A/N: my dears! I'm so sorry for no updates lately. But! I'm making it all better! I'm updating. Grimmy, you better go update too!
The Cap'n's guide to her writing--
"C is for cookie, and that's good enough for me!" -Talking
C is for cookie, and that's good enough for me!. –Thoughts or stressed words.
::C is for cookie, and that's good enough for me!::-Parsletongue
C is for cookie, and that's good enough for me! – book text
C is for cookie, and that's good enough for me!" –Memories/Dreams
-----
Salazar watched as Harold slipped through the floor, off to do whatever ghosts did. "I just had to make him mad didn't I?" Salazar asked himself as he made the long trek down to the dungeons. "He may have been able to tell me a short-cut to the dungeons."
-----
Harry was currently floating in the rafters of the potion lab. He had no idea where Salazar was, but he needed another page turned. "Go figure, I need something and the man is no where to be found. He needs something, and I'm always conveniently right next to him." He growled, glaring at the page. "Damn it! TURN!" he yelled at the book, frustrated and sick and tired of reading the same page yet again. To his utter amazement, the page turned. Just like it did when he had been able to flip pages. Or when Salazar turned them for him. "How did I do that?"
"Looks like magic to me." Salazar mocked from the door. He had been in the hall when he had heard the mutterings from the open lab door. He had seen Harold's fit and had about gone to help the ghost, when the page turned. He hid his shock behind logic and sarcasm. Something he did quite well.
Harry scowled angrily. "If you're just going to mock me, I don't have to stay for this. You're on your own today." He groused, slipping up through the rafters until his luminescent body was gone.
"Damn you," Salazar hissed at the ceiling. He moved to the book that other had been reading and raised a brow in interest. Sure he turned the pages for the man, and hadn't questioned how it had gotten in his lab, but he never actually looked at what the ghost was getting into. Body Rituals and Blood, well that was interesting. "What are you up to my foul tempered friend?" he murmured in thought, marking the spot in the book and moving to his cauldron.
-----
"I need stuff," Harry said, popping up next to Helga from the floor.
"Oh my!" she squealed when he appeared, a hand instantly going to her fluttering heart.
Harry bit his lip as he guiltily waited for the kindest of the founders to calm down. "I'm sorry Helga," he mumbled.
"It's quite all right dear." She calmed down once more and looked at Harry. "Now what do you need?" her head was already aching with the effort it took to control her gift and not pass out.
"I need some stuff for something me and Salazar are doing."
"What is it you need?" she questioned once more.
Harry nervously bit his lip once more. "I need a soul stone, a goat, and a dead body. A fresh wizard's corpse if possible." He rattled off quickly.
Helga blinked at the rather odd ingredient list. "For what?" she questioned slowly.
"Stuff," Harry mumbled.
"What sort of 'stuff'?" her headache started to throb.
"Are you going to help me, or am I going to have to bribe Salazar with something extravagant for a lousy goat and dead body?"
"What about the soul stone?" she questioned, wondering over the young man's sanity.
"I know where that is. I just need someone to pick it up for me." He said snootily.
Helga massaged her temples, feeling the headache start to stab at her mind. "I'll help." She muttered. "You have to find where these things are, and then tell me where they are so I can get them."
"Done deal! I'll be back later." He disappeared through the floor.
"God only knows how Salazar puts up with him," Helga mumbled, wondering what she had gotten herself in to. "I just volunteered to desecrate a grave yard and a body," she stared at the wall in astonishment as she finally registered just what had been asked for.
-----
Salazar stared at the book, stunned by what he was reading. "You crack-pot!" he roared at no one in particular.
"You shouting for someone?" Harry appeared next to Salazar, looking rather pleased with himself.
"What the hell do you think you're reading?"
"Nothing at the moment. Though I was reading that book you're currently waving about like a flag."
"You smart-ass." Salazar hissed at the ghost. "Do you know how many laws you've broken by just reading this?"
"Ghost," Harry pointed to himself, smirking. He then continued, "Do you know how many laws we're going to break by the time we're through with that book?"
Salazar blinked, not used to being volunteered for something by someone else. "'We'? What is this "we" you're talking about?" he demanded.
"We, as in you and myself, are going to get me my body back."
"I will do no such thing."
"What! Why?" Harry had thought the other man's curiosity would overcome the danger of having a death sentence hanging over their heads if caught. Well, only Salazar's if one wanted to be technical, because Harry himself was already dead.
"I don't want to die." Salazar explained simply.
Harry hung his head as he desperately tried to think of a way to get the touchy man to do this for him. "A pity then," he drawled, looking up at Salazar with hooded eyes.
"What?" he didn't like the look the ghost was giving him.
"Helga left an hour ago to get me a goat and a dead body. All I needed was for you to perform the magic and get a soul stone from the Chamber of Secrets for me."
Salazar stared. A stared some more. "You roped Helga into all of this?" he decided that it was a good time to stare some more. Of all the time he had known Helga, he had never managed to rope her into doing something as dishonorable as grave robbing. He was almost jealous and close to demanding how Harold had managed it.
"Yes, now I'm just going to have to tell her to go put things back. It's hard enough to steal the stuff, but putting it back," he trailed off thoughtfully.
"You can get her in serious trouble if she's found with a dead body!"
"Then perform the spell and there will be no dead body to get in trouble with." He explained this as if speaking to a rather slow child.
