Early in the morning, Beverly had just arrived at Flourish and Blotts when she saw Aurora, holding her long ginger umbrella, standing dumbly in front of the closed steps of the bookstore. The transparent rain splashed down from her umbrella, and the fine drops wet the ends of her long hair.
She was not wearing a raincoat or even rain boots. She rolled up her dark blue jeans to reveal her white, slender ankles, which dripped mud and rain against her skin. The tops of the cloth shoes were soaked with black mud.
"Good morning, Aurora." Beverly walked over. "Why are you so early?"
"Oh, I came to borrow some books. About..." Aurora thought, as if struggling to find the right word to describe what she was looking for.
Then, suddenly, she moved toward Beverly, her slanted umbrella pulling a rippling curtain of rain from behind her. "Do you know of any books in your store about the four founders of our school?"
"You're interested in them?"
"Ah, yes. Anyway, I have nothing to do recently. School will start soon. Come and have a look."
"Then I suggest you borrow some potions books for the quick and practical."
"..."
After some searching, Aurora, with the stunned eyes of the employees and that trademark impeccable smile, obtains her library card and drags the heavy load back across the street to the Magic pet store.
Unfortunately, Aurora couldn't figure it out until the first day of school. These documents are too official, artsy and rhetorical, to be of any practical value.
But the man in this diary is far more alive than the man on the page.
After the last half month of testing each other, Aurora discovered that the journal was perfectly normal, except for the creepy fact that it had belonged to -- or was attached to -- Salazar. Of course, in Salazar's words, it was only because Aurora, for some unknown reason, was immune to the magic he had left in this journal, that she would have gone mad by now.
Whenever the subject came up, the snake on the parchment would look at Aurora with a particularly doleful look, but with a strange smile on its lips, as if it had been transformed by one of those wicked wizards. And Aurora from the beginning every time to see must be shivering, has been trained to later indifferent.
She sometimes admires her adaptability. Perhaps having already had the experience of moving to a new world with her few remaining memories, Aurora was barely able to return to her old rhythm three days after Salazar showed up.
The tea roll was clearly interested in the new, moving diary, and his long, thin, curious fingers were always trying to poke Salazar's snake. On the third occasion of this dangerous act, the long-premeditated snake did not hesitate to use the diary to close the tea roll close enough to wrap it around a sandwich, almost squishing the poor creature.
From then on, tea Roll saw this diary and shivered, lying on top of Aurora and wouldn't get down.
The black cat, Brett, was much too large to carry a sandwich, so Salazar simply nuzzled him, zooming the slender little snake to the entire page, bringing to life every hard, smooth scale and terrifying golden vertical eyes and sharp fangs.
Brett shrieked and exploded, catapulting himself through the air. Unfortunately, he fell into the owl cage and crushed two of the owl's eggs. He was pecked by the angry and frightened birds and doubted his life. He never went near the diary again.
In less than 10 minutes, Salazar established his unassailable supremacy over the magic pet store.
But it also showed Aurora that Salazar was a very good man and very afraid of trouble. He fought off both the tea roll and Brett with some direct but very effective method, and he didn't waste any of the magic he used in a crude, unnecessary way.
She was glad that Salazar hadn't discovered his fear of snakes for a while, or if she hadn't been affected by the diary's magic, she would have been walking for days in the same zigzagged state as Bright, terrified by the poisonous snakes that suddenly filled the pages.
But thanks to Tosalazar, Tea Roll and Brett finally let go of their prejudice against each other and began to shake together in unison. Aurora smiled with relief as she watched the two little creatures coexist peacefully and love each other.
A week later, she tentatively asked Salazar if she would take him back to Knockturn Alley herself. But the original snake, who had been bored for more than a thousand years before he finally found a normal conversation partner, apparently did not approve of this proposal. He squashed the words with the tip of his tail, put them into his mouth, swallowed them like slurping noodles, and wrote a sentence with a lazy half-narrow snake eyes: "What are you afraid of? The magic I left here has no effect on you.
But it's not a question of magic working, Mr. Slytherin. Just who you are is enough to make a man cry, not to mention anything else, and carrying this diary is quite a mental test.
Aurora thought for a moment and, half sincere, half teasing, wrote on the page with her quill: "I am simply overwhelmed. You can understand the excitement of an ordinary student meeting one of the founders of the school. You deserve to be looked at on a high counter, not chatting with a second-year student on a little desk like this."
She thought for a moment, then went on, as if remembering something, "I think the middle of the dome in the Slytherin common room would be nice. You could have a pleasant chat with them every day about life and dreams. Perhaps I could introduce you to the current dean of your college?"
