked up a moment later and jumped a foot in the air, dropping his knife onto the table with a loud clatter, as he saw Sal standing silently in the corner,.
"Merlin's beard!" Filch exclaimed loudly, "don't sneak up on me like that boy!" He glared, but Sal sensed that he was quietly pleased that he had come to the kitchen so quickly. He picked up his bread and went back to his food. Sal watched him with envy, it was a while since he'd last eaten and his stomach was complaining loudly.
"Well, sit down!" Filch said suddenly, and Sal looked up in confusion. He realised with a jolt that the other man had been looking at him for a few minutes, whilst Sal had been distracted by the bread disappearing from his plate. He pointed at the chair opposite him, and Sal hurried to comply, plonking himself in the seat with a sense of unease. He was even more confused when Filch grabbed a slice of toast from the rack in the middle of the table, swiped the butter knife over it, and slapped it on the plate in front of Sal. "Toast," Sal was informed abruptly, as Filch finished his plate and grabbed another slice for himself.
Sal sat watching the plate in front of him, exercising a great deal of his will to not pounce on the food. He waited, staring masochistically at the meal in front of him, until Filch finished his food and poured himself a steaming cup of something from a pot.
"You're not going to be picky with me, lad," he told Sal sternly, taking a sip from his mug. He closed his eyes momentarily with a sigh of contentedness, before glaring at Sal and pointing at the uneaten bread on his plate. "That's all you're going to get, so you'll eat it or you'll go hungry."
Sal had stuffed the bread in his mouth and was furiously chewing before his brain had even properly registered that he'd been given permission to eat. Filch looked at him wryly and he forced himself to slow down and savour the salty taste of the butter. He kept half an ear open as Filch began regaling him with the list of the day's chores, but his focus was on his unexpected breakfast. He gathered enough to know that he was going to be cleaning. A lot. Not that that really bothered him, he was used to chopping wood or helping to tend the fields; pushing a broom around was hardly beyond his physical capabilities.
As if sensing his disdain, Filch slapped his hand down on the table and made Sal jump to attention. "Now listen here, lad. The headmaster has put me in charge of you, and you're going to do as you're told. That fellow last night said you were a lazy little bugger, but I promise you, that won't fly with me." Sal watched his hands warily as he continued to rant. "Try and cross me, and I'll have you hanging from your thumbs in the dungeons before you can say "mistake". Understand?"
Sal nodded quickly and stayed very quiet for the rest of the morning, obediently following every command without hesitation. He bent his back over the brush as he scrubbed at muddy footprints in the entrance hall, and kept his eyes down as he wiped coloured paint from a suit of armour. He had no doubt that Filch would keep to his word, and had no wish to antagonise him; his threats were certainly more creative than the usual promise of a beating.
Filch fed him both lunch and dinner, which was unexpected, so Sal assumed that he must have done a decent job. When he was finally excused, he wasn't brave enough to sleep on the bed again, but he did pull a blanket over himself as he curled up on the rug.
The next day, he woke up early to the smell of porridge; Filch served them both breakfast and started listing the day's tasks almost immediately. Sal had frozen at the thought of working on a Sunday. He had to take a few calming breaths before he could muster the courage to broach the issue with Filch. Although he had never been particularly devout, and wasn't that concerned about risking his immortal soul on a missed mass, Sal wasn't willing to earn himself a flogging for working on the Sabbath. The law was the law, and it wasn't exactly forgiving on slaves. Filch had looked confused and told him to stop being lazy, telling him that Sunday was just another day as far as he was concerned, and promising him a flogging if he didn't work. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Sal surrendered and hoped to the God he was offending that no one reported them to his master for working on a day of rest. Over the course of the day, Filch set him to various tasks and he complied in silence, trying his best to avoid the attention of the castle's other residents. The other man seemed to find his obedience disconcerting, and clipped him round the ear every now and again, warning him not to be getting any ideas, and promising that he'd regret it if he tried to get up to any mischief. Sal hadn't had either the time or the inclination for 'mischief' in years, so he bowed his head and wearily weathered the blows.
