Like Pale Fire

Chapter Four: Lightning

It has been seventeen years since Salazar has last knowingly faced a Death Eater.

He had almost forgotten, if one could forget such a thing.

Figures in dark cloaks, black hoods slipping to reveal pale masks. Ever since he had been a child, he had wondered why the Death Eaters seemed so terrifying. Men in cloaks, like drunkards playing at Hallowe'en games, or the shapes that plagued Dudley's films, the ones that people laughed at because they were so cheaply, poorly made...perhaps not even the farcicality of a hundred, a thousand films can erase that almost feverish menace.

It is not precisely grace in their movements, but the false elegance lent by a sense of implacable purpose, an unwarranted, almost unseen surety. As though they know all that is within their universe, shadowed as it is down to this street, this night, this place.

Salazar almost laughs at the mundanity of their surroundings. The crispness in the autumn air, the glow of the soft, almost-twilight, the bright leaves beneath his feet, nearly luminescent against the grey Muggle concrete. The dampness of the earlier rain, the roughly cut grass of the verge, the water-slicked gutters and drains. As though it were any street in England, any narrow little residential road, with football nets in the gardens and round plastic buckets, the ragged sponges beside them wet from washing the parked cars.

They've raised anti-apparition barriers. He fingers his wand in his hand, the weight of the knife under his belt cold and heavy. There are three snakes in his robes and a portkey in his boot.

He should feel nothing but cool assurance, calm steady confidence. Failing that, perhaps fear and desperation.

Instead, he feels... mundanity. He is weary, cold, cloak still dripping from the earlier torrent of rain that drove the children with their footballs and the adults with their newspapers and cigarettes indoors. He is tired, after spending some two hours waiting, waiting, feet stinging, water soaked in his hair and shivering down his face.

It took them two hours to arrange this ambush.

Fools.

Salazar would rather be cunning than dead. Somehow, knowing that the Death Eaters are so simple to manipulate makes them seem...less. Less frightening, so dark, less potent and awe-inspiring. He wonders if they realise that the ambush is not theirs. That they did not choose this empty street or this wet twilight or this crisp September.

Voldemort would have made his move sooner or later. Salazar inexplicably wishes that it could be later, that he could he sitting in his rooms and drinking mulled wine rather than springing this ridiculous ambush.

He raises his wand under his cloak.

They don't realise that he's seen them yet.

It takes them four killing spells- four breaths- to notice. By that time, it is too late. He has to be careful not to use the obvious one. The simple one. The one that whispers with the voice of steel: I meant to wanted to needed to kill. There are far darker and deeper curses than poor, cheap Avada Kedavra.

Within twenty breaths, all of them are dead. Salazar's face bears no expression as he silently incinerates the bodies, leaving only pale ash to curl on the damp concrete. A clear message to their master. I do not care for you. I do not wish to meet you, know you, join you. You are not mine, and I am not yours.

People had always whispered snake, plotter, cunning, sly, subtle. Salazar did not think of himself as subtle, not in that final moment between sky and darkness when the knife lowered. Merciless, become monstrous, yes. Not subtle.

(Lb)

Salazar stared down at the letter in his hand. Stared at the neat lines and curves of the black ink. He though that he had long since accustomed himself to hate mail. Evidently not.

So he had set a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, and ordered it to destroy Muggleborns.

It did not render him evil. It did not render him good.

Did any of these people, whether they had addressed their letters to Harry Potter or Salazar Slytherin, ever grasped that he was not a simple, easily-labelled, one-dimensional picture in a book? He was kind, he was cruel. He was merciless, he pitied. He was flawed, imperfect, finite, human. Did they never understand that?

When he thought on the basilisk, he felt both grief and warmth, guilt and wonder. Her betrayal was still rich and filthy in his mind. Salazar still wanted to rip, rend, shred. Wanted her to char black. If nothing else, he knew his own faults. He was a repenting, vengeful, hurt, murderous, kind, bitter, merciful killer.

There was no space for all that he was on this label.

He loathed and protected and despised and loved Muggleborns.

This was what he was. Salazar would not deny it.

