A/N: Thanks Siriusly Sirius for writing this chappie's poem for me. *hugs*
Chapter 9 Legacy
Merlin leads the crew this eve
And cape of gold he did weave
The captain wears it on his back
'Tis of finest silk gold and the softest black
Gold of the sky, black of the night
To protect the captain when danger is nigh'
And far from the moors and gulls and home
Far from London they roam
'Twas Merlin who wove this cloak
'Twas Merlin who weaved the magic
'Twas Merlin who saved the captain's crew
'Twas Merlin the mighty the leviathan slew
~SiriuslySirius
Salazar is cold. He is becoming closer and more withdrawn everyday. I have a strong suspicion that I know what this is about, but I dare not approach him about it lest we have another row.
We all had different ideas coming into this project, different details that we wanted to see, but a little compromise here and there has so far solved these differences before they became problems. But there is very little Salazar is willing to compromise.
I can see it in the tightness of his face and in the strained conversation he makes with Godric. They have discussed the students, they must have. I was almost expecting something like this to happen, but I had hoped that no one would breach the subject until we finished building the basic framework of the castle.
His face today was dark and clouded, and I know that I must speak with him, but I have been avoiding serious conversation with Salazar for a while now. I am afraid of what I know he will say, afraid to hear it, afraid to remember, afraid of that glimmer that lighted his eye and scared me that winter’s eve.
But it is imminent, unavoidable. Perhaps tonight after dinner would be a good time. Godric will be busy practicing the spell for the staircases and Rowena has found another one of those books that consume her being until she has finished. Sometimes I wish I was only a student so that clever woman could have been my teacher…
Minerva allowed herself to look up from the page and took a deep breath. This was rather far fetched. First this…place, and then Helga Hufflepuff’s diary. But she could not disbelieve Binns’ discovery. Not now that she was in here. It was too real now, but she suspected that she would come back to her senses once she returned to her office and see this for the silly prank it was. A rather elaborate prank, yes, but it was better than believing that she had the key to such valuable information about the origins of Hogwarts.
She flipped forward a few pages in the notebook, eager to see what the results of Helga’s meeting with Slytherin had been.
Godric went into a mighty rage today. I admire his honesty and his love for Salazar which still shines strong despite their dispute, but he makes it worse every time he speaks, especially today. His face was red with anger and he did not leave a thing unsaid, he even blamed me for making Salazar so ‘obsessed’ as he calls it with power and lineage.
I cannot find it within me to care about this false accusation. I did not bother to tell him that I did not choose that power and that one day, not so long ago, he was on Salazar’s side in that particular matter. Not now at any rate, not when Salazar is so distraught. He does not show it, but I know how much it hurts him. I will never forget, no matter how much I try, those fatal events.
Salazar has not been back since their argument. He left with a swirl of his newest robes and announced that he would not be back for another week for he had ‘more important matters to attend to’. His tone sent a shiver up my spine. I do not understand how he can live with himself when he is so terribly cold and removed from everything.
I will make him a cloak, and if I can find the right colors I think I will begin tonight. Perhaps it can be finished before the winter. If only they could put up with each other until the beautiful snow begins to fall over the grounds. I can just imagine us sitting together, all four of us, before the fire and sharing funny stories about the silly things the students will say. I know that each in our own way we all look forward to the students the most.
I will go now, and I will store those two memories in the Pensieve that Rowena has given me. I must needs preserve them, leave them behind, for understanding of such terrible disasters can only come with experience and I do not wish for anyone to go that far before being warned, not again. Perhaps one day I can show them to Salazar, but to convince him I will need to perfect that spell I have been working on first. In making this spell I must have felt, for the first and probably last time, what Rowena feels with that unquenchable thirst for knowledge. I want to understand everything about a spell that can make someone see through another’s eyes and then I will be able to alter it ever so slightly to cast on my Pensieve.
Dropping the diary to the couch beside her, Minerva tried to make sense of the things she had just read. Helga was obviously being intentionally vague and it seemed that a great secret or a terrible power was the cause for both her decision to preserve the memories and for her hesitance.
Straightening up and bringing the diary with her, Minerva walked back up the stairs and to Helga’s room once more. If she had saved her memories then they would be very valuable and very simple to decipher, unlike the diary.
Walking into the room slowly, she allowed her gaze to cover every nook and cranny. A Pensieve from the age of the Founders was in this room. She finally found it, after a lengthy inspection of the entire room, lying safely in a one of the drawers of Helga’s writing desk.
She hesitated for a few seconds before leaning in. If Helga had succeeded in inventing that spell then this would be a most interesting experience. Finally, putting the Diary down on the table beside the Pensieve she poked it with a finger and then plunged herself in.
She fell on her feet on the fresh grass in a large sunny field. One side was bordered with a dark forest and in the center of the field, beside a large, very familiar looking lake Minerva saw a small wooden cottage.
Right before her stood a handsome young man and a thin tired looking young woman. Minerva moved to the other side of the pair so she could see their faces and noticed that the woman’s eyes were bloodshot.
“Come Helga,” the man said with a glint in his eyes, “We will take you back in to rest now, but please think about what I have said.”
Here he paused and looked straight into the young woman’s eyes. “I am very lucky to know such a powerful witch, Helga, and I am sure you will realize in time, how much you can give to us, to this dream. I am not alone in this, Godric and Rowena agree with me, and I know you will very much like to pass on your knowledge and power and help others.”
