Author Note
Can anyway think of a cool name for my MC? I don't want to call him Gothic and the names like John Smith and Tom Hiddleston are just personas he uses to get around in the Wizarding World.
There's no mention in the CYOA of the stone getting rid of ghosts. I decided to add that because it make the stone more interesting and powerful.
Reviews
Alan
Glad to be back.
Carthienes
I'm sure I got the idea from some other story, but there are so many Harry Potter fan fics that I doubt any idea you can have in a story such as this is original.
Gaones Paran
I went back and realised that I had the History of Magic down three times and DADA once. My mistake.
The Room of Requirement and Professor Sybill Trelawney did for sure hide sherry bottles there so others could as well. But yeah the elves do know about the room could also use to stash stuff.
Crossworlds 1 - Harry Potter
Part 9
Diagon Alley. The Wizarding World.
Given my success with exposing the truth that Peter Pettigrew AKA Wormtail was still alive via a tip-off to the DMLE, I'd decided to send a letter to Mad-Eye Moody telling him a lot about how Barty Crouch Senior had swapped his during wife with his son during a visit to Azkaban and that Junior could be found at the Crouch's home, hiding under an invisibility cloak.
Auror Mad-Eye Moody could see someone hidden by such a cloak and since he wasn't retired just yet from what I'd learned he would have the authority to raid the Crouch residence and the ability to actually find the Death Eater who was his father's control. I didn't know for sure if Junior was always under a cloak, but it seemed best to assume so.
Moody was unlikely to trust the letter, but he also wouldn't be able to simply let the matter drop, not after Madam Bones so quickly health with the Peter Pettigrew matter. I was still a little curious as to why she'd looked into it rather than throw the letter away.
I'd not sent this latest letter to Madam Bones because after the last one she might have set something to track a letter sent by me to her. Hence why I was using the Owl office in Diagon Alley rather than Hogsmede and sending it to a different person while making sure to look like some old Muggle man.
None of this could be allowed to be traced back to me in case the person looking for the World Seed was looking for me in the magical world. Aside from that if it became known that I was tipping people off Dumbledore would at least want to question me and so would the DMLE.
That could lead to Death Eaters coming after me and others as well. It was best to stay in the shadows as I could not yet defend my mind or my body. While I'd already learned some advanced magic, spells too advanced for me really, I was not ready to defend myself should I be attacked.
Besides my greatest power was in illusion and the kind of tricky one could get up to when you could shapeshift. These powers I would need a lot should I be exposed despite my precautions. If needs be I'd pull a Wormtail and go live as someone's pet at least for a time. Although not with children as it was already creepy enough that I had to sleep in a dorm room with two other teenage boys.
Funny, not so long ago I'd been adamant with myself about not getting involved like I was, but then Loki had done something to me perhaps, or at the very least made it clear that not shaking things up would be bad for me.
I began moving down the alley after returning to the form of Tom Hiddleston making sure to keep my distance from Ollivander's store as the wandmaker might know that Jon Smith and Tom Hiddleston were the same because we used the same wand. There was no point in Tom getting his own wand as the one I'd gotten as Jon worked just as well in this form and wands with phoenix feather cores were known for their independence and didn't like their witch or wizard trying to use other wands.
While walking I stopped in my tracks outside the clothing store that I'd gotten my second-hand robes for when Jon Smith had been preparing to go Hogwarts. I looked in the window and saw a coat of some kind, a large one made of some sort of leather perhaps? It certainly didn't come any beast of the field nor was it dragon-hide.
I went inside and asked about the coat.
"That's an old coat made from Thestral hide" informed the shopkeeper "I brought it cheap but few would ever want it because Thestrals have a bad rep. Shame really it's almost as good against minor hexes as dragon-hide. Just not as tough".
Those creatures are connected to death somehow, this I knew as you can only see one if you've seen someone die and come to terms with the finality of death. This was why Harry Potter who saw his mother die and who killed someone during his first year at school couldn't see them because he'd not grieved for anyone. He'd never really processed what death meant.