(Lb)

Godric still had not forgiven him for the basilisk, he knew. Oh, the other Founder shared his bed, his heart, his life, but Salazar had slowly come to realise that that was out of a deep, pure human selfishness. Godric did not want to be alone. He did not want to be sitting in his quarters, suddenly rendered cold and dark by the loneliness, and whilst Salazar showed his remorse, showed that he was still human and had not been subsumed by a monstrosity and fellness entirely his own, Godric was willing to also shelve his fury and pain.

So many flaws between the two of them. One murderous and xenophobic, the other selfish and brutal. Such fine, upstanding figures. Such saints. Unworthy to be revered as the Founders of Hogwarts, Salazar thought during the longer nights.

But never mind. He was seventeen years beyond the path of lying to himself and neglecting his own flaws. Salazar was no longer a morose adolescent with an egotistical agenda and a keen sense of personal gloom, but rather an adult who understood that you found what warmth you could in this life and you held onto it. He loved Godric, Godric loved him.

That would be enough. It had to be. It was too late for anything else.

(Lb)

His thoughts had been nothing but black of late. Salazar needed to get out.

He awoke alone in the cold bed. A note on the side table read:

Have gone to the forest. Will return before noon.

GG

Salazar rose, washed in the basin of water beside the bed, shivering as Amos slithered over his bare foot. He dressed slowly in clothing that was both of- well, he hesitated to label them past and future. Better the different halves of his life. He pulled on the long, thick black winter cloak, raised the hood over his face after a soft pause, feeling almost like a dark lord's minion. How ridiculous. In the p- other half of his life, he had worn it all throughout the cold months, never more than a sensation of warmth seeping through him from its touch.

He only stopped to summon an apple from the kitchens, and turned to leave his quarters, Amos curling around his shoulder. The irony amused him briefly, gently. Adam, wreathed in darkness, taking the first bite. It tasted crisp. Salazar set his teeth in it again as he opened the main door and stepped out into the corridor, boot heels tapping sharply against the stone floors as he locked and warded his rooms and began to walk away.

Breakfast time, still. Everyone would be in the hall, eating and drinking. Salazar felt oddly vulnerable and alone for a breath, then the moment passed. He turned his head towards Amos, hissed quietly, 'Hungry?'

The snake shook its sleek head wearily. 'Cold.'

The Founder cast a warming spell upon his companion, stroked its scales gently, and headed towards the staircase. He was passing the entrance to the dungeons when he heard the whispers. Soft, tentative, sneering words, ringing clear in the emptiness. Salazar moved slowly, silently down the worn steps, forgotten apple still in hand as he crossed the dusty hallway, stood at the mouth of the side corridor.

Fourteen or fifteen Slytherins, of varying age and countenance, all leaning into a small huddle, so occupied with their whispered argument that they did not see the figure standing just behind them. Salazar dragged up long-forgotten memories of names, faces. The iced blond was probably Malfoy, the girl at his side possibly Parkinson, but he recognised few others.

He felt as though they too had changed irrevocably in the torrent of time.

Salazar listened in silence to the low whispers.

"-Slytherin, just like us-"

"-Been too long. Disgraced, shamed, reduced to animals-"

"-Want those damned Gryffindors to burn. So proud. Why can't we be proud that we have a Founder?-"

"-Hurts, to be different-"

"-Potter-"

"-Snape isn't-"

No.

He was not what those proud, desperate, hurt children sought. If they wished to find a different path, one that led away from Voldemort, then it was Dumbledore that they needed. He was not their saviour.

Malfoy's voice was higher and softer than he recalled.

"Who's there?"

Salazar turned back, and suddenly fourteen or fifteen wands were aimed upon him. He touched Amos' head to calm the snake and said in measured tones, "Does it really matter?"

"Slytherin," another student said evenly, a girl. Sixth, seventh year, straight brown hair cut at the chin. "Salazar Slytherin. I presume that you were listening to us?"