“I cannot do it again, Salazar, even If I understood how to control it, I would not be able to do it again; it is too painful, too dangerous!” her voice became passionate now and frightened.
“You will learn to control it, Helga, you will,” Salazar said firmly, he reached out a hand and grasped Helga’s thin one in it. The girl blushed and looked at him.
“You will never understand my fear of this,” she said in a small voice, “One must feel the all-consuming, crushing fear to understand it.”
“But I will help you to control your power, nevertheless, I know that that much I can do and then we will pursue that journey together. It will help us build our castle and our dreams and they will be strong and built with pure, untainted magic…and then, Helga, then we cannot possibly go wrong.”
Helga sighed and looked over at the lake as if trying to recall a vision or dream from far away, “I only hope we can accomplish this, Salazar.”
She took his arm and they made their way slowly to the cottage and Minerva was wrenched forcefully out of the memory. She had no doubt that this was the same cottage in the memory and that she had truly seen a memory of Helga Hufflepuff’s. A chill crept up her spine as she recalled the woman’s frightened face and she wondered what Helga’s fear was.
Suddenly, noticing a strange mark on the rim of the Pensive, she leaned in slightly for a better look. On one side of the rim a few ancient runes were carved. Minerva admired, once again, the Magic that must be alive within these walls preserving everything within them in a small bubble of a long-lost time.
It took her a while to decipher the runes, but once she had it she knew that this was the spell that she had read about in the diary. Pulling out her wand and taking a deep breath, Minerva uttered the enchantment and braced herself for disaster. As a tornado of black smoke enveloped her she felt both a thrill and a sense of dread. She knew very well what happened to people who were foolish enough to attempt untried spells they read about in unreliable sources.
The feeling was not unfamiliar at first, but just before she made the connection she fell. It was not a physical fall; Minerva fell into the center of a raging storm. It was suffocating and she could feel every part of her body throbbing and screaming and raging. She could no longer see clearly, but their facers were engraved in her mind and she knew they still stood there, laughing, braying in their animalistic voices. Because that was what they were.
Her heartbeat beat an erratic rhythm in her chest as the images accosted her again. The little child had not asked for those powers, she had been helpless. Minerva closed her eyes and gave into the screaming in her chest. Her fury came out from every inch of her skin and she wondered if she was dead yet. She wished she had been dead before she saw the mangled, beaten body of the seven year old child.
She pulled in a deep breath of the enveloping, black tornado and then gave in to it and then she opened her eyes and her vision was clouded by red, dripping blood. It was inside her own eyes and she let her left hand rise over and over again and fall bringing wood and metal and earth and stone to the ground and lifting them up again and unleashing them on the rest of the house. She would not stop until it was brought to the ground. All of it. Right now, all she wanted to do was to destroy.
And then she heard an explosion that must have come from inside her throbbing head and Minerva fell to the hard cold ground and into unconsciousness.
Remus found her almost two days later with the help of the Bloody Baron. Moody was following the trace of Bellatrix Lestrange and so Remus had been left in charge of the Order in his absence. He had gone to Hogwarts to report a strange sighting to McGonagall, because he suspected that it had something to do with Hannah Abbot, only to be told, rather casually that she was with Moody. He knew that was not true and Remus’s fears began to grow until he had the sense to find a House-Elf and a ghost and ask them to help him look.
So he stood there, in the thick air of the ancient room, looking down at McGonagall who was struggling with consciousness and he had no doubt that this was some sort of devilry of Voldemort’s.
“Remus,” she gasped as he lifted her to the bed, “Bring me the diary!”
Remus’s eyes widened in fear, but he followed her pointing finger and brought her the book as she asked. He stood, looking over her shoulder with morbid curiosity as she struggled to flip the pages as if her life depended on it. Voldemort must be celebrating right now, he had not only killed Dumbledore, but he had also succeeded in…doing this to his successor. The Wizarding World was doomed if people like McGonagall could be reduced to this.
“Read it!” she ordered finally, slumping back onto the pillows and closing bloodshot eyes. Remus took the diary and looked down at the page to which she had turned…the last page.
“Salazar will not be coming back,” he read, his eyes narrowing in frustration and curiosity, “I could see it in his eyes when he stalked out the door. I knew this would be the last time they would fight, the last time they would see each other. He left a letter for each of us. It was a short venomous letter that shattered all my hopes. There will not be any handsome little Slytherins playing by the lake. There will not even be a bright future for our school for Salazar has made it quite clear that he has left a legacy in this castle, he has left a monster…a treachery that he was brewing since the beginning. The very walls of Hogwarts are built on evil vengeance, tainted.”
Remus paused, suddenly beginning to understand what this was all about.
“His last words to me, written on a small piece of parchment will forever weigh on my heart. He said that I would pay one day for not agreeing to put my power to the right cause. He said that one day the Legacy that Salazar Slytherin left in this castle will awaken and purge this school of all Mudbloods and Half-breeds. I am afraid, afraid of these walls and these grounds.”
“The Basillisk!” Remus declared and then turned back to the last paragraph in Helga Hufflepuff’s diary.
“I will leave no legacy behind me save the craft of patient weaving and the manuscripts and words left within these walls. I am leaving today, for I cannot stand it here any longer and no one will know of the secret passage that leads to our once happy abode because it will lie buried under the earth waiting for one who posses the frightening power to unlock my warning. And the cloak I made for Salazar will lie forever on his bed where I left it for him to find.”
