Harry Potter: Dark Lord, Loving Father
Chapter 7: Hadrian Xanthus Slytherin
"Albus!" came a familiar voice from behind him down the dungeon hallway.
It'd been two weeks since he had been notified by a rather sullen Harry Potter that he was going to be staying with him from now on.
It'd been two weeks since his father had talked to him outside of class -- not even a single hello.
It'd been two weeks since he'd become the prime target of the rumours circling around the castle concerning his family.
It'd been two weeks of pure Hell for Albus Severus Potter, and he didn't like it at all.
On the bright side, he supposed, at least he was the official heir, of sorts, to the Potter legacy.
"Yeah?" Al replied at last, his voice sounding tired. He didn't bother to turn around.
Panting lightly, the professor straightened himself in front of his son, "I've been looking for you...."
"Sorry," the younger Potter retorted, turning around to face his father, slowly. He looked better than the last two weeks, but was still somewhat unshaven and quite a mess. "You're going to catch Hell from Professor Malfoy once he figures out you've managed to start to pull yourself together, you know," he pointed out, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"I've already been sufficiently humiliated," Harry admitted, hanging his head slightly. "I wanted to talk to you about what happened between your mother and I the other night."
"I don't really want to talk about it," Al rejoined rather harshly. "That mother of mine would rather not have much else to do--"
"She still loves you, Al," Harry told him, staring into his son's eyes, a determined look in his own green ones.
"But not you, apparently," the boy retorted, saying it without thinking of what it might do to his father. "Oh, Merlin, Dad... I didn't mean that."
After taking a slow, easy breath, the Slytherin Heir shook his head. "It's fine -- I've done my best to get over it. And, I wanted to introduce you to someone. He thought it would be good of me to do that as soon as I was capable without making things much more of a mess than they already are."
The Slytherin student didn't want to take any chances with words, so he simply nodded his head, wondering who on earth this person could be. Since his dad was still going up the stairs to the second floor, it wasn't someone outside of the school....
"Go ahead," Harry said, pushing the entrance open to the girl's bathroom upon inspecting it for anyone and making sure the hallway was clear.
"But, Dad... it's--" he started, eyes wide in disbelief.
He didn't get to finish his sentence as Harry shoved him into the bathroom, spelling the door closed behind them. "Hush," Harry hissed, motioning for Al to follow him to the particular sink that had some snake scratched into the surface of the faucet. "Open," the Slytheirn Heir intoned in Parsletongue, shocking Albus even further.
Soon, the sink and plumbing pulled back and revealed the opening into the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets.
"Holy shit," Al breathed, unable to think of anything else.
While Al knew that his father spoke and read Parsletongue (which was a characteristic that was inherited by the Heirs of Slytherin), he'd never actually heard him speak it. Nor did he expect to have understood his father when he did.
"Well, stop staring and come on," Harry continued, rather unaware that he was still speaking in the language of snakes.
Al could only nod and follow behind his father blindly, eventually leading the two of them into a rather large, temple-like room. "Whoa," he gasped in amazement, attempting to take the whole place in at once.
"I do suppose you'd like to meet him?" Harry questioned, amused by his son's reactions to the place. He'd been immensely grateful that he got Ron and Hermione to help him with disposing of the basilisk corpse now, since the whole place was beginning to reek of something ungodly. The ex-Gryffindor fingered the locket on his neck, thinking of the Founder, the ring on his left hand reacting as usual, revealing the man in question after a bout of fine mist.
"Salazar Slytherin," the man in the green and gray tunic introduced himself as, nodding his head a little, then realizing just who was in front of him. "Albus, is it? Hadrian told me much about you."
"Sal... azar... Slytherin?" Al repeated, feeling a bit faint. Before he knew it, the world tipped and turned, then faded into black.
"Well, that was rather anti-climatic," Salazar voiced, eyebrows raised at the young Slytherin student sprawled in front of him on the floor of his chamber. "I see that you've done a splendid job with the place in my stead -- basilisks are just so easy to come by now a days."
"I was -- " Harry moved to defend himself, as always, but, as always, was cut off by Salazar.
