Ch 11: Ominis

Lorion looked at Ominis and said seriously "Elder, you did the right thing. If not for you, I would not be alive and the house of Gaunt would already be history."

Ominis didn't comment on Lorion's statement, but continued "The House of Gaunt is itself responsible for our own demise. Though I don't advocate the Pure Blood superiority theory myself, our family never faltered from their belief for a single moment.  Their liking for grandeur in tandem with little sensibility when it came to indulgences meant the family gold was squandered recklessly.

We also had a tendency of marrying their cousins to keep their blood pure and to retain the traits of our ancestor. However, all these brought instability in our behaviors. Most Gaunts became mentally unstable, violent and cruel dark arts masters.

Naturally, white wizards couldn't tolerate them anymore. The Ministry also had to do something to save their face, even if we were one of the twenty-eight Pure Bloods. So, our family were attacked in secret, died mysterious death or were captured and put in Azkaban.

I knew trouble was coming, so I proposed to deposited one third of our property and one of our four heirlooms at Gringotts and give the key to your ancestor Egeon Gaunt and told him to go into hiding at the muggle world."

Lorion, who was listening quietly couldn't help but intervene "Elder, what are the four heirlooms of our House of Gaunt?"

Ominis smiled and said "Our House of Gaunt always pride ourselves to be the descendent of great Salazar Slytherin. So naturally, the heirlooms are something he used. The first one is the wand of Salazar Slytherin, a wand made of snakewood and Basilisk's horn. The second one is his ring; the third was the locket of Slytherin and the fourth one, a scroll which is rumored to give great powers to its user when the name of user is written by blood. The last one is the white paper that just fell down from the diary.

It is said that there was a dark wizard in Greece, named Herpo, the foul. He wished immortality and created Horcrux magic. He also created the ritual of making Basilisk. This scroll was made by him as well; however, what it can do is unknown to us. The great Salazar Slytherin found two of his scrolls in an ancient ruin, and was able to use one to make a basilisk. The other, which according to the records of the ruin promised great power to the wizard, was hidden by us to save our family in case of crisis."

Lorion was shocked. He never knew that the fabled magic that really kept Dark Lord Voldemort alive was made by a dark wizard named Herpo! Even the Basilisk was a result of his experiment! Now Lorion really looked forward to the scroll left by him!

"Do I need to just write my name with my blood for the scroll to work?" Lorion asked eagerly.

Ominis chuckled and shook his head "No, the scroll is charmed to look like a simple white paper. Even if you run yourself dry of blood, the scroll won't work. You need to break the charm for the scroll to transform back.  Remember, to break the charm, just spell [Kairos Metamorfónoun]. It should do the trick. Also, read the diary carefully. It has many details of our family you should know."