Ouroboros

by Novus Ars

Salazar Slytherin woke up in the body of a three year old boy with the most ridiculous head of black hair & a runic scar craved into his forehead. The last thing he recalled was dying. Now it is over 900 years in the future. There are a million things to deal with between new inventions, lost knowledge, missing spirits, & parasitic dark lords. (multi-povs. Unreliable narrator. AU)

2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

oooP1ooo

Uncle Vernon cursed as he smacked a mallet into a wooden spike. Salazar watched his efforts in amusement through the window as he waited for the cupcakes to cool. Dudley's sixth birthday had finally come. With it, someone had gotten a strange idea that Dudley liked the outdoors.

Salazar wasn't certain if it was Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon who thought Dudley would actually like being a scout. He knew how rubbish the idea was. Dudley didn't do anything outside if he didn't have to. (He didn't do anything at all if he could help it.)

They should have learned with the rollerskates.

"What is taking so long?" demanded his aunt as she snooped over his shoulder to the cooling cupcakes, "Those should have been done ages ago."

Green eyes rolled and words spilled out before he could control himself (something that had become more and more an issue of late.) "Perhaps you should have done the laundry then."

"Excuse me?" she snapped.

The doorbell rang before anything else could be said. Salazar and his aunt looked towards the front door and then at each other. She grimaced as she realized she would have to ice the cupcakes. "Out and don't be back until sundown."

Salazar paused, having expected orders to his room. "What?"

"You heard me. Go to the park or something." She sniffed, taking the piping bag from him. "Arabella couldn't watch you today."

"She sick?"

The doorbell rang again. Aunt Petunia waved him out towards the back door. "Yes. Now out, out."

He stepped into the backyard, feeling odd. Five-year-olds weren't allowed free reign of an entire neighborhood outside of trekking to school and back anymore. Not that he was complaining, he could go to the park or wander the neighborhood to find other places.—There was a library around somewhere.—It was just strange but then, ever since he had turned his teacher's wig blue, his relatives had distanced themselves. They had always preferred him either busy, locked away, or gone from the property entirely. The latter was becoming more common.

Salazar watched Uncle Vernon hoist the last rope and a round canvas tent took up the back garden. Vernon grinned up at the pointed top. "Now this is a proper bell tent, boy!" He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Dudders will be the envy of the beaver scouts in no time."(1)

Salazar just shook his head and left. Uncle didn't notice, too pleased with the tent Dudley wouldn't use. He had a free day and he wasn't going to spend another afternoon trying to understand his relatives or speculate on how much magic must have changed or what to do about the enchantment around Privet Drive. No, an afternoon without his cousin and aunt, with no obligations and no heavy thoughts, was just what he needed.

The young reincarnate ignored the odd looks received from the few adults he passed down Privet Drive to Wisteria Walk. Just a few houses past Mrs. Figg's was a shortcut through the neighborhood to the park. Being amongst nature sounded pleasant.

Omorose strolled over to him as he passed through the alley onto Mongolia Crescent. A line of four kittens followed her.

Salazar raised a brow at his cat. "So this is why you've been demanding snacks?"

The kneazle flicked her lion tail at him and mewled.

"They're not Mr. Tibbles's, are they?" Salazar asked, resigned. He received a yowl in response which told him nothing. The Hogwarts founder ended up picking up the various kittens, one looked like a miniature Mr. Tibbles, and placed them in his oversized jacket. "They have to be given to Mrs. Figg, you realize? She'll find homes for the lot."

Omorose pranced away with her tail high in the air, leaving him with her tiny kittens. Salazar rolled his eyes to the sky and firmly squashed the increasingly common realization that his only real conversations were with a cat. At least his last childhood companions could talk back to him.

"I should get a snake."

His kneazle paused to turn back towards him. Somehow, she gave him an unamused look.

"I like snakes," Salazar defended himself as they continued down the road to the park. "They're decent enough conversationalists...when not talking about mating or their eggs or food...which isn't terribly often, I know, but they at least talk."

As he entered the park, Salazar pulled his pendant on. Any adults frowning over at him turned back to their own children. The green-eyed boy glanced over the manicured lawn and the colorful playground before he spied a less cared-for section of the old green beyond. It went wild and seemed to become a thicket. That was more like it.—Would have been even better if it was a fen, then he might have found a snake or two.—Salazar wandered towards the wooded area, uninterested in attempting conversation with any of his fellow children.

He wandered across the manicured grass and flower beds, past birch trees, and into the thicker brush. The constant noise, the buzzing of electricity, and the rumbling of vehicles faded away. With that, the child felt something in him relax for the first time. Salazar hadn't realized how much the constant noise had bothered him. He enjoyed the quiet and the sounds of nature as he wandered with no particular direction or place to be. It reminded him of his past childhood as he traveled through the fens with only snakes for companions.

His gaze lowered to the kittens and kneazle. For all that changes, it all stays the same in its own way.

The whisper of poplar leaves touched his ears with a zing of excitement. Salazar slowly turned towards twin trees. Heart-shaped leaves sang at him as the breeze pushed another breathy whisper of excitement to his hearing. Green eyes grew unfocused as he stared. His thoughts faded from the world surrounding him and focused on the zing in the wind.

It was so familiar, achingly so. The reincarnate found himself beside the poplar trees before he could think things through properly. Later he would blame it on his youth. For now, he thought nothing of his moment of exuberance that had caused him to nearly fly across the grassy field.

His too-small hand hung, stretched out, an inch from the dark, cracked bark of the old poplar for a long moment. An unexplainable fear flashed through him before he stuffed it back, tucked away with his exhaustion and sorrow. It wasn't time to consider everything he had felt waking up in a strange, foreign world. (He feared that there would never be time for that.)

Fingers brushed the bark before he could reconsider his priorities. A pulse of heat touched his fingertips and Salazar instinctively answered by mentally opening himself to it. Warmth flooded him, flowed from the tree into his fingers and down his arm until it whirled around his chest and flowed into his other extremities. Fingers trembled and tears stung his eyes.

Shoes were toed off so his bare feet met the soft, grassy floor—the magic could not travel through his rubber soles. The warmth flowed from his feet into the ground. Then it swirled until some returned through his feet, swirled and flowed back up through him and into the tree.

Salazar ignored the tears that slid down his face as he welcomed an old friend back. Magic, ancient nature magic that had been nurtured and strengthened through druidic ritual and care, flowed through him.

He had grown up feeling nature's magic under his feet. No matter where he traveled and rambled through the fens, the avenues of golden magic branched from grove to grove and from leyline to leyline. There had been hundreds of druidic groves that drew the natural magics of the land and protected it. Many had been turned into church yards and parts of monasteries but their magics had rarely been disrupted.(2) Some had been protected and cared for, hidden away from the Catholic non-magicals.

Then wizards had come with William of Normandy and had taken exception to their practices. The magicals of Normandy followed much of the Catholic religion and the fallen Roman Empire's practices. Wands and structured phrases—sharp commands—were their preferred method of incantation. They had found a way to convince their non-magical leaders that they weren't heathens or demons by casting off their religion and their culture, removing all significance to their connections to magic, and turning magic into a tool and nothing more.

Some would say they had seen the light and did what they needed to survive the changing times. Salazar didn't agree.

Hands closed into fists.

They had turned magic into a tool. The Mother meant nothing to them.(3) They had come and destroyed the sacred groves. Ripped out, tore down, desecrated the trees.

He had feared the worst over the last few years as he never felt Mother's magic. Clearly, most of the interconnected groves were gone. Some, like this one, had never been found but were neglected. Who knows if there were any of the triad left.

Salazar let his hand drop from the poplar tree and stepped beside it, between it and the other poplar. A faint resistance pressed against his chest and a whispered need to be elsewhere passed his thoughts before the magic gave way, recognizing his own innate core. An expanse of trees appeared before his eyes.

In the distance, directly before him crowned an elder oak. Copse of ash trees shaded most of the grove while alder had clearly traveled across the area, growing and dying, falling and decomposing as nature planned. What had once been a singular blackthorn tree had propagated a mess of shrubs. Uncared for hawthorn claimed the back of the grove and had likely been part of the barrier that hid the sacred land from outsiders. A holly tree, half dead and clearly in need of care, stood in one of the few spots of sun left. Pink rose hips danced across the blackthorns as they claimed purchase for sunlight.

