Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

New chapter :)

It's not Fleur, you can all breathe easy.

Chapter 11

He had stormed out of Charms, furious with Hermione for taking the side of Angelina, Ron and all the other Gryffindors who had turned against him. There had been no way he was going to back to the common room after that, and he hadn't been in the mood for Salazar's sarcasm either, especially when he had wanted nothing more than to unleash another barrage of spells into something that would break in far more satisfying way than a clay tile.

Harry had wandered about the school instead. He'd passed the first floor bathroom from which he had carried Ginny Weasley having saved her from Riddle, the third floor corridor from which he had been carried after stopping the loathsome shade of Voldemort that had possessed Quirrell from obtaining the philosopher' stone. He paused to look out over the whomping willow that stood over the passage to the Shrieking Shack where he had met Sirius, his godfather. He desperately wished he could contact the man, but it was too dangerous to risk. His godfather had already nearly been kissed by dementors once.

There were no such memories attached to the floors he had risen to beyond that. The fourth, fifth and sixth floors had drifted past without incident, but then, upon reaching the seventh, he had stumbled on something Salazar had spent years searching for.

He wasn't exactly sure how he had found it, only that he had. Wandering up down the seventh floor corridor, wishing for a place that he could let off steam in and where he would be left alone, a door had appeared. The stone of the plain wall opposite one of the tapestries had shimmered and a small, ordinary door had materialised.

The room within had been anything but ordinary and when he saw the rune covered walls, glass targets and mirrors he had known what he had found. The Room of Requirement Slytherin's portrait had described.

The Chamber of Secrets held a special place in Harry's heart. It was somewhere that only he could enter out of everyone within the school and had become is sanctuary away from the noise and distraction of Hogwarts. The Room of Requirement was beyond even that.

When Harry had wanted to release his anger it had provided him with a whole room of things to destroy and books full of spells to accomplish it. When he had decided he needed to learn how to keep everything a secret because he knew Hermione was searching for where he was going it had provided him a virtual library on protective enchantments and even several books on the arts of the mind. Harry had been fascinated to note that had basic steps to the mind arts were remarkably similar to the exercises he had learnt to help focus his intent and improve his spell casting.

The pattern of his progress shifted.

Every morning for the last two days he would wait for everyone to leave and then, using the Marauder's Map and his father's invisibility cloak sneak to the seventh floor and return to the fabulous room.

Spending the rest of the day reading his way through every book that the miraculous room could provide and practicing anything he dared attempt he would wait until evening then slip off to the Chamber of Secrets.

Salazar's time-turner could not be removed from the chamber so he couldn't take it to the room itself and he already tried and failed to get the room to provide him one itself. There was still more than enough for him to learn in the chamber, so he repeated the day from the beginning, learning from Salazar while his past self was in the Room of Requirement, out the way, and rendering it impossible for anyone to notice his duality.

'Focus,' Salazar snapped grumpily from within his frame. 'Your mind has been elsewhere for the last two days. If you don't concentrate on your destination you're liable to appear in multiple places at once and die. My heir will not die because he splinched himself. Godric would wet himself laughing in the afterlife.'

It was just after lunch, two days before the wand-weighing, three days before the first task; all for the second time.

The Chamber of Secrets was not included within Hogwarts' wards and so it was completely possible to apparate around and from within it. At least it would be if Harry could actually manage to do it. Most of his time was spent focusing very hard on the destination, lurching towards it in the strangest manner without actually moving, flinching, and collapsing on the floor feeling very sick.

The ancient founder was losing patience with him, but he hadn't exactly been helpful. 'Picture where you want to appear and will it so,' the portrait had stated simply, giving Harry absolutely no useful hint as how he should visualise himself appearing there. He had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to look like and, rather, acidly, voiced as much to his ancestor, cutting through his parseltongue rant.

'You've never seen anyone apparate,' the painting responded, dumbfounded. 'Have you been under a rock for the last fourteen years?'

