A/N [Standard 'I don't own anything' disclaimer.]
[Edited 29:06:2018]
Secrets.
Harry landed on top of the Astronomy tower a few moments before Dumbledore and, before the old man could do anything, had disappeared beneath his cloak. Moments later the door leading into the castle banged open before starting to slowly close. Albus was still catching his breath a few minutes later when the sound of several people coming up drowned out the distant sounds of combat. The door burst open once more and with a shouted Expellimarus the Elder wand left his hands. Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, the Carrow twins and Fenrir Greyback entered the open space on top of the highest tower at Hogwarts castle, Draco holding Dumbledore's wand in his left hand.
After a whole minute of silence, as Draco continued to point his wand at a resigned-looking Dumbledore, Fenrir snarled at the blond boy, "Well?"
The cold laughter that filled the air took everyone present by surprise, "You really can't see it?" the laughter seemed to come from every direction at once, with no discernible source, "The Ferret knows how to use his mouth but doesn't have the balls to kill a helpless old man."
"Potter!" Draco yelled out, his wand swinging wildly, having seemingly forgotten about Dumbledore.
More laughter filled the air, and the senior Death Eaters were suddenly reminded of a certain Dark Lord, "Come now Draco, it's not like I am making this up. Oh and don't bother puppy, you won't find me." the remark was obviously aimed at Greyback, who was sniffing the air, trying to find where Harry was. It seemed to only enrage the werewolf more. "Still, I am curious. Since when is Tom sending out his inner circle on suicide missions? Not that I am complaining of course, but still, seems like a waste." The Death Eaters exchanged a confused glance, sure the resistance had been a bit harder than expected, but to call this a suicide mission... At that point they noticed that the sounds of battle had died off, the only sound left was that of the wind.
"Oh yes... I expect that all your compatriots below are dead by now. Such a pity." Dumbledore looked like he wanted to say something but was cut off by Harry continuing, "I wanted to kill some of them myself. Oh well, I suppose this will have to do." All of the armed wizards started to look around, searching for where the expected spells might be coming from. "Tell me, Albus, did you really think I wouldn't find out? Or did you think that even if I did, I would forgive you?" The already pale complexion of the Headmaster paled even further. "Ahh, I see you understand now. Yes, that is what you did, and now, at long last, you get your reward. Good-bye, Albus Dumbledore." Avada Kedavra
The spell took everyone by surprise, nobody even managed to move as the green bolt appeared in mid-air and, flying right past the assembled Death Eaters, hit Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Defeater of Grindelwald, Leader of the Light, right in the chest and sent his body over the railing of the tower.
Hearing many footsteps coming from below, with Fenrir confirming they were not fellow Death Eaters the five unshrunk their brooms and rapidly left for the Hogwarts ward border. It wasn't until his port-key activated that Draco noticed he no longer held Dumbledore's wand.
Most stories begin at the beginning, then go through the middle to arrive at the end. This is not one of those stories...
Harry Potter could not sleep. It wasn't that he didn't want to, he had lessons tomorrow after all, he simply could not. The day was October 31st. Halloween. His fourth Halloween at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. And the fourth Halloween in a row that saw something go wrong in his life.
In his first year he came face-to-waist with a grown mountain Troll, one that seemed intent on killing him. It was the first time Harry had killed. The headmaster had then tried to obliviate him and the two others, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, to make them think that Ron had merely knocked the troll out, but for some reason Harry still remembered the truth. He didn't know why the spell didn't take, but had decided not to mention it. That year ended with him confronting a possessed teacher and the murderer of his parents. He also technically killed a human. Sort of.
His second year it was on this day that the first petrification happened. That brought about the whole 'Heir of Slytherin' debacle, suspicious glances, fearful looks. Oh, and his secret ability to talk to snakes became not-so-secret. That was... 'fun'. And then, just to make sure Harry knew Fate hated him, his best friend, Hermione Granger, got petrified.
