Summer 1991
Ronald Weasley
The great hall didn't seem to hum in quite the way it had the night before. The celebratory spirit of the welcoming banquet had been crushed beneath the first day of classes and the realisation that the year had really begun. The star-dotted ceiling didn't twinkle as brightly and the food seemed a little less flavourful.
Ron pushed a pile of pudding around his plate with the back end of a fork. It was the sort of thing that would have got him in trouble at home, his mother would yell at him to stop making a mess of things. He found himself missing home, his parents, and his sister. His mind was muddled with the day's events, particularly those with Blaise and Theo, and he longed for his own room that he shared with no one.
Ron glanced across to the table on the other side, he spotted Percy's head among the Gryffindors and once again he found himself wishing he was sitting with them. Instead, he just didn't belong anywhere and felt like it was some cruel twist that the hat had decided he would be a Slytherin. He almost expected his brothers to surprise him with a bright red scarf and reveal that everything so far had been a large prank; a very unfunny one. Only it wasn't a prank, and the boy sitting across from him with dark hair and a smirk on his face was the son of a death eater. He clenched his hand tightly around his fork to stop from shivering.
"Good first day?" Theo asked. "I can't imagine a better one."
Neither Ron nor Blaise said anything. They hadn't spoken much since their conversation in the corridor and it worried Ron a little. Perhaps Blaise was thinking of switching sides. If he believed what he said, then maybe he would rather be friends with Theo. His knuckles turned white around his fork. Yet, Blaise just continued to cut a piece of beef, his face blank and untelling.
Somewhere in the endless sky of the ceiling, Ron heard a faint echo. All around him, students looked up with curious eyes and all of them searched the darkness for the source of the noise. One echo became two and then three until the room shook with the sounds of a hundred owls, the noises transformed into clear hoots and then the first wings appeared.
In through hidden windows poured owls of all sorts, white, grey, brown, and even black. Letters and parcels were kept tucked in their talons as they soared high over the tables. Ron was amazed that they managed to dodge so many of the floating candles, and he wondered if the candles too were just an illusion. The table shook as parcel and paper fell in front of one student or the other. There were easily over a hundred copies of the daily prophet at the Slytherin table alone, each one dropped by a keen eyed barn owl.
A small box splashed dead centre in the middle of Theo's plate. Potatoes sprayed across the table and covered all three boys in a thin layer. A girl, who Ron knew as Millicent Bulstrode, screamed as some got into her hair. Theo gave the girl a sorry look but didn't bother to apologise.
Ron was about to say something when a small beige letter plopped directly into the middle of his pudding. Thankfully the letter didn't have enough weight to send any flying. Ron tilted his head as he frowned down at it. He couldn't imagine why he would receive a letter, he had not yet written to anyone.
As quickly as they appeared the owls flew back into the enchantment and out once again through their hidden doors. Ron glanced around him at the excited and worried faces and he felt his chest tighten. He picked up the letter and turned it around in his hands, it was completely unmarked by postage or address which could only mean one thing. He bit his cheek.
A commotion at the front of the room drew his attention. Professor Snape had taken to the centre of the stage with his eyebrows pressed so far into his eyes that it was a wonder he could see. Snape didn't have to say a single word, his presence alone was enough to calm the crowd.
"It seems," he snarled, "someone confunded the post system. The post is supposed to be delivered at breakfast when I am not required to be here. I would recommend whoever is responsible to turn themselves in. If I discover who did this, and they have not turned themselves in, you will be scrubbing cauldrons for the next three years."
Somewhere behind Snape, the headmaster stood to his feet. The old man wore a lopsided smile and his eyes seemed to twinkle as he applauded. A look of confusion spread across Snape's the fuck?
"Good speech, Severus!" Dumbledore commended. Snape frowned again and slithered away from the podium.
Once both professors had retaken their seats the room erupted in another fit of hardly hushed discussion. Ron glanced over at the Gryffindor table, once again he couldn't find the twins. Ron did this, didn't they?
The envelope in his hands made him nervous. Ron broke open the glue and tipped the letter upside down. A small note fell into his hands, and he held his breath.
