Author: Aedalena
Summary: A collection of short ficlets set in the Nullifier universe, following the lives of the founders before (and possible after) Harry's arrival.
This chapter: Godric's sword, Salazar's locket, late night duels, magic of dubious legality, Morass, rumours, battle wizards. It's Godric's birthday, and Salazar is being cryptic, as usual.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. No profit is being made by the author of this fanfic.
Note: Knowledge of the Nullifier universe will be helpful, but not necessary, to read this ficlet. Conversely, these short stories provide interesting bits of background for Nullifier.

The Founders: Pieces of Life #1

The sword—silver and set with rubies sufficiently large to blind an opponent in the proper lighting—might not have been the most shamelessly gaudy weapon ever forged, but Godric suspected it would take no small amount of searching to find its equal, much less one surpassing it in sheer, decadent uselessness.

"Is this supposed to be a subtle Slytherin remark about Gryffindor pride?" he asked Salazar, who had been patiently watching him study the sword.

His cousin didn't quite smirk, but Godric thought it a near thing.

Helga and Rowena had presented him with their gifts early that day, over breakfast. From Helga he had received a rare chalipris stone, which possessed the power to heal even a mortal wound, though only once. Rowena, applying her characteristic genius for charms, had enchanted a ring to automatically fire off an ennervation spell if its wearer was ever stunned.

He had been pleased with the gifts, albeit slightly irritated at the implication that he was unable to take care of himself—he was twenty-five years old, and had been out of his apprenticeship for over two years now. Sometimes he felt the age difference between Helga and Rowena and him a bit more keenly than he would like. Even Salazar, barely three years his elder, had a habit of treating him like a hopelessly naive younger brother who needed watching, but he didn't and somehow whenever he tried to explain this, Salazar would listen attentively, assure him that understood perfectly, and do absolutely nothing to alter his behaviour.

Thirty, Godric decided. Surely by the time he was thirty they would tire of playing the older sibling. He had more than enough of it at home—which was partly why he had thrown himself so enthusiastically into fixing up the castle and then teaching.

But for now he would settle for Salazar being less vague. When Salazar's turn to give his gift came, he had demurred, explaining that it needed to be opened in private, and he would give it to Godric after lessons were finished. This had driven Godric nearly mad with curiosity the entire day, until after supper, Salazar had pronounced it time to unveil his mysterious present.

A sword. Godric could think of no explanation for Salazar to give this to him while they were alone other than that a duel was meant to follow, which was ridiculously unlikely, not the least of which reason being that Salazar would lose horribly. That, and he had only disdain for anything so Muggle as swordfighting. But he also knew that Salazar was never this cryptic without cause. Well, usually.

"Gryffindor pride? Not this time, though you are welcome to take it as such. As for its true purpose..." With as close to a flourish as he ever approached, Salazar withdrew from his robes the heavy golden locket he always carried and presented it for view. "Take up the sword."

Bemused but willing to see where this was leading, Godric did so.

"Now, say descresere."

He obliged, and the sword shrank until it was the size of his palm. Even more bewildered now, he met the entertained gaze of his cousin. "An ornamental sword that shrinks...?"

Salazar's amusement did not abate, which was worrisome. Painful experience had taught him that an amused Salazar was something to be wary of.

"Not entirely ornamental. I think it would perform adequately as a letter opener."

Godric very deliberately did not tear at his hair in frustration. "Is that what it is?"

"No. That function is incidental."

Godric's thus far more than generous patience reached the end of its tether. "No doubt it's several times more clever than anything Rowena could fashion, but I can hardly laud your unrivalled brilliance in front of her tomorrow at breakfast unless I know precisely what it does!"

One of Salazar's rare smiles surfaced. "'Unrivalled brilliance,' is it? You truly must be curious."

"You're enjoying this far too much," Godric complained. "What must I do for an answer, if neither Gryffindor forthrightness nor Slytherin flattery avail me?"

"Ask Helga if she is willing to lend you some more patience, I would suggest."

"Or Rowena if she is willing to lend me her bow?"

Salazar shook his head as though with disappointment. "Violence, Godric? Your over-familiarity with those Muggleborns you teach is showing."

"Salazar..." Godric groaned, suddenly afraid that this might be a lead into another one of Salazar's tirades and any chance of ever learning the sword's purpose would be lost.

His cousin seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. "Perhaps I will spare you just this once."

"Unusually generous of you," he said drolly.

"I sometimes endure your company several hours a day without insulting you once. I shouldn't think my generosity was ever in question."

"Salazar!" He waved the little sword around in helpless frustration. "Tell me, before I test how much force must be applied to this dull blade to pierce through, say, the flesh of a certain overly smug Slytherin!"

