Chapter Eighteen: From Good to Worst I
Albus Dumbledore had always prided himself to be able to anticipate future situations and make back up plans for anything and everything. Hence, today, as he sat in his office at midnight reminiscing about the last two days, he could not believe how everything had gone from good to worse, and furthermore, how he had not anticipated such an event and prepare for it.
He remembered getting a letter from Amelia Bones to arrange a meeting with the Founders and also remembered the sword fighting between Salazar and Godric. If things had not been interesting enough, the events that took place from that point onwards were fascinating.
He remembered how Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Godric Gryffindor (the three supposedly light founders) had jumped to protect Salazar Slytherin and had revealed that it was Salazar who was a King and had introduced laws to educate girls and established the Ministry of Magic. This revelation had raised multiple questions. For one, If Salazar was the last king of Wizarding Britain, wouldn't that fact warrant more of a mention? Wouldn't his family, his siblings, his children, cousins, aunts, uncles ... anyone and everyone who could prove a blood relation to the man want to try and establish themselves as the monarch if he stepped down?
He gave up power, that was all well and good, but that doesn't mean that people are not going to let that go! If he has given so many liberties, then surely he would be seen in a more positive light!
Dumbledore was unhappy. A very large chunk of history was missing! How did no one know that Salazar had founded the Ministry of Magic or that he had made so many laws?
So when the four founders were seated in his office, he had politely asked them for an explanation; he once again reviewed Lord Gryffindor's reply in his Pensieve.
"Headmaster, I understand that you have many questions for us after our little revelation and I can assure you that we will be glad to answer them all in detail. However, that story, as I am sure you can guess, is a long tale. It will take a lot of time and will be hard for us to retell, as I am sure you can understand. Hence I would prefer it if we can have that conversation after our meeting with the Minister tomorrow. I think that at this moment, that meeting is higher up on our agenda. Wouldn't you agree?"
'Long' and 'hard to tell' … those words used by Lord Gryffindor, reverberated in Dumbledore's mind. Whilst he had some idea that history had not portrayed Salazar Slytherin accurately, he had never, in his wildest dreams, foreseen this.
Continuing with his reviewing of the situations the headmaster remembered telling the founders all the information he had on the war, the role of Ministry and the Minister of Magic herself.
He had begun by explaining the Ministry's very much active role in the on-going war. He had explained that whilst the ministry was fighting against Voldemort, they had no way to predict the place of the next attack or identify any of the followers. The Dark Lord had his own spies inside the ministry but the ministry has so far been unable to return the favour. He also explained that the Order of the Phoenix was a Ministry recognised group to aid the Ministry Aurors in defending against Death Eaters.
Dumbledore had gone further to explain the character of the current Minister of Magic. He gave them a brief overview of her predecessor, Cornelius Fudge, a minister who had lasted all of one month after a vote of no confidence was passed by the Wizengamot once his incompetence and corrupt nature came to light. Then he told them of Amelia Bones' indomitable will, her passion for justice and no-nonsense attitude.
The founders had not said a word during this explanation but had looked pleased about something that he could not put his finger on. However he let it slide figuring that it might be something related to the universe they came from.
After that they had called it a night, heading off to bed a little early. The next day, Dumbledore had received a note from the Founders informing him of their desire of discussing the upcoming meeting with the minister and their plans. They also mentioned that they would not be coming out of their chambers till about 3pm, when they would meet him in his office.
The headmaster had spent the time trying to assimilate all the information he had gathered from these individuals about the founders. He had no doubt in his mind that they were the founders as no one except the four founders themselves would know about the secret chambers of all four of them. But the relationship between them and their claims had really put everything that he had known about them into perspective.
Amelia had flooed into the Headmaster's office directly, and had found all four founders present there along with the Headmaster himself. It was clear that the Minister was disbelieving about the presence of the Founders and had wanted to see them for herself. Nonetheless she had greeted all four of them with reverence and asked about their situation. Hearing that they were researching a way to get back to their timeline, the minister had offered to help them in any way she could. She then welcomed them to this timeline and with respect asked if they had heard about the current political climate from the headmaster.
