Salazar walked into the room with a long, green snake wound around his shoulders.
"Mother," he said in a hard voice, "Nazzi says you threw away your tonic."
The woman propped up on the couch turned her head and smiled weakly.
"Ah, little snake, have you been spying on me?"
She was still beautiful, for all that her dark hair hung in limp straggles around a face as hallowed and pale as death.
Her son moved further into the room and placed the snake on the table beside the bed. "I have to make sure you drink your potion. How else will you get well? How will you regain your magic?"
Salazar murmured something beneath his breath and waved one hand. In it appeared a crystal goblet filled with a golden-brown liquid. "Here." He knelt beside the couch and began to lift the goblet to her lips.
"No son," she said, "I can lift my own glass."
One white hand unclenched from her blanket and slowly rose to take the potion. The goblet wavered as she held it, but, not without a grimace first, she gulped down the tawny drink. Once it was empty, she set the chalice down on the table. Unable to summon the strength to lift itself up, her hand lay on the table by the drained goblet. It's fingers curled slightly, and it looked especially pale against the dark wood, like a white flower that had not fully opened. The serpent slithered over to her wrist and laid itself over her arm.
Salazar stared out the wide window. The land outside was a dreary looking marsh, with slim, dark trees sticking straight up from low, brownish water and sodden grasses. "Mother," he said, "you know that I could charm this window for you. Would you like to look at mountains, maybe? I know you grew up in mountains. Or maybe a jungle? Or hills? I can have it show anything you like."
"No, Salazar. I like the fen. It's peaceful." She looked down at the snake, still draped across the hem of her sleeve. "Anyway, you and your father both grew up here, as did generations of wizards before him. He told me once that it was in this very house that his great, great, great, great grandfather first learned to talk to them. The serpents I mean. This land has seen many great wizards and witches in it's day." The mother looked away from the snake and up at her son. "Be proud that you live here, my son. Be proud of your ancestors. Your ancestry is your strength."
It was raining on the fen. The heavy clouds and heavier sheets of water hid what little light there might have been shining from moon and stars. Salazar was in the small stone room he called the potion room.
A table along the wall was scattered with a variety of things. Powders spilled from leather pouches and dried plants lay alongside various animal parts. There were vials full of liquids lying haphazardly over it, some empty from having spilled onto the wood.
The young man was bent over a cauldron. It was very old and very ornate, with gilt snakes wound about the rim. The potion within it was a clear, ruby red. Up through it rose golden bubbles that would rise out of the liquid before breaking with a flash a few inches above the cauldron. Salazar was stirring the cauldron while looking at a scroll rolled out on the table. The scroll too was ancient and very valuable, but Salazar did not care about that. He let droplets from the cauldron fall on and stain it, and he often tore it as he picked it up to closer study it's ornate writing.
The wizard took out his dark wand and tapped the end of the long spoon, so that it continued to stir the potion as he turned to the table. There was a round, leathery blue vegetable lying beside a bowl of dragon blood. A tap from his wand and a lick of flame turned the blue vegetable into ash. He scooped it into silver measuring cups, and when he had exactly the right amount he turned and threw the ash into the cauldron.
Immediately the golden bubbles within multiplied a hundred times, then burst, leaving nothing behind but a reddish-black residue on the sides of the cauldron.
Salazar screamed with rage. He snatched up the scroll, tore it in two and threw it on the fire. A single shred of parchment floated up from the flames and landed on the stone floor, it's edges glowing red. Of the words on it, only one was clear: "remedy".
"Wassste," hissed Nazzi, from where she lay coiled beneath the table.
"That potion was a waste," he replied in the same, hissing language.
With a quick spell the young wizard doused the fire beneath the cauldron, and with a second he cleaned the residue from its pewter sides. As he turned to leave the potion room, a knock sounded, magically amplified to be heard throughout the building, even over the drumming of the rain overhead.
"Sssomeone'sss here," Nazzi hissed.
Salazar picked up Nazzi and draped her over one shoulder, than hurried down the stone staircase to the front hall. The door swung open to reveal a young girl. She barged past him into the hall and stood in front of him, gasping.
The young wizard stepped back, startled by this girl who had almost knocked him over. He looked closer and started again. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The face that stared out at him through wet strands of hair and smears of dirt could have belonged to a nymph, a veela, an angel.
