Good or bad, does it matter?

The story turned out to be not too long, Rowena did not go into special details.

It all began with the fact that the young witch, who had just turned thirty, decided to leave her teacher and "sail away" on a free voyage to learn more about magic, because she finished all the books in the library at twenty and the remaining ten years, the woman, adopted the fighting skills of her mentor, and also studied other sciences. 

During her journey, which lasted another seventy years, she walked around almost the entire continent and made a huge number of acquaintances, among whom were Godric Gryffindor and Helga Hufflepuff, but besides them, she had two more close friends who, when Hogwarts was already founded, gave her a book, as well as several stone slabs with strange symbols, which, at their request, and to her own interest, she decided to try to translate and thanks to some pictures, which depicted, in addition to unknown symbols, also various and rather strange movements, and having spent another twenty years on this, she was able to make out most of it and sent her research to two friends who immediately came to the school of magic.

That day, the first quarrel between her and Salazar occurred, who really didn't like the "suspicious guests", as he called them, without giving any reason. 

Which really angered the woman, but then Godric intervened and tried to settle the conflict, but the seed of hostility had already been sown and gradually grew, when after this incident, both tried to do each other harm. 

And over the next twenty years, not a trace remained of the former "friendship", and only thanks to Gryffindor and Helga, perhaps, they did not tear each other's throats out. 

But Severus, who was listening to this, saw something else, as if someone's slippery hand, or maybe hands, tried in this matter, as if trying to scare away the only smart and rational, but sometimes bloodthirsty thinking person, from her and the others.

After all, according to Rowena, Godric and Salazar were very close friends and it was their idea to found the school, and she and Hufflepuff joined them.

And everyone knew about the quirks of their colleague, but they also knew that he would not cross a certain line, but over these twenty years, it was not just passed, but "jumped over", in addition to the Black Magic, which he began to actively practise, his ideas about blood purity became more radical and he began active work on promoting it to the masses, starting with his own house. 

This was the very end of the friendship of the four founders, and the rupture of all relations between them. 

Salazar, who eventually lost the duel to his former friend, left the castle and never returned, while continuing to propagate his ideas: that Muggle-born wizards cannot be trusted, they must be restricted or killed, and the pure-blood wizarding community fully supported him and adopted the ideas of "blood purity".

The two friends, after all the work was finished, simply left Hogwarts with all the research. And fifteen years later, tragedy struck, Helga was found hanged, in a Muggle village, almost a hundred kilometres from the castle, and without any traces of violent death, as if she herself decided to do it. 

Of course, none of the two remaining founders believed it, but there was nothing to cling to, although they still suspected Salazar, but they found no evidence, and at that time, he had enormous influence over the entire wizarding community, so touching him without direct evidence was a real suicide. 

But after another ten years, all accusations against him were dispelled, because Salazar's body was found in almost the same position as Helga, but, according to the destroyed mansion and other traces of the battle, it was possible to understand that he resisted strongly. 

And finally, it dawned on the founders that someone began to hunt them, so, a year later, Ravenclaw created a living portrait of herself, and also placed all her knowledge in a book, if she was still killed, and after that, she knew nothing more and why,no one had found this place, she simply didn't know.

Severus, of course, understood that it was hard to understand anything through the eyes of a participant in these events, but after listening to her to the end, even a fool would have understood that someone had deliberately set them against each other, and these "someones" were most likely her two friends, after all, the saying "birds of a feather flock together" could also be applied to such bad people as Slytherin, who immediately understood that nothing good could be expected from the guests, but no one believed him, which is why this story ended so tragically. 

And it is not surprising that Severus did not find a single book on runes and the language of his world, since after, most likely, the murder of the other founders, unknown people simply took them. 

And why then could they not find out about this place? Snape also had an answer, perhaps Ravenclaw itself, realising that everything was heading towards a tragic end, decided to erase the memories of her students, so as not to endanger them and hide the truth if someone ever managed to discover this place. 

Although the Prince was not one hundred percent sure of his thoughts, such a version of events also could not be ruled out, but still he was very interested in who was so interested in the language of his world, and most importantly "why?" Could it be that someone in the past millennium had already found the grave of the "Creator"? Could it be that at least an "Archmage" was already walking around the world?

 Although these questions did not give him peace, he understood that it was unlikely, because the method of absorbing someone else's core was a real secret, which he had once stolen from "Purgatory" - an association of fire wizards, almost losing his life. 

And the fact that someone in the world could have a "Creator" artifact in their hands did not particularly frighten him, because magical instruments of such a rank had a mind no less than a human one and enormous arrogance, unless of course his teacher lied to him about this, and he really did not like lies and empty talk, therefore, Ichiros, simply could not lie. 

