3. The Chamber Of Secrets

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Harry and Elena entered the room and looked around. The room they entered was a large study. There were several statues inside the room, and from the looks of it, all were wizards. With a lot of bookshelves and trinkets, it quite reminded him of Dumbledore's office. There were a lot of doors on the remaining three sides of study. Both were snapped out of their observation by a voice, "At last, someone has found my humble abode again. Welcome, descendants, to the Chamber of Secrets."

Harry and Elena quickly turned towards the sound. With Harry's wand was in his hand, while Elena was cursing herself for coming into unknown territory unprepared. Harry quickly looked around, trying to find the source of the voice, but couldn't find it. However, an amused chuckle drew his attention towards the largest portrait in the room.

In the portrait, there was a man with dark black hair and emerald green eyes. He was wearing a green robe with silver trimmings and several snake designs, and all of them seemed to be moving around on the robe. As he looked at the face of the man, his eyes grew wide and his wand slacken in his hand .There was a resemblance of the large statue's face outside the room with his face and with what the man said in the beginning, this man was, without a doubt, Salazar Slytherin, the fourth founder of Hogwarts and his ancestor. He couldn't believe it. There was a portrait of Hogwart's founder, and no one knew. 'Then again,this was in his own Chamber of Secrets'. From the face Elena was making, it looked like she had reached the same conclusion.

Harry quickly bowed towards Salazar."I don't know what I was expecting when I entered this room, but meeting a portrait of a Hogwart's founder was, without a doubt, one of the last things in on my mind."

Slytherin gave an amused chuckle after hearing this. "You are the second person who has visited this chamber after my death, and I don't think it's fair that you know my name, and while I don't know your name yet. So I would like to know the name of my descendant, as well as the lovely lady accompanying you."

Harry realized that he hadn't introduced himself to Salazar and bowed, "I am sorry about not introducing myself. I am Harry James Potter Slytherin, Heir of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter and heir to the house of Slytherin. And the lovely and beautiful lady accompanying me is Elena Slytherin."

Elena struggled to get her blush under control and bowed to Slytherin. "It's an honor to meet you, even though you are just a portrait of your former self."

Slytherin gave a confused look to Harry. "Elena Slytherin? Is she my descendant too?"

Harry and Elena shared a look. After a few seconds, Harry turned towards Salazar and sighed "It's a long story, but no, she is not your descendant. Her case is a lot more complex."

Salazar, seeing that this was important, and from the looks of it, a huge secret, decided to drop the matter — for the moment. "I won't pressure you to tell me about it now, but I expect an explanation in the future. Now, tell me, why House of Slytherin doesn't have a title of Most Ancient and Noble House like Potter's? I don't think there were any Potters around when I was alive. So, Slytherin line is older than Potters and they should be called as such."

Harry was expecting this question and answered, "When the Ministry of Magic was founded, the house of Slytherin was declared extinct, as no member of House of Slytherin was present during its foundation and since no one ever came forward bearing the ring of lordship or heir's ring, it is still believed to be extinct. The Gaunts were known as your unofficial last descendants."

"What do you mean, the Gaunts were known as my last living descendants!?" shouted Slytherin. "They are the main reason my line was almost extinct."

Harry realized that this was a sensitive topic for the founder and decided to use caution when continuing, "The Gaunts claimed to be your last living descendants, and people believed it, mainly due to their Parseltongue ability, but the Wizengamot never acknowledged them as such, as they were not able to present the lordship ring."

Salazar looked quite put-off due to this news, so Harry decided to change the topic and asked the question that had been bugging him since he had been declared as Slytherin's heir by the goblins. "Do you know why I am your descendant? As far as I know, Potters don't have any connection to the Slytherin line, and my mother was a muggleborn."

Salazar looked at him intensely, and for the first time, Harry realized that the color of both his and Salazar's eyes was the same. Before he could ponder over it anymore, Salazar started to speak. "You will find the answer to your question over there."

Salazar pointed towards a corner of the room. Harry could see a study table and some chairs there.

Harry decided that Salazar would be an extremely important ally to him if he managed to convince the man to help him. But he needed to get him up to date regarding the events of the Wizarding world. With a plan forming in his head, he turned towards Elena. "Elena, can you get Salazar up to date regarding the events in the Wizarding world? I don't think Salazar had anyone tell him about what's going on outside this room."