I could see Threstals, and had done when watching the students head for the train station because I could accept death and I'd seen someone die when I'd taken custody of the world-seed. I'd accepted it, but until now I'd not thought much about the creatures. Now I felt drawn to something made of their hide.
The Eldar Wand had a core of Thestral hair if I remembered correctly. Could the other Hallows also have a connection to the animals? They two were linked to death in some way. Threstrals were invisible like Harry Potter was when he wore his cloak. Could that wonderful magical item be woven from Threstral hair perhaps? What would the stone be? So many questions to find the answers to. I really did belong in Ravenclaw.
"I'll buy it," I said.
A little protection wouldn't be a bad thing and I thought it was quite stylish. As for further shopping, I did need to stop off at the apothecary because the Horcrux ritual required a few odds and ends. I'd decided to get on with the ritual and then to rest for a few days. It would soon be Christmas Eve so the timing was good.
It was only a mild surprise to run into Professor Snape and I made sure to avoid making eye contact with him since my explorations into the mind arts were still in their early stage due to them not being something you can easily learn from a book like most other kinds of magic.
"Good afternoon" sad the surly man "You must be Tom Hiddleston".
I was worried that he knew me.
"Have we met?" I asked.
Okay so we had, but he should only know John Smith. Even if he had heard of Tom Hiddleston he shouldn't know me by sight.
"Your the subject of some discussion at Hogwarts," the teacher told me "Your adoption of one of our Ravenclaw students is talked about often by Flitwick, he has taken great interest in John Smith due to his intelligence and skill with charms".
Of course, Flitwick had noticed that I could perform charms with ease I didn't need to speak the words and barely made the wand movements because there wasn't any need to as far as I could see. I just went through the motions and thankfully the teacher put down my maturity to my upbringing.
Since I was an angel of some kind rather than a wizard it did make some sense that I wasn't progressing as expected. Even with me having an adult mind in a child's body I should still have trouble in some areas. Yet I was actually considering dumbing myself down some more just so I didn't get too much attention.
"His letters do show that he's quite developed for his age," I said.
Which wasn't at all a lie since I'd written those letters and therefore knew they were mature in style.
"That explains why you've heard my name, but how did you recognise me?" I questioned.
I was worried, but as it turned out I didn't need to be.
"You've been described to me and you greatly resemble your young cousin," Snape soon informed me "At least in terms of your eyes and hair".
While my Tom Hiddleston look was modelled after the actor of the same name, the eyes remained the same and both forms had dark hair.
"I see" was all I said on that matter.
There was the possibility that he spying on me for Dumbledore who would be interested in learning more about Tom Hiddleston since I'd entered the country and made somewhat of a splash by becoming one of Gringotts biggest customers.
"Are you much of a brewer?" asked Snape.
Not a random question since we were meeting in a place that sold stuff potions. It also made me consider that he just be here to buy things he needed for his job. It was the holidays so it would be easier to get out of school and do some shopping. Plus he might simply be curious about me.
"Not really" I replied "I know a few basic potions, I just never got the chance to study the art. Now that I'm more settled I plan to devote some time to brewing".
That was about it for our talk and soon we went our separate ways. I was more careful than normal about getting out of sight and changing form when I left the alley this time.
(Line Break)
Former Dumbledore Residance. Godric's Hollow.
I'd considered doing this ritual in Hogwarts right under the big nose of the Headmaster, as that would be satisfying, however, I considered that to be too risky. I didn't want to risk damaging the Room of Requirement as destroying Horcruxes wasn't exactly a peaceful process and the school while mostly empty at this time did contain some children I'd rather not risk if all the magics reacted badly to each other.
Godric's Hollow was hardly devoid of human life, but it was a very small village and as far as I could tell a lot of people were away, visiting family elsewhere I imagined. Also, this was Albus Dumbledore's childhood home and while he didn't care for it now using his basement for a ritual involving a Horcrux simply appealed to me for some reason.
