"Strata" for rena_rules
Title: Strata
Gift for: rena_rules
Author: shadowclub
Pairing: Vague Helga/Salazar
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Genres: Gen
Author's Notes: I ended up fusing your prompts somewhat! I hope you enjoy anyway! This ended up being more and less serious than I had intended at the same time. The title is sort of based off the idea what we build a foundation layer by layer.
Summary: The derivation of a character-or even associations with those characters-is equal to the summation of events. Essentially how each of the founders came to have a bit of their character. Non-chronological (somewhat).
*
Helga Hufflepuff: The Badger
“And are you a woman or a witch?” the Magistrate asked her.
Rowena laughed. “I think the better question is: are you a man?”
The man flushed a dull red. Rivets of sweat were running down his neck now.
The door banged open and Salazar strode in, naked wand in hand. The secretary who had been taking notes in the corner promptly fainted from shock. Sometimes Rowena had to wonder if some lines of Muggles didn’t have complete incompetency bred into them.
“Alright now. That’s quite enough. It’s time for her to go.” Salazar was gripping her arm in a most ungentlemanlike manner.
“I was quite in control of the situation until you walked in,” Rowena muttered under her breath.
The magistrate was gawking at the piece of wood in Salazar’s hand.
“You’re one of them! You will burn for this!”
Salazar’s normally handsome face twisted into a smirk. “And if I do, it won’t be because of your actions.”
“I will tell everyone! The king will seize your property! Not even your devil stick can remake all the money and family property!”
Salazar let go of her arm and walked toward the magistrate.
“Under what charges did you bring in this girl without her guardian?”
“Suspicion of witchcraft and adultery,” the Magistrate responded.
“I suggest dropping these charges.”
“I will not.”
“She had done nothing wrong.”
“She is consorting with the devil!”
“I agree and as soon as you allow me to take her back away from you, she won’t be anywhere near the devil!”
“She lives with you?”
“No, she lives at my castle. She is an invited guest.”
“I see…” The Magistrate looked positively delighted at this news.
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying that I am Helga Hufflepuff’s guardian and I have allowed her extraordinary leniency in who she chooses to consort with.”
“Out with it!” Salazar said his voice deadly quiet.
“Marry her.”
“What?”
“Marry Helga and I’ll let this whore go. It’s not your get is it?”
The Magistrate was practically drooling with glee at the thought of having access to the Slytherin accounts. Idiot. As though Salazar’s family would ever let him marry a Muggleborn, even one as gifted as Helga. Not to mention that Helga simply did not want to marry Salazar.
“No. She is unsuitable for marriage.”
“I’ll tell everyone about this one here!” The magistrate jumped forward and smoothed down the front of Rowena’s dress revealing a distinctive bump. He then pulled out a small knife and held it to Rowena’s throat. She was hopelessly entangled in her cloak… where was her wand?
If Salazar was shocked he didn’t show it.
“So, you will agree to protect Rowena and keep my family name out of the gossip, if I marry Helga.”
Salazar was quiet. Godric would be roaring. Where was Godric? He wouldn’t have let Salazar travel alone if they knew that she had been arrested by the magistrate.
“Yes.”
“I will do it then, let her go.”
“No! I want some assurances!”
“I give you my word as a Slytherin.”
“Surely you can see the delicacy in the situation. I don’t trust you or the rest of your family. Say it before God and with your magic! Swear on your magic that you will marry her!”
Salazar raised his wand. The Magistrate flinched and threw Rowena toward him. Unbalanced she fell forward onto her hands and knees.
A stream of light shot out of the wand and wrapped itself around the Magistrate and Salazar.
“I, Salazar Slytherin, vow to marry Helga Hufflepuff and in return you will protect my family and my friends from town’s eye.”
The Magistrates eyes were bugged out and he nodded. His shirt was so soaked with sweat that he could ring it out after.
The stream of light pulsed and then disappeared.
“Satisfactory?” Salazar asked.
The Magistrate nodded.
There was a large thud and squeak. Rowena whirled around only to find a badger
“He was badgering me,” Salazar said calmly. “And this way he can keep his promise.”
