THE FIFTH FOUNDER ⚡️ [h.p./founders era]

Twenty

a/n: thank you guys so much for 30K!!! you guys are amazing and I love you all. here's an update for you hehe. also, if you're interested, I have another story about a young death eater during the second wizarding war and how she overcame. it's called Rosier! Part One is completed already and Part Two will be coming soon.

Simon quickly grew accustomed to the castle and was starting to feel right at home. He was always willing to help with anything.

His favorite thing to do was help in the kitchen with Helga. She would spend a lot of her time testing out new food charms that could be mass produced for our prospective students. If Simon was lucky, Helga would let him try some of the food for himself, and I think that was why he spent most of his time with her.

After the incident with Simon's family, Godric refused to speak about it. For the remaining two muggle born students, Rowena decided to visit the muggles herself, and Godric went with her. When they returned both times, they were unscratched, bringing back neither of the children. According to Rowena, she used my excuse, or lie as Godric called it, and the muggle parents suspected nothing and the students would be attending school with everyone else.

As for our ever-growing number of students, at first, we received no letters back from any wizarding child. It took probably a whole week before the letters started to return, and while only a few returned, more and more started pouring in with letters of recommendation for other children.

By the end of it, we had around fifty students that were scheduled to arrive in a few short months.

It was incredibly overwhelming, especially since ten of those students would most likely remain under my care.

Having a young boy running around the castle was already stressful enough; I could barely imagine what it would be like to have fifty.

I think the stress was hitting all of us very quickly.

Salazar and I tasked ourselves with setting up classrooms for the students. Each room served a different purpose, and each one was fit for a specific class's needs.

We were outside the castle in a glass shaped room that we built for growing magical plants and herbs.

Most of the greenhouse was empty, but we were slowly filling it with seeds Helga or Rowena had saved away. Some of the plants grew massively overnight, and others had no movement at all.

Tending to the plants was therapeutic for me, as it was away from the business of the castle but it also kept my mind and hands doing something.

As part of my usual routine, I checked the soil of a particular plant that liked to soak up all of the water it could. I reached my hand in and patted around the base of the plant to feel if the soil dried out.

The soil was as I suspected, but something else caught my attention before I could fix it.

I felt sharp teeth sink into my sink and pull back again. I yelped, yanking my hand away from the plant as a snake slithered out toward me.

I held my hand close to me and assessed the bite for a quick second, before I realized that the snake was still coming toward me. It's beady eyes caught mine somehow and I stumbled backward, crashing into a table behind me.

Fear froze my every instinct, and all I could think about was accepting my ultimate demise.

Then it hissed. Or I thought it did.

Salazar stepped in front of me and, sort of, spoke to it. Except he was not talking in English. His words were slurred together in a harsh whisper and he exaggerated his s's in a way that did not sound normal.

The snake seemed to understand him somehow, turning around, and it slithered out of the greenhouse altogether.

I looked up at Salazar in bewilderment as he turned back to me. "How did you do that?"

He didn't answer me. Instead, his eyes went straight to my hand. He took it in his own and inspected the damage, turning my flesh toward the sun for better light.

"It wasn't venomous. The bite looks fine." He assessed, pulling out a cloth from his pocket.

He tied the cloth around my hand to stop the bleeding. Once he was satisfied with his work, he went back to what he was doing without answering my question. So I followed him.

"Salazar." I called out his name, and he caught my eyes, a hint of amusement playing on his face. "Did you just... speak to that snake?"

Salazar breathed out a laugh. "Don't be silly, Lyra. No one can speak to snakes."

I huffed, unconvinced. "But you just did."

"That's not possible—"

"You're a parselmouth." I concluded. This caused him to give me his full attention, which I appreciated, and I couldn't help but smile about it.

Salazar shook his head and stepped back closer to me. "How do you know what that is?"

"I grew up in Romania. Parseltongue was highly regarded by most of my teachers, though I've never met anyone that could actually speak it." I looked at him in wonder. "Where did you learn it?"

"I didn't." He answered simply, giving me a million more questions. "I was born with it. I don't know how, but I've always been able to communicate with them."

With that, he turned away and I could tell he didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Salazar," I called out to him, and he turned his head back toward me. "Thank you."

He nodded once, the corner of his lips twitching upwards into a glimpse of a smile.

"You're lucky I was there to save the day." He gloated and I rolled my eyes.

"Actually, I redact my statement." I laughed and walked past him to head back up to the castle.

"That's no fair!" He called after me as he hurried to catch up.

He grabbed my uninjured hand and spun me around, causing me to gasp in the process. He gently held my other hand and brought it up to his lips, placing a soft kiss on my skin.

Letting go, he bent down and swept my feet from under me, wrapping his other arm around my waist. I laughed as he did so and held onto the collar of his shirt.

"Don't worry, I won't drop you." He promised as he carried me up the rest of the way.