FIC: Hogwarts: All Sales Final - 30/34
Start of the story, including summary, full ratings, warnings, pairings etc. Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
Chapter 30
The rest of the summer passed slowly for Rowena as she found herself watching the gates for her daughter’s return, just as she had for Salazar’s. All too soon though the end of the holidays were approaching once more.
“Come on Rowena, Jocelyn’s going to be wondering where we’ve got to,” Helga called back along the path to where Rowena was standing motionless in the early evening light.
“What’s the matter?” Lilith asked as she too turned back to see what was keeping their colleague.
“I thought I…” Rowena’s voice trailed off as she looked towards the overgrown bushes lining the path to the Hogwarts gates.
“Thought you what?” Helga asked.
“That you’d stand and catch flies for a while?” Lilith joked.
“It’s nothing,” Rowena replied with a shake of her head. “Come on, or the party will start without us.”
“Considering how long you took to get ready, it probably already has,” pointed out Helga with a laugh. Thankfully Jocelyn was well aware of how tardy Rowena could be and would understand if they were a few minutes late to her and Augustus’s anniversary party.
Rowena glanced back towards the bushes as they continued down the path. She knew it was impossible and that it was probably her imagination playing tricks on her, it wouldn’t be the first time, but for a moment she’d thought she’d felt the familiar sensation of someone’s mind brushing her own.
She tried to push the feeling aside but it lingered with her for the rest of the evening. It wasn’t as unsettling as others might have thought it to be. It was familiar, comfortable even, like a favourite cloak or muff that had been stored away for the summer.
Helga, picking up on her mood, looked at her questioningly several times throughout the evening. Rowena simply shook her head and smiled. She knew that she was being silly, and she knew that even if she tried to explain, Helga wouldn’t understand. She hadn’t really understood when Rowena had told her about Legilimency all those years ago, and when Salazar had tried to demonstrate the practice for her she’d recoiled immediately from the intrusion of another’s mind in her own. She had never understood how Rowena had welcomed the closeness so willingly.
Rowena’s thoughts were still drifting back to pleasanter times when they returned from the party. As they approached the Hogwarts gates she looked around once more, but the grounds and the path were deserted again, and this time she couldn’t feel a presence at all.
She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, suddenly chilled despite the warmth of the summer night.
“Are you all right?” Helga asked with concern as her friend quickened her pace.
“Just a little cold,” Rowena replied. “I’ll turn in for the evening, it’s been a bit of a strange night.”
They entered the castle that in a little over a week’s time would be filled once more with students. Lilith departed for her own chambers and Rowena made her way towards the stairs that would take her to her familiar quarters at the base of Ravenclaw tower. She wasn’t surprised to see that Helga was following after her, instead of taking the stairs to her own basement rooms.
“What did you see out there tonight?” Helga asked in a whisper. “Was there someone there?”
“I didn’t see anyone,” Rowena confirmed truthfully.
“Are you sure?”
“Not unless they were invisible,” Rowena amended. “It was just my imagination playing tricks on me.”
“So, you did think there was someone there?” Helga pressed on. “Did you hear them?”
“No,” Rowena admitted cautiously. “I just thought I felt someone.”
“You mean someone brushed against you, in an invisibility cloak or something?”
“Not exactly. I thought I felt someone…in my head.”
“You mean like Legilimency?”
“Yes, exactly like that. I thought I felt someone, but it could have been someone far away if they were powerful enough.”
“That’s creepy,” Helga muttered.
“It’s all right,” Rowena shook her head. “It didn’t feel bad or anything, it felt…I don’t know…right.”
“Sometimes I don’t think you know how creepy you sound when you say things like that,” Helga replied with a small smile. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Rowena nodded as she approached the door to her rooms. “Goodnight,” she said as she opened the door and watched as Helga wished her pleasant dreams and descended down the stairs once more.
The room was in darkness once Rowena had closed the door behind her and she pulled out her wand to light the candles that hung from the chandelier. Suddenly the room was bathed in light and she let out a small involuntary scream at what she saw.
“I must admit, that wasn’t the reception I was expecting. Though at least you’re not throwing anything at me.”
Rowena’s breath caught in her throat as she looked at Salazar stretched out in the armchair before the empty fireplace; her cat was curled up on his lap, and he lazily stroked its back as it purred contentedly.