RONALD WEASLEY
I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU. HOW DARE YOU GET SORTED INTO SLYTHERIN, THAT IS NOT THE WAY I RAISED YOU AND I'M WRITING YOUR BROTHER IMMEDIATELY TO DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT HE HAS TOLD YOU. I SHOULD HAVE NEVER LET HIM GO TO ROMANIA AND I SHOULD NEVER HAVE LET HIM NEAR YOU CHILDREN. I AM DISGUSTED AND ASHAMED THAT MY OWN SONS ARE MAKING A MOCKERY OF THE WAY I RAISED YOU. ME AND YOUR FATHER WILL BE TALKING ABOUT WHAT TO DO. IF YOU HAVE ANY DIGNITY LEFT YOU'LL STAY AWAY FROM EVIL AND DO NOT LET ME LEARN THAT YOU'VE SAID ANYTHING BAD ABOUT HARRY POTTER OR ANY MUGGLE-BORN CHILDREN. I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED.
REGRETFULLY,
MOLLY WEASLEY
Ron looked up from the letter and stared at the wall behind dare I?How dare she!He crumpled the letter into a tight . The. Fuck.
Ron stood up from the table and turned towards the door. He shrugged off Blaise's hand when he tried to stop him and marched out of the hall. He could feel the eyes that stared at him as he went, but he found that he didn't dare I?Both of his hands formed into fists as he started to ascend the staircase.
He was more mad than he had ever been before and he didn't know what to do. His own mother had written to him and implied that he was horrible. That Charlie had somehow turned him into something evil, he couldn't stand 's not true!Charlie hadn't done anything but give him a chance. A chance to be the wizard he was supposed to be. He didn't care that he was meant to be a Slytherin, he just wanted Charlie to live. He felt so suddenly disgusted with his parents. They had made mistake after mistake and he was sick of it.
Bloody hell!He slammed his fist into the stair railing. It hurt awfully bad but Ron just gritted his teeth. He felt tears form in the corners of his eyes and he let them fall. His cheeks turned red and wet.
The twins did this!He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. They must have written to his mother and told her that he was sorted into Slytherin. He had never wanted to hit them more in his entire life. And they hadn't done it just to him, they had made Charlie take responsibility much for being brothers.
I don't want to be a Gryffindor,he decided. If his brothers and mother could just decide that he was evil, so be it. He wouldn't correct them, he would just continue to be himself and he'd make them eat their .They would see who he was at Christmas.
Ron came to a door across from some tapestry. For some reason, it seemed to be just the place he needed, without thinking he opened it, stepped inside, and shut it closed behind him. He took short and gasping breaths as he tried to stop his crying.
The room around him was strange, not in the same way as the potions classroom but in a more eerie sort of way. The circular room was tiled with porcelain in all shapes and sizes, the ceiling itself was a giant mirror making the room seem taller than it was. In the middle there was a single pedestal made of some kind of glass, a small leather book closed on top of it.
Ron wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe. He wished he had new ones. He didn't care if Malfoy shopped there, he wanted to be the same as everyone else. If his mother was ashamed of him then he felt no problem with being ashamed of being poor. He sniffled away his feelings.
He found himself compelled to cross the room and stand in front of the pedestal. It offered some comfort to his raging emotions like he could latch onto something real and that it was more important than some letter.
He reached out and ran his hand along the cover of the book. It had a warmth to it, not the same as his wand but more like the outside of a cup of tea. It didn't match the room like it had been placed separately and with far more purpose then everything else. He turned over the first page.
The air behind the podium thickened with shimmers of blue and green, Ron took a step back, he wasn't sure what had happened. The air meshed itself together in a lattice of colour until it formed the shape of an older man. The green and blues turned to shades of flesh and fabric that held a slight a bloody ghost.
"Finally," the man said. He had an accent that rang oddly in Ron's ears.
Ron did his best to wipe his face and hoped it would be enough to hide the evidence of his crying. He heard that the Slytherin ghost, the Bloody Baron, hated crying and he didn't want to create more problems.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled to the ghost. "I was just looking at your book."
The man stared at him oddly. "How old are you, boy?"
"Eleven," Ron did his best to stand up straight. He was old enough to be here and he didn't want some ghost thinking he was a baby.
"Eleven?" The man clicked his tongue. "Then I am sorry too. The Guardian was never intended to be so young, but magic is such a fickle thing. It has a mind of its own and we don't always get what we want."
"I'm sorry?" Ron said again. He was confused by what the man meant.
"You should not be. It's not your fault after all, it is mine more than any. And if not mine, well certainly one of my friends." The man shook his head. "Where are my manners? They are so hard to remember while waiting for so long. My name is Salazar Slytherin, and you are?"