It stopped the fearful looks but in Harry's opinion he would have preferred those to seeing his friend in that state. He had spent every moment he could by her bedside. It was also then that he begun to consider what it was he felt for the bushy-haired bookworm. Oh, he also had to kill... yet again. Except this time it was a sixty feet long Basilisk. And because of his carelessness he had to do it with just a sword. A really fancy sword, but still, a sword. Harry still wasn't sure how he survived that mess.
Last year was... strange. In a way it was the calmest of the three and yet it was also when he came closest to dying. Kind of strange, considering he had been bitten by a millennia-old Basilisk the year before, but that's what happens when you have to contend with soul-sucking daemons placed around a school to protect it. Harry still considered that to be a perfect example of wizarding world's stupidity. He also met his Godfather. And the bastard who had betrayed his parents. And, despite what the general populace thought, they were two different people.
Of course, just when it seemed that his life was about to take an upturn, Fate kicked him in the proverbial groin; the traitor escaped, his godfather was forced to continue living as a wanted criminal, his honorary uncle almost ate him and oh yes, he almost had his soul devoured by the aforementioned soul-sucking daemons. Again. On the plus side he had managed to officially break the laws of Time by saving himself via the use of a Time Turner. According to Hermione that wasn't supposed to be possible. It was also at the end of that year that he decided to... try... dating Hermione. Next year. After Halloween. Just in case.
And that brought Harry back to present and the reason he couldn't sleep. As of a couple hours ago he was the fourth champion in the Tri-wizard tournament. A tournament that is meant for of-age witches and wizards. A tournament that he couldn't have possibly entered himself into. A tournament that he had no desire to participate in in the first place. A tournament that all the staff agreed he has been forced into.
So of course the whole school thinks that he cheated his way in... somehow. Because being the bloody boy-who-lived isn't enough fame for him. Because a thousand galleons is a significant sum compared to the Potter-Black wealth he's heir to. Because having beaten Lord bloody Voldemort three times before even hitting puberty isn't excitement enough for him. Wizards...
That by itself wouldn't be so bad. Harry had almost expected this kind of reaction, after all it's not like the sheep listened to reason the last three years. The whispers and stares didn't hurt. Even the rage of his supposed 'best mate' Ronald Bilius Weasley didn't hurt, Harry had expected the jealous prat to explode. No. What hurt was Hermione.
She hadn't said anything. In fact that might have been better, had she yelled at him, called him out on the seeming cheating, done anything but look at him like he had betrayed her. Now, three hours after everyone else had fallen to sleep Harry lay on his bed, unable to calm himself.
One year. All he had wanted was one bloody year of peace, no Voldemort, no soul-sucking monsters, no giant snakes. The anger in him was one spark away from exploding. Deciding he wasn't going to get any sleep like this Harry put on some warmer clothes and, after grabbing his invisibility cloak left the dorm.
Harry had decided to just wander around the school under his cloak for a while, try to calm his mind. He wasn't paying attention to where he was going and so it was with no small surprise that Harry found himself staring at the door of the second floor girls bathroom. Home of Moaning Myrtle, Tom Riddle's aka Voldemort's first victim. The place where he and Hermione (and Ron, he supposed) had brewed the Polyjuice potion during their second year. Also, the place where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was located. Making a snap decision Harry entered the bathroom, hoping against all hope that the occupant was not home. She wasn't.
The floor of the tunnels beneath the sink was as dirty as Harry remembered. As he proceeded deeper into the passage he arrived at the chamber proper, the doors still open. Entering the room Harry took a moment to look at the obvious battle damage his 'fight' with the giant serpent had left; there were several cracked columns and many of the snake-shaped braziers were shattered, the ever-burning oil contained within them pooling at the corners of the chamber, giving the giant room an even more of an eerie feel.
Finally reaching the centre of the room Harry took a moment to look over the giant snake he had fought. For some strange reason he thought it looked bigger now that it had back in his second year. Harry blamed adrenalin. It was as he caught sight of the ink stain on the floor next to the red stain of his own blood that the emotions inside him begun to overflow.
