A/N: This was a part of Granger Enchanted's Fic Exchange over the summer. They've just done the author reveal so it is now okay for me to cross post this piece. This was a gift fic for Meiri.

All thanks and long-distance e-hugs go to Auntie_L, beta extraordinaire. I can't tell you how awesome she is without sounding creepy and a little stalkerish. (But, seriously, she is SOOOO amazing.)

"Granger!"

The piercing bellow of the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures echoed down the hall. Hermione rolled her eyes in frustration. She glanced at the towering pile of paperwork on her desk and sighed. Another late night ahead of me. Brilliant. She snatched her robes off of the back of her chair and struggled into them as she hurried down the hall.

"You called, Mr. Nithercott?" Hermione poked her head into her superior's office cautiously. In the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures it didn't pay to stride into any room without checking it carefully first.

"The Auror Department is asking for a consultation," he snapped irritably. "I don't have time to go traipsing about the Fens this time of night. I want you to go find out what those idiots are nattering on about, and if it's a kneazle up a tree, I swear to Merlin Granger…"

"Yes sir." Hermione nodded in agreement. There were so many dangerous magical creatures out there that had to be sedated, caught, and then moved to sanctuaries with the greatest possible care because they could kill you ten different ways; to be called out for a missing crup or a kneazle was an insult to what their department truly did.

"Get your go-bag, Granger, and go find out what the hell they're up to now," Nithercott ordered.

"Yes sir."

/\/\/\/\

When Hermione arrived at the appointed spot she immediately knew that whatever was going on… it probably didn't involve a kneazle or a crup. The entire area was boiling with Aurors in their distinctive red robes, and milling among them were several people that Hermione recognized from a variety of departments. Hermione even spotted several Unspeakables, which usually was rather difficult to do given that their robes were so heavily enchanted that one's eyes slid right past them. Maybe a wild dragon? It did happen from time to time, and those cases always received top priority. She frowned and looked for a familiar face.

"Deputy Head Granger!"

"Minister Shacklebolt." Hermione tried to hide her surprise. What is Kingsley doing here?

There were very few reasons that would require the presence of the Minister of Magic. Automatically, her eyes began scanning the crowd for a familiar messy head of black hair. Adrenaline began to course through her veins when she couldn't spot him immediately.

"What on earth are you doing here?" Kingsley demanded with a frown drawing her attention back to him.

"I was told that the Auror Department requested a consultation with the DRCMC," Hermione replied with a shrug.

"A consult? With the DRCMC?" Kingsley frowned. "I mean no slight to you, Deputy Head Granger, but why would we need you?"

Hermione put her hands on her hips and glared up at the Minister of Magic. "I have no idea, sir. I'm not certain as to what's going on right now. Perhaps if someone could brief me?"

The Minister's lips twitched slightly. "Maybe we should. Let's go find the Head of the DMLE. He's in charge of this debacle."

"What's going on, Kingsley?" Hermione asked quietly after glancing about to make sure no one was too close.

"I wish I knew, Hermione," The Minister muttered at her. He strode off and Hermione hurried to keep up with them.

There was a motley group of wizards made up of every possible department at the Ministry of Magic. Most of them appeared to be arguing with one another heatedly, and relief coursed through Hermione when she spotted Harry dead center glaring furiously at Nott from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. The Department of Runes & Symbols was gesticulating and arguing loudly with the Head of the Department of Security and the Department of Defence.

"See here, Goolsby," Caradoc Blott snapped furiously. "My department's main responsibility is making sure that all published texts pertaining to Runes and Symbols are accurately translated, and conform to the specifications required of the individual year level for textbooks. It doesn't mean that I'm some sort of linguistic genius able to converse in any and all languages both alive and dead!"

When the group spotted the Minister of Magic everyone grew silent, except for the harsh breathing of the livid Head of Runes & Symbols. Into that strained silence Hermione heard a deep voice drawl in Old English.