The Founder simply nodded, still stroking Amos' scales. He wasn't sure whether it was to reassure the snake or himself. How to tell that little second year at the front with the dark green eyes that he did not care for Voldemort, or for Snape, or even for them? He had been proud of his House, once, in another world. The one that he sometimes called 'the bleak world' in his own mind.

He had enjoyed praising his students, had cherished his children's smiles and delighted in their cunning. It had been worthwhile. They had not been bitter or desperate or cruel. They had delved into the dark arts, and bathed in the light. Salazar, once Harry Potter, had taught them to embrace the grey, to live and breathe and be warm in the sun even as they gazed into the night. And they had learned well, oh, so well.

In those days, the children mingled, Gryffindor and Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. They had always tried for that, the Founders. Salazar had remembered with a shiver the fires burning in his future, and tried to forge the school into a place of which he could be proud. Cursing his own sentiment, he realised softly that he wanted to be proud of Slytherin once more, wanted to see his children smile again.

Salazar had never fathered a child. Eyes sad and shadowed, Rowena had told him after several tests that he was sterile. He wasn't certain if he would have wanted to leave a bloodline. Wouldn't want Voldemort to know that they were ancestor and descendent, for all the good that it would do the poor, mad fool. His students had been his only children.

He wondered if some of that softened his face. The straight-haired girl certainly seemed to recognise it, for she raised her chin and said in a low, clear voice, "Lord Slytherin, I would like to request a private audience with you."

The other students looked momentarily astonished, but moments later, were all requesting similar meetings. Salazar raised a hand to quell the tide. "You." He pointed towards the girl who had asked first. "Meet me on the seventh floor at six o'clock tonight. Near the Charms classroom. The rest, either give her your questions or see me again later."

His departure was so swift that they did not have the time to call after him again. As Salazar opened one of the side doors and stepped out into the frosted gardens, he prayed silently, fervently that Draco Malfoy would not seek him out, for he did not think that he could bear to look down at that face and maintain the façade of the cool, collected Founder for a heartbeat longer.

(Lb)

The girl was punctual, despite the fact that she was doubtlessly missing dinner in order to attend. Salazar gazed at her a moment longer from his shadowed corner. The distinctive sharp features of several Pureblood lines. Robes neatly, expensively tailored, certainly not by Madame Malkin. Her hand hovered over her pocket, where the faint outline of her wand was apparent.

The Founder said softly, "Your name?"

She managed to press down the flinch that threatened, and smiled calmly at him. "Caecilia Harper, my lord. Seventh year."

Caecilia was neither quite old nor composed enough to stop her instinctive reaction: the rapid glance at his forehead, at his face, looking for the features of an older, never entirely forgotten figure. There were few to find, at this point. The scar had faded so deeply as to be almost invisible, James Potter's round, smiling visage lost beneath a hawkish sharpness.

Salazar showed no outward response, simply saying to her, "Follow me."

The hallways were dusty and empty. He led Caecilia to the entrance for the Room of Requirement, summoned it into existence with barely a flicker of concentration, and stepped inside. It had taken Helga and Godric almost ten months to weave the enchantments that created and held it.

Within, it was quiet and dimly lit, with low, comfortable couches, a small fire hissing in the grate, and non-descript dark tapestries on the walls. Salazar seated himself and gestured for Caecilia to do the same. The girl took the chair opposite and gazed at him with pale, intense eyes, which he realised after a long, silent moment were a frosty shade of blue.

"You wanted something?" Salazar leaned back on his couch, tried to convey the impression of serene authority, of calmness and composure. It did not come easily, nor swiftly.

Caecilia's voice was hard and low. "I despair for my House, my lord." Those pale eyes flickered with wintry strength. "They trail in the wake of a madman, consign their names readily to the banner of blood. There is no one to guide us. Dumbledore overlooks us, and Snape is too dark, too lost on his own path."

She smiled thinly and, when there was no response, continued. "We are brushed aside. Labelled as evil, black, sinners for the slaughter. The other Houses have the reputation of- of greatness. Ravenclaw is wise, Hufflepuff is loyal, Gryffindor is brave, but we are nothing."