Elena just nodded and started filling him in. Tom Riddle did a very thorough research about the events of past, so she had no problems in explaining the events to Salazar. Salazar kept listening to all the events with rapt attention. Even though he was a warrior, he was a scholar at heart and his thirst for knowledge hadn't diminished even after death. He was honestly amazed at what wizards have managed to achieve over the millennia, though the society has grown stagnant.

He was sad that his line was believed to be dead, but he was happy that someone was still alive and there was a huge chance that Slytherin house would manage to achieve its former glory.

What saddened him the most was the reputation history had given him and the reputation Slytherin house in Hogwarts has gained. To think history remembered him only as the darkest founder and a dark lord… yes, he had been interested in dark arts but he wanted to learn everything there was to learn, and he couldn't leave a branch as large as dark arts untouched.

And to think that people forgot about his other achievements in healing magic and spell crafting, hurt him more than he would like to admit.

The Slytherin house, which was his pride and joy in Hogwarts, had become nothing more than a house for pureblooded bigots to spread their bigotry. He hadn't wantedmuggleborns to study in Hogwarts, but never in his wildest dreams did he think that his thinking would make students of his house bigoted to this degree. He didn't want to invitemuggleborns in Hogwarts, because it increased the chances of getting discovered by mundane people, and thought that the pureblooded, though the word pureblood was not used at that time but he meant a child with at least one magical parent and the longer the line of his wizarding ancestors the better, wizards were better thanmuggleborns.

Meanwhile, Harry was going through the parchments spread on the table. Most of them were rubbish. After a while, he found a parchment with a letter written on it. Most of the letter was unreadable due to the poor condition of parchment, though he could read some paragraphs from it.

Most of my family is dead, due to my daughters' betrayal. I have already disowned her so that Gaunts don't get what they wanted.The Slytherin name and fortune will always stay out of the hands of the Gaunts…

…..The only chance of the survival of the Slytherin line lies with my squib son, who is out of the reach of assassins hired by the Gaunts. I just hope that the line ofthe great Salazar Slytherin continues and one of my descendants reads this letter and takes revenge against the Gaunts if they are alive for this betrayal, though the chances of someone reading this are slim to none.

A broken man can hope. I am going to take this fight to the Gaunts and kill as many of them as I can before dying. I just hope I am able to kill my daughter before someone strikes me down…

…take revenge for the harm they have caused to us, Slytherins. And show them why we are feared. That is all I will ask you to do descendant…..

Harry had to wipe tears from his eyes. Though it wasn't much, he managed to gather that the author of this letter was the current head of Slytherin at that time. His daughter married someone from the House of Gaunt and then betrayed him for Slytherin fortune and name but her plan failed when he disowned her before he could be killed by the assassins hired by the Gaunts. He managed to send his squib son away from him, possibly to live with muggles, so that the line of Salazar Slytherin continued.

From this, Harry reached to the conclusion that Lily Evans was the descendant of the squib son, and because the magic gene was dormant for a long time she didn't gain any of its traits other than green eyes and good grasp on her magic, while with Harry, the Potter family magic provided the extra push that was needed for him to become the heir of Slytherin. He wasn't sure if his theory was correct, but he decided that he had a rough idea of his ancestry and didn't want any more time to spend thinking on this topic, when he had more important matters to attend, like his family, Dumbledore, and Voldemort.

He looked towards Salazar and Elena to see Salazar engrossed in Elena's history lesson. He stifled a chuckle when he saw that Slytherin shouted when Elena started telling him about Philosophers' stone. He had no doubt in his mind that Slytherin would deny that he ever acted as such. With a quick time spell, he saw that it was getting late and decided to call it a night.

"Elena, it is getting late. Let's go to bed for now," said Harry. Elena and Harry nodded to Salazar and started to walk towards the door. Elena also started to walk behind him.

"If you don't mind me asking, where are you going to sleep?" asked Salazar.

Harry, who had almost reached the door, turned towards Salazar with a confused look in his eyes. Seeing that Harry was not getting the point, Salazar decided to elaborate. "From what little Elena has told me about your current living arrangement, both of you are sleeping on a transfigured bed, and I don't want my descendant and heir to sleep on a transfigured bed."

"Yes, you are right. I am going to sleep on a transfigured bed in the outer chamber, as I don't want people to know that I am alive before I am ready."