"On all sides am I beset by stupidity. Morgana, why have you forsaken me?"

It was impossible to suppress the amused snort, but Hermione was surprised when the entire group, including the Minister standing next to her, turned to stare at her.

"You could understand him?" Caius Flint, Head of the Department of Security demanded.

"I… yes, of course," Hermione murmured and looked to Harry for help. "Harry, what's going on?"

"What language is he speaking?" Caradoc Blott interrupted urgently.

"It was Old English," Hermione explained with another worried frown in Harry's direction.

Understanding flashed in Harry's eyes. "Those courses you studied at University."

Hermione nodded. "What's going on? Who is 'he'?" She asked with another look around the assembled men.

Everyone turned to Theodore Nott, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, who flushed and scowled at the group.

"It isn't as though this is my fault," he burst out. "We aren't responsible for this—it's only that we have to clean up after the idiots that make the mess!"

"What mess?" Hermione pressed.

Nott sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Some idiot Seventh Years who just turned seventeen decided that their first act of adult magic ought to be something… really big."

"Not to mention dangerous and horribly illegal," Harry added in a coldly furious voice and he glared at a group of three or four teenagers cowering behind a group of Aurors across the way.

"I don't understand." Hermione frowned in confusion.

Obviously this group of teenagers had accidentally hexed someone so that they could only speak in a dead language. That wasn't that awful. She knew people who would do that at parties to make games more challenging, but it certainly wasn't dangerous or illegal.

"They tried to perform a Summoning spell, Hermione," Harry explained.

"An Accio where the caster ends up speaking Old English?" Hermione whistled and shook her head. "No wonder they called you, Nott."

"No," Harry corrected her grimly. "Accito Mortuis."

"Oh!" Hermione gasped and her hands flew to her mouth. Summoning the dead was definitely dangerous and highly illegal.

"We need you to determine if the being summoned is Inferi, or some other form of undead being," Caius Flint added.

"I see," Hermione said slowly. "Where is the…"

The group parted revealing a person who had been bound with Incarcerous. An abundance of thick ropes were wrapped around him so firmly that only his head and feet were visible. He was scowling at her fiercely. She knelt down and peered at his skin. It was swarthy, which might be from the sun. She looked up into stormy green eyes that were glaring at her coldly.

"Is there something I can help you with, woman?" He sneered at her in Old English.

"You were… called from death. These wizards are trying to decide if you are…," Hermione wracked her brain for the proper word in Old English, but there really wasn't one. "Samstorfen1," she offered at last.

He growled at her. "I am not Inferi, nor am I an illusion, a ghost, a shadow-goer, or a nightcrawler. I am Salazar Slytherin, and I demand you unbind me at once!"

Hermione gasped and flinched back from him automatically. She saw the surprise in his eyes, but he quickly assumed a neutral expression.

"Hermione?" Harry hurried to her side, worry thick in his voice.

She clutched at Harry's hand. "He…he says he's Salazar Slytherin."

The collective gasp of the group around them was soon drowned out by an excited buzz of voices.

"Deputy Head Granger, are you certain," Flint asked cautiously.

"Am I certain that is what he said? Yes, actually. Am I certain that he is, indeed, Salazar Slytherin?" Hermione bit her lip and shrugged. "No, of course not. No one alive would be able to make that determination with any degree of accuracy."

The voices swelled, each speaker determined that he or she be heard.

"Enough!" Minister Shacklebolt barked. He turned to Flint and Alfric Goolsby, Head of the Department of Defence. "Would veritaserum work?"

"Technically, yes," Flint allowed. "Except for the fact that we can't speak Old English and he can't speak Modern English."

"In addition, if he truly believes that he is Salazar Slytherin it would interfere with the veritaserum results because he would believe it to be the truth," Goolsby added.

"So there's no way to ascertain if this wizard truly is Salazar Slytherin?" Minister Shacklebolt asked.

"I didn't say that," Flint retorted.