He knew, he just knew that Riddle had something to do with what had happened today. The undying bastard kept coming after him and he didn't even know why! Dumbledore knew, the old man had all but admitted it. And then said that Harry was too young to know. He had just killed a man and Dumbledore had the gall to tell him that he should not rush out of his childhood?! Has that fossil of a man gone so senile he doesn't even understand what is happening around him!? Or is he really so arrogant he thinks he can just play god! With a yell Harry turned to the far wall of the chamber and threw the strongest blasting curse he could.
And another.
And another.
And a cutting curse, and a banisher and more and more...
Ten minutes later Harry had taken to imagining that he was throwing the spells at people he had begun to hate. Vernon; Reducto to the face, Petunia; Diffindo to the chest, Dudley; banisher right at the stomach, Dumbledore; Incendio to that oversized beard of his, Herm... He froze.
Hermione. He didn't know what to think about her reaction but at that moment Harry knew that he could never hate her, not her. She could call him names, call him a cheat, ignore him, insult him, anything. He could not hate her because... he... He, Harry Potter, was in love with Hermione Granger.
That single realization was enough to wash away the anger that had been slowly gathering around his soul ever since the night he had been robbed of his chance at leaving the Dursleys. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry; he was in love, and he had no idea what she thought about him, much less felt.
"Better?"
Harry spun around, a half-formed stunner on his lips when his mind registered who, or rather what had spoken. In the middle of the chamber stood a figure. It looked like a young woman, Harry would guess around twenty years old, dressed in a simple dress. That however was not the surprising part; no that came from the fact that the woman was... well, Harry couldn't help but make a comparison to a human-shaped Patronus. "Wh... Who are you?" Harry stumbled over his words a little.
"A friend, Harry Potter." The woman smiled a warm smile.
"Yeah..." Harry drawled, "You'll have to forgive me for not buying that. I have had enough experiences with disembodied people; none of them good."
"Yesss." The woman frowned as she glanced toward the dead basilisk, "I am... painfully aware of that." She sighed, "At the very least, know that I consider Thomas Marvolo Riddle an enemy and you a potential ally."
Harry relaxed a bit at that, but the suspicion he had formed remained, "So who are you then?"
"That... is a bit of a story." she smiled at him. "But one you need to hear." After Harry sat down at one of the more clean parts of the floor she begun, "Before I start I must ask that you allow me to finish before asking any questions, many of those you will no doubt have at the start will be answered by the end." seeing Harry nod she continued, "I was... born a little over one thousand years ago. For many years I travelled the world with my father. It wasn't until he met three other people with beliefs and dreams similar to his that we finally settled down." Harry had a very good idea where this was going but he kept quiet.
"My father and his friends wanted to create something that had never existed before, a school of magic. Obviously many places had had organized magical education before, old Egypt or the Roman empire just to name the two biggest, but there had never been a school dedicated to the study of magic above all else. That was their dream. And it was here, in a remote valley of Scotland that they found the perfect place for it." She gestured around the chamber, "This chamber is located directly beneath the magical nexus of the castle above. And beneath it... is the single largest convergence of ley-lines in the world." Harry couldn't hide his shock at that, he had read that Hogwarts was on top of a major convergence, but the largest? "Because of its location the castle can have its immense wards, the largest ghost population known and walls covered in enchanted portraits that never need to sleep. It literally has more magic than could ever be used." she smiled, "And all of it is passing through this room." Harry sat in silence for several minutes before the woman continued."