But she was none of these things, for she said, "Please sir! Please, help me!" Her voice was frantic and hurried. "My carriage went off the road in the rain. It landed on the... on the rocks, and the driver and one of the horses is d-dead. I rode the other horse for a while, b-but then we came to this marsh and it was stuck and I think it's leg is broken. I followed the lights to here. You have to help me! Please?"
Collecting his wits at last, Salazar moved toward her and tried to be soothing. "Of course I'll help you. Calm down. Stop crying. I'll help you."
It seemed to be working. The girl quieted down, and then screamed and threw herself back against the wall.
She had seen Nazzi.
Salazar hastened to lift the snake off his shoulders and drop her in a far corner. Nazzi slithered into the shadows, her emerald curves fading into the darkness.
"A s-s-serp-pent," the girl was stammering.
"Don't worry abourt Nazzi. She's just a pet."
"A... pet?"
The young man nodded. "Yes, a pet. Come with me now and I'll get you food and some dry clothes." He held out his hand to her. "Come."
She took Salazar's hand and allowed him to lead her away. He was staring at her, she was staring away from him, and so quietly that he could not hear her, she whispered, "Only the devil keeps serpents as pets."
When the rain finally ceased a little after dawn, Salazar took his broom and flew far out over the fen. Soon he found the horse. The poor beast was on it's side, firmly embedded in the mud.
With the help of a little magic he was able to drag it out of the marshy ground and pull it back to the house behind broom. There was a stable there. It had once housed Sombrarius Slytherin's prized flying horses but now it was empty. After dusting out the small building with a sweep of his wand, he cleaned and dried the horse, then conjured food in the trough and bandages around it's leg, which was simply twisted rather than broken.
Back in the house he was passing the bottom of the staircase when a light, angelic voice asked, "Where have you been?"
Salazar blushed and looked up at the girl standing on the stairs. Amanda, that was the name she had told him. Now that her hair was dry it had lightened to pale blonde. In his mother's old robes, she almost looked like a witch.
"Um.." He looked down at himself. When cleaning off the horse, he hadn't bothered to clean himself. His robes were sodden and mud-splattered, and he smelled of horse. He murmured under his breath and the smell evaporated. "I've been in the marsh. I found your horse. It's leg is broken, so you won't be able to leave for a while. "
"But I must get back to my father's land! They'll be worrying about me. You must have some way to take me back."
Salazar looked into her eyes. They were very large and very hazel. Beautiful Muggle maiden. "No," he replied. "Let me get cleaned up and then come and eat breakfast with me."
The morning meal was wonderful. In the years alone with his mother, he had become an accomplished chef. Once he thought he glimpsed Amanda peering in the door as he levitated some eggs over to himself, and they fell and broke. However, the glimpse was immediately gone, and she didn't mention anything about it, so he assumed he had imagined it.
He found that she was as beautiful on the inside as the out. She was the daughter of a baron. From what she told him her family was very kind to their servants and subjects, unlike most more powerful Muggles. She told him that she liked to ride on sunny days and read on gloomy ones. By the time they were finished eating, Salazar was completely and hopelessly in love.
Upstairs and alone he threw himself on the bed and sighed a warm and contented sigh.
"No trussst," hissed Nazzi.
"Quiet, reptile," he said in English.
"Mother this is Amanda. I told you a few days ago that she's staying here until her horse's leg heals. Remember?"
"Of course I remember what you said my son." The invalid rolled her gaunt head rolled slightly on its cushion to stare at Amanda. "I hope you enjoy your stay here, girl."
Amanda left the room very quickly. Salazar's mother seemed to unnerve her.
"She's very beautiful Salazar. Beautiful indeed." With painful slowness she reached out her hand and grasped the front of her son's robes. "Do not fall in love with her, my son. Our two kinds do not mix."
From beneath the couch, where she would not frighten Amanda, Nazzi hissed, "Too late."
In serpent's tongue, Salazar hissed back. "I thought I told you to be silent."
"What did she say?" asked the woman.
"Nothing of importance." He paused. "Mother, I'm leaving you here for a day or two. A wizard in China has discovered an ingredient that might cure you. You'll be casting spells again in no time."
"Couldn't you take her back to her home first?"
