Chapter 32: Rituals, Worries & One Day

The measure of a man is not found in what he espouses, nor is it found in what their reputation says about them. The measure of a man is found within their actions. Who is more upright, the man who gives a tenth of his wealth or the man who gives half? Is it the percentage that matters or the amount of wealth they have conceded? Which man sacrificed more, the one who gave more than he could or the one who gave what was easily affordable, when the latter gave a much greater sum?

Questions of philosophy and morality have plagued humanity from the very beginning. Each of them asking questions and spending years seeking to answer them. I tell you it true, there is a simple code to follow. Academics would have you study the history and progress of human thought for years on end.

Love and protect your family.

Is it an odd thing to read from a man who will more than likely be reviled as the worst of the Hogwarts founders? I know how people perceive me. I hear the whispers and I know I am already a failure. Those that I loved, I failed.

My wife, broken hearted, my son pursuing power above all else…

I defeated my enemies, I destroyed, with avengence, those who threatened our family, those who decried our way of life, and yet, I could not do what was most important…

I am a failure of a man. I failed to protect my wife, I failed to raise my progeny. And now? Now, I write the ramblings of a man who shall not be seen again. A man working to complete a work that I hope will bring me the redemption in death that I sought in life, knowing I will not achieve it while I draw breath.

Protect those dear to you, family can be more than just blood. Do not quarrel for the sake of quarrelling. Do not yearn for power so you can be powerful. Both paths will lead to the corruption of your soul.

Above all, keep a pure heart, it will not lead you astray.

Harry scratched his nose as he re-read the final line in this entry. A pure heart? That… that wasn't something he'd have though Salazar Slytherin would have said, especially when he first started reading it. Today's entire long journal entry was summed up with looking after your family and protecting them is paramount. That destroying your enemies ruthlessly, by any means necessary, should be the goal, if they are a danger to your family. Take decisive actions lest they be given a chance to take decisive action against you first.

Harry had been reading more and more of the man's life story and it was not what he had been expecting. If anything, it seemed Salazar was depressed before his death. The mistakes he had made had undone the things he valued most in life, or that was Harry's opinion on what he'd read so far. It was leading Harry to the conclusion that the Chamber of Secrets was his plan to pass on his legacy. The idea of being 'worthy' kept coming back up and it still bothered him. He'd not forgotten the sorting hat's warnings.

' The Chamber is Slytherin's greatest work, on the same level as Rowena's famed runic room. It is not simple parseltongue but a master's work of enchanting, charms, runes, wards, and, most impressively, soul magic.'

' Salazar still controls his domain from beyond the grave… this is an explicit warning, none have ever become his heir. All have fallen short and many with brutal consequences.'

How the chamber operated was something Harry had very little understanding of. He was working through, or finished, NEWT material and was nowhere near mastery level that might shed some light on how this was all possible.

"Harry." Daphne's voice broke him out of his thoughts.

He was starting to get used to having someone else in here. She had very limited access. Academic knowledge on rituals but nothing specific. She couldn't read the books which outlined his rituals and he hadn't shared them. He'd told her what he was doing, as she'd been in here on a ritual day, but not of the specifics on what he was doing.

"You said you started with a set of seven mind rituals?" She asked, after she had noticed Harry paying attention to her.

"Yes." He responded simply, not sure where she was leading with this line of questions.

"Then you went with a set for physical rejuvenation?"

"Yes." He was sure he'd already told her this so he wasn't sure why she was asking again.

"Then magical rejuvenation, physical strength, and then magical strength? Physical before magical and rejuvenation before strength?" She was biting her lip at the end and asking the question in such a way as to render it rhetorical in nature, though Harry responded anyways.

"Yes." He drawled out, waiting for her to get to the point.

"How far are you? You're on the magical strength set?"

Harry nodded. "I'm at thirty-four rituals, a few short of completing the magical strength set of seven."

Daphne hummed in response, clearly something was going on between her ears, "Then you move onto?"

Harry hadn't told her what the last two sets were. He had little idea of what they were exactly. The books were blank past his next ritual.

"Magical abilities."

"Which ones?"

Harry shrugged. "No idea." He answered honestly.

Daphne's eyes grew wide. "N- no idea?" His response had obviously not been what she expected, Harry thought.

"Only the next ritual is revealed, at the moment, and beyond that, is blank. Normally anything that takes a lot of preparation is revealed early. Other things are not. It's been mostly on a need-to-know basis and whatever controls this place hasn't deemed it necessary for me to know." It had really bothered him at first. He had two choices, accept it or stop. Stopping before completing ritual sets had all sorts of dire warnings for what could happen and so he really had only a single option, follow the path after he started his rituals.

He had considered stopping after completing the first ritual set. Being a completed set it wouldn't leave his magic in flux, however, he doubted it was a good idea to do only that ritual. The set was designed to be completed with others. He figured there would be some sort of imbalance and had decided to just go along with the process, without letting it bother him so much.

It had helped to learn more of the man behind the legend. His writings seemed sincere, if it could be trusted to not be a wholly skewed version of events that turned an antagonist into a protagonist.

Daphne bit her lip again, after letting out another hum. "Isn't that, like, incredibly dangerous?"

Harry ran his hands through his hair and a pained expression flashed across his face. "I wasn't in a good place when I first came down here."

He shook his head and scoffed, "Here…"

Daphne stayed silent as Harry thought back to what drove him to find sanctuary in a place that had previously haunted his nightmares.

"This was the only place I could think of where I wouldn't be found. I felt friendless… and… I was angry… I had a choice and I made it. I leaped without looking, like I'd always done, and what else was I to do, once I did the first one?"

Once he had started, the only real option was to stop at three sets of seven. But that wasn't even an option because he had done the Dragon Power Ritual early on. Even now he had a couple of the seventh set done and while working on completing the fifth set.

