When the party ended, the four of them pretended to go to sleep. They had to leave early as they were to return to the castle the next day. They had several options, but decided to take the Knight Bus, which would take them to Hogsmeade around noon. With that excuse, they announced their desire to rest.
Rowena was the first to arrive at the library, the designated meeting place in the house. She sat down and waited for the others, understanding that they would take a while since their rooms were closer to the homeowner's. She picked up a volume from the shelves and began to flip through it.
"I didn't take you for a reader of such books," Helga said as she entered.
"Reading is reading, Helga," Rowena replied, looking up and closing the book. "And the boys?"
"I imagine they won't be long. The Ministry's alarms didn't go off, which is important in itself. If they detect the deception, it will take some time."
"Few people would realise it, and none of them work in the Department of Mysteries."
"What have you seen, Rowena?" Helga asked.
"A few things, nothing dangerous or compromising at the moment. It's not a vision itself, like the one that guided us to our current situation."
Their conversation ceased when they heard the creak of a floorboard in the hallway. Rowena saw Helga become alert, while her own mind conjured several possible explanations in case the newcomer wasn't one of their friends. Both relaxed when they saw their friends enter, accompanied by the house-elf who had been watching them. Rowena had observed that the elf was not particularly friendly towards the homeowner and most visitors. He only seemed pleasant to Salazar, Helga, and them, though she suspected it was because they were Salazar's friends.
"We're all here," Salazar said as Godric placed the prophecy in the center of the table. "How do we proceed? I must admit, I wasn't the best student in Divination."
"You swapped it for another subject," Godric pointed out. "I should have done the same. I'm tired of the teacher telling me 'your friend is going to die'."
"It happens," Salazar said with a shrug. "Shall we focus?"
"Prophecy records must be held to activate them and hear the contents," Rowena explained to her friends. "Alternatively, you can smash and break them. That works too, but you lose the record."
"Record?" Godric asked.
"Yes, this is a prophecy record. The words of a Seer or a prophetic centre found a way to be recorded on objects. Initially, it could be anything, but it was soon limited to crystal spheres to the point that people now believe it is the only means of recording," Rowena explained. "Divination is imprecise. Visions are usually warnings of something, but they don't always come to pass in the near future; the four of us know that, don't we? If it weren't for the specific timeframe, I don't know if we would have dared to do what we did, or if we would have missed the opportunity, waiting for an imminent danger that would never come. Prophecies are even more nonspecific. They are a record of the Seer's words as she interprets what she is seeing at that moment."
"So the prophecy isn't to be trusted. We've only prevented it from falling into Voldemort's hands," Salazar commented. "However, I'm involved in it, apparently. Or someone decided that I was, which I suspect made it easier for us to take it. But I wonder who these acronyms belong to: S.P.T and A.P.W.B.D," he said, pointing to them. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but S.P.T is the one who made it and A.P.W.B.D is the one who heard it."
"Didn't you mention that Sirius said Dumbledore once said something about a prophecy?" Godric asked.
"Albus, many names, Dumbledore," Helga muttered with amusement and a little mockery.
"If A.P.W.B.D were Dumbledore, a lot of things would make sense," Salazar said. "Like how he knew about this, treating it as an absolute certainty and sending people to sneak into the Department of Mysteries as lookouts and protectors."
"Well, shall we hear it?" Godric asked. "We can't spend too much time on speculation, no matter how plausible it may be."
"Such cultured language, Godric."
"Salazar, you know I'm dating Hermione."
"Boys. Let's get to the point," Helga interjected. "We'll talk about all that later. Salazar, do you want to keep it or destroy it?"
"Destroying it seems the most sensible thing to do."
"Proceed then. We'll have to rely on our memories to remember it, but it's for the best. I agree with that," Rowena said. Both Godric and Helga nodded. All four of them seemed to agree on that point. "And remember, whatever we hear, they are things that could be, not things that are or will be."
Salazar took the orb, holding it firmly. Rowena could see he was nervous beneath his mask of serenity. This was a point of no return, but a point they had to cross. Perhaps the most sensible thing would have been to destroy the prophecy without listening to it, so as not to fall into the temptation of trying to act on it and accidentally unleash it or some of its parts entirely. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Helga silently soundproof the room—a smart move, as it was not convenient for anyone to know what they were up to, even if she liked Sirius Black. Rowena then watched her friend smash the orb against the floor and a ghostly echo of the prophecy's voice emanate from it.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord is near; he will begin his journey at the end of the seventh month.
