228 Chapter 228: The Serpent’s Maw

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30 June 1994, Hogwarts, Scotland

The world was absent of colours. Everything was just shades of grey, and even as Harry looked at his own hands, they weren't any different. He felt a profound silence enveloping him, a stillness that seemed to stretch infinitely in all directions, smothering the very concept of sound. The air was thick like some kind of invisible fluid slowing movement in any direction.

Harry didn't know why he was pushed to walk in a certain direction, but he did. It was mostly out of a whim than anything; nothing seemed different in any direction anyway. He found himself in a clearing, with three giant monoliths that were radiating this intense air he had felt earlier.

The first pillar, adorned with a triangle, shimmered with a light that seemed both alien and familiar. As it sunk into the earth, the ground beneath Harry's feet trembled, a low hum vibrating through the very marrow of his bones. The appearance of the glowing circle on the second pillar drew his gaze upwards, where the darkness of the night sky began to swirl and coalesce into a vortex of shadows.

The world around him faded, leaving Harry suspended in a void where the concept of ground and sky lost meaning. Shadows danced around him, shapes and forms flickering in and out of existence, their edges blurred as if made of smoke.

The only thing that remained on the ground, unmoved by the shadows, was a white flower. In the midst of the darkness, it was akin to a flashlight. Harry knelt down and picked it, recognizing the flower as a Lily.

Just as he did so, what he assumed to be the sky turned to red and it started to rain. Each drop was illuminated in such a way that it seemed like it rained blood. The ground became slowly visible as flowers started to grow and bloom with every drop of rain, halting the darkness. However, they did not stop growing, like some kind of infestation. And soon, Harry was dwarfed by giant Lilies, blocking the sky, and trying to swallow up the world.

He started to run away from the plants, but he wasn't fast enough. He tripped into a root and a giant flower started to grow beneath him, swallowing him whole.

And with that realization, he woke up with a gasp, finding himself in his common room once more. Harry really hated being a seer. People often envied the gift of seeing the future, not understanding just how cryptic visions tended to be. He couldn't help but grumble, "Fucking visions scaring the crap out of me."

The worst thing was the fact that he couldn't really trust them. Grindelwald had proved the fact that he could spoof Harry's vision and managed to change his plans to use Sirius to attack Hogsmeade instead.

Still, even ignoring this, Harry had no clue what those flowers were. He could discern what those pillars were. Looking back, they felt oddly like his magic crest. Truth be told, Harry found himself in a rut when it concerned experimenting with his crest.

It was probably him being greedy. His magic circles were just so flexible and so powerful, but he couldn't help but think that there was more to his crest than that and the key to unlock more of it lay in that vision.

It wasn't hard to infer what the pillars were. The triangle, the circle, the line. The Deathly Hallows. They were very connected to the crest in some way, which made sense since this was probably the Peverell family crest. He had even used the crest to unlock a part of the cloak's true power, by phasing through Quirrell's killing curse in his first year.

He had learned to control the ability later, but it was just too straining to be used casually. He always wore his invisibility cloak, shifted into his school robes and ready to be used at a moment's notice.

And yet it was the circle that was glowing in his dream. The resurrection stone. It was honestly, the hallow that interested Harry the least. Calling back the shades of dead people wasn't something that Harry really cared about. He had no interest in speaking with his parents. He didn't even know anyone who was dead that he would want to talk to. And there was just something disturbing about the ability; the mere idea of summoning the dead made him uncomfortable.

However, if his visions, probably aided by his crest, insisted on it, it should help him in some way. He already knew where the stone was and how to access it. He could easily grab it during the summer. Well, it wouldn't be easy, especially considering the fact that Voldemort himself had cursed the Gaunt Shack.

The bigger issue would be the fact that the ring would be a Horcrux. Harry had no idea if the soul shard was on the ring itself or on the stone. He didn't understand souls well enough to even guess what Voldemort had done. And with the Colt gone, Harry had no easy way to destroy Horcruxes, not that he would have ever used it on one anyway. Harry had also never used Fiendfyre and wasn't planning on casting it in a muggle area for the first time.

Thankfully, an easy way to destroy the Horcrux was nearby in the castle. Basilisk Venom was something of an Alchemist's dream. A substance that unravelled magic would probably help develop hundreds of research avenues. After the beasts were hunted to extinction, a small vial of venom was worth a nice sum. 

However, Harry had no plans to sell it. He didn't know why but something felt wrong with trying to sell something that someone else slayed. It was probably some form of old ritualistic magic. He would look into it more, but at the end of the day, the Basilisk was Longbottom's prize. Did that mean that the World Serpent was Harry's?

It didn't matter. He would try to think of one later. Funnily enough, he didn't feel anything when planning to take a Basilisk fang for his own personal use… Was it because of the help Harry had given Neville when it came to slaying the beast? He didn't know. And to be perfectly honest, he didn't have time to care about it.