Salazar nodded at his reasoning, "I understand that it's foolish to throw away your element of surprise. However, I am not going to just let you go and sleep outside. Did you forget that you are currently in my Chamber of Secrets? I used to live here in the last days of my life. This place contains almost everything a wizard needs to live peacefully."

Harry's eyes widened in realization at what Salazar was saying before his face broke into a massive grin. After sleeping on a transfigured bed for months, even though it was in no way uncomfortable, a real bed was very inviting. And hearing that this place contained everything he and Elena were going to need for living solved his problem for living arrangements , at least till he passed his NEWT's. Then a sudden thought struck him, "What about food?"

"Didn't you find it odd that even after millennia, this place didn't contain a speck of dust? This place is maintained by Hogwarts house elves. Before you ask, no, they can't reveal the location of this place, I made sure of that. So, if you need food then just call for a Hogwarts elf or your personal elf."

"Thank you, Salazar."

"It's the least I could do for my heir. Now, go and get some sleep. The door to the bedroom is the last one on the left."

Both of them nodded to Salazar and went to the room.

The bedroom was of average size, with a king sized bed in the middle of the room. The whole room was painted in silver and green colours. There was a large bookcase on one side of a room and a study table beside it. The whole room had a medieval look to it. The lighting in the room was provided by candles just like the hall. There were some fresh flowers in a flower pot near the head of the bed. 'Looks like the house elves changed them as soon as they Salazar invited us to stay here,' thought Harry. Not giving anything anymore thought, he moved towards Elena and pecked her on the lips before saying good night and falling face first on the bed. He was asleep even before his face hit the pillow.

Elena, meanwhile, resembled a tomato. Harry had never shown her a lot of affection physically, though she knew he cared for her a lot. Even though She had all the memories of a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle, but she was not very good at receiving complements or shows of affection. She thought about why, Harry kissed her for a bit, but decided that his mind was just too much tired to know what he was doing. Having so many serious conversations in a day took a toll on him.

Seeing that he didn't even bother to change into something more comfortable, she just sighed and pulled out Harry's wand from his pocket, and with a wave of the wand, vanished their robes. Now clad in just underwear, she climbed on the bed and cuddled into him. Harry unconsciously pulled her deeper into his embrace. Feeling all her worries that had come after their talk with Charles Potter, just slip away in Harry's embrace, she decided that she wouldn't worry over her own insecurities and continue to live and support Harry.

That next morning, Harry opened his eyes to find his vision blocked by a curtain of red hair. He gently removed the hair from his face with his hand and pried himself off from the vice like grip of Elena. Seeing her sleeping peacefully with a content smile on her face, but it changed into frown due to loss of his body heat beside her, brought a warm feeling into his heart. He knew what the feeling meant, but didn't want to acknowledge it yet. He still had feelings for Daphne and didn't want to complicate the whole matter unnecessarily. If someone asked him to choose between Elena and Daphne, he would kill the questioner or die trying, rather than choose between Daphne and Elena. Both of them had a special place in his heart and he wasn't going to choose one of them over the other.

He looked down at her body and was once again mesmerized by its perfection. Even after seeing it daily for months, he was still entranced by its beauty. In the beginning, his reaction was more than embarrassing, but after two months, he could control himself, so that he couldn't embarrass himself. Not wanting to be caught staring at her breasts, he quickly moved towards the bathroom to freshen up.

After hearing the click from the bathroom door, Elena opened her eyes. She knew Harry was staring at her, while she pretended to be asleep, and it was her guilty pleasure to be stared at by Harry. Deciding that she had spent enough time pretending to be asleep, she got up from the bed and moved towards the bathroom but stopped midway when she realized Harry was using it and opted to wait for Harry to come out.

After breakfast, both Harry and Elena moved out of the bedroom towards Salazar's portrait. They found Salazar waiting for them, a serious look on his face.

Salazar, seeing that both of them were present, told them to take a seat. Harry conjured up two chairs for them and sat. Salazar decided to just get it over with spoke up, "In my time, the portraits were not very famous and very few people even knew of it. I was one of those lucky few who managed to find a portrait maker and make their portraits. At the time, I didn't know what my future generations would create or what spells they would craft, and fearing that my knowledge would fall into the wrong hands, I crafted a spell that locked my knowledge within the portrait's mind. I cannot express to you in words how much I am regretting my actions and how sad I am at the prospect that I won't be able pass on my knowledge to you." Salazar closed his eyes in sadness and waited for the shouting that was sure to come, but he never expected to hear the chuckling from his descendant.