"Lighten up, would you, Hadrian?" Salazar retorted, rolling his eyes at his Heir's constant need to justify himself. "I understand why you had to do that -- I would have done the exact same thing."
Harry bent down to reposition Al a little better, sitting him up against a pillar, checking to make sure his son didn't have a concussion from landing on the stone floor as he had. "Sweet Merlin," he said, letting out the breath he didn't know he was holding, "he's all right."
"You never told me what you're going to do about what that unreasonable ex-wife of yours said," Slytherin prompted, gesturing Harry to expand on the given subject.
"Well, I was just thinking that maybe just the robes and the locket weren't enough, for appearances, at least, concerning Ginny's point of view. I think I'll grow out my hair like yours.... but, otherwise..."
Salazar, smirking widely, held out his semi-translucent hand out for Harry's wand. "I won't hurt you, don't worry -- you're all I have left," the Italian man promised, looking into Harry's eyes. Upon taking the wand, he instructed Harry to hold very still as he waved the Elder wand, his smirk widening. "I'm sure that everyone who has even a slight idea about what I might look like will recognize something of that in you now."
Once Harry got his wand back, he felt his face, slowly coming to realize what his ancestor did to him. "No," he breathed, summoning a mirror, "dear Merlin, I look like you!"
"Was that not the whole purpose, Hadrian?" the ghostly man questioned, mostly to himself, shaking his head in disappointment in his Heir.
"I was just... shocked, is all," Harry clarified, his eyes unable to move from the conjured mirror. "But, I pulled the Gryffindor sword out of the hat -- what does that mean?"
"It just means that at the time, Godric's sword knew that you were willing the embrace Gryffindor ideals and slay the horrible creature that he couldn't," Salazar shrugged, his brows furrowing as he thought about his old friend.
Nodding, and not wanting to disturb his ancestor, Harry instead turned to his son to check on how he was doing. It'd been a while since the boy had fainted, hopefully he was going to be all right.
And just as he thought of these things, Al groaned, his right hand reaching automatically up to his head as he opened his eyes. "Ouch, that hurt," he moaned, rubbing the spot he fell on, gritting his teeth. Looking up to the others in the Chamber, he realized, "It wasn't just a dream after all..." Albus whispered, in awe of Salazar Slytherin.
"He's worse than your fautor, Hadrian," Salazar muttered, gliding close next to his heir.
"Who's Hadrian?" Al asked, coming out of his stupor. Was it not just the three of them in the room?
"I am," Harry admitted to his youngest son, grinning slightly, the goatee still feeling rather alien on his chin. "Salazar named me such, and I have come to realize that it's rather pointless to argue with the man on such a matter."
"Dad, I think Slytherin's son was named Hadrian," Albus informed his father once they were alone in the Chamber.
"Did he become a Dark Lord after his father?" Harry asked, unable to remember the full story correctly.
"He did, eventually -- he's the one who's thought to have slain Godric Gryffindor, too," Albus recalled, straightening his robes. "Of course, this is after Gryffindor supposedly killed his 'worst enemy', Salazar Slytherin. But, then, if that's true, then how did the sword return to Hogwarts, since Gryffindor sought out the Slytherins?"
That was the very question Harry was pondering: Slytherin had said that Harry had only been able to use the sword before he was declared as the Heir of Slytherin after Tom Riddle, Jr.'s death. And then, if Gryffindor hadn't brought the sword to fight Slytherin in the first place, why wasn't it just out in the open, then? He'd have to find out what really happened from the source.
"Well," Harry began, looking at Albus, trying to determine if he should let him stay as Harry summoned this particular soul. "There's only one way to find out, right?"
So, Harry put his mind to summoning the soul of the one who was known to history as Salazar Slytherin's only son, the First Heir. "Hadrian Xanthus Slytherin..." he called, his eyes closed to the physical world, peering within.
At first, the Heir believed to see a glimmer of something that might the soul of the person he was concentrating on, but vanished as soon as he opened his eyes to the Chamber.
"Dad!" Albus cried, running to his father, shaking him. "Are you all right?" the boy asked, tugging on Harry's robes.