Hearing that they were fully informed, she stated that should an all-out war break out, the Ministry did not have enough resources to win. Amelia ended with a plea for help from the four luminaries of the magical world.
Lord Gryffindor (who seemed to be the spokesperson for the group today) had assured her that if there was a war when they were in this timeline, then the Ministry could count on their support. He had thanked her for understanding their situation and assured her that the founders had always fought for the welfare and security of the innocent magical people and would continue to do so. However, they had emphasised that they did not want to get involved in politics or be in exposed to any more attention than what they were getting. Amelia was not very happy about it but had understood their situation and had agreed to only ask for their assistance in a battle situation and other than that keep them out of any unnecessary media attention. She had also promised to control the media reports on them.
And so by the end of the two hour meeting, Amelia was visibly more relaxed. She was clearly heartened to have gained the support of four of the greatest witches and wizards of British wizarding history. Even the notorious Salazar Slytherin had agreed to help.
As Dumbledore thought about this, he realised that Amelia would have been worried that if Salazar Slytherin would join hands with Voldemort then together they would be practically unstoppable. But now, with Salazar siding with the Ministry, Voldemort will lose some of his followers. The reason behind this was that the main propaganda of Voldemort was around the point that he was following the footsteps of the noble Salazar Slytherin.
The meeting was an important one and it seemed to be a starting of an acquaintance between the Founders and the Ministry. It could be seen that the Founders had put a lot of thought behind this meeting, and had presented a united front.
However, so far the day had gone just as expected. After the departure of the Minister, the five remaining occupants of the office had remained silent to assimilate their thoughts and go over the details of what had just happened.
After a few moments of silence, Dumbledore remembered gently prodding the Founders to explain their previous statements in the gallery. He also had reminded them that they had promised to explain after the meeting with the Minister.
Dumbledore put the memory in his Pensieve to review the entire conversation.
"Yes, we did promise that, didn't we?" Lord Gryffindor started "Well I seem to remember you were having multiple questions and most of them were about how Salazar was a King and according to you how come no one in history knows about it.
Having said this Lord Gryffindor had looked at Salazar as if asking for his permission.
"I understand that you have to explain this and I am fine with it as long as I do not have to be the one to say it." Salazar replied crisply.
"Of course not, Salazar, the three of us know your story enough to give the Headmaster an overview of it all." Lady Helga had immediately rushed to his side
And so the story of Lord Slytherin was told by his friends.
Lord Gryffindor started the explanation.
"Before going into any details, Headmaster, you must understand that during that time magic was very different, it was kept within the family; and passed down from father to son. For example some families excelled in Healing magic and were often famous as Apothecaries or Healers. Each family had their own speciality. For example, my father's family excelled in sword and wand crafting, and my mother was from a family that excelled in warding. However, this knowledge was known as a family secret, hence it was not taught to the girls as they will marry into another family and then that family will learn the secret. Girls were only allowed to learn some common kitchen and cleaning charms and that too was so that they can control their magic and it does not explode."
"Salazar was made crown prince at a very young age of two. His father knew that he would not have any more children and that is why he wanted Salazar to be efficient in every area of magic that was available to the Wizarding kind. Due to his status of being a king, many noble men and heads of houses relented to teach Salazar their art or at least give him some basic training. By the time Salazar was five years old, he had started training. However, his father was not satisfied with this and felt that something was missing. At that time, all of his ministers were confused as young Salazar was already in intermediate level of Swordsmanship, sword crafting, battle magic, battle tactics potions and many more subjects. And these were the kinds of things that some of the grownups had problems with. Then the King was visited by his long time Welsh friend - Myriddin Emrys. Myriddin had travelled far and wide for many years. He had served as a warrior for the then British Wizarding King – King Arthur. But after a few years he had not wanted to fight any more and had travelled to different lands and gained the magical knowledge from diminishing family lines. He had wanted to return and teach this knowledge to someone, but King Arthur had passed away and his successor was not very interested in learning from Myriddin. Hence Myriddin had travelled to Scotland."