That ached. Nothing. His legacy, his House, his children, nothing. Yet he could see it, all too clearly. The bastards of a man seen as dark, cruel, despotic, with no leader and no hope. But...still. Nothing?

He probed gently with his Legilimency, sensed her sincerity. Caecilia believed this, believed in what she was doing with blood and bone and magic. She despised Voldemort, despised Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle and Parkinson and Snape and all of the other fools.

Her face was desperate, and Salazar belatedly recalled that she was probably barely seventeen.

"My lord, Salazar, this cannot continue! I've tried and tried and tried, but there is no one. Any past loyalties to Gryffindor aside, did you not feel pride in your House? Did you not once love your students, admire their cunning and their cleverness? You must have done. You must save us again, you must, this can't go on."

Almost as though she had glimpsed his thoughts. Salazar looked at her impassively as he swiftly examined his Occlumency barriers. Untouched. Finally, he said quietly, "What do you want me to say, Caecilia? I am not a wonderful, kind person. I am no one's saviour or knight. None of the Founders were. All I can say is that I will help. Nothing more."

Relief, boundless as the oceans, pure and cool in her mind. "I did not expect you to be, my Lord," she said. "All I wanted was a man who was not a monster, a man who was once proud of us and who could be once again."

...Perhaps not quite so young. Salazar stared into her pale eyes until she began to glance away. Yes. Maybe he could forge this House into something that he could cherish again.

It was just a shame that there wasn't a 'reject' option for Malfoy.

(Lb)

The Great Hall was quiet at seven o'clock. Students ate slowly, complained about the immaculate toast, discussed dreams and weekends, scrambled to finish homework over their porridge. Salazar ghosted in, passing almost unnoticed as he walked up the high table and sat in one of the empty seats that Dumbledore insisted on leaving for him, Godric beside him.

As neither of the Founders were particularly inclined towards answering almost hysterical questions from the students, they spoke softly as they ate, discouraging attention. As always in Hogwarts, it did not quite work. Minutes passed, the Hall filled with people, and it only took one noisy lower-year to slice through the quiet.

The entire student body stared. There was no other word for it. Gawped, as though a pair of dragons had just set the headmaster alight. Dumbledore spread some blackberry jam on his toast and said mildly, in a voice that reverberated throughout the hall, "Some warning would have been nice, Salazar."

The whispering was almost unbearably loud. Salazar set his goblet down carefully and said nothing, wintry gaze passing across the faces of the students. How could he recognise so few? Was seventeen years truly so long?

Dumbledore cleared his throat and murmured, "Perhaps a few words? I will admit to a certain measure of curiosity myself."

Incredulous, Salazar almost stared at him. 'A few words?' He was neither an orator nor an exhibitionist, and his purpose was not one that he wished to reveal. Under the table, Godric reached for his hand, and began to speak in his rough, soothing voice.

"We are aware that it has been a thousand years, but our Houses have- changed rather more than anticipated, and it is our wish to see if they still reached those standards that we set down with the stones of this castle."

Unnecessarily poetic. The students appeared to be pleased that they merited such measures yet terrified that they would not touch those over-arching, long-distant levels. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw seemed somewhat sad and wistful, eyes undoubtedly falling upon empty seats and imaginations painting illusory images of their missing Founders.

Always Gryffindor and Slytherin. Always at the forefront. The other Houses, brushed aside, ignored. Left to struggle through this war as they would, as others pleased, as plans dictated. Puppets and strings, for what are loyalty and cleverness beside light and dark?

Salazar realised with a frisson of pain that he missed his other two companions. Helga, strongest of them all, earth mover, who always stared into his heart and smiled. Rowena, who burned with the ferocity of her dreams, and took care to step back lest she scorch another. Despite their arguments, their agonies, they had always loved one another, the four Founders.

"For were there ever any friends such as these?"

No.

Salazar's face was bore the tiny trace of a smile as he said emotionlessly, "That statement includes all four Houses."

Because he had never had the chance to say farewell.