“Why were you sitting here in the dark?” Rowena asked, mentally cursing herself even as she spoke for asking such a positively ridiculous question at such a time.
“Only you could ask such a ridiculous question,” Salazar replied with the faintest trace of a smile.
“Are you reading my thoughts? That was you earlier when I went out through the gates, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that was me earlier. I saw you leaving from the window here. I’d just missed you. But no, I’m not reading your thoughts right now, they’re written on your face like they always were. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Liar,” Rowena replied as she sat down in the chair opposite him. She looked at him with blatant curiosity. It had been so many years since she’d last seen him she had sometimes wondered if she would even recognise him again were their paths to cross. She knew now that she shouldn’t have worried, he was older, a little thinner, and there was a sprinkling of grey in his hair. But for the most part he hadn’t changed at all. The years had been good to him, though she wondered whether he would honestly think the same about her.
There were so many questions she wanted to ask, so many things she wanted to know, but somehow, now the time had finally come, she seemed to have lost the nerve to ask any of them.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I left you?” Salazar finally asked. “Or why I’m back now?”
Rowena shook her head. She knew why he’d left, she’d known for years. Since she knew that, it was rather obvious why he was now back.
“You don’t care,” Salazar commented sadly, clearly having formed his own conclusions in response to her silence. “I can’t say I blame you. I just wanted to apologise and…”
“And what?” Rowena asked.
“I just wanted to see you again,” Salazar replied with a faint shrug that disturbed the cat who jumped from his knee at the movement. “Ah, deserting me too are you?” he commented as the cat ran for the door.
“She just likes to go out and prowl around the school at night,” Rowena said as she got up and opened the door to let the anxious kitty out.
“I should leave,” said Salazar, standing up and picking up his cloak as he spoke. He wouldn’t look her in the eye and Rowena felt a spark of her old fiery temper return at what Cordelia had done to them. “I shouldn’t have come back.”
“If you think for one moment I’m letting you out of my sight again, you’re very much mistaken,” Rowena declared as she stood with her arms folded across her chest, barring the door.
“I guess the temptation was just too much to keep me anyway,” Salazar said as though she hadn’t spoken. “But, could I see Helena before I leave? Just for a moment or two?”
“She’s not here,” Rowena replied. “She’s away.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask where or for how long.
“I’m sorry, for everything.”
“For crying out loud, just stop apologising!” Rowena snapped. “Do you think I don’t know what happened or something? Do you think I’d not realised what that little…what she’d done…as soon as I heard you’d married her?”
“How much do you know?” Salazar asked curiously as he sat back down.
“Let me see,” Rowena replied with undisguised venom. “Amongst other things she ensnared you with a nice little love potion and disappeared goodness knows where. Oh, and left me a nice little note saying she might send you back to me if she grew bored.”
“She did?” Salazar asked. “I mean about the note. She really did that?”
“She left it for me in Thebes when I nearly caught up with you both. I guess it’s too much to hope she’s sent you back to me?” Rowena asked with a wry smile.
“I’ve crept out whilst she’s visiting her mother for a couple of days,” Salazar replied. “She thinks I’m still under the influence of the potion, so won’t suspect I’m anywhere but where she told me to stay.”
“Like a well behaved puppy,” Rowena sneered. “So, how is it you’re not still under the influence?”
“We can both thank Nicholas for that,” Salazar said with a smile. “Cordelia-”
“Don’t say her name!” Rowena snapped. “Please.”
“Sorry. She was never much of a potions brewer and my beloved father was the one providing her with a steady supply of them all these years.”
“We heard he’d died,” Rowena commented. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m really not.”
“Me neither,” Salazar muttered. “Anyway, in all these years she’d never bothered to learn how to brew the thing herself, so when the supply was running low she asked Nicholas to make it for her. She didn’t tell him what it was, just gave him my father’s recipe and left him to it.”
“He recognised it?” Rowena interrupted with surprise. “He could make it without setting the place on fire?”
“He only suspected what it was at first, but when he saw her slip it into my drink he realised, and at the first opportunity he brewed up a quick antidote for me.”
“He what? And last year he was practically failing Potions,” Rowena mused.
“Well, I think you’ll find that’s because he really doesn’t like the subject,” Salazar laughed. “She’s had him brewing potion after potion in the basement lab for years. Before she started getting him to brew this one she already had him brewing her beauty potions and goodness knows what else. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to make them, he just dislikes them thoroughly and doesn’t bother to try.”