By the time that Monday came around, he had gathered enough of Filch's good faith to be left to his own devices. He was left with a bucket full of soapy water, a mop, and a stern command to clean the main corridors down by midday. After a weekend of following the caretaker round the castle, Sal thought he had a rough idea of where he needed to go, but he hadn't anticipated the massive influx of students in the corridors. There seemed to be hundreds of them, all dressed in identical black robes, carting round heavy bags and rushing from classroom to classroom. Sal swallowed down his envy as he watched them pull out wands for careless displays of everyday magic, summoning dropped quills and casting warming charms in the cool morning air. He focused on the mop in his hands, ignoring their curious looks, and moved out of their way as they pushed and shoved their way around the school.
He had worked his way up to the third floor when everything went wrong. He had just returned to his bucket, and was staring at the now murky water and wondering if and how he was meant to replace it, when someone yelled at him from down the corridor.
"Hey, Sal!"
He jumped half a foot and knocked the bucket flying. A quick glance told him that it was the messy-haired boy that had escorted him up to the headmaster's office the other night. He cursed him quietly in his head and dropped to his knees.
"Sorry, sir," he bit out quickly, and waited for the boy to react. He'd spent a good portion of the other night cowering before his master, in front of this boy and his friends; he had no idea how the boy remembered his name, but it did not bode well for him. He apologised a couple more times before he realised that the water was spreading further and further down the corridor. He weighed his options and decided it was better to risk pissing off the other boy than to let the mess get any worse. He jumped up and grabbed the mop that he'd let fall beside him, and tried to soak up the worst of the spill, but he was fighting a losing battle. To make matters worse, Filch chose that moment to check up on his work, and came across the upended bucket and the soaked corridor.
There was a moment's silence before Filch started shouting at him. He stormed over and clapped Sal sharply round the back of his head.
"I knew I shouldn't have left you alone!" he thundered. "The minute I turned my back! You're asking for a good whipping." Sal shrank back, shooting a glance at the other boy. He looked furious and began to pull out his wand. Sal blanched and looked at him beseechingly; he knew how much damage could be done by one of those things. Filch seemed to agree. "Potter!" he hissed, turning on the other boy, "I should have known you were involved in this!" He rounded on the other boy and shooed him away. "Get to your lesson, now!" The other boy lowered his wand, but didn't move. "Move, Potter, or I'll have you in detention!" The boy shot one final, unreadable look at Sal and stormed off. Sal let out a sigh of relief, before squaring his shoulders and bracing himself for Filch's rant.
The next couple of days had not been pleasant. Filch was back to watching him like a hawk, and Sal spent half his time watching the older man for signs of violence. Some time on Monday night, Dunstan dropped by Filch's office to ensure Sal was behaving. The timing of his visit was far too inconvenient, for Sal, to be anything other than premeditated. He'd listened gleefully as Filch complained about his behaviour, accusing him of deliberately causing disruption and being disobedient. Dunstan had blackened both his eyes without a second thought, and taken the time to advise Filch on the best way to keep unruly slaves in line. He'd left Sal on the floor, clutching his ribs, with a gleeful Filch looking on from the corner. Sal strongly suspected that Filch had been holding back on physical violence without the say-so from Sal's masters; it was, after all, generally considered rude to purposefully damage someone else's property, disobedience aside. But now Dunstan had given him an open invitation, and Sal had no desire to see what Filch might come up with on his own. The threat of the dungeons was bad enough as it was.
On top of which, he was also dedicating a downright inconvenient amount of his energy to avoiding the students of the castle. If he wasn't politely deflecting the inquisitive questions of the smaller students, he was furiously ignoring the taunts of the older ones who had decided that servants were a new and hilarious source of comedy. He forced his anger back time and time and again; if he dared lose his temper, he'd be hanged. He was not risking his neck on a few rude names. Besides, he'd been called far worse in his time.
He also seemed to have picked up a collection of very dedicated stalkers, all of whom showed a disproportionate level of interest in him. The first and most determined was Potter; he was like a dog with a bone. Every time he went near Filch's office, there was the other boy, lying in wait outside the door. Sal found a convenient tapestry to duck behind until the other boy lost interest and went away; he very much did not want to be on the other end of Potter's wand, especially if the other boy was actively seeking him out to claim retribution for the spilt bucket. Fortunately, this is where his second stalker became exceedingly helpful. The man who had ordered them up to the office the other night had taken to following Sal around, intercepting Potter's ambush attempts and sending him on his way. Sal learnt that his name was Professor Snape, that he was some form of tutor for the hundreds of students at the school, and that he loathed Potter with a burning passion. Sal wasn't quite sure if Snape was actively helping him out, or just using him to find reasons to berate and punish Potter. Either way, he did not think that the professor meant him any harm. It was his final stalker that gave him the most concern on that front.
