Salazar's thoughts are always going to be '...' so, if you see only those, with no indication as to who is thinking, it's automatically his. All other thoughts have indication.

I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, Harry would definitely be in Slytherin.

Chapter Three, Year One: The Midnight Duel (finally)

'All the same, it wasn't what you'd call the perfect end to the day.' Of course, it would've been better if he had been allowed to kill the little piece of dragon dung, but then, he'd end up in Azkaban, and that just wouldn't be good. Salazar snorted when he remembered the conversation.

Flashback

"So, have any good tips on dueling?" Salazar asked Ron.

"Well, if he tries to curse you, you'd better dodge it, because I can't remember how to block them." Salazar resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Sometimes he wished that he had been Sorted into Ravenclaw; it never ceased to amaze Salazar how totally ignorant Ron was at magic. He shuddered to think of how little Muggleborns knew. Salazar opened his mouth to say, "To block fatal curses, simply trace the Egyptian ankh in the air, and give a mental 'push'." But Salazar was able to stop himself in time. 'Of course, that was over a thousand years ago. I don't want to push my luck anymore today.'

Ron looked at him weirdly. Salazar mentally berated himself for letting his thoughts wander so much.

"What were you going to say?" Ron prompted Salazar.

"Well, I was just wondering, since the Malfoys were involved with You- Know-Who, wouldn't Malfoy know some Dark Arts stuff?" Salazar asked, while mentally starting to roll his eyes. He stopped about half way through, and decided that he had done enough mental rolling for one day. He then remembered that Hogwarts was warded and that the wards would realize if any Dark Arts was being practiced without express permission from the Headmaster, an alarm would sound, or the school would try to kill him, etc. His bout of forgetfulness made Salazar want to hit himself in the head, but he decided it would look very odd if he, out of nowhere, decided to hit himself.

Ron furrowed his brow. That was one thing he had never thought of. Malfoy could very easily curse Harry with some powerful Dark Arts curse. But then, he would go Azkaban! But wait, Malfoy's dad was on the Hogwarts council. Shit. But then again, Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived; if Malfoy's father were to do that, that would be taken as an out right attack on the Wizarding World. Feeling justified, Ron said, "He couldn't do that. If were to do that, he'd get into some deep trouble."

End of flashback

And so, after waiting a few hours and doing more homework than the two thought humanly possible with out going insane, Ron finally muttered, "Half-past eleven, we'd better go." They pulled on their bathrobes, picked up their wands, and crept across the tower room, down the spiral staircase, and into the Gryffindor common room.

Salazar's gut instinct told him not to go downstairs. Of course, it wouldn't be seemly if the Gryffindor Golden Boy was to chicken out. In Salazar's mind it was far to early to be sneaking about, for a few insomniacs could be wandering around the halls, and prefects, of course. It just wouldn't do for Malfoy to have yet another thing to rub into his face...not that he cared, it was just annoying.

Salazar was soon proven correct about his assumption when, when the two were so close to the portrait hole, a voice spoke from the chair nearest them, "I can't believe you're going to do this Harry."

A lamp flickered on. It was Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown. Suddenly, Salazar experienced a weird sense of déjà vu, and had a faint recollection of this very scene playing out in front of his dorm mates in Durmstrang...Salazar shook off the memory quickly, now wasn't the time.

"You!" said Ron furiously. "Go back to bed!"

"I almost told your brother," Hermione snapped, "Percy-he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this." 'But of course you didn't. you would like nothing better than to see Malfoy get knocked off his high horse,' Salazar thought.

"Come on," Salazar said to Ron. He pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbed through the hole.

Hermione wasn't going to give up that easily. She followed Ron through the portrait hole, hissing like an angry goose. 'Or a snake,' Salazar thought, absentmindedly.

"Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves, I don't want Slytherin to win the house cup, and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells." 'Do you really think I care about that stupid cup?! I care more about my pride! Besides, it is completely overrated. Winning the cup is supposed to symbolize that one House is better than the others! That is definitely not true. Each House has its own unique qualities. So, in essence, they're all great in their own right. And now I shall stop my internal ramblings. I'm giving myself a headache!'

"Go away!" ' Oh, nicely put Ron, couldn't have done it better myself.'

"Alright, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so-"

But what they were, they didn't find out. Hermione had turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady to get back inside and found herself facing an empty painting. The Fat Lady had gone on a nighttime visit and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor tower. 'How convenient.'

