a day late, a dollar short (sliversofsilver) wrote in vagabondwriters, @ 2008-01-16 15:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | author: kaitee, author: livia, love |
Title The Thirteenth of October
Author Kaitee
Theme Salazar Slytherin
Prompt Word Love
”Are you excited for your big day today, Salazar?” the elderly blonde maid—Margaret, if Salazar remembered her name correctly—said as she pulled Salazar’s shirt over his head. “It is not every day that a young master gets his snake…”
It was the thirteenth of October, close to the end of the tenth century, and it was Salazar’s fifth birthday. Downstairs his family gathered in the dining hall to celebrate; his mother pregnant with his baby sister, his grandfather, aunt, uncle and his cousin Adorabella, even though she was supposed to be in Cornwall planning her wedding. The presentation of the serpent was the most important tradition the Slytherin family had, and their lives stopped to observe it.
Holding Margaret’s hand—Or was her name Mary?—Salazar walked down the corridor and to the staircase. He was very young, but he knew how important this was. He would never feel alone now.
When they reached the doorway to the dining hall, the maid released Salazar’s hand and let him enter by himself. The seat at the head of the table, the one usually reserved for his step-father, was empty and waiting for him. With tiny legs, Salazar crawled into it and stood. He looked over at his mother, who was sitting next to him, and she gave him a warm, proud smile. Adolphus, Salazar’s grandfather, stood and Salazar held his hands out. Adolphus placed a newborn serpent into Salazar’s open palms. The tiny king cobra looked up, Salazar looked down, and black eyes met green.
When Salazar would think about this day as an adult, he would only remember himself and his snake. He could not remember any of his family being there after that point, or even what took place after the snake was given to him. Their presence mattered little to him then. Jörmungandr—Jor as he would soon begin calling him—filled a void in him, one as a five-year-old boy he did not know that he had. He had a companion now, someone to share the pain of his step-father’s abuse with. He would have someone to play with, and someone to plan with. Salazar, who until then thought that love was the feeling of being wrapped his in mother’s arms, knew nothing of love until the black eyes met green.
And as the winters would turn to springs and the summers to autumns, the bond between wizard and serpent grew stronger. In battles waged between each other and outside adversaries, and in times of triumph and failure, the unconditional love between Salazar and Jörmungandr endured, never wavering, never pausing.
On the thirteenth of October eighty years later, Salazar’s children and grandchildren, along with those of Jor, all gathered around a funeral pyre. Salazar, worn with age, was dressed in his finest green and silver robes, and lay dead on a bed of stone with his wand clasped in his hands; Jor, also deceased, lay next to him, wrapped in Salazar’s arm.
Salazar’s eldest son Tristan carried a torch over the stone bed and brought the flame down to touch his father's oil-soaked clothing, lighting his father and his serpent with orange flame, sealing the love between serpent and wizard in death, ensuring that they would be together in death as they were in life.