Salazar slowly walked into the grove. A heady scent pulled his attention to one of many speckled brushes of honeysuckle and violets. The boy walked to the ancient oak with a detached air.

His gaze wandered over the grove, taking every inch in. Soft earth and cool grass padded his bare feet as he wandered. He finally felt like he was home but it felt like he was dreaming. The world had become so different, too different for such a place to still exist.

He pressed both hands onto the oak's thick bark and took a deep breath of fresh air. Magic, twisted to the will of the ancient tree, pressed into him with a stabilizing force. Salazar spread his fingers out and slid them over the trunk. Fingers caught onto ancient runes cut into the bark.

Protection. Health. Fertility. Strength.

It was all the qualities of the oak carved into it as a prayer and a guide. A long, ancient ritual filtered through Salazar's memory, one to ask for and to give in return the will to protect, to prompt health and fertility, and to pull forth strength when all was waning. It was a ritual he had participated in many times, part of the settling of a new growth grove.

Hogwarts had been surrounded by eight groves, each with an oak standing tall. He hadn't been able to use the exact same tree species as this grove. That didn't particularly matter, though. Every tree had its strengths and characteristics. The eight groves were built first and foremost as protection for their school and the trees were planted with that in mind.

The boy sank down between two large roots and relaxed with his back against the solid tree. The kittens yawned and scrambled out of his pockets. Salazar helped one of them down. A warm breeze ruffled his hair. One kitten pounced on another and then the four were off, investigating this new world he had brought them to. He watched the tiny little lion-like tails flick about amongst the tall grass.

His eyes fluttered closed. Natural magic flowed around and through him as he hadn't bothered separating himself from the land's golden magic. As the pulse of the world echoed through him, Salazar acknowledged his situation. He could do nothing about it but to ignore something meant it would rear its head when he least wanted it to. So now, in the blanketing power of natural magic, hidden behind ancient protections, and away from all the changes made to the world, he could finally acknowledge and accept it.

This world was so different it ached to consider it. Much of it felt wrong. The lack of natural magic flowing freely under his feet, the dirty air, the noise, the speech—everything was wrong. He had been yanked from everything he had known into some bizarre horror of a future.

He had died to protect the groves, the children, and their way of magic, of life. He had failed.

Salazar had learned, after a long month of short trips into the school library, that the Normandy king, William the Conqueror, had invaded successfully in 1066 ce. That meant, by the Catholic structured calendar they used today, that he had likely died in 1068.

It was 1986.

The boy stuffed trembling hands into his armpits as he attempted to stem the tremors that slowly expanded out across his entire body. He felt sick at the thought. He was 918 years from his time. Salazar was centuries late in returning to Hogwarts where the new year had been waiting.

He dropped his head down to lean against his knees now curled up against his chest. Salazar was finally, properly alone and safe. A choked gasp escaped as emotions boiled over and the man stuck in a five-year-old's body, with said emotional control, finally lost it. He grieved for his kin and kith, for his ambitions and failures. He wept for everything he had lost, including himself.

There was no way to go back. No manner to change what had been done. Salazar was trapped in a time not his own, in a body not his, with a strange name, and surrounded by strange contraptions and signs that screamed how much he had utterly failed in his last ambition.

Non-magicals proliferated the world while barely any hint of magicals remained. His people had been regulated to myth and folktales and fantasy. They were boogiemen of Halloween night, whispers to scare children into obedience, and a tool for non-magicals to escape their mundane lives in fantastical imaginings. It felt like he had failed far more than his traditions at seeing this future. The Norman conquest felt like it had destroyed so much more than it likely had.

By the time the grove darkened as the sun sank towards the horizon, he felt empty. Tears had dried. His chest was hollow and his emotions stable once more.

Salazar watched the four kittens play. Omorose had found her way onto his lap.

There wasn't anything to it but forward. He had grieved. He might continue to do so over time but the Hogwarts founder would continue to look forward. It was time to return to investigating this new world, and protecting what he had—even if it was a temporary thing.

He wouldn't be Salazar if he didn't.

The boy rose and, with a soft pat goodbye, left the oak and the sacred grove. He'd come back and he'd bring some gardening tools next time. There were years of work to bring the grove back to rights.

oooP2ooo

"Boy!"

Salazar looked up from the gate. The new equilibrium from being able to grieve kept him from snarking back. His uncle looked frustrated enough as it was. Nothing good would come of mouthing off, no matter how much he seemed to want to of late.

"Put the tent away." grumbled the obese man, "bloody thing's not worth the money."

"Yes sir," Salazar replied, not surprised. "Where should I stow it?"

Vernon waved a hand through the air as he calmed now that someone else was dealing with the mistake. "Don't care. The shed should work."

Salazar nodded and started pulling it down. The majority of the tent parts were made from wood and canvas, or some other natural material. Salazar slowed in packing it up. This tent could fit in the grove. He could place protections for water and rot and wind, and whatever else he might think of.

He sat back and stared over the ropes and canvas and half-circle ground mats. He could turn this tent into a home. It wasn't like he didn't know how to camp. He probably knew better than the vast majority of the people on the Isles in this day and age. There was the lack of wildlife for food, of course, but that just meant he needed to start collecting funds while he could. His relatives left plenty of change about and in their laundry.

A smile grew. Plans formulated and a list slowly grew in the back of his mind as he looked over each part of the tent more carefully. It all was packed into the bag and stored in the shed. Once it was out of sight, his relatives forgot all about it. If Salazar took a peg every once in a while, no one noticed. No one ever looked in the bag to see the intricate engravings that ended up on each wooden peg and the two halves of the wooden post.

Eventually, a little quartz rock sat on the bag but no one would have noticed that either. They wouldn't have seen the stone nor the bag if they had gone looking in the shed as the quartz charged a simple notice-me-not charm over whatever the stone touched. But no one ever did. Dudley never brought up his tent, just as he never thought to bring up most of his presents.

oooP3ooo

His aunt snored as she slept on the couch. Her morning tea sat on the coffee table still steaming. The infusion of chamomile and lavender, with a spark of magic, had been more effective than expected. Luckily, she had sat to drink it after both Uncle Vernon and Dudley had left for the day—the first for work and the second out with a fellow beaver scout.

Salazar sat watching her, feeling disturbed. After Dudley, he had expected her to be magical. He had even expected her core in a similar state to Dudley's even though she was an adult. Something had to have happened to her core for her to consider magicals freaks and for the enchantment to latch onto Dudley instead. What he had found was unlike anything he had ever seen (and he had thought Dudley's core disturbing).

Aunt Petunia's core was shattered, for lack of a better description. Only the residual remains of magic floated where a core should have been. For all intents and purposes, she had no magic. Whatever had done this, must have occurred many years ago back when she was a child herself.

He didn't think it was related to obscurus. She shouldn't exist anymore if she had restrained her magic until the pressure had caused an implosion of accidental magic and childhood desperation. It didn't add up and it left too many questions.

While he had no idea what might have done this to Aunt Petunia, he couldn't help but latch onto another aspect. Two destroyed cores were the start of a disturbing pattern. It left him antsy. What had happened in the magical community since his last life?

Salazar stood up, disposed of the tea, and peeled the runic-covered paper off the bottom before replacing the cup where she had left it. Then he packed the remains of the infusion and stalked out the door.

Third time's the charm.

Mrs. Figg answered her door in her usual bathrobe. A startled smile appeared at his presence. "Is everything alright, dear?"

"I saw a cat with kittens around the other day," Salazar stated, smoothly side-stepping his actual purpose as he physically side-stepped past her and into the cat-infested house. "I thought you would want to know."

He looked back in time to see a flash of concern appear. Salazar stalked through to her kitchen and pulled out the teapot and cups. The old lady followed and pulled out a box of expired biscuits a curp wouldn't touch.

"Was-was it a black cat with an especially fluffy tail tip?" Mrs. Figg asked.

Salazar looked up, uncertainty written on his young face. "I-I think so? It sort of reminded me of that kitten when I first came over."

"Oh." She set the biscuits down. "Oh no, I'll be charged if they cause any mischief."

"Charged?" Salazar asked, there wasn't a way to tell where a wild cat had come from. Of course, Omorose was a kneazle and Mrs. Figg was breeding those. He hadn't heard anything about magic or how it was governed but perhaps there was a department for that? (But then, why was magic only in stories?)