Rowena whirled back around. “I had things under control. I was just about to put a jinx when you walked in.”
Salazar handed her wand to her. “Would be a bit challenging without your wand, no?”
Rowena grabbed the wand out of his hand. “Why did you not just kill him?”
“You know your wand won’t do that spell for me… and in the excitement I believe that my wand fell out of my pocket on my ride here.”
“It would have been much more convenient if there was just a spell to freeze people and not kill them,” Rowena said as she critically examined the badger. The fur was perfect, but he still had bugged out round eyes.
“If there is anyone I trust to come up with that spell it is you, Rowena,” Salazar said.
“Not even the great Salazar Slytherin can make my wand yield,” Rowena said. She hesitated and held her hand above her stomach. “About the-.”
“Come now, I have a proposal to make and an engagement gift to give.” Salazar bent down and picked up the badger. “I think Helga will want to keep him in her care.”
*
Godric Gryffindor: Courage
At the age of five, Godric Gryffindor climbed a cherry tree. He managed to get to the top before the branch he was standing on fell taking him with it. He broke his arm. It was decided that he was in dire need of a better nanny.
At the age of six a girl named Rowena Ravenclaw moved with her mother to a new manor in order to watch the small boy there.
“Who is your daddy?” he asked her one day as they sat pulling out grass on the grounds of the manor. She didn’t really like the boy too much. He was probing and laughed too loud.
And he hardly spoke any Latin.
She shrugged. “A man named Blotts. I think he died in the war. My mum seems sad about it sometimes.”
“What war?”
“The one now! Against the Muggles!”
“That’s not a war… that’s like when you pee in the corner of the kitchen and cook chases you out!”
She shied away from him. “I’m supposed to be helping with the laundry. I have to go now!” She took off at a sprint. He had no idea girls could move that fast.
“Wait! I’ll come help you!” Godric said running after her, but she was already a dot in the distance.
The laundry area was steamy. Godric immediately felt as though it was midsummer though it was near fall.
“Rovena-I mean Rowena!”
He found her putting soap into one of the large cauldrons.
“Here! Let me help!” He grabbed one of the bars and threw it in, the water immediately turned a deep red.
“Uh-oh”
“Rowena!” A voice called out. Rowena bolted leaving Godric standing near the now red sheet cauldron.
“Mr. Gryffindor? What are you going here? You should be in the library practicing your writing! Why is the-these were all the white linens! Did you do this?”
“Yes,” Godric said after a short pause. He could see Rowena peeking out from behind one of the hanging sheets. Girls were unusual. All he wanted to do was play with her.
He had a red bum for the next week. He had red sheets the rest of the time he lived at home (mostly out of practicality). Luckily, he had Rowena’s company for much longer.
*
Rowena Ravenclaw: “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest gift.”
Rowena stopped talking from age fifteen to eighteen. In retrospect, the goal was admirable but the path was petty… adolescent even. She realized she could learn more if she simply didn’t let any of it out. Somehow every time she would open her mouth, she felt as though some knowledge flew out. And somehow… it made sense. She had perfected soundless magic (although she still had to touch her wand) and she wrote. She wrote and wrote. Somehow the concrete pages that contained her ideas felt more safe than the open air.
Her not talking did infuriate Godric though. She had to admit it was funny sometimes.
And then she met Salazar.
Salazar smiled at her and her stomach dropped a little bit. He was fair- haired and -skinned. He literally seemed to glow in the candlelit room. He had a face that would probably cause girls to regularly swoon in his presence.
Not to even mention his inheritance.
“Hello, my lady, Sir Gryffindor has agreed to lend me the book Curses and Courts. If you could just pull that from the shelf from me I can be on my way.”
She shook her head. Sir Gryffindor lent that book out to no one.
“It’s not every day I encounter a female bookkeeper. You are female, right?” Slytherin had asked leaning over to get a better look at her face. The nerve! She was wearing a dress.
She nodded. “Well, I hate to keep you from your scribing, so if you could pull that book…”
She pulled out her wand and drew out:
NO.