The blond haired boy, Draco Malfoy, had introduced himself coolly some time on Wednesday when Filch had rushed off to deal with a rampaging poltergeist. Sal had taken advantage of the moment of peace and had slumped down behind the statue of a leering wizard for a rest. Sal saw him coming down the corridor and tried to stand up, but the other boy waved him down and leant casually against the statue, blocking Sal from view.
"I know who you are," Malfoy had informed him calmly after stating his own name. Sal had no idea what he meant by that. He was Lord Gryffindor's slave (which the other boy had already been told), beyond that he was nothing. He said as much.
"You most certainly are not!" Malfoy fumed in indignation, "I don't know what game you're playing, though I'm sure it has to be very good." He looked at Sal with a strange gleam in his eye. "I just don't understand. Why are you pretending to be a slave? And for that filthy Gryffindor, of all people?"
Sal flinched and looked around desperately; thankfully they were alone. If Lord Gryffindor had heard him say that, the consequences would not have been pleasant. "Please, s-sir," he whispered fiercely. "D-don't s-say such th-things about my m-master. He isn't a m- man you w-would wish to an-anger."
Malfoy raised an eyebrow at him. "You're really dedicated to this performance, aren't you?" Sal looked at him in blank incomprehension. "Look, it's okay. You can trust me. I can help you with whatever you're doing. I'm a Slytherin."
Sal had no idea what the other boy was talking about and the fevered gleam in his eyes was getting increasingly disturbing. Sal had learnt enough to know that students were organised into four coloured groups, named Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and Slytherin. The first three were very old, noble wizarding families, but he had no idea of the last one. He thought it might have been a foreign family who rose to prominence at some point in the future. He did not know what was particularly significant about the student groupings, so he just nodded slowly. He still didn't properly comprehend the fact that they had travelled through time, despite how the strange clothes and manners screamed their strangeness at him at every turn. He tried not to let it bother him too much, as he thought that he might go mad if he thought about it too closely. Besides, it didn't really matter where they were or what time they were in; a slave was still a slave.
"You aren't really a slave, are you?" Malfoy suddenly asked him, looking at him with a disbelieving sneer.
"Yes, sir," Sal said helplessly, not really sure what he was supposed to say. The other boy stared at him incredulously for a moment longer, before abruptly deflating and looking lost.
"But this isn't how you're meant to be!" the boy argued petulantly, looking much younger than before. "You're one of the greatest wizards of all time. You aren't meant to be a slave. Something isn't right!" Sal watched helplessly as the boy ranted to himself. Sal very much suspected that the boy had him confused with someone else; there wasn't a hope in hell's chance that he was, or ever would be, a great wizard. He wanted to be, heaven only knows how much he wanted to be powerful, to be free to use magic as he wished and to truly find out what it was capable of achieving. But unless he somehow worked out how to steal or make a wand without being caught and summarily executed for his efforts, he was stuck performing the few weak charms he could channel through his hands. That did not a legend make.
"I'm sorry, sir," he replied quietly, hoping that Malfoy would realise his mistake and leave him alone. He even wished that Filch would come back and catch them so that he could hurry the other boy along, even if it meant Sal would catch a beating for lounging around.
"You're what? No. No. I will not have this." Malfoy looked as if he were about to throw a tantrum in the middle of the corridor and Sal flinched away from him. "You…oh for Merlin's sake!" He threw his hands up in the air and sighed in exasperation as Sal flinched again. "I'm not letting this go," he warned Sal angrily, and stormed away up the corridor.
From that moment, Malfoy had taken to sidling up to him in the brief moments that Filch left him alone. Sal had no idea how he was doing it, and could only assume that he was missing copious amounts of his lesson time, but Sal found it incredibly annoying. The few moments of peace that he had earnt were suddenly occupied by awkward silences as Malfoy stared at him as if he were a riddle to be solved. He always sidled away seconds before Filch reappeared; he continually cut it so fine that Sal almost suspected that the boy had some kind of Seer-like precognition.
Consequently, by the time that Sal had finished his first week in the future, he was exhausted and completely bemused. He'd been subjected to far more attention than he had ever been used to and it was a very unsettling feeling. He had no idea what was going on, or why so many people were interested in him, and he didn't like it one bit.