Salazar shook his head. "I'd have to take her on the broom, and to do that I'd have to put her to sleep, and then erase her memory. I don't want to do that. She probably will stay out of here anyway. I've lifted all the Muggle traps in the building, so she won't electrocute herself or something while I'm gone. I'll see you soon, Mother, with the cure."
He thought he heard footsteps scurrying away from the door just before he left the room, but when he opened it, the hall was empty. Before leaving, he went down to the stable to check on the horse. It's sprain had completely healed. Salazar waved his wand and the bandages disappeared. After a moment of staring at the bare leg, he waved it again in the opposite direction. The bandages reappeared. Then he lifted the wand, and Disapparated with a crack.
There was a crack, and Salazar appeared in the hallway outside his mother's room. In his hand was cradled a bottle of red powder. "Mother, I've got it!" he cried, throwing open the door, "and I have a feeling that..."
The bottle dropped from his hands and shattered on the floor. The room was devastated. The couch was on it's side, it's cushions having been slashed open and the feathers inside pulled out. Only shards of glass clung to the empty window frame. Looking outside he could see the remains of the table someone had thrown through it.
Salazar began to run through the building. The kitchen was smashed, the library burning, the potion room was empty, the cauldron having been stolen and the various ingredients thrown into the fire in the library. There was no sign of his mother, Amanda, or Nazzi. The horse was also gone from the stable. Whoever had wrecked the house must have done something to them.
He rushed outside and spied a small snake lying in the grasses. He dropped to his knees and picked it up in his hands. "What happened here?"
"Girl on horssse. Left, then came with thunder."
"Thunder?"
"In ground. Thunder in ground. Ssso many of them, with fire in their handsss. Feet made thunder."
It took Salazar a moment to realize the terrible, terrible thing the serpent had said.
"What did they do to my mother? Tell me now!"
"Fire," hissed the snake, "fire," and without another word it slithered away into the grass.
The young man crumpled onto the marshy ground. His body wrenched with tears. The girl he loved had betrayed him, destroyed his home, killed his mother. Even after his sobs quieted he continued to lay on the ground. It began to rain, gently at first then harder. Still he lay, and fell asleep beneath the torrent.
Later on, Salazar finally found Nazzi in a dark corner. She had been cut in half.
"Mother," he said in a hard voice, "Nazzi says you threw away your tonic."
The woman propped up on the couch turned her head and smiled weakly.
"Ah, little snake, have you been spying on me?"
She was still beautiful, for all that her dark hair hung in limp straggles around a face as hallowed and pale as death.
Her son moved further into the room and placed the snake on the table beside the bed. "I have to make sure you drink your potion. How else will you get well? How will you regain your magic?"
Salazar murmured something beneath his breath and waved one hand. In it appeared a crystal goblet filled with a golden-brown liquid. "Here." He knelt beside the couch and began to lift the goblet to her lips.
"No son," she said, "I can lift my own glass."
One white hand unclenched from her blanket and slowly rose to take the potion. The goblet wavered as she held it, but, not without a grimace first, she gulped down the tawny drink. Once it was empty, she set the chalice down on the table. Unable to summon the strength to lift itself up, her hand lay on the table by the drained goblet. It's fingers curled slightly, and it looked especially pale against the dark wood, like a white flower that had not fully opened. The serpent slithered over to her wrist and laid itself over her arm.
Salazar stared out the wide window. The land outside was a dreary looking marsh, with slim, dark trees sticking straight up from low, brownish water and sodden grasses. "Mother," he said, "you know that I could charm this window for you. Would you like to look at mountains, maybe? I know you grew up in mountains. Or maybe a jungle? Or hills? I can have it show anything you like."
"No, Salazar. I like the fen. It's peaceful." She looked down at the snake, still draped across the hem of her sleeve. "Anyway, you and your father both grew up here, as did generations of wizards before him. He told me once that it was in this very house that his great, great, great, great grandfather first learned to talk to them. The serpents I mean. This land has seen many great wizards and witches in it's day." The mother looked away from the snake and up at her son. "Be proud that you live here, my son. Be proud of your ancestors. Your ancestry is your strength."
It was raining on the fen. The heavy clouds and heavier sheets of water hid what little light there might have been shining from moon and stars. Salazar was in the small stone room he called the potion room.
