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Chapter Sixty-Six—Spirits in the Walls

Harry shook his head as he watched Mafalda Prewett show him a sketch of an elaborate rune. "That's a pretty good trap rune," he said. "But you haven't drawn that side right, look. Someone would be able to break free of the trap if they just turned around and focused a bit of magic on that side."

Prewett blinked down at the parchment, and then up at him. "How do you know it?"

"Is it so surprising that someone would have studied Runes before coming to Hogwarts?" Harry shrugged at her with a faint smile and stepped around her to join Acanthus and Pansy on their walk to breakfast. "But it's a good first effort. You can show me your improvement on that drawing tomorrow, if you want."

Pansy giggled under her breath as they started out of the common room, but Acanthus lifted an eyebrow at Harry. "Are you really going to go on giving her the chance to impress you?"

"I think she's pretty harmless," Harry said. "Annoying, but harmless." He glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of."

Pansy looked a little awed as Draco Malfoy bustled up to them and nodded importantly. Acanthus just leaned back against the nearest dungeon wall and looked as if she was about to watch an interesting chess game.

"I think that we might have got off on the wrong foot, Potter," Draco said. "You haven't really asked me if I want to enter a formal alliance with you."

"I thought Malfoys didn't enter formal alliances with anyone," Harry said. He had listened to enough gossip in the Slytherin common room to be sure that this was one of the worlds where the Malfoys had a recent family history of pride that repelled even pure-bloods.

Draco blushed slightly, and hesitated before he said slowly, "That's…true. But you still didn't ask, and I thought you would."

Harry held back his laughter. It wouldn't be kind or fair. This Draco was one of the less objectionable ones he'd encountered in world after world. "Well, I don't know if I'm the best one to ask. My father is still the oldest Potter, you know, and your father is the oldest Malfoy."

Draco tilted his nose back. "I have my father's authority to bargain with anyone I want."

"Bargain?" Acanthus asked lazily from the side. From what she said and the way she acted, Harry thought she both disliked the Malfoys for their pride and disapproved of the way her little sister looked prone to swooning when Draco was near.

"I mean, make offers," Draco quickly corrected himself. "And you probably have the same kind of trust from your father, right, Potter?"

"I'm still not the oldest son of my family in the school," Harry recited dutifully. "You should go and talk to Jonathan if you want to have some sort of formal family alliance."

"Yes, but." Draco seemed to consider that a full sentence, but he wrinkled his nose and went on with a heavy sigh when Harry only looked at him. "A Hufflepuff, Potter. I much prefer to approach a fellow Slytherin who I know has some kind of political instinct."

Harry snorted a little. Draco could either be listening to some of the gossip and realize that Harry had powers he wasn't revealing to everyone, or he could be simply disparaging Jonathan because of his House. Harry was pretty sure it was the second one. "You won't get an alliance with us by insulting my brother, Malfoy."

Draco sighed. "I'm sorry. But I still want to know what your answer to my question is."

"What is your opinion of Muggleborns?"

"How can I have an opinion about a set of people I never think about?"

Harry nodded. "Then the answer's no for right now. See you later, Malfoy." He started up the corridor again, Acanthus and Pansy both with him, although Pansy cast a glance of longing back at Draco.

"Wait, Potter! Why?"

"Think about whose company I've been keeping since my first night in the castle," Harry advised him over his shoulder. "Then come back to me when you've figured it out, and ask again. I'll probably give you a favorable answer then." He hoped that Draco wouldn't take years to figure it out, the way he had in some worlds. In the life where Harry had been reborn as Hermione, Draco had taken eighteen years to admit that he thought Muggleborns might be worth something. At least that was his worst record, as far as Harry knew.

Draco gave him a funny look and then went down another corridor that would take him on a different route to the Great Hall. Harry shook his head. He started to open his mouth to ask Pansy and Acanthus what they wanted for breakfast, but stopped it abruptly as a shadow slid in front of them.

"That isn't normal for this time of morning, is it?" he asked Acanthus softly, eyes on the shadow that seemed to fall on the floor without anything to cast it. Jonathan hadn't mentioned anything like this, but he wasn't a Slytherin, either, and his lives had taught Harry that Slytherins had some odd things happening in their dungeons that seemed different in every world.

"No." Acanthus was clutching her wand, her eyes fastened on the sleek grey shadow. "Pansy, I want you to get behind Harry and me."

There was at least one good difference between Slytherins and Gryffindors, Harry thought: Pansy didn't argue back like a lot of young Gryffindors would have. She squeaked and darted behind them both. Harry felt her hand clutch his sleeve, and he turned his head just long enough to smile at her.

"It's all right," he said softly.

"Harry!"