And even an "Archmage" is not able to activate the "Creator" artifact, because it will simply dry out the one who tries to do this, unless of course the wizard's strength is at the peak of the rank of "Great Archmage", which is impossible in this world.

Severus also shared his thoughts with Rowena, but she almost immediately flared up and immediately began to deny such a possibility, she simply could not believe that her two friends, with whom the woman spent twenty years side by side, and ten more before they came to Hogwarts, could do this to them. 

But the more the lady began to talk, the quieter her voice became, as if she was trying to convince herself of what she had said. 

But Ravenclaw, for good reason, bore the title of the smartest woman of her century, although the lady was not good at "behind-the-scenes games", but even she began to understand that something was wrong with all this: talks about Salazar and only in a "soft" negative way, as if trying to show that he was a bad person,but at the same time not to expose themselves; constant attempts to distance him from the others, casually noting some specific oddities and many other similar moments when they tried, and even quite successfully, to blacken his name, as well as the incident after which the two hated each other, when Slytherin attacked one of them, while accusing her of being the first to provoke him, but who would they believe: the standing and unharmed "dark wizard", and was called almost universal evil, or an innocent woman bleeding on the floor?

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After realizing all this, the woman's already pale face became even whiter, her lips trembled, and her eyes dimmed, filled with guilt and regret, because through her own stupidity, she lost a friend, albeit not the best, accusing him of the worst and forcing him to step onto a dark path, and with her own hands, succumbing to manipulation, sowed doubt in the hearts of others.

"I... I always considered myself the smartest and most rational person, that I couldn't be fooled, but…" a nervous laugh escaped from her lips, "... I got caught like a stupid girl, and I taught my daughter not to be naive, to always double-check information and look at the world more broadly…"

"Everyone can make mistakes," Severus shrugged his shoulders indifferently, yes, their fate was quite tragic, but in his world he had seen things even more terrible, therefore, he was not very touched by the story of the founders of the school, which of course could not be said about Nagini, who sincerely sympathised with her. 

A few more giggles escaped from Rowena's lips. "A Slytherin student opened my eyes to the truth, fate has a terrible sense of humour…"

"can't argue with that, but it's still a pity that you don't know anything about what happened next... ah... another headache for me…" Severus sighed tiredly, getting up from the table, "Well, thank you for the interesting story," a gold pocket watch appeared in his hand and opening it, he looked at the time.

" It's almost one in the morning, I've been sitting here too long."

"Wait!" the woman's previously depressed look suddenly cleared up as soon as she saw this object, "This is Godric's watch! Where did you get it?"

"I collected all the parts of this artifact, and then the headmaster combined it and gave it to me in exchange for one favor," Snape answered calmly, yawning widely, after all, the last few days, as usual, he had hardly slept, because in addition to searching for this place, he was preparing to strengthen the core to the peak of the "Master" rank and this week, on the weekend, he was going to do it, therefore, he had already agreed with Dumbledore in advance that he would not be there next week, since such a sharp jump in power could negatively affect the body and therefore he would need time to make sure that everything went well. 

"He entrusted you with the heirloom of the Gryffindor family...?"with disbelief in her voice, she turned her gaze to the young man's face. 

 "Heirloom of the family"? I thought it was an artifact of the school... but okay." shaking his head, he put it in his wallet, "I collected this as well." and a sword in its true form appeared on his belt, seeing which the lady stared with real shock at the Slytherin standing in front of her, simply not knowing how to comment on this, "And about your diadem, forgive me, but it was destroyed, one of Salazar's bad descendants made a Horcrux out of it, as well as from the rest of your artifacts, like: the Hufflepuff cup and Slytherin's locket, only I haven't found it yet, I've already destroyed the rest." 

And after this "news", the woman generally fell into a stupor, too much had fallen on her in these short two hours and she needed to somehow "digest" everything, the Prince, of course, understood this and silently headed towards the exit, and at the door he added: "I'll come to you tomorrow, as you think everything over…"

As soon as the "bang" sounded, after the door was closed, Rowena came to her senses, and directed her gaze towards the exit, with a complex expression on her face, in which one could discern a wide range of emotions, from anger and rage over the betrayal of two people close to her and her own "short-sightedness",to sadness and self-flagellation, for what she had done to her friend, simply pushing him to the dark side. 

"If he trusted him, maybe I could…" she shook her head with a forced smile, "What have I come to, I want to ask for help from a Slytherin student… Salazar…" as soon as the name escaped her mouth, she felt a lump rise in her throat, "If only I could…"

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Thank you for reading, best of luck for any thing you are preparing for.