As an afterthought she added:
SIR
They hung in the air for a minute before disappearing.
“Are those snakes carved into the handles of your chair?” he asked with that damn perfect smile of his.
She nodded slowly.
He flicked his wand and they wiggled themselves into life. He then opened his mouth and hissed sympathetically? Could one hiss sympathetically? The snakes curled around her wrists and became wood again effectively pinning her to the chair.
Salazar walked past her and began search on the shelves.
“I am most sorry about this, but it is really quite convenient that you are mute and dumb. I am building a school and I need to know about laying foundation magic. No one did that better than the old courts.”
He walked back over and glanced at the parchment she had been writing on. “Which book is this in? I didn’t realize that there was a way to cut bodies like this! It would be so convenient for armies! We could bury the bodies easier! Although there is the problem that-.”
“Will you be quiet and release me! It’s not supposed to be cutting people! It’s for cutting vegetables!” She burst out.
Salazar stopped.
“Why would you want a spell to cut vegetables?”
“To save time!”
“Could you use it to cut….say a buffalo?”
“Not this version. The organic matter is too high. Now if you change the pronunciation of the-let me go and I’ll tell you how!”
She forced the snakes to come back life, but they merely glared at her with emerald eyes.
“Tell the snakes to release me! Godric will be here any second and if he sees-.”
“Salazar?” Godric said stepping into the library.
“I think we found our bookkeeper for Hogwarts.”
“What?” Godric asked.
“He speaks to snakes!” Rowena called out.
“But she’s a girl!” Godric said.
Sometimes it really was too much for words. There was a reason was in charge of the biggest collection of books in 200 miles.
“I think girls still have brains, Godric. She’ll at least make it easier to recruit. She looks like a strict nanny. Is grey your favorite color or are you trying to blend in with the ink blots on your face and hands?”
Rowena silently put a jelly-leg jinx on him.
*
Salazar Slytherin: The Locket
“You look lovely.”
“Mmm,” Helga said over her stack of papers.
“Helga, your justice could freeze ale. I am entitled to treat my children how I see fit. There are creatures in the world that do not sit sedately in a cage. We must be prepared,” he hissed out after a moment.
“What is your intelligence without heart? You teach these children to be the best and that they must conquer to be worth anything. What of team work? You did not build this school on your own!”
“So, that’s it?”
“You are an island, Salazar. And I hope for your sake that you continue to let Godric, Rowena and I live on it.”
Salazar left the room not trusting himself to speak.
*~*
And his lips trailed over her. She watched the clouds as they passed by and then his hand was slipping lower and lower and lower and it was all too-hard. She wanted him back. No she wanted him to leave…
“Helga!” Helga jumped and attempted to shield her parchment while turning. In the end she tumbled off of the chair taking the parchment with her.
Godric laughed. “At your books again, Helga? You’re getting as bad as Rowena. Why don’t you come enjoy the sunlight? It might be another 300 days before you see it again.”
“I thought you and Salazar were going hunting,” Helga replied trying to gather all of the books and parchments.
Godric shrugged. “Salazar ran into one of his slithery friends,” he shivered at this part. “There’s been a problem in the forest and Salazar didn’t need my sword to solve it based on what he told me.”
Helga nodded unsure of how much Salazar had told him.
“He means well,” Godric said after a minute of silence.
“I never expected to hear that from you considering your argument last month.”
“I wouldn’t lie!” Godric was turning red. A sure sign he would start yelling soon.
“I’m not saying that you would… I don’t think he loves me anymore.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You didn’t say it wasn’t true.”
“He values you. He would not have allowed himself to be married to you if he didn’t.”
Helga glanced out the window. Two students ran across the courtyard holding hands.
“He does not tell you who he loves, does he?” Helga asked.
Godric shook his head. “He never tells me things such as that.”
“He does not tell me either.”
*~*
Salazar came back to their quarters late that night.
She took off her locket and pressed it into Salazar’s hand.
“I am your compass. I trust you not to lose sight of me, but I cannot remain here.”