"Hogwarts might be able to help us," suggested a slender wizard with a thoughtful expression.

"Hogwarts!" Hermione cried out. She turned to Harry who was watching her warily. "The Chamber. No one but you, Ron, Ginny, and me really know what it looks like."

Harry was already nodding in agreement. "So, what, we have him describe it, and then you can tell if he's right or not? Hermione, we never really have time to investigate it in depth."

"Yes, exactly." Hermione turned to Kingsley. "Minister?"

"Wait, when you say 'the Chamber'… do you mean what I think you mean?" Flint demanded.

"Do it," Kingsley told Harry and Hermione.

Hermione turned to the bound wizard and chewed on her lip for a moment while she tried to figure out how to say what she needed to say in Old English. "The… the room that you built in Hogwarts, the room of secrets-," she began carefully.

"I will not tell you how to enter it," he interrupted her with a scowl.

"We don't care about that," Hermione retorted dismissively. "I would like you to describe it to me."

The wizard stared at her for a moment in surprise. "You've been there before?"

Hermione's nose wrinkled in distaste. "Yes. Once." She pointed to Harry. "So has he. You will describe it to us, and we will verify your account."

The wizard's eyes flicked to Harry. "He has the tongue of snakes?"

"Not anymore." Hermione's jaw snapped shut and she looked down at her hands. They had clenched into fists, and she consciously released them and smoothed out her robes.

"There is a large statue of Merlin," the wizard muttered with a sullen expression.

"A statue of Merlin?" Hermione translated for Harry. "Do you think it was that large statue of a wizard?"

Harry shrugged. "The big statue of a wizard with long hair and a beard? To be honest, I thought it was him. Er, Salazar Slytherin, I mean."

Hermione turned back to the wizard. "What else can you tell me?"

"There were pillars that I decorated with snakes," he began slowly and Hermione translated haltingly, looking up at Harry for his input every so often.

"That sounds like the chamber," Harry admitted after a half an hour of interrogation. Hermione nodded her agreement. He looked up at Kingsley Shacklebolt. "Unless we find some sort of evidence to the contrary... I think he might be Salazar Slytherin, sir."

Kingsley turned to stare at the bound wizard and then turned to stare at the wizards and witches surrounding them.

"What do we do with him?" Kingsley muttered aloud.

"We welcome him back to the wizarding world with open arms," A witch said firmly. "He's one of the Founders of Hogwarts, a legendary wizard!"

"Yeah, but he can't even speak English," protested Harry.

"And he doesn't know about the Statute of Secrecy," Hermione added. "That was passed in 1689."

"He'll need a handler," Flint observed and exchanged a significant look with Goolsby.

"Someone who will be able to communicate all of the minutiae of our modern laws," Goolsby suggested. "And maybe teach him modern English."

"I think Head Deputy Granger would be the best candidate," Flint decided.

"What?" Hermione screeched.

Arguing with Kingsley, Harry, and the rest of the wizards did nothing.

"You are the only person able to communicate with him easily, Hermione," Harry explained. "It's perfect."

"Perfectly ridiculous," Hermione declared with a mutinous expression.

"Head Deputy Granger, it's getting late. Perhaps we could continue this discussion in the morning," Minister Shacklebolt suggested.

Hermione made a disgusted noise in her throat and turned to face Salazar Slytherin. He tensed when she pulled out her wand, but he relaxed when she cancelled the Incarcerous and the thick ropes binding him fell away. He stood carefully towering over her. Hermione stared up at him with a sense of shock. His broad shoulders filled the whole of her vision, and she shook herself when she realized that she was staring at his chest. She risked a glance up to see him watching her with green eyes filled with curiosity.

"What is happening?" He asked her casting a suspicious scowl at the group that surrounded them.

"Er," Hermione frantically tried to think of a way to explain the current situation. "You have been placed in my care," she tried with a tentative smile.

His scowl grew darker. "I have been given to you?" He asked carefully.

