Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.

Web of Lies: Revelations.

Harry shifted nervously, unsure of how to answer. When Salazar had claimed to know what the whole secret was about last night, he hadn't really thought much about it. Now, being directly confronted by the man, he was unsure as to how to reply. Denying it was useless, and he didn't really want to. He had wanted to tell Salazar and Rowena about him last night, so he should just go along with his decision and pray that he had done the right thing.

'Alec will be fine. Harry Potter is missing, and as much as I hate to admit it, I rather like being Alec.'

The man looked down at the teen's bowed head seriously. 'I don't think I completely understand, but I'll trust you with this.'

Harry nodded lightly in thanks, glad that the ghost was not going to force him to explain himself. They stayed silent for a long moment before the ghost turned around. 'Come on, little one, this is no place to talk about serious matter.'

Harry hesitantly followed in the ghosts wake; they slowly made their way around the large statue of Salazar's head and finally reached a very small door concealed behind it. Salazar started speaking in parseltongue, loud enough for Alec to make out the language but just soft enough so he couldn't hear what was being said. To his surprise, the wooden door didn't open, instead, a large patch of stone slid away after the words, granting them entry to a dark room. Looking up at the founder, he was met with a small smirk.

'Surprised, young snake? You didn't think I would hide my personal quarters behind something as simple as a wooden door, did you?'

Harry shook his head, a bit amused at Salazar's proud voice; after having spent a lot of time in Severus' presence that summer, he really should have known that things were never as they seemed with Slytherins. The moment the ghost floated through the opened door, lights flared from within the room. Even if it was no longer dark inside, Harry followed cautiously, not willing to fall into any trap the old founder might have set in his time to prevent intrusion. Luckily, nothing cursed him, and he was able to enter the office without further trouble.

Looking around, he noticed lots of odd things lying around the large room. Some seemed definitely dark, but others just looked strange. Harry felt like he had entered into a dark copy of his grandfather's office, but strangely, it didn't bother him much. Smiling wryly, he thought he probably felt that way because he didn't know what all those things were for. His eyes came to rest to a large form tucked into one of the corners of the office. In the flickering light of candles, he couldn't make out exactly what the form was, but from where he stood, it looked like some kind of large feline, and it was posed to strike. Alec gave a small shudder; he wouldn't want to find himself in front of the big feline if it was alive. The sound of a clearing throat made him turn around to face Salazar, who was floating just above the office chair.

'Take a seat, young serpent, we have much to talk about if you're to start training soon.'

Alec nodded and took a seat just in front of the ghost. He watched as the founder floated pensively from one side of his office to the other and waited patiently for him to speak. Finally, Salazar settled down and put his hands on the table. 'When we founded this school, the others and I wanted to pass on our knowledge to wizard children, but it was not strange for us to take apprentices. We used to pick them from their first or second year and tutored them privately. We did that because in such a large school, we couldn't always teach what we felt was necessary, and we didn't want our vast knowledge to be lost. Sadly, that tradition has been lost through the centuries, but I think I'm just going to put into practice what we did back then.' He stayed silent for a minute and the continued. 'The problem is that the best way to learn how to duel is to keep duelling with someone who is better than you, and as you may have noticed, that would be a bit difficult in my state, so we'll have to get around that.'

Harry nodded, knowing that the ghost was probably right. He had been learning spells all summer, he had even been able to practice some of them, but he would need to learn how to use them in a duel. He was pulled out of his thoughts when Salazar started to speak again. 'There're going to be two parts on your training: physical endurance, which you'll be able to do on your own in here under my direction, of course, and then there's going to be the duelling part. The ghost looked at him intently. How good are you at the mental arts?'

Harry looked at him confused; he didn't even know what the man was talking about. His confusion must have showed clearly on his face because the founder cursed softly under his breath. 'Don't tell me that they don't teach you the mental arts anymore; it was third year required material when we were teachers!'

Alec looked uncomfortable. 'Sorry.'

The founder waved him away. 'Not your fault, but if my idea is to work, we'll have to start working on that first. Rowena is much better at teaching this than I am, so you'll be learning it from her. I want you to study with her every night for at least one hour after dinner.'

Harry frowned lightly. 'But the common room is packed at that hour, everyone will notice.'

Salazar shook his head. 'Don't worry about it, they won't; Rowena will take care of it, understood?'

Alec nodded, still a bit unsure, but willing to take the founder's word of it for now. The ghost smiled a bit, sensing that his charge was a bit reluctant, but let it go; instead, he focused his thoughts on his plans. 'How often do you think you can get away from your roommates without them getting suspicious?'

Harry shrugged lightly. 'I'm not sure, but if I keep doing my homework as quickly as I do now, I probably would have about an hour or two every evening. But soon, someone is going to notice that I keep slipping away. Besides, my grandfather and some of the teachers might expect me to spend some time with them.'

Salazar grumbled a bit but knew it was not really the teen's fault; after all, in a school as large as Hogwarts, it was difficult to do things without someone noticing, especially if you were related to the headmaster, or in this case, if you pretended to be so. It will have to do for right now; anyway, until you master your lessons with Rowena, there's really not much we can do so it will be more than enough time. Salazar looked pensively for a moment and then nodded towards a cupboard placed just next to the large feline. 'Look in that cupboard, young serpent, there should be a few stacks of papers.'

Harry stood up and did as he was told, eyeing the menacing figure warily, seeing now that he was closer that it was a completely black panther. Bending down, he opened the cupboard cautiously and peered inside, seeing that lots of papers had been thrown in there. Salazar's voice came from behind him.

'There should be a stack of papers marked as apprenticeships, pull it out and bring it to the table, please.'

It took him nearly twenty minutes to find the papers Salazar wanted, and he only managed after having to pull out everything, since they had slipped under all the other things. With the papers firmly clasped in his hands, he returned to the table where Salazar was waiting patiently. The ghost gave him an embarrassed smile and motioned him to sit back down. 'Those papers hold the test we usually gave our future apprentices to know what level they were at and in which area they would do best. I realise it's probably very outdated, but try to answer as many questions as you can; it will give me some reference as to what you know.'

Harry frowned but did as he was told, picking up the first of the papers and barely containing a groan when he saw it was a Divination papers. It was going to be a long evening.

To be continued...

A/N: Thanks for all reviews and thanks to my beta-reader, Vinnie.