'I was raised by and live with muggles,' he replied stiffly.

'Oh.' Salazar looked slightly embarrassed about his reaction now. 'That explains it. You should just appear in the space. Imagine it as if instead of you moving, some impossible force twisted the world instead, so you were standing where you pictured.'

Harry considered it as he staggered back to his feet and took a few deep breaths to steady his breathing and settle his stomach.

He pictured the tip of the forked, tongue-styled bridge, and imagined the world wrenching back past him.

His magic twisted and instantly he was there.

A wave of nausea and dizziness struck him, his vision failed and he spun, falling into the very cold pool in front of the stature waving his arms desperately.

When he resurfaced his ancestor was laughing so hard he had completely dislodged the snake from around his neck. It had fallen to the bottom of the painting where it hissed furiously at its master and waited for him to stop so it could slither back up to its normal resting spot.

'Shut up,' Harry hissed angrily, lapsing into parseltongue. The nausea struck again when he clambered out and stood upright. It was too much and he doubled over, emptying his stomach onto the floor.

'You'll get used to the feeling,' Salazar assured him, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his robe. 'Godric was hopeless at any form of magical transportation for years. He'd fall over whenever we apparated so whenever we wanted to make a decent first impression Helga would side-long him and hold him upright. He hated it.'

'I can empathise,' Harry growled, wiping his lips and vanishing the contents of his stomach. An over-powered warming charm left him steaming, but much less cold. He reapplied it several times until his robes were dry again.

'You'll be fine,' Salazar smiled, as his snake reclaimed its spot across his shoulders. 'Keep practicing.'

'You just want to watch me fall over,' Harry grumbled.

'It reminds me of Godric,' the painting agreed in one of its rare, heartfelt moments.

Harry visualised the far end of the chamber this time, not eager to repeat his venture into the pool.

He reappeared there immediately and instantly fell over again. Behind him the portrait of his ancestor burst back into laughter.

It took a further ten attempts before he could manage to remain upright and an additional five for him to do it without swaying or staggering all over the place like a drunk.

'It's a good skill to learn,' the founder told him seriously afterwards. 'It's very important in case you get disarmed and have to escape. The ability to quickly apparate saved my life more than a couple times.'

Harry nodded, but would not be practicing that any further for a while. It was not the most pleasant form of travel, even if it was convenient.

'Was there anything else you wanted to learn?'

'The disillusionment charm,' Harry suggested immediately. He loved his invisibility cloak, it was the only thing he had that belonged to his parents, but it wasn't perfect and was a lot slower than a spell.

'Not an easy one,' Salazar mused, 'not if you want to master it. It takes quite a bit of talent and control, the latter more than anything, to manage it flawlessly and become fully invisible.'

Harry let his wand slide out of his sleeve and into his had with an air of determination.

'Well you know what you should be visualising,' the portrait mused, 'and it's fairly close to transfiguration. You should be fairly adept at this spell, despite the phoenix feather.'

Harry narrowed his eyes at the jab at his wand, but twirled his wand around himself in the manner he had read from the book in the Room of Requirement earlier that day.

'Oh, you know the wand motion,' Salazar remarked, impressed.

Harry stared at his body in mild interest as it very slowly changed to mirror the background behind it. He moved his arm and the colouring changed as it moved, albeit far too slowly for his liking.

'Not a bad first attempt,' the founder congratulated him. 'You look like a very inexperienced, giant chameleon.'

Harry fixed him with a flat stare.

'This is a spell that requires a lot of focus and control,' the portrait told him, unaffected by his glare. 'It will take a great deal of practice before you can cast it well enough to move with it on and that's as far as most wizards or witches can ever get.'

'So it's camouflage.'

'You aren't most wizards and witches,' the portrait told him smugly.

Another Heir of Slytherin reference is about to be made, Harry realised. He knew the proud expression on Salazar Slytherin's face well enough to recognise the impending moment.