Heaven and earth, these words are absolutely a twelve - year - old girl's humorous joke. But Salazar clearly took it the other way, scoffing and tossing the words around in a ball with his tail: "And then you go to the door every day and pray for me to die?"
Aurora closed her eyes and rolled them as if they were her own. No normal Hufflepuff would hang around the Slytherin common room without his head full of squirt grass, let alone every day. The saddest part was that when it came to one of the founding fathers of Hogwarts, Aurora felt that even Dumbledore's card was no consolation.
The last days of the summer passed like sand between her fingers, and Aurora packed her bags a few days before school started and received her summer paycheck from Mrs. Blunt. The day before school started, she received a list of books for the new school year and returned to her apartment with a thick armful of her newly acquired money.
Aurora sighed deeply at the discovery that the new school year, as usual, was about potions. She had received her report cards, good as expected in Herbology and Transfiguration, medium in the other subjects, and so low in Potions that she had lost count of the number of times she had crossed Snape's line. If she continues next year, she can't imagine that.
So in the spirit of the foolish bird to fly, she decided to read a book to find out. However, the moment she opened the book, she regretted, those words alone she knew, combined together is very metaphysical, which makes her begin to doubt whether there is a problem in their understanding ability or their English level.
It was past eleven o 'clock at night, and Aurora was leaning over her desk, staring at the Potions book in front of her, thinking about the purpose of her life at Hogwarts. The dark green journal at hand opened slowly, the parchment looking older and mottled in the dim yellow light. Salazar swam to the edge of the page, glanced up at the textbook and unleashed a string of sentences: "Are you up now, trying to memorize this book before school starts?"
Aurora rolled her eyes, rested her chin on her arm, blew away the pale blonde hair that hung down before her eyes, and wrote: "If only I could recite it. This course is my kryptonite..."
Salazar raised his chin, pulled a teacup out of the page with the tip of his tail, crumbled the sentences into a cup of tea, and took a sip: "How hard can it be to be in second grade?"
Aurora choked her throat with blood. "It might be for you, Mr. Slytherin. Why don't you pretend it's your least favorite subject?"
Even as a snake, Salazar still drinks tea with a smooth grace. With a wink, he poured the remaining tea leaves onto the page and gathered them into one sentence: "There is no subject I am not good at."
Aurora's eyes went black and she could hardly get up to meet Merlin. The snake waved its tail and looked at the little girl in a haughty manner, its eyes half closed. For a moment, Aurora felt the full venom of Slytherin House -- from the founder to the present head master.
She pursed her lips, ignoring the overly laid-back founder.
"How about this?" As Salazar drawled, his handwriting had returned to its creepy beauty, its long, pliable strokes snaking like snakes. "You're having such a hard time with this class, I can help you."
"What do you want me to do for you? Aurora wrote in alert response. She suddenly had the feeling that what Salazar was about to write was what he had really wanted to say for the last half month.
"Nothing." Salazar casually rolled Aurora's handwriting into a bouquet of roses and tore them up to eat. "I'm not sure yet. You owe it."
Being indebted to a Slytherin was never an easy thing to look at. Especially if it's a Slytherin of Slytherins.
Aurora weighed it out and wrote, "I'm limited. Are you sure you want me to promise you one thing? What if I can't do it? Aren't you losing money?"
Salazar smiled darkly, and the tip of his thin, forked tongue shook menacingly at her. "These two months of work have not been for nothing. Aurora unconsciously moved her chair away from the journal. "I'm doing it for your sake, in case you regret it."
"Then I should be thanking you?" The snake stared and hissed out the letter.
"... No, that's what students do." This is absolutely the most instinctive desire of living things.
Salazar ate the last letter with a sneer and shuffled off the sentence: "Then it's a deal." The next moment, the diary closed with a snap, leaving Aurora sitting there, stunned, with a sudden, ominous feeling.
...
On the morning of the first of September, Aurora arrived exactly at platform nine and three-quarters of King's Cross Station.
Unsurprisingly, she runs into Vox, whom she hasn't seen all summer, and the two children embrace happily. Beverly had gone home the day before, so the three met at the station first thing in the morning. Aurora sees Regulus coming to see her off. The two talk very little. After all, they are not very talkative people.
Unlike their last encounter in Diagon Alley, Regulus had covered himself up except for his beautiful grey eyes. With his eyes alone, he bore a striking resemblance to Sirius. The difference is that Regulus's body shape is much more emaciated and less tall than that of Riciris.
As soon as she got on the train, Beverly said, "Professor Dumbledore came to see him." Volquez winked. "Him?"
