Sky Streaked With Sunrise

She was surprised but quickly took action. With Godric she had succumbed, with Godric she had been passive and pleasant and as sweet as possible, for she knew that his roving eye had fixed itself on Rowena. With Salazar, it was different. He was looking the other way, but she took his face in both of her hands and kissed him again. His lips were cold, almost icy. She wanted desperately to have a hold on him, to not give in to him but have him realize her, for once, as the intellectual and physical equal of everyone's beloved Rowena.

Her arms went very quickly around him, and she felt his hands leave her shoulders and travel down her back. She stood on her tiptoes to be of an equal height with him, and felt for one of the first times that delicious surge of power that she knew Rowena had experienced. He broke from her lips only for a quick breath, but before he had even exhaled she claimed his lips again and they sank to the floor of the Star-Viewing Tower.

It was the time of the greatest darkness of the night, that directly before the dawn. Helga managed to sit up and gaze about her. Salazar was resting with his eyes closed, not asleep. She was sure he was aware that she was awake. He had an extraordinary sense of movement. His expression was presently blissful, but Helga could detect a bit of that unsettling evil in the way he smiled.

"Rowena..."

He'd done it on purpose, Helga was sure of that. She bent down near his ear and whispered harshly, "Do not toy with me, Salazar." She could see that rather evil smile fixed on his features again.

He kept his eyes closed and his voice too was barely a whisper. "You wanted me, did you not, Helga? You wanted me and you be jealous of Rowena."

"Aye, and you be surprised?"

"You never did let on that you too had a darker side, Helga."

Her smile was half-formed and bitter. "We do all of us have a darker side."

He propped himself up on one elbow and fixed her with that piercing stare. "And all this time I did think you the simple and plain one, and Rowena full of mystery."

"Think not that you can see into the recesses of my soul, Salazar."

"I do make no such assumptions..." He had that devilish grin on his face again, but somehow it didn't seem as attractive to Helga now, just rather frightening; who knew what darkness and evil this man could be capable of? She hated how he was entirely in control of the situation, and how she could do nothing to affect the icy facade that was Salazar Slytherin, just like she could do nothing in the face of Godric's love for Rowena. There was never anything I could have done. I might as well hole up in my office and churn out encyclopedias, as that is all I be bloody useful for.

"So you hate me, then? You are toying with my affections for what purpose? To rid your foul mind of Rowena? After all, 'twas all I was of use of to Godric - all he did want me for was to forget Rowena."

"You think overmuch on Rowena, and place too much value on love."

"You do place too little."

"What in the name of hell do you want? Surely you cannot believe that I...I thought you would understand that..."

"Oh, I do understand perfectly. You wanted some solace, you wanted to get out of that cruel mind of yours the images of Godric and Rowena in the forest, did you not? You do not desire me, you do desire the forgetfulness I did bring you. If you had wanted that, then should you have gone to me for a sleeping draught or some other such thing that would not cause us both such harm!"

He stood up and leaned against the railing of the Tower, his pale, pointed features twisted into a grimace. "Woman, you are complaining overmuch."

"Aye, so I do, so I do, when all I ask is a bit of affection..."

"Affection is highly overrated."

"Yet you do not see! Every day I feel like I am a hunting hound who begs for scraps from the table of her betters!" She was shaking now, and she felt that strange hotness behind her eyes that meant tears. "And you, you despicable wrecked man, you are the voice that calls me from the edge of a precipice and entices me to leap!"

"If you do not shut your mouth then I do swear I shall shut it for you!"

The tears were there, steaming and wet, crawling down her reddened cheeks. "Good God, you are a monster, Salazar, and woe to Rowena for ever trusting you!" She collapsed on the stone floor and sobbed, and he, grunting with disgust, stalked out.

...That's me in the corner That's me in the spotlight Losing my religion ...

Helga dragged herself to her feet after she had run out of tears and ceased shuddering. The heavens were streaked with stripes of sunrise, which would soon melt and spread over the dome of sky. The mists were settled firmly on the moors. She stumbled to one of the windows of the Star-Viewing Tower. The ledge was wide enough for her to sit on, and she did. Dangling her bare feet on the air, she had never been more tempted to shove herself off the ledge. But then the first rays of sunlight touched her tearstained face, and she swallowed, lifted her head up, and climbed back into the Tower away from the ledge. After all, it was all, everything, life, love, Rowena, Godric, Salazar, it was all just a dream. She plastered a sufficiently convincing smile on her face, and steeled herself to face yet another day as the perenially cheerful and carefree Helga Hufflepuff.

...But that was just a dream. That was just a dream...