He pondered grumpily over the week's events on Friday evening, as he methodically packed his cleaning supplies into a broom cupboard, under the watchful eye of Filch. The sun had already begun to set, and the whole corridor was painted in a soft amber glow. It wasn't yet dinnertime, but the year was inching closer to the Solstice, and the nights were prowling on the edges of the day like a cautious thief, steadily stealing the light and replacing it with more cold hours of dark skies and bright stars. He wondered idly if he'd spend Yule in this strange place, suffering through the deep bite of the midwinter freeze in an enormous, draughty, unfamiliar castle. He dearly hoped not, as he knew that he couldn't survive another few months of the unrelenting scrutiny he'd endured all week.
Now that the shock of the magic vortex had worn off, and Sal had begun to acclimatise to his new time, he was beginning to see things with a little more of his usual clarity. He knew that he would explode from frustration and get himself killed if he didn't do something about his stalkers. Malfoy would be easy. For some reason he refused to believe that Sal wasn't the person Malfoy thought he was, despite any and all statements to the contrary. If he chose to be so ridiculously bone-headed, then Sal felt almost honour-bound to take advantage of the situation. He decided to drop a few subtle hints that he was hiding something, and see if Malfoy took the bait and tripped the snare. If it worked, he could recruit Malfoy to help keep Snape and Potter's attention elsewhere, and thus kill two birds with one stone. He was, of course, making the assumption that Malfoy would be enamoured enough with the idea of his idol to take instructions from a slave, and therefore neither report Sal's behaviour to his master nor take the opportunity to further accost Sal on a more frequent basis. But Sal was quite good at reading people, and he thought that he had judged Malfoy correctly. It was Potter that he thought he'd misread, earlier in the week. What he'd taken for aggression in the hallway, after some distance and a bit of thought, had begun to look more like righteous indignation, and on Sal's behalf at that. Sal suspected that the other boy's motives in seeking him out were perhaps more benign than he'd originally assumed.
Sighing guiltily, Sal stacked his bucket in the corner of the cupboard and closed the door quietly. He turned round to see Filch tapping his foot impatiently and glaring at him. Sal sighed again, internally this time, keeping his face neutral. Filch. He was the biggest threat to Sal's continued sanity, watching him like a disapproving, violently inclined mother hen every second of the day. On numerous occasions all week, Sal had been forced to bite his cheek to prevent the insolent words he had stored at the tip of his tongue from flying out and getting him into trouble. He had always been an impertinent brat, ever since he was a child tripping through the streets of the burh, snarling insults and curses at anyone who sniggered as he passed, and called him a bastard or his mother a whore. He'd had to learn to be thick-skinned when the truth hurt more than anything that the other children made up. But he was fighting a losing battle with his temper, and he knew that one more night with Filch would send him over the edge; the man sermonised more than a priest!
Thankfully, providence intervened before Sal let his more bloodthirsty thoughts play out. Just as Filch had begun another tirade about how lazy and ungrateful children were, he was interrupted by a shout from one of the Professors.
"Mr Filch! There you are!" Sal did not recognise the stern woman who was rushing towards them, but Filch evidently did and he shut up immediately.
"Professor McGonagall," he replied quickly, "what's happened?"
"We've had another swamp-related incident, I'm afraid. Right in front of the Slytherin common room!"
Filch grumbled under his breath. "Fetch a mop, lad," he ordered Sal. "Though I don't think I'll do much good against it if it's one of those Weasley creations." He informed the professor wearily.
"Oh, that won't be necessary," the professor said, as Sal rooted around in the dark cupboard. "Filius has already dealt with it." Filch let out a small sigh of relief, as the professor continued. "Unfortunately not before half of Slytherin house started duelling in the corridors. I have about seven different disputes to settle and we still haven't caught the perpetrators. I was hoping that you could help us manage them all." As she spoke, Sal retrieved the mop and emerged back into the corridor. Filch looked positively gleeful at the idea of so many students in trouble, and he turned to Sal with a thoughtful look.
"I'm going to trust you on your own," Filch informed him pompously, "Go straight back to my office and wait there. I'll be helping the professor here for a bit. I will probably be gone for a few hours." Sal kept his expression carefully blank and nodded his understanding, even as his heart rejoiced at the unanticipated blessing of a Filch-free evening. The professor looked at him shrewdly, but decided to let her suspicions lie. As she led Filch away up the corridor, the caretaker turned around for one last comment. "And put that mop back where you got it from!"
