Sammael had been busy. He'd given a dozen goblins at Gringotts heart attacks when they'd learned who he was. Apparently, having a sealed savings vault for 900 really added up in interest. Sammael was…wealthy, to put it lightly. He'd never have to work a day in his life. In fact, his descendants—should he ever had any—wouldn't have to work for at the very least ten generations. He'd given generous tips to ensure that his identity would remain private for now, but even still it was relatively easy for him to buy a modest house in Hogsmeade. Had he wanted, he could have built himself a castle. But, he felt the need to be close to Hogwarts.
After that, he'd raided Salazar, Selwyn and Salazar Jr's private vaults. He'd found their journals, their books with their discoveries, bottled memories and various heirlooms. He'd been in 2004 for about a week now, and he'd spent every moment he could spare pouring through these books.
Salazar II seemed to despise Mundanes even more than the original had. Selwyn wrote about how he would regularly storm Mundane Villages who had been mistreating a magical child born there, and burn the entire thing to the ground after rescuing the child. Salazar II's grandchildren were just as prejudice. Sammael was saddened to learn that Mundanes had murdered Synnove and her three young children in retaliation. However, he couldn't help but feel pride as he read about his little brother's accomplishments: he tamed dragons, herded unicorns, discovered new lands, invented new potions and rituals. While Salazar II focused on completely separating the wizarding world from the Mundanes, Selwyn worked on bringing peace between the wizards, vampires, werewolves and Veela (along with many other creatures).
Both wizards, in their journals, claimed to be successful. Curious, Sammael then started collecting old newspapers, as well as modern history books. He became a regular at Florish and Blotts. It got to the point where the workers would always light up with smiles and rush to his side, inquiring what he was looking for that particular day.
What he found disgusted him.
Mundanes, or Muggles as they were called in modern times, were in fact completely separated from the wizarding world, and so Salazar II was most certainly successful. However, Muggleborns were integrated into wizarding society at the age of ELEVEN. Eleven. Not only that, but the returned to the Muggle world every summer. They were so full of foolish muggle opinions that they then tried to change wizarding life to match the muggles! They even managed to undo all of Selwyn's hard work (some of the only peaceful work the Slytherin Line ever attempted) by spreading irrational fear for vampires (who usually asked permission before they fed on somebody) and werewolves.
Werewolves suffered the most at the Muggleborns' hands. The poor creatures were often separated from their pack after being bitten, then hidden away for their childhood. Well NO WONDER there were so many cases of werewolf attacks! If somebody tried treating Sammael like that he'd probably start biting people, for Merlin's sake! By neglecting their creature side, it made the transformations harder, and generations of it reduced werewolves to little more than blood-thirsty rabid dogs by divesting them of their senses during the full moon. Not only that, but they weren't able to transform at will, anymore. They could only change during the full moon. The most horrid thing of all, is werewolves like someone named Fenrir Greyback were made out to be monsters for giving into their instincts and actually acting like a werewolf. It was so unexplainably absurd it blew Sammael's mind that the werewolves hadn't fought back harder than they were!
Uncontrollable monsters. Ha! Marches and protests. That's what the werewolves were doing to try to gain sympathy. And yet, they were still called and treated like monsters. The injustice of it was disgusting.
Sammael's interest was whetted by a fellow called "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" who apparently descended from Salazar Slytherin II's line. Seems like little Sal's blood-thirsty-ness was genetic. The "Dark Lord"'s name wasn't anywhere, which Sammael found slightly annoying. However, it did say that in a war, he fought for the Dark side against the Light. Sammael found this confusing. Why were the two sides fighting? They were two halves of the same coin, practically the same thing. It was like a two headed cobra's different faces attacking each other. Don't they realize that if either is abdicated completely, that both sides die? Though, from Sammael's studies, it seems that a man called Albus Dumbledore fought to repress all Dark, Blood, Soul and Black magic. He called them evil, and the public bought it. Perhaps "You-Know-Who" was simply fighting for the right to practice Dark magic?
Of course, Sammael would never get the chance to ask him. It seems that he was defeated by the "Boy-Who-Lived" Harry Potter. The name seemed familiar to him, somehow, and yet he couldn't remember from where. A Killing Curse rebounded? It sounds like somebody performed an ancient Blood Ritual for protection, ironic as it is. So it wasn't the boy at all, but rather whoever performed the ritual, who should be remembered as Savior.
Sammael found himself impressed by "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named". The history books said he "managed to manipulate the werewolves and vampires" over to his side. Which means he may have also been fighting for creature rights.
It worried him, the state of the public mind, that they should thing this man was the evil one. Sure, there were articles about the Dark Lord killing or torturing people, but it was either Mundanes (Who no doubt deserved it, one way or another), or people on the other side of the war. War, that's what it was. There was no doubt in Sammael's mind that the Light side also killed members of the Dark side, but of course, those weren't documented.
Because, as always, it was the winners who wrote the history books.
One case impressed Sammael: The Longbottoms. Sammael snorted at the last name. These people were noble, strong and brave. And yet they were stuck with a family name like the "Longbottoms". Briefly, Sammael wondered what their ancestors had done for a living, to garner a name like that. But there was no doubting their strength, having lasted under the Crutacious for as long as they did. Unfortunately, they did go insane after a while. Though it says that they had a son who escaped unharmed. There was a picture of a sweet-looking, round-faced boy in the history book.
