A Revised History of Hogwarts

It had been almost a week since the school year began, and it seemed that it might be a good year for Helena, after all. She'd made a lot of new friends, mostly in her own house but some from Ravenclaw, although the girls from Hufflepuff were never very nice to her during Herbology. It was almost as if they were jealous of her or something, which was craziness; Helena was very bad at the subject. It wasn't very emphasized at her previous school, Beauxbatons; there, they believed that the center of magic was in charms and spells, and everything else just supplemented that.

Her mornings were all spent the same; she would go out for a run, on which she would sometimes meet that kid from Hufflepuff, she thought Bernhard was his name, but she couldn't be sure. He was nice and all, but the way he always looked at her made her feel sort of…well, looked at. He was a little strange, but he was always good about putting Prof. Slytherin in his place without being obstinate. Helena herself liked Prof. Slytherin more than her friends did, but she'd never tell them that.

After her run she would have breakfast, always with her new friends Mathilde and Sarah. They were room mates, being in the same year, and they did most everything together; in class they always partnered up (except in Herbology where Prof. Hufflepuff liked them to mix it up a bit) and they went to meals and studied together. Still, Helena wished she could try out being with people from the other houses, but she supposed that Mathilde and Sarah couldn't handle it so she rarely tried.

Overall, she enjoyed her time here. People were less pretentious at Hogwarts that Beauxbatons, which made sense because tuition was much lower and acceptance was never based on how much money a family could donate to the school.

Helena's favorite place to get away from her friends was the Library. There weren't too many books there, mainly because too few wizards had caught on to the idea of the printing press because Muggles didn't know about them yet. But the Librarian, Mrs. Combs, was still a lunatic about keeping the four or five students who ever went there silent. It was on the way to this place of solace when Helena started to round the corner when she heard the voices of two of her professors, and it didn't sound like the sort of conversation she'd want to walk in on.

"If you cannot bend to our concept of how the school should be run, then why should we bend to yours?"

"Because I have the power to run my part of the school as I see fit. Why, if I pose no threat to you-"

"No threat! Your blasted snake almost killed three of my students-"

"And he cannot access any more of your precious Muggle-borns. He was not raised to do this, you know that. And all of the children were returned to their proper state before the end of the holidays."

A pause.

"Salazar, if you think that makes up for your constant undermining of-"

"Of what? You knew that this is what I believe in, and now that it's becoming a reality you cannot accept it. Face facts, Godric; you're stepping out-of-bounds, and I do have the power to resist your rule."

"Get out of my sight, Slytherin."

Helena turned and ran down the corridor to hide from her professors; she knew that she shouldn't have heard any of that. What was that about students almost being killed by a snake? What would happen if the school was to split up! She didn't want to think about it, but their words kept on flickering into her mind. The school is in trouble...

She was so preoccupied that she didn't notice Bernhard walking down the hall toward her. "Helena, would you like to walk to-"

"Hi, Bernhard," she said quickly.

"-Lunch with me…" He sighed and turned back down the hall after her. His stomach was growling, and he could feel something more ebbing away at him from inside.

On the way he passed Prof. Hufflepuff, who was cheerily carrying a fresh box of dragonskin gloves to the sunroom. "Hullo, Mr. Baddock," she greeted him. "I really would stay and chat, but Prof. Slytherin needs these right away; he's offered to help me mend them, you see."

"Oh, I would be happy to help you carry those, Prof. Hufflepuff," Bernhard started, almost reaching for the box.

"No! Oh, I mean, thank you, but no," replied the woman, freeing one hand for a moment to brush some blond hair out of her face. "You should get on to breakfast."

"Yes, Prof. Hufflepuff," Bernhard replied, and he continued down the hall. This, too, was unusual where he grew up; no upper-class woman ever did manual labor for which she wasn't paid directly if a man or older boy were present, it was unseemly.

Bernhard continued down the hall as Prof. Hufflepuff regained her composure. She was very easily frazzled, and at this point she just wanted to go have a lie-down in her rooms, although she couldn't. There were preparations to be made for the next class, and as she quickly strode down the hall she remembered the Nautae plants she hadn't set out yet.

Helga stepped lightly down the stairs to the dungeons, hating the fact that Salazar had chosen this awful place for his part of the school, but grateful that it was quite close to the Hufflepuff common room and staff quarters.