“That explains a bit,” Rowena replied.
“Well, back to the antidote. Nicholas had no idea how long I’d been under the influence and it came as quite a shock to him to find out. But luckily for us, unlike his older brother, he’s far more my son than his mother’s and has been conspiring with me to help us find a way out of this mess.”
“I’m thinking poison,” Rowena suggested with a vicious smile. “Something that’s very potent and even more painful.”
“Unfortunately it’s not just her we have to worry about. Her whole family has been in on this right from the start. If anything happens to her, or if I leave her for you, they’ll destroy both of us and anyone who gets in their way.”
“You mean Godric, Helga and the rest of the school?”
“They’ll burn it to the ground if they have to.”
“You can’t go back to her!”
“For the moment I have to,” Salazar replied. “There’s Nicholas to think about as well. I don’t know what she’d do to him if she found out he’d brought me back to my senses. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“So, go fetch him and bring him back here.”
“She’d demand him back, she’s his mother and he’s only thirteen years old. She’d know what he’s done and I don’t want to put him through the trauma of getting on her wrong side. Not if there’s a better way.”
“And you have a better way?” Rowena asked sceptically. There was no reason she could think of for why he couldn’t just stay with her now that he had finally returned.
“One that will take more courage than the bravest of Godric’s Gryffindors and will require you to trust me like you’ve never had to before. In a couple of months this will all be over, I promise.”
Rowena looked at Salazar in silence for several minutes. He was gazing back at her so intently she began to feel uncomfortable and began to pace nervously around the room.
Did she still trust him? Had anyone else asked her whether she trusted him she’d have always said yes without hesitation. But something about the way he had said it made his own doubts start creeping into her mind.
“You need time to think,” Salazar suggested as though that was exactly what he’d have expected.
“No, I don’t,” Rowena replied as she turned back to him. “If you say you have a plan, I believe you. If you say everything will be all right, I know that it will. If you say you need me to trust you, then I’ll trust you with my life. If you…”
“If I say shut up, come sit on my lap and kiss me, will you?” Salazar interrupted with a familiar smirk.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” replied Rowena even as she crossed the room to comply with his request.
“Minx!” Salazar teased as he pulled her towards him. “Have you put on weight?”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you should never tease a woman about her weight?” Rowena asked as she gave him a harsh poke in the ribs.
“I think you might have mentioned it that time I commented on you having four helpings of apple pie.”
“You know, I could change my mind,” Rowena teased. “I’ll have you know I get four or five marriage proposals every year.”
“You’re going to marry me,” Salazar assured her firmly.
“You’re already married,” Rowena pointed out. “Unless you take me up on the poison suggestion.”
“We’re not poisoning anyone.”
“Awww.”
“Since when did you become so bloodthirsty?”
“Since the day I saw you fawning all over the little slut in Thebes,” Rowena muttered. “It gave me nightmares for years.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Gah, would you just stop apologising?”
“Well, how about you tell me what I can do to make it up to you?” Salazar suggested instead.
“How long is it until you have to go?” Rowena asked with a frown.
“She won’t return until tomorrow night, but I’ll have to leave before morning light in case I’m seen. No one else can know I’m here. Not if my plan’s going to work.”
“Not even Godric and Helga?” Rowena asked in surprise. “They’d want to help.”
“No one, not even them. We don’t need their help, and if this is going to work they can’t know. The fewer people who know the better.”
“So, are you going to tell me this wonderful plan of yours?”
“Well, I could tell you all about it right now, but I can think of far more pleasurable ways of spending the rest of the night.” Salazar smirked.
“You’re trying to avoid telling me your plan, aren’t you?” Rowena asked with a suspicious frown. “I’m not going to like it am I?”
“You always could read me far too well,” Salazar sighed. “Do you remember our first Christmas here at Hogwarts?”
Rowena nodded as Salazar continued.
“We had that little cottage created by the Come and Go room all to ourselves and talked about how one day it would be real. Do you remember what you said?”
“Whatever it takes.” Rowena whispered her eyes watering slightly as she remembered.
“It’s going to take more than we ever thought,” Salazar replied as he held her closer. “Do you still want that cottage? Do you still want me?”