Harry swayed for a while, then blinked his hooded eyes, clearing them, becoming more conscience of the world around him. "I'm sorry -- I don't know what happened... he was right there," he groaned, beating himself up. "I guess I'm too used to summoning just Salazar -- probably too tired."
Albus nodded, still appearing to be concerned about his father, helping the taller man up out of the Chamber of Secrets and back into his rooms. "See you tomorrow then, Dad?"
"Yeah," Harry agreed, closing the door slowly behind himself as he watched Al turn and walk down to the dungeons. "Sorry that took so long," he said, turning to Draco, who was reading on the couch.
"No worries, Master," Draco replied snidely, shutting the book and setting it aside. "Did you find out anything interesting, other than great familial resemblance and how to groom yourself properly? You know, important things?"
The other snorted, sitting down next to the blonde. "I couldn't summon Hadrian Slytherin for some reason -- Slytherin's son. I wanted to find out how the Gryffindor sword ended up back at Hogwarts, hidden in the hat. Not just that, but if he was the one that killed Gryffindor -- if he became a Dark Lord after his father."
"Maybe you've been using the ring too much? It might need a power boost of sorts," Draco suggested, shrugging the subject off nonchalantly.
This idea, however, struck Harry, causing him to remember something very important. "What if..." he breathed, acting like a man possessed, pulling out his wand, rushing into his room, spelling open his trunk, digging for something. A look of triumph crossed his face for a split second before a brilliant burst of light rushed around and enveloped him, the light almost immediately turning into utter nothingness as soon as it appeared, as if it were a trick of his mind. It felt as if he suddenly went blind -- disorienting and confusing -- and was suddenly awoken from the dead all at once.
Harry opened his eyes, feeling more aware of everything than ever before: the blacks, the reds, the greens of his room felt undiluted to his new eyes; the taste of the air was rich and filled his lungs more completely than they ever had before; things were so rich and pure and wonderful it sent multiple tremors of pleasure down Harry's spine as he tried to interpret all of it at once.
"I'm alive," he breathed, the statement infinitely more true than it'd ever been before in his life before. In comparison, it was almost like he was dead before and now... now, he was really alive.
With pure, undiluted power flooding through him, now, Harry knew what he'd do next -- he'd find the answers to his questions he had for Hadrian Xanthus Slytherin about.... well, everything, really. 'Why did Salazar call him by his dead son's name?' is what Harry yearned to know the most of all else.
Closing his eyes once more, the Master of Death turned his attention to the soul in question, seeing him ever more clearly in his mind's eye, this time. Something was horribly, terribly different this time, though: the man, Hadrian, smirked at him. At this time, a splitting pain tore through Harry, causing him to double over in pain, but persisted in trying to summon the illusive First Heir of Slytherin -- he had too many questions to ask for this chance to slip away. This continued until the pain became almost too intolerable that he felt wet, suddenly, all over.
No matter, he told himself, pushing just a little bit further. The pain was excruciating, almost as if he were being cut into two with a dull blade that had rusted over too many years of misuse. Trying to wipe away what seemed to be merely sweat, Harry had to open his eyes when curiosity got the best of him at the difference in texture of the wetness he felt on his fingers. What was supposed to be clear, salty sweat was in fact red -- crimson, to be precise -- it was blood. His blood. His blood was dripping down from his forehead, from his mouth, from his eyes....
The shock was far too much for him to keep at his futile chase of ghosts, falling to the floor, weak and exhausted. The last thing that he saw was a blurred figure running towards him, screaming frantically: "Oh, God, Harry!!"
Climatic ending, yes? I've been dying to leave a cliffhanger forever -- and now, I've gotten my wish.
Great thanks is due to Boogum (once more) for major inspiration and help with this chapter (the second half after the Chamber scene). Also, thanks is due to KouenTaisa (my dear Grae) as well, for help and inspiration, as well as bearing with me through the muck of the whole thing, good and bad. Thank you greatly to both of you! I'd never got this up without either of you.
Also, thanks to the band ASP, especially the songs "How Far Would You Go?" and "Me" for major inspiration for this chapter.