Well, I am sure you have figured out who my father is. And yes, I know what the history books tell about him. That is the second thing you need to know; the truth about Salazar Slytherin and the events surrounding the death of the Founders." Harry looked up at surprise, he of course remembered the story of how Slytherin had killed the other three while dying himself. That wasn't the truth? "The four were close friends and over the years my father fell in love with Rowena, and she with him. They had two children, the daughter became Rowena's heir, while the son... Well." she sighed, "The son became Salazar's. And, like his father, he eventually left to travel the world. His parents did not see anything wrong with it, after all they had done the same thing. Many years later there was an... incident. Rowena's daughter, Helena, died. Her ghost still looks over the house of her mother, unable to move on." Harry was shocked at this revelation, the ghost of Ravenclaw house was the daughter of their founder?
"It was a... number of months later that Rowena bore two more children, twins in fact. Both her and Salazar were quite old at that point, you must understand. It was seen as a minor miracle. Both children were only a couple of years old when Salazar's firstborn son returned from his travels." At this the woman took on a sad expression, "However... the man who returned was nothing like the one who had left. Now, you have to understand that the four did believe that magicals were in some way... 'better' than non-magicals. There was nothing truly wrong with that belief, it was the same with nobility, a noble was believed to just be better than a peasant. That was how people thought at those times." Harry nodded, he could accept that.
"The biggest thing was that my father, like the others, believed that any life blessed with magic was... well, blessed. Precious, to be nurtured, taught, helped. Salazar spent many weeks every summer travelling to out-of-the-way villages looking for anyone with magical abilities. In a way I suppose you could call him the first champion of the muggleborn." Harry couldn't help but gawk at that, Salazar Slytherin: Champion of the Muggleborn. Half of Slytherin house would flip their shit if they learned of this. Harry couldn't help the chuckle as he imagined Malfoy's face as Binns tells the class about this.
"What happened?" The question left his mouth before he could remember that he wasn't supposed to ask any yet.
"Getting to that." the woman smiled for a moment before her expression became grim, "As I said, Salazar's son had changed. He had developed the idea that some magicals were better than others. That those who had magical ancestors were inherently better than those who did not. He tried to convince the four to close the school to any who were not of magical families, that they were not 'worthy' of learning the secrets of magic. The founders, obviously, disagreed. It got so bad that Salazar actually considered disowning him. Sadly... he never got the chance."
Harry listened with rapt attention, he didn't know how, but he knew that the being in front of him was telling the truth. "The son, who I refuse to refer to by name any other than The Traitor, had developed a potion that allowed him to temporarily take on the appearance of someone else. I believe you are familiar with it." Harry certainly was, and the thought that it had been developed by such a vile wizard made him feel sick, "The Traitor ambushed his own father one day, killed him and destroyed the body. Then he used the potion to take on the appearance of his now dead father and went to the meeting the four held at the beginning of every year. There he used the element of surprise to mortally wound Helga before anyone could react. Godric and Rowena engaged him in battle, both quickly recognizing that while it was the face of their old friend, it was not him. By the time the castle servants managed to break the magical seals on the room all four were dead. And because the traitor died while under the effect of the potion, everyone though he was Salazar."
Harry once more sat in silence for what felt like forever, his mind furiously trying to understand what he had been told. "But... if... how did..." he was at a loss of words.
"How did the ideas of the Traitor survive? He did not die without leaving behind progeny of his own. One who was thoroughly educated in the beliefs of the Traitor. Those beliefs would later go on to become the foundation of the Pureblood ideals, while the descendants of the Traitor became so over-obsessed with blood purity they would eventually begin to marry first cousins and even outright siblings. That family, the Gaunts, would eventually produce one Tom Marvollo Riddle." Harry nodded along, he had figured it would be something like that.
"The twins however..." Harry snapped to attention, "There was a lot of negativity focused on Salazar and his children specifically. The twins were secreted away from the castle by several servants who were still loyal to Salazar, knowing he would never do what everyone thought had happened." The woman smiled for the first time since she begun this dark part of the story, "Like the son of the Traitor, the twins had to abandon their real names and were given new ones." She paused, seemingly finding amusement in Harry's impatient expression, "You might have heard of them. Myradin Emrys and Morgan Le Fay."