"No," she agreed with him, "after you started you had very little choice but to continue… Seven sets of seven though… I've never heard of anyone who had even attempted it." She hid her eyes behind her hand as her fingers rubbed back and forth on her forehead. When she lowered it again she spoke, her facial features were strained, like she didn't want to say what she was going to say. "It's lunacy, really, it is. There are rumors that Grindelwald had pushed the boundary of ritualistic magic and that he'd done seven sets of three. The old families have traditional sets but most of those are a single set of three, sometimes seven, rituals, nothing so ambitious. Seven by seven… Merlin…"

Harry grimaced at her words, though Salazar's own warnings writings had indicated he'd accomplished something no others would be able to match, that he was the foremost expert on ritualistic magic there ever was, and possibly would ever be.

Harry wasn't sure when it started, but he had begun to trust the writings of the man. The more he read, the more his previous belief of the man shattered. It was scaring him how much he was trusting the writings of a man history painted as a bigotted and evil man, one who clashed with the other founders, the ones portrayed as paragons of what a wizard, or witch, should be.

Men should be brave, chivalrous and strong. They should be like Godric Gryffindor, a man that was equal parts terrifying, on the field of battle, and kind, off the battlefield. Women should aspire to be as beautiful, hardworking, and at least half as smart as the gorgeous genius Rowena Ravenclaw, and those that cannot should strive to be Helga Hufflepuff, homely, hard working, loyal and hospitable, if they couldn't be as smart as Rowena they could aspire to be as supportive as Helga.

The writings he'd found, on the founders, were rather uninspiring to delve into. They painted caricatures, almost fairy tales, of the founders. It was such a stark contrast to the writings of Salazar Slytherin. He'd been brutally honest about his faults, missteps, and resigned to acknowledge the consequences of actions. He gave a more complete picture of himself. The few stories he wrote showed admirable and less than admirable traits.

Godric was shown, through his actions in the tales Salazar relayed, to be shown as more of a brute that wielded immense power than a strategist. This worked on the battlefield but failed off of it. His repriotore for methods of confrontation were relegated to direct confrontation and nothing else. His adamancy to refuse to lose was effectual in a fight but sorely lacking in politics, where compromising could bring about the best results. And this wasn't just limited to Godric which allowed Harry to see the founders as humans, not icons.

Rowena was a renowned academic. It was as if her excessive academic prowess came at the cost of her ability to understand how the world actually was, not the simplistic, and often idealized, versions of it found within the covers of a book. Her failing to raise her daughter was but one effect of her lack of grounding in the day to day life of an average person. No matter how booksmart she was, she didn't excel at living life. Helga Hufflepuff, however, did.

If Molly Weasley could have a patron saint it would be Helga Hufflepuff. Homely and mothering didn't begin to describe her, though Harry wondered if Salazar was infatuated with the woman. The one frustration he had with her, brought up over and over, was her non-confrontational demeanor. She always de-escalated and never gave strong opinions. She aspired to be the mortar that held everything together, she supported and helped them all. Helga would get into the middle of things with the sole point of keeping them together instead of mediating and helping to resolve issues.

When he'd come down into the depth of Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, Harry had had Godric Gryffindor as the ideal wizard to try and live up to. The more he read on the man, the less impressed he was. It wasn't that he wasn't an amazing man, someone worth aspiring to be. Harry had just found the more pragmatic Salazar Slytherin was someone to look up to, instead. This brought about the issue he'd struggled with.

Could he trust the writings of the man?

Daphne was essentially asking him that, when she questioned his working towards the ritual set of seven by seven. He didn't know whether he was being brainwashed, or not, but he was finding himself trusting that the founder was a good person at heart, at least at the end of his life, and one worthy of trust, even if it was a small amount at this point in time.

Harry brought his thoughts back to the girl that had sparked his internal thoughts to turn back to that. He looked over at Daphne, not failing to notice her attire for the day. He wasn't completely certain that she was dressing in a more enticing manner, though he'd wager his firebolt that she was. She kept coming down to the chamber without her cumbersome Hogwarts robes on. Instead she was in tight sweaters, that contoured to her shapely figure and wore pants that hugged her rear, his eyes kept lingered on her body as she wasn't looking at him, and thus wouldn't notice the length of his gaze on her.

He blamed Fleur for this. It was her that kickstarted his new level of interest in women. Ever since she first allowed to roam his hands all over her body, specifically her amazing chest, he kept losing himself in wonderment. How could he stop from imagining how firm Daphne's arse would feel, how soft her bosom would be and how hard he could make her nipples…

Damn. He was doing it again.

This kept happening, his hormones running rampant over his brain's synapses, driving away rational thought.

It wasn't until he noticed her lips had moved that he realized he'd missed whatever she had just said. What was worse was that she was looking at him like she was waiting for him to respond.

"Sorry, I missed that." He said, hoping he had guessed right, trying to keep control and not let his face burn in embarrassment.

Daphne caught his eye and smirked at him. The rosiness of her cheeks made him believe she had a real good idea of what he'd been distracted by.

"I asked if you understood why it was ordered that way?"

"No." While Daphne was getting access to a book he hadn't, yet, had access to, he found theirs differed greatly. He got books on what to do and her book was on the background knowledge that would go into designing the rituals themselves and understanding how they cooperatively affected the individual. "The books that have been revealed to me tell me what to do, not how and why it was being done." He'd come to terms with it and understood he had to move forward.

She'd crossed her arms, just under her breasts, damn why did his eyes have to drop, then pause, on them when she was watching him carefully. Harry brought his eyes back to hers and she was mulling something over, Harry could see.

"I think I understand the principles behind it." She was biting her lip again, in Harry's opinion, it made her look rather cute.

"You start with the mind ritual set because you are… grounding yourself." She seemed to be struggling to select the right word.

"Grounding myself?" Harry didn't know what that meant exactly.