Hermione gave him a pained smile. "Just for a little while," she assured him. "Just long enough for you to understand our time… and our language."

"How long will this take?" He demanded.

"I… I'm not sure," Hermione confessed. She looked up and he was glaring at her furiously. "Are you quick to learn?"

"I am no læwedei," he snapped. He sniffed imperiously. "Show me to your dwelling so that you can begin to teach me at once."

/\/\/\/\

Light emanated from the glass globe next to him. Salazar pressed the button that sent the room into darkness and then pressed it again. He did this for the next ten minutes. Light. Darkness. Light. It was amazing.

The witch to whom he had been given sighed loudly. "Mr. Slytherin."

Salazar frowned. "What language is that?"

"It's Modern English," the witch explained. Her cheeks flushed prettily. "I feel odd calling you 'Salazar'."

Salazar's frown deepened. "It is my name. I would feel more odd were you to call me 'Rowena' or 'Helga'."

The witch shook her head. "In this time, we call people by their family name unless we know them well."

"Family name? I don't know what that means," Salazar argued. He shook his head. "You may call me Salazar. It is what I am used to, after all."

"Salazar, then," the witch agreed. She bit her lip and wrung her hands together.

He looked over at her haughtily. "What do you want, woman?"

Her cheeks turned pink again. "There's a lot more I need to show you."

The 'refrigerator' was unimpressive—it accomplished the same thing that a preservative charm did. He was, however, intrigued by the 'cooker' and its ability to heat food that the witch had prepared for them.

"This is the bathroom," the witch paused thoughtfully and frowned up at him. "But there are toilets and baths at Hogwarts, so I imagine you understand the basic functions."

It was true, Hogwarts did have most of what she was showing him, except for the 'lamp'. Salazar had modeled many of Hogwarts' marvels on Roman technology from books that he had collected. Still, to see all of these things in such a small home, and not a keep or a castle was impressive.

"How long has this place been in your family?" He asked curiously.

The witch froze. "My… my parents bought it," she said in a soft voice.

"Where is your family's estate?" He asked. He could feel the witch growing uneasy and it made his spine tingle. Why was she nervous?

"We don't have one," the witch replied. She wrung her hands helplessly.

Salazar frowned. Did the witch think he would judge her for that? Witches and wizards came from all stations. They had some who came from noble families and some who came from shepherds and weavers. He looked around the house carefully.

"Your parents have done well. No doubt you will continue to add to your family's prestige," Salazar said as diplomatically as he could.

A fleeting smile curved the witch's lips. "I suppose so. Granger is a household name in the wizarding world."

"Granger. This is your name?" He asked.

A look of confusion, followed swiftly by surprise, and finally embarrassment crossed the witch's face. "I… I never told you, did I? I beg your pardon. My name is Hermione, actually."

"Hermione," he repeated. A thought struck him. "Were you named for the Roman goddess of Harmony?"

"No… I was named after a character in a play by a man named Shakespeare," Hermione explained. Her nose wrinkled in a way that he found strangely attractive. "I suppose you'll learn about him soon enough."

"I see."

"Are you hungry?" She grimaced slightly. "We've already eaten everything that I had in the house. We'll have to pick up something to eat."

The next half hour Hermione spent explaining what 'take-away' was, and also what 'pizza' and 'curry' were. All of it sounded interesting, and he was incredibly hungry. He stomach rumbled loudly in the room.

"All of it," he decided. "I will try all of it."

Hermione blinked at him. "O—kay. I can… yes, we can probably do that."

When the witch began to disrobe he could feel his eyes widen in shock. "Woman, Hermione, what are you doing?"

Hermione froze and stared at him in surprise. "What?"

"You can't go out in public like that!" He protested.

"Well I can't go out with these robes on," Hermione pointed out.

"Why not?" Salazar asked.

"The Statute of Secrecy." She paused and frowned at him. "We'll have to talk about that in detail as soon as possible."

