Chapter Thirty One: I Want to Live
June 7th
6:22am
Hogwarts, Scotland
Harry
The faint sound of boots on the stone floor alerted him to her presence, the rhythm of her walk well memorised by now. The fire was still smouldered but he had moved closer as the night dragged on, facing what he would describe as his toughest decision yet.
"You're a bold one, I'll give you that," Harry said by way of greeting. "Do you really think it'll work?"
Daphne didn't reply, opting to instead take a seat next to him on the adjacent armchair. She allowed the crackling of the fire to be the sole sound in the room for a few minutes. A glance over told him that she was thinking, whether it was about his question or something entirely different he did not know.
"Do you want it to?" she asked abruptly. The look she gave him was confronting, that was all he needed to know about her stance on this matter.
He looked away with his brow furrowed, struggling to find an answer to the question he'd been pondering all night. "I don't know," he admitted finally, able to look her in the eyes to reply. 'I have killed before and the dark arts are no stranger but this… this is different.'
"I thought so," she muttered. She didn't seem to be happy with it but she had expected his hesitancy. "What part doesn't sit right?"
He knew she was there to convince him, her approach only confirmed it. She would identify why he didn't want to go ahead with the ritual and then circumvent whatever logic she needed to change his mind. He knew but he let it happen anyway.
"Tom Riddle and Harry Potter already share enough similarities, I could at least take solace in the fact I hadn't torn apart the natural order of things," he explained sullenly. He didn't want to discredit the work Daphne had put into finding a solution, though this was outsourced to Hermione, Daphne had been holding the whole effort together herself. "Not to mention the risk."
"Right, but you haven't launched a racist war on a nation nor have you brought terror and violence to innocent citizens. Remember, the dark arts are a–"
"A tool yes yes," Harry cut her off. "But this is beyond the dark arts, you read what Herpo wrote, it's not even meant for humanity."
"Herpo was a deranged wizard raised in a superstitious culture, if you showed him half of the magic we had now he'd call it 'godly power,' that's just how it was then," she argued reasonably.
"Even if that is true," Harry reasoned, "you have to admit that this is a cut above even the unforgivables."
Daphne nodded absently, her eyes diverting back to the fire when a log popped. "You're right," she allowed before returning her gaze back to him. "So what?"
"Excuse me?" Harry asked in confusion, not sure if heard her right.
"So. What," she reiterated strongly. "It all comes back to what you're willing to sacrifice, your life or your morality. When Umbridge rose up and began torturing kids, you lowered yourself to stop the threat. When Slughorn refused to give up the memory you sacrificed my own operation to get it out of him."
"I'm not sure either of those were fully me," he argued. Both times he had been heavily under the influence of the horcrux, or at least he speculated for Umbridge.
"And now," she swiftly replied, "do you regret how you handled things?"
"I don't have the time for regrets," he sourly reminded her.
She leaned back in her chair and spread her arms open wide, "without that ritual, you won't have time for anything."
"Thank you for reminding me what's at stake," he sarcastically sniped.
"Oh but I'm not done," she sharply remarked and she pointed a finger at him. "If you die, we lose. Now you might say that I would pick up the effort and I would but how many would flee when the boy who lived - dies? How many will stay to fight what will begin to look like a losing side?"
"You would prevail," Harry simply replied.
"Why?"
"Because you're you," he stated as though it was the most obvious thing on the planet.
"As sweet as that is, I haven't even been able to beat you in training and despite what the papers said, you were getting tossed around by Voldemort in the atrium."
'Harsh but true,' he acquiesced. A truth he had been actively avoiding in the past year. They had progressed so much and yet when he faced Voldemort the dark wizard merely laughed and threw him across the atrium, twice. But was mirroring Tom Riddle's journey the answer?
"I would be one step closer to him."
She reached across the space between the armchairs and took his hand in perhaps the most genuine gesture she had ever given him. "You could never be him."
"I don't think you understand how many similarities we share."
"It doesn't matter, there's one important difference that eliminates the chance of you becoming anything like him," she told him earnestly.
'Oh my is she going to pull a Dumbledore and tell me my capacity for love or some other such rubbish?'
"I'd kill you if it got too far."
'The fuck?'
Daphne's threatening glare did nothing to soothe his shock. He ripped his hand out from under her, "you what?"
She retracted her arm and leaned back comfortably. "What? You'd want me to let you go on a homicidal rampage?"
He raised his voice and said somewhat in a whiny tone, "you're meant to be consoling me not threatening my life!"
"I'm not here to coddle you," she argued nonchalantly, "I plan to be minister one day, it wouldn't do for me to allow a dark lord to rise in my country."