She shook her head and rushed from the kitchen with a mumble about kneazles. He was not particularly worried about the old woman or his wild, sort-of-pet kneazle. Instead, Salazar stuck the runic paper onto the bottom of her cup and spooned in some of the infusion. He waited a few minutes for the actual water to boil and tea to steep before he picked up both cups and went after Mrs. Figg.

Salazar stilled just outside the hallway as he stepped through something. He glanced about and found a quartz stone set on a cabinet and another directly across balanced on top of a picture frame. They weren't glowing but he would have bet a decent ten-pounder that they were enchantment-tied proximity barriers: At least charmed to warn when someone walked through them.

He stalked into the living room at double the pace. Mrs. Figg was pushing herself up from in front of the fireplace. She had used the enchantments there to communicate with someone. And he had missed it.

"Are you alright, Mrs. Figg?" Salazar asked as she looked up at him like a spooked rabbit. There was no point wallowing over spilled milk. There were other priorities. He would learn how to use the fireplace one day.

"I-uh...perfectly alright, dear. You said there were a few kittens with the cat?" she stuttered out as she stood.

Salazar guided her to the couch and held out her doctored tea. "You look like you could use this."

"I-Yes, thank you," she sputtered, clearly flustered. Mrs. Figg took a sip and then set it aside as she focused sharply on Salazar. "How many kittens?"

"Four," Salazar offered as he pushed Snowy off a chair and sat across from her. "Two black and a—what you call Mr. Tibbles? Marbled?"

Her expression soured and her gaze snapped to a high corner of the room. "Oh, Mr. Tibbles what have yyyou done!?" She startled at the end as a yawn cut through her scolding. "Goodness, I'm sorry dear. I've..no idea what's come over me."

"It's been very stressful." Salazar offered kindly as he lifted his tea and took a sip. "Maybe more tea would help?"

A meow drew Salazar's gaze as Mrs. Figg picked her tea cup back up. Mr. Paws sat staring up at him. Salazar could feel the part kneazle judging him. "This all is very stressful. She could use the rest." He countered the accusation.

"What's that?" she asked with another long yawn.

"I was just saying, I'll bring the kittens in as soon as I see them next." He set his teacup down and went to help her set her own down. "A little kip might help with the stress."

"Oh, yes...I think you're right," she muttered as she laid down across her couch. A snore escaped a moment later which was answered by multiple judgmental meows and hisses.

Salazar rolled his eyes at all of them and huffed out, "You know I'll not hurt her. Really."

He reached out to her head and just above her heart. A moment later he stepped back and settled heavily into his seat. His tea was now much appreciated.

Mrs. Figg did have a core but it was buried under layers and layers of residual magic. It was as if she had never bothered to cleanse or purify herself after twisting magic to her will. Though the sheer amount of gunk wrapped around her core left Salazar wondering how she was able to reach her magic at all—and what the heck her parents had been doing with their own magic as some of the residue had to have come from them instead. Perhaps it was a multi-generational buildup, even.

Two destroyed cores and a clogged-up one could not be a coincidence, could it?

Salazar finished his tea and considered the remains at the bottom of the cup for a moment. The tea leaves made a line of blobs. His lips quirked into a faint smirk. "Well...mountains or clouds, right Helga?" He shook his head, imagining her annoyance at his half-assed divining. The Hogwarts founder cleaned up the tea, scrubbing the soot remains of his runic-covered paper from the bottom of Mrs. Figg's tea cup (good to know a paper rune set had two uses before it burnt out).

He needed to look at his own core. He needed to widen his investigations beyond that too. Green eyes flicked over at the various cats and decided it was probably safer to meditate away from their judging gaze. Who knew what they'd do to him when he was unaware.

Aunt Petunia was still sound asleep when he returned to Four Privet Drive. He took that time to collect more funds before handling most of his chores with a touch of magic. Salazar took care of the list within the hour since no one was about to order him to do it manually and most was being done by his runes already. Those just needed a small top off of magic to keep them running. Then, knowing his aunt could wake at any point and that she expected him in the house, the five-year-old settled back in his cupboard under the stairs to meditate.

It was moments like these that Salazar remembered he was a child once more. Though he had long mastered meditation in his last life, it took some time for him to reach calmness of mind. Odd thoughts and things he could be doing or investigating kept jumping to mind. He hadn't realized how much his mind worked and his little form demanded movement until he consciously tried to stay still.

He did eventually reach a meditative state and looked within at his core. The first thing he noticed, and it was a pretty obvious fact, was that it didn't look quite like the core he recalled possessing. All cores reminded Salazar of the irises of people's eyes. The colored energy swirled in patterns from a nexus of concentrated energy instead of a pupil. Those swirls of energy even contracted and expanded in a similar fashion. Some cores were shockingly similar to the owner's eyes, in fact.

Godric's core had been a whirlwind of fiery power, orange and gold and red, but his eyes had been blue. Rowena's had been cool and calm like a spring day right after a late snow storm and it had been silver on silver; her eyes had been a grey with a ring of blue around the pupils. Helga's had been summer with browns and golds and warm greens. Her eyes had been hazel with lines of gold that grew larger to match her joy. His core had been greens while his eyes had been silver.

Now, there were still green spirals and a sunburst-like center but it was not thousands of green tones and the pattern had evolved into something more than vines. The sunburst was a vibrant gold that softened into silver. That silver wavered until each ray parted from the sun and became clouds. Spirals of green vines curled around those silvery clouds.

Residual magic, like a dark gray smog, clogged up the area surrounding his core, where the core would slowly expand into as he grew from child to adult. If the gunk stayed, Salazar didn't know what it would do. At least keep him from reaching his full potential, he guessed.

A couple of sections of his core looked stretched, vaguely like Dudley's but not the horrifying extremes present in his cousin's. The enchantment only pulled at his magic when there was an attack while it was constantly pulling at Dudley's. Salazar had to wonder over how many people tried to hunt him down before he turned three. He didn't have any estimation but Salazar imagined it had to have been a great deal to create such stretched sections within his core.

Salazar closed his eyes and opened them to the outside world. The cupboard's dark ceiling came into focus and Salazar made a face at the lack of control—he had been sitting as he finally entered a meditative state but must have fallen backward while he investigated his core. If he had hit the ground hard enough, he would have had to start all over. Luckily his mattress was underneath.

He needed to find some way to complete a purification ritual but he did not have the capacity to do any he knew nor was the grove ready. A cleansing bath was his second option but he had no access to the stone tubs with the thousands of runes already engraved for such use and he couldn't use the porcelain bathtub at the house. Even if Aunt Petunia didn't notice the runes he'd inscribe across the entire thing, the tube wouldn't handle the purified water and sheer amount of magic involved.

That left him with more waiting. The reincarnated wizard huffed and stretched out. Being five was a terrible bore. He suspected being six wasn't much better.

oooP4ooo

Wind playfully ruffled his hair. Salazar paused in his climb up the ancient oak to look out across the green. He was high enough to see the distant playground and swings. The motorway glinted with lines of cars roaring away towards London. The wind whispered the trumpeting of a passing train, probably also off to London. He made a face at its general direction as he recalled his failure to gain a ticket the other day. Who could have known he required an adult to purchase a train and tube ticket all the way into London (or gain free access as the case may be). At least he had run across the Langley library afterward.

The morning sun glowed and the faintest hint of Autumn had reached the air. School would start soon. With it, his freedom would be taken for the next so many months. The reincarnated wizard turned back to the tree and craved a rune into the oak's branch. The old remains of the protective runes, like scars in the bark, glowed with renewed energy as he completed the specific circle. A ripple cascaded over the air as the protections on the grove grew stronger.

Green eyes glanced over the many branches down to the ground. He had years of work, and that was only for the primary tree. His gaze moved to the holly tree he had trimmed up. When Autumn came he would need to focus on her instead, especially with the little amount of time he'd have.

He pressed a hand to the bark as more playful wind danced over him. Golden warmth flowed from the tree like a hug of thanks. His eyes closed as old memories surfaced. A bitter little smile appeared as the wind stole the few tears that escaped. Quiet moments like this allowed his past to sneak up on him. He couldn't help but think of the past when he was so very alone.

Salazar's eyes opened and he stared out over leaves and sky. Climbing trees had always reminded him of his brother. The man's voice whispered in the wind as it kissed his cheeks and ears, "Nah, plants don't like me."

