The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Disclaimer: Not Mine.

The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Chapter 41

The Parting

"I forbade you to go and you went anyway." Salazar paced back and forth in his sitting room, in turn glaring at Alya and running his hands through his hair.

"Salazar, please, I did not stay. I just took the robes. I was there only moments and did not speak to the others. I only saw only Hanson and only for the robes."

"Jonas not buried a day and you leave? Not prayed over? Not ... you saw what he did, in the circle, how they treated me. Me, I have given my life to this damnable school." He leaned over the table to her and pounded both fists on the table. "I called her sister and she slights us on the day she gives birth. She did not so much as send an elf. Is that too much to ask? Too much too expect?"

"Please, there must be an explanation."

"Is there an explanation I can give my son when I join him? Is there a way to make up his burial prayers? Is there a way to redo Oidhche Shamhna and the lack of prayers to help him cross?"

"Salazar, please do not... my son... he is mine as well. He was a baby, the gods could not deny him, and he was just my baby." Alya rested her head on her arms as sobs broke over her.

"Did they let you attend to her? Did they even allow you to see her, or ask you to offer prayers at their fire? Did they...?"

The pounding of the door stilled him. He stood up and looked down at her before turning to the door. Alya wiped her face quickly and watched as Salazar strode to the door, throwing in open hard enough that it slammed against the wall.

"Before you kick my arse you listen to me." Hanson pushed his way into the sitting room.

"Out, I do not want you here, you are..."

"Shut up, Salazar, just for this once shut up." Hanson glared at him. "Helga is now in tears and threatens to ... well, it is not something to discuss with your wife here, enough to say she is furious with me and has already covered Gryffin with boils."

Alya wiped her face dry and looked up to see the harsh look on Salazar's face.

"Salazar, do you know why Helena was banished?"

"No, nor would I presume to approach such a matter with questions. For Rowena to do the banishment herself, and not Erwin, it must be severe. We should not speak of this."

"Salazar, did you at any time, in a moment of despair - I have to ask this. Alya - did you even hint to Helena that Alya and Erwin were inappropriate with each other?"

Salazar narrowed his eyes and stared at Hanson. He clenched his fists at his sides and walked to the door, opening it and stepping back to allow Hanson out. Alya was on her feet at once, drawing her shawl tighter over her head and wrapping her face, ashamed to show herself.

"Salazar." She looked at the floor, trembling. "You cannot have said that. I would die before I let another ..."

"Alya!" Salazar turned to her angrily. "Not a word."

"Thought not." Hanson scowled. "Salazar, you must know that and much more was said. Helena claimed you told her these things, as well as venting your dislike and thoughts on Erwin's Muggle-born children."

"Everything I have to say on that matter I say to his face. It is not a secret that I do not want Muggles here or their half-breed children."

"Alya, she said Salazar told her he caught the two of you."

"I told her of Alya's pain, and that I thanked the gods for sending him to her that night as I could not reach her. I told her he went down on his knees and..."

Alya lowered herself to her knees and breathed deeply to settle the vomit she felt in the back of her throat. "My gods Salazar, how could she? How could she do this?"

Salazar shook his head and closed his eyes. "Do you have any idea what I would do if someone told me that of my wife? Does she know that even the accusation in my clan is enough to...?

Alya." he rushed to her and pulled her up from the ground. "No, Alya, no. I will not send you away. No, do not even think it."

She leaned into him, unable stand on her own. "I would never, you must believe me."

"Salazar, she said that of me, she accused me of being inappropriate with her." He sat down and looked up at Salazar. "I thank God Helga is not as some. Salazar, I did not even think of it until Alya came today."

"Hanson." Alya hurried to him, only to stop short and look to Salazar, who shook his head.

"Is this how it is to be now? Will we be afraid to talk to one another, or to look on one another's wife as a sister?" Salazar looked at Alya sadly.

Alya turned red as Hanson stood and grabbed her and ripped the shawl from her head. Pulling her close, he kissed one cheek and then the other.

"Salazar, I need you to come and meet someone. I have a son and a daughter on this glorious day. She is so like her mother. She has not stopped yelling since we brought her home. Patience, I named her."

"Is that in hopes she has some, or a warning as to what we must use to be around her?" Salazar tried to grin at him.

