Chapter 13: Shut Up Shut Up

It wasn't the most dignified fight-for-freedom, all told.

As far as great escapes went, theirs was probably ranked in the bottom three.

In the history of heroic show-downs, it wasn't even a footnote.

When they finally stopped running - somewhere halfway up the Hogwarts Hill, leaving Hogsmeade safely behind them - Salazar said, 'By Odin's battered codpiece, Ravenclaw, what the hell was that?'

Rowena wheezed for breath and massaged her stitch. She waited for the feeling to come back to her legs and, when it didn't, collapsed against a tree trunk.

Salazar nudged her thigh with his foot, significantly less exhausted by their run. 'Are you dying? What are you doing? Stop it.' He nudged her a little harder. 'Breathe, you idiot.'

'Echh,' Rowena managed, fanning herself desperately, 'eeeechhh. Ouch.'

'Oh, good.' He dropped to the floor near her. 'Keep that up. It can only improve your conversations.'

'I...hate...you,' she managed, shaking her head, 'so...very...much.'

Salazar laughed. Rowena glared.

'What?' he said. 'It was fun.' He laughed again. 'You look like a beetroot.'

A few minutes passed. Rowena stopped feeling like she was about to die. She said, 'You idiot. He could've killed you. He could have actually killed you!'

'Easily,' Salazar agreed, 'but he didn't.'

'I just...I just wrestled a grown man to the floor!'

'You did,' said Salazar, with a nod, 'it was very impressive.'

'I bit his stomach!'

'That was a bit weird.'

'I - I -' She stopped. She shook her head. She said, 'I just saved your bloody life!'

That sobered him up. 'Pish,' he said, waving a hand, 'please. You just got in my way, if anything.'

'Piss off, I helped!'

'You just Jelly Legs Jinxed everything in sight! It was embarrassing!' He sniffed. 'You're just lucky nobody knows the counter-curse.'

'You're just lucky I don't rip your damn ears off.'

In the dim light, she managed to catch his smirk. The wind whipped across both of their faces, but neither seemed in any hurry to reach the safety of the castle on the horizon. Instead, they both studied it for a while. The light that poured through thin windows looked like a rain of faraway stars.

'What's that guy's problem, anyway,' muttered Rowena, who was still a little delirious.

'Who?'

'Malfoy.'

Salazar didn't look at her, but waved a dismissive hand. 'He's just an idiot. An idiot of the megalomaniac variety. Just - ignore anything he ever says to you, alright?'

Rowena nodded. 'OK.'

'I mean it. Every stupid, contradictory, goading, ridiculous thing he ever says. If you ever see him again. Which you will,' he added, wearily, 'he's like a human chlamydia.'

Rowena said, 'Who's Chlamydia?'

'Oh, Ravenclaw. You are in no way ready for this conversation, so let's not have it.' He stood up, offered a hand to Rowena, and pulled her to her feet. 'He just likes toying with people. That's what he does.'

'Who? Chlamydia?'

Salazar sighed. 'I think you've had enough excitement for one day, Ravenclaw. Let's get you back home before you realise how much of an idiot you are.'

Rowena wasn't immediately aware of the reason she'd woken up with a sharp jolt, before realising her best friend had prodded her in the jaw with a broom handle.

She mumbled, 'Uh…fizzlewhistle?' and pulled the blankets further over her head.

Helga exhaled a deep breath. 'Thank God, Ro! I thought you were dead!'

'Muh,' said Rowena.

'Then you started snoring, and I thought you'd perhaps fainted. But then I couldn't remember if people snored when they were unconscious or if that was when they were in a coma or if it was neither, because I can definitely remember my uncle Ken drinking until he fainted but we didn't know if he was unconscious or just asleep when we heard snoring from the stable, poor Mildred got the shock of her life, and I had sex with Godric a few times, but I thought that in any case poking you with a broom would—'

Rowena sat up suddenly and demanded, 'What did you just say?'