"You have a funny way of preventing that, handing me the darkest ritual on the planet and antagonising me don't seem like good preventative measures," Harry sourly returned.
She smiled wryly, something she didn't make a habit of doing from his time spent with her. "I'm going to miss this time together, you're so easy to rile up."
It all clicked at once, the way she switched her tune, picked at her nails absentmindedly and spoke as if the matter was already set in stone. He was ashamed to admit, to himself of course, that she had once again played him like a fiddle. "Stop manipulating me," Harry told her.
"The pleas of a dying man tend to fall on deaf ears," she said as though the notion brought her great sorrow.
"I'm not–" he started frustratedly before returning to a normal talking voice, "I'm not a dying man."
"No?" she queried with a raised eyebrow.
"No."
"The ritual…"
"We'll do the damned ritual," he grumbled, "if only I can return to humbling you on the training room floor."
A wide, real smile rose on her face, one of the most beautiful things he had seen in his experienced life. The apprehension and tension from earlier washed away and he got slightly light headed as he stood up. She stood with him and the two moved slowly into an embrace. It was awkward at first, neither were particularly used to this wholesome kind of intimacy, their week together being one of passion.
"I don't give these out often Potter," she whispered into his shoulder. Her reverting back to his last name, a clear sign of her own awkwardness.
"Then I am honoured, Daphne," he whispered back. He closed his eyes and melted into her arms enjoying this new kind of feeling that he simply could not get enough of.
When they eventually separated, Daphne spoke first. "I'm going to head to Snape's storerooms, see if he has any of the ingredients we need for the ritual."
Not one to argue against stealing from Snape, Harry grinned and nodded. "A noble mission."
She snorted and began to collect her things. As she was piling things into her arms or bag, Harry caught a glimpse of her robes on the back of the armchair. The embroidered Slytherin iconography sparking an idea in his mind.
"Wait," he said, "Snape's stores can wait, there's something we need to do first." She looked at him oddly so he elaborated slightly, "I'm going to show you exactly where I found those scrolls."
June 7th
6:46am
Hogwarts Castle
Daphne
'Thank Merlin that worked,' she thought in relief. For a moment she had believed that Harry would not be convinced no matter what.
She understood his hesitancy, truly, but life should always come first if it can. When she thought about it, the ritual wasn't even inherently terrible. Sure he had to kill someone he hated but, the only people he hates are genuinely terrible people. There is of course the dilemma of violating the laws of the universe but if all went well, he would only expel the parasite into a container to be destroyed at a later date, leaving his own soul and mortality intact.
She realised he may have thought she wanted him to create a horcrux so that he could be resurrected after he died which would explain a higher degree of reluctance. She couldn't ask him now though, as they descended the moving staircases to the third no second floor.
"You're about to live every Slytherin's dream," he teased her.
She said nothing, refusing to give him any ground. He strode purposefully down the corridor towards what she knew to be Myrtle's bathroom, the place she used to lose him when she tailed him.
"You came here to hide?"
He looked at her funnily and said, "not entirely."
She followed him into the haunted bathroom and kept her guard up. Too often a younger student would come in here and leave covered in toilet water. 'Thankfully there are spells for errant ghosts and ghouls, spells I'd be all too happy to try on the whining witch.'
She turned to look down the stalls and heard a faint hissing sound behind her. This sound was followed by the more jarring sound of stone scraping against stone. She turned around and saw the sinks in front of Harry, part, revealing a passage of sorts going downwards.
"What am I looking at?" she asked him.
She received naught but a smile and a motion to step down. On the off chance it was a trap she commanded the wand on her wrist to enter her hand but still slowly stepped towards the entrance. The entrance made way into a steep tunnel, one that she could not see an end too.
"Go on, I'll be right behind you," she heard from behind her. He wasn't generally cryptic which made the whole ordeal more interesting.
"If this is some juvenile attempt to continue your father's legacy I will be sorely disappointed," she warned him. His smile remained and he doubled down on indicating for her to go down the slide. At this point, she just wanted to know where this was going, especially because it was important enough to halt preparations for the ritual.
She took a deep breath and a step forward, into the opening. The effect of gravity was instant and she felt herself gaining speed as she spun down the stone slide. The wind rushed past her as she descended and all she could see was the dark.
The slope began to plateau and she braced herself for the next part. The tunnel turned into a small room with a stone floor, a floor which she slid across for a moment before coming to a stop in front of a larger tunnel.
"Well done," she heard Harry say behind her. She turned and saw him dismount his broom and shrink it to fit in his pocket. As Daphne had promised, she gave Harry a disappointed stare whilst he walked past her. "C'mon I'll make it up to you."