Acanthus barely had time to finish crying that before Harry had whipped around and seized the shadow that had tried to lash out at them. The grey thing flailed in his hand, almost insubstantial enough to melt through his fingers, but not quite. Harry raised his eyebrows and said in Parseltongue, "You ought to be able to see that you can't escape and I'm not quite mortal. Tell me who you are."

"Why are you hissing at it?" Pansy whispered.

"Because," Harry said, watching the intricate patterns that shadows were forming on the floor now, "unless I'm completely mistaken, this is someone who understands it well. Isn't that right, Salazar?"

There was a sound like a huff of angry breath, and the wall began to glow with light that mimicked the shadows on the floor and might have seemed to be throwing them unless one had been there to see them form. Harry never let go of the one he held. The lights coalesced into a frame—which Harry knew was purely from convenience and probably to lull the viewer—and then the face of a stern man who might be in his sixties, with iron-colored hair and beard, stared at them. His eyes were a deep and demanding grey.

He looked almost nothing like the statue in the Chamber of Secrets, but then, Harry had learned in his first life that that statue wasn't of Slytherin.

"You are three young Slytherins," the man said in English, leaning towards them and making Pansy and Acanthus both gasp. Harry didn't move. The man did look as if he was about to come off the wall and at them, but Harry knew enough about light and shadow magic to know that he couldn't. "Why do you not revere me more?" He spoke in a vaguely amused tone, but his eyes weren't amused at all, and they remained fixed on Harry.

"We are three young Slytherins," Harry agreed, and changed the dimensions of his hand slightly as the shadow he was holding tried to slip free. "Why are you attacking members of your House, Mr. Slytherin?"

Acanthus cleared her throat slowly. "Um, Harry, aren't you supposed to be calling him Lord Slytherin?"

Harry met Slytherin's eyes, and smiled a little. "Oh, no," he said. "I'm sure that wouldn't be appropriate."

Slytherin continued to survey him, the regard more frigid than before. Then again, he never had liked anyone to remind him that he wasn't exactly the pure-blood with ties to royalty he had presented himself as during his lifetime.

"Tell me what you are."

"Three young Slytherins, who have lost our waaay," Harry said in a singsong tone, and at the same time altered one aspect of his being so that Slytherin could see what he really was, while not alerting or upsetting Pansy or Acanthus.

Slytherin jerked back in his artificial portrait frame, and the shadow tendril Harry held writhed sharply. Harry continued to hold onto both it and Slytherin's gaze, and said softly, "Please answer my question."

"You did not feel like members of my House," Slytherin said stiffly. "There was a magic about you that I did not recognize and thought might harm any Slytherins who were supposed to be here."

Bollocks, Harry thought, but he wasn't going to say that in front of Pansy and Acanthus. He let the thought echo in his eyes, though, and knew Slytherin would probably pick up on it. He did, if the way he straightened his shoulders was any indication. "I have answered your question. Answer mine."

Harry replied in Parseltongue. "My name is Harry Potter, in my first lifetime and this one, but the title that you're asking for is Master of Death."

The shadow tendril in his hold jerked in a huge ripple, and Slytherin hissed back, "There is no one who holds that title."

"No one in this particular world until I was born here," Harry agreed. "But now there is. Have I answered your questions, Salazar Slytherin?"

Slytherin was silent for long enough that Harry was preparing to let the tendril of magic he held go. He wouldn't get the answers he wanted out of this being, escaped portrait or ghost or whatever he was, without more asking than interested him right now. But then Slytherin hissed, " "That does not explain how you can speak Parseltongue."

Harry held back his laughter. "Because I gained it in my first life and my perfect memory ensures that I always had it after that," he said. "But honestly, you think that this one skill is so rare and wondrous that it would be impossible for me to learn it? You're arrogant, Salazar Slytherin, as befits your reputation."

The man faded from sight back into the pattern of shadows. Harry released the tendril he held and watched it scuttle up the wall and into a crack in the stone that he hadn't noticed until now. Then he shrugged and kept walking to breakfast.

"Harry?" Acanthus asked, when perhaps two minutes had passed and they were most of the way to the Great Hall.

"Yes?" Harry asked over his shoulder.

"Did you—I mean, did you want us to keep it quiet that you saw and spoke to Salazar Slytherin?"

"Why? It happened to you, too. You should feel free to talk about it." The only things that might have been a problem if Acanthus and Pansy would have talked about them had been the facts that Harry was careful to keep confined to Parseltongue. And even then, he wouldn't mind if they learned them someday. It might just be best to ease them into it.

"What was he, really?" Pansy asked in a timid voice. "Was he a ghost? We have a few ghosts around our house, and none of them act like that."

"A good question, Pansy," Acanthus said, in the sort of surprised tone that made Harry think she was in the habit of acting like her little sister was stupid too much of the time.

Harry turned around so that he was walking backwards. He was hungry, and wanted to keep going, and his magic would warn him if he was about to trip over something before he did. "I think he was a lingering spirit, but Hogwarts isn't like other houses, Pansy. The magic here has sustained him and protected him. I've seen spirits before that could use light and shadow like he has, but not for a long time."

