Chapter 51: Chapter 18:Darkness Gathering
Lucius slumped almost bonelessly on the settee as his wife vanished through the Floo on her way back to Hogwarts. The previous hour he had spent explaining himself and what he had been trying to achieve had been the most stressful (and terrifying) hour of his entire life, even including the one time when he had accidentally angered the Dark Lord.
Only his magic-sworn promise that he would not try any more plans to resurrect his Master had prevented his wife from following through on her threat to divorce him on the grounds of errant stupidity.
"Can today get any worse?" He whispered to himself.
"It can, should you deny me." A voice said and Lucius found himself in a dueling stance, his wand in his hand as his cane clattered to the ground.
"Excellent reflexes, Lucius." The voice continued approvingly as Gilderoy Lockhart stepped into the room. "Now put that away. We both know you stand no chance against me."
"After Potter defeated you?" Lucius snorted. "Lockhart, you lost to a twelve-year-old boy!"
"He did." Lockhart smirked and Lucius froze as a horrifying thought occurred to him.
"You… you are not Lockhart…"
"Not any more." Gilderoy said, his smirk growing darker. "No, Gilderoy Lockhart is only a memory, and a fading one at this point. You see, my slippery friend, I have returned as I said I would."
Lucius heard his wand land on the floor, but it didn't register as he stared in growing horror at the one who had once been Lockhart.
Someone who had walked through his Wards as if they hadn't even existed…
…or as if he had been keyed to them…
"…My Lord…" He choked and the man who was once Lockhart nodded.
"Very good." Voldemort said approvingly. "I see that your mind has not degraded during my absence."
Lucius sank to his knees, then bowed his head. "My Lord, what is your command?"
"Rise, my loyal servant." Voldemort commanded. "Let us speak of that which has transpired in the years I have been… away…"
"Yes, my Lord!"
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~Open.~ Harry hissed at the small brick with the bas-relief snake on it and the wall opened up to reveal a flight of steps spiraling down.
"I do believe that I should lead…" Albus began, only to pause in surprise as Filius nipped past him.
"My reflexes are still sharper than yours, as are my eyes." The shorter man stated, glancing over his shoulder (and the long bundle he had slung diagonally over his back) as he started down the stairs. "I'd suggest you next, then Harry and Severus can bring up the rear."
Albus sighed, palmed his wand and followed Flitwick down the secret passage.
"I wonder." Harry mused, looking at the crystals embedded near the top of the walls. ~Lights.~
The crystals started to glow, causing a muffled oath to sound from ahead.
"Sorry!" Harry called. "I thought I'd try something and it worked!"
"Warn us, next time!" Flitwick called back and Harry heard something suspiciously like a muffled snigger behind him, but when he glanced round, it was to see Severus looking as stone-faced as usual.
"Well, Mr Potter?" He asked pointedly and Harry nodded, then followed his Head of House and Headmaster down into the depths of Hogwarts, Snape only a few steps behind. Once all of them had passed through the archway, the bricks forming it shifted back into a solid wall, but not before a score of thumbnail-sized shield-shaped objects had darted through.
As they descended, Harry looked around curiously. Each of the glowing lights was in a silver fitting shaped like a snake winding round it.
"I guess Salazar took the snake-thing to an extreme." Harry finally offered, hearing another not-snigger behind him.
"Salazar was a known Parselmouth." Severus finally stated. "It was a skill almost as rare back then as it is nowadays in Europe, although in India and Australia, Parselmouths are held in high regard. Indeed, it is said that a Parselmoth beggar who travels to India will, once they demonstrate their talent, find themselves being wooed and romanced by the Great Families there."
"Hmmm… interesting." Harry mused. "Should the Prophet try another round of Let's get Harry locked up for something he didn't do, I could simply go abroad and make a career talking to snakes."
"Great Merlin!" Filius exclaimed. Harry and Severus exchanged glances, then hurried down to the foot of the stairs where Filius and Albus had stopped. Before them, on the other side of the large corridor the stairs connected to, was a large pile of shed snakeskin.