Gift for: rena_rules
Author: shadowclub
Pairing: Vague Helga/Salazar
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Genres: Gen
Author's Notes: I ended up fusing your prompts somewhat! I hope you enjoy anyway! This ended up being more and less serious than I had intended at the same time. The title is sort of based off the idea what we build a foundation layer by layer.
Summary: The derivation of a character-or even associations with those characters-is equal to the summation of events. Essentially how each of the founders came to have a bit of their character. Non-chronological (somewhat).
*
Helga Hufflepuff: The Badger
“And are you a woman or a witch?” the Magistrate asked her.
Rowena laughed. “I think the better question is: are you a man?”
The man flushed a dull red. Rivets of sweat were running down his neck now.
The door banged open and Salazar strode in, naked wand in hand. The secretary who had been taking notes in the corner promptly fainted from shock. Sometimes Rowena had to wonder if some lines of Muggles didn’t have complete incompetency bred into them.
“Alright now. That’s quite enough. It’s time for her to go.” Salazar was gripping her arm in a most ungentlemanlike manner.
“I was quite in control of the situation until you walked in,” Rowena muttered under her breath.
The magistrate was gawking at the piece of wood in Salazar’s hand.
“You’re one of them! You will burn for this!”
Salazar’s normally handsome face twisted into a smirk. “And if I do, it won’t be because of your actions.”
“I will tell everyone! The king will seize your property! Not even your devil stick can remake all the money and family property!”
Salazar let go of her arm and walked toward the magistrate.
“Under what charges did you bring in this girl without her guardian?”
“Suspicion of witchcraft and adultery,” the Magistrate responded.
“I suggest dropping these charges.”
“I will not.”
“She had done nothing wrong.”
“She is consorting with the devil!”
“I agree and as soon as you allow me to take her back away from you, she won’t be anywhere near the devil!”
“She lives with you?”
“No, she lives at my castle. She is an invited guest.”
“I see…” The Magistrate looked positively delighted at this news.
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying that I am Helga Hufflepuff’s guardian and I have allowed her extraordinary leniency in who she chooses to consort with.”
“Out with it!” Salazar said his voice deadly quiet.
“Marry her.”
“What?”
“Marry Helga and I’ll let this whore go. It’s not your get is it?”
The Magistrate was practically drooling with glee at the thought of having access to the Slytherin accounts. Idiot. As though Salazar’s family would ever let him marry a Muggleborn, even one as gifted as Helga. Not to mention that Helga simply did not want to marry Salazar.
“No. She is unsuitable for marriage.”
“I’ll tell everyone about this one here!” The magistrate jumped forward and smoothed down the front of Rowena’s dress revealing a distinctive bump. He then pulled out a small knife and held it to Rowena’s throat. She was hopelessly entangled in her cloak… where was her wand?
If Salazar was shocked he didn’t show it.
“So, you will agree to protect Rowena and keep my family name out of the gossip, if I marry Helga.”
Salazar was quiet. Godric would be roaring. Where was Godric? He wouldn’t have let Salazar travel alone if they knew that she had been arrested by the magistrate.
“Yes.”
“I will do it then, let her go.”
“No! I want some assurances!”
“I give you my word as a Slytherin.”
“Surely you can see the delicacy in the situation. I don’t trust you or the rest of your family. Say it before God and with your magic! Swear on your magic that you will marry her!”
Salazar raised his wand. The Magistrate flinched and threw Rowena toward him. Unbalanced she fell forward onto her hands and knees.
A stream of light shot out of the wand and wrapped itself around the Magistrate and Salazar.
“I, Salazar Slytherin, vow to marry Helga Hufflepuff and in return you will protect my family and my friends from town’s eye.”
The Magistrates eyes were bugged out and he nodded. His shirt was so soaked with sweat that he could ring it out after.
The stream of light pulsed and then disappeared.
“Satisfactory?” Salazar asked.
The Magistrate nodded.
There was a large thud and squeak. Rowena whirled around only to find a badger
“He was badgering me,” Salazar said calmly. “And this way he can keep his promise.”