A table along the wall was scattered with a variety of things. Powders spilled from leather pouches and dried plants lay alongside various animal parts. There were vials full of liquids lying haphazardly over it, some empty from having spilled onto the wood.
The young man was bent over a cauldron. It was very old and very ornate, with gilt snakes wound about the rim. The potion within it was a clear, ruby red. Up through it rose golden bubbles that would rise out of the liquid before breaking with a flash a few inches above the cauldron. Salazar was stirring the cauldron while looking at a scroll rolled out on the table. The scroll too was ancient and very valuable, but Salazar did not care about that. He let droplets from the cauldron fall on and stain it, and he often tore it as he picked it up to closer study it's ornate writing.
The wizard took out his dark wand and tapped the end of the long spoon, so that it continued to stir the potion as he turned to the table. There was a round, leathery blue vegetable lying beside a bowl of dragon blood. A tap from his wand and a lick of flame turned the blue vegetable into ash. He scooped it into silver measuring cups, and when he had exactly the right amount he turned and threw the ash into the cauldron.
Immediately the golden bubbles within multiplied a hundred times, then burst, leaving nothing behind but a reddish-black residue on the sides of the cauldron.
Salazar screamed with rage. He snatched up the scroll, tore it in two and threw it on the fire. A single shred of parchment floated up from the flames and landed on the stone floor, it's edges glowing red. Of the words on it, only one was clear: "remedy".
"Wassste," hissed Nazzi, from where she lay coiled beneath the table.
"That potion was a waste," he replied in the same, hissing language.
With a quick spell the young wizard doused the fire beneath the cauldron, and with a second he cleaned the residue from its pewter sides. As he turned to leave the potion room, a knock sounded, magically amplified to be heard throughout the building, even over the drumming of the rain overhead.
"Sssomeone'sss here," Nazzi hissed.
Salazar picked up Nazzi and draped her over one shoulder, than hurried down the stone staircase to the front hall. The door swung open to reveal a young girl. She barged past him into the hall and stood in front of him, gasping.
The young wizard stepped back, startled by this girl who had almost knocked him over. He looked closer and started again. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The face that stared out at him through wet strands of hair and smears of dirt could have belonged to a nymph, a veela, an angel.
But she was none of these things, for she said, "Please sir! Please, help me!" Her voice was frantic and hurried. "My carriage went off the road in the rain. It landed on the... on the rocks, and the driver and one of the horses is d-dead. I rode the other horse for a while, b-but then we came to this marsh and it was stuck and I think it's leg is broken. I followed the lights to here. You have to help me! Please?"
Collecting his wits at last, Salazar moved toward her and tried to be soothing. "Of course I'll help you. Calm down. Stop crying. I'll help you."
It seemed to be working. The girl quieted down, and then screamed and threw herself back against the wall.
She had seen Nazzi.
Salazar hastened to lift the snake off his shoulders and drop her in a far corner. Nazzi slithered into the shadows, her emerald curves fading into the darkness.
"A s-s-serp-pent," the girl was stammering.
"Don't worry abourt Nazzi. She's just a pet."
"A... pet?"
The young man nodded. "Yes, a pet. Come with me now and I'll get you food and some dry clothes." He held out his hand to her. "Come."
She took Salazar's hand and allowed him to lead her away. He was staring at her, she was staring away from him, and so quietly that he could not hear her, she whispered, "Only the devil keeps serpents as pets."
When the rain finally ceased a little after dawn, Salazar took his broom and flew far out over the fen. Soon he found the horse. The poor beast was on it's side, firmly embedded in the mud.
With the help of a little magic he was able to drag it out of the marshy ground and pull it back to the house behind broom. There was a stable there. It had once housed Sombrarius Slytherin's prized flying horses but now it was empty. After dusting out the small building with a sweep of his wand, he cleaned and dried the horse, then conjured food in the trough and bandages around it's leg, which was simply twisted rather than broken.
Back in the house he was passing the bottom of the staircase when a light, angelic voice asked, "Where have you been?"
Salazar blushed and looked up at the girl standing on the stairs. Amanda, that was the name she had told him. Now that her hair was dry it had lightened to pale blonde. In his mother's old robes, she almost looked like a witch.