"Now what am I going to do?" she asked shrilly. 'Well, duh! You're going to do exactly what Aunt Petunia always did in one of these situations. You're going to follow us, and perhaps, if you were in Slytherin, use that information against us sometime later. Nosy little Mu...ggleborn, aren't you?'

"That's you're problem," said Ron. "We've got to go, we're going to be late."

They hadn't even reached the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with them.

"I'm coming with you," she said. 'As if that wasn't apparent.' Now, he couldn't use any of the almost illegal curses that he wanted to. 'Why in the seven hells did the girl have to know so much?!?! WHY?!?!'

"You are not." Salazar protested.

"Do you think that I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up." 'What'd I tell you? I knew she was going to use this information against us! I just knew it! And what makes her think that, even if Filch believes her, that we'll back her up?! Hey, if Ron and I are going to go down, then we'll take YOU down with us!'

"You've got some nerve-" said Ron loudly. Salazar wanted to smack himself. Could Ron get any louder?! Great, he was stuck in the middle of a corridor, with two idiots. It was probably a scene out of one of Filch's dreams. 'And my nightmares.'

"Shut up both of you!" said Salazar sharply. "I heard something." 'Thank the gods! THAT shut the two up!' Suddenly there was a snuffling sound. Salazar tensed up, reaching into his robes, ready to cast a Sacer Poena. [One day when Salazar was in the library, he found a very old text that had somehow escaped being put into the Restricted Section after it had been taken out. So, of course, Salazar smuggled it out of the Library and into the Gryffindor dormitories. It had turned out to be a book on several dark curses that ought to have been made illegal, but were somehow able to escape be jotted down by the person whose job it was to do so in the Ministry. Fortunately, they were all spells that Salazar knew, so practicing them out wasn't necessary (A/N: As stated before, Dumbledore's wards on the castle would've detected the spells). What was unlucky was that, on the back flap, written among the various other names of students who had taken the book out over the years was Tom Riddle. Oh joy]

"Mrs. Norris?" breathed Ron, squinting through the dark.

It wasn't Mrs. Norris. It was Neville. He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerked suddenly awake as they crept nearer. 'Well, I wasn't actually expecting someone when I told them to shut up.' Salazar thought with wry amusement.

"Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours, I couldn't remember the new password to get into bed."

"Keep you're voice down, Neville. The password's 'Pig Snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere." 'Finally, the first sensible thing she's said! And now, we have a good alibi. We could say that we went to look for Neville, and Hermione tried to stop us, which she actually did, and got pulled along. Yes! It's almost perfect!'

"How's your arm?" asked Salazar.

"Fine," said Neville, showing them. "Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."

"Good-well look, Neville, we've got to be somewhere, we'll see you later-" 'Real tactful Ron.'

"Don't leave me!" said Neville, scrambling to his feet, "I don't want to stay here, the Bloody Baron's been past twice already." 'Ah, so my old cousin Dracula has been looking for me. There is, after all, no other reasonable explanation for why he's all the way up here instead of down in the dungeons. Ghosts don't usually patrol the halls. That's a job for the prefects, unless, of course, Death Eaters attack the castle or something, and even then, House ghosts usually stay on the floor their House is...'

Ron looked at his watch and then glared furiously at Hermione. This was all show, considering the fact that, since his father was obsessed about everything Muggle, he gave Ron a Muggle watch, so the watch had stopped at 5:43 AM.

"If either of you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Boogies Quirrel told us about, and use it on you."

Salazar felt like rolling his eyes, but, since he had taken an oath against doing it for the rest of the night, he contented himself with his cynical thoughts that went something along the line of 'Why waste your energy on such a measly curse? I know one that can turn Wizarding folk into squibs!'

Hermione opened her mouth, probably to tell Ron exactly how to use the Curse of the Boogies, but Salazar hissed at her to be quiet and beckoned them all forward.

They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn Salazar expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, (and very nearly cursed Hogwarts into oblivion whenever he saw their shadows) but they were lucky. They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed to the trophy room.