Plus the Diadem Horcrux would be close by at that school and that could interfere with the ritual so it was best not to do this ritual within the grounds of the castle. The other Horcruxes were nowhere near here as I knew their locations.
Thinking of Horcruxes I couldn't help wondering what item Voldemort was going to make into one when he killed Harry Potter. There was no way a part of his soul just happened to latch on Potter by itself, but whatever item it was didn't really matter since it had likely been destroyed that night and only Tom Riddle would ever know and I wasn't ready to risk summoning his spirit.
On the subject of Tom Riddle, it wasn't until after I'd left the company of Mrs Bagshot that I realised that it wouldn't be hard to link Dumbledore to the younger Tom Riddle who became Voldemort and to find a way to blame the Headmaster for what Riddle became. After all Dumbledore had invited the young Dark Lord to Hogwarts.
I wondered if Bagshot would add that to the book or refuse to due to fear of You-Know-Who. She didn't have much to lose by attacking Dumbledore via a book as most people thought she was a senile old witch and the Headmaster was unlikely to do anything to her directly, but Voldemort might take offence to his childhood being exposed to the public eye and I liked Bagshot so I'd decided against it.
Perhaps once Voldemort was done for I would publish a book that blamed Dumbledore for Tom Riddle's rise to power under the name of Tom Hiddleston and publish it only once I was ready to leave this world. John Smith was simply too vulnerable for me to risk exposing Voldemort's life due to him being in school with the children of Death Eaters and sometimes Voldemort himself.
Trying to ruin Dumbledore's reputation via a book worked best because if he took any action to ban the book or discredit the writers it would just make it seem as if he did actually have something to hide. He would have to act as if none of it was true and even if he did some people would believe it.
I pushed aside thoughts of annoying the plans of the possible Dark Lord Dumbledore mostly for my own amusement and turned my attention to the ritual before me. The Ring Horcrux with the Hallow still attached was now in the centre of a ritual circle that contained some symbols that may or may not do anything other be a pain to draw.
Even now I could feel the temptation to put on the ring. It was subtly telling me how handsome I would look while wearing the ring, how others would envy me for owning such a possession, how I should display such wealth and enjoy the attention it brought.
Only the most shallow of people would fall for such a ploy and while I wanted wealth I had many plans to enquire so much money that even the Malfoy family would seem poor when compared to me. But to me, the wealth would be a tool I didn't desire riches just for the sake of having big bank accounts.
I focused my attention on the ritual and took the silver knife required in my hand. I cut myself and let the drops of blood fall onto the ring. I then chanted something in Latin, and while the ritual wasn't complex it turned out well enough as the ring began to burn up in the strangest looking flames I'd ever seen just as the book told me would.
That was when for the first time in my life I felt my soul, or to be more precise I felt it hurt, it had always been there I'd always had a soul, and I hadn't felt it change even when I became one of Loki's angels, but it felt it now, and it hurt quite a lot as I took part of Tom Riddle spirit into myself.
While there was pain there was also a sense of pleasure, for lack of a better term, from the act as I could feel my power increase and new memories become a part of me. Bits of Tom Riddle's life were now as familiar to me as my own. I could remember how to move things without touching them, how to control animals and him talking to snakes.
I could remember seeing Wool's Orphanage, a place that hadn't changed much aside from electronic devices being added, I saw children I didn't know, and a few scenes of Tom's life at Hogwarts. I saw him tormenting other children, but never in a way that got him caught. Even as a child he'd been as evil as he was crafty.
Now I could recall his glee at seeing Hagrid expelled for bringing a dangerous creature into Hogwarts, something the half-giant did actually do even if that spider hadn't killed Moaning Murtle, and to be fair Hagrid had endangered his fellow students so he should have been expelled. He wasn't blamed for Murtle Warren's death and this was why he wasn't rotting away in a cell in Azkaban. Something which disappointed Tom and he'd never liked Hagrid, but it did mean that the school wasn't closed and Tom had been happy about that.
