Author's Note: I HAVE NOT ABANDONED THIS STORY! So please stick with me as I juggle the many things in my life that are going on right now.

For some reason my browser will no longer support most of features…terrible annoying, and a good excuse for why I haven't updated in so long. Sorta. Not really… The rest of them are school, work and my attempts at a social life… that and this chapter was terribly difficult to write for some reason.

Would it make anyone feel better if I said I had the rest of the story planned out, chapter by chapter? Considering I've been making most of it up as I went along…I figure it might.

ALSO: this chapter is not completed. It is only partially finished, but I'm posting it because it's been so long, and I'm beginning to feel terrible about it. It will be reposted when it's complete. But this way, you know that I haven't died, or that the story hasn't keeled over, or something else equally devastating.

"ss.Parseltongue.ss" Just so that you know.

Disclaimer: Not Mine. Talk to Rowling. Just borrowing them a while.

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Last Time

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"But to you as well?" Neville asked.

Harry looked over at him, seeing the slight horror in the boy's face and eyes. He had a strange feeling of déjà vu, remembering his own face every time he looked in a mirror after he had heard the very thing he was telling Neville.

"Yes." Harry said quietly, turning his eyes back to the shifting shadows.

Neville was silent beside him.

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The Founders' Heir

Chapter Thirty-Eight

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A Founder's Counsel

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It was sometime in the early morning before Harry ventured out of his hiding place. Thin, gray streaks of light were beginning to sneak through the tall windows opposite him, announcing the arriving dawn. Neville had wandered down to his bed before midnight, saying nothing more than a soft "goodnight" as he left. Harry had said nothing in return, lost in his own thoughts.

Harry walked through the empty halls of the castle, his footsteps barely a whisper of sound amongst the early morning quiet. Cin was curled around his shoulders, half asleep and purring softly, barely audible. Harry avoided the well worn paths of the students, even though he doubted he'd see any up so early, instead using the various hidden and unknown passages of the school. Making his way through the variety of halls and tunnels, Harry finally made it to the bottom of a slender tower somewhere on the east side of the castle.

He looked up the spiraling, iron-wrought stairs for a moment, feeling a vague sense of dizziness from the angle of his view. A small smile tugged on the corner of his lips before fading away. Cin shifted on his shoulders a bit as he moved forward and began the long climb up the stairs.

Harry knew the stairs well. He had climbed them his fair share of times during his stay with the Founders, and he had recently brought Hermione up their height. Rowena's office was once located at the top of the nondescript tower, and as far as he knew it had not been used in the centuries after.

He emerged into the round chamber, his memories leading him better than his sight in the still dim light of the morning. His steps kicked up a light dust, but otherwise there was little evidence of his presence. Rowena knew he was there, nonetheless. She always did.

"You're up remarkably early, Darion."

Harry smiled a little, though he didn't respond.

"Or is it that you haven't yet slept?"

Harry grimaced slightly, knowing that the Lady Founder knew him very well, perhaps, he thought, sometimes too well.

He moved quietly through the room, still not speaking, his memories filling in the missing odds n ends that had made the room Rowena's. The room was covered with a thin layer of dust, and much of the furniture had been moved out of the tower, likely centuries earlier. Harry turned from the room, saddened slightly by the lose of the warmth that once had filled it, and took up a vigil at the window across from the portrait.

Harry stood in silence before the window, his eyes not even seeing what was before him. His mind was too occupied. The portrait of Rowena waited for him, as she always had during his time with the Founders.

Not for the first time, he found himself immensely thankful for magic, and its myriad abilities. He was not sure that he would long survive without the Founders, if only to know that he could always find them if he needed them.

Rowena said nothing else, seeming to sense his subdued mood, or at least remembering that at times, he simply needed space and quiet to think. He had often wandered up to her tower to get away from the other students in the castle. Few made their way to the tower, out of the way as it was, despite Rowena's always welcoming nature.

But as much as he entered her office to escape the rest of the castle, there were other places he could do so, and they both knew it. He didn't go to her for silence. He went for counsel.

Each of the Founders had given him something that he needed. Each had guided him in a different manner, in a different area of his life. Salazar pushed him to his limits and made him go beyond them. While the Slytherin Founder's antics made him stronger, faster, harder, it was Rowena's counseling that strengthened his heart and mind.

Her words had healed him. And he knew, they always would.

Harry had had the time to come off the adrenaline of the battle, the time to reflect upon each motion and action and word, and as a result his emotions began to come forward. He had blocked them away, but he couldn't hold them back forever.

The masked face of each Death Eater flashed before his eyes. He never saw their faces the day in Hogsmeade, but he felt each of their magics as his aura ripped their life away from them.

And he saw their eyes.

"I've killed again." Harry said. His voice was soft, almost too quiet to hear, yet it still held the weight of his emotions, the enormity of his guilt at his own actions. He could hear the slight waver in his tone, and knew that Rowena heard it all as well.

It had taken more of his strength than he knew to speak those words.

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ALSO: this chapter is not completed. It is only partially finished, but I'm posting it because it's been so long, and I'm beginning to feel terrible about it. It will be reposted when it's complete. But this way, you know that I haven't died, or that the story hasn't keeled over, or something else equally devastating.