She strolled through the Potions classroom as five or six house elves quickly scrubbed the students' cauldrons to return them to their dorm rooms. Helga had always thought that the house elves were overworked, but she never said so.

Opening the door to his office, Helga felt a rush of warm air. At least he's down here, she thought, stepping inside. A fire was lit in the fireplace, and Salazar's large wooden chair was sitting at an angle in front of it, his arm sitting sedately on the armrest. She closed the door behind her and set the box down quietly on his desk, then moved to the side of his chair. He was awake, and hissing quietly to a little garter snake he had coiled up on his hand.

"What's she saying?" Helga whispered to her husband.

Salazar waited for the snake to finish its thought then replied, "I've had her read the staff notes on the bulletin, and she is reciting them to me. Her education is coming along very nicely," he said, gently brushing the snake between the eyes. "I think it's time for a rest now," he continued as he stood to place the snake on the mantle of his fireplace.

"Oh!" Helga exclaimed, "I have something for you to look at." Curious, Salazar watched at his wife rifled through the box she'd brought with her, tossing aside torn dragonhide gloves until she brought out a rolled-up piece of parchment. Unrolling it, Helga said, "Do you know what this is?"

"Of course I don't," Salazar replied coolly. Sometimes his wife could drag things out a little too much.

She tapped her wand on the page and said, "Catapultam habeo."

A floor plan of Hogwarts appeared on the page with tiny little dots scurrying about on it. "What is this...?" Salazar asked, holding the parchment up for a closer look. "Where did you get it?"

"Omar has been working on it for some time now, for Gryffindor. He thinks our Headmaster wants to spy on some of the more... shifty people in the castle. But as you can see, only people or part-people appear," she said, pointing out that Salazar's friend snake, Penelope, didn't show up on the map.

He uttered a little "hmm," then looked back to Helga. "Sometimes it can be good to have a dark wizard around, if he can come up with tricks such as these and still be willing to betray the one who commissioned him," he said, handing the parchment back to her.

"Ave," she said, her wand touched to the parchment, and the paper went blank again. "Now, I'll have to get this back to Omar this afternoon. That's when Gryffindor expects it," she continued, placing the parchment back in the box and putting some of the dragonhide gloves in on top of it.

Salazar took his seat again in the large wooden chair and his wife followed suit, sitting down in his lap and dangling her skirted legs over one arm. He wrapped one arm around her waist and held her close, kissing her cheek gently. "I had another… altercation… with Gryffindor this afternoon," he said, a scowl marring his sharp looks.

"It's like I've always said, you need to control your temper with him," she replied. "I for one do not need my undercover lover to be kicked out of the school. I've grown very fond of some of your students, anyway," she continued, "they so love to learn about poisonous plants and their natural antidotes."

"They're a shifty bunch, though," replied Salazar. "Maybe one or two honest ones in the flock. I'm almost surprised; the Sorting Hat must be biased, as it gives you all the hard-workers, Gryffindor all the bold ones and Ravenclaw all of the very intelligent ones. And what am I left with? The stupid, spineless followers. There are only two students in the bunch who I could bear to place as Prefects next year, and only one of them is old enough."

"Just please do not name that Malfoy boy as a prefect," Helga said firmly. "He's a sadist. He practically strangled one of my Flutterbies a few weeks ago."

"No worries there. I think that Miss Snape will be my prefect; she knows how to handle authority, and she can keep the others in line. Were she but five years older she could keep me in line-"

"Salazar!"

"I'm just saying…" he began, "...how long with it be until we can announce to everybody that we've been married for two years? This arrangement keeps me from living in the same apartment as my own wife."

"I don't know, Salazar, I really don't know. You know that if Godric found out he would have a fit; he would say that I cannot be an impartial judge in anything concerning you and the school, as if he could."

"But then, what should happen if you were with child?"

She looked away from his, staring at her shoes poking out from beneath a plain brown skirt. "I am taking precautions," she said simply.

He realized what he'd done to her and held her closer, moving his lips to gently brush her ear. "Now, don't be like that," he said, "I know what you want. As soon as all of this business with Gryffindor is settled-"

"Oh, don't worry about it, Salazar. I know everything will work out all right in the end."