King Althalos gave him the responsibility of teaching his young son, Salazar. Myriddin was very impressed with Salazar's level of knowledge and liked his ability to learn new things. Hence he agreed to teach him everything he knew. For a few years, Myriddin taught Salazar all his skills and also did some of his own research to create new rituals that will help Wizarding kind. Once he knew that Salazar was capable enough at the age of 7, he welcomed Salazar to help him with his research."
Lord Gryffindor had paused for a moment to see if the Headmaster had any questions for him, however he could see that Albus was very intrigued and had no questions so far. So he continued with his tale.
"Sometime during their research, Myriddin shared his wish to open a school that will enable Wizarding children to live together and mingle with each other. He said that this would create a bond so strong that it will last a lifetime and that will bond our society together. He also felt that it would be safer for everyone if they knew someone to rely on if the situation worsened.
"Salazar liked the idea but felt that not everyone will be able to learn complex rituals and other things. As they require a wizard to have a certain magical level. So they decided to find ways which can help even a person who has very small magical core. After much deliberation Salazar suggested something that would revolutionise the way magic was described.
"Salazar analysed different rituals and broke them down by steps, by doing this he realised that any particular ritual, had at least three different aspects to it. First was a potion was required to brewed, second something needed to be charmed, and third thing they sometimes used to transfigure some instruments in another to speed up the process. So he proposed that they can teach these aspects separately, and whilst not everyone is good at all of it, they can have their strengths and weaknesses."
Lady Ravenclaw continued from where Gryffindor had left off.
"This suggestion led to the creation of intent based spells. The king was very happy with this advancement in magic but was against the idea of teaching it to others." She said, visibly upset that someone could even think of restricting such knowledge.
Gryffindor grasped his wife's hand comfortingly. "During this time," he said. "I was sent to Salazar's palace by my father to learn battle tactics. My father was a lord and a distant cousin to Salazar's father. However both of them were close friends and thus King Althalos agreed to take me in and get tutored by his best warriors. However, this was also a good opportunity for Myriddin and Salazar and they introduced me to the intent based spells and different branches of magic. My father had tried to teach me rituals but I never had patience with potions and thus was never good at that. But I loved learning the other branches and especially weapon crafting and creating blades embedded with magic."
Lord Gryffindor had a faraway look in his eyes, as if reliving a past time, and to be honest he might well be. Then after pausing for a few moments he continued, his tone a million miles away, reliving those early days of his life.
"After two years or so, one day I received the news that my father and his army was defeated and killed and our lands taken. However, my mother, sister and Rowena here had escaped and were now taking refuge with the Royal Family. Salazar as Crown Prince welcomed them. My mother died within a few days and Salazar befriended my sister and Rowena. He saw that Rowena was interested in books and learning new things excited her. He also saw that whilst Helga loved to take care of the house and cook, she wanted to expand her knowledge. We once saw the two of them looking at us learning new spells with longing in their eyes."
Slytherin put a hand on Gryffindor's shoulder, snapping the other man out of his thoughts.
"I never gave another thought to it as I had grown up seeing my sister being treated differently than me and never questioned that, accepting this to be the way society worked." Gryffindor continued as speaking. "However, Salazar here had only grown up with maids looking after him and thus did not meet a Lady of status before. So after meeting Rowena and Helga, felt that women should also be given a chance to learn should they wish to do so. He had seen the longing in their eyes and had silently decided to do something about it."
At this Lord Gryffindor had looked down and given a dry chuckle almost as if blaming himself for not thinking about it in the first hand. The other founders also seemed to think so and thus all three of them had kept their hands on his arms. Godric had seemed to come out of his thoughts at this and gave a brief smile at his friends before continuing the story.