Sal hastened to comply, a rare smile on his face. He closed the cupboard door with a gentle swing, wondering what to do with his suddenly free time. His good mood didn't last very long.
"Merlin, I didn't think that was going to work," came the disembodied voice of Potter from just off to his left. "Good thinking with the swamp, Ginny." He suddenly appeared in thin air next to the two other girls from the other night, with a swish of material. "At least we can always trust the Slytherins to cause trouble." Potter laughed with the other two and turned to Sal, grinning.
"You can make yourselves invisible." It was the only thought running through Sal's brain and he voiced it without thinking. He winced at his rudeness, but no one chastised him for it. Potter huffed out a laugh and looked a little sheepish.
"Sorry, mate. It's just my cloak that does that." Potter stuffed some material into his open bag and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. Sal watched him with wide eyes; whatever magic it was that made such an impossible garment, it must have cost a lot of money. Sal wanted one very desperately. One day, he promised himself fiercely.
The group shuffled closer to him and Sal crossed his arms and leant against the wall, eyes politely low. For whatever reason, they'd broken their teachers' rules in order to seek him out. He knew that he had the upper hand, but they were still freemen and women and etiquette had to be observed. He was pretty convinced that none of them were nobility, Potter was the surname of a craftsman and ladies of quality would hardly be allowed to wander around unchaperoned with a tradesman's son. Even so, regardless of where their families stood in the social hierarchy of the other students, they were still very much above Sal.
"I've been trying to talk to you all week," Potter told him quietly.
"I'd noticed." The words were out before Sal realised that he'd spoken. His eyes widened with horror and he braced himself, expecting a blow, damning his tongue for insubordination and Filch for wearing his patience so thin. There was a dreadful moment of silence before Potter started to laugh.
"And I thought I was being subtle. You've probably been running away from me all week. Look, sorry if I've offended you or something, but we just want a quick word and then I promise we'll leave you alone." Potter grinned at him and Sal was struck how genuine his smile was, not twisted in cruelty or tight with pity. He decided to hear him out.
"No, s-sir," he began and cursed the return of his stuttering words; he could never tell whether his speech would come out fluent and coherent, or whether it would have to be dragged haltingly, like a reluctant mule, from his tongue. He gritted his teeth to get through the next part of his speech. "I ap-apologise if I off-fended you. I wasn't av-voiding anyone, I promise." It was a damnable lie, but politic given the circumstances. Potter was courteous enough to let it go with only an arch look.
"Great! Listen, we don't have long or we'll end up getting you into trouble. But first things first, it's Harry, definitely not sir, and this is Hermione and Ginny," Potter pointed to the girls next to him in turn and they both smiled warmly at Sal. "The thing is…" Potter seemed to lose his train of thought and looked helplessly at Hermione for help. "I don't know how to begin."
"The thing is, Sal – may I call you that?" she waited for Sal's cautious nod before she continued. "We're all rather unhappy with how the teachers have been handling a few things this week; the main one of which is you." Sal thought it was incredibly presumptuous of the students to question their instructors so openly, but didn't dare voice his thoughts. "It's a question of morality," Hermione continued, looking more and more incensed as she spoke, "I don't care what Professor McGonagall says about causality and mitigating the impact on the timeline; slavery is wrong and burying our heads in the sand makes us complicit." Sal had no idea what she was on about, but Potter (sorry Harry) and Ginny were looking at him very earnestly. Their enthusiasm made him feel very old indeed. "I've been researching life debts in the library and I wasn't able to find much information until this morning," Hermione smiled widely in triumph, "I found a book on magical legal contracts that mentions a way to enforce limits on the magic in bonds, without causing any harm to either of the parties. It doesn't specifically mention life debts, or how to get out of them, but I think it might be a good place to start." She started routing through her bag as soon she finished speaking. Sal took a moment to process what she'd just said.
"You want to help me get out of my life debt," he replied simply, running his hands through his hair. He wasn't quite sure if he believed what he was hearing.
"Yeah, mate, of course," Harry said with quiet determination, as if he wasn't saying something completely preposterous.
Sal took another moment to process the strange turn of events. "That's ridiculous," his tone was incredulous, "and it's impossible." He felt his temper flare, convinced they were mocking him. It was a particularly vicious kind of torture to promise him the impossible, knowing that he could never have it. He was almost impressed; in a long life of gross abuses and petty cruelties, they had managed to find a new and interesting way to hurt him. He found his words coming to him more easily, as he always did when he was angry or upset, rather than afraid; they flowed through him fluent and unchecked as he spat at his tormentors. "Spare me your fucking practical jokes; they're unamusing and a waste of my time."
