I'm so sorry everyone. I know it's been... almost half a year since I last updated. I haven't forgotten this story, and I have every intention of continuing it.

I just finished the hardest semester of school I've ever had in my LIFE, and it was soul sucking and awful, and I hope you all will forgive me for being unable to write a good chapter. It's my senior year so I'm trying to figure out what I'm actually going to be doing for the rest of my life. Sadly my hobbies have taken a bit of a back seat to all the real world crap I've had to deal with. I've done a little drawing, but mostly it was study, study, study.

And THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH for all the reviews! Everyone of them helped keep me sane this last semester and they really encouraged me to want to keep writing for all of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And of course, thank you Liria Nai, as always, for being my beta.

Disclaimer: the HP-verse belongs to JKR's wonderful and brilliant mind.

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Chapter 21:

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Victoria had left early this morning. Part of me was happy; the other part of me felt like it was somehow my fault. She had not been at dinner last night because she had been preparing to leave, or at least that is what Salazar said. I thought that maybe she was still unable to completely forgive me, or maybe she was still angry with me.

Or I suppose it was possible that I was making something out of nothing. Maybe I was just being paranoid. Maybe she was finally ready to leave and it had nothing to do with me.

It was a surprise however, when I saw Cicero eating breakfast at the Slytherin table. He waved at me shyly as I walked past to sit at the head table. I almost did a double take and stopped.

"What are you still doing here?" I asked somewhat confused. "And why are you sitting at this table?"

"I wanted to stay." Cicero replied a bit stuffily.

"I hardly think your mother would be overly thrilled."

"I wanted to stay." He repeated.

How had he convinced Victoria who seemed to be against Hogwarts from the beginning?

"Alright," I nodded a bit suspicious, "well, I hope you have fun learning and making new friends." He nodded, starring at me like he wanted to say something, but instead he raised his salad fork in salute, and with a grin, dug into his meal.

I felt another stare burning holes into my back from the front of the room. Over my shoulder I saw Salazar glaring at me like I was offending him. Then I realized he was probably angry about my behaviors influencing his son.

"C-Cicero," I leaned across the table and swiped the salad fork, causing a few students to complain about personal space as I pulled away. "Let's… drop the tableware defiance for now." I smiled nervously.

"Why?" He frowned.

"Hey, watch it." One of the students hissed.

"Because your father asked very nicely," I fibbed.

Cicero looked at me suspiciously, but nodded his acceptance.

"Thank you, Cicero." I said gratefully. The younger boy turned a light shade of pink and suddenly took great interest in his food, thankfully using the proper utensils.

Mission accomplished, I felt a bit safer as I made my way up to where the founders were seated. It still amazed me every time I entered the great hall, to see the founders sitting side by side, the people that had built this castle, this school, my home. They had shaped the wizarding world from its foundations and people remembered them a thousand years later, and would probably continue to remember a thousand years more.

"Good morning Harry." Rowena greeted me as I took a seat next to Salazar.

"Um, good morning." I returned. Instantly my plate was filled with food and I noticed Salazar watching me like a hawk.

Sighing, I resigned myself to eating with proper table manners. I had made a deal after all.

I mulled over the agreement in my head. I had promised to eat with decorum, and in return Salazar promised me a massage.

A massage…

A full body massage.

Oh Merlin, what had I agreed to? And why was it just hitting me now?

What was I thinking? It had 'bad idea' written all over it. What exactly did 'full body massage' mean anyway? And why on earth had I only agreed to a one time thing?

Wait, wait, wait. No, even once is bad enough. What if…

A full body massage means he would be touching me. The last time he… in the bath, I couldn't…

I mean he didn't seem to mind, but he explained it away like it was just a normal physical reaction… but I really do like him, and if he found out… what if he reads my mind? What if he's angry?

Ah, who am I kidding? He doesn't need to be a mind reader. If that happened again… he'd figure it out for sure.

Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach.

I'm not exactly sure how Salazar saw me, whether I was a friend or something else, I know he didn't hate me. But I also know he couldn't like me the way I like him, because he had a wife and kids. Or, well, they separated some time ago… but even then…

He'd think I'm strange for sure.

I had to come up with an excuse. Or maybe I could talk to him – wait, scratch that. Salazar wasn't really the kind of person you talked to about these things, particularly when he was the subject involved.

He'd hate me.

