Palette

The stones were rearranging themselves, and it was a truly fascinating site. Under the flickering lights of enchanting candles floating in the air, they looked like a school of fish, all of different shapes and forms, all united in their one true desire — to serve the wizard and his will. It was never supposed to turn out this way. This thought pierced his mind with the cold clarity of the first true gust of wind, the one that finally ends the illusion of lingering autumn, gold and rich. That was the way all the illusions go. They don’t fade softly out of existence like fog or twinkling stars at dawn. They disappear abruptly, suddenly, revealing the ugly truth they were once hiding. Now, looking back at it, he should have foreseen the inevitable. He should have realized that neither friendship, nor love were enough. He should have overplayed, he should have outsmarted his smarts while he had still had a chance but he was blinded by the sense of unity, the sense of finally belonging, the sense that the sum could be greater than its components… this works in the fine art of Potions but not with people, their pride, their inability to see the bigger picture… Weren’t his demands logical? Wasn’t his voice the one of a reason? They had fled so far away from the common folk to hide from mediocrity, and now it was mediocrity parading in the great halls of their beautiful creation. The crowd of commoners, halfwits, and the traitors of blood lineage, defiling the once sacred temple of pure knowledge and magic! He knew his time was nigh at the place he had poured his heart into, and that feeling was far worse than losing a child or a friend, it was losing hope… The talented ones, his former allies and friends, the ones he could have trusted with his life and honor were now talking nonsense and expecting him to listen! Helga, once the gentle and caring one, has spoken the harshest words to him calling them the words of reason! Rowena, the brightest of the minds he has ever met, has lowered her standards the way that scared him beyond imaginable. And Godrick. His friend with a heart as fiery as the deepest pits of Hell could not compete, the one he felt connected to more than to a long lost brother, the person whose laughter and steady hand could once dispel the darkest of the thoughts… has gone mad with his sudden love and approval for the filth of the earth, the mudbloods they had so desperately been trying to flee! He stepped into the darkness that looked like a gushing wound on the flesh of Hogwarts castle. The candles followed. “Never underestimate a former friend,” he spoke softly into the darkness. “Not a good old Sally but Salazar Slytherin, the last one of the pure, I’m afraid…” He started creating, and magic coiled around him like a giant snake burrowing its way into the depth of Hogwarts castle. Good old Sally still had a trick or two up his sleeve, a secret or two, one could say… And for all those secrets he was going to build a proper home, one brick at a time. A Chamber of Secrets.