"Oh dear." Albus murmured. "It looks like we could be facing a larger threat than I thought… A snake this size…"
"Fifty seven feet and three inches." Harry supplied, causing all three adults to stare at him. "What? I measured her when I installed her as the guardian of The Pottery."
The three continued to stare at him.
"I had to break the control spells on her and buy some bullocks for her to snack on, but SssSthss is happy in her new greenhouse home." Harry shrugged.
"Is that why you got my permission to leave for an hour or so?" Flitwick asked, his eyes narrowing in speculation and Harry nodded.
"That's right. I needed to get SssSthss to the Pottery and get her settled down. Since she was the only Basilisk here, we shouldn't have any real problems."
Albus and Severus exchanged unreadable glances while Filius started to chuckle.
"Just as I think you are starting to be predictable you do something like that." He chortled. "Alright. Let us continue exploring."
Harry and Filius moved down the corridor and behind them, Harry could hear Albus and Severus talking almost frantically.
"He has a sixty-foot Basilisk guarding his home! Albus!Why are you smiling?"
"I admit that I was not aware of the presence of the… oh my. This explains poor young Myrtle… I always believed that Hagrid was innocent… it must have been Tom controlling the Basilisk, but if he returns, he won't know that the Basilisk is not his to control any more, at least not until he encounters it and by then, it'll be too late as he'll be within biting range. This could be the… Severus… your arm!"
"It… no! How could it be?"
"We knew of three more, my boy. If one of them worked…"
"He hasn't summoned me yet… why?"
"I do not know… but I don't think that we will enjoy finding out. For now, let us explore the Chamber and we shall continue this discussion later, in my office."
"Harry, I believe we shall need your skills again." Filius stated and Harry looked ahead to where a pair of large doors blocked the passage, doors embossed with silver snakes.
~Open.~
At his command, the Snakes writhed towards the edges of the doors, which opened almost silently, revealing a huge chamber beyond, a chamber with a pool in the middle and a large statue at the far end, one that was built into the wall itself and stretching from the vaulted ceiling to the floor.
"Wow." Harry said after a long moment. "He had quite the ego, didn't he?"
"He was one of the Four Founders." Severus said from behind him. "Although, yes. Something like this is possibly a bit too egocentric."
"But why's the mouth open like that?" Harry asked curiously.
"Let's find out." Flitwick said, unslinging the bundle and unrolling it to reveal four broomsticks. "I borrowed these from the broomstick shed just in case we needed them. Shall we?"
Harry grinned as he held his hand over one of the broomsticks.
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Lucius watched as Voldemort carefully transfigured the body that he had appropriated in order to resurrect himself. The curls of blond hair darkened to black, the eyes changed shade from blue to a brown so dark that his pupils almost blended with them. His nose and cheekbones shifted slightly, and then settled into their new positions and shapes as Voldemort turned away from the mirror that he had been using.
Lucius opened his mouth, then paused as the Wards alert poked at his mind.
"Something wrong, Lucius?" Voldemort asked, tucking away Gilderoy's wand, then a wicked smile stretched across his face. "Oh, my. I can sense my true wand just outside… held by one of my loyal servants. Come, Lucius, let us welcome our long-lost ally back into the ranks of my Death Eaters!"
Lucius followed his returned Master out and down the drive to the gates, but there was no-one there.
"…Master?" Lucius asked carefully and Voldemort's smile grew even darker.
"Wormtail, come and say hello."
A rat appeared from underneath one of the ornamental bushes and Lucius' eyes widened in shock as it suddenly expanded upwards, turning into another wizard he had believed deceased.
"Pettigrew?" He gasped. "But… Black killed you!"
His gaze dropped down to Peter's right hand, noting the stump that had once been his little finger.
"Of course!" He breathed. "They only found your finger… it was you who fired the curse, not Sirius… and as a Rat Animagus, you could easily escape… But when did you choose to serve our Lord?"
