A New Year's Resolution

By: Lorry

Rated G

This is a Founders Fic. I have visited here before, and given Slytherin a bit of an obsession for Rowena. (See my diary entry exercise. I forget the number.) And if he does not seem to have the malice that would eventually cause him to create a Chamber of Secrets, I only hold to the fact that they WERE friends when they began to build Hogwarts.

Disclaimer: This is for entertainment purposes only, no infringment is intended. No profit will be made. I don't own Rowena Ravenclaw or Salazar Slytherin.

"Sit with me for a little while, Rowena," Salazar Slytherin pulled a massive oak chair away from a table in corner of their meeting place, one of London's most popular pubs. Around him, there was much reveling. It was New Year's Eve. And while Slytherin did not mind that another year was before him, the noise and drunken party spirit were getting on his nerves.

"Of course," smiled the dark haired Rowena Ravenclaw. She took her seat gracefully, as her friend Salazar's gaze strayed from her face, down her neck, to her pale white hand resting on the table.

"May the fates be benevolent to us in this new year."

"Here, here," Salazar agreed. He poured his lady a goblet full of elderberry wine, then refilled his own. "I have something to ask you," he told her. "And no, I am not proposing to propose to you again. I believe I did that last year about this time."

"But what if I've changed my mind?" Rowena teased, as she took a sip of wine.

"If I thought that, even for a moment, I would drop to my knee here and now and ask you again."

Rowena laughed. Salazar's eyes glittered darkly at even a hint that she might reconsider his request.

"Seriously," Rowena pressed. "What is weighing so heavily on your mind? Your brow furrows with it. How can I help?" Her hand reached out to him across the rough wooden table.

"Something I cannot get away from," Salazar answered. His hand gripped hers with an intensity that caused her pain. "I will not turn from it again. The school we've chatted so casually about with Godric and Helga. We must begin. Now. Let us start even as the first day of this new calendar begins. We can send out the word, begin scouting for promising students. I know all of the most upstanding wizarding families in this realm. They want protection for their children. And those children need an education. I know that you would be outstanding in that respect."

Rowena blushed under his compliment. "I am only a woman, dear Salazar. What could I possibly contribute?"

Salazar's hand slammed down on the table harder than he'd meant for it to. A few nearby revelers looked up from their cups and began to whisper. A maggoty old man in mud spattered clothes pointed uneasily at the wizard hat on Slytherin's head.

"You are the most powerful sorceress of this realm," Salazar spoke through clenched teeth. "I don't believe for a moment that you hold to such nonsense. I need you, Rowena. You are the most resourceful of us all."

"But not near as determined as you are," she admitted. "Not as brave as our Godric. And Helga.... She'd do anything we asked, if she believed in the cause."

"Then resolve with me, tonight. Before it becomes the morrow. We will begin construction of the school *this year*." He waited, breath going shallow until she would speak.

Rowena smiled and raised her goblet to his. "Tonight, dear friend," she promised, her fingers smoothing over the back of his hand. "I resolve with you that this new year will not slip away without a school of witchcraft and wizardry."

They drank a toast together, then Salazar set down his cup.

"One more thing, Rowena," he said. His raven-haired companion flashed him a grin. She knew what was coming. Pulling his hands into her own, she kissed them.

"Ask me again when the school is finished," she told him. "For I think this new endeavor will keep us quite busy, for a long time to come."

Slytherin's eyes went far away for the briefest of moments, then refocused on Rowena. Suddenly he looked sadder and older than when he first entered the pub.

"As you wish, my lady. As you wish."