"I am hoping her brother will have enough patience to love her, as you surely love his mother. His name is Sal."

Alya covered her mouth and turned to look at Salazar. Such an honour, never given outside a clan, shocked her. She did not know what his reaction would be. Salazar sat still looking at Hanson and finally smiled.

"I always thought only a Slytherin could handle Helga. I am honoured that you would make him one." He leaned forward and rested his arms on his legs, looking to the floor. "I know your joy, I have felt it twice. Hanson, do not ask me to meet them, not today, not until Jonas has slipped a little farther away."

"When you are ready." Hanson stood to leave. "Salazar, the others are offering prayers for your Jonas today. We have discussed it and now know what happened. However, understand Erwin and Rowena will still be slow to approach you."

"Thank you, Hanson," Alya said softly. "For Jonas, I thank you. I only hope it is enough. They did not enter the circle for him. The gods will think him shunned."

She watched as he left and closed the door before turning to Salazar. He had not moved, but sat staring at the floor. "Alya, I need to call the others together. I will not go on like this. I will not condone what they do."

"It is your right to make me veil." She lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut. "If she saw me this way, how many others...It is your right."

She felt him as he slid his hand under her chin and as he raised her head she felt his lips against hers, soft and coy. He teased her lips apart and hesitated to taste her until she raised her hand and laid it on his cheek. He smiled into her mouth and deepened the kiss until he felt her resistance melt and she lowered her hand to stroke him. His own gasp of pleasure fuelled her need.

"The potion is working." He pulled away reluctantly and rested his forehead to hers. "I would have killed you if my madness was still on me. You have no idea the thoughts that would run in my mind. It is as if she has put my worst fears into words."

"I will drop all the walls and welcome you to look in my mind if it will bring you peace and put this to rest."

"If ever I do that it will show you my distrust of you. It will be the end of us." He frowned at her. "I will do nothing for one moon. That is enough for Helga to find her strength, and then we will have our meeting and settle this."

The weather had grown colder, the wind stronger as the time passed. Salazar and Alya stayed to the dungeons until it was time for Salazar to meet Sal. He had given the boy a gift of gold and a fine goblin-crafted sword of the best steel. Patience, he had given a pair of combs, to wear on her wedding day, and bolts of fine silks Alya had ordered the traders to bring from China. The mirror of glass she had meant to give lay smashed and in shards on the floor of her chambers. She could not look at it without the memory of Helena's golden smile lighting the room.

Alya would not go to meet the babies, and stayed hidden in their chambers. She refused to hold lessons or to take meals in the Great Hall. If she had reason to visit Hogsmeade, she would wear the darker and sombre colours of the northern clans, wrapped to hide her lower face. She was shamed, and although Salazar bought her new scarves of bright colours that shimmered with the blues of the seas and the greens of the highland plains, she would not wear them out of her chambers.

The students left for the celebration of the winter solstice, leaving the castle quiet and still that December that found the valley colder than any remembered. The snow blanketed the ridges, and caused great rumblings and slides of ice and snow to fall from the top of the summit to the lake.

Gryffin told Helga of the meeting they were to have, and asked her to collect Rowena. He sent an elf to collect Salazar, knowing that if he were not in his chambers Alya would no longer answer a knock at the door. He sighed as he started down the stairs to join Bretta, who already waited at the kitchen table.

"I should not be here, Gryffin. Salazar will feel we set too many against him."

"He is better than before, the potion works." He sat next to Bretta, clasping his hands together on the table. "I just told Helga. She was returning from Saul's. Marri has lost the baby. This is her third."

"I will go in the morn and see if I can help. She may want help with the little ones." Bretta looked up at the sound of footfalls on the stairs.

"Good eve, Salazar." Gryffin leaned back in his chair, making no effort to stand and greet him. "Is Alya joining us?"

"No, she prefers her solitude as of late," he said wearily as he sat at the table.

"If it would help I will try to talk to her," Bretta offered. "No one puts truth in what was said. She should understand she is innocent in this."

"You do not understand." He ran his hand though his hair. "She was raised pure Slytherin, of the old clan. Her status in the tribe is set on perceptions and impressions. To hear such a rumour to her is an admission that it is what they think her capable of, and as a Slytherin the capability of such an act is as bad as the act its self. A Slytherin treats each insult as a deep wound. You would do well to remember this."