(Lb)

Forget the 'reject' button for Malfoy. Salazar devoutly wished for napalm as the boy cornered him in the grounds, expression torn between grim, arrogant and sneering. This child had none of the qualities that he had sought to instil in his students. Slytherin was a House for the shrewd, the astute, not wretched, foul-mouthed, insolent fools. He desired pupils with independence, not younglings still clinging to their parents and demanding all that this life held.

No.

He was a Founder, a professor, the head of Malfoy's House. He was the adult here. Now was not the time for musing over scars. And- though he hesitated to say it- perhaps he had been wrong about the boy. He had been barely more than a child himself when they had first met. Maybe his first perceptions of Malfoy were false.

One glimpse of the boy's eyes, and Salazar decided that they probably weren't too far from the mark.

Yet he had a duty. Malfoy was unpleasant, he was a childish, spiteful, spoiled vile little brat, but he was not truly evil, Salazar was certain of that. As the Founder of Slytherin House, he had a responsibility to ensure the- boy's safety.

Even if he had to clench his teeth and lock away his emotions in a tiny box, wrapped together so tightly that it ached.

"Mr Malfoy."

"Lord Slytherin." Malfoy seemed both anxious and infuriated, and his voice was a little too high, sharp. "Greetings. I- I have some questions for you."

"Oh?" Salazar wrapped his cloak more closely around his body and moved slightly on the stone bench so that the boy could also sit.

After a pause, Malfoy did so, and continued speaking, mouth hard. "I am told that you have- turned away from the cause of your descendent."

Unusually subtle for him. But then, war aged all. "He is not my descendent," Salazar said, too calmly. "I am sterile. I have no heirs. I took no blood or kinship bonds."

"Oh." Malfoy seemed uncertain how to respond. He bunched the fabric of his robes in his hands and stared out at the pale lake. "I don't want to be one of his."

The words were so soft and hesitant that Salazar almost overlooked them. He waited patiently, allowing the silence and the emptiness to drive out the boy's next statement.

"I won't kneel to anyone, whether they say they're a king or dark lord. I'm not a slave, or a doll."

"And how did you reach this- conclusion?"

"He tried to kill my father last summer." Malfoy leaned forward to cup a small flower in the grass in his hand. "I don't want to die. I don't want to be worth so little that my life can be plucked away like a- a weed." His eyes burned like Rowena's. "I am a Malfoy, not a servant, and I won't bow to some filthy half-blood whose disgusting parents did not even marry before he was born."

Entirely different sentiments to those that Rowena had held, yet the same dark fire.

"And what do you wish for me to do?" Salazar wished that he could sound anything but too-calm.

Finally, Malfoy looked up and stared him fully in the eye. There was vulnerability and frankness there, and Salazar actually halfway liked the boy for the first time.

"Dumbledore is a fool and Snape is pitiful. I want the protection that they cannot, will not offer."

Ah. Some minds truly never changed. Survival. The most primal and desperate of all human desires. Yet that was something that Salazar could give. Possibly. He leaned back in the stone bench, stared at the pale sky. His younger years in the 'bleak world' had been hard, cold and anguished. Could he genuinely bear to hand a reprieve to this cruel child and thus assuage his own pathetic, empty conscience?

Hn. The child would have to be of use to him first. He was not about to send Malfoy into the field, but alternately, he would not be allowing the boy to simply enjoy the benefits of freedom without paying a true price for the gift, or it would be entirely shallow and without meaning.

Only one thing remained.

It only took a few moments to slither back Malfoy's child-like, weak Occlumency barriers and enter undetected and unchallenged. A curious innocence within, that of a boy who had never genuinely faced misery or sacrifice, and who now, abruptly confronted with the prospect of agony, desired to escape.

Salazar straightened and turned his cool gaze back to Malfoy. "And if I offer to you the sanctuary of Hogwarts, and of the tiny, dark chambers that have never seen the sun nor felt living breath, far less the touch of Voldemort?"

"W-What do you mean?"

"Nothing in this universe is simple and absolute, much less free. You do not truly understand the principle of equivalent exchange, do you? Quid pro quo, a thing for a thing. To gain something, you must make an equal sacrifice. Here is my price. You turn from Voldemort. You help your Housemates and friends to do the same. Slytherin is a much maligned House, and we must do all is within our power to amend that."

