Authors note- Hello, and thank you for clicking the link. This fanfiction of mine is about the romance of Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin. The chapters (not including this one as it required an introduction) will be starting with a small section of a journal entry, and then it will take a time jump and seem as if the events were only just happening. Does that makes sense? Read, review, and enjoy.
Disclaimer- I own none of these characters besides Elmira and the Van Houten line as of this moment. All credits to J.K.R. and all credits for the beginning couplet goes to Edgar Allen Poe.
Chapter one, 100 years of history.
“Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing.”
E.A. Poe, Poem titled Romance, first couplet.
Through fingers of splayed ivory a young woman stared carelessly up towards the sky, frozen with visions of thunderous black masses foretelling the brewing of a season’s storm. Frequent voracious weather patterns were not uncommon this time of year; each storm as unique as the prints on her frail thumb. Autumn was ending, and winters months rearing vigorously against the still slightly warm autumn air.
It was looked down upon, this activity the young woman of ebony hair and dazzling eyes had embarked upon. Woman were meant to ‘stand tall, pay attention, be polite, have no soul, always, always eat sparingly when in the presence of a man; marry at 17,and have no career’; it was all so dreary to her, this routine of regular life, and these expectations which held her screaming in a cage of false security. Each scream was pitched unknowingly to every item on the list, and the list went on forever and then some. She needed to escape.
This was how she came to be laying flat, her bodice pressed tightly against the verdant sea of grass blades, as she stretched her arms wide and brushed them along the tips of the grass. The movement tickled her flesh and raised bumps before she returned her hands skyward, eyes gazing up amongst the stormy heavens. Her shoulder blades dug gracelessly into the soil upon which she lay.
Shimmering flecks of pale moon bounced against the rippling lake’s surface, the sounds of waves being rushed onward by wind landing upon the rocky shore of the black lake resonated soundly in her ears.
The kind eyes which looked heavenward were amber kissed and lavender tinted. Though their depths held more than discontent for life, they held an endless abyss of love and shades of lonely. Her elfin features were accustomed to that of theVan Houtenlineage. Her midnight black Hogwarts robes spilled around her on the grass in an overlapping pattern.
The afternoon sun took her away to a land of dreams and fairytales. She had been educated with foolish, frivolous tales of love at first sight and Princess’ rescues by gallant Princes. She loved these tales, yet hated them all the same. They were falling shy of an element called reality, for love simply did not appear without warning or cause, nor did it stay for long. No, she believed very little about love at first sight, but she did not doubt the repercussions of lust at first sight.
Elmira Van Houten; whose name meant noble forest,was stirred from thought when a solitary tear from the sky happened upon her nose, and slid along the curve of her cheek bone to fall to the soil beneath her. Soon following were sheets of light drizzle. She gracelessly stumbled to her unclad feet. Should she race for Hogwarts she knew of the wet sickness bound to capture her skin and sink to her bones before she made it to the school; the warm comfort of grey stone walls shinning dully with the wavering flickers of a warm fire in Ravenclaw Tower were as tempting as sunshine.
Unfortunately that was a fair way to go in the bone chilling rain; the only other option was apparent even before the decision was made. Venturing into the ForbiddenForest was dangerous and life-threatening; necessary though it was at the moment. It instilled fear in her mind, for not a soul knows fully what roams the dark crests of bare hills and what lurks through grotesque Rowan roots. Nor does the field of Herbology recognize even half of the creeping vines and plants which grow in abundance there, hence the threat of poison was not ruled out on the list of dangers.
Treacherous depths of dark assaulted her eyes as she breeched the thickened tree line of the Forest, the run through the rain disappearing from her mind as the stifling silence which enveloped her sank in and the slightest sound resonated eerily through the mass of trees. All around grew the roots of Birch and Ash, and most majestic of all grew the mighty, darkened elegance of ancient Rowans, which were famed for their long memories and strong resistance. Animals wailed far off and a sense of danger seeped through to the soul, daubing it with tendrils of forbidding darkness.
The only luxurious comfort Elmira took upon was the extremely grotesque, enlarged roots of a dying Rowan, overcome with disease and lichens. Mosses grew beneath her feet, squelching in the damp mud as she cautiously stepped through the darkness towards those large roots, the frail bark seemingly comforting in an otherwise difficult place to be. Overhead the rain fell in sheets, smacking soundly against the canopy of the tall-as-trolls trees.
Elmira released the breath she was holding just as her bottom plopped onto one of the many large roots, which rose heavenward emerging from the quickly cooling ground. Colors bled from the surroundings in the dim light and reflected dully upon Elmira’s piercing eyes, but the reflecting light tinted an earthy green of comfort upon her exposed and flesh-bumped skin.