I don't know if I could handle that. If I could just be near him, that would be enough. It's not like he needs to feel the same, as long as he doesn't push me away, I think I'll be okay.

But if he finds out, I'm screwed.

"My house has a free period after lunch." Salazar said, "For free study. Exams are coming up."

I tried not to choke on my food. What was he getting at? God, my face must've turned at least three shades of red darker.

"I'd like you to come with me to the lab." He continued watching me with a sly smile.

"W-what, um, what are we doing?" I swallowed nervously.

Crap, I didn't want to get a massage in a potions lab. Students used that room. Because of Snape's classic teaching methods, I got stressed just being in that environment.

"You said you knew of a truth potion in your time," Salazar said nonchalantly, seemingly oblivious to my internal struggle. I nearly cried in relief. Thank Merlin he wasn't going to say anything about our deal. "I thought today would be a good day to finally get around to working on that."

"Sure." I smiled in relief, "I'm not sure how much I remember, but I think I know enough for you to maybe fill in the gaps."

XXXXX

"Here's the copy of our scrolls with information relating to the Hufflepuff family." Darcy handed over two thick rolls of parchment.

"Oh, good. Thank your sister for me." I gratefully took the parchment.

"We have to study for exams after lunch, but you're welcome to join us in the library while you look through the scrolls." Greer offered.

"Um, I can't. I'm working on a project with Salazar."

"Oh? What for?" Darcy asked curiously.

"Truth serum." I shrugged. "He wants me to help him develop some."

"Sounds like he's trying to keep you busy." Greer narrowed his eyes suspiciously. I laughed. Yeah right, Salazar was busy enough with his own numerous projects.

"I doubt it. I don't think he has the liberty to be overly concerned about my surplus of free time." And that was all too true. I had a lot of free time during the day. "He's too busy himself to notice, but I have more than enough time to figure this out. I don't have classes to take or teach."

"I thought you were going to teach." Darcy frowned.

"Well, maybe. But not until next semester, and only if the rest of the founders approve." I shrugged. "I'm not really sure if I could do a proper job of it though. Things are so different now than in the future."

"Do you miss the future?" Darcy asked seriously. I thought about it, but it really didn't take me long.

"There are very few things that I miss about my time. Very, very few." And I realized that I really didn't want to go back. Not ever. Not if it meant facing those people who used me at their convenience and threw me onto the front lines to get captured and… and…

My wrist was burning a little and I felt a shock zip down my arm. My fingers tingled.

"You guys should get to studying or where ever you're going." I said, trying to ignore the mild pain sparking against my wrist, "I'll read through this and we can talk about it later, maybe after your exams."

"What?" Greer looked disappointed.

"All right," Darcy elbowed Greer and grinned, "We hope you find something, and after exams, we will try and figure out this mess."

XXXXX

"Helga?" I peeked into her office. No one was there. "Huh, I thought she had a free period before lunch." I frowned and closed the office door and sighed.

"Harry, what are you doing here?" I jumped at the voice and turned to find Helga holding a large leafy plant and behind her levitated a line of books.

"I was looking for you," I shrugged and hastily opened the door for her.

"Why thank you," she smiled and waked past me and into the office, setting the plant down on her desk, and directing the books to shelve themselves with a wave of her hand. I was a little jealous, I'll admit it. I used to be able to do that… well, the books would probably have ended up incinerated or smacking people in the head anyway. With the way my magic was now, they probably wouldn't have made it to the shelf, but I still missed having the ability to try.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing out the plant.

"Oh, it's just a reflecting plant." She ran a finger over the leaves and I watched as it seemed to split and blossom into a flower, bright yellow on the inside with flecks of gold and white spreading from the center like a strange looking lily. "Really quite pretty." She said proudly.

"What does it do?" I stared at it in wonder.

"It reflects the people who touch it." She stepped away from the plant and the flower closed and the plant took on a generic look. "Why don't you give it a try?"

Curiously, I stepped up to the plant and raised my hand to hover over one of the leaves. Before I even came into contact, I watched as the green deepened into jagged black leaves, curling inward. I flinched back a little, frowning when the blackened leaves continued to twist into scraggly stems with deep purple thorns and curling vines. In the very center of the plant was a large black oval-like pod, dark as pitch and looking a little worse for wear.

"Harry," Helga whispered. I hardly heard her. Was that really a reflection of me? A dark, ugly, thorny, dying thing? Merlin, I would have rather not known. "Harry," she said a little louder.