Malfoy paled, closed his eyes, sighed deeply. "I think that I understand now." He opened one eye, gazed thoughtfully. "You really aren't Harry Potter any more, are you? No, I didn't think so. An Unbreakable Vow?"

"Very well." Salazar nodded gracefully and drew his wand, gesturing for the boy to do the same. At an unspoken signal, they both cast swift silencing, concealing and notice-me-not charms, the most potent that either could muster, and they clasped hands.

"I, Salazar Slytherin, swear that I shall offer Draco Malfoy full and complete protection within Hogwarts and its environs from Voldemort and all of his followers."

"I, Draco Abraxas Malfoy, swear that I shall not give my allegiance towards Voldemort and his

followers, nor aid them in any other way, and that I shall assist Salazar Slytherin by all means possible to turn my Housemates away from the Dark Lord."

A flash of pale fire, and they were bound.

Salazar untwined his fingers from Malfoy's and slipped his wand back into his sleeve, sensing that the boy had much to consider. He nodded in farewell and turned to walk back along the narrow, frosted stone path, when a voice called him back.

"Wait a moment! How can I find you again?"

"Ask one of the house elves," Salazar said shortly, and this time departed. He could accomplish no more for now.

(Lb)

The snake moved like hot black oil on ice. It had slept, dreaming of the dark forest, and now it was ready, gliding with a speed and silence entirely unexpected in such a large, powerful serpent, gliding, gliding down the halls of the Ministry of Magic.

The sky was like dark velvet outside, the offices quiet and dim, but for the occasional harried clerk hurrying past carrying thick bundles of paper or the odd house elf flickering in out, wielding broom, mop and duster with grim intent. The snake flicked its tongue out, hissed softly. Almost too simple.

It ghosted over to one of the officials, traced her route to the large, hand-carved oaken doors that stood at the end of the corridor, waited patiently in the lee of a water-cooler as she carefully balanced her pile of folders in the crook of her elbow and reached into the pocket of her tailored blue robes. She drew out a pair of heavy brass keys, engraved with the elegant sigils for secrecy, and unlocked the doors.

The snake was swift and intelligent. It was in past her heels and curled behind the base of a potted fern before she turned and locked the door again. It watched her keenly, that vaunted cleverness licking through its mind as it coded, memorised, analysed. A non-magical snake would never have made such connections.

Tall, this woman, almost taller than the man who rose to greet her. A little plain, a little stout, in mid-years. Hair brown, not rich, not shining, just brown. Tailored robes and muddy green cat-like eyes, a bright shade of lipstick. She moved with what the snake supposed for a human would be sensuality. Elegance. A woman does not have to be slender and pretty to be beautiful, especially not this one.

The man was...non-descript. The vague impression of sandy hair, a wide mouth. The eye was drawn to the sleek dark robes, the tiny diamonds that lined the golden rings on his long fingers, the stack of white files before him.

...

Salazar leaned back in his chair and sighed softly, unsatisfied, barely watching as the man in the pensieve wrapped his hands around the woman's waist, pulled her up towards his face. His companion, she was already neatly labelled, categorised, identified, but him...well, he defied all of that. There was something...something that seemed to blur him. The eye shifted to the fold of the robe, the smooth wood of the long table, the green of the potted plant.

Wait.

The snake was fast, clever, yet it lacked the skill required to grasp the layers of delusion and wrench them away, and unless one can see these things first hand, it is quite impossible for any other watchers to intervene. Delusion.

Perhaps more common than metamorphagi, yet less often recognised, the witches and wizards who could weave an air of...normality. The man delivering the newspaper. The woman who served coffee in the nearby café. The girl on the swings across the street. The one that you barely glanced at, to whom you only gave a few seconds of your time.

'Oh, I don't know, perhaps five foot seven. Or was it five foot nine? No, no, three. No, five. Hair? Ooh. Blond, perhaps? Or maybe a sort of brown. Or red. Sorry, didn't really look at them. Eyes? Any colour, I suppose.'