Daphne followed him into the larger tunnel, lit by torches on the walls, until they reached a dead end. The floor was hidden by piles of rubble lying about everywhere, a sight that gave her pause, concerned for the structural integrity of this obviously ancient structure.
She heard Harry clear his throat which made her look up, finding that the dead end wasn't a dead end at all but rather a doorway. The door itself was huge and decorated with large winding snakes, the first and only clue she needed to deduce where they were.
"Harry…"
She heard him hiss something to her left and with her eyes still glued to the door she watched the snakes retract into it, a new stone snake circling the retracting ones. With a heavy metallic clink, the door swung open slowly revealing a much larger space than the one they were in.
'Merlin's beard…'
"Welcome… to the chamber of secrets," Harry declared mildly dramatically.
The shadow obscuring the larger room faded as ethereal green torches lit up down what looked to be a bridge. She paid Harry no mind, too eager to enter the fabled halls of Salazar Slytherin. She climbed down the ladder into the chamber and walked across the bridge towards the huge sculpted head at the far end. She was certain a look of wonder had overtaken her face, after all, this was the lost chamber of Salazar Slytherin, if anything was going to make her emote it was this.
"I had the basilisk removed," Harry told her, having kept up with her brisk walk, "it had started to smell and took up too much space.'
"You stayed down here?"
"For a time," Harry confirmed casually as she strode closer to the head statue, the face of what she assumed to be Salazar in an unreadable expression. "The room of requirement soon outclassed it though. It only became useful again when I had to isolate myself."
That reminded her of the reason they were here in the first place. "This is where you found the scrolls? How were they not water damaged?" The room was riddled with puddles from the pools from either side of the bridge and below the statue, not to mention she couldn't see a single place to store the parchment.
The cheeky smile from the bathroom returned and he walked past her to stand in the middle of the chamber's floor. "Speak to me Slytherin's, greatest of the Hogwarts four!"
Daphne watched with interest as Harry stepped to the side. The floor in front of where he spoke shimmered away, unveiling a staircase that descended to an old wooden door.
'Chamber of secrets indeed… why bother with the door though?' she mused, wondering why Salazar Slytherin would need another barrier for his top secret chamber. "You continue to be more interesting each day, Harry."
"Thank you," he returned as he asked down the stairs, not before beckoning her to follow him. The door opened easily enough, adding to her confusion of its use, and they stepped into what looked like an old office fused with a library. "Morning!" he called out, which caused Daphne to go on guard, another person down here was not something she had considered and who else would he share this secret with?
"Is that you boy?" a surly voice called out from behind a bookshelf. Harry turned around and gave her another smile, an encouraging one this time and continued further into the shelves lined with texts and scrolls. She followed him and rounded a corner to discover a sort of seating area with an ornately carved fireplace. Resting on the top of the fireplace was a portrait of a man long gone from the world — Salazar Slytherin. "A girl? Tom never brought a girl down here… how did you manage to gain her attention?" the old man said when he noticed her.
"Pay no mind to his snide remarks, he's still sore about me killing his pet basilisk," Harry whispered to her before addressing the portrait. "An unnatural amount of luck," he said, answering the question then began making greetings, "Salazar Slytherin, meet Daphne Greengrass, my most trusted confidante and friend."
"A pleasure Miss Greengrass," Salazar greeted, bowing his bald head, his long beard scraping the floor of his portrait. "You on the other hand," he began, turning back to Harry, "have you returned to sulk some more?"
"No," Daphne replied for Harry, "we're here for answers." As fascinating as Salazar Slytherin being right in front of her was, she much more cared for the knowledge he could impart to help them. Ever the pragmatist.
"She's right," Harry confirmed as he reached into his bag and pulled free the original script of Herpo's notes and showed them to Salazar, "recognise these?"
Salazar grumbled but took a look at them all the same, "indeed I do," the portrait affirmed, "Herpon's original ritual to create a horcrux, volatile and costly." Salazar was putting up a front of arrogance but she could detect a hint of hesitation in the way he spoke.
"How authentic is it?" Harry questioned, attempting to cover all bases before he had a crack at a soul altering ritual.
"As authentic as it gets," Slytherin hotly shot back, "I travelled to Greece myself to recover his documents. He too hid in a lair protected by parseltongue and protected himself with all manner of unnatural beasts."
"Yeah because who would do that?" Harry sarcastically jabbed. Before Slytherin could retaliate, Harry continued his interrogation, "does it work, the ritual?"
"It worked for Herpon," Slytherin answered evasively.
Harry ran a hand through his hair and said, "how do you know? Did you find his horcrux?"
