CH58 - Salazar's Heir

Edmund stowed the delicate egg into his satchel with the utmost gentleness, ensuring it was securely ensconced within it. Once he was confident it would be safe, he moved on to the next, more exciting task. A swish and a flick later, he had levitated the entirety of the materials that composed the manticore's nest off to the side, packing them into a corner.

With the removal of the blockage, Edmund was introduced to a grand sight. A sight he had been hoping to see for almost a year at this point.

An enormous circular indent in the floor was visible to him, easily wide enough in diameter to accommodate however large the basilisk may have grown to become. Its edges were etched with snake motifs, linking inwards in a spiral to the center, which housed a giant carving of a basilisk's head. It had its fangs bared and its head tilted upwards proudly. Its gigantic body was looped into circles behind it, showing how massive the creature actually was.

Salazar may have been a vain man, but he had good taste, at the very least.

Using the wardbreaking skills he had developed over the year, Edmund attempted to tinker with the protections he could palpably sense emanating from the entrance. The magic he found seemed endlessly deep and had an ancient feel, unlike anything he had ever felt. The structure would seem unassailable if not for what it appeared to be yelling into Edmund's mind.

PROOF.

PROOF.

PROOF.

With a shaky inhale, Edmund moved away from the site with wobbly legs and sat down on the floor. Opening his mental line of communication with the dark lord, he whispered, 'It is done.'

'Have you found it?!' Marvolo immediately replied eagerly.

'I have,' Edmund confirmed no less excitedly.

'I will be with you shortly,' he replied tersely.

Quickly, Edmund penned a letter to the speaker informing her of his well-being and that he would be a while longer. He tapped the parchment with his wand, causing it to fold into a paper airplane and shoot down the tunnel on a nonexistent air current. The spell was a must-know for the ministry of magic employees, and Edmund had found it useful enough for scenarios when owls were not needed due to the desired transmission being a short distance.

Less than a minute later, Edmund's ears were greeted by the loud screech of a now-familiar golden eagle with red eyes. It came into view only a few seconds later, still as regal as he remembered.

Marvolo would likely be safe even if he came to the Forbidden Forest himself. However, this close to achieving his goal, he refused to take any risk of his magical signature being discovered by Dumbledore.

'Ready?' the dark lord asked through the link at the same time the eagle's eyes turned to him.

Edmund nodded decisively.

'You know what to do,' Marvolo whispered.

Kneeling to the side, Edmund cleared his throat. §Open,§ he commanded.

The round opening rotated as it slid to the side silently, revealing its two to three metre thick nature. However, Edmund's mind was not on the door's security as he gazed down the dark chasm that seemed to extend forever beneath him. The eagle, too, perched on the side of the pit, looking down with awe.

Thrumming.

He could feel a thrumming from somewhere. Maybe it was the magic of the chamber calling out to its descendant, or perhaps it was just the sound of his heart beating out of his chest.

Frankly, Edmund did not care.

Retrieving an old broom he had nicked from the broom shed, Edmund carefully mounted it, hovering over the hollow cavity. As he descended, he slowly became smaller in view from the top before he was swallowed whole by the darkness that had enveloped him.

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The walls of the pipe were as filthy as Edmund had expected them to be. A musky, dirty, rotting smell permeated the air owing to the slime and muck lining the walls. Large clumps of dust and cobwebs were also littered about, turning the greenish stone completely white.

'This won't do,' Edmund thought to himself.

"Incendio!" he muttered, sending controlled blasts of fire below him to burn away the grime that had collected over the years. The solution was not a cure-all, but it would do for now.

As he landed on the ground, Edmund looked around confusedly. He must be well below the Black Lake by this point, but what was the point? The tunnel seemed to go down a long distance and then simply end. How did it connect to the chamber?

The eagle straddling his shoulder seemed to know. 'There,' Marvolo intoned as the eagle pointed its beak in a specific direction.

A small fist-sized outcropping stuck out from the otherwise smooth walls. With a detection spell, Edmund could see that it was heavily warded and seemed runically 'wired' to serve a specific function.