The ones who no one could yet identify. More importantly, the ones whose names were not listed on any Ministry file or newspaper article. Just the one in the background, the one who happened to walk past, the one that was only seen out of the corner of the eye. For those who grasped their talent with both hands, it was immensely useful. Perfect.

Hadn't his snakes mentioned something of a new contender for the Minister's position? A non-descript man, whom no one ever quite recognised, whose name the reporters could never quite spell right.

The other contenders were clear-cut. Rufus Scrimgeour, hard-liner and extremist. Supported by the aurors, but far too harsh for the shop assistants and factory workers and receptionists of the burning world. The masses. Cornelius Fudge, weak and selfish, despised by so many that it was a wonder that he didn't just surrender his title, buy a property in Australia, and sit quietly. Marena Stilwell, a relative unknown, pushed forward by the Pureblood families, and possessing few merits of her own...

And this man. This man to whom he could put no name, no face, no identity.

To quell his own rising exasperation, Salazar turned back to the file that he held on the woman. One of his smaller, younger snakes hissed quietly, and he pulled it into his lap as he read.

Name: Amira White

Aliases: None

Gender: Female

Date of birth: 13^th January 1956

Species: Human

Occupation: Director of Administration (MoM)

Description:

Forty years old

Approx. 5"10, slightly overweight

Brown hair, hazel eyes

Plain faced but can be sensuous

Has a small scar on the tip of left index finger

Director of Administration. Was her lover seeking influence, or simply pleasure? Was it a matter of love, lust, loneliness? Perhaps not love, but it was not necessarily a mercenary affair. There had been a measure of affection in Amira White's cat-like eyes, beneath the smoky, soft sensuality and the thrill of adrenaline.

Salazar stared at the swirling loops of the Parseltongue script and wondered just why he was doing this. Even now, after all of these years, he was unable to simply sit still and quiet. He tried to tell himself that it was pure boredom, or paranoia, that he was just securing his future and keeping a weather eye on the horizon. It was hollow, because above all, he desired...something.

Influence. Knowledge. The aces in the pack. And maybe, just maybe, after nineteen years of planning and watching and hoping, he would finally present a true checkmate to Voldemort.

(Lb)

It was not long before the first true challenge of his authority was presented to Salazar.

Noon. A hot, dusty Saturday. Most of the younger students were stretching in the shade of the cool stone colonnades, or splashing in the lake, their older peers no doubt laying waste to Hogsmeade. Salazar felt it reasonably safe to venture from his quarters. He could stand fearless in the face of a dragon, but the sight of three hundred adolescents behind him and gaining speed was more than his heart could stand.

The library was cool, dim and empty. He could just see Madame Pince cataloguing old books through the door that led to the back rooms, and no students milled between the shelves or chewed quills over Potions homework at the desks. Relieved, Salazar moved leisurely to the Forbidden Section and began to peruse the rows of tomes. Finally, he selected a volume entitled The Burning World: The Rise of Grindelwald, and was about to depart when a low voice echoed out nearby.

"My lord, a word, if you please."

Salazar set the book down upon a desk and turned to face the speaker, a dark haired girl dressed in Gryffindor robes, with exceptionally long lashes and a freckle on her right cheek. He faintly recognised her, but he was not certain why. A soft, swift exploration with his Legilimency picked out two, three others in the shadows, and another outside the door. Two girls, two boys, all students, one Hufflepuff and three Slytherins.

At his slight nod, the Gryffindor girl continued. "I'm sorry to be so- well, rude, my lord, but we- I've been told that you haven't been making any advances to the Dark Lord, and I was wondering why."

"And why would I wish to do that?"

"E-Excuse me?"

"Why would I want to approach Voldemort?"

"Well, as he is your descendent, my lord." She grasped at her sleeve, tugging at the hem in a manner certain to fray the fabric. "I thought that since you supported his ideas, you'd want to join him...as an- equal, of course."

"Has Voldemort instructed you to do this?"

