Liquid

Chapter 2 - Changes

The lifeless body of Godric Gryffindor lay in Salazar Slytherin's hands, his blank eyes staring unseeingly at the sky. Slytherin never wanted to show how high he held Gryffindor's opinions, but while holding his dead body in his arms he could barely control himself.

A mob from the village began to assemble around them; Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw ran to see what the screaming was all about. When they came through the mob and saw the body of Godric Gryffindor, they were severely shocked. Rowena Ravenclaw fell to her knees and Helga Hufflepuff mouthed mutely for a few seconds. Nobody spoke for a few minutes; some were in shock of what they had just seen, and some were quiet in respect for the dead Godric Gryffindor.

"Salazar --" Helga was the first to speak, but she could barely finish her words for the tears coming down her face and the sobs clogging up her throat.

"He wanted me. He wanted to kill me, and Godric stood in his way." Salazar lowered his eyes.

"Who did this?" Helga asked softly.

"I don't know," whispered Salazar in a broken voice.

"Where did he go?" Helga asked.

"I don't know!" Salazar paused and sighed. "He vanished. He turned to dust when he hit Godric." Someone tried to gently pry Salazar's hands off Godric's lifeless body, but he didn't want to let go. Helga began to clear the gathering crowd.

"Give me a few minutes with him, please, Helga, then I will prepare him myself for the ceremony." Salazar looked in to her crying eyes and she nodded her consent.

"Oh Godric, you fool, how could you do this? You know I wouldn't do the same for you." Salazar sighed and looked at the body of his old adversary and friend. "I will not forget this, Godric, you know it." He rearranged his grip on the dead body and stood up. He walked slowly across the village, holding Godric's body in his arms. His steps were heavy and were heard over the low mumbling voices.

"Can you believe it?" Salazar could hear a witch talking to her friend.

"It had to be a powerful wizard if he killed Gryffindor," another wizard was saying.

It seemed to Salazar as though crossing the village took hours, and that he held in his hand the weight of the world.

The building of Hogwarts was delayed for an unlimited period until the three remaining founders figured some things out.

"I'm sorry, Salazar, it just cannot be." Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin held a meeting in the subject of what would become of the house of Gryffindor.

"Yes it can, Helga; Godric had a great idea about the sorting after we pass on. We can still implant it." Salazar was the only one standing of the three; he walked around Helga's cabin nervously. "We all know how Godric would have chosen his students; we can charm the hat to know as well! Sure, it will be less effective, but I believe we can make it work."

Helga sighed.

"Salazar, I know how much you want this to come true, but it isn't possible. I'm sorry." she stood up and faced him, putting her right hand on his shoulder.

"Rowena, what do you think?" Salazar asked his third colleague.

She took a few minutes to think about it while Helga and Salazar looked at her, each waiting for backup from her side.

"I think--" she paused. "I think it is a good idea. We should at least try it; if there is no Gryffindor House, I believe we should cancel the idea of Houses all together."

Salazar smiled.

"Listen to her, Helga; we should at least try to do it. It will take time but it can work, and if you are not satisfied, I will give up." Salazar looked at both of them and Helga nodded slowly.

It took them almost a week to tweak the hat into knowing what Gryffindor would have wanted from his students, and when they were done, they began with their own images. In the end, they managed to cerate a hat charmed with the personalities of the four founders. Now it was only a matter of putting it to the test. They decided they would sort the children of the village, at first by themselves, then by the sorting hat. The scores where extraordinary accurate; only one of the fifty kids in the village was sorted into Gryffindor while Rowena believed he was more of Ravenclaw material. Salazar declared it a success, Rowena followed and Helga had no choice but to accept it.

"Why do you think he wanted to do this so much?" Rowena asked her neighbor, Helga Hufflepuff, the morning after the declaration of the hat as a success. The two were on their way to meet with Salazar.

"Don't you think it is obvious? Godric gave his life for him; he sees it as a burden he will carry with himself forever." Helga paused. "Who knows, maybe he would even agree to admit Muggle born children in to Hogwarts now." Helga smiled, knowing that the greatest fight was still to come. She didn't really believe that Salazar would approve of it, especially now that Godric was not here to talk him into it.

After a short walk in silence, they got to the cabin.

"I have decided to agree with you in the subject of admitting Muggle born wizards into Hogwarts. I'm not doing this for you," Salazar emphasized as he saw the surprised looks of the women. "I know this is what he would have wanted, but do not think for a second I will go easy on them." Salazar did see Godric's death as a burden, even if he didn't show it. He only regretted it wasn't the other way around. After all, in his death, Godric won. It was not an easy decision for Salazar to make, but he knew that he couldn't let Godric's dream die with him.

