two 𖤓 Push and Shove

A harsh stinging sensation on my cheek jolts me out of my slumber, causing my eyes to shoot open and jerk around my surroundings, taking them in as I struggle to understand where it is I am, and how I got here.

My mother is what comes into view first, her face blurred through my distorted vision. Though as it clears up as my consciousness returns to me, a frown forms on my own expression as I meet hers — one full of rage.

"Tell me it isn't true," she begins the moment our gazes meet.

"Where am I?" I ask, ignoring her bizarre words entirely as I attempt to peer over her shoulder. She is in a strange sort of position, hovering above the bed I have been laid atop as though attempting to conceal the room I am in from view, but I am able to bend my aching body enough to fight against this. Several feet behind her, a plump woman with orange hair has her back to us as she leans over a counter, mixing something into a bowl. Something about her rings a bell in my mind, though my attention is driven away from her when Hilda Greengrass speaks again.

"You have no business asking questions, child," my mother scolds, and I retract my gaze from the mysterious but familiar woman and back to her. Throughout my near eighteen years of life, I have seen her fury spike in this way only a handful of times, and never before when I was too confused to understand what I had done wrong.

The stinging in my cheek subsides, and I glance at her hand, the skin of her palm having turned ever so slightly red. This time, it is my turn to allow anger to rise in me, simmering in my veins as I demand, "Did you hit me before I woke up?"

When she does not deny it, I push myself off of my back and into a sitting position, despite the glare she shoots at me as I do. Moving my hand, I go to brush a clump of hair out of my face, to find it damp.

Memories come back to me in short, swift images, so quick and sudden I cannot quite discern if they did or did not truly happen. I recall fire, eating away at my insides. I recall water, the serenity of the summer evening. I recall searching for the sight of the sun through the clouds, and coming up with nothing.

My mother's lips part, but before a word escapes her, the woman behind her turns around, approaching us with a vial in hand. My eyes grow wide as I take in her identity, one I am surprised I did not observe the moment I noticed even the outline of her — Helga Hufflepuff. The greatest Healer that England has ever seen. One of the four founders of the school I attend, as well, but it is her medical achievements that signify her as great in the eyes of the world.

Whatever happened to me must be truly bad, if I have been sent to have her care for me.

When she is a foot or so away from my mother, she turns to her with a kind smile, saying, "Hilda, if you could move for a moment so I may speak to Emma, it would be greatly appreciated."

Inhaling a breath, my mother knows better than to disobey one of the Hogwarts founders, moving to the side and allowing Helga to take her place, leaning against my bed and handing me the vial. "Drink this, my dear."

"What is it?" I ask, eyeing the contents. The liquid is a sky blue that has begun to bubble at the top, small enough of a sample that I could swallow in one go.

"Drink," Helga orders without answering my question, voice more stern this time.

Opting out of infuriating a Hogwarts founder by resisting, I pull the cork off of the bottle with my shaking hands and down the potion in a hesitant gulp, and burst into a fit of coughs as it rushes down my esophagus. It feels like liquid ice has engulfed my body, freezing up my insides as it claws its way down into my stomach.

"What has happened?" I demand one final time, throat aching and voice hoarse from the odd potion I'd been made to swallow.

Helga moves out of the way, making room for my mother to return to her spot, the fury returning onto her aged face as she glares down at me, hands on her hips. Once again, it is unlike anything I have ever seen before on her, making me want to crawl out of my skin in shame at whatever sin I must have committed.

"We know," my mother says simply, seething.

I nearly scream from frustration at the lack of answers, but manage to maintain a general aura of calm. "Know what?"

Once again, I am ignored. Her nostrils flare.

Silent, she hits me again, not strong enough to hurt beyond a mild sting, though an ache forms in my heart at the contact. Her hand retracts back to her side as though having never moved in the first place, but I am well aware one wrong word from me will have her striking me over and over again until I am as bloody as my father had been the day he was murdered.

"Hilda, that is enough," Helga scolds, tone relaxed but firm.

My mother exhales a breath, as if shoving all her rage out with her lungs, releasing it into the air for it to catch onto someone else.

"Emma," Helga steps towards the bed I am on. "You had an encounter with Merlin Emrys the day prior, did you not?"

I blink, brain recalling my brief but bizarre interaction with the wizard. "This is about Merlin?"

"What were you thinking?" My mother scolds. "You should have accepted his offer, Emma, it was a good one, a thoughtful one!"

"Offer..." I repeat, voice trailing off. "You refer to his marriage proposal?"

A slender hand runs through my mother's hair. "What else? Oh Lord, do not tell me you refused him something else as well!"

I think, replaying our encounter back in my mind, then shake my head. "No. I simply told him I would not marry him. I do not understand, mother, what does any of that have to do with this?"