He stood and went to the fire, picked up the pot of soup and put it on the table as Bretta found bowls enough for all.

"If she had not just lost Jonas," Salazar looked up to Bretta, "if she still had him she would not have taken this so strongly."

Helga and Hanson came down the stairs, Helga hurrying to a cabinet to take out fresh breads to eat with the soup. "Rowena is on her way, she says to start."

"I spoke to Laulen." Gryffin looked to Helga. "He is helping me understand our children."

"Is the smallest still not talking?"

"No. Well, yes... he speaks to Laulen," Bretta sighed. "Or rather, Laulen helps us know what he feels. He saw his parents taken and has not spoken since."

"The others?" Hanson asked.

"Loud and noisy." Bretta laughed. "We learned that the two girls are true sisters, and the boys knew them from the market."

"Yes," Gryffin finished for her. "As they found themselves alone, they joined together and became a family. I sometimes feel they took us in rather than the other way around."

"What clan are they from?" Salazar frowned. "Children of one are unlikely to trust another."

"They are young, the oldest eight. Not yet old enough to know the difference," Gryffin said.

"And too cold and hungry to care," Bretta answered, looking at him oddly.

"The last time we were in this kitchen we were discussing the future of this school." Salazar pushed his bowl back and leaned back in his chair.

"I remember," Helga said softly, remembering Alya's screams of anguish that had announced the illness that had taken away her Jonas and sickened many.

"We need to finish it, and do it now."

"As far as I am concerned, the matter is settled." Gryffin looked at him steadily. "I will agree that Muggles should not live at the school, or perhaps even in the village. We will strengthen the wards to hide it from them. I will speak for Marri in this and demand that she stays. In the future we will have to deny others."

"His son does not have magic," Helga said. "However will we cope with him?"

"Cope?" Salazar snorted. "She can teach him what she will. This school has no place for him."

"I disagree that there is nothing here for him." Bretta studied the tabletop. "He should be allowed to the younger years' lessons. He will have use of reading, and perhaps the runes."

"If his blood is that of witch and wizard he would have magic," Salazar hissed. "He is an abomination."

"He is my brother's own!" Helga yelled.

"I see we have started where we left off." Rowena frowned as she walked in to the kitchen.

"Salazar, be reasonable." Gryffin leaned forward over the table. "Things have changed. Children are not the same as they were. What? Do we say a Wizard and Muggle are one thing and cast out those of a Witch and Muggle? What if their children are born with no magic, but join and have children that do? Where do we place them?"

"We do not place them," Salazar seethed, speaking slow and clear. "Do you remember the pyres? Do you not remember the smell of burning flesh?"

Gryffin felt Bretta's hand rest on his hand. She pressed it down to the table, knowing he would soon reach for his wand.

"That is unfair. You know what he lost, we were all there," Erwin said from where he stood behind Rowena.

"Loss?" Salazar laughed at Erwin. "What have you lost? Nothing, you gave it away. You take your joy in two beds and run between worlds like the wind."

Rowena stood and pushed her hand against Erwin's chest. "This is none of you business, this is between my husband and I."

"Forgive me, Rowena." He made a low bow with a flourish of robes. "I forgot what it is like to have a wife by my side to speak in my defence. Tell me, Rowena, how pure is Vortigern's blood that he spawned the one to destroy my family?"

Rowena blanched and sat down heavily on her chair. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. That he would mention the name that had haunted her was inexcusable. That he would ask her to speak of her daughter during the time of her banishment was against their laws. She leaned forward and rested her head on the table, bringing up her arms and putting them over her head.

Erwin pulled his wand and pointed it at Salazar so quickly that Gryffin had not been aware of what was happening. He stood and tried to slide past Bretta to put himself between the wizards as Hanson beat him to it.

"Salazar, do not do this. Words cannot be taken back," Hanson said evenly. "Perhaps on the solstice of winter we can ask the gods, or throw to the mirrors. I do not know, Salazar, but we must..."

"The solstice? You think to enter the circle and ask the gods of pure magic to accept this? Tell Alya that, tell her that her son went to his gods alone and un-mourned at Oidhche Shamhna, but you now pray for the son of a Muggle whore."