'You're my heir, and quite gifted in an applicable area, you'll do better in time.'

And there it is.

Harry tried several more times, but, despite some improvement, the spell's full ability escaped him. The best he could manage was full body camouflage that lapsed a second behind his surroundings when he moved. It was something he'd have to practice in the Room of Requirement. It was best not to waste the time he spent with Salazar's advice on things he could manage alone.

He slid his wand away and sat down on the floor in front of the portrait.

'What do you know about occlumency and the mind arts?' he asked, shifting the chain of the time-turner around his neck so it was a little more comfortably placed.

'Enough to get by. Interested in keeping your secrets? I'm surprised you haven't already asked, I'd half-assumed you already knew.'

'I discovered it recently, but the exercises I perform to clear my mind before performing a spell to help me focus my intent are virtually the same as the basic mind arts ones.'

'That does make sense,' Salazar agreed. 'Occlumency is the art of shielding your mind. It's a bit of a misnomer actually since what you actually do is empty your thoughts of anything useful so an intruder cannot see anything.'

'That explains it better than the book,' Harry admitted. The passage in the book had been written in a rather archaic prose and hard to comprehend.

'Where did you learn about it at school?' Slytherin asked curiously. 'I can't imagine it being a part of the curriculum.'

'You remember that room you mentioned Rowena and Godric creating?' Harry shot him a devious smirk.

'You found it,' Salazar exclaimed. 'Ha, I knew I would win in the end.' He threw his arms up in the air, disturbing his now snoozing snake. 'Take that Godric and Rowena.'

'How did you win?' Harry inquired, amused.

'You're my heir, you found their secret room before anyone of their descent found mine.'

'You do know that when I pulled the Godric's sword out of the sorting hat I became his heir of sorts?

'So?' Salazar demanded, mid-celebration.

'I killed your basilisk with it, here, in my second year.'

The smile fell from the painting's face.

'Well that rather ruins the competition, if you're heir to both of us, despite Godric's claim on you being rather less firm than mine, then we both win and it's all null and void.' The portrait went quiet briefly and Harry received the impression that he was sulking again.

'What was it like?' Salazar asked. 'Were their portraits there?' he added, more softly.

'I don't know, the room changes completely based on what you desire. I'll see if I can find their portraits next time I visit.' Harry hoped that by wanting to meet the founder's, or their portraits, they would appear.

'That's where the other, original you is spending his day before coming here and using the time-turner, isn't it?' Salazar deduced.

'Yes,' Harry admitted.

'It does sound like an amazing room,' the founder said wistfully. 'I should like to see it myself, but I doubt it works for a portrait such as myself. Rowena and Godric always did come up with the most fanciful, spectacular things, of course most of them ended up exploding in Godric's face, but the ones that worked were truly amazing. Even I'll admit that they were the finest things any of us ever made, with the exemption of Hogwarts, of course. A school and sanctuary is magic of a different kind.'

'I've only seen the sorting hat and the room,' Harry admitted.

'There were several more, the diadem you might have heard of, that was Rowena's favourite, she pretty much claimed it as hers, though Godric never really complained. He was rather selfless.'

'I wonder if any of them are in the room,' Harry mused.

'The diadem was lost, sadly. Rowena's daughter stole it and lost it before she died.' Salazar's eyes darkened, clearly that story was not one of his favourites. 'What have you been doing in their room?' he inquired, changing the subject.

'Practicing my mind-clearing mostly, but some practice of other spells and a bit of duelling practice. The latter is difficult without an actual opponent.'

'Don't waste your time there,' Salazar admonished. 'You've got access to the two most secret, most useful rooms in the whole building, unless Helga made something else I don't know about,' he finished lightly.

'What did Helga make?'

'She tried to combine enchanting with herbology, plants were a hobby of liked looking after plants, creatures and people. She's responsible for that ridiculously named species of magical tree.'