Daphne nodded, slowly. "Rituals change you, Harry. They alter you."

That was kind of the point… He gave her a blank stare, not comprehending what her point was.

"They can change you," Harry's blank look didn't change, she was just repeating herself now. " Completely change you. Your looks, your magic, your personality, anything and everything about you can be changed irrevocably ." Daphne was getting animated, passionate even, as she explained this.

"Give me some examples." It was hard to think of this in the abstract. The Greengrass heiress had obviously researched this far beyond what his paltry knowledge and he wanted concrete explanations of what she was trying to tell him.

Daphne thought for a moment before a vicious grin crossed her face. Harry had no doubt this girl could be a vindictive bitch if it suited her purposes, "There was a guy that tried to make himself… mmm… less impotent in bed. He tried to make himself larger and did a ritual for that."

Harry wasn't sure he actually wanted to know how this one went wrong. He was cringing just thinking about it.

Daphne, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was grinning maliciously. "It worked, worked too well. He was larger. As were all the parts of his reproductive system. They had to remove it, the ritual had made it grow and it kept growing, ang growing, and growing."

That would not be fun, was the conclusion Harry came to as soon as he thought about that. If it went unchecked, things would get so large he'd need a wheelbarrow to walk…

"There was another guy that wanted to be stronger, this being back when knights, swords and horses were the norm. He wanted to be the strongest man alive and did a ritual set for it. His muscles grew and he became incredibly strong. Unfortunately," and her delivery didn't match her choice of wording there, "he didn't ensure his bones and ligaments were strengthened to match. If he tried to use his herculean strength he'd just break something." The malicious look on her face as she explained the downside was a little unnerving, to Harry. It was like she enjoyed that it backfired. He frowned in response.

"These are stories told at bed time, to magical children." She grinned at him.

"Bedtime stories?"

"Oh yes."

"Not fairy tales? Like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty?" Harry asked, even if he hadn't been able to partake in them nearly as much as Dudley, he still was exposed to them.

"That muggle nonsense?" She scoffed, clearly unimpressed with the stories.

"Nonsense? At least they aren't telling children about engorging dicks and balls." He reposted her comment.

Daphne shook her head and shifted in her seat. Her posture straightening and a colder look adorning her face. "Muggle fabrications that teach their children that life is fair and just in the end. Persevere and good will come to the righteous and the wicked will receive their connupance." The scorn, in her tone, was palpable in the air. "If you just work hard, everything will work out in the end. You can go from being a poor pauper into being the queen, with a loving marriage to the perfect prince and have a prosperous kingdom without strife. That all you need to have a happily ever after life is to have upright and just actions and to work hard. As long as you put in the work, and act in a righteous manner, everything will work out just great."

Harry didn't respond. He sat back in his chair, slouching a little, and he rubbed his chin in deep thought.

Daphne was breaking down the muggle bed-time stories into what they taught children. It meant she was either familiar with the literature or she'd been taught this.

"The children stories told in the wizarding world teach them, teach them about life and magic. They instill life lessons and educate them about the dangers of magic."

Harry didn't want to get into any arguments, nor breed animosity between them. He didn't have any strong beliefs on the issue at hand either way. He was more interested to hear about the wizarding world's viewpoint than anything else.

"How do those two ritual stories do that and what's one that comments on life lessons as well as warns about magic?" No deference nor challenge in his delivery. He was neutral and his query held little, if any, emotion. He was trying to treat this more as an academic discussion and remove the emotion that could lead her to believe he was being antagonistic with his response.

Daphne pursed her lips and then let out a deep, calming breath. Her hands came off her elbows, her arms uncrossed and she crossed her legs, one knee over the other, before she folded her hands on her knee. If it wouldn't have wrecked the delicate ambience he would have snickered at how much she looked like a lecturing parent right now, Harry could almost hear the 'listen closely, my child' that her posture was practically yelling out.

"The ritual stories are warnings. Magic doesn't always have the intended consequences you wish for and that you should not play with magic. It is dangerous and has a degree of permanency to it, you can't always wave your wand and fix things."

Harry nodded, he got that from the story but it was good to have it affirmed. He leaned forward, there was a strong chance the next part would be new to him.

"One of the most well known stories is The Tale of the Three Brothers. Three wizards who encountered Death and supposedly outwitted him. Legend attributes them as Antioch, Cadmus and Ignotus Peverell."

Harry's eyes bulged at that family name. He was sure Daphne saw it, as her eyes narrowed, but she didn't stop.

"Death granted them a boon, for they created a bridge from magic, thwarting their impending death if they'd tried to cross the river. Antioch requested an unbeatable wand, the Elder Wand; his hubris led to his murder. Nobody escapes death. There is no magic that can stop it." Daphne's narrowed eyes were stern and resolute.

Harry held her gaze and nodded, showing he understood the lesson.

"Cadmus Peverell sought another way to defeat Death. In his hubris he humiliated Death. His boon was the creation of a stone capable of returning the departed back to life, the Resurrection Stone. There is no returning the souls of the departed, magic is not capable of it breaking the natural order. The stone brought back their spirit but their appearance brought them terrible agony and they were intangible. Cadmus commits suicide, he sought to join those he longed for, Death claimed the second brother."

Daphne stood up from her seat, and walked over to where Cuddles had just finished eating a burnt-to-crisp rat. She scooped her up and ran her hands along her scales. Harry could feel the contentedness of his familiar, a full belly and affection being showered upon her. Daphne sat on the edge of the desk, still stroking his little dragon before she continued.

"The third brother, Ignotus Peverell, did not seek to humiliate Death. He was wise and knew seeking power, like his eldest brother did with the Elder Wand, the Death Stick, was fraught with folly. That defying the natural order wasn't possible, unlike his brother Cadmus and his Stone, and so he sought a different path. He asked for Death's own Invisibility Cloak, one that would hide his soul from Death itself. Though Death sought revenge, he was unable to find the youngest brother. It was not until he passed the cloak down to his heir that he met Death once more, this time as if they were old friends, for Death respected his wisdom, his guile, his cunning."