"So Salazar talked to, Myriddin and his father about teaching the girls. But he was rebuffed. However, Salazar being as stubborn and cunning as he is, had decided to teach them regardless, and thus he started to teach them secretly. He taught them to read, and write and would take them to the library with him. He organised everything so well that no one would come to know about it."
Godric had again chuckled here as if remembering all the times that his friends and sister would sneak around.
"Sal had also built many secret passageways just to get us around without anyone finding us out. He built the entire secret area in the castle that we had visited yesterday, with a sole purpose to let us practice the spells and other things that he taught us." Lady Hufflepuff proudly explained
At this all three of Salazar's friends shared a brief laugh before Godric continued
"When Salazar was thirteen years old, his father and Myriddin both went on a battle to defend their kingdom, but never came back. While the battle was still won, the king had died from injuries he had sustained. Hence Salazar became the king. This was the time when he could implement what he wanted to do, and shape the Wizarding World as he envisioned it. No one was there to stop him, and so he made some real hard decisions."
Godric paused, lost in his thoughts so Lady Ravenclaw continued
"He created a Ministry of Magic and made the chief counsellor of his father, Loran Diggory, the first Minister of Magic. Together they created many departments and their heads. It took them a little under a year as Salazar and Loran had already discussed this before this. They also roughly knew who would be heading what department and what each department would do."
"Many people were not happy with the new changes, and they were even less impressed with some of the new legislations – for example, the bill making it mandatory for the parents to educate all children including girls, another was the statue of secrecy, then another big one was the protection of muggle born kids. These are only few to begin with."
There was yet another pause at this point and Lord Gryffindor seemed to have come out of his thoughts and continued from where Lady Ravenclaw had left off. His voice held a hidden tone of pride and anger in them
"However, Salazar was able to go through all the criticism alone. He did not want me to get involved as he wanted me to train younger generation. So while Salazar was busy with this, the three of us were busy with preparing the school structure, different subjects, their syllabus etc..."
"By the time Salazar was fifteen, he was trying to find a suitable place to start the school. Unable to find any other secure place, he made his own castle in to the school, as it was the safest place in the kingdom, only setting aside a suite of rooms for his official duties.
"He also couldn't build a new castle as that would take a long time and it might not be secure enough. The architects who had built this castle were long dead and thus any modifications we made would be only known to us. But if we built something brand new it would mean that more people will know the general layout and that was not advisable. There were several other reasons why we decided against building a new castle.
"His detractors were trying their best to undermine him. However Salazar's ideas proved to be far too popular with the masses for these men to effectively do anything. Thus we felt it safe to ignore them altogether. But unknown to us, a fraction of people had started scheming against Salazar. During the course of the next few years there were multiple assassination attempts on Salazar." By the end of this, Godric's voice was shaking in fury and Dumbledore could see that even the two ladies seem to hold back their anger. After a moment Lady Hufflepuff started speaking.
"After these attacks, when they realised that they could not directly harm Salazar, these conspirators became silent. They planned in secret and started spreading rumours. Most people didn't believe them and worshipped Salazar. Then few of Salazar's students became dark lords and people started to become wary of what he was teaching. But they still trusted him to save them from Muggles."
Lady Hufflepuff's voice too held anger and possessiveness and by then end of it her voice was proud and happy. She paused almost involuntary as if remembering how proud she was of Salazar.
"During this time, Godric was entrusted with the task to go and fight in wars as that was his field of expertise. Salazar told us that he saw something in his potion with the power of seer and needed to do some research. In the coming few years he started to dedicate his time inside his lab more and took less students; leaving Godric to almost take up all the responsibilities of the King."
Lady Hufflepuff trailed off as if not sure how to continue. Then Salazar started speaking, surprising everyone.
"I had seen a great big Muggle army attacking Hogwarts when I was not present." He said in a detached voice. "It seemed to be coming soon and thus I had decided to protect the castle as much as possible and develop methods that would help the other founders in the absence of the lord of land. I was also developing different curses and potions to use in battle and cures of diseases that might spread if this war was to ever start.