"No. The horcrux Herpon made was destroyed a thousand years before I got to his lair," Salazar informed him.
"Then how could you know it actually worked?" Harry pushed, genuinely confused as to how such a frugal man could be so sure of something if he didn't see it himself.
"Harry," Daphne began in an inquisitive tone, "doesn't Voldemort call himself the heir of Slytherin?"
"He does," Harry answered, not understanding where she was going.
"And he was the one to open the chamber, in the thirties and in second year?"
"Also correct,"
"Then it wouldn't be a stretch to say," Daphne theorised, staring at Slytherin's in disgust, "that Tom Riddle learnt how to create a horcrux with your help." Salazar wrung his hands together and flicked his eyes side to side, the snake on his shoulder coiled down and hid behind the founder's robes. "He knows the Horcruxes work because he's seen Tom Riddle make one, maybe even more than one."
Harry's gaze turned accusatory but thankfully not enraged. "I am bound to serve my heirs, no matter their endeavours," Salazar explained bitterfully, "one of the many oversights of my final days."
"Old men and their mistakes," Harry muttered to himself, just loud enough for her to hear. "What can you tell us about his Horcruxes then?"
Once again Salazar became sorrowful, "nothing I'm afraid, I have been refused to speak of them until the end of time."
'A boon hidden beneath the curse,' Daphne realised, "with your help, Tom Riddle has turned himself into a quasi immortal." Salazar did seem genuinely troubled by the news but that mattered not for Daphne had better use for him then pity. "How would you like to make the same mistake twice?"
He looked up in surprise then back and forth between Harry and Daphne before speaking incredulously, "you will not right his wrongs with the same wrongs of your own."
"No, we won't, but I can't right the wrongs if I'm dead either," Harry countered. "The night I was attacked in my home, a fragment of his fractured soul latched onto me, I need it gone and we think this will do just that," he said, patting the bag where the translated ritual was resting.
Salazar switched from outrage to intrigue almost immediately, the scholar in him outweighing the idealist heavily. With the change in mood, Daphne summoned two chairs from the side of the room and used a mild air charm to dust them off.
"There is no academic precedent for this," Salazar warned as Harry and Daphne took a seat, "but the theory holds merit."
"How so?" Daphne prompted, eager to get underway if there was a good chance of success.
"The three things known about the nature of horcruxes is their ability to manipulate those around them, their need for magical energy to thrive and their intense desire to be corporeal," Salazar recounted.
"We've seen as much," Harry noted.
Salazar seemed to understand that meant that they had found some of Tom's and he nodded his head, "good. Considering you haven't been overpowered by the soul component, a marvel in itself, one can deduce that the soul fragment is too weak to pose a threat in the separation process and can not exercise its manipulative power."
"It can," Harry shared, "there have been times where it has… influenced my behaviour. When I give in to rage and anger or if I think about trying to remove it."
"Does it make you more violent? Egotistical? Sadistic?"
Harry gulped and nodded, "more like him."
"But you fought it back?" Salazar asked with amazement in his voice.
Daphne had no eyes for him, focusing on Harry himself and sharing the pain he felt having to relive his most trying experiences. Almost instinctively she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, to which he turned and met her gaze gratefully, pulling his arm across his chest and laying his own hand on hers.
"With help," he said in a stronger voice than before, answering Salazar's question.
"Remarkable," Salazar muttered. "If you have resisted Tom's, admittedly strong, will power all this time then you stand a good chance of coming out unscathed. I imagine your plan before was merely to kill yourself to get rid of it?"
Harry nodded again and she gave his shoulder a small squeeze for support which he returned for her hand in thanks.
"No wonder it became defensive," Salazar told them, "with that plan, its destruction was inevitable and it was likely thrashing about like a cornered animal, trying to gain control. Let me ask you this - have you had to tame the abomination at any point during this conversation?"
"No…" Harry trailed off, only just now realising that.
"Just as I thought," Salazar expressed, Daphne could hear the self pride in his voice, "with this plan, there is at least a chance of the fragment becoming corporeal once more, where before, there was none."
She watched Harry go contemplative, weighing the risks and rewards she guessed. But she needed no such process, she knew this would be attempted and she knew it would work, sediments that had her fighting to not break out into a full grin.
"The ritual," Harry started again, "it will work?"
"It will work," Salazar assured him, "you will need to translate the Doric into English to understand the intent first but speak the words in Ancient Greek when actually performing the ritual."
"Why?"
"The ritual is an old and complicated one, with the sheer amount of magic involved it's important to stay focused on the task at hand," Salazar informed them, "just as we teach novices incantations before non verbal magic, it helps focus the practitioner's mind solely on what they're casting."