Harry felt goosebumps creep across his skin, a shiver ran down his spine. His pupils were dilated and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He struggled to control his breathing, he took deep and fast breaths through his nostrils as he tried to understand the gravity of the connection his brain just made.

Death's Invisibility Cloak was said to hide the soul of Ignotus Peverell. His cloak did that exact thing. Fleur had said it shouldn't be possible. And, most pertinent, the centaur called him Son of Peverell. The words were burned into his head.

Listen, O wizard! Give ear, Son of Potter!

We discern the mysteries of magic;

We unravel the signs in the stars.

The Heavens speak, heed our words!

Battle approaches, blood will spill;

Red will stain the leaves this eve!

Prepare yourself, harden your heart;

The path is narrow, you must not tarry!

Your crucible comes, salvage salvation!

Listen, O wizard! Give ear, Son of Black!

Narrow is the path, your crucible comes;

Salvage salvation, Son of Peverell!

Narrow is the path. It was something that had been on Harry's mind. The fact it echoed the warning from the Sorting Hat, ' Be wary of your path. All that have walked it have fallen…' . Harry hadn't forgotten.

His crucible was coming, it matched what the Hat had said to him. Rescuing salvation, rescuing his deliverance from harm, ruin or loss… What did that mean? He still had no idea.

But now, in the heart of the Chamber, he was hearing about three mythical brothers. One of which just happened to have a special item that did the exact thing as his father's cloak.

Fuck. He knew his cloak was special, Fleur did too… But this… this was fucking bonkers.

Harry blinked, once, twice, a third time, in rapid succession. Fingers were being snapped in front of his face.

"Are you listening to me, Harry?"

Harry turned his eyes toward the voice and caught an eyeful of cleavage, his eyes rising up Daphne's body while she was leaning forward and snapping her fingers in his face. He'd zoned out in thought.

"I said," Daphne's voice cut through the air once more, now that she had his attention, again, "wizarding children have access to accidental magic, potions, enchanted items and so much more. Magic is wonderful and often unforgiving. It is a lesson taught from childhood. Magic is not to be trifled with, never go against the natural order of things."

The way she was looking at him was a cause for concern. It was like when they were back at the Hufflepuff table, right after she was resorted. Daphne knew something, she knew something that he'd prefer to keep quiet.

"Do you not understand what I'm telling you?" Her tone wasn't mocking or scathing, she wasn't sneering at him.

"I get the point of the story. You explained it well."

Daphne let out a short breath. "No, that part is obvious. Do you get why I told you that story?"

The first thing that came to Harry's mind was that she knew of a connection between the Potter's and Ignotus Peverell. He was going to feign ignorance and hope for the best. Fleur and, more than likely, Dumbledore knew. He didn't want anyone other than them knowing.

Harry shook his head. "No not really…?" He doubted Daphne couldn't see through his horrid ability to lie. He really needed to get better at that.

"Rituals aren't wholly natural." She let her words sink in before she carried on and elaborated further.

"They take your natural state and alter it. For each one you do, it takes you further away from what you were originally. Each successive ritual is another step away. At first it is so minor. You're only a couple steps off, how bad could that be? Not much. But, for every step, there is a counter step. You can't go against the natural order without consequence, magic doesn't like it."

Daphne moved back to her chair and put the half-asleep Cuddles onto her lap. She had sat back in the chair, when she'd seated herself, but she kept her perfect posture as she continued to talk about the topic she'd broken him out of his self-study with.

"Ritual sets are designed to reintroduce balance, a naturality to an unnatural process. Think of it like a stone bridge. You are taking out parts that make up the whole and that is bad. A stone bridge isn't meant to be missing material. Each change takes away from its purpose, it unbalances it and loses functionality. Each stone taken away chips away at the whole. A single rock, a couple rocks, that loss can be borne. But each successive one?" She tittered, "The cost grows, the chance of catastrophe climbs."

"Do you see the point now?" Daphne asked Harry. "Do you understand why I'm asking? You're on your fifth set. You're not dabbling in a couple rituals… You've completed over thirty rituals! You've been stripping the bridge down and rebuilding it. A single misstep now could end in calamatic collapse! The whole bridge falling apart!"

Harry didn't think she was appreciating how calm he was being about the whole thing.

"You're following an insane plan! The stakes are your life! Don't you get that?!" Daphne's voice had been rising as she'd come to her conclusion. "How can you be so nonchalant about this?!" She stared at him incredulously, visibly agitated and unimpressed by his demeanor.

Harry looked down at his lap. How did he explain it to her? How does he explain that his entire life has been a struggle? How can he describe just how fucked his life has been since Hagrid barged in through the door, on his eleventh birthday, and declared him a wizard, well, since his parents were orphaned, really.

"I didn't grow up like you, Daphne." He said softly as he slowly lifted his chin, bringing his eyes level with hers. He closed them and gave it one more thought, before deciding to travel down this path.

Harry remembered that Daphne couldn't reveal information she learned down here. Her family would be around his for a long time. Either he'd marry her or offspring of his would marry hers. The Greengrass Heiress was being groomed to take over the position of Steward and she was going to be around him, in some capacity, for a long time. Giving her more insight might be helpful. He couldn't trust her to be impartial but that was fine, there was nothing wrong with trying to turn things to your advantage.

Daphne's head was tilted to the side and she looked puzzled when he opens his eyes again. Her hands were still expertly working Cuddles into a very happy ball of 'if I'm going to die this is the way I want to go' affection-loving miniature dragon.