Over the years Salazar softened his positions on many things; although he had said he would not go easy on the Gryffindors, he always had a hard time punishing them. He tried to avoid many conflicts with Helga or Rowena, even if it meant giving up; sometimes fights were unavoidable but there were not that many major disagreements between the three. He taught at Hogwarts until the end of his days. In his last years few events kept hunting his memory, all involving a student called Augustine Fadacos, a distant relative of Godric Gryffindor, who studied in his own house.

Salazar always said he saw something of Godric in his face, although Helga told him he was seeing what he wanted to see. Salazar put high standards for the young man; looking back at them, they were too high, and the boy kept on failing them. Augustine never knew of his faint blood connection to Godric Gryffindor, and despised Salazar for being so hard on him - much harder than he was even with the worst Gryffindor. Looking back, Salazar regretted his treatment of the boy. He could not forget one special time;

"Welcome," he began his speech to the students that gathered outside of Hogwarts in the morning of March first; the seventh year students were faced with a very unique activity as a part of their Dueling class. "Each and every one of you will get this medallion," he said. He held up a gold medallion with the Hogwarts symbol. "The winner of this activity will be the one to get all the medallions; you will fight each other for these prizes. Not here, though; you will be in the forest." He pointed to the forest and some students looked troubled. "When you win a battle, you also win all the medallions in your rival's hands. When you lose, you must return here. There is no time limit; this competition can go for days, so I hope you are ready." He grinned. The teachers handed out all the medallions and the students began pouring into the forest. Salazar hoped that Augustine Fadacos would be the winner, but he knew it would be a hard task for him.

Salazar stood outside the forest, waiting; sometimes he heard or saw the effects of magic. By the first hour, three students had returned. By nightfall, about twenty more had returned and heavy rain had begun to fall. Twenty more students had returned by midnight. Salazar began to think his trust in the boy wasn't so overconfident after all; he was already in the top fifteen. It was almost sunrise when only two students were left in the forest, and one of these two was Augustine. Salazar was still standing where he had been standing since he sent them out into the Forest. Finally, just minutes later, the two remaining students came out of the forest, soaked, tired and beaten. To Salazar's horror, it wasn't Augustine who held the medallions. Augustine collapsed on the grass, powerless, and looked up at Salazar. He saw only contempt in his eyes.

After that day the two hadn't spoken for a month, until Salazar caught Augustine filling his chamber with cow dung as a prank. Salazar expelled him at once; nothing Helga and Rowena said could change his mind. He didn't want to let him graduate and dishonor the name of Gryffindor. Almost a hundred years after that, Salazar realized his mistake with the boy, but it was too late for both of them.

No one said it to his face, but Salazar Slytherin was not welcomed in circles who believed in blood purity; although he was once one of the greatest to believe in this, most thought he had left their ways. His turning from one side to the other had only stiffened the minds of those who believed in blood purity since they accused the impure for his turning. Salazar Slytherin died alone; he passed on just a few days before the end of his one hundredth year as a teacher at Hogwarts. He had no friends but his colleagues, he had no family but Hogwarts, yet he only regretted one thing in his past, and believed he had fulfilled his life.

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"You wanted to see us?" Helga asked as she and Salazar Slytherin came in through the open door of Rowena Ravenclaw's office.

"Yes, please sit down. Drinks?" She smiled and waved her wand, which made three glasses fly to the table from the cupboard. Helga declined the offer, but Salazar took a cup.

"Helga, Salazar, I hereby submit my resignation from my position as teacher in Hogwarts to be effective at the end of this school year." Helga gasped and Salazar put his cup down.

"But, Rowena, why?" Helga asked.

"I no longer see any point in staying here; I have been teaching for too long. I will finish this year and after that, I wish to leave." Salazar sighed.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked.

"It is only logical," she replied coldly.

"Don't you think this a move you might regret later?" Helga asked, almost crying.

"Helga, I have been thinking about leaving for almost a decade now. This is what I want to do; I just can't stay here anymore." She stood up and Helga gave her a hug.

"Then know that you will always have a place in Hogwarts if you wish to return." Salazar didn't stand up, nor did he even think about giving her a hug, but he still saw it as a sad event, an end of an era.

That day, Rowena Ravenclaw didn't tell her colleges the full real reason for why she was leaving. She was always in love with Godric Gryffindor, but he was too much of a visionary to notice her. She joined the creation of Hogwarts thinking that after she had helped him build his vision, he would finally tell her his true feelings for her. Godric's death was never in her plans. His death left her empty; she regretted not telling him about her feelings before. She didn't want to see Godric's vision die with him, so she remained with Helga and Salazar in order to make Hogwarts real, and they did it. At first, she found great satisfaction in teaching, molding the minds of young wizards and witches. She was proud of every achievement her students accomplished. But it didn't take long before it was pointless for her and she thought of leaving, knowing that if she stayed, it would only be to make a dead man happy. It took her a long time but she came to the conclusion that she had done all that she could do to help Godric's vision come to live, and now it was out of her hands.