His smile twisted into a smirk and he whispered out, his words taken by the wind, "You should have still climbed them, Rie. You missed out."

He took his time climbing down the tree, pausing to enjoy the wind or carve a rune that helped stabilize the grove's protections. At one point a little squirrel reminded him of a moment with Helena, Rowena's daughter. Its puffed-out cheeks, full of food, were just like the little girl had been when Helga had made a particularly delicious meat pie.

That hit him harder than the other memories. He had helped with Helena's birth, had given her the Mother's Bath, and had been there for her whenever an ear was required. And she was dead. He had not been there to see her grow up. He didn't know what had happened to her.

The melancholy presented from that memory held him down. He walked a few feet from the oak, simply to remove himself from the squirrel of all things, and sank down under an alder tree. It took time for him to pull himself out of that rush of pain and memories.

A little voice ended up pulling him from it all. Salazar shifted the grasses near the alder trees to find a group of newborn adders pushing their way out of their sacks. Their mother rested some feet away, disinterested in her children and Salazar.

"ss:_I will get you_:ss," hissed one of the tiny snakes.

One of the large babies hissed what sounded like a mocking laugh.

A smile tugged at his lips as he listened in on the spat between snaklings. He left them a while later.—As much as he had claimed he wanted a snake, he would not claim one that knew nothing of the world nor were adders the most intelligent of snakes.—Life went on, and he would too.

oooP5ooo

Dudley was in his class. Salazar grimaced at his Aunt as she stared daggers at him. He knew what she was thinking. He would not go near his cousin least he had to deal with her screeching.—That plan didn't work out so well when Dudley insisted on coming after him.

The rotund boy would not leave him alone. When his little group of beaver scouts refused to bully Salazar and others, he found kids that did. (And so ended his short stint in the scouts before he ever actually learned anything.) His cousin demanded his lunchtime desserts. The little boy attempted, once, to force Salazar to do his homework for him.

In retaliation to Salazar's rather effective refusal, Dudley made up a game called Harry Chasing.—One could never claim Dudley smart or creative but he knew how to keep things simple. Some people didn't appreciate such an ability as much as they should.—His need to chase Salazar was strong enough to subvert the pendant's magic to Salazar's mild amazement. (Salazar simply relocated to the school library which was a more useful time spent than outside with the other children anyway.)

Then there were the spit-wads.

"Mr. Potter trade seats with Mr. Polkiss," huffed the teacher as their first Friday neared its end. Not even the teacher had been able to last a full week with Dudley's interruptions. Salazar traded seats with a scrawny rat-faced boy sitting in the very back of the class.

"Now," announced Mr. Johnson with a clap of his hands together, clearly pleased at the impromptu change. "Mr. Potter, please read the line on the board."

Salazar looked up from organizing his things and raised a brow, the sentences had been rudimentary so far. His gaze turned to the board. A frown crossed his face. He couldn't see the sentence. The teacher's face was slightly blurry too.

"Read what you can," offered the teacher.

Dudley snorted loudly.

"I'm afraid I cannot see the words." Salazar finally admitted, startled at the reality of the matter. He had never had issues with his sight before.

oooP6ooo

Someone had invented eyeglasses to help the visually impaired.(4) He had a number of apprentices over his previous life with imperfect sight. He hadn't expected to experience it himself but, to the outrage of Uncle Vernon, he had inherited his father's eyes—not the color as that was apparently from his mother, which had only made his relatives even more outraged.

Now his aunt was pursuing the clearance frames with a thin lip and the general look of an inconvenienced woman. Salazar watched Aunt Petunia with a frown. A flimsy pair of sunglasses sat on his nose, protecting his dilated eyes from bright lights. He couldn't see much beyond a blur himself but he didn't think he'd like whatever she'd choose. It was now a matter of convincing her of a different pair when she was bound to hunt down the cheapest one.

Not that the cheapest would be the worst. Salazar traced the various frame edges as his aunt set them aside for consideration. He would prefer one that could be useful. So far, every option had been made with material that didn't conduct magic. One had actually melted slightly at contact, which had helped Aunt Petunia discard it.

"Will these last?" Salazar asked sweetly, "What if they break?"

Aunt Petunia scoffed, "They're hard plastic."

"But one melted from the lamp!" he whined, not even slightly uncomfortable at using his physical age to his advantage, "Wouldn't metal be better? It won't melt or break!"

He could feel the glare directed at him but Aunt Petunia had no chance to cut him down for acting out before a salesperson swooped in. A small pile of frames was soon set aside for Salazar to try on. The only pair that would conduct magic as well as he liked was a set of round spectacles. A smig of magic had a notice-me-not fall over the other options.—These were only ten pounds more than the cheapest. Salazar didn't think it was that terrible.

It took a few days before his Aunt brought them home.

The design could have been better, Salazar admitted to himself once he could actually see them on. But they would do well enough.

He carefully guided his magic into the tightest, tiniest rune circles and wrapped it around the frames. Time melted away as he concentrated. His magic flashed and the circles glinted like lines of silver over the dark gray metal frames.

Salazar smacked it against a wooden corner of his room before he held them up for inspection. Neither dent nor scratch had marred the metal or glass surfaces. He slid them on and turned off his torch. The once nearly pitch black room now appeared lit by soft moonlight. He rubbed a finger down one of the frame's temples and the room took on a warm golden light as if the sun was shining down into the room. Another rub had the room fall into its usual darkness.

He rubbed a finger down the other temple and the walls of the room lit with the swirling, sparking glow of its protective magics. A smirk spread as he looked over the accidental magic. It was just a swirl of childish intent but, if he had done this correctly, he should be able to see details of purposely created magic such as the enchantment tied to his relatives and him.

oooP7ooo

The sound of his peers screaming and playing outside filtered through an open window. A globe of the world caught his attention as he slipped into the older year classroom. Salazar tapped his pendant thoughtfully against his chest as he considered the map of the world. The Isles were so tiny in the face of the rest of the planet. The world seemed to have grown twice it's original size with whole continents having been found.—His connection to nature magic kept him from panicking over the shape of the map; the ebb of the world's magic had always been curved. That the world wasn't flat wasn't terribly shocking because of that. Of course, a round world shouldn't be surprising for any learned man. Pthyagoras, or some other lesser known Grecian scholar, had alluded to it in his teachings. (In turn, the sheer quantity of water was a surprise.)

He pulled his gaze away from the globe and searched out what he came for. The local library he had found had opened the possibility of learning beyond the classroom. He would just have to wait for a free weekend or, more likely, the summer to expand his studies. Now was not the time.

Anyway, it didn't matter how small the Isles were. They were his. He would figure out what had happened to the magical community and he would do what had to be done to protect it, or even save it, as the case may be.

A shelf of rock samples caught his eye. The Hogwarts founder pulled a chair over, climbed up, and looked over his find. Granites and marble, slate and sandstone, and many other varieties of rocks were displayed. Near the back, set to catch the light, was a rock smoothed into a ball. That was what he had been hoping to find.

oooP8ooo

He rolled a smokey quartz ball between his hands. Salazar felt slightly bad for taking it; Year Three would be missing it from their box of minerals and rocks sooner or later.(5) He had a greater use for it than a rock sample for children to gawk at, though. The Hogwarts Founder pulled his pendant on as he slipped into Four Privet Drive and dumped his backpack in his room.

Aunt Petunia didn't notice as she peered through the back window at the neighbor. Dudley's latest show blasted through the house, hiding any sound others might make. Uncle Vernon wasn't due back for another few hours. He clicked his torch on and closed the small door. It looked like he was inside.

Salazar went to the cellar. The dark room was illuminated in golden light through Salazar's glasses. He had learned to read well enough—it was vocabulary he had to familiarize himself with now but his knowledge of old tongues made that a fairly simple matter. He stepped up to the wall with the letter and took in the words first, curiosity burning to know what explanation it held.

ooo

Dear Petunia,

It has been some years since we have last exchanged letters. I am saddened to bear such sad tidings to you in both encounters. Lily spoke sparingly of your relationship but I have the understanding you wished to be kept from our constitution and so I leave you this letter in place of a personal meeting.

I am uncertain to what extent you are aware of regarding the magical community's situation; please be patient in an old man as he explains matters you may be fully vested in. It has been a dark time in our community. A Dark Lord has been hunting down and killing innocents in the name of an ill-gotten ideology. He has an army of like-minded magicals working together to extinguish the new and brightest of our community.