"Um.." He looked down at himself. When cleaning off the horse, he hadn't bothered to clean himself. His robes were sodden and mud-splattered, and he smelled of horse. He murmured under his breath and the smell evaporated. "I've been in the marsh. I found your horse. It's leg is broken, so you won't be able to leave for a while. "
"But I must get back to my father's land! They'll be worrying about me. You must have some way to take me back."
Salazar looked into her eyes. They were very large and very hazel. Beautiful Muggle maiden. "No," he replied. "Let me get cleaned up and then come and eat breakfast with me."
The morning meal was wonderful. In the years alone with his mother, he had become an accomplished chef. Once he thought he glimpsed Amanda peering in the door as he levitated some eggs over to himself, and they fell and broke. However, the glimpse was immediately gone, and she didn't mention anything about it, so he assumed he had imagined it.
He found that she was as beautiful on the inside as the out. She was the daughter of a baron. From what she told him her family was very kind to their servants and subjects, unlike most more powerful Muggles. She told him that she liked to ride on sunny days and read on gloomy ones. By the time they were finished eating, Salazar was completely and hopelessly in love.
Upstairs and alone he threw himself on the bed and sighed a warm and contented sigh.
"No trussst," hissed Nazzi.
"Quiet, reptile," he said in English.
"Mother this is Amanda. I told you a few days ago that she's staying here until her horse's leg heals. Remember?"
"Of course I remember what you said my son." The invalid rolled her gaunt head rolled slightly on its cushion to stare at Amanda. "I hope you enjoy your stay here, girl."
Amanda left the room very quickly. Salazar's mother seemed to unnerve her.
"She's very beautiful Salazar. Beautiful indeed." With painful slowness she reached out her hand and grasped the front of her son's robes. "Do not fall in love with her, my son. Our two kinds do not mix."
From beneath the couch, where she would not frighten Amanda, Nazzi hissed, "Too late."
In serpent's tongue, Salazar hissed back. "I thought I told you to be silent."
"What did she say?" asked the woman.
"Nothing of importance." He paused. "Mother, I'm leaving you here for a day or two. A wizard in China has discovered an ingredient that might cure you. You'll be casting spells again in no time."
"Couldn't you take her back to her home first?"
Salazar shook his head. "I'd have to take her on the broom, and to do that I'd have to put her to sleep, and then erase her memory. I don't want to do that. She probably will stay out of here anyway. I've lifted all the Muggle traps in the building, so she won't electrocute herself or something while I'm gone. I'll see you soon, Mother, with the cure."
He thought he heard footsteps scurrying away from the door just before he left the room, but when he opened it, the hall was empty. Before leaving, he went down to the stable to check on the horse. It's sprain had completely healed. Salazar waved his wand and the bandages disappeared. After a moment of staring at the bare leg, he waved it again in the opposite direction. The bandages reappeared. Then he lifted the wand, and Disapparated with a crack.
There was a crack, and Salazar appeared in the hallway outside his mother's room. In his hand was cradled a bottle of red powder. "Mother, I've got it!" he cried, throwing open the door, "and I have a feeling that..."
The bottle dropped from his hands and shattered on the floor. The room was devastated. The couch was on it's side, it's cushions having been slashed open and the feathers inside pulled out. Only shards of glass clung to the empty window frame. Looking outside he could see the remains of the table someone had thrown through it.
Salazar began to run through the building. The kitchen was smashed, the library burning, the potion room was empty, the cauldron having been stolen and the various ingredients thrown into the fire in the library. There was no sign of his mother, Amanda, or Nazzi. The horse was also gone from the stable. Whoever had wrecked the house must have done something to them.
He rushed outside and spied a small snake lying in the grasses. He dropped to his knees and picked it up in his hands. "What happened here?"
"Girl on horssse. Left, then came with thunder."
"Thunder?"
"In ground. Thunder in ground. Ssso many of them, with fire in their handsss. Feet made thunder."
It took Salazar a moment to realize the terrible, terrible thing the serpent had said.
"What did they do to my mother? Tell me now!"
"Fire," hissed the snake, "fire," and without another word it slithered away into the grass.
The young man crumpled onto the marshy ground. His body wrenched with tears. The girl he loved had betrayed him, destroyed his home, killed his mother. Even after his sobs quieted he continued to lay on the ground. It began to rain, gently at first then harder. Still he lay, and fell asleep beneath the torrent.
Later on, Salazar finally found Nazzi in a dark corner. She had been cut in half.