There was a quite nice crook in the root of the tree which supported her wonderfully and cupped against her in a way of almost willing sleep upon her soul; but none would come for sure now, for there was a rather irritable something sticking it’s rudely pointed edges against her bottom. She reached cautiously underneath herself into the narrow shaft etched into the bark upon the bottom of the crook. Caution from her that was used because there was no telling what may return with her hand, if it bring death, she wish it a painless one. She was strong of character, but pain sped through to her heart quicker then love ever could; and no one likes pain, no matter who they are.
But it brought no death; it felt relatively like a book, admittedly a fairly worn and damp book. It was small in size, fitting just perfectly to the length of Elmira’s hand from wrist to her last finger joint.
Bringing it up and closer to the musty light revealed several things, it was indeed a book, it did indeed was the owner of such rude edges, and lastly it was of the palest gold with emerald script across the cover. But she could not read the cursive, years of abandon had left the letters faded and lost, the only remaining evidence of its beauty lay in the seemingly unchanged gold, which radiated it’s own light.
Seconds passed as Elmira examined the cover, seconds in which she brought her bottom back to the original sitting place and long enough for her to forget the thudding raindrops. Her hands, which were soft and ungloved, brushed lovingly against the cover of the mysteriously found book. Though Elmira chose to not believe in love, she was a fair lover of books, often going through books quicker then after-class assignments. Now she reached quickly, voraciously, and flipped the hard cover, her want for words greater then any warning against something discovered in the Forbidden Forest.
From the pages fell a single folded sheet, the parchment softened with age and the writing faded to grey lines and ink spots.
And that is how it started with this single letter, which Elmira curiously grasped with her hands and began her reading, drinking in the words along the piece of parchment.
Circa 1,000 A.D.
Hogwarts Grounds
Fallen snow season.
Many years have passed since the events chronicled within the pages of this Journal. No T’was not my own Journal, but it has been entrusted to me, for it brings my dear Helga to much pain to think of it, to even gaze upon it’s cover and remember the one she loved first for all her worth; to remember the first she tried to teach, not class skills, but the joys of life; the only one who had told her his dreams of fire and screams.
Whoever should happen upon this by pure happenstance let it go, it will bring more grief and confusion then need be, but if you be those of the weakest heart, with little faith in humanity and the power of love, then read on love. This holds many things for you.
Rowena Ravenclaw
Elmira read the passage out to the forest several times before allowing herself to fold the frail parchment back up, and tuck it delicately inbetween the many pages of bound parchment within the journal; a journal which, assumedly, belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, one of four founders of the great Hogwarts. And she, Elmira, (unbelievably) had just read a letter from her house’s founder. This was just so much for a young woman to take in at one time, so she set it aside, saving the exact words for after the completion of reading the journal. After all, even Ravenclaws can accept that some things are not meant to be understood until the opportune moment.
So she started by flipping to the first page, started her reading, her learning, and the unremembered story belonging to Helga Hufflepuff.
§&∂
Blood moon, middle cycle;
August.
Time before time.
Dear my dearest Journal,
It is rather filled with irony is it not, that I, a powerful witch, should be writing in a journal such as yourself. Irony or not, there is too much to begin with to make heads or tales of your acceptance, there is so much going on in my world, my land. I fear this may take many pages and more to tell you all that has come and is yet still to come. Knowledge is apparent to me in the acceptance that this may never be repeated, this tiny book, you dear journal, are my only hope of leaving behind a lasting memory of my memories that I wish to not keep. But I will not run from them, I will not pluck them from my mind and store them away in some frivolous magical device where I will no longer have to remember every hurt of them, or every tender moment, every echo of laughter, or every tear shed. No, I will bare them and shoulder the weight of remembering this… if only this. But it seems I have gotten ahead of myself, now haven’t I dear? For you see, allow me to properly introduce the name that which has been christened to me in birth.
I am Helga Hufflepuff, and this Journal, my dear journal, contains a little bit of my heart in the form of a man, a man of that you may or may not recognize. Let me begin from the very beginning; the time at which the thought of a school for children such as myself (and several others for that matter) to teach discipline and responsibility, did appear quite suddenly, just as I was pulling a lovely Hogwarts flower from the autumn ground adorned with patchworks of gentle falling leaves. From there it took, perhaps, months, years, no year, to orchestrate the commencement and opening of “Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”. It was then that we met for the first time. One founder for each of the houses. I daresay I could not do this alone, and they too felt the same need for this school such as I, so then became four from one. There was Rowena Ravenclaw (the skilled and witty ever-changing-floor creator, a brilliant woman hailing from Scotland’s Loch Ness lake side home), Godric Gryffindor (the accomplished dueller and fighter for muggle rights, hailing from a west country of hollows and valleys), and myself of course (from far lands near Wales). Lastly there was him. Him, the he who brings so much joy and yet so much pain to my very memory………………
It was opening, finally, and the carriage wheels lurched unsteadily along the cobblestones of the path leading towards a year’s work, the haze masked with rain and cast with falling darkness…
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