InsaneJournal

FIC: The Bringer of Hope (Salazar/Helga, PG)
Title: The Bringer of Hope
Author: zephre
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,141
Characters: Salazar Slytherin/Helga Hufflepuff (Silas/Helge)
Warnings: none, really. See Notes.
Summary: In the aftermath of the Norman Conquest, Salazar discovers a survivor he never expected to see again.
Notes: I have made some linguistic changes and assumptions about names based on research into the situation of England and its neighbors during the end of the 10th century and through the Conquest. I have assumed that "Parselmouth" and "Muggle" have not yet entered the language. Also, since the concept of a "university" doesn't enter Europe for another few hundred years, I have posited a very different origin story for Hogwarts. The Fairy Tale of the Sorting Hat is to this story as the Arthurian tales are to Post-Roman Britain.
Yes, this is the same Founders' Era world in which I am setting my Snupin story. ;) It makes sense in my head.
Concrit Desired? Sure.


East Anglia, May 1068

When Salazar saw Helge for the first time in over a decade he almost didn't recognize her. He would have walked right by the wretched hovel if not for the witch-sign carved into the broken lintel. He could not ignore a magical family in such need, although neither could he save them all. Rowena's castle would not hold all the magical exiles in Britain, but Salazar wanted to make its existence known nonetheless. It was the only way.

"Goodwife, is all well here?" he asked, stooping to peer inside.

Then she looked up.    

Salazar sucked in his breath in shock, and her eyes widened until they seemed more white than green iris, pupils huge in the dark interior. She was so thin, so gray, her vital energy sapped. The children, too, looked much the worse for wear, a girl and two boys staring at him from behind a torn tapestry suspended from the single ceiling beam. If Salazar knew Helge she had been feeding them and fasting herself for weeks.

"Silas," she hissed, drawing the silibants out until she sounded like a Serpenlangue herself.

"Wurmfire, Helge," he cursed, putting his hand on the doorframe for support. "I thought you were dead."

"And I knew you were too twined up with the Bastard of Normandy to die," she replied. Her hand moved just slightly, and her wand fell ready into her palm from her patched sleeve. "Why come you here?" Even after decades in Lincolnshire her accent still occasionally betrayed her Welsh birth.

"I go where I please now," Salazar replied. "And am Silas no more. His Majesty has given me his warrant."

"To find the enemies who escaped him?" Helge asked bitterly.

"To find my people and bring them to peace," Salazar corrected, ever so gently. "He cares nothing for wizards, but I would see us join together, protect each other. Learn from one another." He reached out to her. "As we once learned together."

The smallest child, a boy no more than ten winters old, pushed back the tapestry and stepped in front of Helge, blocking Salazar's hand. "Don't touch her!" the boy cried. He held a little knife in one hand, and a poor excuse for a homemade wand in the other. Salazar dropped his arm and stared at the child.

Helge's second husband, Oswald fil Edric, had been ruddy and blonde as his Jutish parents, as Helge was fair from her Danish mother. This boy was pale with dark hair and eyes, broad cheeks and a sharp nose. He looked so like Salazar that there could be no denying his paternity.

"Helge -" Salazar whispered. This child had not yet been born when he left her. He had not known.

"It is too late now, Silas," Helge said, laying her hand on the boy's shoulder. "Oswald died on the field at Hastings. Edric has followed Hereward into exile. Even Gwyon goes to harry the Normans at Shrewsbury. There can be no alliance between us now."

"What difference a king or a duke when we are wizards? Your sons stand above them by their very nature," Salazar insisted. "We must break from these amughoi* before they destroy us. Please, Helge, listen to me. Let me help you, and our children."

The tapestry twitched, and from behind it a slender hand appeared, and tugged at the boy's sleeve. "Edgar, come away," a voice whispered.

The boy stood his ground, shaking off that hand. "No. I don't care. He mustn't hurt Mater."

Helge's hand tightened on the boy's shoulder. "Go, Edgar," she said. "Lord Salazar the Slytherine will not hurt me. He cannot hurt me."

Helge was the most powerful witch Salazar had ever met. It was true that he had very little chance of defeating her if it came down to a duel. But he saw the lie in her eyes even as she spoke it. Merlin, he could hurt her indeed.

The boy glared at Salazar, but obeyed his mother. The other two children, visible for a moment as they bundled the youngest away, kept their eyes down.

"Helge, listen to me. There is a place in Alba where we could begin again. Begin as witches and wizards. The High King has made it so, by writ, given it to his widowed kinswoman Rowena. Mael Coluim will hold against William. And if he does not, Rowena's wards can be made stronger." Salazar leaned forward, close enough to see the rising hope in Helge's eyes. "Come with me."

"To Alba?" she asked, with wonder.

"Alba," Salazar confirmed. "It is the future, Helge. We can remake our wyrds, find a new way to be what we are. Away from the stonings and the burnings and the scourge of the Church. Away from the amughoi wars."

"And my sons?" The two who were not Salazar's, sons of her two dead husbands, grown men, lords in their own right, these she meant.

"Any wizard who comes to Alba seeking sanctuary shall find it," Salazar promised. It had been his agreement with Rowena.

Helge's fingers tightened around her wand. She pointed it at the tapestry and it flew away from the ceiling beam, rolling itself neatly away into a corner. The children sat on another tapestry, worn and so dirty its subject could not be easily discerned. The girl was untangling Edgar's hair with a fine bone comb, while the other boy used a piece of cut charcoal to draw alchemical symbols on a scraped hide. Salazar was pleased to see that Helge had not neglected their education even in their much-reduced circumstances.

"Aeffrin and Osric you will remember," Helge told Salazar as she stood up. "And Edgar has presented himself." She took up a small leather pouch that clinked with coins from the only table in the room. "My children, this is your father."

Just like that, she said it. Salazar looked at the three young people with the expectation of scorn. Instead he saw that they were not surprised. They had known, probably for their entire young lives, that they were his children. He had very little to say to them. His family lands were forfeit to a Norman lord, and his allegiance to the Bastard brought him only favors, never titles. He was of little use to them as a father, after all.

But as a wizard, he may have something he could offer.

"We will make them strong, Helge," he promised. "Stronger than any of us gone before. No one will threaten them in Alba."

Helge tucked her wand back into her sleeve. That gesture of trust gave Salazar hope that perhaps all was not lost between them. He held out his hand.

"Come with me," he said again.  Come, but come with me, Salazar who was once Silas, whom you once loved.

She put her hand in his. "I will."

-end-

*amughoi, "those without magic," Latin transliteration of a Greek word, from the Indo-Iranian magu. This eventually comes into English as "Muggle"