"How long?"

Harry knew the exact number of years, but Pansy was still trying to become accustomed to what he was. He shrugged and smiled softly at her. "Very long. And it's interesting, because I don't think that anyone else knows he's here. If he wanted to remain here so that he could watch over Slytherins, why did he keep his presence secret?"

"Perhaps he's doing something else that would be best served by keeping his presence secret, and watching over Slytherins is only a side-effect," Acanthus offered.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "That's a good theory. And it's true that spirits who manifest like that aren't really a portion of a person's soul, but an impression of them, left to guard a treasure, usually."

"Do you think he's guarding the way to the Chamber of Secrets?" Pansy had her hands clasped in front of her, eyes wide with wonder.

"I doubt it," Harry said, and had to keep going when Pansy gave him a disappointed look. "I already know where the entrance to the Chamber is."

"Really?" Now Acanthus was the one who looked electrified. "Will you take us there?"

"If I can go first and make sure that it's not going to be too dangerous for you to accompany me."

Acanthus huffed. "You don't have to act like we're brainless girls and you're the brave boy who's protecting us, Potter. We can handle a little danger."

"I wasn't thinking about that," Harry said, blinking. "I was thinking about the fact that I don't want the Chamber to collapse on your heads if it's unstable, or the monster that could be inside it to attack you."

"What monster?" Pansy breathed.

So Harry had to tell her tales about the basilisk as they came to breakfast, and keep on answering questions, because apparently Pansy had always been fascinated by the tale of the Chamber of Secrets and was ready to worship him for knowing specifics instead of the generalities that surrounded it most of the time. Acanthus's amused eyes kept Harry from turning Pansy away with a kind deflection. Even if Pansy did find the entrance, she had no ability to open it without Parseltongue, anyway.

Except that a spirit who could open it did live in the walls of the Slytherin dungeons.

Harry frowned to himself. Yes, he was going to have to investigate that.

"Potter? Will you talk to your brother for me?"

Jonathan turned around, blinking. Behind him stood Draco Malfoy. The little menace had a reputation that was quickly spreading around Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, although since it was mostly Gryffindors telling the stories, Jonathan had tried to make allowance for the fact that they could have been exaggerating.

This inquiry sounded almost polite, but it still made no sense. "Why would you want me to?" Jonathan asked, shifting his bag of books on his shoulder and seeing Cedric take a little step forwards next to him. Jonathan shook his head with the subtlest motion he could. They were outside the Charms classroom, and Malfoy wouldn't get away with attacking them right here. This couldn't be an ambush. "He's in your House. He's in your year. Talk to him yourself."

"I've tried to," Malfoy said, and something suspiciously like a whine crept into his tone. "He keeps ignoring me."

"Well, Harry doesn't want to pay attention to people who just want to impress him," Jonathan said. "But he usually tells them why, and what they could do really earn his attention. Didn't he tell you?"

"He hasn't said anything to me except to ask what I think of Muggleborns."

"What did you say?" Now Cedric looked amused. Jonathan rolled his eyes at his friend. It wasn't his fault that he was practically playing nursemaid to someone who had been freaked out by Harry. And he suspected that it wouldn't be the last time, any more than this was the first.

"That I never think of them."

Jonathan allowed himself to place a hand over his face when Cedric snickered. "Look, Malfoy, that was absolutely the wrong thing to say. You know that Harry's not a blood purist."

"Well, yes, that's what the public gossip says, but he must be," Malfoy said, frowning in a way that made his face look pinched. "Because he's allied with the Parkinsons, and they would never ally with someone who didn't believe in the purity of blood."

"Even if that person could offer them enough advantages that his blood didn't matter?"

"It would always matter," said Malfoy, looking shocked. "They might be able to overlook him being a half-blood, but they would still be thinking about it."

"Go away and think about all of the things you've said, but especially the overwhelming focus on blood," Jonathan said, and began walking up the corridor with Cedric. "Think about the way that Harry didn't answer you and I walked away from you. Then you'll be able to understand what this means."

"Potter, I really don't—"

Jonathan just shook his head and kept walking. Cedric sighed next to him. "If his opinions weren't so revolting," he muttered, "one would have to feel sorry for the little git."

"One wants to feel sorry for him," Jonathan said, in the kind of strained, formal tone that Cedric would expect from him. "One almost does, and then he ruins it for one."

Cedric laughed aloud, and Jonathan glanced back once to see Malfoy walking away with his nose up in the air. Jonathan sighed. At least he knew that none of Harry's Slytherin classmates could threaten him as far as magic or politics went.

It didn't mean they couldn't annoy the piss out of him, though. Jonathan wished Harry all the patience he would need for seven years of dealing with Draco Malfoy.