"FINE! Get out while I go retrieve the soul stone!" he stormed out of the room and to the girl's toilet on the second floor.
"Perfect," Harry cooed, whooshing through the floors to make sure Rowena and Godric stayed away from the dungeons that night.
-----
Helga was currently thinking of all the ways she would curse Harry once she got back to the castle. Problem was, he was a ghost. And things tended to go through ghosts. "Oh dear," she mumbled, ducking into the shadows of the graveyard, desperately trying to avoid the light of the grave keeper's torch. "No luck then," she mumbled, soundlessly sending a spell to the prowling figure. She winced when she heard him fall to the ground and scurried to the torch, picking it up and quickly stamping on the grass that had come in contact with the flames. "Time to get this over with," she mumbled, heading to the freshest grave there.
"Baa,"
She stopped, blinked, and looked over at the goat that had just voiced its complaint about being tied up to a grave stone. "Get over it. I don't want to be here anymore than you do." She muttered, banishing the dirt from the wizard's grave. "Harold had better appreciate this,"
-----
Salazar honestly had no idea why he was doing this for the meddlesome ghost. He dodged around a rat that had sprung rabidly at his shoe and sneered at the creature. ::Be gone,:: he hissed at it. The use of the snake tongue left the beast bereft of the last of it's sense as it fled down the corridor. "Why did I have to leave the soul stone down here? And how did Harold find out about 'here'?"
"The same way I found out about everything else." A voice mocked next to his ear.
He spun quickly, finding himself staring once more into the ruined chest of the young man. "That is revolting. Must you float so high?"
"Who would have thought, Salazar Slytherin is squeamish." He seemed to find a savage joy in that fact.
"Once you have a body, I'm going to take care to beat you within an inch of your life." Salazar threatened.
"I look forward to having you try." He grinned, quite pleased with the thought of a fight. "As for why you keep the soul stone down here," he petered off and was silent for an unusual amount of time.
Salazar looked at Harold when the ghost remained silent for an oddly long amount of time and hissed angrily at the parody of thought on his face. His eyes were squinted comically and he was hunched over on himself, chin resting on his fist. ::Damn you!::
::I love you too,:: Harold spat at him in return, before quirking a grin at his face and speeding off to the ceiling.
"I'll look forward when I can finally trap you somewhere and get answers out of you." Salazar groused as he finally reached the pedestal where he kept the stone. "And that time will be soon."
-----
He had left Salazar preparing the ritual room to the specifications of the book and he was waiting for Helga to get back. He had managed to lock Rowena and Godric in the Staff Room for the rest of the night, using to his advantage the sporadic sparks of magic he could produce.
"Baa,"
He grinned rather insanely as he heard the goat calling out and Helga's rather undignified muttering at the creature. "I see you're back." He stuck his head through the oak door.
Helga looked up, quite scared by the voice. Slamming a shield up over her gift she smiled tersely. "Yes I am." She pushed against the door, swinging it open, her head starting to ache dully.
"You could have waited for me to move,"
"You're the one that was in the way." She booted the goat through the doorway as she levitated a fresh corpse in front of her.
"I do hope you managed to occupy Rowena and Godric somehow. Where do I go?"
"Dungeons. And I locked them in the staff room." He grinned as he led the way to the room where he knew Salazar to be setting up.
"How pleasant of you," she mumbled. "Can we get started? I don't fancy stringing this out."
"Of course! Listen to Salazar while I go make myself comfy in the ritual circle!" Harry happily floated to the center of the circle and floated as close to the floor as he could without actually going through it.
"Why do we have a goat?" Salazar asked as he stared at the creature that was gnawing on his robes.
"Harold told me to get one for the ritual," Helga told him, pulling the goat off of the dark wizard.
"We don't need a goat. I'm sure Harold knows being as he's spent the last two weeks reading his damn illegal book in my lab!"
"You mean I stole that goat from some poor muggle farmer, and we don't even need it?" Helga was crushed. As if it wasn't bad enough that she had had to desecrate a grave yard, but she had stolen a goat for no purpose it seemed, other than Harold's twisted sense of humor. And he had locked Rowena up with Godric! Lord only knew what the man would do to her poor friend!
"I wanted the goat." Harry said simply. "I think I'll call him Tom. He has creepy red eyes and I think he has tunnel vision." Harry rambled, staring at the goat that was once more gnawing on Salazar's robes.
"You'll have a lot of explaining to do once we're through." Salazar glared darkly.
"Yes, yes, lets just get it over with!" He whined, snapping his eyes back to scowl at Salazar. "Mr. Stick-up-his-ass!" he grouched quietly.
Salazar ignored the idiot man and shoved the goat once more to Helga, erected a barrier, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth to start the ritual. Guttural sounds slipped from his lips as his hands formed patterns and runes in the air. A heady magic was filling the air in the barrier, surrounding Harold and Salazar. One last word of the strange language spewed from Salazar's mouth sounding more like a wet belch than anything even remotely related to a language of magic. "Disgusting," he muttered, feeling the need to wash his mouth out after having performed the spell.
"Fantastic," a voice drawled from the center of the room, from a fog that had accumulated without any notice, a solid body rising and walking towards the two founders and the goat.
A/N: cliffhanger! Aren't I mean? Lol I will try to update within two weeks. But we all know how terrible I am when it comes to promising updates. Review and pelase tell me what you think!
Cheers!
The Cap'n