'Salazar was a distrustful man by nature. He wanted all those who accessed the inner sanctum of the chamber not only to know parseltongue but also to have his magic within them. This way, he could weed out parselmouths from other parts of the world and his descendants who could not speak the noble tongue,' Marvolo explained.

'Hmmm... So I just have to...,' Edmund murmured before pushing his magic into the stone.

The wall before him slid open, opening into a room almost as large as the kitchens. As soon as Edmund stepped through, it closed shut behind him.

He could see a large door to the side, but he ignored it for now in favour of observing his surroundings: old scales, shredded materials, and broken teeth.

"This must be where the basilisk curled up for hibernation, which means..."

Sending his magic into another receptacle at the end of the hall opened another door with a steep fall outside of it. Edmund peeked out of the gap, getting his first look at the entirety of the cavern where the fight with the basilisk must have taken place.

He was inside the mouth of Salazar Slytherin's statue.

Searching around, he found another crag he could activate with his magic. The stairs that formed led to the bottom of the statue, emerging from a hidden corner behind Salazar's hair.

Turning his head this way and that, Edmund examined the fabled Chamber of Secrets for the very first time. His imagination had not done it justice. The area was sprawling and massive in size and scale. Disregarding the snake statues on either side of the main pathway, the carvings on the walls seemed more fascinating. There were hundreds of thousands of runes that Edmund had no idea the meaning of, but he could feel their results. The place was a fortress.

Glancing at the base of the central statue, Edmund smiled bitterly.

The basilisk corpse was gone.

It was to be expected. There was no reason a clever wizard like Dumbledore would leave behind such a valuable carcass to rot. The basilisk's hide, bones, and flesh would sell for insanely high amounts, and that was not to even mention the venom. It was hard to be sure how long after Dumbledore got hold of Tom Riddle's diary that he realized it was a horcrux. Regardless, as soon as he did, the basilisk venom would become an even more critical resource for the headmaster.

Leaning down over the pools to the sides, Edmund stuck his wand into one, channelling a strong Lumos simultaneously. The water was surprisingly deep, likely enough for the basilisk to swim comfortably within it. The entire chamber seemed to have been designed with the basilisk's convenience in mind, so this made sense to Edmund.

Absentmindedly, he tried to put up a minor dust-repelling ward, only to find it violently dismantled instantly.

He blinked twice quickly before experimenting a bit further.

'It will not work,' Marvolo amusedly replied to his unasked question. 'The entire chamber has been warded by Salazar, eternally powered by the ley lines that intersect below Hogwarts. Placing wards within the chamber is impossible, no matter who attempts it. It is the very reason that Dumbledore was reduced to warding the chamber's entrance rather than the inside. Besides the protections Slytherin put up himself, no others can be constructed.'

'Yes, well, maybe he should have put up some to keep the area clean as well,' Edmund wrinkled his nose.

The chamber was clearly not without its faults. For all that Salazar was an extraordinary wizard, tons of innovation had occurred in the years since his death. Back when he was alive, magic had not been as thoroughly explored as it was now. Of course, much of the magic of the past had also been lost in the present, so it was a significant trade-off.

To Edmund specifically, it was scary to think that Dumbledore could flame in with Fawkes whenever he desired. No method had ever been devised to stop phoenix travel since its mechanisms were largely unknown.

The golden eagle cuffed him on the back of his neck with its wing, dismissing his idle thoughts.

'Enough exploration. Onwards,' Marvolo demanded.

Edmund nodded in agreement.

Retracing his steps back up the stairs, he stopped in front of the door he had skipped over. Its design was recognizable to Edmund, similar to the one near the main entrance to the chamber. A metal snake was curled around the edges of it, waiting for the correct password to be uttered. Steeling himself, he hissed the phrase the dark lord had received from the basilisk over half a century ago.

§The heir of Slytherin seeks refuge,§ Edmund said clearly.

With a creak, the snake began to move, clanging open each of the locks holding the door in place. It disappeared into a small hole at the top, undoubtedly magically expanded for greater space.

With a deep breath, Edmund pushed against the metal hinges into Salazar's study.