The offspring of those who have defied him three times will be singled out as his equal.
One will not be able to live while the other survives.
"Does anyone see any sense in it?" Godric asked. "It seems to speak of a single chosen one."
"Please, no. I've been obsessed with that word since I saw episodes I, II, and III of Star Wars. They're fine, but they place an unnecessary weight on a person instead of letting things be," Salazar protested.
"I hope we don't start treading on dangerous ground," Helga warned. "Both Godric and Salazar were born at the end of the seventh month in this life. Salazar was marked by Voldemort and Dumbledore seemed to want to make him his special soldier."
"That's just the simple interpretation. And the one Voldemort should have followed. I suspect that if he had attacked Godric before Salazar, he might have succeeded," Rowena said calmly, immediately noticing how everyone turned to her.
"What's your interpretation of it?" Salazar requested. "I know you're not in favour of interpreting, but of simply letting go, but your conjectures are usually correct most of the time."
"'He will begin his journey' can be interpreted as being born, from the point of view that life is a great journey, but I think it has a deeper meaning. 'Who' can refer to both a person and a group. All of us performed the ritual that allowed us to return at the end of a seventh month, regardless of the date each of us returned. Do we have the power to defeat him? I would say that since we destroyed the last of his Horcruxes and Salazar deceived him during his resurrection ritual so that he wouldn't come out strengthened, we have already defeated him—only the final blow is missing," Rowena began, giving her opinion and reasoning simultaneously. "The second line is a reflection of misinterpreting the first as something that is gestated at that moment and not something that was gestated long ago, whose consequences will resonate in the current era. In a way, it seems it was destined for the first line to be misinterpreted. Voldemort is a half-blood, the son of a Muggle and a Squib. Salazar is a half-blood, the son of a pure-blood wizard and a Muggle-born witch. Surely Voldemort must have decided that Salazar was the chosen one given those similarities and the ancient nature of the Potter and Gaunt families. Up to that point, we can interpret with what we know and what has happened."
"And the rest?" Godric asked.
"I wouldn't dare," Rowena said.
"Voldemort tried to kill me three times in the first year, when he was possessing Quirrell. So I could say that I won't have a truly quiet life until he's completely dead," Salazar said in a sinister tone. "Which doesn't mean I'm going to go looking for him. I prefer to fight on my own terms."
"'One will not be able to live while the other survives,'" Helga whispered, looking deeply at Salazar.
There was a silence. Rowena looked at Salazar, analysing what he had said. With those words, that third sentence of the prophecy made some sense. If they had not tried to kill him during his first year or guided him to face his enemy, Salazar would have passed through quietly and ignorant of everything until his own awakening. What was clear was that the prophecy was apparently designed for the dark wizard to initiate it, but that it had actually been initiated long ago.
"Now that I think about it, the Prophet's voice resembles the Divination teacher's," Godric blurted out suddenly.
"Sybill P. Trelawney?" Salazar asked with an expression of connecting the dots. "She always seemed like a fraud to me, but if she really has a slight glimpse of the gift and was the one who made the prophecy, considering that Seers are very scarce, I'm not surprised that Dumbledore wants her around to have all possible sources of prophecies under control."
"Well, now we know why Dumbledore is obsessed with controlling your life," Helga whispered. "I don't like how he goes around presenting himself as a spokesman for the universal good and as the only one who is right."
"He needs a good dose of reality, but there are more urgent things, like Umbridge, for example. And we need to prepare to face him," Rowena said. "We could profit from Dumbledore without having to take control of Hogwarts until the end."
"What do you have in mind?" Salazar asked.
"Only that the true heirs of the founders, whose true lines have remained secret, appear before him in such a way that he cannot recognise them and offer him an alliance to neutralise the great magical threat," Rowena said, sharing a mysterious look with them.
"And with that done, when the right time comes, once the whole crisis passes, we take control of the school and apply the reforms that need to be applied in it," Helga added. "We will need to plan. The end of this year can't come fast enough."