'Magical tree?' Harry asked, sensing another less known story of the founders.

'She took an innocent, elegant willow tree and turned into something much less admirable. She wanted to plant a whole forest of them to protect the school, but we intervened before she could cause a catastrophe. I think the species probably still exists, she grew and sold quite a few before people realised how large they would grow and rapidly regretted planting them near their houses, or anything else for that matter. Horrible plants.'

'The founders are nothing like I imagined,' Harry grinned.

'Of course we aren't. We founded a school. I'm sure all the headmasters tell you how perfect and well behaved we were. The truth is that even at the age of sixty Godric was more a child than anyone to ever walk these halls after him.' Salazar's eyes misted over slightly, but Harry didn't mind. Nostalgia was hardly a vice for a thousand year old portrait that had been alone since its creation.

'Tempus,' Harry murmured, retrieving his wand to tap it against his wrist. It was later than he thought. Apparition had taken a long while to get the hang of.

'Time to leave,' Salazar concluded from his gesture.

'Yeah, I'll be back tomorrow.'

'You're not leaving before you've put me back up over the door in the study,' the portrait scowled. 'I refuse to spend any more time alone with that serpent, dead or not.'

'Fine,' Harry sighed, unsurprised. Salazar always insisted on it.

He picked his ancestor's canvas likeness up and carried it back across the bridge. It was easier than it used to be. The ritual had definitely had some effect, his musculature and endurance were much improved.

'Do you know anything that can be used to keep the venom from your former snake in?' he inquired.

'Anything inert,' the founder replied. 'It will only dissolve organic tissue or matter. There should be some crystal vials in one of the draws or lying around on the shelves opposite ladder.'

There were. Actually there were quite a few. Harry grabbed a handful and left to wrestle with the basilisk again. He might as well get it over and done with.

At least it will put up less of a fight this time.

He knew very little about extracting the venom from any snake, let alone a seventy foot serpent created with magic. It didn't help that the toxin was deadly in even the smallest quantity.

Kneeling down in front of the basilisk's mouth he gingerly shoved it's mouth wide open.

It could have swallowed me in one bite back then. If the basilisk had the temerity to try again it would find Harry had grown and was more of a challenge.

Very carefully he reached past the teeth towards the venom sacs behind. A dead snake could not be tricked into biting and injecting its venom. The substance had to be taken directly from the glands.

This is the part when I slice the gland open too far and dissolve one of my arms.

Using his wand he carefully cut a very small hole in the gland over the outstretched vial and watched impatiently as the venom trickled in.

It took a long, uncomfortable ten minutes to fill all four vials.

The venom continued to trickle once he pulled away, but he figured he had as much as he could ever need and let the basilisk's own venom begin to dissolve its own dead flesh.

'Did you get any?' Salazar inquired, peering at him interestedly. 'You're still alive, so you didn't impale yourself on a fang.'

Harry showed himself the four vials of thick, viscous, clear venom.

'That's a lot of galleons you're waving around,' the founder told him. 'Leave the venom here, it's very hard to come by.'

'I wasn't going to leave it lying around in the dormitory for some idiot to drink by mistake,' Harry responded incredulously.

Neville probably would drink it too.

Harry shuddered. That would not be a pleasant way to die.

'That would be very thoughtless of you,' Salazar agreed. 'Horrible way to go, makes some of the more morally questionable curses I've seen look kind. You'd sort of melt from within I'd imagine.'

With that cheerful picture in mind Harry abandoned Salazar to his gory thoughts and began to head back towards his bed and the increasingly distant group of people he shared a dormitory with.

Gryffindor Tower's common room greeted him with it's usual oppressive silence. Ron, Seamus and a handful of the others who had decided his shadow was too much for them to bear were sitting around the fire. He spared them no more than a glance and made his way towards the stairs.

'Harry.' Ron's voice caught him with one foot on the bottom step. They all came over to stand around the base of the stairs.