Hermione continued to disrobe until she was wearing a skirt that showed her knees to him, and a thin tunic that appeared to be made of silk. Salazar tried to avert his gaze, but his eyes were continually drawn back to the curve of her breasts, and the swell of her hips. The sight of her well-formed calves was enough to make his mouth dry. She turned and frowned at him.

"You can't go out like that… and I doubt I have anything that would come close to fitting you properly. I suppose that we'll have to transfigure something for you." She nodded to herself and pulled out her wand.

He tensed automatically—he couldn't help it—but the witch noticed and slid her wand back into her holster.

"I need to transfigure your clothes. I would have you do it, but you have no idea what people are wearing these days. I swear to you that I will not hurt you," Hermione promised.

"Very well," he sneered and he stood still as she cast the spells on him.

Leg coverings of a strange blue fabric and a soft stretchy tunic that fell to his waist replaced his clothes. He frowned down at himself and then looked up at Hermione.

"This is what people wear now?" He drawled with an arched eyebrow.

Hermione shrugged. "For the most part… yes. Now let's go find some of everything."

Side-along apparition was something that Salazar had never experienced before, and he rather hoped to never experience again. Hermione had brought him to a bustling street which had many different types of food. Light was everywhere, and signs written in a number of different languages. He recognized Chinese and Arabic, but there were several he didn't know. The thing that struck him the most was that everywhere he looked… people were reading. There were people with small books, people with broadsheets, and people reading little signs in the restaurants windows, but all of them were reading.

"Hermione… are all of these people Muggles?" He asked in amazement.

Hermione glanced around and then looked back up at him. "It's more people than you're used to, isn't it?" She asked worriedly. "I know that in the year 1000 London only had 10,000 residents, but I didn't really think about how that might affect you now. Is it too many people?"

He shook his head, still staring at all of the people around him. "No, it is just that all of them can read."

Hermione stared up at him in surprise. "I hadn't considered that. Where you come from most people could not read, could they?"

"Muggles," Salazar snapped. He sniffed slightly and lifted his chin. "Magical children are… were all taught to read from a young age. Usually Latin and Runes to begin, and then other languages later as the need arose. Even those that came from poorer families still made sure that their children could read and write before they came to Hogwarts."

An expression flitted across the witch's face, but Salazar wasn't certain what it meant. Her dark amber eyes narrowed on him and her jaw tightened. He saw her wand hand twitch, and then he watched her take several slow, even breaths to calm herself. His fingers automatically sought his own wand in the special holster that she had given to him.

"We need to get food," she muttered with a shake of her head. "After we do that we can go back to my place, and talk."

With the overwhelming feeling that somehow he was in trouble, but utterly stumped as to what he had done wrong, Salazar followed the witch down the street. Hermione bought the promised pizza and curry, but she also purchased Chinese food, Lebanese food, and something called sushi. She went into so many different restaurants, and each restaurant had a different language and different food. Salazar couldn't help but stare in wonder at the different people of all shapes and sizes, in all colors, mingling. He shook his head and followed Hermione in a daze.

/\/\/\/\

"Now, the Statute of Secrecy was passed in 1689 by the International Confederation of Wizards, and it went into effect in 1692," Hermione began while Salazar was inhaling lamb kefta and baba ganoush. She frowned for a moment. "I suppose so that they could form Obliviation squads, and develop teams to fix whatever happened."

"What is this Obliviation?" Salazar demanded with a scowl.

Hermione made a face. "It's… well, it's a spell that makes people forget. You can use it on Muggles or on wizards. The Obliviation squad uses the spell to make sure that Muggles forget that they saw magic."

His scowl grew. "That seems dangerous."

Hermione nodded. "It can be if it's used improperly, but can't that be said of most spells?"

He glared at her, his mossy green eyes cold, but then he gave her a small nod. "This is true," he admitted reluctantly.

"Now, thanks to the miracles of soap, hand-washing, and indoor plumbing—not to mention antibiotics and vaccines—Muggles are rather greater in number than they once were. The wizarding community has done all that it can to remain hidden so that the Muggles have no idea we exist," Hermione continued.

