945 Transtemporal Travel

The swirling cloud of red sand-like dust finally ceases to move and Rowan's glowing shield flickers before vanishing. "I'm still alive," Rowan thankfully thought to herself but remained where she stood. She still felt rather ill after all the swaying and even though the ground had stopped moving all around her, she still felt as though she was on a boat.

Rowan had covered her face and head with her robes and patiently waited for the red fog to clear. The red, sparkling dust cloud continues to fall for some time until the dust cloud finally begins to settle. Seeing the dust cloud clearing, she slowly removes her sleeve from her face. She slowly straightens up and shakes all the dust that she can off of her body.

The flicker of a glowing blue, white light flicker caused Rowan to freeze and slowly raise her head upward. There hanging directly above her is the enormous blue crystal that remains intact as before "Just what is going on?" She thought to herself in very real bewilderment and confusion. Had she hallucinated the whole thing?! But it felt very much real or so, she thought when she pinched her face and the pain felt very much real to her.

A loud crunch behind her causes the hairs on the back of Rowan's neck to stand on edge. Whirling about, Rowan sees a dark shadow emerge from the dusty cloud. It was a wizard with a long thin beard that nearly fell to the bottom of his sweeping emerald robes with silver embroidery. The stranger was tall and thin with pale harsh features. The wizard's dark hair had already begun to age with far more gray than dark hair. Although the unknown wizard carried himself rather confidently as he clearly assessed Rowan with cold dark eyes.

Wary and rather bewildered by the sudden appearance of the wizard, Rowan's hand clenches around her wand and warily takes a step back causing lingering red sand to slide off her onto the red sand-covered ground. She was certain that there had been no one with her when she entered the stone cavern. Yet who or rather how was the wizard here with her.

Still, that wasn't the question that bothered Rowan most of all. It was rather the disturbing inkling that there was something very familiar about the wizard before her. Yet she would have clearly remembered meeting the wizard. Even from where she was standing, she could see the arrogance in his posture and the sheer power emitted from her that made her hair stand on edge. It was a survival instinct that screamed to her to run.

The wizard's dark eyes glance down at the floor and sandy floor and sneered. He walks to the edge of the carved rune script and tosses a stone past the carved runes. The stone instantly disintegrates before the shocked eyes of Rowan and the cold assessing gaze of the wizard.

"Art thee a slyth'rin?" The wizard said in a barely understandable Old English dialect.

Rowan's head begins to hurt by just trying to understand what the wizard is asking. Old English is far from what Modern English is. Old English was closer to the Shakespearian language than to Modern English. In the early days of the medieval era, there were at least four Angelo-Saxton accents. Furthermore, the pronunciation of even similar words is very different than that of modern-day English.

"What hast becometh of our house?" The wizard tried again but failed to gain a response, the wizard's face hardens impatiently.

"I have little use for fools," the wizard threateningly said switching over to parseltongue.

Instantly Rowan understands exactly what is being said. It must have shown on her face because instantly the wizard's bearing softens in distinct approval. Rowan's mind raced at the implications of the parselmouth, but at the fact, that parseltongue apparently does not change across the eras.

"Wait, eras?!" Rowan thought to herself in frozen shock. It couldn't be, could it?!

Taking a gamble, Rowan carefully broaches the subject. "Have I the honor of speaking to the Greatest of the Hogwarts Four, Salazar Slytherin?" She cautiously asked in parseltongue.

"Naturally, who else would it be?" Salazar Slytherin disdainfully replied with a pleased gaze at being referred to as the Greatest of the Hogwarts Four.

"Right," Rowan murmured to herself uncertain of what to think at this point. Either she really hit her head hard and was lying right now unconscious on the ground or she really had traveled into the past. Truthfully, she rather preferred the first option, the second option carried far too many unimaginable implications.

"I am certain that you are bewildered," Salazar haughtily matter-of-factly sated as he arrogantly stared down his nose at her. "It is only natural that a powerful wizard of my standing would eventually delve into the mysteries of time. It has been a long fascination of mine and with great care and research I finally found long-forgotten ancient rituals of the Feast of Fate, where the past, present, and future all interconnects."

"I have achieved what no other wizard has done before, I have brought the future to the past or rather to the current present," Salazar self-assuredly declared as it truly was an unmatched feat.

Uncertain of what exactly to say to her ancestor and one of the four Hogwarts founders, Rowan tactfully elects to remain silent. Rather her midnight indigo-colored eyes flicker to Salazar Slytherin's hand that holds a wand with swirling patterns. It was an original wand made of snakewood and that of a Basilisk's horn.

This same wand would be handed down from generation to generation within the Gaunt family. Eventually someday in the future, (but before Rowan's birth), the wand would one day be stolen by Isolt Sayre from her Aunt Gormlaith Gaunt. That girl, Isolt Sayre would flee to the New World on the Mayflower and would later use the wand to create and found the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardy. Eventually, the snakewood wand would be put to sleep and be buried on the grounds of Ilvermorny growing into a unique snakewood tree.

It was ironic and rather fitting that one day one of Salazar Slytherin's descendants would be responsible for founding a magical school in the New World, (aka the United States of America). Life is certainly full of twists and turns. And why even in the present, (in the past technically at present), this is a curveball that Rowan would have never expected not even in a thousand years.

It took a moment for Rowan to realize Salazar Slytherin had fallen silent. She carefully raised her gaze to gaze at his mouth and his nose, but not to meet his dark, cold gaze. From what was written about Salazar Slytherin, he was a rather gifted legilimens. And frankly, she did not trust him at all, especially his motives.

It was true that Salazar Slytherin had positive qualities, but the same could be said about his bad qualities. In retrospect, even the good qualities bordered on the gray side of things. It wasn't something that Rowan was against, but that was only if she wasn't the target of Salazar Slytherin.

Salazar Slytherin's eyes crinkle with a bit of approval at seeing that his gaze is not met. Seeing the caution on the young witch's face, a cold arrogant smirk appears on his face. His eyes dark eyes darken with irreprehensible intent. "Descendant," he slowly said testing the waters, "Do not be shy and speak without any distress of what will come to pass."

"We both know the dangers that lie in answering," Rowan flatly replied without raising her head more than to see his nose and lips move. It was distressing being unable to read Salazar Slytherin's gaze, but as a talented legilimens, it was far worse to meet his gaze. And frankly, Salazar Slytherin could easily be just as talented as Riddle and Dumbledore or even more so.