Rowena whirled back around. “I had things under control. I was just about to put a jinx when you walked in.”
Salazar handed her wand to her. “Would be a bit challenging without your wand, no?”
Rowena grabbed the wand out of his hand. “Why did you not just kill him?”
“You know your wand won’t do that spell for me… and in the excitement I believe that my wand fell out of my pocket on my ride here.”
“It would have been much more convenient if there was just a spell to freeze people and not kill them,” Rowena said as she critically examined the badger. The fur was perfect, but he still had bugged out round eyes.
“If there is anyone I trust to come up with that spell it is you, Rowena,” Salazar said.
“Not even the great Salazar Slytherin can make my wand yield,” Rowena said. She hesitated and held her hand above her stomach. “About the-.”
“Come now, I have a proposal to make and an engagement gift to give.” Salazar bent down and picked up the badger. “I think Helga will want to keep him in her care.”
*
Godric Gryffindor: Courage
At the age of five, Godric Gryffindor climbed a cherry tree. He managed to get to the top before the branch he was standing on fell taking him with it. He broke his arm. It was decided that he was in dire need of a better nanny.
At the age of six a girl named Rowena Ravenclaw moved with her mother to a new manor in order to watch the small boy there.
“Who is your daddy?” he asked her one day as they sat pulling out grass on the grounds of the manor. She didn’t really like the boy too much. He was probing and laughed too loud.
And he hardly spoke any Latin.
She shrugged. “A man named Blotts. I think he died in the war. My mum seems sad about it sometimes.”
“What war?”
“The one now! Against the Muggles!”
“That’s not a war… that’s like when you pee in the corner of the kitchen and cook chases you out!”
She shied away from him. “I’m supposed to be helping with the laundry. I have to go now!” She took off at a sprint. He had no idea girls could move that fast.
“Wait! I’ll come help you!” Godric said running after her, but she was already a dot in the distance.
The laundry area was steamy. Godric immediately felt as though it was midsummer though it was near fall.
“Rovena-I mean Rowena!”
He found her putting soap into one of the large cauldrons.
“Here! Let me help!” He grabbed one of the bars and threw it in, the water immediately turned a deep red.
“Uh-oh”
“Rowena!” A voice called out. Rowena bolted leaving Godric standing near the now red sheet cauldron.
“Mr. Gryffindor? What are you going here? You should be in the library practicing your writing! Why is the-these were all the white linens! Did you do this?”
“Yes,” Godric said after a short pause. He could see Rowena peeking out from behind one of the hanging sheets. Girls were unusual. All he wanted to do was play with her.
He had a red bum for the next week. He had red sheets the rest of the time he lived at home (mostly out of practicality). Luckily, he had Rowena’s company for much longer.
*
Rowena Ravenclaw: “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest gift.”
Rowena stopped talking from age fifteen to eighteen. In retrospect, the goal was admirable but the path was petty… adolescent even. She realized she could learn more if she simply didn’t let any of it out. Somehow every time she would open her mouth, she felt as though some knowledge flew out. And somehow… it made sense. She had perfected soundless magic (although she still had to touch her wand) and she wrote. She wrote and wrote. Somehow the concrete pages that contained her ideas felt more safe than the open air.
Her not talking did infuriate Godric though. She had to admit it was funny sometimes.
And then she met Salazar.
Salazar smiled at her and her stomach dropped a little bit. He was fair- haired and -skinned. He literally seemed to glow in the candlelit room. He had a face that would probably cause girls to regularly swoon in his presence.
Not to even mention his inheritance.
“Hello, my lady, Sir Gryffindor has agreed to lend me the book Curses and Courts. If you could just pull that from the shelf from me I can be on my way.”
She shook her head. Sir Gryffindor lent that book out to no one.
“It’s not every day I encounter a female bookkeeper. You are female, right?” Slytherin had asked leaning over to get a better look at her face. The nerve! She was wearing a dress.
She nodded. “Well, I hate to keep you from your scribing, so if you could pull that book…”
She pulled out her wand and drew out:
NO.