"I understand," Harry assured him, "we have the translated notes already but I will need your help to annunciation the ancient versions."
"You can count on it," Salazar pledged. The portrait man stood a little taller when he said so and Daphne imagined he felt much better giving aid to something he believed in rather than Tom Riddle's machinations. "This is all a moot point without the necessary ingredients, however."
"We'll be able to… locally source some of them," Daphne evasively spoke, unwilling to use the word steal, "the rest I can have discretely imported."
"That's good," Salazar said slowly, "but that's not what I was talking about…" Daphne felt stupid, the most crucial component had been wholly ignored their entire discussion. The choice of who would die so that Harry could live, she could already foresee the complications from Harry's conscience. "You will need to generate a significant amount of malice as I'm sure you know."
"I know," Harry breathed out. "I… haven't decided yet."
"I feel it is my duty to point out it does not need to be an innocent person and, from what you've told me, there are several people in your life that would be sufficient," Salazar said. The way the snake acted in accordance to its master's emotions fascinated Daphne as Salazar spoke. When the man was nervous it hid, when he was heated it would rise up in attack position and when he was contemplative it snaked around him slowly.
'To be a parselmouth,' she wistfully imagined. Her fantasies returned to the back of her mind and she turned to Harry to see his eyes unfocused. 'I do wonder who he's put first, Bellatrix, Voldemort, Snape, he doesn't want for options.'
"We've got time," she interjected. Harry was being put on the spot slightly and if she could give him some time to cool off and think it would do him wonders. "I've still got to find all the ingredients and he needs to learn Ancient Greek."
Salazar caught on quickly, showcasing his Slytherin intuition, "too right, neither will be simple tasks. At least now, you can move forward with a solid plan."
Daphne cast a grateful look at the portrait and stood. "We have to go, there's much to prepare and think about."
Harry stood instinctively with her and found himself in the midst of a farewell. "Uh right," he jumbled, coming back to the present from his clouded mind, "thank you for your help Salazar."
"Consider it payment for bringing company of better quality," Salazar charmingly replied.
"I can't argue with that," he agreed, amused. "I will be down here tomorrow to start learning the right phrases."
"I eagerly await your arrival, my heir," Salazar with a bow.
Daphne and Harry left the office and he resized the broom back to its normal length. It was a tight fit, but they both got on and Harry started a slow ascent through the chamber ceiling. As the concealment charms gave way and they continued their climb through a narrow ravine, Daphne could make out the morning sky, cloudless and orange with the sunrise. With a small prayer, she thanked whatever deity had given them a chance and asked for the strength to follow through.
A/N: Okayyyy so some of you had questions with last chapter's reveal and I just want to say I so enjoy the speculation and theories that pop up. I can think of no better way to show that people are actually engaged with my story and that is a wonderful feeling.
I think Harry can be excused for not being 100% down with the ritual from the get go. The Black family Grimoire and Dumbledore have been hammering into him that these magical devices are horrible and the act of making them is an extremely dark activity. But it really does boil down to how much he wants to live. Would canon Harry do it? Probably not. But my Harry has already succumbed to the seductive ease the dark arts brings and with Dumbledore's speculation that the victim needs to be innocent proven wrong… well what's the natural of order of things weighed against his life?
As I'm sure you've noticed, I've been leaning into the more deliberate side of things for this story. Harry surfing is a result of Lily's blood magic and the horcrux creation process is a ritual not just murdering someone. I think some of J.K's explanations are a bit of a cop out to make a children's book less complicated and I'd rather Voldemort's evil be planned rather than an accident.
I hope my explanation of horcrux Harry has been consistent with the clues I've left throughout the story. I've been dropping hints about the horcrux and it's growing strength for ages and Salazar's theory about the suicide vs ritual plan was hinted at just last chapter. I've used horcrux Harry as a device to move the horcrux plot along, by making it noticeable in ATFW (OotP) and prevalent in ATFS (HBP) it makes it much easier to develop a proper build up the final instalment. Where J.K could have the horcux hunt be the main focus of her last book, I can't, there's way too much stuff planned for that one to have Harry running around the countryside.
Salazar returns! I know some of you were wondering when that one appearance in chapter three of the first book would become relevant again… here you go! In all honesty, when I was writing the first one I forgot all about him and in planning the second item I had to find a way to make him useful. I had actually planned to have him tell Harry that Tom was planning to make six Horcruxes with his original soul as number seven but then Slughorn would be irrelevant and there was too much juicy stuff there.
Fun fact: I Want to Live was the original name for ATFW
Next chapter: Rediscoveries
Hope you all enjoyed :)
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