Your sister was one of them. Instead of fleeing and hiding from this danger, she stepped up to combat it. Lily and James have been integral in pushing the darkness back. Their efforts caught the attention of the purveyor of these dark days and the Potters went into hiding.

On the evening of October 31st, the Dark Lord Voldemort assaulted your sister's home, killed James and Lily, and attempted to kill their young child. Ancient and powerful magic, manifested through the love Lily held for her son, allowed Harry to vanquish Voldemort instead.

You are Harry's last remaining blood relative. It is imperative that you accept the child into your home. If you do, this ancient magic will extend to you and protect all under your roof. I have made certain such protection, through your blood connection, will settle into your home as Harry learns to see it as his own.

The Dark Lord's followers will be after Harry and any blood relative. You all are in great danger but if you stay together, you will be protected by your sister's love. Love is the greatest of gifts and most powerful of magics. Remember that over these coming years.

I have included a muggle-friendly copy of Harry's birth certificate and legal documents naming you his guardian. Harry James Potter is yours to protect. Please expect a letter from Hogwarts around his eleventh birthday.

I am yours most sincerely,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Order of Merlin (First Class), Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot

ooo

Salazar couldn't help but stare at a specific section of Dumbledore's many titles. The rest of the letter was mostly hogwash. If all a mother needed was to feel love for her child, his first mother would have saved his sister. Instead, they both burned. And if mothers could unconsciously use their love-amplified magic to save their children, that magic had no anchor after they died as such magic would need to find power from somewhere else. Such magic would not take it from the child as it would naturally cause harm to said child. Dudley was a prime example of the type of harm caused by long-term spell exposure to an active enchantment anchored to a child.

So he saw little reason to focus on the rubbish Albus Dumbledore had written. What was far more interesting were his titles. They all indicated a global magical society and a governing body. Salazar had no idea why he had not seen nor heard anything about this society. There wasn't anything he could do about it either. Perhaps he would learn about the magical community as he grew older. He was only six.

Instead, he chose to focus on a title that spoke of such promising things.

Hogwarts still existed. The magical sanctuary and school had stood the test of time—even if the castle itself no longer stood, the concept lived on. Salazar leaned back against the opposite wall as he processed that. Not all of his ambitions had failed in the end. Instead, perhaps the most important had survived to today.

"Nearly a thousand years," breathed out Salazar in wonder. He smiled softly into space. "Would you look at that, Helga...you were right."

Feeling more optimistic, he activated the magic sight on his glasses. The ground became a pool of swirling magic. A fountain of magic seemed to flow up and down from the parchment. Thin ropes of it floated up and about the pool, waiting to lash out and react to the activation of the protection enchantment. Little firefly-like sparkles of magic floated about, shifting closer and farther away from the pool. He watched as one little spark zoomed off and vanished from his sight.

Salazar guessed the fireflies were the monitoring enchantment. It was the only magic actively doing anything. The rest was pooling in the cement and bricks and slowly dissipating since neither could actually store magic for long.

What a waste of magic. No wonder it had required some of Salazar's to achieve its purpose. Now the question was when and how the enchantment took Dudley's magic. Once he knew that, he could begin the process of turning his quartz orb into the new magical storage and an ambient collector.

It took till late into the night for the enchantment to send a tendril of magic out into the house. Salazar sleepily watched the thin rope flatten like a straw being sucked against a hard surface. Eventually, a bulge was pulled down into the pool. Raw wakefulness came over him as he watched in horrified fascination as his cousin's magic was slowly pulled down into the pool throughout the night.

No wonder his core had looked so stretched.

oooP9ooo

Against popular belief, in his day at least, building something with magic that would stand against opposition and the crumbling effects of time without constant maintenance took planning and effort and its own stretch of time. Creating the equivalent of a magical battery for the enchantment was the simple part, though the runic matrix wasn't a simple creation. That had taken years to first create but Salazar had used the matrix so many times he could do it in his sleep. He had already used such magic on his and Omorose's pendants.

Connecting other forms of magic to the runic storage was a complex matter in and of itself. It had taken Rowena and him years to perfect just the interplay between the storage runes and enchantments.—He liked to forget the total number of years it had taken to perfect that interplay between all the various types of magic they had used for Hogwarts. Godric's curses and elemental magic had taken the longest to figure out. And don't even get him started on how complicated it was to make multiple different sources of magic play nice together without the conscious participation of their sources.

Once they had figured it out, they had used it over the entirety of Hogwarts. Whole passages had been hidden away and set with time-altering enchantments to "shrink" long passages and cut the time to travel through the castle to near nothing. Sections of the castle interconnected through pocket dimensions and responded to passwords and the intent of its user. Doors locked or vanished entirely as demanded. Floors changed substances to aid in protecting the children from intruders. Statues came alive in defense against assaults.

All of that could be considered child's play with how much they had done. But that was partly because of the years and years the founders of Hogwarts had worked together, learning to intertwine each expertise into masterpieces of magic. No one part of Hogwarts had been created by a single member of their group. Most of it had taken a little from everyone.

Salazar was not familiar with Albus Dumbledore's magic nor was this enchantment built with his interference in mind. One wrong step and the enchantment could collapse or react as if Salazar was a foreign, intruding magic user. He did not want to find out how the enchantment would evolve to combat him if he caused a reaction.

Dealing with enchantments reminded him of the many rants Rowena gave. She was the enchantress of their group.

"Magic is living," Rowena ranted out at the small group of apprentices. Salazar paused as he considered fleeing the hall but the glare she directed at him drew the children's attention. "Enchantments are not like runes. There is no restriction built in by its very nature. It is the intent of the caster that determines how far an enchantment will go. I could enchant a fire into the fireplace for warmth and the enchantment will do its job but there is nothing in place to inform it of when the warmth is no longer needed, if the fire is burning too hot, or that the fire should stay within the fireplace!

"Eventually the enchantment may decide that it needs to be hotter to complete its purpose. If the fireplace has wood when I enchanted the flames, it could come to the conclusion that it requires fuel to work at its optimal form. When all the wood is consumed, the fire would look for more fuel and it would leave the fireplace, burning and consuming everything within reach.

"To combat the limitations of enchantments, first I must enchant the fireplace to keep anything possessing physical substance greater than air from escaping into the rest of the room. Then I must enchant the fireplace to acknowledge verbal commands that might control the temperature of the air radiating from the fireplace and so, because of the nature of enchantments, it would eventually come to control the fire itself as the fire is the source of the temperature changes. Finally, I would add the enchanted fire."

He rolled his eyes at the memory. Rowena and her rants had always been difficult to avoid. No one ever admitted to the sheer amount of information they learned from them, though. Salazar had never thought he'd need to know as much about enchantments as he did. Rowena had always been there to handle the enchantments. When she wasn't, Godric and Helga were decent substitutes.

Now he was alone. And he had to deal with a protection enchantment left to run wild, poorly intertwined with a monitoring enchantment mainly connected so it could run off the same source of magic. It seemed that Albus Dumbledore's intent had been protection for Salazar through his mother's sacrifice intensified by living blood offering their own form of protection through housing him. The man had forgotten the need for a magic source and had left only one limitation to the enchantment—it would only "cover" the physical property.

Rudimentary. Utter Rubbish.

Rowena must be rolling in her grave.

Salazar stole a notebook for the planning. At least he had something to do when he couldn't make it to his grove or the library. The arithmancy would be an absolute pain.—He might as well figure out how to shift the enchantment to stay active until Dudley stopped seeing Privet Drive as home. No point in wasting such a useful enchantment if he had to leave the house, particularly after the cost that had already been taken.

oooP10ooo

Children ran squealing and screaming onto the playground. Multiple children's football games were happening in the background. Summer met with an increase of people on the green.

Salazar watched as he contemplated the test he wanted to run. It was rude, what he wanted to do. He doubted any of the children would notice. If it worked, he would only gleam the vaguest hints of the child's core which was far less invasive than what he had done with Dudley, Aunt Petunia, and Mrs. Figg.

He would still be invading the children's privacy.

But he desperately wanted proof that his kin and sitter were not prime examples of the magical community. He had tested the technique out on Dudley a few times. His cousin had never noticed but Dudley wasn't the sharpest tool in the box. Nor was his magic whole. Other children might notice him taking a peek at their magical abilities. And it was so very rude to do so without permission first.