"I was raised in a magic-hating muggle home. I lived in a storage closet, under a set of stairs, I cooked, cleaned, gardened and did all manners of chores. I was their equivalent of a house-elf."

It was a lot easier to discuss than Harry had thought. He'd been analyzing his life and why he was the way that he was. It felt more clinical than emotional to bring it up now, maybe even cathartic.

"But that's not-"

Harry waved his hand, cutting off Daphne. "It doesn't matter, not anymore. I just want to give you the background information so you can understand."

Daphne slowly declined, then inclined, her head, there was an unsurety to her actions, as if she hadn't put together how this all fits together. Regardless, he had her full attention, her lips now closed, her sharp eyes scrutinizing him closely, all the while she kept his familiar in a state of heavenly bliss.

"Hagrid literally barged through the door and my life went from house-elf pauper to celebrity overnight. I was thrown into a world I didn't understand and manipulated from the get-go. I was pushed into Gryffindor and set to be best friends with the son of a family that would eat shit that spewed out of Dumbledore's arse if he so much as implied it would behove them to."

He'd thought more on the Weasley family. Fred and George flew a car to his muggle neighborhood to break him out of his room. Even that hadn't warrant much reaction. The twins were punished but nobody ensured it wouldn't happen to Harry again. They were good people, they were a good family, he just had to be wary of their loyalty to the headmaster.

"I met Voldemort at the end of my first year and killed Quirrell before he could kill me. I fought the basilisk and a shade of him in my second year. I had a mass murderer, who was actually my innocent godfather, supposedly after me 3rd year and now this year… "

Harry ran his hands through his hair and pulled at the back of his neck. This year… it was such a clusterfuck of a year.

"This year I'm the fourth competitor in the triwizard tournament, tri meaning three, a three person tournament. It turns out it was a supposedly dead Death Eater, who was impersonating the most paranoid bastard of an auror there has been in decades, and the bastard put my name in the tournament. And it gets better…"

Harry let his words hand as he saw Daphne's scrunched up eyebrows and her calculating eyes made it obvious she was working overtime to process all this, new and known, information.

"Voldemort has been after me since birth. The dementors gave me a horrifying and wonderful memory back." Harry closed his eyes. He could see the scene in his mind. It had haunted his nightmares and been a source of longing.

"My mother, she," with his eyes still closed he pictured her red hair, the young woman that had a husband and young son, "she was all that stood between me and him…" Harry could hear the voices, he could hear the raspy voice of Tom Riddle tell his mother to stand aside, to spare her own life, he wasn't there for her.

"She refused to step aside. She refused to not fight for me, her own life be damned. My mother, Lily Potter nee Evans, a muggleborn witch, she was offered to be spared. All she had to do was let Voldemort kill me."

He paused and swallowed, his eyes still closed, picturing the scene. Thinking through what must have been going through her head, his head.

"Riddle wasn't there to torture. He wasn't there to strike fear into the nation with acts of depraved barbarity. No," Harry's voice was hoarse and scarcely more than a whisper, "no, he killed my father, no pain, no torture. He swept up the stairs and planned to end my life with a single curse, a rather humane way for a Dark Lord to kill."

He squeezed his eyelids shut more. He couldn't picture it. He could never imagine a scene where his mother steps to the side. He knew what she did for him, he knew how much his mother loved him. The scene had played over and over in his head for more than a year now.

"The man decrying muggleborns, the great champion of the pureblood movement didn't care about the life of a mudblood . He was going to let her live. It was all business, with him. Enter the home and kill me."

"My parents weren't even the target, what a waste… to cut their lives short, like that." He was scornful and his words full of reproach.

"The bastard has been after me since my birth and I want to know why ." Harry was adamant on that, his earlier hoarse voice was strong and he hadn't yet noticed but he was standing his palms pressed against the desk.

"I've been targeted my whole damn life! You say I'm delving into rituals where the stakes are my life. What difference does it make? My life has never been my own. At least if this doesn't work out, it's my own damn doing, not the manipulations of the headmaster or a plot by Riddle."

Harry heavily fell back into his chair. His point made. It was the one bright spot. He really didn't need Daphne to point out what a stupid fucking decision it was to start a ritual set without knowing it would work out. He was walking along the edge of a knife. Any slip and he'd fall into a precipice of almost unfathomable consequences.

It was all aligning. The Sorting Hat's warning, the word from the centaurs. He could feel it in his bones. There was a feeling of inevitability, like the smell and feel in the air before a thunderstorm. Something was coming and it irked him, beyond belief, that he didn't know what it was.

It wasn't Dumbledore, there was something building there but it was nowhere near a crescendo. He'd just begun his work with Flitwick and McGonagall. Dumbledore's manipulations were naught past the earliest of stages.

He knew it wasn't his advisors, or even Remus or Sirius.

Voldemort's plans weren't ready yet. They were just stymied by Crouch's capture. He could be sure a trap would be sprung on him but not so soon.

Something was coming. He just had no idea what.

"I-" Harry's focus snapped back to Daphne. "I… don't know what to say." The words coming out of her mouth were obviously bitter to admit. "I could tell there was not much love between your muggle relatives but… that bad…" Her hand was covering her mouth, neither of them working on keeping the little dragon content.

Harry watched as his dragon opened its bleary eyes. Cuddles lazed her head back and forth, stretching her neck one way and then the other, a small flame licking out of her nostrils as she exhaled. He smiled when he saw her launch off Daphne and make her way to Harry.

Cuddles deftly flew the short distance and landed on his shoulder, her tail lopping down behind his neck and her head rubbing against his cheek.

Harry leaned into the contact, Cuddles always knew when he needed a little affection. She was always there for him and had bailed him out of his most recent death scare.

"Then Weasley dropping you and Granger leaving the country. Not a banner year, not by any stretch of the imagination" Daphne added, summarizing the basis for Harry's descent into his new home.