Salazar gave a short, sharp laugh. "So they no longer believe in witches?" He asked in disbelief.

Hermione shook her head. "No, they don't. We're just stories to them now."

"Surely even Muggles can't be that gullible," he protested.

Hermione glared at him for a moment while she tried to calm herself down. "The Muggles of today are intelligent and well-educated. They study things that the wizarding world either can't or refuses to study."

Salazar frowned. "What could we not study that Muggles could?"

Hermione grimaced slightly. This was going to be difficult to explain. "You like my lamp, right? The light that switches on and off?" At Salazar's suspicious nod she continued. "That lamp uses electricity. It is an… energy… that powers many Muggle things. Those lights you saw tonight. The signs, my cooker, the refrigerator, all of those things run on electricity."

"What difference does this make?" Salazar sneered impatiently.

"Our magic interferes with the electrical current. Now, with smaller things—simpler things—like the lamp and the refrigerator it doesn't really matter. Things that require greater amounts of electricity—things that are more delicate—do not react well to magic. For the most part, we can control it. We can try not to use magic around these things, but as you know our emotions can make our magic flare without our intention. It is almost impossible for wizards or witches to study computer science or to go into modern medicine. Being emotional near someone who has a pacemaker, for instance, could kill them," Hermione explained carefully.

"A pacemaker?" Salazar repeated the unfamiliar word carefully.

"It's a machine that helps regulate your heart," Hermione explained.

Salazar stared at her in shock. "Muggles can do this?" Disbelief was thick in his voice.

"They can do that and so much more," Hermione assured him.

He shook his head. "It was always so hard with the Muggleborn students," he muttered and ran a hand through his hair. "None of them could read, let alone do any simple math. They were all so… so ignorant that it took forever just to get them to the point where they could sit in on a regular class."

A sudden flash of inspiration hit Hermione. "Was that your main objection to accepting Muggleborn students into Hogwarts? Were you upset that they were illiterate and couldn't sit in on classes with the children from wizarding families?"

Salazar frowned at her. "Of course. One would have to spend months teaching them to read and write in Latin and Runes. What were we supposed to do with the children from wizarding families? Make them sit and stare at the wall for a year? It detracted from the education of my other students. How was that fair to them?"

"I see," Hermione murmured almost to herself.

"Helga insisted that the wizarding children could help teach their fellow classmates, but that would have been a colossal waste of their time," Salazar continued. He gave an imperious sniff. "My students were always far more advanced than of any of the other Houses because they were able to focus on their studies."

"I suppose that would be true," Hermione admitted. She briefly wondered how much more she would have been able to accomplish if she hadn't had to help Ron so much with his lessons. She bit her lip. "Still, don't you think that all magical children have the right to learn?"

One of Salazar's dark brows rose and her stared at her haughtily. "I said nothing against Godric, Helga, or Rowena taking in the dunderheaded dolts. I simply refused to put up with their ignorance myself."

"What if the students were eager and willing to learn?" Hermione asked quietly.

Salazar's lip curled. "I will tell you this: in my time at Hogwarts many of those born to Muggles were eager to learn the magic and how to use their wands, but none of them wanted to put in the time and effort to learn to read and write. They felt it was a waste of time, and that we should just get on with the important part—never realizing that the reading and writing was just as important as the foolish wand waving!"

A shiver went down Hermione's spine. Salazar's passion for education and teaching was impressive… and also eerily familiar.

"I see," she murmured. She grimaced slightly and shook her head. "Harry will never let me hear the end of this, but I agree with you."

1 OE 'half-dead'—the Anglo-Saxons didn't really have a word for, or even a concept of, zombies, liches, the undead, etc.

i OE 'foolish, ignorant, unlearned'. The Anglo-Saxons didn't have a word for illiterate because that was basically everyone. This word seemed to come the closest to the meaning I wanted.