Chapter 4:
Caleb, Sal and a gaggle of small children arrived at King's Cross Station, the morning of his departure, 20 minutes early.
"Are you sure you can manage on your own?" Caleb inquired skeptically. Sal glared at him, though it was like a kitten attempting to scowl since he was under attack with hugs from four-year-old Nathaniel and Elizabeth. "I am perfectly capable of finding one (1) train on my own, Caleb."
Caleb sighed, "Forgive me for doubting you, but Sal. You didn't even know what a train was until yesterday."
True, but in his defense, he was 'amnesic'. Besides, Sal knew better than to inform muggles of Magic, which he would have to do if the ticket was legitimate in its station name: 9 & 3/4.
"I've got this." He said confidently. Caleb sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He'd told Sal it was to stave off headaches, but he only seemed to do so when he was around Sal.
"Okay, okay. But if you end up missing your train..."
Sal smiled cheerfully, "I won't."
Caleb sighed again but left as he said he would. Thankfully, Sal found the pillar with a '9' on it relatively easily.
He looked around casually and leaned against the pillar, feeling his back sink into the 'brick'.
After a second, he disappeared into the illusion.
He took a few moments to marvel at the contraption he would be travelling home on. Truly amazed at how far Magicians and Muggles had come in the apparent centuries he'd been gone.
Then he took a deep breath and marched forward.
Once he found a room, he retrieved a book from within his trunk and then relatched it. Settling into the long, cushioned seats for some quiet reading.
He was interrupted in his reading when more people began to arrive and pour into the train. Children marched around the train, finding friends and making new ones. The door to the room Sal had chosen opened twice, and chatter began to fill the area.
Sal peeked up from his book, and a pleasant warmth settled into his stomach at the sight of Rowena's colours on two students and Godric's on another. They sat on the same seat, fingers intertwined as they read a book together.
Ravenclaws and a Gryffindor, he thought happily. The house system had worked and had continued to work even years afterwards. Just as Rowena had said it would.
It made him happy to know that the students who came to his school still had surrogate families at Hogwarts, even if the original 'parent' was no longer there.
He smiled slightly before continuing with his book, pleased.
It was the third time the door opened, and loud footsteps followed the sound of a door slamming open, that Sal encountered a member of his own house for the first time.
He looked up from his book in curiosity before he met the sight of three very different children wearing his colours. A grey-eyed teen with blond hair sneered at the occupants. While a more subdued blue-eyed redhead followed behind them with a guilty look. It was the third who captured his attention.
He could hardly breathe as his chest ached at the sight of her.
Her eyes, covered by honey-blond hair, were violet. Though he could not see them, he knew.
He knew because he knew her. He knew she was always cautious of her eyes, of catching attention.
This... He hadn't expected this. He'd never thought he'd see her again. Did that mean... were the others?
She faltered, frozen at the sight of him, and then she moved. The speed of the duelist she was shone through.
One second she was standing beside the grey-eyed child. The next: she was cradling his stinging cheek with blazing, tear-filled eyes.
"Sal."
And then she was gone.
Helga Hufflepuff.
The name taste like ash, bland and bitter.
Perhaps it's because she died burning, burning for the mistakes she made and the eyes she hated.
Perhaps it's because she loved and lost and died within the same week.
Heidi Rose: it was a new name, a new life. A new life in her beloved's house among snakes who were unfit for the legacy of her love.
Her eyes, cursed as they were, changed the day she awoke from a blue that Heidi had all her life to the violet of Helga. But this also was part of her new life, a second chance to change her mistakes.
But Salazar lived, too.
He'd awoken just as she had.
The man she loved was alive and well.
She ran from him as his name left her lips. She feared the Slytherins' reactions to her love.
But, most of all, she feared the truth of what had happened that night. Centuries ago, in the moonlight, after the fight.
It was hard to forget Godric's pain, Rowena's accusations, Hel's guilt, and her own upset. Hard not to blame Sal for never coming back, for staying away.
Even as the castle sang at the return of her king and Helga's hat declared him a "SLYTHERIN!" with no hesitation.
Perhaps she'd never forgive him, though she loved him still.