Aurora looked out the window at the silent, melancholy man, whose eyelashes were long and dense, and whose pupil color was almost invisible when half-lowered. Sensing that someone was watching him, Regulus looked up and locked eyes with Aurora. His eyes narrowed slightly and were slightly curved in a silent smile.
As the train left, Beverly gave a brief account of the day, sketching it out in a few sentences. Volquez listened and scratched his head. "Professor Dumbledore himself would have been able to make the trip. Your guardian might have been a very special one."
It's common sense that a Black, even a distant relative, is unusual.
Back at Hogwarts, Aurora sent Rhimes a letter, thinking twice not to include the fact that she had found Salazar's diary so he wouldn't be shocked. When she had finished, she went to Vox outside the Gryffindor common room and asked him to take the letter to Hastings the Owl.
She was lucky enough to meet Bill Weasley as he prepared to enter the lounge, who was happy to help Aurora. Volquez came out with a hard brown paper box full of the fine mechanical work he had made at home during the summer to give Bill as a present. He remembered how much Bill's father loved these Muggle trinkets.
Bill was interested in the little thing that, when wound and unwound, could fly around the room for quite a while, but there was no way to experiment with other electrical machinery at Hogwarts, or Volquez would have been happy to demonstrate it for him.
"You must come to my house this Christmas, both of you!" Bill patted Vaux on the shoulder and played lovingly with the little creature. "I bet my father would have loved your invention."
"Thank you in advance, then."
Back at school, Aurora's life became monotonous and regular again. Bill kept trying to inculcate the charms of Quidditch into Walkers, but it always had little effect; after all, you can't expect a acrophobic to have much affection for the sport.
On Wednesday, the Hufflepuffs had their first Potions lesson of the term. According to Bill and Walkers, Professor Snape looked as sullen as ever, though he seemed to have been made worse by the rejection of his application for a Defence Against the Dark Arts position.
Aurora took a bite of the berry bread and thought it was understandable. For someone as cautious and arrogant as Snape, who had, in all likelihood, been prepared to make a move, one can only imagine how shocked and angry he must have been at being rejected.
During the first few weeks of school, Salazar put his money where his mouth was and helped Aurora catch up on potions. But really, it was a good thing Aurora hadn't had any idea of a change of teacher or mood in the first place, given that the Serpent's language was as sharp as Snape's.
She did not know how either of them had managed to use the properties of potion-material to tear people apart from the invisible, but she was sure of one thing:
Although there is no documentation of Salazar Slytherin's potions prowess, there is no way to compare the superior potions of their far too young dean with those of their founder.
But Aurora didn't care.
Because it doesn't matter which one of them is more talented. She certainly didn't have any, Aurora was sure.
And it made sense for Snape to be head of Slytherin at the age of twenty-one, even if he talked so much like Salazar.
The little girl sighed.
Life, maybe this is life.
Fortunately, it's not all doom and gloom. At least in the two-plus months she's spent together, Aurora has discovered one characteristic of Salazar's obsession with neatness. He made sure to keep the parchment he was on clean, so he ate all the handwriting that did not belong to him.
The Serpent had his own opinion and explanation. He thought Aurora's handwriting was too inelegant, too childish and clumsy. Aurora didn't tell him, but every time she saw Salazar's ER handwriting on the Copperplate, she thought he was a real slut.
With this discovery, Aurora immediately felt at ease with the founder. Of course, she only feels that way.
Because when Salazar sneered at Aurora with half-closed snake eyes, she found a way to make him mad. After cunningly and selectively jotting down what Salazar had said, she would dip a quill in thick black ink and then paint around him one of her abstract-the-soul masterpieces, before smiling and explaining the meaning of her work to the dumbstruck Snake, generally rising to the level of Van Gogh homage.
What a pity. Watching Salazar swallow the graffiti in a rage, Aurora knew he didn't resonate with Van Gogh.
Maybe he'd like to be practical? Slytherin, after all, was known for his rigorous elegance.
For some reason, she suddenly remembered their always cold potions master, Professor Snape.
Then she was a little surprised that she could remember him so well, not in the way of appearance, but in the way of character and casual habits.
Aurora is stunned by her thoughts, and the last drop of ink falls on the journal page, where Salazar breaks it into a black flower with the tip of his tail.
"Why are you so silly?" Salazar chin parted. "Thinking of your little Gryffindor lover? Your eyes... Tut tut."
From the academy's point of view, Salazar's assessment is not unusual.
Without catching herself, Aurora scribbled, "Which Gryffindor did you say?" Bill or Volquez?
"..."
But Salazar was right to warn that she was a little confused. Aurora shook her head, pushing the tall, thin figure out of her mind.