Malfoy and Crabbe weren't there yet. They crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room. Salazar finally took out his wand. To all others, it might've been because he believed that Malfoy could be hiding in a dark corner, waiting for the right time to strike when Salazar's back was turned. But that, of course, would've been in direct violation to all dueling etiquette, and then everything usually illegal in a duel would be legal, like ganging up on people...but in all actuality, Salazar had his wand out in case a lone wanna be Death Eater was lurking around, trying to gain favor with the old relics sitting around from the last dark-light war. The minutes crept by.

"He's late, maybe he's chickened out," Ron whispered. That particular comment almost made Salazar burst out laughing. This is what the brave house of lions was reduced to? A whimpering child afraid of a weakling half- trained wizard? Well, okay, even Salazar had to confess to the fact that Malfoy would become one of the more powerful wizards, and that he, Salazar, had the expertise of a lifetime, literally, but still...Salazar smirked. He had something to goad Gryffindor with when he died again.

Suddenly, a noise sounded from the next room. All of them jumped, and Neville whimpered. Salazar raised his wand. Perhaps Malfoy had alerted his father to the fact that he had gotten "Harry" and a few other Gryffindors out on their own at night. Then again maybe not. Lucius Malfoy probably wasn't that stupid, but then again, if brains were hereditary, then...Draco had to get his stupidity from somewhere. Salazar realized who it was when he heard someone speak.

"Sniff around my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."

It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Salazar paled with annoyance (he just naturally didn't seem to able to blush much). That little quivering coward! Malfoy was worse than Neville! No wonder his House had a bad rep!

Salazar gestured for the other three to follow him as quickly as possible. He'd be damned if he spent his spare time hanging from the ceiling in the dungeon, prowling the Forbidden Forest, or polishing trophies in the trophy room.

Everyone, probably thinking along the same lines, hurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice. Neville's robes had barely whipped around the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room. Salazar cursed under his breath. That had been a close call.

"They're in here somewhere," they heard him mutter, "probably hiding."

"This way!" Salazar urgently, and silently, mouthed to the others, and slowly, cautiously, and in some cases petrified(edly), they began to creep down a long gallery of suits of armor. Salazar could've blasted Godric. Gryffindor just HAD to have all of these suits of armor from absolutely ALL of his defeated opponents. As they rounded a corner, slightly faster now, for Filch was gaining slightly, Salazar saw one of his suits on display. He had the urge to take it with him. At the same time, Neville let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run-he tripped, grabbed Ron around the waist, and the pair of them toppled right into HIS suit of armor[1]. Salazar fumed quietly.

The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

Salazar panicked, kind of. "RUN!" he yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see if Filch was following- they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another. Salazar was in the lead, heading toward the one place he knew no one would look for them. They ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom.

"I think we've lost them," Salazar panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead. He knew he shouldn't stop in the middle of a corridor, but he was just so damn tired...and it didn't seem as if Filch was chasing them anymore...did he mention that he was tired?

"I-told-you," Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, "I-told-you." 'Yes, you did tell us. Around a hundred times actually, so save those breaths for when you need it. Like when you receive an E on your OWLs.'

"We've got to get back to Gryffindor tower, said Ron, "quickly as possible." Salazar was about to say, "Best thing I've heard all night.", when Hermione suddenly stated, "Malfoy tricked you," to Salazar. Salazar actually rolled his eyes this time, in real life, realized what he did, and nervously scanned around to see if anyone noticed. None did.

"You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you-Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off." Salazar resisted saying anything un-Gryffindorish. What was literally dying to get out was, "Slytherins aren't cowards, we just know when to quit. Unlike others, we actually HAVE self-preservation instincts. Besides, pride plays a big part of our decisions. He and his goons would've met us, Filch probably caught them, and in order to try to save his own hide, he probably told Filch of the duel." But it didn't, and Salazar was hopeful that it didn't show on his face either.

"Let's go."

Evidently, Salazar's karma was acting up (or down, depends on how you interpreted it), and things weren't going to be a breeze. They hadn't gone ten paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.

It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight. Salazar's eyes narrowed, he didn't need this tonight. Peeves, being dead, was able to read Salazar's aura, and what he found was one not befitting a Gryffindor boy. It was akin to Tom Riddle's when he was still in school. And that clinched the idea to give into Potter's wishes. At least eventually; he still wanted to mess with their heads.

"Shut up, Peeves-please-you'll get us thrown out."

Peeves cackled.

"Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."

"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves," Salazar threatened, realized his mistake, and added a please to the end.

