"Salazar! Salazar! What are you- come back!" Godric screamed at the top of his lungs after the younger boy. Finally realising that coming back was the last thing that the other founder was going to do, he raced after him, sword still in hand and intricate indoor shoes slipping on the muddy ground.

He paused at the edge of the forest, momentarily wondering if the traitor was worth all of this, before coming to a noble decision and taking off deep into the forbidden forest.

It was at least five seconds maybe more before the sound of hisses penetrated his ears through the rush of blood. He slowed down coming to a stumbling stop and peering around with earthy brown eyes, flecked with red like the flames of the Earth.

Snakes!

They were surrounding him, hissing in tune with the wind, following the sorrowful call of the one who spoke to them in their own tongue.

Suppressing a shudder of utmost disgust and putting in place a distasteful façade he hastened to follow the slithering beasts, sword at the ready should one of them fail to avoid him.

He sliced a path through the bramble, as the thicket grew heavy and dense around him, ignoring the frantic cries of the distressed creatures that quickly slunk off when his sword got to close to them. All but the snakes that is. The snakes that twinned their way into the branches of some tree or other or instead, into the deepest patch of briar thorn where his sword and arm could not reach.

With one last mighty swing, the twisted branches, like thorned serpents, were struck down revealing the youngest of the four founders, sitting battered in their midst.

Almost ten years Godric's junior, and already bound to a life so troubled that he should go this far to prove his worth.

It was a most pitiful sight to watch Salazar sitting there curled in on himself, and sobbing into the billowing arms of his robes, silver hair matted with twigs and leaves and fanned delicately out in an untruthful halo around his head, slender shoulders shaking.

"Salazar, what are you doing here? Get away from those creatures and come back to the castle." How could he stay cross at such a child, especially one that he loved so dearly? He sheathed his sword and offered the boy a hand, setting his jaw against the unfaithful voice that yelled at him to cut the green eyed child down then and there.

'He's evil Godric; you know he is, why do you tell yourself otherwise? Do you love him, does brave Gryffindor have feelings for the Slytherin brat?' his subconscious sneered at him inside his head. He made a feeble attempt to protest, to deny all claim of love but the voice cut him off before the words could leave his lips. 'You do! Admit it! Why Godric, why do you continue to plague our school with such demons as this boy? He teaches the students dark arts; he brings snakes into the school, and speaks words stolen from the devil's own mouth to the slimy creatures! Take up your sword and be done with the foolish brat.'

Yelling loudly to drown out the hissing laugh in his head he turned back to the boy on the floor. "Salazar! Get up! Now!" he winced inwardly as the boy on the floor flinched at his words.

Salazar lifted his silver crowned head from the recesses of his voluminous robes, and wiping tears from emerald eyes so dark they could pass for the most beautiful of blacks with the back of one trembling gloved hand, he rose his eyes to meet Godric's hard gaze.

It softened immediately under those deep green eyes, so child like in their demeanour, and innocent to out way the boy's wrongs.

"You're not going to kill me?" he mumbled dropping his eyes from the stern face that frowned down at him, sniffing childishly. All aura of power that normally pulsed about the slender body gone, allowing him to finally look his age, a boy of near fifteen years old.

"No Salazar, no blood will be spilt this night. Come, we will go back to the castle, and sort this out… somehow." He took both the boys delicate hands between his own and pulled the traitor to his feet, swallowing back tears of his own, to find himself wondering of the future. What would happen if they didn't work it out? If Salazar kept to his foolish beliefs…? One day things would go to the hells, and he loathed the thought of being the one to strike down his young lover when it did?

Mayhap if the boy left the castle things would sort themselves out? But he would not think on this now. Not when Salazar was safe in his arms and Hogwarts lay just past the forest, not when for one brief, fleeting moment he could forget the boy's sins, and believe for one shinning second, that things did not need to be sorted out, that their love could one day lay at rest, that things would be right again… somehow.