“Whatever it takes,” Rowena repeated. “Whatever it takes.”
Chapter 31
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
Chapter 30
The rest of the summer passed slowly for Rowena as she found herself watching the gates for her daughter’s return, just as she had for Salazar’s. All too soon though the end of the holidays were approaching once more.
“Come on Rowena, Jocelyn’s going to be wondering where we’ve got to,” Helga called back along the path to where Rowena was standing motionless in the early evening light.
“What’s the matter?” Lilith asked as she too turned back to see what was keeping their colleague.
“I thought I…” Rowena’s voice trailed off as she looked towards the overgrown bushes lining the path to the Hogwarts gates.
“Thought you what?” Helga asked.
“That you’d stand and catch flies for a while?” Lilith joked.
“It’s nothing,” Rowena replied with a shake of her head. “Come on, or the party will start without us.”
“Considering how long you took to get ready, it probably already has,” pointed out Helga with a laugh. Thankfully Jocelyn was well aware of how tardy Rowena could be and would understand if they were a few minutes late to her and Augustus’s anniversary party.
Rowena glanced back towards the bushes as they continued down the path. She knew it was impossible and that it was probably her imagination playing tricks on her, it wouldn’t be the first time, but for a moment she’d thought she’d felt the familiar sensation of someone’s mind brushing her own.
She tried to push the feeling aside but it lingered with her for the rest of the evening. It wasn’t as unsettling as others might have thought it to be. It was familiar, comfortable even, like a favourite cloak or muff that had been stored away for the summer.
Helga, picking up on her mood, looked at her questioningly several times throughout the evening. Rowena simply shook her head and smiled. She knew that she was being silly, and she knew that even if she tried to explain, Helga wouldn’t understand. She hadn’t really understood when Rowena had told her about Legilimency all those years ago, and when Salazar had tried to demonstrate the practice for her she’d recoiled immediately from the intrusion of another’s mind in her own. She had never understood how Rowena had welcomed the closeness so willingly.
Rowena’s thoughts were still drifting back to pleasanter times when they returned from the party. As they approached the Hogwarts gates she looked around once more, but the grounds and the path were deserted again, and this time she couldn’t feel a presence at all.
She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, suddenly chilled despite the warmth of the summer night.
“Are you all right?” Helga asked with concern as her friend quickened her pace.
“Just a little cold,” Rowena replied. “I’ll turn in for the evening, it’s been a bit of a strange night.”
They entered the castle that in a little over a week’s time would be filled once more with students. Lilith departed for her own chambers and Rowena made her way towards the stairs that would take her to her familiar quarters at the base of Ravenclaw tower. She wasn’t surprised to see that Helga was following after her, instead of taking the stairs to her own basement rooms.
“What did you see out there tonight?” Helga asked in a whisper. “Was there someone there?”
“I didn’t see anyone,” Rowena confirmed truthfully.
“Are you sure?”
“Not unless they were invisible,” Rowena amended. “It was just my imagination playing tricks on me.”
“So, you did think there was someone there?” Helga pressed on. “Did you hear them?”
“No,” Rowena admitted cautiously. “I just thought I felt someone.”
“You mean someone brushed against you, in an invisibility cloak or something?”
“Not exactly. I thought I felt someone…in my head.”
“You mean like Legilimency?”
“Yes, exactly like that. I thought I felt someone, but it could have been someone far away if they were powerful enough.”
“That’s creepy,” Helga muttered.
“It’s all right,” Rowena shook her head. “It didn’t feel bad or anything, it felt…I don’t know…right.”
“Sometimes I don’t think you know how creepy you sound when you say things like that,” Helga replied with a small smile. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Rowena nodded as she approached the door to her rooms. “Goodnight,” she said as she opened the door and watched as Helga wished her pleasant dreams and descended down the stairs once more.
The room was in darkness once Rowena had closed the door behind her and she pulled out her wand to light the candles that hung from the chandelier. Suddenly the room was bathed in light and she let out a small involuntary scream at what she saw.
“I must admit, that wasn’t the reception I was expecting. Though at least you’re not throwing anything at me.”
Rowena’s breath caught in her throat as she looked at Salazar stretched out in the armchair before the empty fireplace; her cat was curled up on his lap, and he lazily stroked its back as it purred contentedly.
“Why were you sitting here in the dark?” Rowena asked, mentally cursing herself even as she spoke for asking such a positively ridiculous question at such a time.
