'Rowena Ravenclaw?'
Her eyes filled with tears. At that moment, two other heads broke through the water, and two other figures rose to join her. Both were as wet as she was, and both stared at him as she had — one, a dark-haired man, gazed in anger and loathing, while the woman beside him, small and round with weed-streaked red hair, looked sad.
Godric, Draco thought, and Helga.
The dark-haired man — Godric Gryffindor — stepped in front of Rowena as if to protect her, his eyes fixed on Draco. They were full of hate. 'So at last you are dead,' he said. 'We have waited a thousand years for someone to give you the punishment you deserve and to end your worthless, stolen existence — '
Godric looked rather as if he meant to go on in this vein for quite some time, so Draco interrupted him. 'I'm not who you think I am,' he said. 'I'm not Salazar Slytherin.'
The three looked doubtful.
'Look at me,' insisted Draco.
Rowena, who had had her hand over her mouth, lowered it slowly.
'Godric…He cannot be Salazar. He is only a child.'
They all stared at him. Draco was indignant. 'I'm sixteen. I'll be seventeen in a few weeks.'
'I wouldn't put money on that,' said Godric, quite unkindly.
Draco glared at him. It struck him that he did not like Godric. It also struck him that in order to free himself from the Tragic and Destructive Cycle of History Repeating Itself, it might be wise to try to like Godric.
But he didn't want to like Godric. Godric, he thought, was a prat.
'You're dead, boy,' said Godric with immense satisfaction, cementing Draco's dislike of him on the spot. 'Face it — you'll never be seventeen.'
There was something about the smug way he said it that reminded Draco of Harry. He could now begin to see how Godric resembled Harry, a grown-up Harry. A grown-up Harry who had spent a lot of time working out with heavy weights. His arms were huge. Draco was glad Godric didn't seem to be able to cross the river either. He didn't know what it would feel like to be punched in the face in the afterlife, and didn't much care to find out.
Rowena was still looking at Draco with a torrent of mixed emotions crossing her face. 'You sound like Salazar,' she said. 'And you look just like him…'
'I'm his Heir,' said Draco, seeing no reason not to divulge this information.
'Then you are cursed,' said Godric. 'And fortunate to have died.'
Draco looked at him irritably. 'Don't you ever say anything nice?'
'Godric,' said Helga, in a warning sort of tone. Godric looked from Rowena to Helga, and did a sort of little shuffle with his feet. 'Well, he is cursed,' he muttered. 'If he is truly Salazar's Heir…' He turned on Draco. 'How do you know you're the Heir of Slytherin?' he demanded.
'Because Slytherin said so,' Draco snapped.
'He said so?' breathed Rowena, her eyes widening. As with Godric, intense emotion seemed to make her form clearer, too. Draco could now see how much she looked like Hermione. It was very unnerving.
He had often played fantasies through in his head where he happened to bump into Hermione unexpectedly in various places.
The afterlife, however, had not been one of them. 'You mean he is alive — he walks among you, as a man?'
'He's alive. I've seen him. But he isn't very powerful. He doesn't have a Source.'
Rowena's spirit had begun pacing in a tight circle. 'That won't last.
Salazar is clever. He'll find himself a Source. Has he tried to use you?' She glanced up, shook her head. 'No, he wouldn't. Not his Heir…he'll try to find someone else.' She whirled, looked at Draco.
'He must be prevented from returning to his full power,' she said. 'I shudder to think of the destruction, the despair he could wreak.
That is why we imprisoned him in the first place — '
'He told Hermione he shut himself away from the world-'
'He lied,' said Rowena definitively. 'He didn't want you to think he was weak, did not want you to know how his eventual defeat was accomplished. Helga and I could not kill him, but we rendered him powerless.' She raised her eyes, looked at Draco. 'As you must. If I tell you how he can be defeated, will you do it?'
'Look, I'd love to defeat Slytherin for you, but there is a slight problem with that plan,' said Draco resignedly. 'I'm dead.'
'You are not dead until you have crossed this river,' said Rowena fiercely. 'The green bank is the bank of the living, and the gray bank is the bank where the spirits of the murdered and unavenged dead roam. You are betwixt and between here, child.'
He looked at her. 'But you're dead,' he pointed out. 'And isn't the river supposed to make you forget…?'
'This is not Lethe the Forgetful,' said Rowena, 'but the river where the spirits of those neither truly alive nor truly dead reside. We cannot all die until Salazar dies, but neither are we alive. It is a terrible fate, one he has doomed us to with charms and spells.'
Draco was curious. 'Did he murder you all?'
'Not exactly,' said Rowena. 'Salazar did in fact murder Godric — I'm sorry, Godric dear, but you know it's true-'
'Bastard,' muttered Godric. 'He snuck up behind me.'
Rowena shook her head. 'I suppose Salazar thought it was self-defense, in some twisted way,' she added,
