Note: Hello! Well, it's a been awhile, hasn't it? My Helga x Salazar muse hasn't wanted to cooperate for the longest time, but, finally, I think it's back. Yay! I hope you all - whoever's reading - enjoy these latest, very belated drabbles! Hopefully, more will soon follow. And of course reviews would be wonderful!

Language

She had never fully grasped runes. Shapes scrawled on faded parchment, so similar that her mind could not distinguish them - or etched into stone, blank and unconquerable. They left her cold.

He loved them, knew them, understood them. Hours passed unnoticed as he feverishly analysed texts. Evenings stretched into night, Salazar hunched over his desk, lost in a language centuries old.

Helga stared at the parchment in front of her until the symbols blurred and shifted. Her quill hung limply in her hand; a drop of ink fell and splashed the paper. She sighed and put it down.

The library was empty, yet stuffy. Mid-summer sunlight filled the room and flecks of dust drifted in the air. Helga could not stop her eyes wandering towards the long, high-set windows. Sat amongst the silence of books, she could not fail to hear the faint bursts of laughter that rose up from the castle grounds. Term had all but ended and the students spent more time outside the castle than in. She could hear them splashing in the lake and shrieking as they swooped over the forest on their brooms.

Helga prefered dirt under her fingernails to ink stains on her fingertips. She wanted to be out there with them. Determined, she pulled the books towards her and snatched up her quill.

She scribbled furiously, trying to lose herself in the translations as she had seen Salazar do so many times before. So determined was she that she didn't notice the students' voices fading or the daylight slowly dimming - nor Salazar creeping into the library and appearing at her shoulder.

"That's wrong."

Helga twisted in her seat, knocking over the inkpot with her hand. "Excuse me?"

"That." He jabbed a finger at her work. "You've gone completely wrong somewhere - look, there - that's the symbol for tree, not fountain. The entire translation is wrong now."

"No, it's not." Helga pushed him away and stared furiously at the rune in question until her eyes stung. She faltered. Perhaps it was a little smudged and maybe not as clear as she'd thought at first glance… but if Salazar was right and one rune was wrong that meant a whole afternoon wasted.

Salazar vanished the spilled ink with a flick of his wand and sat opposite her. They didn't speak for several long minutes. Helga stared desperately at the parchment, willing her mistakes to undo themselves.

"It's not necessarily wrong, you know," Salazar said.

Helga glared at him.

" - I know I said it was wrong, but I didn't mean it quite so literally - runes aren't as simple as that. You may have made one wrong turn in your translation, but it's not to say that you haven't touched on what the author intended or even found a new interpretation."

Long hours in the library had worn Helga down; it was not her natural home. "I promised Rowena," she muttered, pressing her palms to her forehead, "that I'd help her finish this. An old translation of her's, unfinished after Helena… you know."

Salazar nodded. " I see."

"But I just don't understand. I can't bend my mind that way." It was a relief to finally say it aloud and the words came rushing out. "Runes, they mean little and nothing to me. Why did I even offer?"

Acknowledging it at last, Helga felt a hot rush of shame. It was as if admitting stupidity - or, worse, ignorance.

Salazar stared back at her. His face was unreadable, yet his eyes seemed to soften. "But you understand other things - plants and house-elves and sobbing, snotty children." He grimaced. "Things I cannot comprehend having an interest in or affection for."

Helga snorted. "Children, Salazar? Those that you've dedicated your life to teaching?"

"Well…" He paused to consider it, the shadow of a smile on his face. "If they're not crying or coughing or getting over-excited and irritating, I suppose I can tolerate them."

Helga bit her lip. Heat blossomed from her chest and turned her cheeks pink. She fought to hold in her laughter. "If you can tolerate those - sorry, what was it?"

"Snotty and sobbing."

"- snotty, sobbing children, then I'm sure I can brave these runes." She reached for her quill, but Salazar got there first and snatched it up.

Helga stared. "What are you doing?"

"I'll help," he said, illuminating his wand with a soft 'Lumos'. The light had died. "Two pairs of eyes are better than one."

Friendship

Losing a friend is like losing your wand-hand.