“Only you could ask such a ridiculous question,” Salazar replied with the faintest trace of a smile.
“Are you reading my thoughts? That was you earlier when I went out through the gates, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that was me earlier. I saw you leaving from the window here. I’d just missed you. But no, I’m not reading your thoughts right now, they’re written on your face like they always were. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Liar,” Rowena replied as she sat down in the chair opposite him. She looked at him with blatant curiosity. It had been so many years since she’d last seen him she had sometimes wondered if she would even recognise him again were their paths to cross. She knew now that she shouldn’t have worried, he was older, a little thinner, and there was a sprinkling of grey in his hair. But for the most part he hadn’t changed at all. The years had been good to him, though she wondered whether he would honestly think the same about her.
There were so many questions she wanted to ask, so many things she wanted to know, but somehow, now the time had finally come, she seemed to have lost the nerve to ask any of them.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I left you?” Salazar finally asked. “Or why I’m back now?”
Rowena shook her head. She knew why he’d left, she’d known for years. Since she knew that, it was rather obvious why he was now back.
“You don’t care,” Salazar commented sadly, clearly having formed his own conclusions in response to her silence. “I can’t say I blame you. I just wanted to apologise and…”
“And what?” Rowena asked.
“I just wanted to see you again,” Salazar replied with a faint shrug that disturbed the cat who jumped from his knee at the movement. “Ah, deserting me too are you?” he commented as the cat ran for the door.
“She just likes to go out and prowl around the school at night,” Rowena said as she got up and opened the door to let the anxious kitty out.
“I should leave,” said Salazar, standing up and picking up his cloak as he spoke. He wouldn’t look her in the eye and Rowena felt a spark of her old fiery temper return at what Cordelia had done to them. “I shouldn’t have come back.”
“If you think for one moment I’m letting you out of my sight again, you’re very much mistaken,” Rowena declared as she stood with her arms folded across her chest, barring the door.
“I guess the temptation was just too much to keep me anyway,” Salazar said as though she hadn’t spoken. “But, could I see Helena before I leave? Just for a moment or two?”
“She’s not here,” Rowena replied. “She’s away.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask where or for how long.
“I’m sorry, for everything.”
“For crying out loud, just stop apologising!” Rowena snapped. “Do you think I don’t know what happened or something? Do you think I’d not realised what that little…what she’d done…as soon as I heard you’d married her?”
“How much do you know?” Salazar asked curiously as he sat back down.
“Let me see,” Rowena replied with undisguised venom. “Amongst other things she ensnared you with a nice little love potion and disappeared goodness knows where. Oh, and left me a nice little note saying she might send you back to me if she grew bored.”
“She did?” Salazar asked. “I mean about the note. She really did that?”
“She left it for me in Thebes when I nearly caught up with you both. I guess it’s too much to hope she’s sent you back to me?” Rowena asked with a wry smile.
“I’ve crept out whilst she’s visiting her mother for a couple of days,” Salazar replied. “She thinks I’m still under the influence of the potion, so won’t suspect I’m anywhere but where she told me to stay.”
“Like a well behaved puppy,” Rowena sneered. “So, how is it you’re not still under the influence?”
“We can both thank Nicholas for that,” Salazar said with a smile. “Cordelia-”
“Don’t say her name!” Rowena snapped. “Please.”
“Sorry. She was never much of a potions brewer and my beloved father was the one providing her with a steady supply of them all these years.”
“We heard he’d died,” Rowena commented. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m really not.”
“Me neither,” Salazar muttered. “Anyway, in all these years she’d never bothered to learn how to brew the thing herself, so when the supply was running low she asked Nicholas to make it for her. She didn’t tell him what it was, just gave him my father’s recipe and left him to it.”
“He recognised it?” Rowena interrupted with surprise. “He could make it without setting the place on fire?”
“He only suspected what it was at first, but when he saw her slip it into my drink he realised, and at the first opportunity he brewed up a quick antidote for me.”
“He what? And last year he was practically failing Potions,” Rowena mused.
“Well, I think you’ll find that’s because he really doesn’t like the subject,” Salazar laughed. “She’s had him brewing potion after potion in the basement lab for years. Before she started getting him to brew this one she already had him brewing her beauty potions and goodness knows what else. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to make them, he just dislikes them thoroughly and doesn’t bother to try.”