The Confrontation
Ron was still furious about his family's situation. He knew that Percy had spoken to his mother without wanting the rest of them to see him and had begun to send them money, as if that would fix the wrong he had done or the betrayal he had committed towards the family. He did not understand how his mother accepted such help. He had thought about telling the twins to teach Percy a lesson together, but although he had seen them sad, they continued with their shop project as if nothing had happened, perhaps immersed in it more firmly. He hadn't wanted to get Ginny in trouble.
Returning to Hogwarts had been hell. Most of them stopped to look at him, point to him and whisper about him. He was sure they didn't say anything nice.
"Damn idiots," he muttered. Now he understood why that kind of attitude bothered Harry so much.
His friend had tried to get closer, but Ron wasn't in the mood to talk at the time, so he had avoided him. He remembered how good it was for him to come to the funeral, which he did not expect to happen since Sirius Black had not wanted him to have much contact with the people of the Order, who were most of those who had gone to the funeral. It was also true that, from the third year, Harry seemed to prefer Neville to him; or so he had seen it until that moment. He now understood that Harry had really wanted to improve and apply himself in his studies and that he was at that moment a distracting factor for his friend. But that was over. Now he would apply himself seriously and the best thing would be to sit and study with them, even if he had to put up with Malfoy who he knew went with Harry and Neville to the library from time to time.
He entered Defense Against the Dark Arts class in disgust. He would have preferred to skip it, but he had been warned not to. Skipping classes was equivalent to immediate failure, something that could not be allowed in the year of the O.W.L.s and even less so when that disgusting toad was around school. The truth was that he did not understand why no one put it in its place. Harry, who he had hoped would have done it a long time ago, preferred to stay down in his class and just nod and observe. Neville who was beginning to be a reference in Gryffindor as well. He saw those attitudes of cowards. The two of them who were the leaders of the house behaved more like snakes than lions about it and he couldn't admit that. Someone had to stand up to him and although the clandestine classes right under his nose was a way to reveal himself quite satisfactory, it was no real way to face that disgusting arse licker of the minister who had humiliated his family so much during the holidays.
He took a seat in disgust in the class and pulled out the only one from his textbooks that wasn't worth shit reluctantly. Spending money on that book had been a waste and a waste of time. He didn't even bother to open it and make it "read". Nothing he put there made any sense. The truth is that he would have preferred to invest that class in really preparing. He had thought about what he wanted to do: to find the wretch who had killed his father and make him pay in kind. He was sure it had been a Death Eater, or perhaps the dark wizard himself who wanted to conquer the world. He didn't understand why Dumbledore hadn't let him join the Order. He was young, yes, but he had accomplished feats that few adults would have dared. For that reason alone he deserved an exception. But no, the director had refused if his mother had almost had a seizure just for suggesting it.
"You haven't opened your book, Mr. Weasley. Has the death of his father's traitor made him forget how to do it?"
"This is not a book. It's just the shit that the ministry shits, and wants to make the students swallow to turn them into a mass of arse-lickers like you, you disgusting pink toad," he replied with contained fury, looking contemptuously at the toad. He wanted to finish her off by any means necessary.
Ron could feel the sudden silence of the entire class. It was not the silence of when they were reading. The whisper of the turning of the pages had ceased and he knew without looking at them that all the companions were watching him. They watched them both holding their breath.
"You should be a little more respectful of authority, Mr. Weasley. Or it will end up going the wrong way."
"The bad way? The wrong way? "I was burning with fury. The teacher's words were pure poison, she knew it; he also noticed an incipient threat in them. "The wrong way is that of the ministry!" A ministry that covers a murder by saying it was an accident. A ministry that's practically licking the arse of whom-you-know by denying that he's come back and allowing him to go around killing good people. My father was killed in the ministry, and all you have done is take our house and slander him. You are as murderous as the one who killed him. Disgusting murderers and corrupt people who only seek their interests.
— Weasly punished.
— Why? To tell the truth? What truth has bothered you, teacher? That of swindlers? Murderers? Corrupt? or lickers? Just look at you. It's pathetic. The only thing that explains why he got to where he got is by getting into the bed of the right people. Although I suppose they must have taken a good purgative afterwards.