He had a couple of hours until the rest of the castle woke up and today was their last day in the castle. He needed to hurry.

Harry quickly made his way towards an empty classroom near a part of the castle that was never used. It was where he had moved the Chamber to, the previous year. He had chosen the location by random, where no one would look twice at a carving of a serpent on the wall.

It wasn't until he arrived that Harry regretted not focusing on Parseltongue a bit more. With how things have been hectic the previous year, it had just slipped his mind. And it wasn't like he could have done much about it anyway. As he had discovered previously, Parseltongue was a form of soul projection targeted towards snakes, imbuing them with a temporary boost of intelligence. Learning the entire dictionary would have taken thousands of hours of logging each word and trying to copy how the soul was projected.

It would have been a nice project to have with Neville, but Harry still didn't trust the Longbottom scion one bit.

Thankfully, Harry remembered the basic Parseltongue commands that he needed to enter and leave the chamber. Still, it took half a dozen tries to get the damn door to open allowing Harry to slip in. With every try, Harry could feel his magic circuits burn. He really hated his condition at the moment. He'll probably speak with Arcturus over the summer to do something about it.

Harry ignored the pain and the small bones on the ground before him, instead focusing on how damaged everything looked. The formerly smooth stones looked chipped and fragile. The sleek Chamber of Secrets became little better than a ruin. Everything just looked dead, for the lack of a better world.

It made sense in an odd way; the entire chamber was a manifestation of the World Serpent and now the monster was dead. With his Arcane Hearing, Harry heard multiple whispers coming towards him but shook his head. This wasn't the time to explore the chamber. He was on a timer after all.

Instead of focusing on the chamber itself, Harry used his Arcane Hearing to track the second loudest magical presence around, which happened to be the Basilisk.

When Harry finally found the King of Serpents, he couldn't help but marvel at the fact that Neville had slain the thing with just a sword and a few trinkets, "Prophecies really are bullshit."

Yes, the serpent looked around fifty feet long, its body coiled and twisted upon itself like a grotesque tapestry of scales and death. The scales, a dark, iridescent green, seemed to absorb the meagre light of the chamber. Its body looked as fresh as the day it probably died, even if the smell was rather foul. Harry thought back at his decision to trust the prophecy and let Neville fight the damn thing. He shouldn't have done that in either way. In hindsight, Harry could have just used two bullets from his Colt to kill both creatures instead of letting a scared child do it for him. He was just so caught up in his anger at what had happened to Daphne that he had recklessly endangered Neville's life that day.

Nevertheless, weapon of mass destruction or not, the Basilisk was a magnificent sight to behold.

Choosing not to admire the beast for too long, Harry reached for one of the colossal fangs, his fingers brushing against the cool, smooth enamel. With a firm grip and a steadying breath, he managed to extract it with a single pull, while making sure that there was no venom would accidentally hit him.

With his objective finished, he made his way out of the chamber, but not before feeling the compulsion to visit the location of his final showdown with Riddle. Everything looked oddly pristine compared to the rest of the chamber. However, there was something different compared to the last time he had been there. Exactly in the location where Harry had fired the Colt for the first time, laid a giant white spike made of what looked like ivory.

"Is this a fang?" he asked himself while murmuring.

This was the closest thing he could compare it to. A giant fang coming from the ground… Harry felt drawn to it, but inches before touching it, he shook his head and decided to leave it be. He would come back in a few months to explore it properly. Additionally, the thing looked as big as him anyway and he had no way of removing it, not with how much using his magic hurt him when it came to performing straining spells.

Oh, it wasn't as bad as before, not even close. The healers gave him a lot of potions to control the burning, but it still wasn't comfortable to cast magic. His injury had been months ago, but in a way, Harry was dealing with years' worth of injuries because of the Garden of Avalon.

Everyone kept saying that it would pass, and it probably would eventually as Harry's body grew up and adapted. But Harry missed the feeling of his magic thrumming underneath his skin, experimenting with it, trying new things… Magic was his passion and this whole thing felt like someone had ripped it out of him.

Still, Harry returned to his common room, clutching his Basilisk fang in his pocket, his objective completed. It was funny that there were mages who would have given him more gold than he held in his vault for the small fang in his pocket.

As he got up, he saw Daphne walking down the stairs, "Oh, you're up already? I thought you'd have taken longer to get ready for the train. What were you doing out of the common room anyway?"

"I finished everything yesterday. As for what I was doing, I was just taking a walk. I think I'm going to miss this place during the summer. I still can't help but marvel at the fact that Dumbledore is no longer the headmaster."

The blonde gave him an incredulous look, "Seriously? The castle will still be here in a few months anyway."

"Yes, but by then, I'm fully expecting Dumbledore to do something drastic. The last few months were oddly peaceful considering what happened in the third task. Still, let us not think about this and just go to the Great Hall for breakfast. I'm absolutely famished."

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Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.