After another moment of debate—it was highly unlikely any of the children would notice—he rose and ran over to the playground himself. He helped a child climb up the slide. As he grasped the little girl's hands, he pushed the tiniest amount of magic into her palms. Nothing.

He nudged another child to go down a different slide, his magic seeping into the little boy's back. Again, nothing. Salazar tried off and on to find a child with a magical core. He didn't find a single one.

Salazar claimed a swing as he grumbled to himself. He would have to search his classmates once school recommenced. Maybe he'd check the adults also.

In the end, there weren't any magicals at school besides Dudley and him. On the upside, he was very good at peeking for a hint of magic. He was certain no one, without special training, would ever notice if he took a look-see. (Not that he would—often—it was terribly rude.)

oooP11ooo

The wine glass smacked onto the table. Salazar closed his eyes and counted to ten.

"I'm telling you, Vernon, you have to be careful where the bitch comes from. The stud can be show winning but if the bitch isn't, the pup will be a runt." Aunt Marge's drunken gaze moved to Salazar. "Worth nothing but a drowning least it ends up wasting money from good, hardworking folk–"

"More wine?" asked Vernon, his voice high and loud to draw her attention.

"Aah, yes."

Aunt Petunia waved her hand sharply behind her.

Salazar vanished back into the kitchen as directed. A smoldering anger rolled through him. His green gaze narrowed onto the dog Aunt Marge had brought. The reincarnate knew her words were worthless but he couldn't help but take offense.—He didn't know James and Lily Potter but they had died for him. The least he could do was defend their names. (A childish part of himself whispered that they were his parents to defend.)

Her voice floated into the room and Salazar sneered at the bulldog as it cowered at the power slowly radiating from him.

"...That's why I've decided to try this artificial insemination. There aren't enough bloodlines…" Salazar dumped the dirty dishes and yanked the refrigerator open. Its light flickered as he dug around for something to eat on the go."...semen from a…" Dudley's Birthday cake sat waiting with cherries around the edge. He pulled a few off and popped them in his mouth before pulling some slices of cheese out. "...so much less hassle...didn't require being held down...breeding…" Salazar frowned back at the dining room. Mrs. Figg was far kinder with her kneazle breeding. "...And there won't be a runt to drown...I've no idea why you kept the charity case. He's an insolent...delinquent. Not like this strapping lad...turning eight already!"

His magic flared, with it the house lights died. A stream of curses rose from the darkened dining room. Salazar stalked past the dog as it pissed in fear and stomped from the house. He didn't care that it was evening. His relatives would deal with it.

The grove was eerie in the dark. Omorose's orange eyes shone from a lower branch of the oak tree. Tiny pairs of kitten eyes appeared with hers.—she had birthed a set of three this time. Two reminded Salazar of Mr. Paws.—Salazar stalked over to the holly tree and settled at her roots.

A kitten rubbed against his back and curled about until it reached the side of his thigh. Salazar stroked the kitten's back and up around the curling tail. Some of his anger dissipated as the tiny thing purred in pleasure under his hand.

Golden magic swirled up at his call. He pushed it into the tree and watched as the rune-filled bark lit up with golden lines, swirls, and hooks, each rune distinct from the last. The lines traveled up the trunk and into the highest branches. He had the lower branches to mend still. Since he was burning to release magic, he might as well do something productive.

It was late or very early, depending on one's perspective, when he returned home. Aunt Petunia locked him into his little room without a word. Worry lines twisted with fury and frustration on her face. He was only allowed out for the loo once a day for a week. It was his worst punishment yet.

He would have similar, and worse, punishments over the years after that. The last threads of something had been cut. Salazar couldn't be certain but the combination of his magical retaliation—from his relatives' perspective—and his apparent disrespect towards "Aunt" Marge may have tipped the scale with Uncle Vernon. Aunt Petunia would never side with her freak of a nephew, not when she expected him to be as good as dead by age eleven, and not against her husband, a man she loved very dearly.

Nothing ever became physical but that may have been his willingness to avoid confrontation.—There was no point to fight with them when he would be gone in a few years. Being locked in the cupboard also freed up his time from chores for more important things, anyway.

oooP12ooo

Circles of runes floated clockwise within the depths of the cloudy quartz. Magic glowed out from the crystal, illuminating the cellar. Little pulses of light danced across the floor as the quartz slowly absorbed the magic poorly stored away by the protection enchantment.

Salazar watched intently, patiently waiting. Two years of work had to have paid off. He flexed his fingers, hoovering them over the circle of chalk he had drawn out across the floor of the cellar. It's pastel pink revealing the fact that Salazar had "borrowed" it from some child in the neighborhood. (He had meant to return what was left but he had used it all.)

When the pool of magic lost a fourth of its stored power, the enchantment's rope shot up towards Dudley. The wizard activated the chalk-written runic matrix, lighting it up with vibrant silver and green light, and a bubble of magic wrapped around the cellar, stopping the rope from leaving. Losing its source of pure magic, the enchantment's rope dangled in uncertainty.

He poured a vial of blood onto the quartz.—It had taken a ridiculous amount of effort to collect the blood from his cousin. He had to actually pick a fight with the little bully in the making. At least Dudley avoided him properly now.—Runes lit up within the orb and the blood was slowly absorbed, turning the smoky quartz pink.

The rope of magic came to attention and shot into the quartz. A final set of runes lit up. The rope flattened as it sucked for magic. Bulges appeared in the rope, going from the pool of magic on the floor into the orb. Eventually, the only magic moving freely about was the little firefly sparkles of the monitoring enchantment. Those sank into the orb every few minutes as it monitored the protection enchantment and claimed a little power for itself.

Salazar relaxed as everything appeared to have worked. He released the bubble and nothing changed. The protection enchantment would be powered by safer, more permanent means now. It would continue to work with no interference from him and would do so for years longer than originally expected.

He imagined Dumbledore had expected it to die when Salazar left and there was "no magic" left in the house. Now it would only stop if Salazar came to cut the power or Dudley stopped seeing Privet Drive as his home. Of course, the quartz might eventually fail but that should take a good century.

oooP13ooo

The candles flickered in the dark. A faint glow came from the fireplace. His aunt had never noticed and would never thank him for his thoughtful gesture but evil spirits would not take up abode in his temporary home. So every Samhain found him leaving a few lit candles near the windows to ward off the evil spirits. This year he sparked a small flame in the fireplace also—he would not be present to help boost the candles, a little more was needed just in case.

His relatives didn't celebrate the proper new year nor did they celebrate what Salazar had always known was the Catholic New Year on March 25th.(6) No at some point, someone, somewhere had convinced most of civilization to celebrate the new year after Yule. Thinking about the changes in customs and calendars always gave him a headache. It was simpler to continue his traditions while accepting others as they did them.

Now it was Samhain once more but, unlike past years, the grove was ready and the holly tree was prepared. He could complete a ritual finally. It had only taken him until his tenth year in this world.

He slipped through the silent house, claimed one of his lite candles, collected a small tin of cookies he had baked earlier, and left. Dudley had eaten most of the cookies as he complained all evening about being stuck inside. This was the only holiday Aunt Petunia put her foot down on. Dudley would not go about dressing up as a ghost or superhero. He would not go out and collect candies like his friends. There were to be no decorations. Pumpkin carving was not allowed. Nothing about Halloween was acceptable.

Salazar was certain it was because of the supernatural qualities of the holiday. He wanted to tell her that it wasn't the correct tradition. This was a night of light, to celebrate the harvest and to call out to the sun to return as soon as it could. It was a night where magic was powerful and the barriers between worlds diminished. It was a night of remembrance and thanks. This was a night to reconnect with the long-since departed.

Even the Catholic tradition of celebrating souls and saints was more in accord with the night than running about collecting candies. Of course, there was the need to protect oneself but it was easiest to do with light, candlelight. Dressing up could work. Salazar had never seen it work as well as having a properly blessed candle lite, though.

Omorose prowled over to him as he passed through the dark and shuttered-up neighborhood. Her orange eyes glowed in the night like a little demon herself. The scores of dressed-up children had long been tucked into bed. Candle-lit pumpkins sat on doorsteps. The moon hung heavy in the late night sky. He would have done this ritual early morning, before dawn, but he had been locked in his cupboard under the stairs for a week stretch. Aunt Petunia was more likely to wake up early than stay up late. If he wanted to complete the ritual without being missed, late at night was his best option.