"Merlin is not a man one should offend," Helga explains, her tone far more relaxed than Hilda Greengrass's. She, of course, has no reason to be angry with me. I am not her daughter, after all. "But you have."

I frown. "All I did was refuse to marry a man I do not know. I fail to see how that is offensive."

My mother lets out a scoff. "What does it matter, the depths of which you know him at this moment? You would grow to, in time. Merlin is rich, Emma, and powerful, and he could have provided for you and the children you would have."

"I have a year left to complete at Hogwarts," I argue, shifting in my position on the bed. "I could not marry a man, then leave him for nine months. That would be odd. Not to mention that I do not wish to marry him, nor anyone!"

"Your education matters little, in the grand scheme of things. What matters is your future, which you have carelessly thrown away by rejecting Merlin."

"It matters to me!" For the first time, my voice raises as my anger finally gets the best of me. Helga jumps, nearly dropping the collection of vials she'd been gathering off of a shelf, and my mother's eyes narrow. Gulping, I understand I have gone too far as it is, and there is no use in backtracking. So I continue, "Why must I set aside the things I value for what others desire of me? Why am I being struck by you, mother, for simply putting myself first? Why are you not attacking Merlin for proposing marriage to someone he barely knows?"

"You should know better," she mutters, though it seems my speech has dimmed the anger in her. "Merlin is a powerful wizard, Emma. You do not understand what he could do in retaliation. What he has done."

My lips part, but before I can get a word out, my mind flashes to my last memory before waking up in this bed. The altered hue of my skin. My sisters, all concerned that I was burning up. The feeling of flames, seeping out from my bones.

"What did Merlin do, mother?"

For a moment, she is silent, running a hand through her hair. "You have been cursed. A spell of his own creation, from my understanding, nothing we are equipped to cure. You have two years to live, if that. Your body will soon burn itself from the inside out."

My stomach sinks to the floor as I take in her words.

Two years to live. Two years to live out the rest of the things I have desired — the education I wish to complete, the friends I wish to see thrive. The life I wish to live out, look at myself in the mirror and see an aged figure staring back at me. Many women fear the day their skin begins to sag and their eyes shine with wisdom, but I do not. In fact, I welcome it with open arms. A gift, a blessing not everyone is privileged enough to receive.

Had welcomed it, at least. It seems I too am being denied the privilege of a long lived life.

At least I got a warning, I suppose. My father was spared of that luxury.

Oddly enough, despite the initial shock of the statement, it is not sorrow that I feel eclipses my emotions, but rage. It is always rage, I can never stray too far from it without it reaching its arms out, gripping me tight and swallowing me whole.

"And this is my fault, I take it?"

My mother does not hesitate. "Yes!"

"Hilda," Helga interjects. "We should not jump to accusations. Had your daughter known this would happen, that Merlin Emrys would curse her in such a way, I imagine the situation would have been handled far differently."

I cannot take any more of this, I come to understand through the way my body begins to shake. No more of this idle chatter that will get us nowhere, that will solve nothing.

"No, I would not have," I counter as I shove myself off of the bed and onto my shaking feet. The blankets that had been draped over me fall to the ground, which I pay no mind to. Only just managing to keep myself upright by grabbing onto the wall, I keep my mother's harsh gaze as I press further, "I would rather die, as you claim I am now, than live out a life married to a man who does not take kindly to the word no."

"Where do you think you are going?!" My mother calls after me as I stumble through Helga's home, careful not to touch anything of importance. Who knows what sorts of valuable artifacts the founder of Hogwarts has laying around.

"Anywhere but here," is what I shout back as I reach the door, pulling it open and slamming it behind me.

Only when I am blessed with the sound of silence do I find the flames that had begun to erupt in me begin to die down, a fiery fury contained like a lid on a jar. Shoved away, but not quite extinguished.

Inhaling once, twice, three times to settle my racing heart, I dive forth into the grassy field, not quite sure where it is I am wandering towards. Anywhere but here, where my mother can scold me and Helga Hufflepuff can watch my humiliation unfold.

I wind up at the lake once again, a mile or so away from Helga's home. The sun hovers high above my head this time, no longer concealed by those blasted clouds. It is around noon, I determine by the position it holds in the sky, glancing upwards and staring straight into it without fear of burning my vision, as my father would often tell me would happen. The sun was dangerous, he would claim, grabbing me by my hair and yanking my head down, away from the sight of the flaming ball. I would destroy my sight if I looked at it for too long.

His words never stopped me much.

I pull off my shoes, setting them on the side of the dock before lowering my feet into the cool water, swishing them around, testing the temperature. Half of me wants to dive in, feel the sensation of the tranquil waves on every inch of my skin as opposed to just my toes. A foolish thought, soiling my dress in water and further upsetting my mother, but tempting.