"But surely things are looking better now?" She questioned. Seeing Harry's quirked eyebrow she built upon her question.

"You have allies now. You have my father and myself." She grinned at him and raised her hand, twirling it in a tight half circle she gestured down her body. "Then there are the Delacours and potentially the Pavlovs. And, most importantly, Horace Slughorn. A man so well connected even Lucius Malfoy wouldn't dare antagonize him brazenly."

"You're learning from one of the most revered magical minds to ever grace the mortal plane and lead two families."

Harry shrugged. Daphne made valid points, he did have some good things going for him now but it didn't change his situation. He was still the target of the two most powerful magicals alive, Voldemort and Dumbledore. He had an idea of just how outclassed he was by Dumbledore and Voldemort could go toe to toe with him.

"Caught between the two most powerful men of the last century, excluding Grindelwald, whose long been defeated." Harry added bitterly.

"There is that…" Daphne ruefully agreed, her hand reaching back up to her chin, her forefinger tapping it against her chin. "But that does brings us back to what's gone on with you, what we originally talked about."

"What's gone on with me?" Right, she had asked about the order of rituals and how far he had gotten.

"The setup is brilliant, progressive and conservative. Enhance the mind, ground your personality and ensure your head can handle the changes that are to come. Then ensure your body and your magic recovers and replenishes itself before it is strengthened and the depths of your ability grow. Always enhancing your body before your magic." She crossed her legs again though she was still leaning in and was clearly delighted by the conversation.

"I don't know what the final two sets are doing exactly but the first five are conservative in their order and comprehensive in that they cover every part of you, mind, body and magic. Topping it off with magical ability enhancements and 'special' rituals devised by Salazar Slytherin himself." She was practically gushing at this point and Harry's attention span waned for moment, he missed a little of what she was saying before he tuned back in.

"With the way it's all setup there is no way it would! Don't you agree, Harry?"

"I'm… not… sure." He watched her closely, hoping to get an inkling of what she'd asked but all he got was an eye roll.

"I can't speak to your mentality that well. I think you are more rational and less prone to acting before thinking. You are more in control of yourself and are more organized but I don't know for sure, it's not like we spoke much before."

She shot him a wry grin.

"As to your body," she blushed and raked her eyes over Harry, "You look closer to seventeen than fourteen. You've grown and filled out…"

"Oh, you like what you see, Daphne?" Harry could help but smirk at her, especially after having been caught looking her over.

"Mmm… yeah…" Daphne blinked once, a look of utter surprise came over her face. Embarrassed, her hand shot to her mouth and she coughed into her palm.

"Is that why you talked with Natalia, offering to share me?"

It was wondrous to see her off balance, she always tried to stay composed and in control, getting her out of her comfort zone and reacting, without control, was not an easy task.

"She's told me. Natalia's promised no more games, no more manipulations. She'll swear an Unbreakable Vow to me. Her near death has refocused her on what she wants, and that is, apparently, me." He told her simply. "Did you want to tell me what you were scheming with Natalia about?"

Daphne sighed. "She wasn't supposed to do that…" The Hufflepuff ran her hand down her face.

"Look, we are competing with Fleur, Fleur Delacour . A family that has ties to yours." She lifted up one of her fingers, "Fleur is part Veela, for Merlin's sake," she lifted up a second finger, "she's French and has the cute accent," another finger joined the first two, "she's seventeen and is both skilled and powerful, magically," two more went up, tallying five in total.

"How do we compete with that? I didn't even get into the fact that she's a Delacour." She seemed a little exasperated and, Harry mused, annoyed at having to outline the reason for her actions.

"I can only have one child and my sister can only have one, unless we fix whatever is wrong with our family. You have two families to repopulate, taking multiple wives is somewhat expected, nobody with ambition wants to pop out kids like a Weasley." There was a challenging look in her eyes to see if he would take exception to that.

"So you have one kid, and hope to fix the issue, though that's not guaranteed, and Natalia helps sort out that issue?" Harry saw the given here but wanted to see if there was more that she had come.

"Well two girls, instead of one… Natalia is gorgeous and, unless you don't like my body type, there isn't a better looking girl at Hogwarts, though Sue and Hannah are right there with me…" She tilted her head and thought about it.

"No other years have girls that can compete?" Harry amusedly asked, finding the situation humorous.

"There is Chang in Ravenclaw, though her personality is not attractive. Trust me Harry, you don't want to date her, high-maintenance isn't even a strong enough term, Cedric is in for it with that one…"

Huh, that was interesting to hear, Cho was a bit of a crush of his. She was smart, athletic and feisty. She was cute and he noticed her when he played quidditch with her. He might have dodged a bullet there.

"Hmm, there are a few good options in the upper years of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff but you could do better. I hate to admit it but Gryffindor has some good looking girls. Katie Bell is from a good family and is developing quite nicely. Even worse, the Weasley girl will be a stunning redhead when she finishes puberty, though the James and Lily Potter recreation is a tad creepy." She shuddered as she pondered that thought.

"As much as I love my father, I don't want to marry a guy that looks just like him, that's repulsive." She grimaced this time.

Harry let out a laugh. This was almost surreal. He's getting Daphne's opinion, given to him, on which girls are good looking and if there are good prospects for him in Hogwarts.

"Slytherin is out right now. Last year's graduating class had an option or two but.. That's four years now and one of them is in a contract, the other in negotiations. Though Victoria might be worth considering, beautiful, smart, cunning and an amazing arse you could bounce a galleon off." Harry didn't expect to see the slight look of longing on her face. He had to follow it up.

"Were you attracted to her?" He tried to keep a neutral face.

Daphne looked at him, thoroughly unimpressed. "No Potter. I don't like women and neither does Natalia. I can just appreciate when another woman has attractive features. Just like it doesn't make you gay to recognize that Cedric is a handsome young man."