I then recalled as I, no Voldemort, killed his father, and his grandparents, this was the last thing I saw so it seemed safe to assume that one of their deaths was what allowed Tom Riddle Junior to make the Horcrux. Although I could recall young Voldemort wearing the ring when he talked with Slughorn about the Horcruxes, that might be all mixed up with my own memories of the book/movies.
Once I'd recovered from the ritual enough to sit up, and this might have taken a while as I'd lost my sense of time and when I reached for the stone, that had remained intact it came flying into my hand. I'd summoned it with wandless magic that I didn't have to think about using.
To test this I waved my hand and knocked the candles which had been lit when I started the ritual and they were scattered across the room.
"That's more than I was expecting considering what we learned about when studying the ritual" commented Cortana.
Well, Tom Riddle had been powerful even as a child.
"Let's see if it really worked" I decided.
I waved my wand and used the Snake Summons Spell (Serpensortia) this was a transfiguration spell that conjured a live snake from the end of the wand. This was actually a very advanced bit of magic so it was odd that Draco Malfoy had been able to use it in just his second year. Granted the Snake Summons Spell was amongst the easiest of such spells, alongside the Bird-Conjuring Charm, but it was still a conjuration spell even if snakes and birds are easier to create or summon than mammals for some reason.
"Where am I!"
I'd understood that.
"Hello there," I said to what I thought to be an irate snake.
Sounded like English to me.
"Speaker," said the snake
Now that had sounded different from English even if I did understand it.
"Do you understand me?" I asked.
"Yes, Speaker" it replied, "Did you bring me here?"
Since it was a real snake that meant I really was a Parselmouth. Since I wasn't a member of the Gaunt family this trait was unlikely to pass on to my offspring. Not that I ever planned to have any since children would just get in the way of me obtaining enough power to properly protect the world seed.
Lucky for the little reptile I knew how to counter the spell in such a way that it would be returned from whence it came despite me having no memory of ever having read about such a spell. Must be something I picked up from Voldemort even if I have no memory of him learning the spell.
"Now for the Chamber" I decided.
My plan to defeat the basilisk didn't require me to do any fancy magic I just need a rooster.
"Don't forget that you planned to summon Herpo the Foul so you could find out if that weakness is real" reminded Cortana.
I planned to turn into a rooster and to take one with me in case a real one was needed, but it would be wise to check with Herpo, who hatched the first basilisk back in Greece a very long time ago, in case that part was added to the lore of the creature later on and wasn't actually true.
Also, I needed to see the creature in the flesh so that I could use the form of the great serpent to destroy my enemies. As long as I avoided magic swords and phoenixes there wasn't much I needed to worry about when it that form.
If I were as bad as Tom Riddle I'd turn into a basilisk while within an area crowded with muggles just so I could collect their life form with armband and unlike lots of Final Fantasy style spells. Since I wasn't willing to become a mass murderer of humans then I'd have to find other prey, like the spiders in the Forbidden Forest which fear basilisk above all else and were most certainly a threat to everyone at Hogwarts.
"Get some sleep" advised Cortana "We need to make sure there were no long term side effects from the ritual before you go up against a big monster".
I did suddenly feel very tired and while the ritual had clearly been worth it, I was not foolish enough to try it again any time soon.
(Line Break)
Moaning Murtle's Bathroom. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
It was with a feeling of confidence that I turned the stone in my hand three times and banished the ghost of Myrtle Warren, a witch more commonly known after her death as Moaning Murtle. She'd been killed by the basilisk that I sought to slay back in the 1940s and she'd been wailing away in a girl's bathroom right up until I sent her spirit away.
Ghosts were not thought to be the actual spirits of dead witches and wizards, rather they were a sort of magically made imprint left in the world made a wizard or witch who feared death, or at least that was the belief shared by magical humans in this world. I wasn't sure that I agreed with this.