Salazar raised both eyebrows. "We really must separate you from those Muggles. Very well, step back. No, back more...farther. There."

Salazar then walked to the opposite end of the room and laid the locket flat on his palm. He tapped it with his wand and whispered an incantation that Godric couldn't make out. Nothing seemed to happen, though Godric didn't dare interrupt Salazar's concentration yet. Doing so in the past had led to some truly spectacular mishaps.

"Godric?"

He started, nearly dropping the tiny sword. The voice had been as clear as though Salazar had been standing right beside him. Staring at the gift, he didn't dare look up and see Salazar laughing at him, which he knew he was, the bastard.

"Hello?" he said cautiously, aiming his voice at the sword.

"Good, the first link works," Salazar replied through the sword, sounding pleased. "Though in comparison it was the easier of the two."

"You enchanted the sword to...channel voices? But communication spells can't be embedded in metal—or material, for that matter! They are strictly wanded magic, work by sight..."

"I am indeed familiar with basic magical theory."

"Oh, no."

Salazar frowned. "What is it? You are not experiencing any ill effects? Tell me immediately if you feel—"

"There will be no rest for me, will there? All hours of the day, sly comments. Unwanted advice whenever I teach my students. Demands as to my whereabouts when I decide to accept a duelling offer from yet another one of those smug Council battle wizards."

"Yet another?" Salazar demanded, glaring at him from across the room. "You swore it was only those two."

"For precisely this reason!"

"Which reason would that be?"

"This," he said, gesturing at Salazar's face in the absence of words to describe his expression. "You disapprove. But despite what you and Rowena and Helga may think, I can see to my own safety. Whilst soundly knocking my overconfident opponents on their arses."

"At the very least, you could ask me along to watch you defeat said opponents."

"Oh." That abruptly deflated Godric's righteous indignation. "Really?"

"Fewer things would bring me greater pleasure."

Godric didn't doubt it; Salazar and the Council were not on the friendliest of terms, with one sometimes-exception. Godric did his best to restrain himself, but he couldn't. "Do you think you could ask—"

"No."

"But he would—"

"No."

"He's just afraid he'll lose. And damage his reputation irreparably."

"Possibly. And possibly a certain Gryffindor has let his long string of victories swell his head."

"So it is a subtle remark about Gryffindor pride!"

"It wasn't meant to be." Salazar smiled faintly. "Very well, I will ask him for you. On one condition."

"Go on," Godric said warily, knowing better than to immediately agree.

"I want to be there when I watch Gryffindor pride fall to Slytherin skill."

"Or the reverse!" Godric retorted.

Salazar fell silent for a moment, watching him, and Godric felt the odd transparency he sometimes did under his cousin's scrutiny. "What?"

"I am—" Salazar seemed to change his mind mid-sentence. "—nothing."

"Amusing as it is to hear you of all people say that, I somehow doubt that's what you meant."

"Doubt that I meant to be amusing?"

"Usually you aren't so blatant about it," he pointed out. "Darkly funny. Scorn and derision softened by artfully hidden humour."

"Softened?" Salazar repeated, frowning.

Godric laughed. "Oh, don't look so insulted. That was mostly a compliment."

"I see. And why would you be complimenting me?" Salazar asked, a knowing scepticism in his voice. "You now know what the sword does."

"I know one of its functions, but I am not deaf. You said that the first 'link' was easier than the second. Implying that the sword does something else."

Salazar's initial look of surprise was almost instantly replaced by one of studied confusion, but not quickly enough to evade Godric's notice.

"Both links were needed for the communication spell to hold." Salazar produced a slight shrug. "I hadn't thought it worthy of mention."

"You? Miss an opportunity to gloat about some magical feat you have accomplished?" Godric shook his head. "No, you're hiding something."

Again he felt the weight of Salazar's careful study, which eased up when he crossed the room and held out his hand for the shrunken sword. Godric, still deeply curious, held the hilt out to him. Salazar took the sword and with a flick of his wand, dimmed the torchlight in the room. A short incantation restored the sword to its normal size and a longer one illuminated something within it—vine-like tendrils of magic, blue and silver and black, threaded the metal just beneath its surface, like thick veins. He did the same to his locket, with similar results.

"Your hand."

Godric held it out, and felt a sting as Salazar used a weak slicing spell.

"Ow," he said reproachfully.

Salazar threw him a disgusted look. "This is the great dueller who would defeat my father?"

Godric felt his cheeks heat. "Well, you could have warned me."

"Why do suspect that it would have made little difference?"

