10 The Chamber of Secrets

"Mr Potter, at least you found my chamber "Harry heard a familiar feminine voice as he turned, he saw....

A few weeks ago 

In the North Tower of Hogwarts, in a dingy classroom, a thin woman covered in beads and shawls suddenly looked up from her crystal ball. Her eyes were unfocused and she seemed to be having a seizure as she spoke –

"When the Veil of Ages trembles, and the stars rearrange their celestial dance, a Wizard shall emerge—a weaver of realms, a Champion of Change. The very fabric of the Wizarding World shall ripple, and the mundane shall yield to the mystical."

Trelawney coughed violently and sat down on her chair. She was feeling terrible; maybe she overindulged in cooking sherry. Oh well, might as well retire for the night.

Harry was back in the chamber to kill the Snake and it it once and for all. Harry soon found the chamber he then used his Frozen fire spell to kill the snake as the low temp is the most dangerous to cold-blooded animals. Harry removed the snake and extracted its parts and venom.

He soon made his way to the salzar and opened it again , "Speak to me Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!". Just like last time, the mouth opened up, though thankfully he was not greeted by Medusa-in-snake-form this time. The inside was barely visible, though that wasn't an obstacle.

"Lumos", he said, drawing his trusty yew wand from inside his robes. He was greeted by the sight of a rather steep ramp going upwards.

"Stairs." Harry smiled to himself as the ramp started to morph, turning into a staircase.

As Harry started to make his way up, he noticed that the statue was a LOT larger on the inside than it should have been. It took him a second before he realised what was going on – expansion charms. They had covered those earlier this year, expanding their book bags and pockets, but this was an expansion on a mind-boggling scale. "I love magic," he muttered to himself. Finally, he reached the summit of the stairs, and in front of him stood a door.

Oh, Merlin. He REALLY did not want to play 'Guess the password set by arrogant prat Slytherin'. He decided to start basic –

"Open."

Much to Harry's surprise (and relief), the door swung open, but this would not be the last, or even second last time he would experience that emotion today.

"Ah, so you are not him after all, I was alerted to your presence by the wards, but it was a new signature, so it possibly couldn't have been Riddle, and in any case – "

"INCENDIO!"Harry thought in his mind.

All of a sudden, the portrait was engulfed in red-hot flames, and its voice was muted by the roaring and cackling of the fire.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE CHILD, WILL YOU JUST LISTEN!"

That made Harry freeze. This confused Harry as he was always vigilant he never thought that someone would be able to survive his spell without damage.

"GOOD, Now listen, I DID HELP THAT RIDDLE BOY, BUT I DID NOT APPROVE OF WHAT HE DID I banished him from this study when I heard what he did!".

"You…. don't want to kill muggleborn students?" Harry spoke out on impulse.

"I am a teacher, boy, how could I ever want to murder my students!". Salazar, ever perceptive, noted the child in front of him almost snarl at being called 'boy'. "Magic is magic, being 'pureblood' or 'half-blood' does not matter.". Harry simply stared at him dumbfoundedly, it seemed history was not what it was thought to be.

"Why don't we start over, child? What is your name, my descendant?" Salazar said, softly.

Harry lowered his wand and began to speak, "My name is Harry Potter, I'm a second-year student here, and I'm sorry, but we're not related."

"What? You said Potter, I recognize that name, it's an English family, is it not?". At Harry's nod, Salazar continued

"Well, I'm not aware of any other British house that had the same gift as mine, and I know you spoke parseltongue to open the door. It is possible that your ancestors married into a foreign household that carried the ability, or perhaps our lines had crossed sometime over the generations, it had already been 950 years when Riddle first found me… What year is it now?"

"1993," Harry replied.

"And what of my familiar, Serena, I felt her leave the wards, but it does not take her so long to hunt for food."

Harry internally scoffed when he heard the name, Serena was hardly an apt name for a giant snake with deadly venom, and whose gaze could quite literally kill. He also got the feeling he was headed in for an extremely awkward conversation.

"Oh – Uh, she's…she's dead."

Salazar let out a sigh," I suppose I knew it was going to be this way, Riddle had twisted her mind and corrupted her…... Terrible shame, terrible…." Finished Salazar, looking a little sad, as well as contemplative. Before Salazar could ask the cause of her death, Harry began again.

"Uh, Mr – Professor Slytherin-"

The portrait let out a chuckle, "You may call me Salazar, child"

Harry nodded," Right, S-Salazar, I have so many questions..." (and fuck JK thought Harry)

"Ask away."