Brisk wind pushed at his coat as he slipped through the shortcut near Mrs. Figg's. The little candle he had kept lit flickered but didn't go out. His pendant's silver reflected its faint glow.

A movement in the dark had him pause. He frowned as a score of mud-brown imps crawled over one of the neighbor's porches. The little mischief makers roughhoused amongst themselves and made a mess of the front yard. One of the jack-o-lanterns, its candle extinguished, was smashed. Pumpkin guts were thrown across the area. Instead of fleeing because of the sudden mess, the imps took to throwing the orange pieces at each other.

He shared a look with Omorose and left the imps to it. It served the neighbor right for letting their candles blow out. He was not going to deal with the tiny mischief makers. They'd just cause him a headache.

It wasn't long after that, that they reached the grove. Salazar blew out the candle in hand and set an unused candle into a pre-prepared circle of stone before the holly tree. He popped the tin and set it down before the makeshift altar. The chocolate chip cookies looked deep brown in the dark.

The reincarnate pressed the candle wick between thumb and finger, drew upon the natural magic flowing up through his feet, and pushed the energy into the wick. As he felt the energy catch on the flammable material, he removed his hand, careful to not cause a breeze. A white flame, similar to the light of the moon, flickered to life and illuminated the grove.

He stared into the soft light for a long moment before he lifted an alder flute. Light, airy sounds filled the area as Salazar played to the candle. The song moved in a rhythm not forgotten but not used for its true purpose for centuries. The candlelight ceased to flicker. It grew both steady and brighter. The light expanded outward as natural magic, twisted to the holly tree's music-directed wishes, entered the candle and joined the burst Salazar had used to light it.

Contradictorily, the light dimmed. Salazar stopped his playing.

"Whooo?" whispered through the grove.

Salazar watched as the light returned in the form of three floating, white fires. He left the flames to steady and find their footing, so to speak. Soft whispers filled the grove. Only the occasional echoing whisper of 'who' reached his ears.

Finally, the flames grew in size and became indistinct before shifting, growing, and solidifying into three figures. Familiar women and a man stood, floating before him. The first figure demanded in a familiar brogue and ancient tongue, "Who dares call us on this Samhain night?"

Salazar answered in the same old language, "A friend calls this night." The ritual's magic tasted his words and found him truthful. The spirits of his friends solidified even more. Only their silver tones kept clear that they were still very dead. Salazar took in their appearance with both joy and disappointment.

Not all he had called to had answered.

Rowena, always the most outspoken in her search for knowledge, demanded, "Who?" Salazar watched her in amusement as she walked closer but Helga drew his attention.

"Maybe he is one of the children we left behind," she said.

Evander, Rowena's husband shook his head in disagreement. "I would not be optimistic. Everyone we knew has long been dead."

Salazar felt a smile tug at his lips as Helga snarked back. Evander ignored her, content to observe Salazar. It was clear the quiet man was trying to determine how they knew the boy before them. After all, Salazar had performed a druidic ritual that required someone familiar with the dead called upon.

Salazar finally took pity on his confused companions. "I'm Salazar."

"It cannot be," countered Helga.

"I'm afraid it can," Salazar countered back before he added, shifting the language to Pictish which had been a dying language when Rowena had taught them all. The particular experimental charm she had used to transfer the language had also given them all an underlying accent from her home village—something that wasn't easily replicated. "I tried to call on your children, Helena, Gareth, and Godric also." Silence filled the grove at his words.

A stab of cold slid against his forehead as Rowena leaned over him and tried to touch his head. Salazar jerked back with a sharp, "What."

Rowena explained with a frown, "You have a sōwilō rune carved into your head."

Salazar pressed a hand against the spot still frozen from her touch. Rough skin was frozen. He frowned up at her as he rubbed some warmth back.

"You did not know?" she asked in confusion.

He rolled his eyes behind his glasses. "I'm not blind. It's always been there."

"You have had it since before memory then." Rowena concluded as she frowned thoughtfully, "Perhaps it is why you have been reborn."

Salazar continued to rub warmth back into his forehead as he explained, "I wouldn't know. I live with non-magical kin. My...parents have long been dead. They were killed by some wizard people called a dark lord, whatever that's supposed to mean...It might be a result of that night when I survived and this lord vanished."

"You will inform us when you know," Rowena answered, content in the knowledge that Salazar would simply for his own sake.

"Of course." Salazar agreed before he asked, "What happened after I died?"

"You mean you did not haunt us?" countered Evander as he pulled Rowena to a more appropriate distance from the only living person in the grove. The spirits all took a moment to claim a cookie and find places to sit. Salazar claimed a cookie after them.

It was informal but they took a moment to eat together. With the little ritual completed, the spirits gained more solidity. They could interact, in a limited fashion, with the living world now. It would last them till the sun began to rise.

Omorose prowled into the circle and claimed his lap with a look at the spirits. One of his hands automatically moved to stroke the black-furred back. He considered the spirits, aware that the dead were only shadows of their living selves. Some things would be forgotten. Many things no longer mattered. Pieces and parts of who they were were tied to a physical form they no longer had. These were some of his lifelong companions but they would never be quite like the people he remembered.

Salazar shook his head slowly as he considered Evander's question, refocusing on what he could learn from his dead companions instead of what was now missing. "I don't recall doing so but I recall nothing of the afterlife. I died and then I awoke, as a three-year-old, centuries later."

"Centuries?" Helga asked, "What year is it?"

"1990," Salazar said before he helpfully added, "It's my tenth year."

"Over 900 years," muttered Rowena, intrigue and a hint of a thousand questions echoed in her voice.

"The Norman wizards succeeded," said Evander as he refocused the conversation toward the answers Salazar sought. "We warred another year after you fell. They killed Hardwin, leaving us without a head of the triad."

"We met with them under a Circle where an agreement was made and the Wizards Council went from seven to twenty-one, not that all the seats were claimed. They had, in their infinite wisdom, agreed to the Normans' idea of honoring some of our side," Helga added.

"We were made into new Houses," Evander expanded, amusement colored his warm voice.

"We all became Paters or Maters," sniffed out Helga before she continued, "They even made you one, posthumously. Lot of good it did. I still do not know how they convinced the Magicks the squirt of a lad was your blood kin."

"What?" hissed Salazar, startled at the turn of the conversation enough to almost fall into parseltongue—something he rarely did since his first childhood where he had spent days speaking it exclusively. (Something he had avoided in this life, with the fear it would just be silly hissing sounds instead of that magical language.)

The spirits shared a look before Helga admitted, "About twenty years after making you a Pater a young Norman lad with parseltongue was brought forward. The Isles only partly accepted him. Some wording in the bylaws the Normans had slipped through allowed the boy to vote for the seat in some circumstances. He was designated as a representative of your wishes instead of gaining the rights as a Head of House."

"I ssee," Salazar said slowly as his thoughts jumped to his family or lack thereof. He had never spoken of his kin outside the unfortunate fate of his mother and sister. Nor had he married and had children. His focus had been on creating Hogwarts and he hadn't had Familia Magicks to demand progeny; he had some type of family magicks, as his parseltongue indicated, but he had never been claimed by the familia or clan said magicks came from. So the family magick had never reared its head with demands. It was a true waste making him and his blood a new House when it made him the first and last of his name.

It wasn't like his brother could claim it either. The rituals of old would not have made him close enough to be considered Salazar's heir nor did House Magicks usually accept a sibling of the founding head as heir without the head's permission.

"Was it true?" Helga asked after a moment of silence. "Was he your kin?"

Salazar gave a slight shrug, uncomfortable with where the conversation was going. They were dead, though. There was nothing they could do with the information if they even wanted to.

"It is possible," he finally answered as he looked down at Omorose, "My father was a...Dane...a Viking. He possessed magic...though not parseltongue." Salazar frowned at that realization but shook his head. Now was not the time to question where various magical abilities came from. "I assumed the family magicks originated from him. This boy might have been a son or grandson of his...and would have had the tiniest claim to the new House."

Silence fell as his dead companions considered the new truth. Salazar was a bastard or as good as.—Viking "traders" weren't particularly loyal to a wife and were known to have multiple across their routes, even multiple at their main home with some more concubine than wife in status.—Of course, William the Conqueror had also been a bastard so it shouldn't matter that he was one. Or had been one, at least.