"This afternoon you will come to my office and if you don't, consider yourself expelled from Hogwarts." Which, seeing the economic level of his family, he will have to hand over his wand because he will not be able to afford another school. A pity, don't you think? Umbridge sneered. "Not even Dumbledore could save him from this.
"You are rebellieving.
— The prefect's badge will be removed. Someone with his lousy level of education doesn't deserve a position of such honor, ah, and he'll be removed from the Quidditch team as well. No one so violent should be on the team.
Ron clenched his fists, who did he think it was to take him out of quidditch? He had no right to impose such punishments. It was unfair and partisan. He had committed no fault that deserved it, He has only told the truth. That woman disgusted him and would make him pay for everything. He wanted to take out his wand and bewitch her. But before he could do anything, someone pulled his tunic and sat him down in his chair.
"Don't give him what Weasley is after," Dean Thomas whispered in his ear, taking advantage of the murmur that had settled in the class after the toad's punishments. "He's looking to get rid of you." Save that anger for later. I know you think it's a very Slytherin attitude not to throw yourself at her neck but she's a Slytherin and not like the idiots we share class with, she knows how to bide her moment and you've served it to her on a silver platter.
"Let me."
— Yourself.
— Weasley, out of class. And remember to attend the punishment this afternoon and all week," the toad told him. "Thomas, you'd better keep quiet if you don't want to follow your friend."
Ron picked up the things and slammed the door out of class, but not before taking off his prefect's badge and throwing it in the frog's face. He hurried across the corridor, heading for the room of requirement. He completely ignored Peeves and his stupid rhymes. I didn't have time for that. He entered the place where the defense classes were given and stood in front of one of the practice dummies using all the spells he knew playing with their powers until he destroyed it. After that, came the next one. He was willing to be the best, do whatever he had to do to be the best and be able to execute his revenge. He was there for hours. As the dolls ran out, the room renewed them. That made him question how it worked, but he didn't have time to direct too many thoughts to it. At least destroying the dolls helped him to calm down and calm down a little. He recognized that he had lost control with the pink toad and had crossed the line. But he had not expressed what he thought and felt for a long time, he had been with that anger that motivated him for a long time.
"I must learn to focus," he muttered to himself.
He checked the time. It was late. He had missed the rest of the classes and by that time everyone would know about his confrontation with Umbridge. He snorted in annoyance. The time to go to the toad's office was approaching and he didn't feel like it at all. However, I had no choice. He had heard that Umbridge's punishments were horrible, he was about to see how much truth there was in that.
At night, late in the evening, in the stillness of the common room, Salazar was talking with Godric. No one looked at them surprised anymore to see them studying late in the common room, so they no longer bothered them about it and simply left them to their own devices. On that occasion they had taken advantage of that very thing to be able to stay talking about what happened.
"He has not yet returned from his punishment and the curfew has long passed," Godric observed. "I hope you're not looking for a way to punish him for not being in your common room when he should."
"Who knows what goes through that witch's mind?"
"Haven't you tried to get into it?"
"I appreciate my own mental health too much, Godric.
— Something is on your mind, though.
"We have proof that she is a woman who has no limits and although Ron has gone too far in class with her comments, she was right in essence. Umbrigde is going to try to destroy it.
"You're afraid of what I might do to him."
— In part. He seems to me to be the type of person who would not dare to harm a student who belonged to an important or influential family. But Ron...
"He belongs to a poor family that the ministry has marked as a traitor to him and tries to leave even more in ruin," Godric finished.
Salazar nodded silently, checking in turn that the barriers he had installed in silence so that they would not be heard by chance. The fact that they were left alone did not mean that at some point they could not attract attention. Salazar knew himself well enough to know that if he hadn't woken up, he probably would have exploded in that teacher's class on more than one occasion; It was the experience and wisdom acquired in his previous life that made him more calm. In fact, I suspected that things would be much darker than they already were. I mentally reviewed the class, Ron's words, everyone's reactions and especially those of the teacher. He went over it over and over again, affirming himself more and more in the idea that he seemed to have enjoyed the moment when he had punished Ron, in fact he seemed to be enjoying it from much earlier. After all, there were more students who often didn't open the textbook or kept it open the whole class by the same page and had never said anything, only taking notes for inappropriate behavior in class. In his mind, it was becoming increasingly clear that he had taken advantage of Ron's explosive character knowing that this at that moment must be a pressure cooker for everything he was going through.