"First of all, why can you understand me, or Riddle for that matter, wasn't English…. different when you were alive?"

Salazar chuckled again, "A good question, though not one I was expecting you would ask first… I can understand you because of an extraordinary rune stone, gifted to me by a Pharoah in Egypt during my travels. It proved to be quite useful as I ventured across the world with Godric, yes Gryffindor", he said as he heard Harry's unasked question. "As I listen to another, I begin to pick up their language, and the more I interact with them, speaking or listening, the more… attuned I become to that language. A truly wonderful, and exceptionally rare piece of magic it remains the only stone of its kind I ever came across. While having this portrait built, I decided to fuse this stone with it. As you may have guessed, having already interacted with Riddle makes me able to communicate with you just fine."

"Right, about him, you said you banished him? And where does your snake fit into all this? Why was it even here?!"

"Ha -ha, now those are the questions I thought you'd ask….. Very well, back in the 10th century, if a wizard or witch were to be discovered by muggles, it was highly likely that they would be killed. There were exceptions, yes, sometimes the magical would end up being accepted for he was, and the community would be better off with the presence of a wizard to aid them. But such exceptions were just that, exceptions. We, as founders of a school for magical children, were naturally concerned for our charges' safety. In those days, the enchantments were not as intricate and advanced as they are today, and there were recognizable fallibilities in our secrecy plan. Thankfully, a combination of the naturally secluded location and our magical protections were enough to ensure the castle was never found or breached. The basilisk was a last resort defence in case that ever happened."

At Harry's widened eyes, he replied, "Yes, it was here to protect the students, not harm them. It was an incredible risk, but worth it. Contrary to popular belief, a basilisk can actually choose if it wishes to kill with its gaze or not, and only I or my descendants could command it, or else it would simply lay in its chambers. You can imagine my disgust when Riddle used the basilisk to target those she was there to protect, as well as what he did after the murder….."

"Why didn't you stop her last time? You were obviously aware of when she left the statue, and wouldn't you have talked to it after banishing Riddle? What happened? Did you lose your ability to speak parseltongue?" Harry asked

"Conjure a snake, you are aware how to do it, aren't you?". Harry nodded yelled out -

"Serpensortia!"

A metre-long black snake shot out of his wand.

"Serpent, coil." Surprisingly for Harry, the snake refused Salazar's command. It looked offended at being spoken to like that, and let out a threatening hiss. Salazar looked over at Harry, his expression conveying, "you try it". Interestingly, at Harry gave the same command, the snake obeyed without hesitation and coiled up. Salazar, now almost sure of his theory, tried again, "Serpent, can you understand me?". The snake nodded, though still looked a little miffed at Slytherin.

"It is as is suspected, then.". Salazar thought to himself. Harry looked at him questioningly, and he replied, "Once Riddle was gone, I tried to summon Serena, however, she ignored my voice. As a portrait, I may have retained my ability to speak parseltongue, but I have lost the authority a parselmouth carries. I have a theory for this, you see, when a person has a magical portrait made, which is a long and tedious task, not to mention expensive, they do not leave their astral projection or even a part of it in the portrait, if one were to try that, the portrait would explode or incinerate due to magical overdose. What they do is leave an imprint of it on the canvas. So, you see I only have the imprint of parseltongue, not the language itself, I am only the imprint of a specimen able to command the serpents, not the genuine product.…... I am Salazar Slytherin, yet I am not…. It may not fully make sense, such is the nature of magic at times, but you can understand what I am implying, can you not?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

"So, even if Serena did hear my call, it is entirely possible my voice did not even reach her, she had no reason to obey, did she? On one side was the one who carried the blood of her bonded wizard, and on the other, just an empty voice…. In the end, it was hardly a choice for her, and I also believe while leaving Riddle told her that since he was the last living descendant of Slytherin, she was to ignore any other commands…... a crafty move."

So far, I have answered your questions honestly and with detail, and now, I would like for you to extend the same courtesy to me. First of all, you mentioned Serena died, do you know how?"

Oh boy. He had escaped this conversation last time, but there was no way out now.

"I know how she died, because… well because I'm the one who killed her.". At this, Salazar's eyebrows shot up and Harry saw two expressions on his face – surprise, and…. Respect? Appreciation? Something along those lines.

"Indeed? A magnificent feat, especially for one so young…. Tell me how."

And so, Harry began recounting the events of the chamber as to how he did Harry told about his spells. He didn't tell him about Kamra-Taj and Such as he didn't trust a portrait with such sensitive information.