Ron felt his heart jump into his throat. Was the man in front of him really the Salazar Slytherin? That seemed entirely impossible, surely someone would have noticed that his ghost still haunted the school. Yet, the more he looked at the man the more he saw it. The ghost resembled the original dark lord in almost every manner. It was as if someone had taken one of his statues and painted it alive.
"Ronald Weasley," he barely managed to say. "You— you're supposed to be dead."
The ghost smiled at him. "Well yes, I suppose I am. I should say then that I am Salazar Slytherin, but also I am a copy of him. I am him but he is not me. A manifestation of my original magic forever sealed within paper." He pointed to the book at the pedestal.
Ron's eyes widened. "Did I wake you?"
"In a manner, if you can believe that magic sleeps. I have been waiting for a long time, but not as long as I have before. Tell me, what year is it?"
"Nineteen ninety-one."
"The last girl to see me was a Lestrange, and that was forty years ago. So you could say I have been sleeping for a very long time. However, I was made shortly after the castle itself so it is not as if it felt long at all. Anyway, you may call me Salazar, Sal, or anything you so wish, boy."
Ron shifted uncomfortably. His father had always told him to be wary of cursed or possessed artefacts and the book was clearly something along that line. Yet strangely he felt as if he should trust the man. It was as if Ron's magic itself hummed in his veins and urged him to stay.
"Why are you alone in this room?" He asked. All thoughts of his mother were pushed aside.
Salazar frowned. "That is why I was apologising, I exist only for a very particular reason. It is rare for anyone to ever encounter me and when they do they are either in need of dire help or it is we who need their help. And, in this case, it is the latter."
Ron frowned. He didn't see how he could help a founder, they were some of the greatest wizards to ever live, allegedly.
"You see boy, you have been given a special task. Myself and the other founders gathered in this room to perform a ritual that had never been undertaken before and it won't ever happen again. We combined our magics and pooled them into a protective system for the school. Layers upon layers of defence, a true bastion of wizarding kind. And all of that needed one thing, a Guardian. A wizard to be trusted to save the school from ultimate destruction. A master of their craft with the means to vanquish any threat by commanding the castle's forces. Only…" Salazar tilted his head… "we seem to have you instead."
Ron's mouth hung ? A guardian of Hogwarts?There had clearly been some sort of mistake.
"I can't," Ron replied. "I'm just a first-year student, like you said. If you need help I can call one of the professors."
"It's too late for that. Take a look around, have you ever been here before?" Salazar asked and Ron shook his head. "You were compelled to come here by the ancient magic coursing in your blood. You opened this door not because you knew I was here but because something else forced you to do so. It works with such a gentle hand that I'm sure you didn't even notice."
Ron's heart thumped pelled?He felt as if ice spread along his skin. He tried to think of the reason he had decided to climb the stairs and found none. He should have gone down, towards the dungeons and not up. He swallowed a breath of air.
"Worry not," Salazar said. "It can't control you once you are aware of it. It was designed to bring the Guardian here and then nothing more. It won't hurt you, boy."
"I'm a seer," Ron blurted. "Well, the hat says I'm not but I've seen the future and my brother dies. So I can't help you, I have to save him. I don't care about whatever ancient magic you have, I have to save my brother."
"Really?" The man stroked his short black beard. "That is strange indeed. I know what the hat speaks of, it was another failsafe we had made. The artificial creation of a seer through divination and probability. Not the same as a true seer, but useful. It hadn't occurred to us that the two might mix but now I know why it would."
"You made me a seer!?" Ron's anger returned like burning hot hell!
"Something else to be sorry for," Salazar grimaced. "But I think you'll be happy to hear that your brother doesn't have to die. What you have seen isn't a true prophecy, it's not destined to come true."
Ron felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice over his head. The anger very quickly usurped with didn't have to die?
"Really?" he asked.
Salazar nodded. "It is just one possibility out of hundreds. Anything in the future can yet be changed, only the past remains set in stone. What the magic shows you is a result of our ritual. What you have seen is the future if Hogwarts falls. If the castle is destroyed and the school shuttered then your brother might die. But if it doesn't? Well, then your vision will not come to pass."
Ron felt as if a weight had been lifted off his chest. Charlie was going to live and he felt his eyes grow wet again. He didn't stop himself from crying and he didn't care that Salazar watched.
"Why me?" He asked. "Why did you choose me? I didn't want to watch my brother die. I don't want to see things in the corners of my eyes. I just wanted to be normal."