"Whatever, back to the topic at hand. We get our children out of the contract, Natalia isn't a sole wife and can have a less demanding role, as your wife, and can still have a ballet career. You solidify a strong alliance here and abroad, with the two of us, and that works well for political and economic strength. The package, together, matches or exceeds what Fleur offers alone. That was the thought."

Harry wasn't sure if that was everything, she seemed too forthcoming with this. Yes, Natalia had exposed the plan but Harry had this lingering feeling in his gut that there was more there still.

"Why would you have not tried to convince Fleur, instead Natalia?"

Daphne scoffed. "Fleur Delacour share? Why would she? Her heritage breeds true, she's impossibly beautiful. With just her looks and academic record she'd be one of the most sought after young women in France. Being a Delacour, she's almost in a category of her own. Who else matches her?

If Natalia was the heiress, she'd be close, though a lesser match from a political viewpoint and family history… Think of if Cedric was Draco Malfoy and his family wasn't complete pillocks. Oh, and they'd have to have a much longer history as well. Really, the only detractor would be their issue of heirs. You have two families and she's the heiress. Three children would be the absolute minimum but six would be the preferred minimum. That's a lot for a single witch to pop out… It was rumored they were in negotiation to obtain all the heirs from Fleur to remain Delacours…"

Harry smirked internally. Typical Daphne, even complimenting Fleur, genuinely, she finds a way to make it more of a backhanded compliment.

"That's not for me to worry about right now. I'm focused on magic while Horace handles that side of things.

"Think of how that could work. Veela are known to have mostly females. You could be the anti-Weasleys. Six girls and one boy!" Harry could hear the teasing lilty to her voice, the tightened corners of her lips giving it away as well.

Harry laughed, that would be kind of horrible.

"What are you going to do about Natalia now? Are you going to get her to swear a vow?" There was a hidden question there, if Harry took Natalia then Daphne had a way in, not that they've even really acted on it.

Daphne was very attractive. If things were a little different then he might have acted upon it. Daphne hadn't made any major overtures, she'd only said she'd be interested in not passing the contract on to progeny, that she was interested in fulfilling the contract but not that she was interested in him more than that.

The two of them could work. Harry could be certain but the times they'd spent together he can easily see how they were becoming friends and it was guaranteed they'd be close allies. Harry didn't want to act on anything there. He thought Daphne may actually like him but he wasn't sure. She was one to keep those feelings from becoming obvious and public. If he had to be in an arranged marriage, he wasn't too opposed that the Greengrass heiress was the match.

"I don't know. I don't want her to dictate her life based on the first traumatic event she's experienced. She was essentially tortured and is recovering, mentally, not physically. What kind of a person would I be if I capitalized on the worst moment in her life and made her mine for life? Even if she was forever loyal to me, and I made the vow ultra constrictive. What would happen if she grew to resent me?" Every time he thought of getting Natalia to swear a vow to him his stomach became uneasy. It just felt wrong to take advantage of her vulnerability.

"You're too bloody noble Potter." Daphne snapped at him. "You have the chance to gain a powerful ally. This event could turn the tide. They are a ruthless family. They should have been strung up at the end of the Grindelwald war, heinous war crimes were affiliated to the Pavlov family. It was only how instrumental they were in helping the ICW which allowed them to escape unscathed, save for their reputation."

"You think I don't know that?" Harry asked with some heat in his voice.

Harry expected Daphne to bite back at him, she looked like she was ready to rip his head off, or castrate him.

"Do you understand the position we've put ourselves in Potter?" Daphne bit out through gritted teeth, it was clear and obvious she was withholding the bulk of her frustration and anger.

"We have publicly declared our allegiance. There is no walking away now. We are against the Dark Lord. There is a reason I'm in Hufflepuff now. There would be legitimate safety concerns if I'd stayed there. As it is I already have to keep an eye out for Astoria."

She leaned forward and continued glaring at Harry. "This isn't a game. My family has been threatened over this. My sister and I have been brought up in rape threats. And if the Dark Lord comes back? We'll be a priority target. A pureblood family taking a stand, like the Meadows, the Potters, the Longbottoms, the McKinnons, the Prewetts. Do you need me to go on?"

Harry shook his head and kept quiet. He was going to let her vent before rejoining.

"Every pureblood family that took a stand, the Death Eaters did their best to make an example of. Did you know the Dearborns didn't even fight? They just spoke out once in the paper. Pieces of the patriarch were scattered across Diagon Alley, outside the shop they owned. His wife and two daughters. One week later the youngest was dropped outside the ministry. What happened to Alice and Frank Longbottom is a kindness compared to what she endured. Her sister a few days later and the mother… She wasn't tortured much. She was raped and more… but they were cruel. They forced her to watch what happened to her daughters…"

Daphne was silent for a moment and she bowed her head. When she brought it back up there was a fierceness there that almost shocked him. "She was released back to the public. She told of the horrors that happened and was prevented from killing herself multiple times. When she was finally released from Saint Mungo's she killed herself within a day."

She stood up and leaned over the desk now.

Cuddles must have felt the tension that had grown within the room. She perked up and raised her hackles, crying out a warning to Daphne and puffing some smoke.

"That is the fate we are risking. You talk about not taking advantage of someone in a weakened state. You talk about callously following through with something that can end your life! Well it's not just yours now. We are tied to you! If you lose, we lose. If the Dark Lord returns and you lose, everyone who supports you is dead, tortured, or worse. Get that through your thick head! This is war !" She slammed her hands down on the desk and leaned over further.

"This might just be the prelude to it but it's coming. You know it, I know it, Slughorn knows it and so does bloody Dumbledore! I don't want to hear of your damned Gryffindor nobility holding you back." She hissed at him. "You take this offer to father and Slughorn. Brief them and make some plans. We can't afford to lose, so damn well make sure we don't miss opportunities."