Salazar was now truly surprised with his descendent power as he knew that that spell might not be as strong as Fiendfyre but it was not too far off in terms of powers and could be controlled.

 "That reminds me, it's rumoured you and Gryffindor fought over admitting muggle-borns in the school, and you left when you were overruled. But I'm guessing that's not what happened, right?" 

"Ah yes, the 'fight'. History has not been kind to me, and I hope that in the afterlife, whatever punishment I gave those who have ruined my reputation made a basilisk bite look tame by comparison… It is true, that the other founders did have a fight, and I did leave the school, but those events are unconnected. While muggle-born students were the subject of our disagreement, it isn't what people believe today. As I said before, it was not unheard of in those days for a muggle community to kill anyone they found to be magical. They did not understand our magic, hence they feared it, and our power. I argued that it was unsafe for these children to go back to the muggle world and that they should stay at the castle. The others disagreed, not wanting to separate children from their families. Though in their defence, I suppose they did have a workable system - discrete compulsion charms were placed on accessories like bracelets or pendants to make people not ask questions about the school this muggle-born child attended, and their books and wands were kept at the school."

"I argued that not only did this system hinder their education, but that there remained a danger to their secrecy and by extension to their lives…... And in the end, I was right, now and then we would discover how a student had been lynched while at home…" Salazar let out a bitter laugh. "They were the ones who would kill a defenceless child, yet we were the monsters…..."

There was a silence after that, broken by Salazar,

"Moving back to our main discussion, tell me what became of Riddle?"

Harry let out a laugh, "He started calling himself Lord Voldemort, became one of the most feared dark lords of all time, brought war to Britain, came to kill Neville Longbottom specifically for some reason, killed his parents, then tried killing him, but He got saved by a protection given to him by his mother, and Tom killing curse rebounded on him. He died but managed to live on as a wraith. His followers then had a fight with my family which killed my parents.

Salazar let out another sigh," So it is as I feared, he went to take a dark and twisted path. Before we go on to how he survived, you said Longbottom's mother's protection saved him?"

Harry went on to explain how Longbottom's mother's sacrifice gave him protection that made Voldemort unable to touch him.

"Aah, she performed an ancient ritual, whether she meant to do it or did it accidentally, I do not know. However, she has my respect, she was truly a wonderful parent, she may not have been there to raise him, but she loved him with the complete fibre of her bone.."

"You have given me a lot of information, some of it is truly startling… let us deal with Riddle first. When Riddle said he was more than a memory, he was not lying. The diary contained a piece of his soul."

"What? His soul? What does that mean? Did he tear a part of his soul and leave it in the diary? How do you even do that?!" Harry asked making a fack confused face.

"This is an extremely nebulous and vile concept and something a child should not know. However, a child should also not have to face off against an ancient basilisk, so I believe you have earned the right to hear this. Now, let me explain. That diary is what you call a horcrux, something I am sure your headmaster is aware of – we will get back to him later, we nearly breached this topic yesterday as well, and I do not want our discussion to veer off from this matter again. Right, as I was saying, a Horcrux is something like a soul…. 'container' for the lack of a better word. You may know that when your physical form perishes, your soul fades away. A Horcrux allows one to live on even if their body perishes. This is how he was able to survive his curse rebounding on him in 1981. It is a truly vile and foul piece of magic, and should never be attempted by anyone."

"How does one create a Horcrux, it can't be that simple?"

"I believe by now you already know, or at least suspect how it happens."

"It's murder, isn't it?' he said solemnly while rolling his eyes on the ancient wizard in his mind. "He created his Horcrux when he killed Myrtle, that's why the diary showed him to be 16…..."

"You are correct about when he made it. However, merely killing does not damage your soul – it is killing in cold blood, killing without remorse or any emotion that takes a toll on something as pure as a soul. Then, one needs to perform a complicated ritual immediately after the killings to transfer your essence into that object. A Horcrux is also nigh impossible to destroy, only something extremely potent magically is capable of it. You were extremely fortunate basilisk venom happened to be one of them. The only other way was fiendfyre."

before continuing, "Wait, so if his Horcrux has been destroyed, that means he is gone for good right? Not only- " 

"Unless this was not his only Horcrux." Salazar completed it for him.

"Bu-But this is horrible! For all we know he could have turned a pebble into one and then chucked it in the lake or something!" Harry said, fack panicking, looking at Salazar.