That afternoon Bernhard had off of classes, so he decided to take advantage of the last bits of warmth before winter set in. He took with him a long roll of parchment, several quills and his one precious copy of "Potions of the North," the book Bernhard's father taught him out of from the time he was little, and he claimed a little bit of grass under a tree. There were some students in his level, mostly Slytherin and Ravenclaw gathered nearby, but most took no notice of him. He opened to the place where he'd left a leaf from the Flutterby bush of a few weeks ago and began to read, copying the techniques of how to properly take care of an Exploding Fluid spill onto his parchment.

Footsteps padded up to Bernhard, but he hardly noticed the person until they spoke his name.

"Wh-what? Oh, hullo," he said, a little surprised. He looked up to see the fair, sharp face of Lucina Snape, her bright gray eyes burning into his for no apparent reason.

"Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?" she asked him.

"Oh, yes, of course," he said, fumbling to make room for her nearby. She took a seat, a little close for Bernhard's comfort. Suddenly he was aware that some of the Slytherins were looking in their direction and they didn't look very happy.

But Lucina didn't seem to have much interest in Bernhard at all. She just stared back at the Slytherins, but after a few uncomfortable moments, she asked him, "Do you have a bias against Slytherin or something?"

"Of course not," Bernhard said, sounding more sure than he felt. "I mean, your house has never done anything against me-"

"I don't mean you, idiot. I mean Prof. Slytherin. The way you always run him down in class, it's… well, it's earned you the bad side of a lot of my fellow classmates."

"Well... thanks for the warning," Bernhard replied, uncertain of what he should do about it. It wasn't his fault that he was very gifted at what the Slytherins' head-of-house specialized in, was it? Lucina stood and returned to the crowd of students a few meters away, and she was immediately surrounded by all the Slytherins in the group.

"What did you do?" asked Malcolm pointedly, running his fingers through his blond hair like he always did when he felt threatened.

Caitlyn, a girl a little younger than Lucina stood nearby, her arms folded over her chest and a scowl forming on her face. She was immediately pushed out of the way by Jason, who had no tact and didn't hear the girl complain to his very large shoulder. "Yeah, what did you do, Lucy?" he said unintelligently.

"I just warned him, that's all," she said truthfully. "He's not a big enough problem for all of you to get worked up over."

Malcolm roughly took her arm and led her out of the circle, Caitlyn calling after them pointlessly. "You know, he left Durmstrang for this place," Malcolm whispered in her ear. "That probably means that he's a Muggle-lover, just like every other fool at this school."

"Not necessarily," Lucina replied simply.

Malcolm was becoming very angry about the whole situation, so he left her and stormed into the castle. Luckily for all involved, Bernhard had already packed his things and gone inside to the peace of the Hufflepuff common room. Malcolm almost ran down to the dungeons, passing on the way his friend William.

"Nice to see you again, Malfoy!" William called after him, and Malcolm only grunted in reply. "That man would depress a hyena," Will said to himself after Malcolm was out of earshot. He hoisted his satchel of papers higher onto his back and continued down the hall, on his way to a fateful meeting with his head-of-house and, more importantly, his Potions master, Salazar Slytherin. Will had never been much of a student in the past two years, but this was a new low for him. It wasn't entirely his fault; there were extenuating circumstances. For instance, his father had taught him just this last summer how to mix an exploding liquid with goat dung and add a coating to make something he called "Beck's Magick Dung Exploders."

Will entered the classroom and took a seat near the back to wait, as he supposed that his teacher was just running a little late. Not that Slytherin was ever late, but Will could always dream that his teacher was, at that very moment, being eaten alive by Prof. Fudge's pet bicorn.

He waited for a moment and heard voices coming from his professor's office. He got up and knocked twice on the door and called in a phony, hollow voice, "I'm here professor. Where shall I put the jar of bubotubor puss?"

There was a pause, then Prof. Slytherin's strained voice replied, "Blast, Beck, I'll be out there in a moment."

Will was satisfied, so he took his seat back in the back of the room and waited again. Another minute or so passed when Prof. Slytherin emerged from his classroom, black cloak swooping around him. He strode back to the back of the classroom but didn't take a seat; instead he handed Will a slip of parchment.