The fact that I was able to use the stone to banish Murtle's annoying ghost suggested that the existing explanation for ghosts was wrong. I hadn't even known it would work until I tried by turning the stone anti-clocking instead of clockwise like when I'd used the stone to summon a spirit.
Could the ghost be sent to the afterlife to join with the actual departed soul or did the stone just allow to send ghosts somewhere far away? Had that really been the soul of Murtle forever trapped in an unused girl's bathroom?
There was no mention in the lore about the stone getting rid of ghosts just that you could summon and then send them back when you were done, but then the powers of the Hallows were not well understood.
It didn't really matter I just wanted her out of the way and if she was just an imprint then she couldn't be harmed because she wasn't real so there was no reason for me to care. If that had been the spirit of Moaning Murtle then I'd done her a favour by sending her off to the next great adventure.
The real reason I'd done was that there could be no witnesses to me opening up the Chamber of Secrets so it was a good thing that there were no portraits in here. I had to wonder if that was why Salazar had put the entrance here or had this room had been something else a thousand years ago?
Perhaps I would ask about when I summoned Salazar. I'd originally planned to discuss the big magical snake with Herpo the Foul, but it made more sense to enquire with Salazar about the Chamber of Secrets since he'd put it there and therefore must know a lot about them.
Thinking about ghosts and spirits of the dead made me decide that I would get rid of Binns so that he didn't have such a useless teacher?. If I did decide to I'd sneak in over the summer and do it then so that the other members of staff wouldn't suspect a students involvement.
"Open," I said to the sink.
That was English for sure so I looked for the snake that decorated the sink and spoke again.
"Open" I repeated.
I understood why Harry didn't understand how he was a parselmouth or parseltongue as it was also called. To other people when it was spoken, they heard a hissing sound, similar to that of a snake; as such, normal people could not understand it. However, it sounded like plain old English to me. Even with my Babal fish and Cortana's aid, before the ritual, I could not understand snakes without turning into one.
"Freaky, I still just hear hissing" the AI reported.
Clearly, parseltongue was a magical language that worked via the soul rather than in the mind since the translation was not happening in my head because if it was then Cortana who linked to my brain would know what I was saying. It really made no sense.
Apart from merely communicating with serpentine lifeforms, parselmouths also seemed to be able to influence the will of serpents to a certain extent such as when Harry Potter stopped Draco Malfoy's summon snaked from biting some unimportant Hufflepuff. I had no idea to what extent I could influence snakes. It was something I would have to test.
Aside from serpent-based creatures, parselmouths could communicate with each other with the language, as Harry understood Tom Riddle's commands to the Serpent of Slytherin, and the House of Gaunt communicated with each other almost exclusively in Parseltongue. I wondered how that worked if you need to be looking at a snake or the image of a snake to speak that way. Perhaps that limitation only mattered if you weren't part of the right bloodline? Or it might just require practice.
Given how the ability is considered a dark magical power it also helped to explain why no one thought twice about blaming Voldemort's Uncle for the murder of the Riddle Family, his criminal record didn't help either.
As for me I fully intended to keep my mouth firmly shut around any snakes seen in public as I did not want to be seen as a dark wizard simply because I could chat with some cold-blooded reptiles.
"Stairs," I said to the slide that led into the chamber.
"That was English" informed Cortana.
Having expected this problem I created the illusion of a snake and then spoke again.
"Not English this time," said the AI.
But nothing happened so I dismissed with illusion.
"If I had any money I'd be willing to bet that this is meant for the Basilisk to use" reasoned Cortana who was currently a voice in my head "And that Salazar had his own way in and out of the Chamber".
That made sense as it wasn't as if the Chamber was well explored by Harry Potter in the books. He, Ron and Lockhart go down the slide, and later Fawks somehow flies them all out despite them being underground. Fawks does aid Dumbledore's escape in Order of the Phoneix using some sort of magical fire transport so perhaps Fawks used that and used it just enough to get them through the roof of the Chamber.
