I remember the day I fell from Grace.
The Abbey at Bury St Edmonds in Suffolk had been my home for many years, first as an orphan that Brother Thomas took in to help in the scullery and then as a postulant. It had been two years since I had made the next step and been accepted as a novice.
I was in the scriptorium, copying Exodus 22:17: “Do not allow a sorceress to live”. The verse gave me pause, even knowing that the blessed Oswald, Archbishop of York and councillor to our good King Edgar, was a protector of those with magical abilities. Oswald had interpreted these words of Moses to mean the false practitioners of magic, and given exemption to those whose magic was true and hearts were just.
I whispered a blessing and touched the cross and rosary that hung on the belt of my habit, turning my thoughts from the sin of questioning. Although just what the sin was, questioning the laws given to Moses, or the dispensation given by a mortal man, however blessed, I wasn’t sure.
I dipped my quill in ink and resumed my task.
Who my parents were had never been clear. I didn’t look like the villagers, with their fair Saxon colouring and strong, broad bodies. I was tall, slight and dark. Brother Thomas said I looked like a monkey he had seen once in Aethiopia, all clever face and slender spider hands.
I suppose you could say that Brother Thomas had raised me. He was a quiet man with a lined face and grey hair who had travelled far before settling down here in the lowlands along the eastern shore of Britain. Some said he had lived amongst the heathen in the deserts; others claimed that he had walked the roads of the Holy Land. But no one really knew for sure. Maybe he had done all those things. Sometimes, when the mood struck, he would tell me tales of people and places far beyond our small village. I would listen, fascinated, torn between my curiosity to see these things for myself and my desire to belong here in the Abbey.
Brother Thomas had been my sponsor to the order, arguing that my calling to be a monk was true, and winning against the better judgement of most of the community. I suppose they suspected what he never spoke of, that I was a wizard. It was something I had always known, that I had the power to change things; that with a muttered word and a gesture I could turn aside a blow. But it was my delight in sharing speech with the tempter of Eve that was to be my downfall. Only the week before a fellow novice had seen me turn aside the nædre, the black adder that lived in the garden wall. They are shy, these serpents; they harm no one who does not harm them, but you can’t expect an ignorant lout like Wuffa to know such a thing.
The whispers were starting up again, and Brother Thomas was gone these last four months, felled by the same pox that scarred my cheeks. I was alone among the Brotherhood of St. Benedictine, however much I had once felt I belonged.
The bell rang for None, the mid-afternoon prayer. I carefully examined the page I had been copying, then cleaned and put away my quill. For the last time, although I did not know it then.
I remember feeling uneasy, more alert than usual. It happened to me sometimes, a sense of foreboding that chilled my soul. I learned, to my sorrow, not to ignore it. I knew something was awry, but as I joined my fellows in the hymn, psalms, scripture and verse that made up the Office of Readings, I put aside my dread.
As we left the chapel there was a commotion outside the Abbey, and despite discipline, some of the Brothers gave in to all too human curiosity, and went to look. There in the village square was a piteous sight. A young woman, alone, in the centre of a rabble.
“Tha’s a witch, I seen ‘er look cross-eyed at my wife ‘an bairn!” Wuffa’s equally loutish brother raised the cry, a twisted grin on his face.
“An’ me cow’s milk, she’s dried up, after she touched ‘er and put the evil eye on ‘er!” yelled a slattern with dirty yellow hair.
The woman turned a fearful face towards me and our eyes met across the crowd. No doubt she was some innocent whose red hair had inflamed the mob’s ignorant prejudice.
“Stone the witch! Stone ‘er a’fore she witches us all!”
The mob’s cries went up as the first stones flew with sickening accuracy. The woman staggered, her cheek cut and bleeding. I could see her hand reach into her cloak and withdraw a slender stick, absurdly delicate for a weapon. As she raised it, a large rock hit her shoulder with a crack of bone, spinning her around as her arm dropped limp to her side. The stick fell from her grasp.
I watched in horror, but I did nothing. Nothing, that is, except try as hard as I could to slow the stones and rocks that spun the figure first one way, then the other, the force of their impact leading her in a macabre dance.
It was futile, I knew, as I knew that trying to stop the mob would only endanger me and do her no good. Calculating? Yes. I regret it, but I would make the same decision today, for what good would it have done to lie dead at her side?
Finally it was over, and the crowd dispersed to celebrate their bravery with beer and mead at the village’s public house. The other novices had watched in silence equal to my own. Now they murmured and drew together, leaving me standing alone, staring at the still body and the flies that had already collected on the sticky wetness that showed through her red hair.
Wuffa whispered to his fellows and uneasy glances were turned my way. His smile told me that he was spreading the tale of my speech with the adder who lived in the garden wall. I knew with certainty my turn to dance and dodge in the centre of a mob would come soon.
That night I lay uneasy in my cell. There had been no outcry over the young woman’s death and, contrary to all custom, she had been left where she had fallen in the village square, a still, pathetic huddle. How could the Abbey’s community of Brothers allow this? How could men of God turn a blind eye? How could God Himself allow such a thing? In that moment, long before Lauds brought the community together in prayer at dawn, my faith shook.
I was cold with fear despite the warmth of the summer night. Although I did not know it then, on that day, July 8th, 975, that Edgar the Peaceful had met his own death. The reign which had promised tolerance to the workers of magic was at an end, and the coming years were to be marked with conflict between his heirs as his sons dipped their swords in brother’s blood.
As I arose and stealthily packed my few belongings, my thoughts went to the young woman in the village square. I could at least spare her the ignominy of being left to the carrion crows and curs of the village.
She was silent and cold, her face heartbreakingly young, a girl really, just on the verge of womanhood. I murmured a prayer, a habit too long ingrained for me to stop just yet, as I straightened her limbs and made to lift her for her last journey. As I did, the small piece of wood she had pulled from her cloak rolled out from under her. It was strangely carved and graceful. Curious, I picked it up. Instantly a feeling of warmth ran up my arm, and sparks shot from its tip. With a feeling of intense regret, I realised that the girl had truly been a witch, with knowledge beyond mine.
I carried her into the abandoned tunnels by the village that I had explored as a child, and hidden in as a young man. I had needed privacy to practise my magic, to see what I could do, and the old chalkworks had afforded me that concealment. I did not mind sharing my secret with the mortal husk of this young, nameless witch.
As I laid her to rest in a shallow grave, I made her a promise that I, Salazar Slytherin, of no family or fortune, would hold the memory of her pain and needless death in my heart. I would not forget that, alone, I had not dared to help one of my own.
And then, with the wand of wood in my hand, and my small package of belongings on my back, I walked out into the fresh day to make my way in the world.