“That explains a bit,” Rowena replied.
“Well, back to the antidote. Nicholas had no idea how long I’d been under the influence and it came as quite a shock to him to find out. But luckily for us, unlike his older brother, he’s far more my son than his mother’s and has been conspiring with me to help us find a way out of this mess.”
“I’m thinking poison,” Rowena suggested with a vicious smile. “Something that’s very potent and even more painful.”
“Unfortunately it’s not just her we have to worry about. Her whole family has been in on this right from the start. If anything happens to her, or if I leave her for you, they’ll destroy both of us and anyone who gets in their way.”
“You mean Godric, Helga and the rest of the school?”
“They’ll burn it to the ground if they have to.”
“You can’t go back to her!”
“For the moment I have to,” Salazar replied. “There’s Nicholas to think about as well. I don’t know what she’d do to him if she found out he’d brought me back to my senses. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“So, go fetch him and bring him back here.”
“She’d demand him back, she’s his mother and he’s only thirteen years old. She’d know what he’s done and I don’t want to put him through the trauma of getting on her wrong side. Not if there’s a better way.”
“And you have a better way?” Rowena asked sceptically. There was no reason she could think of for why he couldn’t just stay with her now that he had finally returned.
“One that will take more courage than the bravest of Godric’s Gryffindors and will require you to trust me like you’ve never had to before. In a couple of months this will all be over, I promise.”
Rowena looked at Salazar in silence for several minutes. He was gazing back at her so intently she began to feel uncomfortable and began to pace nervously around the room.
Did she still trust him? Had anyone else asked her whether she trusted him she’d have always said yes without hesitation. But something about the way he had said it made his own doubts start creeping into her mind.
“You need time to think,” Salazar suggested as though that was exactly what he’d have expected.
“No, I don’t,” Rowena replied as she turned back to him. “If you say you have a plan, I believe you. If you say everything will be all right, I know that it will. If you say you need me to trust you, then I’ll trust you with my life. If you…”
“If I say shut up, come sit on my lap and kiss me, will you?” Salazar interrupted with a familiar smirk.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” replied Rowena even as she crossed the room to comply with his request.
“Minx!” Salazar teased as he pulled her towards him. “Have you put on weight?”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you should never tease a woman about her weight?” Rowena asked as she gave him a harsh poke in the ribs.
“I think you might have mentioned it that time I commented on you having four helpings of apple pie.”
“You know, I could change my mind,” Rowena teased. “I’ll have you know I get four or five marriage proposals every year.”
“You’re going to marry me,” Salazar assured her firmly.
“You’re already married,” Rowena pointed out. “Unless you take me up on the poison suggestion.”
“We’re not poisoning anyone.”
“Awww.”
“Since when did you become so bloodthirsty?”
“Since the day I saw you fawning all over the little slut in Thebes,” Rowena muttered. “It gave me nightmares for years.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Gah, would you just stop apologising?”
“Well, how about you tell me what I can do to make it up to you?” Salazar suggested instead.
“How long is it until you have to go?” Rowena asked with a frown.
“She won’t return until tomorrow night, but I’ll have to leave before morning light in case I’m seen. No one else can know I’m here. Not if my plan’s going to work.”
“Not even Godric and Helga?” Rowena asked in surprise. “They’d want to help.”
“No one, not even them. We don’t need their help, and if this is going to work they can’t know. The fewer people who know the better.”
“So, are you going to tell me this wonderful plan of yours?”
“Well, I could tell you all about it right now, but I can think of far more pleasurable ways of spending the rest of the night.” Salazar smirked.
“You’re trying to avoid telling me your plan, aren’t you?” Rowena asked with a suspicious frown. “I’m not going to like it am I?”
“You always could read me far too well,” Salazar sighed. “Do you remember our first Christmas here at Hogwarts?”
Rowena nodded as Salazar continued.
“We had that little cottage created by the Come and Go room all to ourselves and talked about how one day it would be real. Do you remember what you said?”
“Whatever it takes.” Rowena whispered her eyes watering slightly as she remembered.
“It’s going to take more than we ever thought,” Salazar replied as he held her closer. “Do you still want that cottage? Do you still want me?”
“Whatever it takes,” Rowena repeated. “Whatever it takes.”
Chapter 31