"What?" I snapped, roughly. God, what a disappointment. I didn't think I'd have anything as beautiful as Helga's, but damn it, this was just awful.

"Harry, it's not done."

Her hand pulled mine back to the plant and the black vines and stems held a tint of green, but that all disappeared when her hand pulled away, and only blackness remained. I bit my lip and decided I may as well let the stupid plant finish, removing any doubt from our minds that I reflected such a horrid thing.

As my fingers brushed against the leaves, there was a soft sound as the oval pod split and soft white and violet petals bloomed from its center. They seemed to glow, their translucent material so thin I thought if anyone touched it they would certainly fall apart.

"See," Helga sounded satisfied, "your heart is beautiful."

"But why is the rest so black and all over the place? Why is the rest of me so ugly?"

"You're mistaken Harry." She placed a hand on my shoulder in reassurance and I watched the fragile flower and black vines slowly change back into a healthy green plant. "What the plant reflects is our thoughts and feelings, our intentions, and sense of self. What I saw wasn't wretchedness. You have a beautiful heart Harry. The biggest and most beautiful I've seen, but also the most fragile. I don't think even you realize how much you dislike who you are."

"But why is it black?" I closed my eyes. "Am I evil? Am I a horrible person?"

"Not at all. It was black because you are afraid and anxious. Black is fear and unpredictability."

"But it was dying. The leaves were-,"

"Black and glossy. It did not look like it was dying to me." She said with conviction. I pulled away from her awkwardly.

"Um… thanks." I coughed.

"So, you were looking for me?" She went behind her desk and rummaged through one of the drawers.

"Uh, yeah, I-," 'wanted to ask you about that fiancé,' I thought to myself, but now was not the time at all. "I wanted to know if you were still up for playing a prank on Salazar?" I said instead.

"Oh! Definitely," She swiftly shut the drawer she was looking through and took a seat, conjuring a comfy arm chair for me. She sat straight looking all business as I lowered myself into the chair she conjured. "I need to know how to get around his ability to know everything. The man has some sort of… I don't know how he does it. No matter what I try he's always thwarted me."

"You know he's a legilimens right?" She nodded.

"Well, yes, of course. But I have decent occlumency, and I can tell when someone is trying to see into my head." She huffed.

"Salazar is still pretty subtle, and even I couldn't always tell when he was in my head."

"What do you mean 'even I,' Harry? That sounded down right pretentious of you. Are you saying you don't think my occlumency is good enough?"

"No, no, I'm sorry, I just mean he has a stupid habit of reading peoples minds and he's really, really good, even with just small glances. If you didn't have your shields up all the time he could have seen through it… maybe. I mean, he has other ways of figuring things out too." I went on afraid I might have offended her. "I didn't mean to insult you or anything. I have terrible occlumency shields, myself."

"What other ways?" She asked.

"He has… little snake spies… everywhere," I shrugged, "meaning there's probably some here in your office too… so if we do plan this thing, we need to find somewhere that's completely spy free."

"How do we know? Can you see them?" She asked, glancing around.

"Sometimes… but not always." I frowned, "I can sometimes feel them too. But usually it's easier to just ask if they're there."

"Ask?" she looked a bit confused, "Oh, that's right, you can talk to snakes too! Brilliant, then how about we get to work de-snaking my office?"

XXXXX

And with a bit of work, I managed to locate each tiny snake in the office, and after a little begging I managed to save their poor sentient lives. Rather then obliterating them like she wanted, Helga transferred them out side of her office muttering about how they weren't even really alive.

But I told her I didn't want to hear their tiny screaming voices as she murdered their consciousness, and that seemed to change her mind.

Before we got to planning however, a chime on her desk rang and she gave a terrific sigh.

"Lunch time already?" She brushed her hair out of her face, "perhaps after?" Her hopeful gaze almost convinced me, but I had already promised Salazar.

"I'm sorry, I'm actually working with Salazar after lunch on a potion from my time that he's curious about."

"Ah, no! He's stealing you away from me!" She latched onto my arm in mock possessiveness.

"Maybe later?" I begged.

"Oh, all right, but it'll have to be tomorrow before lunch again. I have a lot of grading to get done tonight."

"Then we will begin the real planning next time." I promised.

"Ha! I'm so excited! That man needs to loosen up. This time we'll get him good. Oh, but you said your occlumency isn't very good. Shoot…"

"I've made him promise not to use it on me. If that helps."