The sun is a beautiful thing, sending reflections rippling off of the water, cascading down the through the subtle movements in the lake. Fish swim by me, diving around my bare feet and ducking under the dock

Footsteps from behind me have my head whipping to the side, heart jumping. Merlin, is my first thought as I spot someone approach the end of the creaky wooden dock, he has come to increase the nature of the curse he has placed on me.

But when my gaze settles on the man coming closer, I decide I would much prefer Merlin. Him, I know how to handle. I know exactly what I would say to him, how I would say it. On the other hand, I have not a single clue how to go about speaking to Salazar Slytherin.

If he is shocked to see me — or if he even recognizes who I am, he does not show it. His expression is placid, almost mournful as he approaches the side of the dock I am not on, standing just inches away from me.

Even as my anger rises again, slipping from the cracks in the mason jar I had contained it in, I cannot help but observe the man at my right. Despite the hatred I feel towards him for what he took from me, from my mother and siblings, from the grief he has plagued on the Greengrass family, I cannot help but find him incredibly handsome.

Hideously, handsome, in fact. Handsome enough that I pull my feet out of the lake, stand up onto my shaking legs, and nearly slap him, just because I find it completely unfair for a man so vile, so evil, to have even half decent features.

His features are more than half decent. With tan, sun kissed skin, and eyes the color of tree bark, he carries himself with enough poise to trick an onlooker from knowing of his crimes against humanity. Luckily, I am not easily fooled.

His eyes settle on me the moment I am turning to glare at him.

"Apologies," he begins, taking a step towards the edge of the dock, until his feet are only just hovering between the line that would send him flying into the water. "I can leave, if you were looking for peace and quiet. Or simply hold my tongue, if that is enough."

I frown. Does he not recognize me?

I suppose he has no reason to. Him and I have never interacted before — in fact, this is the second time I have seen him in person, as opposed to simply hearing stories of him from my father. It was two years ago, the summer before I entered my fifth year at Hogwarts. Mother had sent me to the market with a handful of coins, in search of fabric for a new dress she wished to sew Frida. I had been in the middle of negotiating down the price of fine blue fabric an elderly women had been selling, when I saw it.

Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin in the midsts of a fist fight. Abandoning my quest for a cheaper price, I had walked over to where a crowd had formed and watched as the two men wrestled in the dirt, shouting profanities at each other while they threw punches and dodged blows.

Now, I wish I was Godric. I wish I had enough bravery to punch him in the face and watch him bleed from his nose.

I wish I could do anything but sit there and take what the world throws at me — curses and marriage proposals and dead fathers and now, now, I am faced with another powerful wizard who has done me wrong.

"It is a nice day out," Salazar continues at my silence, taking it as a sign to speak further.

No different than Merlin, I think to myself as I clench and unclench my fists. Careless to the desires of those around him. Can he not tell I wish to be left alone, that his absence would be a blessing?

It is Merlin I am truly mad at, I am aware of this. Salazar, if anything, did me a favor, despite my refusal to admit such a thing to anyone but the demon that lives in the back of my mind.

But Merlin is absent. All I have is my anger, so ripe and raw and ready for battle, and a different, yet no less innocent man to take it out on.

"My name is Salazar," he says, outstretching a hand for me to shake and confirming my suspicion — he hasn't a clue who it is he is speaking with.

Part of me wishes to tell him, scream that we all know what he did, and demand to know how he has the gall to show his face outside when he has committed the most wretched of sins. Perhaps they cannot prove to the law that he was the one to strike my father down, but their years long rivalry was confirmation enough in the eyes of our family.

I hold my tongue. Nothing I have to say will be productive, and I have already angered those around me enough. My mother is bound to find and curse me out for my harsh words spoken to her, igniting that fury in Merlin has been of no good to me, and no doubt my friends at Hogwarts will be upset with me once they discover I am destined to die in two years time.

My silence seems to baffle him.

"Are you quite alright?"

It is Salazar's fault I am dying, a small voice in the back of my head tells me. He may not have planted the curse on me, but Merlin had only offered his hand because of my father's murder. Had my family remained intact, so would my body. Instead, I am burning up, and the man to blame stands less than a foot away from me.

"Go to Hell, you smug bastard," I spit before I can stop myself.

Those brown eyes grow wide, a question forming on his parted lips, but his words will never come out. In an impulse so unfamiliar to me, my hands are on his chest, pushing and pushing with all my strength. Not much effort is needed before he stumbles backwards, flying off of the dock and submerging into the water with a yelp as his body meets the cold waves.

He can swim, much to my irritation. His body bobs in the water that he frantically treads, eyes blinking and head jerking up to me.

I waste no time before dashing down the dock as fast as my legs will take me, vanishing within the trees and putting as much distance between myself and the surely enraged Salazar Slytherin.

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Author's Notes

finally emmazar meet! hilda is kind of a terrible mother but she tries. next chapter is emma's return to hogwarts! we'll get more of her siblings and her friends that you haven't met yet...and more salazar :)