"Well," Helga finally spoke, "It does not matter in the end. Over 900 years is long past the point of it mattering. As to what happened, the Heads of Houses within the Norman block had the majority seats because our wise counsel had named more than one of our own posthumously to a new House. Most had a family but a number of those family members were or later became compromised by the Normans. Then, a few years in we found most of the tertiary triad members dead."

He grimaced at the last fact. He had been a tertiary triad member and all tertiary members were the equivalent to druids. (It had been simple enough to change titles to protect against the subjugation of the Romans.(7) Druids vanished and the triad came into being. Simple.) Their primary duty was to uphold the groves and the wider protections the groves made up for the Isles.

Salazar considered the effects of losing so many tertiary members at the same time their council had been taken over. Their traditions had likely faded away with no fully trained druids around and a council unable to do anything. Still, the grove they sat in indicated that some survived in some capacity for a time.

Omorose shifted in his lap and started to lick his hand. He had paused in petting her. Green eyes looked down and met orange. Something eased in him at her presence.

"Hogwarts?" Salazar asked as he shifted to other concerns.

"Stood through our deaths," Rowena answered, "We can haunt people we knew personally if we want, not that they seem to notice…It has been a long time since we could haunt anyone but Hogwarts was still around when Helga died."

"Stood through my great-grandchild, little Mavis, too," sighed out Helga, "She stayed on as a teacher and died very old... Of course, Hogwarts did not continue to teach everything we preferred. The Roman wand spellcasting became the standard. They added potions...Herbology was still taught as it should. Astronomy was falling out of favor though. The Council restricted the use of a number of rituals near Mavis's death, which caused a drop in interest with various basic classes."

"Why did they restrict rituals?" Salazar demanded. Everything a druid did was considered ritual and it had been one of the advanced classes he had taught their shared apprentices. (Anyone that knew anything about rituals knew most all magic could be construed as a ritual in its own way. Knowing such helped many understand what they are doing.)

Helga shifted in discomfort as she explained, "Some became too dangerous. Why, I cannot say."

Salazar frowned at that. All rituals were dangerous if the participants didn't know what they were doing in even the tiniest of ways. But, in this case, it was likely that the drop in druids was the cause of the restrictions. The majority of rituals done had some origins within druidic arts, or at least the ones commonly done in the Isles in his day did. Such arts were passed orally. It stood to reason that the knowledge died as the druids died.

"I suspect you will have to take up a wand this time around," Evander remarked with faint amusement.

Salazar raised a brow at that. "I took up a wand last time." (Which was entirely true, in the most basic sense.)

"Have you gone through any purifying rituals?" demanded Rowena, once more interrupting.

Salazar turned to her, as he took a moment to refocus. Rowena's interruptions were a normal occurrence back in the day but one he had grown unaccustomed to. He took a moment to redirect his thoughts from wands and how none of them had used theirs particularly often to her demand. (And firmly ignored the innuendos that came to mind. The entire conversation would have been entirely too vulgar if the other lads had been present in place of the ladies.)

"Not to my memory," he finally answered.

She frowned. They all did, actually, and Salazar couldn't blame them. It was customary for magicals to have a yearly purification at the start of Spring. It removed most jinxes and curses, cleaned their innate magic of any impurities and residues that could be caused by emotionally driven magic, and allowed a short connection between Mother's magic and their own, something most were unable to do on their own but was important to help rebalance a person's core. It was also considered one of the only ways to combat and weaken bloodline curses and magical inherited illnesses.

Salazar knew the ritual well. He had led it for each new apprentice they took on. He taught those students how to go through the ritual on their own, though most didn't have the ability to connect with Mother's magic to successfully do so. He had even made sure they all understood how to go through one of the lesser purifying rituals which could be completed under a dark moon, any month of the year without consciously working the earth magic.

It wasn't because of ignorance that he hadn't completed a purification ritual in this lifetime. The rituals he knew required a proper grove. There were still some magics to renew and balance within this grove before he could complete such a ritual. It also required the use of a moderately large quantity of innate magic all at once. He might be able to do magic, but he had always been careful to spread it out—and he still exhausted himself. By next year his core would be large enough he would be comfortable completing the ritual himself.

Salazar voiced the issue, "I've none to perform it for me."

Rowena's lips thinned into a line.

Her husband spoke, ordering, "You will complete a purification on the very next dark moon after your tenth and first birthday."

The reincarnate inclined his head to the healer in agreement, seeing no reason to explain that was his plan already. With that, Helga took over and discussed everything she could recall and he had missed. As dawn came, his dead friends faded away but it wouldn't be the last time he saw them. Knowing his luck, they all would be able to haunt him and next Samhain he'll get an ear full.

Perhaps next time the others would join them.

oooPooo

First, I was asked to make the chapter more easily digestible over time. Each chapter now has the section breaks numbered with P1 through whatever. Hope that is useful.

Second, I entirely forgot to let everyone know that there will be a monthly update. Expect a new chapter by the first weekend of every month.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Cheers,
NovusArs

1. Beaver scouts, a section of the Boy Scouts/Scouts, started in 1986 when Dudley turned 6, just of age to potentially join. I do not know if a troop would have been set up that year near or in Surrey but it seems plausible.

2. There are a number of monasteries and churches with signs that they might have been something more primitive beforehand. Possible old druid groves or similar.

3. The Mother/Great Mother is obviously a religious phrase and it references the general, global concepts of a goddess of nature and/or magic figure. I debated on how much the magical community would have of their own religion in 1000 ce since there was no statute of secrecy and decided that they would still be somewhat separate from the non-magicals in multiple ways. They have a wizard council after all. That most don't follow the major religion as it preached their death on some level, seemed reasonable.

Some of Salazar's contemporaries may have looked to Celtic gods instead of the Mother Nature figure he looks at. I chose the Mother Nature figure due to Salazar's Druid background. He may curse other gods though. He would be aware of the others.

In general, it will vary but, for various reasons, Salazar falls on the not Catholic, not even slightly, range while Godric would be raised Catholic but played lip service to it and never really followed it (or at least what was Catholic in the 11th century) — and no there isn't going to be some religious spat between the two. — The ghost The Fat Friar is considered, canonically, a student of Helga Hufflepuff. Friars are a form of brothers, monks, so he was very Catholic.

I am not attempting to attack any religion. I was raised Catholic myself (so it might appear that I'm a little more snarky about Catholicism). Just noting this now before anyone wonders too much about it.

4. Eyeglasses were invented by an unknown person around 1285 ce, somewhere in Italy.

A commenter helpfully pointed out that kid glasses were likely free in the UK at this point in history. A quick search to indicates that glasses were either heavily discounted or free. Salazar wouldn't have any idea about health care and Petunia would still choose cheap glasses if there is a chance she has to pay for any of it. So I've left this scene alone but thought this fact interesting enough to share.

5. Year Three (7/8-year-olds, if I recall my research correctly) is the first year that focuses on geology in science class—before educational changes were made in the early 2000s(? might have been late 90s instead). I assumed they have samples of various types of rocks.

6. New years and celebrations of all types have changed over the centuries. Around Salazar's first life, March 25th was the Catholic new year and Samhain is often considered the Celtic new year back when it was Samhain and not Halloween or All Saints/Souls day, etc.. Samhain being a celtic new year might not be entirely true, I haven't researched it deeply to see if it is a general belief. I happen to run across it during a different search. Feel free to correct me and I'll make the needed changes.

7. It is considered highly likely, and there is some proof (though probably debated on), that the druid class of the celts did make a horizontal shift from druid to similar occupational rank in Roman society. The Druids "died" out in most of Europe many centuries before Salazar's time. On a similar note, Druids were believed to be similar to the Indian Hindu Brahman caste. They were the scholars, healers, advisors, priests, etc.. Not all druids were all things but all those things were likely an occupation that fell under the title druid.

All the founders would have been considered druids 500+ years before 1000 ce by real-life definition. Magically, in this story, it's a little different. They are all members of the triad which is a guild I've created that magical druids set up. I'm sure you'll learn more about it as the story goes.
Interesting side fact, the estimated timeline of King Arthur and Merlin lines up where Merlin would have been considered a Druid in real life.

Updated Sept 2022