I went down the slide and felt very glad that I'd dressed for this event in old clothes that I could quickly remove and replace with something warmer. I no longer needed the poor clothes of an orphan since by now everyone in the school had heard about getting adopted by a cousin so it would sense for me to have new and nicer clothes.
Once dressed I took the rooster out of my bottomless bag. The animal was in a cage stuck a charm meant to keep from making any noise until the time was right. A tricky bit of magic, but doable for someone of my power and skill.
I couldn't see how Fawks could have flown out of here since there was barely any room for a bird to fly about without carrying any humans, so I put that down to a plothole and then headed into the proper part of the Chamber while wondering how long had it been since the big snake was active.
While there was some flooding there were no animal bones or huge amounts of shed snake skins lying around. Perhaps teenage Voldemort had cleaned up down here before leaving the Chamber sealed up until the possessed Ginny Weasly opened it up and started making a mess. Not that I intended to let that happen in this timeline.
As I entered the main part of Salazar's secret place I found the snake statues and the big face statue that made up the far wall. I could see it all because torches had lit themselves up upon my arrival.
Constructed by Slytherin himself, along with the rest of the Chamber, the statue served as a testament to his own ego and quite a big bit of ego it must be. The statue served as a passageway for the Basilisk, but I would not summon it yet I had someone that I needed to speak to first.
While taking my adult from, as no one takes a 12-year-old boy seriously, I turned the Hallow three times before pocketing it while calling for Salazar Slytherin. My clothes grew with me as I transformed and this was a good thing because it was rather chilly down here in the Chamber.
"Who dares summon me?" he demanded to know.
It surprised me that someone who lived a thousand years ago was easy to understand until I realised he wasn't speaking English as his lips hadn't moved much and that meant he'd been hissing. This clothing was old even by the standards of the purebloods he looked a more sober version of Ming the Merciless.
"I dared. I am.." I began to say.
At this point I stopped because I still hadn't chosen a proper wizard name so for now, I'd go with even this spirit thinking of me as the wizard adventure/historian and explorer
"You can call me Tom Hiddleston," I said "As to why I've called you here it's because your basilisk might cause some problems in a few years".
Hopefully, I could kill it without much trouble before that and I needed this dark wizard to tell me that my information on the basilisk was correct.
"She's still alive!" asked a startled looking Salazar.
"Oh yes," I confirmed, "And she's under some sort of control of one of your descendants. He's called Tom Riddle".
Salazar looked as if he'd just bitten into something sour tasting.
"That bastard in no heir of mine!" the spirit declared "He has brought great shame to the House of Slytherin".
I'd not been expecting that reaction, so I let Salazar rant for a while before getting him back on track.
"He left a means of opening the Chamber with a follower of his who will plant it on a student one day, and if that happens then all of the students will be in great danger," I told the founder.
He looked offended by these words yet he didn't say that I was lying.
"That shouldn't be possible" he protested "I placed her here to defend the school. I ordered her to do no harm to the students".
I didn't need to ask the wizard who he'd been worried about as Muggles went after magical folks quite often in those days and so setting up a school for magical in a castle made a lot of sense. The founders didn't set up the school here just because it was big enough to house the students somewhere far from any muggle settlements. Even without magical defences, Hogwarts was still a fortress.
"So the basilisk is meant to defend the school from an army of muggles" I stated rather than asked, "I can see how that would work".
The big snake could kill with a look, it had a thick hide, deadly fangs coated with poison and seemed to be able to get around the castle without being seen.
"A muggle-born witch was killed by the basilisk about fifty years ago" I informed.
Salazar again insulted Tom Riddle and this went on for a while. He was very melodramatic about the whole thing.
"She must have been ordered to," Salazar told me once he calmed down "That's the only way she would kill any student".
Well he was known for being against Muggleborns but he'd lived a thousand years ago and there's no actual proof he was against Muggleborns it was just something people believed to be true. Even if he didn't like Muggles he had good reasons not to do since Muggles tried to burn magical people while they were still alive.