After Rowena left Hogwarts she began traveling through Anglo-Saxon England, visiting mostly Muggle places. She then moved on to traveling the world. Helga and Salazar never heard from her again, although they heard of her. Her time and place of death were unknown but it is believed that she died when she found herself in a battlefield of the Crusader-Turkish war.

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Helga Hufflepuff woke up in the morning that marked one year to Godric Gryffindor's death to find that so much had changed since then. The school was complete and ready to begin the school year in a few months. Teachers had been hired, including a head for the House of Gryffindor. Her colleagues Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin had given up the idea of co-Headmasters and agreed that she alone would be the first head mistress of the school. Most of the issues were resolved to apply to everyone's wish as far as possible. But she also remembered what changed it all. She remembered how Salazar clutched Godric's body hard, harder than he would want people to think. She could still see the look in Salazar's eyes; complete shock mixed with a bone-deep grief. The words that Salazar spoke of in his eulogy still lingered in her ears.

Although those were the first days of the spring, rain came down hard on the mourners. Salazar walked in the head of a long line of people walking to the shores of Loch Ness. Godric's body was lying in a boat that hovered in front of Salazar. Helga caught a glimpse of Salazar's face during the walk, and could never remember him looking so empty before. All the people that were walking behind Salazar were family, friends and people with no real connection who just wanted to share their respects to a great wizard. When they finally came ashore, Salazar dropped the boat genteelly in to the waters, and a few wizards joined him in the head of the line.

"Godric Gryffindor!" Salazar paused. "He should not be mourned here tonight, for he is one of the lucky few whose action's in life immortalized them in their deaths. Godric used to say the he saw a better world, a world of peace, and that this world is right in our grasp if we only strive to make it true. And that vision, his vision, will remain in the minds of generations to come. Hundreds of years for now they will remember him, for his vision will shape this world. This is why we should not mourn, but we should leave here knowing that a better world starts here." Salazar signaled to the men beside him and they all drew their wands and raised them in the air, then at the boat, where Godric's body lay.

"Incendio!" they all cried and Godric's body went up in flames. Salazar released the boat in to the water and it floated away.

Salazar's reaction to Godric's death was always a conundrum in Helga's eyes; at first, she thought that with Gryffindor out of the way, there would be no stopping Salazar Slytherin from taking over Hogwarts and planning it according to his vision, but it seemed that Salazar was changed by the sacrifice; he became less radical. Helga knew it was bad to think so but she could avoid thinking that maybe Godric's death was for the best; though he could barely restrain Salazar in life, he was doing it in his death.

Helga never denied that she too was touched by Godric's vision and death, and she taught and Hogwarts accordingly.

To the wizarding world, Hogwarts was one of a kind; a school where both pure-blood and half-blood wizards acquired an education that contained more than just mere fighting skills. Although it seemed like a perfectly peaceful place, there was a lot hidden under the surface, and Helga, as the Headmistress of Hogwarts, failed to recognize the problem. The relationships between the Slytherin House and the rest of the Houses were a bit tense, although Salazar Slytherin himself tried to bring unity amongst the students. The rivalries irrupted not long after founders were no longer teaching at the school. The students of the House of Slytherin, saw Slytherin himself as a sentimental fool; they had no respect for him or his name. They even had a secret nickname for their house, which they used very little and only in important events amongst themselves, one which they thought should be their house name, Tinfuil, called after the third head of house of Slytherin, Arturas Tinfuil. Tinfuil was one of the worst heads of house Slytherin ever had. He was extreme in his opinions and his actions. Non-Slytherin students suffered in his classes and if he caught them doing something he could think was wrong, they found themselves in the dungeons, hung from the ceiling by their ankles. He was forced to retire after the other teachers had enough power to stand against him, but the damage that he had made to the school was irreversible; the rivalry between the houses rose to new levels and the students of the House of Slytherin became the living incarnation of all that Gryffindor was against. In the late seventeenth century, the first tyrant came out of Slytherin House; Fabian Dolcha, who was the Minister of Magic for almost three years. He passed many decrees that eased the use of dangerous magic, canceled decrees that enabled the Ministry to act against those who hurt Muggles and completely disregarded all assaults against half-blooded wizards. He was about to dismantle the Ministry and take control of the land by force, but he passed away under suspicious circumstances and he was replaced by someone who tried to fix all his wrong doing. The society was as divided as Hogwarts was, and the ground was all set for the two greatest evils the wizarding world would ever know; Grindelwald and Voldemort.