Salazar set the sword on a table and guided Godric's hand over it, letting a few drops fall on the blade. The blue threads of magic glowed more intensely with each drop. Salazar released his hand and cut his own, releasing the drops close to where Godric's had fallen. The silver lit up.

"Blood magic?" Godric asked.

"Yes."

Godric stared at the dim black thread. "Whose is that?"

"I thought us close enough kin that blood rituals would allow me to anchor a specialised communication spell to the metal. And it did indeed work, but as with most magical imbuings, the sword needed a third element for stability. To prevent confusing the spell, I used the blood of an unrelated wizard."

"Morass?"

"He helped with the most complicated weaving of the magic," Salazar admitted. "And, as you see, it works."

"You could have asked Rowena. You know how she gets about magical experimentation."

"I decided that, due to the origin of many of the required rituals," Salazar said delicately, "it wouldn't be prudent."

"Oh. So it's—"

"Yes." Salazar hesitated. "I know that it makes you uncomfortable. If you would rather not—"

"You made it," Godric said.

Salazar blinked at the interruption. "I believe I may have mentioned that. Several times."

"Then I'll wear it." Salazar seemed to relax slightly. "Do you still want me to laud your unrivalled brilliance somewhere within Rowena's hearing?"

Salazar cleared his throat. "That would be mean-spirited and cruel, considering her pride over the only moderately challenging enchantment she made on that ring she gave you. She should be allowed some delusion of adequacy."

"That would be a yes?"

"Perhaps a little," Salazar allowed as he removed the enchantment that revealed the magics within the sword and restored the lights.

Godric shrunk the sword again and removed his old dagger to free up the sheath. "A concealed sword. Do you think it violates the duelling code?"

"Should I ask why you wish to know?"

"Not unless you fancy a walk to the forest," Godric said cheerfully. "The battle wizards seem to have taken umbrage at the ease with which I defeat them. I have two duels tonight."

"I fear to ask how many prior duels you must have had to warrant such a response."

Godric snorted. "Enough that I would fear to answer the question."

Salazar put his wand away and they left the small room. "And what does your esteemed former mentor think of the use to which you have put the skills he taught you?"

"Aethrin? Oh, he pretends to disapprove, but he's just jealous. I am not yet burdened with a reputation like his—no one will duel him anymore. They know how badly they will lose. I am still at the point where my opponents think that they have a chance."

"And Slytherins are supposedly arrogant?" Salazar mused. "What would that make you?"

Godric laughed. "You have your vices, leave me mine."

"Shall I interpret that to mean you will stop treating me to me worried frowns when I return from visiting Morass?" The question came out light, but Salazar's attempted smile seemed strained.

"You are allowed to worry but I'm not?" He thought about his impending duels and sighed. "You must be more careful. I don't know if all the rumours about dark magic are true. You have yet to embark on murderous rampages, for example. But other people don't know you, and they talk, and the Council—"

"The Council," Salazar sneered, "is an assembly of self-righteous fools whose ignorance is rivalled only by their prodigious stupidity."

"Does that include Uncle Warin?" Godric struggled with applying the words "ignorant" or "stupid" to his intense, dangerously competent uncle. He failed.

"He is no fool, but he is just as self-righteous as the rest of them." Glancing over at his cousin, Godric saw that a brooding shadow had fallen across his face. "They condemn what they have never tried, clinging to superstitious dread of the unknown. They fear it because it is older, more powerful, and therefore more dangerous than normal magic."

"Well, they condemn murder too, and I should hope they've never tried that."

"The two have nothing to do with one another, Godric," Salazar said patiently, exactly like someone patronising a young child. "It makes their fear no less irrational."

Godric fought down his irritation at Salazar's tone. "You don't think they have the restrictions in place for a reason?"

"Restrictions? Call them what they are: condemnations. Do you know the penalty for casting one dark spell? They assign a battle wizard to watch you for a month. If there are no further 'incidents,' the battle wizard is pulled. But a second offense is punishable by a year's imprisonment. A third—well, you know about my grandfather."

Godric, who had met him once, shuddered. "Bringing him up does not exactly support your argument."

"He was mad. He was reckless with the magic, and it does not take kindly to abuse. I will not make that mistake."

Godric said nothing. Sometimes what Salazar said sounded so reasonable that he felt foolish for worrying. But over the last few years, Salazar had become more irritable. He angered more quickly, and some days his hatred of Muggleborns was so intense that Godric actually kept the students out of his way. He remembered the mishap with the witchblade that had nearly killed him and grimaced. It had taken all of his acquired cunning to stop Salazar from murdering the Muggleborn responsible for the accident.

