"Do you ever," Her voice felt faint. "Salazar, do you ever wonder if what we're doing, here and now, is the right thing?" He was so close to her. She could feel his torso pressed against her leg.

"In what way?" His hand traced small circles across her ankle. Her lips drew up into an involuntary smirk as she nudged his hand away with the toe of her shoe.

"I mean about Hogwarts. Making it so hard to find. Unplottable, obscured, dividing the children up and apart from each other. Salazar, what if...I know we need a school. I understand that there must be some...standards to the teaching of magic...

"But what we are doing is unheard of." He finished slowly. "Helga." She looked up at him, her mouth pursed into a serious frown. "We are the trailblazers, founders of a new era, a new way of life. We must be brave, and willing to make mistakes. To fail. If things do not succeed, we can change the way we approach them." A smile crept onto his face. "For example, I have noticed that you do not react well to the more subtle forms of courting. If I want a kiss, I must come forward and take one. If I want the pleasure of your company, I must take you by the hand and lead you to a solitary place, and now that you have seemed to ignore all subtle signs, I must decide that if I want the warmth of your body in my bed, I must outright ask for that as well, courtly sensibilities be damned." He watched the look of shock on her face dissolve into a small smile of satisfaction.

"I did wonder how long it would take you to ask."