"Hm… well, I guess he is a man of his word. I suppose I have that much faith in him." She looked at me as if sizing me up, but grinned happily.

"I think I'll be fine," I agreed and we walked to lunch together.

XXXXX

Salazar stared at the list of ingredients I had written down with one eyebrow raised.

"This is obviously wrong. You can't have this combination of ingredients."

"I didn't say the list was complete." I huffed. "But I know for sure those things are in it. And I gave you the instructions for most of them. I just can't remember the potion off the top of my head."

"If you had a memory of brewing it-,"

"Absolutely not."

"I was just making a suggestion." He set the ingredient list on the desk. "At any rate, you have to give me more than this to work with. And this list of steps you gave me is barely an outline. How am I supposed to brew something with half the steps missing?"

"And here I thought you were a potions master." I said sarcastically.

"And until just now I was unaware that sunflower pollen had any use as a potions ingredient, and I was also unaware that these two ingredients," he pointed them out deliberately with his long fingers, "could ever hope to react well together."

"That's why you add that one after the second week when the properties of the pine oil have bonded with the dissolved Pegasus hairs."

"Still the…" Salazar frowned and read through the list again. "This takes a month to brew, right?"

"Yes. Or well, one lunar cycle."

Salazar sighed.

"Well, I never said it was an easy potion to brew."

"Maybe if you added… no…" Salazar muttered to himself. "This would be a lot easier if- sorry never mind." He sighed in frustration. I felt absolutely no remorse. "I can't get passed this part here. The steps just don't make sense."

"Well, that's because about a third of it is missing."

"If I didn't know that you weren't lying…" he trailed off.

"But I'm not."

"Yes, I know. But maybe you are mistaken? Maybe you were lied to?"

"I've seen it work." I growled defensively. What kind of person lied about stupid things like potions?

Suddenly I was taken off guard when he stood abruptly, his arm shooting across the desk to take a strong grip around my jaw and push me back into my chair.

"Why?" He asked suddenly, his voice sounded distressed. "Why would it matter? If I just took one look? If I promised not to look for anything else, why would it make a difference if I just-,"

"That would mean that your promises mean nothing." I smacked his hand away from me and looked determinedly at the ground. Salazar froze, but I refused to look at him, so I didn't know if he was more surprised or angry. "You… you are too focused on being certain of the truth. You're obsessed. I can't imagine you using this potion for anything good."

I heard the sound of his fingers curling over the wood of the desk, probably into fists. My own fingers curled around the seat of my chair nervously.

"You don't know anything." Salazar hissed in frustration. "You have no idea what-," He stopped and let out a short, exasperated sound of annoyance, "You're right. I only… no, you're right." He still sounded frustrated, but the edge of anger had disappeared.

"Maybe we should take a break?" I suggested, finally comfortable enough to meet his gaze. "Sometimes it helps to step back from a problem and come back to it later."

"What else did you have in mind?" Salazar smirked mischievously. "I seem to recall that I owe you something."

My eyes widened and I nearly choked on my own breath. I remembered very well what he owed me, and I knew that I never should have agreed to it.

His hands… all over me… The thought sent butterflies fluttering in my stomach. He'd know. He'd find out that I found him attractive. He'd be disgusted. Merlin, what should I do?

"I seem to have some time on my hands, if you might be willing to assist me in some grading afterward." He moved from around the desk, suddenly very close to me

"Ah… um, maybe… maybe you s-should get that done first-," But I was cut off when his fingers found and firmly kneaded the back of my neck. Without my consent, my head rolled forward to allow better access, and Salazar moved behind me and his hands were suddenly sliding just under the collar of my shirt, thumbs rolling in circles over my skin.

I could hardly think, and I almost didn't care.

"Perhaps you're right." Salazar's hands suddenly disappeared.

The heat they left behind was almost painful, but I couldn't make a protest. I couldn't let him see what his hands could do to me.

"Besides, I hardly think one day of good manners merits a reward." He continued, walking back to the other side of the desk. With a flick of his wand, a stack of parchment and several vials of potions were laid out in front of him.

My voice wouldn't even allow me to speak, my body wouldn't move. The places where his hands had touched me burned and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

"You are more than welcome to help me grade these essays," Salazar offered. I could only nod.

(A/N: Oh, I know some of you are going to be so disappointed in me. T-T I'm so sorry! but I just... I can't rush it with Harry and Salazar. please forgive me?)