Too young. Too silly and self-absorbed. Far too little guile and discretion. She flushed and finally nodded. Entirely too certain that he would simply fold in and guilelessly agree to follow Voldemort. A silent probe with his Legilimency- he really was abusing this gift, wasn't he?- revealed that she was the child of a prominent Death Eater, and had been ordered by her mother's master to approach Salazar and ask him for support.

Fools, all of them.

"And if I choose not to?"

Impetuous, Salazar thought, as he flung the girl aside with one hand and ducked the stunning spell that one of her accomplices had sent. With the other hand, he drew his wand and quickly froze the boy. Slytherin. A terrible shame, that he would simply waste all that he was for this.

Perhaps recognising the sudden risk, the Hufflepuff quickly reached into his robe, dug out a small amulet and began to whisper an incantation, the Slytherins moving in front of him as he did so. Summoning assistance? Evidently so, as Salazar only had time to take a few steps forward before a dozen darkly cloaked figures abruptly appeared before him.

Voldemort was far too confident, although Salazar had to confess that it would have been a bold and intelligent plan when applied to most foes. Strike directly to the core of Dumbledore's territory, take a figurehead for the light. Prove both his power and his cunning. Swift, clever and daring, but the Founder had no intentions of succumbing easily and quietly.

Salazar quickly cast a shielding spell and eyed his opponents. All adults, all moving with calm assurance and confidence, all with wands raised. A breath later, he began to move.

Several quick stunning spells removed the students from the skirmish entirely, but gave Salazar barely enough time to duck down behind the desk as the Death eaters flung their own curses across. The stench of acid wriggling across varnish swung through the air as he let one of his larger snakes slither from his cloak and whispered in Parseltongue, 'Find their captain'.

As the serpent glided under the bookshelves, Salazar winced at the reducto that had just crunched through the wall and began to cast in earnest. His shield still held as he hissed the last few syllables of the spell, and turned his head slightly to see the white-crested torrent that lashed down and swept the Death Eaters from their feet. One was flung into the wall, and slumped to the floor, rinsing the panels red as they fell.

The next spell was also in Parseltongue. Salazar hissed the final sound, and then rose, holding his wand ready. "Stupefy!"

The incantation was enough to send his opponents flinching or ducking behind bookshelves, even before they realised that no skin shredding scarlet light had ripped through the air. The pale arcs of crackling lightning were entirely unanticipated. Bodies were tossed upwards like marionettes on a hundred different strings, twitching, twisting, shrieking, zombies on a live wire. They finally fell silently, dreadfully still.

Only two remained. His blue streaked snake slithered back and tartly informed him that the one on the left appeared to be their leader. Salazar pointed his wand at the other one and murmured a freezing spell even as he loosened his knife under his robe in its sheath. He was just fast enough to spin away from the two curses that were hurled towards him as he cast both the spell and the knife. Neither missed.

Salazar leaned back against the rim of the desk, sighed, and wiped some of the water that had splashed onto his cheek. Five stunned, nine soaked, electrocuted and possibly dead, three definitely dead, and Madame Pince hadn't responded once. He held his wand out steadily as he opened the door to the back room and saw her spelled unconscious and tied up. Perhaps a student had been swift enough to slip in behind his back and do this silently before their accomplice had confronted him.

He walked back to the Death Eaters, knelt down beside the leader, and pulled back the pale mask-

-Walls of stone, streaked in blood and soot, tall pillars arching into a shadowy dark ceiling, and all around, monstrous friezes of twisted, tormented bodies.

Salazar cursed himself for a fool as he stared down at the portkey-mask and heard the cold laughter around him rise.

(Lb)

Sorry for the slight delay, I've been ill and thus unable to write much. Next part will (hopefully) be posted soon.

The section on Salazar and his nature is a slight reaction against many of the portrayals of him in fandom, including my own at times. The overwhelming temptation is to either entirely excuse or condemn his actions. I don't think that he was an inhuman, nightmarish dark lord, or that he was an innocent saint, but rather a complex figure who committed a number of acts for very complicated, personal reasons, which cannot be simply reduced to 'he was good' or 'he was evil', and I hope that that was conveyed in this chapter.

Again, thank you for the wonderful reviews : )