"Should tell Filch, I should," said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered in what some would call a wicked way, but others might call a slightly frightened way. "It's for your own good, you know."

"Get out of the way," snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves. Ron looked slightly insane, or hyper, or incredibly tired, but his eyes were bloodshot and he wasn't blinking much. Of course, trying to attack a ghost was stupid, trying to attack Peeves when he could get you in trouble was simply retarded.

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellowed, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS COORIDOR!"

Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, or in some cases their academic career, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door-and it was locked. Salazar felt like slapping Ron upside the head.

"This is it!" Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door, "We're done for, this is the end!" 'I can NOT believe that this is Godric's House. Well, actually, I CAN believe, it's just too unbelievable for me to believe yet though. You know, Salazar, talking to oneself is considered the first step into madness...oh well.'

They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeve's shouts.

"Oh, move over," Hermione snarled. She grabbed Salazar's wand, tapped the lock, and whispered "Alohomora!"

The lock clicked and the door swung open-they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it listening.

"Which way did they go Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."

"Say 'please'."

"Don't mess with me Peeves, now where did they go?"

"Shan't say nothing is you don't say please," said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.

"All right-please."

"NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa" And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away, and Filch cursing in rage. 'Ah, the power of double negatives.'

"He thinks this door is locked," Salazar whispered. "I think we'll be okay-get off, Neville!" For Neville had been tugging on the sleeve of Salazar's bathrobe for the last minute. "What?"

Salazar turned around-and saw quite clearly, what. 'NOOO! I don't want to go back to the afterlife! You can't make me! I happen to enjoy eating and breathing and other mortal habits!'

They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling mad eyes; three noses; twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs. 'Please don't eat me; please don't eat me; NO!' [2] Ron repeated the mantra in his head. 'It's Cerberus! No, wait, why would King Enma just lend out his guard dog like that? What the hell is this thing, then?!'

Whatever it was, it was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Salazar knew that the only reason they weren't dead yet was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant. 'Especially since I've had upfront, unpleasant and personal experiences with dogs in this state.'

Salazar groped for the doorknob-between Filch and death, he'd take Filch.

They fell backward-Salazar slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere , but they hardly cared-all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster. They didn't stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.

"Where on earth have you all been?" she asked, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces. 'I know what you're thinking, you perverted portrait, and I can tell you now that we weren't having some orgy somewhere. Now stop looking at us like that!'

"Never mind that-pig snout, pig snout," panted Harry, and the portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs.

It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed, looked as if he'd never speak again. 'Or blink again for that matter.'

"What do they think they're doing, keeping something like that lock up in a school?" said Ron finally. "If any dogs needs exercise, that one does." 'Well, I think the Headmaster's finally gone completely insane, but I don't believe that's a statement you wish to hear..."

Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again.

"You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped 'Well, I don't know, do we? Do you SEE us walking around aimlessly and into walls? No? Good!' "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"

"The floor?" Salazar suggested, in a sarcastic tone that none of them seemed to catch. "I wasn't -looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."

"No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something."

She stood up, glaring at them.

"I hope your pleased with yourselves. We could've all been killed-or worse expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed." 'No, I don't believe we'd mind at all. We'd welcome it with opened arms, you presumptuous misplaced Ravenclaw.'

Ron stared after her, open mouth open.

"No, we don't mind," he said. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?"

But Hermione had given Salazar something else to think about besides his own sarcastic thoughts about how the entirety of the female population was nuts. The dog was guarding something...What had Hagrid said? Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide-except perhaps Hogwarts.

It looked as though Salazar had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

A/N; Yes, I know, this chapter took a very, very, very, very long time to be typed, and for me to post it. Sorry about that. And, yeah, there were a lot of, probably/mostly unnecessary 'Salazar' thoughts, but if I hadn't included them, the whole thing would've simply been a rewrite of the first book.

[1]: Salazar didn't lose a sword duel to Godric, the reason that the armor was on display was because he was a Founder. And, yes, when he left the school, he would've brought it with him, but just play along, here. Please?

[2]:Yeah, that little 'Ron' thought originally came from YYH during the Dark Tournament finals when Hiei summoned the Dragon against Bui. Ron just struck me as a Kuwabura type person. Also, the phrase just seemed appropriate for the situation.

R&R!