Given that no one was killed when the Chamber was opened in Harry Potter's second year it did make some sense that the big snake had actually been trying to avoid killing the students because so many near misses really boggled the mind given that it was hissing about killing people when in the pipes.
Sure all of the victims were non-Purebloods but all of them somehow avoided death and that simply didn't make sense. My thinking was that the bit of Riddle possessing Ginny Weasly hadn't been able to fully control the basilisk so the creature must have held back, resiting the command go and kill Muggleborn students.
And why weren't there more attacks given that the attacks happened over a period of months? The simple answer was that the Horcrux hadn't been able to get proper control of the big snake while possessing Ginny Weasly. Even when it was hissing about kill it most likely just repeating its orders.
As for Salazar, I had many questions for this wizard, but I forced myself to keep focused on the task at hand.
"Can you do anything about your decedent misusing your basilisk?" I wondered.
Killing it would be the safest option, but not the only choice.
"I have final authority over this chamber and my basilisk" stated the Founder "I will command her and the statues here to obey only you".
That was a lot of power he was handing me as while after seeing the basilisk I'd be able to take its form being able to command one gave me a way to attack enemies without risking myself.
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!" called out the spirit.
Wow, that was really the way to summon the creature? Salazar might be nicer than expected, but he sure did have a big ego. Although he was unlikely to be dark lord really because why would the other founders team up with a powerful dark wizard to create a school? I'd say he turned to the dark arts late in his life after he fell out with Godric.
"Keep your eyes closed my pet" I heard the dead wizard say before he told me that was okay to open mine.
I got to see the basilisk in the flesh and even the movie didn't do her justice. She was massive and very impressive to look at. I watched her as she listened to her creator and I couldn't wait to take her form.
"My pet you will obey this speaker and no one else" ordered Salazar "No matter what you must not awaken from your slumber for anyone else".
Given that I intended to grab the diary before it could take control of anyone the snake monster should have stayed dormant, but I wasn't just here to remove a threat to a student body that included myself.
"Would it be possible to get acquire one of her fangs?" I requested.
Salazar gestured to the hole the basilisk had come out of.
"If she's lost any they will be in there," he said.
I soon got to check out the sleeping area of the basilisk. It was much warmer back here than elsewhere in the Chamber and the ground was softer too. There were also some leftovers from when the snake had last been active. Many bones were scattered about and lucky for me a single fang about the size of a large dagger. Since even the fangs of a dead basilisk can destroy a Horcrux this one should work nicely. The other fangs were smaller and some seemed rotted, but they might have some value so I took them.
After that, the basilisk was sent back to its slumber and I dismissed the spirit of Salazar as spirits don't like to spend much time in this world as it's uncomfortable for them and their inability to interact within anything here would be annoying at least.
He left under the impression that I made a much better heir than Voldemort despite not having a connection to him by blood and he told me that his priceless locket was mine to keep if I could find it.
The Founder told me that contained a small portrait of both himself and his wife that I could talk to and gain information from them. I'd have to figure out some way of removing the bit of soul from the locket, and he couldn't help me with that because he'd never learned more than the basics about Horcruxes due to having not fearing death.
He also informed me of the stairs that could get me in and out of the Chamber without having entered a girl's bathroom and going down a grimy slide
As I left the Chamber I recalled that Salazar actually had a public portrait here in the school, but it only spoke parseltongue and didn't want to get caught using it since talking in snake speech wouldn't go down well with the student body. Tom Riddle most likely found out about the Chamber from that portrait. But that hardly mattered now.
The big snake monster should only obey me now and she could come in very handy somewhere down the line. I left the rooster under the charm figuring that I would find a way to make it crow if anyone other than me unleashed the big snake monster once I'd learned more about charms.
For now I was oddly hungry and it was Xmas Eve so there should be quite a nice dinner being served in the Great Hall.