"I knew these three would never hear anything about this from me, but I had seen the parents of current muggle born students in that army. These three wanted those parents to visit Hogwarts when they want, but I was always opposing this. They never let me explain it when I tried to say that they might attack us. This led everyone in the Wizarding world think that I was against the Muggleborn as the arguments between me and Godric had gained attention of many other professors but as Godric had never let me explain my point, neither Godric nor anyone else ever knew about the truth."
The other three founders bowed their heads, ashamed of their actions. Salazar held Rowena's hand and placed his other hand on Godric's shoulders while shaking his head at Helga, silently telling them that he did not blame them.
Collecting herself, Rowena spoke. "All everyone in the Wizarding world knew was that Salazar was working on developing something that was not known to anyone before. But no one was sure exactly what it was. All they saw was Godric handling all of the Salazar's work whilst Salazar being absent. So gradually people started believing that Salazar had only changed as Godric made him change. They looked at Godric to be their saviour; and Salazar as a dark wizard who was against the Muggleborns. The constant arguments between the two did not help matters."
Lady Ravenclaw trailed off as if the matter was too hard for her to continue, so Lady Hufflepuff continued
"Salazar never explained the reason but he was getting wary and wanted the Muggleborn children to be taken away as soon as it was found that they were magical and be brought up with magical parents or at Hogwarts. But as Godric, Rowena and I were orphaned and had to grow up somewhere different, we did not want any child to go through that. So we had rejected the idea and we didn't listen to Salazar. After their arguments, it was a norm for Salazar to go away into his chambers and lock himself there for days. Then one day, there was an argument again and Salazar had stormed out as usual. We expected him to come out after a few days, but a few days later we got news that Salazar had burned down a muggle village that was residence to the parents of a muggle born child at Hogwarts and then disappeared."
Lady Hufflepuff trailed off in tears. So Lord Gryffindor started again
"This incident had confirmed people's doubts and they labelled Salazar a dark wizard and hailed me as their hero by driving Salazar away from the school. Luckily I was able to continue teaching girls at school and kept the Ministry running. Then after a few years when there was no news form Salazar's side, the ministry with the endorsement of some influential people decided to ban all forms of ritualistic magic and only follow Hogwarts curriculum. A board of governors was formed for the school and Salazar was declared an enemy of the state and a dangerous man out to kill all Muggleborns. We watched all that and could do nothing to save Salazar's reputation as we didn't know why he did that. In that meeting I was appointed to be in Salazar's position and was crowned a King. However I never was a blood heir and Salazar only had a daughter, thus technically the monarchy had ended with Salazar but his name would not go down in history as the last King but I can imagine that no one wanted to acknowledge that Salazar was a king and had thus destroyed all traces of records that indicated that and instead painted him to be someone who sought power that rightly belonged to me."
Lord Gryffindor gave a sigh as he finished his tale but Lady Ravenclaw continued on the hidden story of Salazar.
"It wasn't until recently that we found out that after their fight Salazar had gone away from the castle to a forest to cool down, but as he was passing by a village he saw the family of a Muggleborn student being burned alive. He did not have his wand as he didn't want to do something bad in his temper and thus had to divert the fire to save that family. By the time he realised that his action had killed everyone in the village except that family, it was too late. But unfortunately that family was one of the traitors that he had seen in the vision and had attacked an unarmed Salazar and wounded him fatally. Salazar had to kill them before they gave the news of his death to the other parents and thus used his power to manipulate fire to burn that family alive; before taking his last breath."
All three of them had tears in their eyes and were looking down. There was complete silence where all of the occupants of the room were trying to gather their thoughts. But before any of them could say anything they heard a voice
"And how is it that a seventeen year old and very much alive Salazar Slytherin and his friends, know how he died and about the infamous split between the founders?"
The four founders and Headmaster had immediately turned around to see four people appearing in the office, as the invisibility charms they had placed on themselves was deactivated.
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