"Yes, I suppose you would want to be normal. As I said, it was always intended that the Guardian be a master of something and not just a boy. We may have made a mistake or there is a long time before the enemy comes. And we would have never wanted you to see that. Despite what some people say of us, we were never perfect." Salazar took a short breath. "You see it in your eyes because you're too young to handle the magic. It bleeds from your brain and into reality. It must be disturbing to live with that."
Ron bit back his tears. "You have no idea."
He wasn't crazy and that meant all the world of difference to him. Charlie could be saved, his plan would work, and it wasn't his fault. He felt as if he could breathe again, finally feeling like the world wasn't out to destroy him and even his mother couldn't ruin the moment.
"I'm a Slytherin," Ron admitted. "The hat told me that someone else chose my house. Was it you?"
"Well," Sal nodded. "It was not my intention, but it appears to have been the result. I wanted the Guardian so badly to be cunning that I snuck something into the ritual that the others didn't see. The Guardian was always going to be a Slytherin and I suppose that in doing so I had doomed you to be sorted in one particular way. As I said, magic is a fickle thing. I tried to trick it only for it to bite you in its wisdom."
Ron nodded. That meant he wasn't evil or whatever his parents thought of him. "My mother wrote me a letter, she was really mad at my sorting. She said she is ashamed of me. Slytherin is known as the house of dark wizards."
"The house of dark wizards?" Salazar snarled. "How dare they!? Who would spread such a lie? Trust me, Ronald, there is no truth to that."
Ron bit his lip. "They call you a dark wizard too."
"Me? That's terrible! I have done no such things. I built a safe haven for our people, I protected the wizarding kind."
"You're a blood purist," Ron said. "They said you wanted only wizarding families to attend Hogwarts and not muggle-borns."
"Oh…" his voice trailed off. "I guess that is true. It is something I advocated for but perhaps the reason has been lost to time. The reason I didn't want non magical families to know about Hogwarts is to protect us from them, Ronald. I'm not sure what the world is like now, but witches and wizards were burned in the hundreds and drowned in the thousands. We were on the edge of extinction, and I was afraid that we would be sold out. That an army would come for us and destroy us. That's why we had to teach the young, so that they could survive a world that was intent on killing them. It's why we built a castle and not just a regular school. Only, my friends disagreed with me and wanted all students to be accepted. I remember the fights we often had. I came to speak to myself at some point and announced my departure. I was afraid that the school would burn and that I would burn with it… yet, here it stands. I was wrong."
Ron couldn't believe the words he had heard. There had been centuries of bloodshed built on Salazar's ideas and yet here he was almost in flesh admitting that he was wrong. So many people had died because they didn't want to realise the truth. It made him feel sick and he had trouble keeping down his pudding.
"Are you alright?" Salazar asked him.
"So many people have died," he said. "My uncles too. Not fighting muggles but fighting other wizards about what you just said. They think you hated them."
"I see," Salazar frowned. "It is good then that I have you to set the record straight."
"Me?" Ron shook his head. "Nobody's going to believe me!"
"They will when you save the school," Salazar assured him. "Stop Hogwarts from falling and set the record straight. Avenge your uncles by fixing my legacy."
"Your legacy? I don't care what people think of you. I just want Charlie to live!"
"If you wish your brother to live then you must protect Hogwarts, it is the only way."
The only way?Ron swallowed. He reached into his pocket and looked down at his wand. He had never loved an object more in his life.
"Alright," he nodded. "I can try."
"Perfect! You will only need to try." Salazar paced the room behind the podium. "Perhaps you were chosen so that I might teach you how to properly defend yourself and others. Perhaps that's why it chose someone so young. If I can make you strong enough, teach you spells and guide your work, then maybe you can be strong enough to defeat whatever threat lurks outside these walls. Or perhaps not. But either way, it seems neither of us have a choice."
Ron felt his heart swell. He wanted to be powerful and if anyone could teach him to protect Charlie then it would definitely be a Hogwarts founder.
"Okay," he agreed. "You can teach me magic and in exchange, I'll try to protect the school. But I'm saving my family and my friends first."
"As you should," Salazar nodded. "Now, boy, I feel as if you had a long day. I noticed the tears on your face before we spoke. What your mother said to you hangs heavy on your mind, and that is not good for learning. Take some time, clear your head, and return when you are ready. Together we shall save your brother and prove your mother wrong."