You can function, just about, but life becomes that little bit more difficult, and ever more lonely. Helga had not lost Rowena, as such - certainly not permanently, not for even for very long. And yet -

"You cannot leave me," she said, the words spilling out in a panic. Rowena looked startled, her blue eyes impossibly wide. Ever calm and aloof, she was a difficult person to fluster. Helga bit her lip.

"Sorry," she sighed, taking the hysteria in her voice down a notch. The friends wandered in step with one another along a sunlit corridor overlooking the central courtyard. Hogwarts was quiet, emptied of the majority of its students for the summer. "I'll just miss your company."

"And I yours."

Helga smiled, but it felt forced. Godric's absence was a given. He was to adventure what Peeves was to chaos. Term ended and he had wasted no time in embarking on one of his usual summer jaunts, brawling and exploring his way across the country. Seeking new students he called it, but Helga knew better.

With Rowena taking Helena to visit the ancestral home, that left -

"You and Salazar will be fine together."

Helga scowled. "Him? If he can manage to be civil for even five minutes, it will be a miracle." Just lately Salazar had been quieter than ever - a troubling sign - and his tempers, when they flared, were explosive.

Under normal circumstances, Helga could easily ignore him. She'd grown adept at letting his rants wash over her and losing herself in her baking or tending her plants.

But alone in the castle all summer with only him and the handful of students that remained… "You cannot leave me," she said, pleading now.

Rowena laughed. "I'm afraid I must." But her stare was piercing as she said, "What truly bothers you about being alone with him, Helga?"

Helga felt her face flood with tell-tale heat. Salazar was the Legilmens of the group, but sometimes she felt like Rowena could stare straight into her soul. She shrugged. "I cannot say," she admitted, and knew that it was not a lie. "I don't understand it myself..."

They parted ways in the strangely empty Entrance Hall; Rowena heading to the upper floors of the castle, Helga down to the kitchens. She disliked the way her footsteps echoed and the air was absent of laughter.

"Oh Helga?" Rowena stopped and turned back halfway up the Entrance Hall stairs. The afternoon sunlight danced off the jeweled diadem she wore. "I will miss you too."

Helga smiled. She had half-expected something more - some of Rowena's famed wisdom or advice.

She did not need advice for dealing with Salazar.

He thought himself threatening, but she knew exactly how his mind worked. She had no fear of him, and yet...

It is a brave or foolish person that crosses the line between friends and lovers, she reminded herself. Thankfully she was neither.

Happy

Help me, help me… please. I need you. Please.

Memories flashed through her head seemingly at random. A much younger Godric turning and laughing before falling down a badger sett. Running home through fields of daisies, her dress whipping around her ankles.

She gripped her wand tighter. Think of something happy.

The sign of The Green Dragon Inn swinging in the breeze. Rowena smiling that rarely seen wicked smile of hers and pouring another goblet of wine. A batch of new Hufflepuff students huddled around the crackling fire as she welcomed them to Hogwarts. A pair of grey eyes locking with her's for the first time as Salazar stepped through the doorway of The Green Dragon.

Her wand started trembling, vibrating beneath her fingers - emanating power.

Helga opened her eyes to dazzling silver light. She did not recall speaking the incantation and yet something small, but solid seemed to leap from the tip of her wand, glowing in the darkness.

It flickered and faded before she could properly take it in.

"Was it a badger?" she asked, breathless.

Salazar frowned at the place where the Patronus had stood. "Yes," he said. "I think so. That or a very small bear." He caught her eye; his stare was identical to the one in the memory that had just jumped into her head. "You're shivering," he told her.

Was she? Helga laughed - the type of laughter that will not easily stop, fuelled by relief. She stood trembling and then flung her arms around Salazar's neck.

"Thank you," she whispered, "for helping me."

He froze beneath her touch. "I - it was my honour." He stumbled over his words; she untwined her hands and stood back.

"That's something I've always wanted to do," she said and then blushed - "Oh! The Patronus Charm, I mean. Not - "

"Embracing me," Salazar's finished. He smiled tightly.

This time he did not meet her eyes.