The door of the portrait opened and Ron staggered in through it, he seemed to be holding back the urge to cry and his hand was wrapped in a white cloth covered in the door. Was it blood? He exchanged a quick glance with Godric who looked annoyed and alarmed. I hoped I wouldn't have to restrain him from putting that teacher in his place right now. He immediately canceled the spell that enveloped them so that Ron could approach them comfortably.
"What has it done to you?" Salazar asked immediately. It was not normal for a student to arrive injured in the common room
"How come you haven't been to the infirmary?" Godric asked. — That seems to bleed a lot.
"Copy a few lines," Ron snorted bitterly. — Until the message stuck with me. And the very pig has assured me that she will soon have the pleasure of splitting my wand in half.
Salazar exchanged a glance with Godric. The situation was worse than they thought, worse than giving students a hard time and being unpleasant. He had apparently tortured a student and threatened him. Because his word "expulsion" was not a warning, it was a threat.
"Let me see that," Salazar requested.
No, I can't. Umbridge will go against anyone I turn to, in fact he told me that he didn't even want to see me near the infirmary, and we know that he has taken it with most of the professors.
"Well, luckily this is not nursing and we are not teachers," Salazar replied. Let us see that hand.
Salazar watched as Ron removed the handkerchief with which he had wrapped the wound and Godric hurried to cast a spell to stop the bleeding. After cleaning the hand, the phrase "I will respect my superiors" could be clearly seen. It was something sick, as if he were treating him as a kind of servant or worse. They had to finish it off as soon as possible. Salazar examined the wound. It was made with a feather of blood. An object classified as dark that was used to sign contracts, but that was being used by the professor as an object of torture. There was a solution, if they acted quickly. He exchanged a quick glance with Godric, putting his hand in the fire to which they thought quite similar.
"I suggest you dip it in murtlap essence," Godric said. "As soon as possible for two hours and for the duration of the punishment. I think it's going to be a long time, isn't it?"
— All week.
"After the murtlap, a few drops of dittany will be enough. Hopefully you won't get a scar," Salazar said. "In fact, I have both products upstairs. If you wait a little you can start right now. The sooner the better."
"Thank you Harry, Ron.
It didn't take long for him to go down with both of them ready. It was fortunate that he had invested time and resources in having several potions and remedies at his fingertips, because as things stood, it was better to have a small supply of whatever might arise. Now with that he could help Ron. He really hoped to avoid having a scar that would remind him of what this degenerate did to him for life. He gave him the essence of murtlap so that he could dip his hand in it. The bad thing was that he would have to be two hours without interruption until that moment; and it was already quite late. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that Ron went to bed late to follow him on an adventure, at least during the first and second years. He had to make sure that he followed the treatment.
"Go to sleep," Ron said. "You must be tired.
"No, we'll stay with you," Salazar said.
"And what do we do? Do we study powerful spells?"
"Let's play gobstones," Godric proposed.
Gobstones were a magical game similar to Muggle marbles. He was to slide spheres across a board so that they were as close to the hole as possible but without falling through it. For that there was a series of concentric circles to the hole. The farther the Gobstone traveled, the higher the score obtained. In addition, there was the possibility of throwing the opponent's Gobstone outside when hitting it. It was, in itself, child's play. But they wanted to distract Ron, it was what he needed to clear his head and unload a little. In addition, the distraction would help her not to notice too much the pain of the cuts on her hand due to the feather and the stinging of the healing tissue. Anyway, while they played, Salazar considered the next step to take; something they had planned but that he considered that current events deserved to be brought forward. He would get everything up and running as soon as possible. The case of Ron... I sincerely hoped that he was the only one, that students had not missed being seriously harmed by the teacher. They played several games, until Ron's term with the murtlap was completed. Then he dropped a few small drops of dittany.
"You know, Godric, maybe it's time for our messenger god to write another article.
— And with the same completely raise the hare with respect to our teacher. Let's write the article, at most in two or three days it will be able to come out in the appropriate media.
— We will have to coordinate so that everything goes well.