Erwin tried to push forward only to find himself restrained by Bretta. He pushed against her harder than he meant to and looked horrified as she fell toward the fire. Hanson turned and lunged for her, pulling her back as soon as she touched the first hot coal. She gasped and threw her head back as the loose embers clung to her robes and burnt into her flesh.

"Quickly," Helga shouted as she pulled her wand and doused Bretta with water. "Take her up stairs quickly, quickly."

Gryffin rushed to her, scooping her up, and turned to Salazar. "Whatever has been between us is gone. I curse the day I first met you."

Turning on his heel, he took the stairs two at a time to hurry Bretta to the infirmary, Helga running after him. Rowena had stood to watch as Bretta lay in Gryffin's arms. Now she turned to look at Salazar.

"I will always hold Alya in my heart. I will always remember her son, and the joy she gave me. I pray that some day she can forgive what a story and vicious rumours have done. I will never be able to forgive you, Salazar, never."

"I do not ask or need your forgiveness. I asked for one thing from you, and that was to offer your prayers to my son. He is gone, twice gone, Rowena. He had only the prayers of Alya and I. No other would enter the circle after the sight of Erwin carrying you and spitting on me. No other prayers except his parents, not enough to take him to the gods. Not enough to take him to his rest. What do I say to his mother, Rowena? How do I tell her the son she loved more than life is damned?"

Salazar left the kitchen to a stunned silence. Rowena covered her mouth and looked to the others.

"Erwin, is it true? Is it true that no one carried Jonas's name?"

"Rowena, you have to remember everything that had happened, all that had been said, and all that had gone before."

She stood up so suddenly the chair fell to the ground and she began to run up the stairs. She ran through the Great Hall and down the hallway, throwing open the doors and running to the lake. She felt a pain burn in her chest as she choked her sobs down and ran faster.

Throwing herself on her knees in the soft mud, she lifted her arms to the sky and began to pray. She faltered and started again, no longer remembering the words. Twice more she stopped to start again. The third time she stood and screamed at the gods to listen to her, to allow Jonas in, and to allow Alya to heal. She threw her head back and had started the prayer again when she felt Erwin's arms slip around her waist and pull her down to the ground, allowing her to collapse on him and sob out her fear.

,

.

.

Salazar stormed to the dungeons and yanked Alya up from her chair, ripping the veil from her face and holding her so tightly that she feared.

"We are leaving here. We will go where it is safe, where this child will grow and be strong." He laid his hand on her stomach and felt his eyes grow wet with his own tears and he buried his face in her hair. "No one will take this one from us, no one."

She wrapped her arms around him and nodded into his chest as her own sobs wracked through her. "Salazar, we can take his name to the circle next year, with the families of the city. They will pray for him - perhaps it will be enough."

"I will come back for him." Salazar lifted her head to look into her face. "We will do this the right way, the old way of the tribe. I will return and take him up, and bring him to the circle. By the gods, Alya, he will lie in the mound of my people, and he will find his way."

"You will never be veiled again. I am head of Slytherin. No one will dare speak of you this way again. No one will dare to harm my child." He lowered himself to his knees and wrapping his arms around her, he lay his head on her stomach and prayed that this small being, still hidden deep in the womb, would live.

.

Later, as she slept he rose and went to the lake, offering up his last prayer for Kista. His sons he would always hold close, and name at each Oidhche Shamhna, but to Kista, he said goodbye. From there he went to the Chamber and closed the passage, sealing in his tribe's familiar, knowing that it would be here to protect the Slytherin children for centuries. It would wait until his tower heard the call of his heir, and rise up to follow the head of Slytherin as commanded.

He woke Alya by gently kissing her, and smiled as she opened her eyes to him at the same time her arms circled his neck.

That night, as he lay with his wife, as he lowered his weight onto her, needing her warmth wrapped around him. He closed his eyes and left his madness behind as he pushed into her, empting himself into her already full womb, and he resolved never to come close to losing her again.

AN: Okay, so Salazar is said to have been mad... and the epilogue will touch on his later life, but for now, this is my Salazar. I kept trying to make him meaner, evil, even cruel, but he just stood there, and shook his head sadly.