Other times, like today, Salazar was able to joke about them.

Mercurial. That was the word, perhaps. Salazar was by nature reserved, controlled—the very opposite. Which was why his occasional outbursts, which continued to grow in frequency, troubled Godric so. They were unlike him. He never felt in danger, or that Salazar was going to truly harm anyone, but it still made him uneasy.

And others had begun to notice.

"I know," Godric said finally. "You're careful."

"Of course." Salazar glanced over at him. "You look tense. I take it the hour of your duel draws near?"

"Duels," Godric corrected. "And yes. And as a second birthday gift, you will smile and wish me luck?"

"I am going with you," Salazar stated firmly.

"No!" Godric burst out.

Salazar frowned. "Why not?"

"The duels are actually quite boring," he said earnestly. "A spell or two and I have them down. I'm sure you have more interesting plans for tonight. Doesn't the Council of Nullifiers meet tonight?"

"Tomorrow," Salazar said dismissively, ignoring the attempted change of subject. "What are you hiding?"

"I just prefer to duel alone."

"You prefer to duel alone. Challengers excepted, of course."

"Salazar—"

Salazar raised an eyebrow. "Is this a duel? Or is it a woman?"

Godric was tempted to say yes, but knew that the charade would last for all of one night, and then Salazar would pursue the truth with his characteristic ruthlessness.

"The battle wizards might...react to your presence," he said, hoping Salazar would leave it at that.

"React?"

"I told you, there are rumours. People saying things about you. From what a few of the battle wizards have said, I worry that the Council might start investigating soon."

"They will find nothing." Salazar sighed. "How do you know? Have they been asking questions?"

Godric thought about the sneering insults and insinuations and had to fight down a fresh fury—he was planning to save it for the duels. "No. No questions."

"Then what—?" He looked at him and seemed to read something Godric hadn't meant to show. "I see."

"I need to do this alone," he said.

"Do you truly think you can beat them into silence? They will only resent you more."

"Salazar..." He hesitated. "You have never watched me duel. Not since I began my apprenticeship to Aethrin."

"Well, no—"

"When I am finished with them," Godric said very levelly, "they find silence a far more appealing prospect than they ever imagined it might be."

Salazar was quiet for a long time after that, until they reached the gates. "Sometimes I still think of you as the boy who sought nereids at the bottom of Polchas Lake and nearly drowned when he found grindylows instead."

"I have noticed."

"You are a Gryffindor. It is your nature to actively seek trouble."

"Which I can handle."

"I think I am beginning to see this," Salazar said with a slightly puzzled look on his face.

"About bloody time," Godric said snidely, but he felt oddly warmed by the admission. "You will let me do this alone?"

"No. We spend too much time trying to protect each other," Salazar said, staring into the dark forest. "I will hear what these wizards think of me. And you will show me that you can protect yourself."

Godric recalled some of the more hateful vitriol spouted by the wizards he had provoked into challenging him tonight. "Well, try not to kill any of them. That's my job."

"Killing them?"

"Trying not to."

"Very well. But once we have finished trying not to kill them, I have a request to make."

"Oh?"

Salazar smiled. "Duel me. I wish to see if you are as capable as you claim."

"Why, Salazar," Godric said with a delighted grin. "A chance to defeat you at something? You truly do give the best gifts!"

"Will you still think so when I win?"

"No nullifying. That would be cheating."

"I won't need it."

Godric walked in silence for a while. "If I win, you'll be less...you about me being impulsive? Because, as you said, I am a Gryffindor. We need engage in a certain number of reckless activities each month to keep happy. And if you lose, then it means I can take better care of myself than you can." He smiled widely. "In fact, it probably means that I can be patronising of you instead."

"Do recall that I am still a nullifier, and that if I exercised my full power against you, you would stand no chance."

His smugness faded. "Oh. Right."

"But yes. I will extend you a bit more trust."

"Oh, very big of you."

"I know," Salazar said. His amused smirk softened into a smile. "Happy birthday, Godric."

He didn't know why that phrase meant more to him coming from Salazar than from his brothers or his father or Rowena or Helga, but like every birthday before, it did. The sword in its sheath by his side, Salazar's grudging acceptance of his age, his smile—all too rarely seen in the past few years—they were Salazar's equivalent of a rib-crushing embrace.

"Salazar Slytherin, I'm afraid you have indeed gone soft," he remarked. The outraged look on Salazar's face was entirely worth the pain of whatever retribution he would devise later. He patted his cousin's shoulder soothingly. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."

And though Salazar pestered him the rest of way to the duelling grove, demanding he retract the "unfounded accusation," he remained steadfast in his refusal.

— — — — —