"Peter came to me over a year before my… accident." Voldemort supplied as a genuflecting Pettigrew proffered a very familiar wand. "I saw instantly the potential of having a spy inside Dumbledore's Order, so he became my agent, unknown to any of my other Death Eaters, planting the occasional useful rumor when I needed it. After Severus relayed the Prophecy that Sybil Trelawny had made to that old fool Albus, it was Peter who managed to not only inform me of the locations that the Potters and the Longbottoms were hiding, but who was chosen as the Secret Keeper for the Potters."
"But… everyone knows it was Sirius… Black…" Lucius trailed off as his mind started working again, assimilating the new facts and drawing conclusions from them. "No. The Potters were running a bluff. Everyone knew they would select Black as their Secret Keeper since he was the closest friend of the Potters, so they chose Pettigrew, thinking people would overlook him… and even if he was discovered, his animagus form would let him escape…"
"Very good, Lucius." Voldemort smirked, waving his wand in the air and producing a wave of silver and green sparks. "Well done, Pettigrew. You have returned my Wand to me, my faithful servant. You will be rewarded."
"Thank you, my Lord." Pettigrew simpered.
"For now, I believe that a meal would be a good start." Voldemort decided. "Lucius, summon that elf of yours and have him start making a fine repast as we celebrate the dawn of a new age!"
"At once, my Lord." Lucius bowed. "Dobby!"
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"It will take a while to sort through all these books." Dumbledore said, looking at the enchanted trunk on his desk that held the contents of the library that they had discovered. "Once I check them over to ensure they do not contain dark magic, I shall let Madam Pince oversee their restoration and filing. It may distract her away from glowering at the students who wish only to perform research."
Idly leafing through one of the books, he suddenly paused, his face paling.
"Albus?" Flitwick prompted. "What have you found?"
"I believe I know where Tom got the idea to make a Horcrux from…" Albus whispered, his eyes almost transfixed. "With this book… and the rituals described within… he would have found his path made a great deal easier... and safer, paradoxically enough…"
"Are you certain that he read that book?" Flitwick asked.
"Since he wrote several notes in it about the possibility of multiple Horcruxes, I believe that he did indeed. I will need to examine this more closely…"
Carefully closing the tome, Albus put it on his desk.
"I am only grateful that Gellert never knew of this book's existence." He finally admitted. "Had he known of it and claimed it for himself, I do not believe that I would have been able to defeat him."
"What exactly is it?" Flitwick queried.
"This, my friend, is the personal diary of Thascalos Slytherin, Salazar Slytherin's son."
Flitwick frowned. "I remember hearing about him… wasn't he why his father left?"
"He used his father's position as a shield to allow him to sire several bastard children on the female muggleborn pupils at the time." Albus nodded. "Salazar couldn't defend him, but as his victims were all muggleborn, he refused to condemn him either, so they simply departed and years later, word came that Salazar had died."
"And Thascalos?"
"No-one knows." Albus shrugged. "He vanished from the history books and the Headmaster's Archive makes no mention of his fate. Oddly, he was sometimes called Thascalos the Gaunt…"
Filius stared at Albus in horror as he recalled the time Albus told him of Riddle's heritage.
"You mean Riddle really could be descended from Salazar Slytherin?"
"It is very probable." Albus nodded. "After all, Parseltongue is passed down through the family line…"
"Then how on earth did Harry learn it?" Flitwick asked curiously.
"I had thought it was the presence of the soul-fragment in his scar, but since he has retained the skill even after the fragment was removed… I do not know." Albus admitted ruefully. "My current guess is either he is descended from one of the children that Thascalos sired at Hogwarts… although I don't recall James being able to use Parseltongue, so it probably came from Lily's side."
"That would make sense…" Flitwick mused. "Especially if the line squibbed out and moved into the Muggle world. If they didn't have the ability to speak Parseltongue, no-one would be aware that they carried the potential to."
"My thoughts exactly." Albus leaned back and stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Of course, if this is true, then it would seem your Raven is possibly descended from the first Snake… meaning that Tom's claim to be the true heir of the Slytherin line may not actually be true…"
Both wizards looked at each other and Flitwick gave a bloodthirsty grin.
"I think I'll suggest to Harry that he investigates this."
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