"You don't need to feel sad about it, Salazar," said Harry. "I am also sad about the loss of so much knowledge, but there is no use of crying over spilled milk. I will achieve greatness and have my revenge all by myself if I have to. So what if I won't be able to learn from you? I never expected to learn something from you when I entered this chamber yesterday, so it's not much of a loss for me."

Salazar smiled proudly. "Now, I never said I wouldn't be able to teach you anything. I will still be helping you in anything which you need any help. I just won't be able to give you the spells and rituals I had created."

Harry's face broke into a huge grin when he heard Salazar. He knew that with Salazar's help his plans would be accelerated. Even though the founder wouldn't be able to teach him his personal spells and rituals, he would be able to help him in creating new ones.

"I am going to gift you the result of my life's work. I had to add research throughout my entire life to create that ritual, and although it's not complete yet, I believe you will be able to complete it with the help of my notes."

Harry interrupted Salazar before he could continue. "I don't want to sound rude and ungrateful, but aren't you trusting us way too much? After all, we just met yesterday. You don't even know anything about Elena other than her name and that she is with me."

Salazar gave a very deep laugh after hearing Harry. After getting his laughter under control, he answered, "It is not that I trust you completely, but one thing I always followed was the motto of 'family first' and you are my last alive family member whom I could reach. I am going to help you as much as I can in reaching your goals. About the ritual I am gifting you, I was planning to make it a bloodline activity and would have done so if I had had some more weeks of time. Now, one of you go and fetch the parchments I have written the ritual on. It should be at the head table of the library, third door to your right."

Elena went to fetch the parchments, returning with them after a few minutes. These parchments were in excellent condition, unlike the parchments he read yesterday. Harry read the function of the ritual on the first page, then after rereading, it gave a thumbs up to Salazar before fainting. Elena hadn't read the function of the ritual yet, and once she did she joined Harry on the floor. Salazar, seeing their reaction, just chuckled; he knew the ritual was without a doubt one of its type.

After a few minutes, Harry regained consciousness and woke up Elena. All of them kept silent for a long time before Harry asked, "Have you tested the ritual?"

"Yes, I have tested it, but it needs some work in removing the unnecessary side effects," answered Salazar.

"Very well, you don't know how grateful I am to you after receiving this gift. I will try to bring our house back to its former glory in both Hogwarts and the wizarding world."

"You asked about Elena here yesterday. It's a long story, please listen to it patiently. Normally, I wouldn't have told you, but seeing that you are already dead and Elena, for some reason, wants you to know…" Harry then proceeded to tell Salazar what happened that day along with some history lessons about lord Voldemort.

After hearing the whole story, the founder was looking at Elena like she was some kind of angel. If one looked carefully, one could see tears in his eyes. "I spent my whole life searching answers for the mysteries of magic and miracles and knowledge, but to think I found the holy grail of all the magical miracles after my death. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought of an incident where a new life was formed by magic."

The all spent the next few hours discussing random events and topics. After eating lunch, all of them started to work on completing the ritual. Even with the vast knowledge they already had, they had to continuously ask Salazar about different components of the ritual. Once the ritual was complete, it would, no doubt, shake the wizarding world.

A.N: I am really sorry for not posting this earlier but I promise it won't happen again. This chapter was a lot longer but I decided to remove some parts of it as they were irrelevant. I have already started to write the next chapter and I will post it ASAP.

Special Thanks to fatestaynightdevilhero for motivating me to finish this chapter. P.S : PM's will go a long way in forcing me to finish the next chapter faster.

As u can see, I have decided to change the name of my OC from Victoire to Elena . I am sorry for any inconvenience it caused you. The reason for Elena'sbehaviours will be made clear in future chapters. I have also decided to avoid the usual, ' Salazar trains Harry'. He will be more of an advisor than a teacher. His limitation is that he can't exactly teach tell anyone spells but he can teach the way to craft it. The ritual will play a huge part in the story . What do you think the function of ritual is?

If you find any mistakes please point it out in reviews or PM me.

Betareader : Lythrica.