'Um, Mildred was the donkey. Poor Mildred, she could do nothing but hobble for at least a week—'

'After that part!'

'Um, the broom?'

'Before then!'

'Uncle Ken?'

'You and Godric!'

Helga beamed.

'You and Godric?'

'That's right.'

'You – you scarlet woman!'

Helga giggled as Rowena continued to gawp at her. 'Oh, Ro, you look like you're going cross-eyed.'

'I can't...words,' she managed, shaking her head, 'they're not...happening. What? What? How?'

'Um...the normal way?' Helga suggested. 'Sort of...' She smushed her hands together for a while. 'A bit like that.'

'Oh gods.'

Helga winced. 'Are you happy for me?'

Rowena opened and closed her mouth a few times. She said, 'Are you his girlfriend now?'

'Um...yep.'

'Oh gods.'

'Ro,' said Helga, again, 'are you happy for me?'

Rowena sat up, grabbed her friend by the shoulders, and said very seriously: 'Helga, if he does not treat you with all the due sensitivity and sexual tenderness of a gazelle, I will personally re-arrange all of his atoms.'

'Um,' said Helga, 'OK, you're scaring me now.'

'Tenderness,' Rowena whispered. 'Gazelle.'

'OK.'

'Atoms.'

Salazar kicked a chair into position at the head of one of the Great Hall's tables. He fell into the seat, yawned, stretched, and made a start on his nutritious breakfast: garden peas, a bread roll and a peppermint sponge cake, why not? Hell, he was living the highlife.

A lowlife living the highlife. Ha. Look at the irony on that.

He yawned again. Bloody Ravenclaw and her bloody everything.

No, shut up.

Ridiculous woman-shaped piece of thing with her eyes and arms and things. Godammit. Stop it.

Back to normal. Got to get back to normal, now. Enough of all the stupid, with the...stuff and stuff. Enough of that. All of it. This was ridiculous; absolutely ridiculous.

Bloody Ravenclaw.

Godric walked into the hall and, noticing Salazar, froze. He regarded him coldly and said, 'Slytherin.'

Salazar said, 'Morning, grumpy knickers,' and took a bite of his bread roll.

Godric sat at the opposite end of the table, hair vibrantly red and muscles gleaming in the morning light.

For a while, neither spoke. Then Salazar said, 'If I wanted to see naked male nipples in a morning, Gryffindor, I'd go out and pay for it. Put your shirt on, would you, and do exercises at night like everyone else does.'

'Exercise?' he repeated, curtly. 'I don't believe you've ever undertaken one in your life. And what can be done at night?'

Slytherin gave him an exaggerated wink in response. 'Walked right into that one, Godders.'

'You're astoundingly idiotic this morning, Slytherin. Any particular reason for it?'

'Just your presence, I suppose,' he muttered, 'lighting up my day with the reflection of your bloody biceps.'

'May I propose a question, Slytherin?'

'So soon in our relationship? Gee Godders, you've got to give a girl time to think these things through-'

'Where did you drag Miss Ravenclaw away to last night?'

Salazar sighed angrily. 'May I propose a question to you, Godders? Why are Hufflepuff's knickers hanging from the chandelier?'

Rowena's bedroom had always been an over-crowded space, with drawers and wardrobes, mirrors, chairs, curtains and a large bed leaving only a scanty amount of space in the middle of the room.

She'd always liked the room, before. But now it all seemed so horribly tainted by Helga's...anecdotes.

'Alright,' she said slowly, eyes fixed on a rather fetching square of her patchwork blanket, 'I'm not sure I needed to know all of those details, Helly.'

Helga nodded. 'Sorry. I got a bit carried away.'

'Quite alright, Helly. I just need to do some dusting, that's all.' Under her breath she added, 'Everything needs cleaning...'

'Um, so,' Helga said, seeking a rapid change of conversation, 'where were you last night? Because, um, I don't know if you knew this, but, um, Slytherin was out as well and, um…'

Rowena began to edge further under her blankets.