As an afterthought she added:
SIR
They hung in the air for a minute before disappearing.
“Are those snakes carved into the handles of your chair?” he asked with that damn perfect smile of his.
She nodded slowly.
He flicked his wand and they wiggled themselves into life. He then opened his mouth and hissed sympathetically? Could one hiss sympathetically? The snakes curled around her wrists and became wood again effectively pinning her to the chair.
Salazar walked past her and began search on the shelves.
“I am most sorry about this, but it is really quite convenient that you are mute and dumb. I am building a school and I need to know about laying foundation magic. No one did that better than the old courts.”
He walked back over and glanced at the parchment she had been writing on. “Which book is this in? I didn’t realize that there was a way to cut bodies like this! It would be so convenient for armies! We could bury the bodies easier! Although there is the problem that-.”
“Will you be quiet and release me! It’s not supposed to be cutting people! It’s for cutting vegetables!” She burst out.
Salazar stopped.
“Why would you want a spell to cut vegetables?”
“To save time!”
“Could you use it to cut….say a buffalo?”
“Not this version. The organic matter is too high. Now if you change the pronunciation of the-let me go and I’ll tell you how!”
She forced the snakes to come back life, but they merely glared at her with emerald eyes.
“Tell the snakes to release me! Godric will be here any second and if he sees-.”
“Salazar?” Godric said stepping into the library.
“I think we found our bookkeeper for Hogwarts.”
“What?” Godric asked.
“He speaks to snakes!” Rowena called out.
“But she’s a girl!” Godric said.
Sometimes it really was too much for words. There was a reason was in charge of the biggest collection of books in 200 miles.
“I think girls still have brains, Godric. She’ll at least make it easier to recruit. She looks like a strict nanny. Is grey your favorite color or are you trying to blend in with the ink blots on your face and hands?”
Rowena silently put a jelly-leg jinx on him.
*
Salazar Slytherin: The Locket
“You look lovely.”
“Mmm,” Helga said over her stack of papers.
“Helga, your justice could freeze ale. I am entitled to treat my children how I see fit. There are creatures in the world that do not sit sedately in a cage. We must be prepared,” he hissed out after a moment.
“What is your intelligence without heart? You teach these children to be the best and that they must conquer to be worth anything. What of team work? You did not build this school on your own!”
“So, that’s it?”
“You are an island, Salazar. And I hope for your sake that you continue to let Godric, Rowena and I live on it.”
Salazar left the room not trusting himself to speak.
*~*
And his lips trailed over her. She watched the clouds as they passed by and then his hand was slipping lower and lower and lower and it was all too-hard. She wanted him back. No she wanted him to leave…
“Helga!” Helga jumped and attempted to shield her parchment while turning. In the end she tumbled off of the chair taking the parchment with her.
Godric laughed. “At your books again, Helga? You’re getting as bad as Rowena. Why don’t you come enjoy the sunlight? It might be another 300 days before you see it again.”
“I thought you and Salazar were going hunting,” Helga replied trying to gather all of the books and parchments.
Godric shrugged. “Salazar ran into one of his slithery friends,” he shivered at this part. “There’s been a problem in the forest and Salazar didn’t need my sword to solve it based on what he told me.”
Helga nodded unsure of how much Salazar had told him.
“He means well,” Godric said after a minute of silence.
“I never expected to hear that from you considering your argument last month.”
“I wouldn’t lie!” Godric was turning red. A sure sign he would start yelling soon.
“I’m not saying that you would… I don’t think he loves me anymore.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You didn’t say it wasn’t true.”
“He values you. He would not have allowed himself to be married to you if he didn’t.”
Helga glanced out the window. Two students ran across the courtyard holding hands.
“He does not tell you who he loves, does he?” Helga asked.
Godric shook his head. “He never tells me things such as that.”
“He does not tell me either.”
*~*
Salazar came back to their quarters late that night.
She took off her locket and pressed it into Salazar’s hand.
“I am your compass. I trust you not to lose sight of me, but I cannot remain here.”