บท 73: CH73 - Origins
[BEGIN Excerpt from "The Warmage's Chronicles: Salazar Slytherin"]
I was born sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. I suppose I should be more specific. I cannot be sure when or in what circumstance my words will be read. The 960s or the 970s is what I meant. Beyond that, I did not know the specifics of my birth for a long time. Name days were not considered meaningful for those in my tribe. A child became a man through their actions, not the number of moons they had lived through.
I am getting ahead of myself.
My clan was known as the Gurutzada. A funny word to you, most likely, given the tongue it originates from was largely eradicated long before I was born. The Basque language, sometimes taught to us as the Euskara or Euskera, is the only remnant of the eclectic mix of languages from the southwestern reaches of the continent. It, along with much of our magical culture, was culturally assimilated—not by choice, I assure you—when the region began to be Romanized in the 2nd through 1st century BC.
Basque is also where part of my name comes from. "Zahar" literally means old, for even the Gurutzada had no record of the ancientness of parseltongue.
Gurutzada itself translates to "the crusade." If that does not hint at the beliefs of those I grew up with, then I am afraid, dear descendant, you are likely rather dull.
I was the direct offspring of two clan members, but my heritage was unknown to me until I became an adult. That was simply how it worked. Nepotism was considered a sign of weakness, so each child—whether one of the chieftain or of a thrall—was raised collectively by the entire tribe instead of by separate parents. Discrimination was foolish, as it would only deprive the Gurutzada of possible future warmages.
Unless, of course, someone was unpure of blood.
However, that is not entirely accurate either. It was not the individual's parents being magical that mattered, but rather how much they had been exposed to muggle culture throughout their life. Being pureblood was the easiest way to prove your loyalty to the plight of wizards and witches of our era. But only relying on purebloods proved insufficient for my clan, primarily because of the sheer number of children that did not survive their training.
And so, the Gurutzada raided. They would keep an ear out for rumours of newborns with supernatural abilities and then strike in the darkness. The child's family would be killed, and the toddler would be secreted away, never to know their true history.
We were taught about the atrocities the muggles had committed against us, indoctrinated with hate against those that dared to oppress us. Be warned. Do not fool yourself about the type of man I am, my heir. Although I recognize the tactics the Gurutzada used to warp my mind, it does not make me disagree with their teachings.
Their practices were brutal, yes, but not unwarranted. At least not to me.
Look at me, getting off track again. Perhaps my absentmindedness will be the only thing you remember from my words. Alas, reminiscence makes me nostalgic.
Where was I?
Ah yes.
At approximately ten years of age, I vividly remember a commotion among the ruling elders. A rather unusual raid had occurred at the time. Rather than assailing a village of muggles, the Gurutzada had chosen to attack a community where magicals and nonmagicals lived together. As far as I have been told, their coexistence was harmonious, but there was no telling when the stability would be disrupted. To the tribe, it was inevitable that conflict would break out between the two groups. Peace was a false hope.
In the moor that would come to be known as Godric's Hollow, a small West Country village in England contained the greatest population of young witches and wizards that the Gurutzada had ever come across. As was tradition, the inhabitants were slaughtered, including the magicals sympathetic to their muggle counterparts. No one over five was kept alive, considered far too much of a liability to be worth it.
Except for one boy, similar in age to my own. A boy named Godric Gryffindor.
With no formal training and only a poorly matched wand and wooden sword at his disposal, he managed to take down three warmages of the clan before he was apprehended. Usually, this would mean torture and execution for the perpetrator, no questions asked. However, the raw potential that Godric exuded led to an exception. The boy would be raised as one of the Gurutzada's own.
Not that the decision was widely supported. Many in the clan refused to interact with Godric, who was more than happy to return their hostility to them twofold. His unrelenting and boisterous attitude only made him that much more unpopular, both among the adults and the young.
I, however, shared none of my tribe's loathing for him.
I was envied for my parseltongue capabilities, while Godric was hated for his very nature. Both of us were familiar with the sensation of being outcasted for our prodigious talent, and we found common ground in that. Our friendship developed quickly, strengthening to the point of brotherhood in a matter of mere months. Whether or not we relied on anyone else in the Gurutzada, we always had each other's backs.
I trusted him.
After all, how much did it matter that muggles raised him for the first ten years of his life? I found the answer to that question sooner than I anticipated.
[END Excerpt from "The Warmage's Chronicles: Salazar Slytherin"]
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Flourish and Blotts was the premier store in magical Britain for all the book related needs a person could have. With multiple floors, each boasting over half a million unique tomes, it was no surprise that this was the case. Although it was not readily apparent, this also meant that the shop was heavily involved with conservation efforts for rare and remarkable books that could not be found anywhere else.
A massive unseen section of the store was an archive dedicated to protecting the knowledge within from being lost to the world. Luckily for Edmund, this also included copies of all the published editions of the Daily Prophet since the newspaper's inception.
After working in the Slytherin library for so long, Edmund had become an expert in all types of sorting-related charms. With a faint murmur and a twist of his wand, a small stack of weathered pages was filtered from the piles of clippings all around him.
Taking a seat at the sole desk in the crowded room, Edmund began to read.
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PHILOSOPHER'S STONE DESTROYED ACCORDING TO STATEMENT BY CREATORS NICOLAS AND PERENELLE FLAMEL!
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June 17, 1748
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And yet...
Things were not as simple as they seemed.
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THE FLAMELS REAPPEAR AFTER THE DEMISE OF THE DARK LORD! NOT SO DEAD AFTER ALL!
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October 22, 1767
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The man who had left the calling card with the "F" inscribed on it had not been difficult to find. He had made no attempts to hide his face, nor had he glamoured it in any way. To Edmund, Flamel seemed oddly uncaring about his continued existence being revealed to the world.
Or maybe, meeting with him had made the risk worth it...
Either way, Edmund had been unnerved by the man's interest in him. The first step to understanding what he was up against was studying; that was exactly what he had been doing since the encounter.
Anyone who did the slightest bit of digging into the Flamels' past would easily discover that they had a tendency to "pass away" whenever a new party seemed interested in stealing their most prized possession, only to resurface a few decades later. A century could go by after their "death," and many historians would still remain unconvinced about their passing.
The information Edmund had come across fit the conversation he had participated in with Flamel perfectly. It explained why he had known his wife for so long, why he had many children who passed away before him, and more...
'But if he can be trusted, that doesn't explain why Perenelle Flamel is dead,' Edmund thought to himself. 'More importantly, what does he want with me?'
The only link he could think of between them was the information that Marvolo had given him when he first woke up. That begged the question that if Flamel knew of him because the philosopher's stone was used to protect him when he arrived in this reality, why had he waited so long to approach him?
It could be that there had been no opportunity till now to do so. However, Edmund's gut told him otherwise. 'Something's fishy. But what?'
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As you may have noticed, my diction is decent, while my syntax is awful. Please do not hesitate to point out any mistakes I make with a paragraph comment or a general chapter comment!
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