Memory
by Teka Lynn

When one is a ghost, one feeds on memory.

Oh my lord, you go beyond me always. One serpent flick and you are gone, too swift and sure for me to follow. And I am here, as you bade me. Your rock, your blade. I am so old now, that they have forgot my story. Even the one who comes to me, primly, afraid of himself and me—he, a historian, has never heard my name! Yet he comes of his free will, though he thinks me a butcher and savage. In former days, I would have laughed at him, the fat and foolish cleric, as I mocked Dame Helga's chaplain. To my cost. The face does not make the man, and there is more to both these ghosts than meets the eye. Like you, my lord, my lover is not the man he appears at first sight.

But in all else he is not like you, my lord, never like you. You who roused me with a kick and a kiss each morn, the devil-gleam in your green eyes. You gave me words of love and cursed my name in the same breath, as I loved and cursed you in turn. We were not always good to one another, but those were hard times, and softness would have meant destruction for you and me. Bare is back without brother behind it. You guarded my back and then turned traitor and breached it, but I did not reproach you. We loved and fought from the Pyrenees to the barren wilds of Caledonia beyond the Wall.

I cannot forget those days and nights, my lord. How we shivered together on the heath and clung to each other for warmth, until your hand snaked down my breeches, so icy that I almost cried aloud until your breath fogged the air and then sighed warm against my face and down my neck. You tugged at me unmercifully, so hard I ground my teeth together to keep from crying aloud. Until the pain turned to the pleasure only you knew how to give and my teeth clenched again from the force of my spasms. When I came to myself, I thought I would never know cold again.

It is always cold here, within these dungeon walls. My lover is cold, and I am as well. The heat of my body and heart flowed out of me when I surrendered to you that last time, when you impaled me with cock and dagger. I do not regret it. I swore loyalty to you, my lord, and am loyal still, when all others have forgotten you.

But I cannot forget. You are my memory, and I devour you still, as you once devoured me.

— The Bloody Baron remembers Salazar Slytherin.

Written by Teka Lynn
January 1st, 2004

All rights to the characters and setting are held by J K Rowling and whoever else holds them, including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, and Warner Bros. This fanwork was created solely for fun and has no legal or financial connection to the Harry Potter novels.