"You done?" Harry asked as Daphne started to lean away, backing off from her heated word.

Harry stood up now, his right hand securing Cuddles as he did so, not that the little dragon needed it. When he stood Cuddles jumped off his shoulder and flew circles around them, spewing short bouts of fire here and there as she did so, creating a racket with her screeches and flamethrowing.

"They already know. I told them and it's far more complicated than that. The Pavlov family is staunchly anti-veela. I can't easily ally myself to them and then continue a strong relation with the Delacours. That would create a rift."

He glared back at her. He wasn't the same naive boy that she went to school with. His mind was being sharpened every day by Salazar. Each time he ran through things with Cyrus and Horace he learned and added to his growing understanding of the wizarding world. This wasn't checkers. Each move affected far more than just its immediate surroundings.

"You don't even know about the other overture they made." Harry scoffed at her. Daphne wasn't in the know the same way as her Father was. "Macnair isn't missing. He's dead, his body is never being recovered. He was kidnapped, interrogated and won't ever see the light of day. Ivan gave me a transcript of what was gained. All the Death Eater activity that he was, is and had ever been aware of."

Harry reached out with his magic and called Cuddles back to him. The pent up fury Cuddles was releasing felt like his own. When he got agitated she often was as well. Already he felt like much of his frustrations were gone.

"I'm trying to put together a council and I need a general. I need someone who knows war and how to win one, even an ugly guerilla one like the last one. Ivan was auditioning, he's smart, he's heard the rumors. Natalia is willing to permanently bond herself to me and her father is providing vital intel that we need to know at the same time?" He was calming right down now. He had to go meet with others soon and he needed to be sharp, not emotionally or mentally tired.

Harry turned his attention to Daphne and she looked properly chastised now. She was acting on incomplete information and had just learned her lesson. This isn't the same dunderhead she'd observed in classes through the years. He'd changed, he'd grown and was coming into his own.

"I'm sorry, Harry. I let my worries affect me and took it out on you." She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in, then out, heavily. "Astoria was almost corned by a seventh year Slytherin. Susan caught up to her first and prevented anything but it's had me worried. I can take care of myself but Astoria is only a second year." She bowed her head in her seat.

Harry understood, well, not fully actually, he didn't have siblings or family to worry about. But he would well imagine what that's like and it wouldn't be fun. He saw the agony Ron was in when his little sister had been taken. He saw the worried Weasleys when they returned from the Chamber and the relief they had at her safe return.

"I get the position your family is in now and I'm grateful for the help. Your father is a wizard at finances and is setting things up for my families future. But there is a lot more going on here that you don't know." Harry looked around.

"Do you even realize like where we are? Do you stop and think we are in Salazar Slytherin's greatest work. That's what the Sorting Hat told me."

Daphne perked back up. "The Hat knew about this place?" She shot him a shrewd look.

"The hat knew and warned me. The last person to venture down here was Voldemort, though he became ' unworthy' of being Salazar's heir somehow… The hat told me I'm walking a fine line and that all those who have come have fallen short of… what bothers me most, what keeps me up is that I'm choosing to follow the exact path that Tom Riddle took."

Daphne's eyes narrowed at his words. "You don't know that for sure. You don't know he did down here."

She was right, he didn't know for sure. "I may not but Horace was his head of house. In Riddle's fifth year he went from a top student in his year to an otherworldly talent. He dipped into rituals and became a student in a league of his own. A student who for the first four years was talented and one of the best in his year became something else. Sound familiar?" Harry asked mockingly. He really didn't like that he had unwittingly followed the footprints of Riddle.

Daphne didn't need to say anything, her expression said the 'oh' for her.

"You worry about your family, Horace worries about politics, and our Hogwarts peers worry about their grades, their friendships, and their romantic prospects. The other Triwizard Champions worry about the tournament but not me. I worry about something far worse. I'm haunted by the thought that I might become the next Voldemort. That every action I take, to ensure my survival, leads ever downward, into a descent that is too steep to climb back out of, a sole direction that ends in becoming a Dark Lord."

Harry had sat back down into the chair, the same one he was sure Riddle had spent countless hours studying in, just like him.

"You said I should take advantage of Natalia's weakness, that it's for the benefit of the war. It's an easy thing to do… but where do I draw the line? It's okay to get an unbreakable vow from an emotionally compromised teenage minor but where do I stop? When does that line get pushed to it's okay to torture to get information? When does it become acceptable to eradicate a family because they were supporters of the Dark Lord and you worry if you leave the teenaged children alive they could become enemies in the future? What line will it be that brings an end to Harry Potter, the-boy-who-lived, that gives rise to the next Dark Lord?"

Daphne didn't respond right away but Harry expected that. What do you say to that being dropped on you?

"I'm going to win. I'm going to become everything that I can be. We're going to remove the Dark Lord and there will be future generations of Potters and Blacks. I do this or I die; it's really that simple. I just worry that the cost of winning will come at the price of losing myself."

Harry could see the doubt in her eyes, that she didn't fully believe that was possible, that he'd always been a good little noble Gryffindor at heart.

"Tell me Daphne, what would you do if Astoria had been kidnapped and raped? What if you were a part of the force going in to rescue her? Would you kill the whole family, children and all? Would you turn them over to the Ministry to stand trial? What would you do if they defiled her, tortured her, broker her? Could you lose yourself? Could you do unspeakable things in your fury?"

Harry knew his point had been made. He saw it in the depths of her eyes. She'd burn the world to save her sister. But that was okay. Daphne Greengrass couldn't actually burn the world down. Daphne Greengrass wasn't Voldemort, she didn't have his power. She couldn't walk up to the Maginot Line and create the day that become infamous in France: Le Premier Sang de Maginot.

One day Harry could. One day he'd be a titan of magic. One day he'd have the power to burn down the world.