"Fortunately, I do not believe that to be the case. I am someone who talked to Tom Riddle extensively for many months. In that time, I was able to get a look into his psyche. Tom was someone who had an eye for the grand, for the special. He believed himself to be gifted and important beyond all others. I do not think he would place something as 'prestigious' as a fragment of his own soul into an innocuous object like a pebble. No, they would instead be objects of extreme prestige or importance to him."

"But he made the diary a Horcrux! It's not anything special!", Harry protested.

"The diary proves he is the last living descendant of Salazar Slytherin and serves as a memoir of his time at Hogwarts. Unimportant? Ha-Ha, to him, it is perhaps the single most important artefact in history! Salazar concluded boldly.

Harry conceded to the logic of the ancient wizard and moved on.

"Is there a limit to how many times you can split your soul? Because if not, he could have 20 Horcruxes for all we know, he did have nearly 50 years before he 'died'."Harry truly was not most knowledgeable as splitting the soul was not taught at Kamra-Taj as the soul is the thing that gave us the power to influence other dimensions.

"The soul is not infinite, and neither is it copiable or regeneratable. Each Horcrux would slowly change you, and irrevocably at that – once you make a Horcrux, there is no going back, you will never be whole again. Tearing a part of your soul means forgoing a part of yourself."

Harry stopped Salazar here, "What do you mean 'change you' and 'forgoing a part of yourself'?"

"Tom Riddle was once an extremely handsome and charming boy, the face you described attached to Quirrell was an abomination. While he may have retained his magical prowess, he undoubtedly lost something of himself with each Horcrux. His hideous face is one obvious indication. The other, and more significant in my opinion, is his change in tactics. If Tom Riddle wanted to rule over wizarding Britain, he would have done it with stealth. His reign would have begun without him needing to fire a single spell, and amidst thunderous applause in the chambers of the Wizengamot. Such was the guile of Tom Riddle….. but Voldemort is not him. They are two completely different people. Voldemort's plan to take over the world involved military might – while there were strategy and political moves, they were not his chief weapons now. Now, it was savagery, overwhelming opposition through brute force – this is something Tom Riddle would never have considered. For Tom, it was too artless – any fool with a wand and some raw power could attempt this, but how many could ever do it as HE could… like a descendant of Slytherin could…. And the answer was none. Do you SEE how unlike Tom Riddle Voldemort is? This is what making a Horcrux does to you – it strips you of who you are and leaves a deranged FOOL behind." Salazar let the words sink in.

"At one point, attempting to make another Horcrux would simply collapse your body. Riddle was aware of this. So, to answer your question, yes there is definitely a limited number of Horcruxes, and I believe I can guess how many, or at least narrow it down. Based on what I told you about Riddle earlier, can you think what specific number he would choose?"

Harry looked thoughtful for a few moments, his eyebrows scrunched up, before speaking out, "You told me Riddle was one for grandeur and prestige, so I think he would choose a magically powerful number. That means he could have 3, 7, 13, 21…and so on a number of Horcruxes."

"You guessed correctly, well done. However, you forgot that one fragment will reside within himself, and he would want a 'magically powerful' number of soul pieces. So, he would have 2,6, 12, 20 and so on several Horcruxes.", Salazar explained.

"Now, onto how many he made. We can safely rule out 20 and numbers beyond it. That is simply too many divisions. 12 is possible, however, I am not certain of it, and neither would Riddle, so he would probably not risk going so far. I rule out 2 on the fact that that seems to be too little. This leaves the possibility of 6 Horcruxes. However, this is not my only reasoning for that. 6 Horcruxes, and one fragment inside of himself - this gives him a total of 7 soul pieces – the most magically powerful number. Do you see the appeal that lies within this particular number – his life is, in a way, shielded by the most potent number of all and I...yes, I believe this would have appealed to his nature. We have departed from known fact and ventured into the realm of guesswork here, though I am confident that I am correct."

"So, to sum it up, I need to find 6- no 5 extremely well-hidden and almost indestructible objects, not let their creator find out, And to top it off, I also need to stop him from returning to his physical form, as I seem to find myself at the centre of his attempts to resurrect himself… Yep, I'm screwed…". Even Salazar seemed mildly amused at the predicament Harry found himself to be in.

Harry let out a fack tired sigh. "I need to get stronger, much stronger. I only narrowly managed to survive last time, and that too under extraordinary circumstances, I NEED to become self-reliant…"

"Yes, if only there was conveniently an ancient and knowledgeable wizard present who could teach me!"Harry said to Salzar as he wanted to extract all of his secrets form him.