"You're under academic probation, Mr. Beck," Prof. Slytherin said simply. "All of the details are outlined on that paper. If your grades do not improve within the next month, we will be forced to notify your family, and if you cannot pass the six-week exams you will be placed under disciplinary action. I do suggest that you try to work harder, Mr. Beck," Slytherin said, gritting his teeth, "because I do not want to hand you over to the Headmaster. If you have no questions, I'll bid you good day." With that, Prof. Slytherin turned sharply and returned to his office, leaving a stunned student in his wake.

"Academic probation? Academic probation?" Will repeated in disgust. Leaving the classroom, he said to himself, "That's the sort of thing you put on people for cheating or something, not for your everyday lay-about like myself."

He walked down the dank corridor back to the Slytherin common room where he would drown his sorrows in the stupidity of others. He was very glad to have been put in Slytherin; here he could exercise his lust for making fools out of people while still being one of the more respectable members of society in his House. Still, there were a lot more gullible people in the other houses, Hufflepuff in particular. There wasn't anything Will wouldn't give to learn the Hufflepuff password. Now there's an idea…

Will turned on his heels and ran to the staircase leading out of the dungeons. He took off his ring bearing the face of a snake, the only thing he wore signifying his Slytherin roots, and ran up the flight of stairs, then around a corner up the stairs he knew lead to the Hufflepuff commons. Luckily for him there was a little first-year boy standing outside about to enter. Will ran his fingers through his brown hair and silently followed the boy up to the statue, listening for the password.

"Faerie lights," said the boy, and the statue dodged out of the way to reveal the door. Will peeked in around the boy and saw no one else in the small room, so he waited a moment for the statue to return to its original position.

Will strutted up to the statue and with his best pansy voice said, "Faerie lights." The statue obediently moved out of the way, and Will was very pleased to see an unguarded satchel laying in the corner by the fire. He moved to the satchel and opened his own, taking out three dung exploders and putting them in the strange bag under some parchments and an old, worn copy of "Potions of the North." He heard footsteps coming from behind the door on his left, so he grabbed his own satchel, turned and ran back out of the common room, forgetting to close the other bag.

Bernhard had remembered his satchel left in the common room, so he returned there early to go put it back in his dorm room before dinner. He saw it lying open, and there were three strange-looking brown balls lying inside which smelled foul. He picked up all three balls and pitched them into the fire.

BANG!

Bernhard flew back from the force as heaps of a terrible brown substance came rushing out of the fireplace. Several of the kids still in their rooms came out to see the commotion, and some of the little second-year boys started to laugh at him. Bernhard sighed and gathered up his soiled satchel, returning to his dorm room for a much-needed cleansing.

"I am sorry for that interruption, my dear," Salazar said, returning to his office.

"If you needed bubotubor puss," Helga began, "why didn't you just ask me about it?"

Salazar almost smiled as he leaned up against his desk next to his wife, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Sometimes my students drive me mad. That was William Beck, one of the more talented students in his class. The only reason he does not excel in every subject is that he does not wish to. If only there were some way to get through to him…"

"Oh, don't worry too much about it, Salazar. He'll come around eventually." She leaned against his shoulder, her hand tracing a line in his back.

He took one hand and placed it on her chin, tipping her head back as he gently kissed her. She leaned back against the desk further and his hands slipped under her legs to help boost her into a sitting position as he leaned over her more. He wrapped his arms around her waist again and held her closer, saying, "During the Yuletide holidays, come back to London with me."

She looked into his face, into his deep brown eyes. His black hair was lank and falling into his eyes, and she combed her fingers through it as she asked him, "Why?"

"Because... because you're my wife and it's only proper."

"Oh, is that it? I thought it would be nice to stay here over the Solstice. You know, watch over my classes and all that. It will be a week of freedom, and I don't want that to go to the children's heads," she replied, humored.

Salazar sighed. "Please. I just want to be with you where we don't have to hide."

Helga smiled. "Of course I'll go with you! But right now I just need to go have a lie-down. After my bout with the Slytherin and Gryffindor first-years over a fussy batch of weedleweeds, I don't think I'll ever wake up."

Salazar kissed her lightly on the forehead and opened the door for her. Outside, he heard a paint pop, but he ignored it and returned to his work.