He turned to face them directly, wary, expecting another verbal assault. Ron's face seemed rather contorted, as if he was having problems breathing.

'What?' He kept his voice as neutral as possible, but the word still came out chilly. Surprisingly Ron winced.

'Look,' he began, glancing around to gather courage from the others. 'I'm no good at talking things out so I'm just going to be frank. I know this hasn't been easy for you and I'm not really certain you put your name in the goblet. I'm angry with you, we're all a bit mad,' he gestured at all of the guys except Neville, 'but we know it's not really your fault. You always get dragged into this stuff and come out looking like a hero. I know you hate it, but it's hard for us to always be overlooked when standing next to you.'

'He's trying to say he's sorry,' Hermione interrupted. 'He's done a rubbish job of it because he still needs some time to come to terms with things, but he means it, we all do.'

'So this is an apology.'

Harry had waited for this moment, and had not dared hope it would come so soon as it had. His friends were coming round, things would be back to normal. His heart should have swelled at the thought, but it didn't. It stayed remarkably still and heavy.

I don't care, he realised. There was no rush of joy or relief coming from their change of heart.

It's too late.

'I'm not sure I care anymore,' he shrugged. Their words just didn't seem to mean anything. They had made him nobody again, he could not forgive that. Nobody had never had anyone but himself, Harry had, but they had abandoned him. He could not trust them not to do the same thing again.

'How can you say that?' Hermione exclaimed.

'I opened my mouth, I remembered how I felt about having my entire house turn their backs on me, and I spoke,' Harry explained calmly. 'The only conversations I've had with any of you recently have been to listen to your explanations of why you're avoiding me.'

'We made a mistake,' Ron agreed. 'You must realise what it looks like and how much pressure Angelina is putting on everyone with her grudge against you. Please, forgive us, and we'll carry on as before, stronger.'

It was an admirable attempt and Harry had to admire him for swallowing his pride so greatly and saying it. The Harry that had forgotten what it was like to be nobody would have given in to the pressure and accepted, but he felt no such obligation.

It is not enough.

'You ask for forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget.'

Ron snapped, his patience stretched too far.

'Fine then,' he yelled, 'you selfish, pretentious git. Go and bask in your glory. I hope it was worth the deaths of your parents and the loss of your only friends.'

Harry's wand was out of his sleeve and in his face before anyone else could move.

'What did you say,' he hissed. Parseltongue came more easily than English when he was enraged.

Ron went red with rage before his wand and swung his fist blindly. Caught by surprise he caught Harry in the side of the head and he fell back onto the stairs.

The red-head was on top of him before he could roll away, swinging wildly, but Harry was used to such things back when his cousin had used to hit him and his post-ritual body was stronger.

He shoved Ron off him, and smashed his left fist into his ex-best friend's stomach, driving the air out of him.

Someone grabbed the back of his robes and his left arm, but he pulled himself free and lunged for his wand that lay where he'd dropped it in surprise.

There was a flash of light and it shot away from his grasp across the room, slicing past Seamus' head as he ducked.

It struck the wall next to the fire with a loud, audible crunch and fell, shattered, to the floor.

'Oh, I'm so sorry, Harry,' Hermione gasped, horrified. 'I didn't mean to. I've been practicing the banishing spell and it was just the first one I thought of. I panicked and wanted to stop the fight.'

She was babbling, but he wasn't really listening to her. His veins were very slowly filling with ice. He was terribly, terribly angry.

Whoever was holding him had let go and the room was suddenly very very quiet around him. Harry strode across the room to carefully retrieve all the fragmented pieces of his precious wand.

'I didn't mean to do it, Harry,' Hermione whispered.

He fixed her with the coldest stare he could manage, pushing as much of his fury as he could muster into his eyes.

She flinched as if struck.

'I do not forgive,' he repeated in a voice as cold as the ice in his blood. 'I do not forget.'

AN: Read and review please. Thanks to those who have done.