Potter raised his eyebrows in surprise and Sal silently seethed. He vaguely felt something pounding for his attention at the back of his mind but he was too incensed to pay it any attention. Hermione shuffled awkwardly and looked pleadingly at Potter, who was watching Sal closely. Sal stared him down and slowly forced his fists to unclench, swatting away the voice at the back of his mind like it as an irritating fly. He crossed his arms defensively and slouched back against the wall again. There was a long moment of silence and then Ginny let out a low whistle. Sal finally calmed down enough to register what his brain had been trying to remind him of, and his heart skipped a beat – he had just snapped and sworn at Potter, in front of ladies, no less. Blood rushed from his face and he dropped to his knees immediately, cursing his temper and unending stupidity. He was in so much trouble.
He knew that no apology would do him any good, and so waited quietly, head bowed, for Potter to send for his master.
"Mate," Potter's voice was tight and pained and it startled Sal into glancing up. Potter looked ill, Hermione was on the verge of tears and Ginny looked furious. Sal closed his eyes in dismay. "Mate, Sal, look at me." Sal really didn't want to, but an order was an order and he knew his place. Potter's expression had softened but he still looked vaguely nauseous. "We're not joking here. We want to help you. Fuck, c'mon, please get up." Sal reluctantly dragged himself to his feet, fully convinced that he was getting up just to be knocked down again, but an order was an order.
"Sal please," Hermione tried, her voice quivering slightly, "we're not going to hurt you. We want to help." She stepped forward and reached for his shoulder, but Sal flinched at her touch, his chest beginning to tighten. "You have to believe us!" Sal felt light-headed and a little hysterical. Of course he had to believe them, there was nothing ludicrous about the conversation at all!
"Why should he?" Ginny spoke with quiet fury. "Look at his face, Hermione. Why should he believe any of us when he looks like he's flown ten hours against a beater with a score to settle?" She stepped forward and met Sal's eyes, a careful two feet of distance between them. "Who did that to you?" she asked quietly.
Sal froze completely at the redundant question. He really didn't see why it mattered. He didn't know what they wanted from him. No one had ever shown this much interest in him before and he hated that he didn't understand why anyone would suddenly care about him.
"Take your time," Potter told him quietly, but Sal found that he couldn't speak. His breathing quickened into shallow gasps and his heart clenched painfully in his chest. His blood pounded furiously in his ears, and he realised vaguely that he'd slumped back against the wall.
He faintly registered Ginny moving closer to him. She started talking to him quietly about one of her lessons and her failed attempts at casting some charm. Sal had no idea what she was talking about, but her calm voice gave him something to focus on as his breathing calmed and the panic slowly lost its hold on his thoughts.
"Thank you," he said quietly when she came to a natural pause; he had managed to get his breathing back to normal, though his heart was still beating violently.
"No problem," she told him blithely, "I'm pretty familiar with panic attacks myself. My brother, Ron, is usually pretty good at talking me through them." She'd crouched down in front of him at some point without him realising and he watched as she pushed herself to her feet.
"You alright?" Harry asked him cautiously and Sal nodded slowly. "If this is too much for you, we'll leave you be for now, but we're on your side, mate. Seriously." Sal didn't exactly trust that, but he'd just been completely in front of them all and none of them had tried to hurt him, they'd actually tried to help him.
"I'm alright," he replied honestly and pulled himself to his feet, shooting them all a wary smile.
"Thank Merlin," Hermione breathed in relief, looking red faced and flustered. "I'm not making any promises, Sal, but we'll try our best to help you get away from your…master. Slavery is against the law in our time. It has been for over a century and a half. We're on your side."
"But… how?" Sal asked her quietly. He didn't think it wise to push his luck and ask why, even if it was the more burning question.
"I don't know for certain yet, but I will soon," Hermione responded with confidence. "In the meantime, take a look at this. Something might jump out at you that one of us has missed." She reached into her bag and pulled out a book made up of hundreds of leaves of thin parchment, bound together in dark brown leather. It was beautiful. He took it reverently from her hands, half-convinced someone was going to snatch it away at any moment. He'd never touched a book before; they were priceless treasures.
