If you have read this far, then allow me to introduce myself properly.
My name is Aurelian Thorne, and I am merely a historian who has devoted much of his life to studying the age of the Founders. Whether you accept the account presented in these pages or dismiss it as little more than an elaborate legend is entirely your decision, for the purpose of a historian is not to dictate what others must believe but to present the evidence that has survived and allow each reader to reach their own conclusions.
According to every source I was able to gather, the Battle of the Marshes marked the final time that Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin were ever seen. Neither founder returned to Hogwarts, and no reliable account describing the battle's conclusion has survived the passage of time. The battlefield itself yielded no victors, for neither the attacking force nor the defenders left behind anyone capable of recounting what truly transpired during those final hours.
The aftermath of the battle proved no less tragic than the battle itself.
The surviving members of the Slytherin family could no longer return to Hogwarts, nor could they bring themselves to place their trust in those beyond their own blood. Whether that mistrust was justified or merely the consequence of grief is a question that history has never answered. What is certain, however, is that they vanished from public life, abandoning the prominence they had once enjoyed and fading into obscurity over the generations.
As the centuries passed, the once-great Slytherin family gradually divided into several smaller branches, each adopting a different surname in an effort to hide both their identity and their heritage. Of those branches, only the Gaunt family remained known to scholars of magical Britain, although by the time they reappeared in historical records they had become but a pale shadow of the family from which they descended, their long isolation having transformed them into something their ancestors would scarcely have recognized.
Having reached the end of this work, you may now be wondering whether what you have read is genuine history or merely an imaginative tale written in an attempt to redeem Salazar Slytherin's reputation. That question is one I neither can nor wish to answer for you. I have written this account to the best of my ability, relying upon every source available to me, and I have resisted the temptation to alter those sources merely because they contradicted the history accepted by the wider magical world.
The portions of this work that differ from the commonly accepted account did not originate from forgotten Ministry records, nor from secret chambers beneath Hogwarts, but from the historical journals preserved by a surviving branch of the Slytherin family. Discovering that branch required many years of fruitless searching, and earning their trust required even longer. Only after much persuasion was I permitted to examine their records, and only after giving my word that I would never reveal the name under which they continued to live.
A promise freely given is one that should never be broken.
For that reason, I shall carry that secret with me to my grave.
Whether those journals preserve the truth of history or simply the traditions and memories passed from one generation of that family to the next is something I leave for future historians to determine. My duty was only to preserve what I found before it, too, was lost to time.
Thank you for reading.
— Aurelian Thorne
That was where the printed text came to an end.
Beneath the final line, squeezed into the bottom margin in faded ink that had clearly been added many decades later, someone had written a short note in neat handwriting.
This account should be approached with caution. During my own research I was unable to uncover any convincing evidence that the surviving Slytherin branch described by Aurelian Thorne ever existed. If such a family truly survived, then they concealed themselves far more successfully than any historian has thus far managed to uncover.
There was no signature beneath the note, only the initials E. W., followed by the words Hogwarts Library, 1837.
Alastair POV
The book had occupied most of my free time over the past week. I had read it a few chapters at a time between classes, during evenings in the Study Club, and whenever I found a quiet moment before bed. Throughout the entire book, I had deliberately avoided dwelling on whether the account was true. It was certainly an interesting interpretation of history, far more nuanced than the version taught at Hogwarts, but history was often shaped by the perspectives of those who recorded it. Whether Aurelian Thorne had uncovered a forgotten truth or had merely preserved the traditions of a single family was impossible to determine from the book alone.
As I finished reading the handwritten note beneath the epilogue, I found myself smiling faintly. Whoever had written it had done exactly what any respectable scholar should have done. Rather than accepting the work at face value or dismissing it outright, they had questioned the source and recorded their own conclusions for future readers. It was a habit I appreciated.
With a quiet yawn, I turned what I assumed would be the final page, intending to close the book and return it to my trunk before going to bed. My hand, however, froze midway through the motion as my eyes fell upon the illustration printed on the inside of the back cover.
It was a family crest.
At first glance, it appeared exactly as one would expect. A serpent, elegantly coiled into the shape of the letter 'S', occupied the center of the shield, making it an unmistakable representation of the Slytherin family. I would have turned the page without another thought had my eyes not instinctively lingered upon the faint outlines surrounding the serpent. They were so subtle that most readers would dismiss them as imperfections left behind by an old printing press or centuries of wear.
I knew better.
Leaning closer, I traced the lines with my eyes instead of my fingers, afraid that even touching the page might somehow disturb what I was seeing. The longer I looked, the more obvious the hidden image became. The serpent was not merely a serpent. Woven almost invisibly into its body were the delicate outlines of folded wings, transforming the entire figure into something else entirely.
An Occamy.
My heartbeat quickened as countless memories surfaced at once. I had seen that design before, not in some forgotten history book, but upon old seals, heirlooms, and documents preserved within the Salvius family. To anyone else it was simply an artistic rendition of a snake, but to a member of House Salvius the concealed Occamy was unmistakable. It had served as the family's crest for centuries, a subtle detail overlooked by outsiders yet immediately recognizable to those born into the lineage.
My gaze slowly shifted back to Aurelian Thorne's final words.
He had written that he promised never to reveal the name of the surviving branch, and as far as the text itself was concerned, he had kept that promise. Nowhere within the entire book had the name 'Salvius' appeared. Yet the historian had been unable to resist leaving behind a single clue, one so insignificant that only someone already familiar with the family's crest or Occamies would ever notice it.
The realization sent my thoughts racing.
If Aurelian Thorne had truly based his account upon the journals preserved by House Salvius...
Then...