'Um, you weren't anywhere with him, were you?'

Say no, say no, say no, say no, nay so. Nay so?

'Yes,' she admitted, 'we, er, went to an auc— well, we went to this shop and, er, bought some things for the school.'

'Oh. At midnight, Ro?'

'It's the only time the queues are short, Helly.'

'Oh. Anything - interesting happen?'

'Not really, Helly. Pretty boring, really…you know, expensive stuff, cheap stuff, a few books…you know.'

'Oh. Um…' For a moment or so she "um"ed, locked in mental deliberation over whether to pursue the point further. Rowena made no attempts to encourage her. Eventually she said, 'Oh, alright then. Are you coming downstairs for lunch?'

'Yeah, just give me a minute to get changed.'

Helga obediently left the room, closing the door with some hesitation behind her. Rowena sank back under her blankets.

Good Lord, that boy was such an idiot! What the hell was she going to do? She seemed to be the only bloody founder who couldn't manage personal and public issues: Godric managed to interview teachers and fill out forms while juggling his own issues as well as, apparently, Helga. Teachers! She hadn't even spared them a thought. Forms had never crossed her mind.

Helga could successfully amble through life and work, dealing with one issue at a time in whatever detail was necessary until everything was perfectly fine. She'd decorated her common room already…common room! If Rowena's students didn't like rocks and cushions, they were in for a lot of disappointment.

As for Slytherin…well, Lord only knew how he managed these things. Apparently by visiting secret auctions at the dead of night. Dammit all.

Bloody Salazar. The first time she'd ever met him, if memory served, he'd thrown a potato at her. Three days later she threw one back, and the tradition had sort of continued since then. He'd provoke, she'd think about it a while, then retaliate. Eventually words had replaced vegetables, and now even they were dwindling away…

Rowena sighed and stared out of the open window. It was quite warm, for a Scottish August, and her tower offered a perfect view of the spot where forest, lake and land met. It probably wasn't the most scenic of views, being mainly shadowy and wet, but it was picturesque enough. On the horizon, pewter mountains stood against a pale blue sky, while clouds passed slowly overhead. All very dramatic; perhaps now was time for a poem?

"As I stand, lonely as a cloud,

Thinking 'O bugger me',

My life is like a daffodil –

Big and yellow and sort of…"

She sighed. The poetry sort of ruined the moment.

Bloody Salazar.

Stop thinking about Salazar!

Dammit, though! What was good about him, anyway? Nothing. He was offensive, judgemental, antisocial, snobby, cynical, sarcastic and bigheaded. He was — he was anti-muggleborn! He called them "mudbloods", remember?

Remember, Rowena? He said mudblood the same time he saved you from being trampled to death and you drank together and ended up in his bedroom. Remember that, Rowena?

There were rumours, though. Things people said about the Slytherin family, and what they did to the peasants and the muggles. Alright, they probably weren't all true, but there's never smoke without fire, is there?

But…

Yes, but…

Well, he did say "mudblood". But, er, maybe that was just racist horseplay?

Rowena frowned, tore her gaze away from the lake and sighed. "Racist horseplay"? Good Lord, what was she on?

But what did any of it matter? He was just the man behind the money, remember? Another name on the land-lease. Where did she even get the energy to hate him? Where did she even get the energy to care at all?

I do care. I care about some things...

Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up!

It's disgusting, the way you blush. Whenever Malfoy looks at you...

It wasn't jealousy. It wasn't jealousy. Don't even entertain that thought for a minute, that he might have been jealous. Because he wasn't. He wouldn't be. He doesn't care a thing about you.

I do care. I care about some things...

Shut up shut up shut up!

It was then that Helga Hufflepuff tentatively re-entered the room to say, 'Ro, you do remember the school's opening in two day's time, don't you? – Oh, Gods, sit down! Go on, deep breaths…'