He flicked fascinatedly through the pages and peered at the cover, delighting in the crisp inked letters and the musty smell of the parchment. He couldn't believe how much trust they were placing in him to let him hold such an object. He forcedly pulled himself out of his stupor and took a more analytical assessment; nothing seemed off with the book magically, as far as he could tell.
"Sorry," he told Hermione quietly and tried to hand it back to her. "I don't think it'll w-work. N-nothing felt any d-different to me."
"Just give it a chance" she told him gently, "you haven't even read it yet." Harry and Ginny nodded encouragingly at him and Sal stared back down at the book in blank incomprehension.
"I can't read this," he told them apologetically and tried to pass it back to Hermione again. He was starting to feel nervous holding it for so long, convinced that he was going to damage it somehow.
"Please, Sal," Hermione responded quietly, "it might help you. Just give it a try."
"No," he told her blankly, "I mean I can't read this." It took a disproportionate amount of time for her to grasp what he was saying. Really, it shouldn't have been that surprising. It was rare for even nobles to be literate, unless they trained in the church. Lord Gryffindor was a rare exception; he encouraged his family to read, promoted education amongst the other lords and encouraged scholars like Lady Ravenclaw to come to his hall to study from his prized selection of books of magical theory. But Sal? He was a slave and a commoner and a bastard on top of those. Who would ever have bothered to teach him to read and write? There wouldn't have been any point.
"That might be a problem," Harry said quietly, blushing as he took the book out of Sal's hands. Hermione looked like someone had spat in her wine cup. "We'll figure something out, we're not giving up on this." Sal kept his face carefully blank of all scepticism, reminding himself that they'd forget about him soon enough, even if he had started to trust that they meant well. Harry looked at a device on his wrist and swore at whatever it showed. "Look, it's late. We've missed dinner and I don't know how much longer Filch is going to be distracted. Leave it with us. Hermione is brilliant at research. If anyone can find a way to help you, it's her!" They all looked at him sombrely, and Sal felt his chest tighten very briefly.
He shot a tentative smile at the trio, bobbed a quick bow, and rushed off down the corridor, forcefully suppressing the sliver of hope that was building in his chest with well-practised cynicism. It did not do to dwell on what could be and not what was. As he rounded the corner, he realised that it was much later than he'd realised. He hadn't noticed how dark it had become until Harry had mentioned dinner, but the sun had long since set and he was navigating the dim corridors by memory alone. He hurried back to Filch's office with a rising sense of dread and heaved a sigh of relief when he entered to find it empty. He carelessly pushed open the door that led through to the chambers with a faint smile, intending to hide in his room and ponder the strange conversation he'd just had, but froze at the sight that awaited him. Filch was stood outside the kitchen door, glaring at Sal and grinding his teeth loudly; Dunstan leered unkindly at his shoulder. Sal swallowed hard, blood rushing from his face, any lingering trace of joy abandoning him abruptly.
"Well then, where have you been?" Filch asked him with a malicious smile. He stalked forwards, giving Sal a clear view of the thin leather strip coiled in Dunstan's hands. Sal dropped to his knees and started pleading.
A/N: That's it for this chapter folks. Poor Sal, I would promise that things will get better for him, eventually, but they get worse again pretty soon after. Anglo-Saxon society was not very accommodating towards slaves, even by the end of the tenth century/ beginning of the eleventh when new laws started coming through.
If anyone is as nerdy as I am, here are a few notes on Anglo-Saxon society, as it's influencing Sal's worldview.
Sal's fear about working on Sunday is very legitimate. It was illegal for anyone to work on the Sabbath and was punishable by a whipping for a slave or a fine for a freeman.
The burh that Sal refers to is a walled fortified settlement. At the end of the 9th century, Alfred the Great built many of these as part of a defensive strategy against Viking invasion. I won't go into more detail about which burh Sal is talking about, as this plays a part in his backstory and he isn't ready to share that just yet.
Lastly, although Hogwarts is built around the 990s, castles, even motte-and-bailey structures don't really arrive in Britain until after the Norman invasion. As such, my headcanon is that wizards were using magic to build stone castles from a much earlier date than muggles, this is why Sal is not surprised to find himself in a massive stone building, rather than a wooden hall.
As to why everyone can understand each other when the time-travellers would be speaking Old-English (and a regional dialect of Old-English, in particular), that will be explored by Hermione in a future chapter. It isn't majorly plot significant, but Hermione is interested, and I've got a headcanon that demands to be written.