***1047***
Lord Voldemort was…curiously angry? Frustrated might be a way to describe it. It had been over two weeks, and the one who killed Harry Potter's relatives hadn't been captured, or even identified. On one hand, this was a good thing, because Dumbledore and the Light hadn't gotten them. On the other, it wasn't, because that meant Voldemort hadn't found them either.
Lucius had ear in every branch of the ministry. Severus was keeping an eye out at Hogwarts. Fenrir Greyback had investigated among the werewolves. Nothing. It was as though a basilisk simply dropped out of nowhere, killed the two muggles, then disappeared. Lucius even told him that that particular scenario had been considered, before they'd found the boy upstairs, who'd been killed by a wand.
An unregistered wand. Even Voldemort's own Yew and Phoenix feather wand was registered at the ministry, after all, he'd bought it at Ollivanders, who was loyal to the ministry. But this one wasn't registered in England, France, Bulgaria, Russia or anywhere else they'd checked.
So there was a large possibility this mystery wizard simply made his wand himself. Ministry officials, Lucius said, had examined the magical residue. They were able to guess that the core of the wizard was either thestral hair or phoenix feather (which amused Voldemort, as those were the two most opposite materials you could find). They also determined that the wizard was exceedingly powerful (which made Voldemort snort, actually snort. He could control a basilisk, so of course he's going to be powerful). But what really made him curious, was that there was evidence of an unknown ritual taking place at the Muggle residence. Lucius brought over as many details as he could, but the burn markings of runes on the floor puzzled him, they didn't match anything Voldemort had ever seen.
Voldemort was going to go insane (more so than he already was) if any more questions added themselves to the ones he already had. He was already half considering polyjuicing himself, or putting on a glamor, and simply looking for this mystery wizard himself.
***1047***
Sammael was disgusted by the state of the government. At first, he'd been elated to learn that the wizarding world had established their own government separated from the mundanes…muggles, whatever you wanted to call them. But then, he'd broken into the Ministry. It had been pure child's play. Honestly, it's as though they purposefully searched for the most incompetent people they could and then employed them without any instruction of how to do their job.
Though, Sammael mused, if they had been good at their job, he wouldn't have been as successful in his little project.
He'd learned from a useful little book called Hogwarts: A History that Helena still resided at the school as a ghost, though it said she'd never birthed any heirs, which meant all Ravenclaw descendants must have come from her brother. Helga, however, had many children, as did Godric. Salazar II had two twin sons, and Selwyn had four daughters and three sons. However, he could find no where if the lines continued through to present day. And so Sammael broke into the ministry to get a peek at the official records of families.
It had taken about five hours, a lunch break, then four more hours, but Sammael had found out a great deal. The Hufflepuff line had two survivors: a man named Geofry Smith and his son, Zacharias Smith. It seemed to Sammael that they were well off, though not publicly recognized as her decedents, due to having no proof, which Sammael found odd since that particular note had been relatively close to the actual self-updating family tree of Helga. Sammael had a growing suspicion that someone purposefully erased all knowledge of any Hogwarts heirs, as much the same thing had happened to Rowena's line. The Prince line was the last of it, the heir, though, had been disowned years ago: one Severus Snape, who, ironically, had been a Slytherin in school.
Salazar's line had been the hardest to discover, because all that was in that particular file had been a huge blank scroll. It took Sammael a good ten minutes of just staring at it to figure it out. Then he felt a bit foolish. He cut his palm, allowing a small amount of blood to drip onto the parchment. The blood formed lines, then names. Sammael eagerly drunk in the names as they stretched downward. At the very end was a single name: Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Odd, Sammael thought. He'd already read that Mr. Dark Lord "You-Know-Who" was the last descendant of the Slytherin Line. Then Sammael spent the next minute and a half laughing like an idiot. Riddle must have been pretty terrifying to make a name like Tom so scary that none dare repeat it. Sammael made a mental note that, if he should ever have children, to name the eldest Tom.
He noted with interest that there was no death date by Tom's name.
It was, however, Godric's name that saddened Sammael and confused Sammael. There were three names that were not accompanied by a death date: Augusta Lorene Longbottom, Neville Franklin Longbottom, Harry James Potter.
This told Sammael two things. That neither Harry nor Tom was dead, and that a descendent of Godric and a descendent of Salazar were destined to try and kill each other until one succeeded.
***1047***
Neville cringed as he backed up against the wall. Gran was yelling at him again, but she was screaming so incoherently, that Neville had a hard time understanding a word she was saying. It wasn't like he told that plant to attack that vase. But she blamed him for breaking that "priceless family heirloom" anyway.
And then she started going on about the state of his clothing. Neville almost found it amusing, how she blamed him for outgrowing his clothes. Almost. As it was, she was going on about 'Frank' not being this hard to care for. How 'Frank' had been at the top of all his classes. How 'Frank' wouldn't be shaming the family name with 'soft work' like 'gardening'.
But it wasn't just 'gardening', Neville wanted to argue. He was experimenting with breeding different plants into a weaponized version of the original, to help guard the house. No one would ever expect a rose to start flinging thorns at them, lease of all a robber. But Gran never listened to him when he started talking about his plants. In fact, she never listened to him at all. Period.
The only good thing that happened today, was Gran deciding that he needed to take himself to Diagon Alley, saying that she was getting too old to be 'chasing Neville around' the crowded streets. Neville mentally scoffed at this; as though she's ever had to chase him. Even still, Neville muttered meek apologies as he ran up the stairs to put on a clean outer robe and grab his money sack.
At least he'd get a day out of this horrible house.