"Episkey" said Harry, for the tenth time, having his dislocated finger put in place once again.
Harry was training healing spells, on the request of Salazar.
He had remembered to ask Salazar to teach him how to apparate, but the founder was very reluctant to do so, claiming it was not good to learn how to do it alone, with of risk of splinching being very real for the first couple of tries.
But at Harry's persistence, Salazar eventually caved in, but put as a requirement that Harry learned some healing spells first. Thinking they might be useful, Harry agreed.
But the problem with training healing spells is that you needed something to heal. And so it started the very painful method of harry performing minor injuries on himself and then healing them.
"I think I can perform the healing charms well enough, don't you think? Or do you just like watching me have masoquist behaviors?
"Very well, very well, I'll teach you the basics of apparition now, don't keep hurting yourself." Defended Salazar "Apparition has three main components, Destination, Determination and Deliberation/ And of course, all of them come from intent, the basic of magic. For Destination, as is the most obvious, you need to imagine the place you want to go to. You need do focus on the place you want to be in, with the most details you can muster. For Determination, apparition is just your magic manifesting your desire to be somewhere different from the place you are right now. So, for that part, you have to will yourself in being in the destination on your mind. Determination is as important, as you have to be determined to occupy the space that you are visualizing in your mind. Then, when you're sure you have the first two taken care of, it's time for deliberation, assertiveness in your step forward, believing you will be at the pretended destination.
Magical Power affects the distance you can travel. Only the strongest wizards can travel great distances, for example across the English Channel. On the top of the top in terms of magical power can do that jump. So don't go risk trying to apparate too far away, or your body may fail and you can end up dying. Understood me?"
"I did. See where I want to go, will myself to be there, move with conviction and don't go crazy on the distance travelled. Is that all?"
"That's the basics of it, yes. Now, you can't apparate inside Hogwarts or the school grounds, they are warded against it. If you try, bouncing of wards can be very painful, even though it probably won't kill you. The chamber is a special place, I warded it to my blood, so my descendants can come here as they please. If your able to apparate inside the chamber, that would be definite prove of the presence of my blood on yours, in case you still have any doubts."
"What would happen if I try and I'm not one of your descenders?"
"You are, so lets not worry about that, child"
"Tell me, what would happen if I tried?" insisted a worried Harry Potter
"Well, if it was a side apparition with someone of my blood, you would be fine, but if you tried it alone… You would die. Instantly. The protections around the chamber are very strong, and programed to kill, not just to keep out."
Harry thought about the possibility for a few seconds. "Well, so at least it would be quick." He joked, trying to relieve some of the tension he was feeling. "let's do this then"
"Okay, so what I want you to do is stand in one of the sides of the chamber and try to apparate on the other side. Close your eyes when your focusing.
Harry did so, standing on one of the sides, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself on the other side. He felt a small tingling down his spine, and very excitedly open his eyes.
"I'm in the same spot" he said, disappointment all over his face.
"Indeed you are" said Salazar with a laugh "what did you expect? Being able to do something that sometimes even adult wizards struggle to do at your first try?"
"Well, when you put it that way… but yes, that was what I was expecting!"
"Sorry to inform you, but that's not how this goes. Keep practicing, eventually it will start to work."
And so it started a long period of hours with Harry trying once and once again, and failing every time.
He had tried everything he could. Every question he could think of, every way to enter, and the room was always empty. Harry definitely wasn't in the Room of Requirement.
Dumbledore sighed. How had he managed to lose track of the most important student in his school?
The Headmaster was becoming desperate and feeling rather powerless. And powerless wasn't something he was used to feel.
The pressure from the Ministry was increasing by the day, that woman, Skeeter was making articles about Harry almost daily and was coming up with some very uncomfortable questions, calling into question Dumbledore's ability to run Hogwarts.
Trying to buy himself some time and quiet down a little bit the rumor's surrounding the situation, Dumbledore decided to call a press release. He would make a gamble with the chance of Harry coming up soon.
Everyone was tensed around the Slytherin common room. Two weeks had now pass since Harry's disappearance and the entire house was feeling anxious. Even Malfoy, who loved to antagonize Potter was a bit nervous about the situation. The repercussions from Professor Snape, their head of house, had been dire.
Snape may had not been the biggest fan of Harry Potter, but he was still a member of his house, and seeing his own students, the Slytherins he was so proud of, acting so hotheaded to the point that lead to one of their own members disappearing into thin air had make him angry.
He started by taking five hundred points from Slytherin house, making their chance of winning Hogwarts yearly competition, the house cup, completely impossible. A measure that came as a surprise to all students, no matter what house. Snape never took points from Slytherin. In fact, he was the most biased among the teachers, always giving points for useless achievements from his own house.
Feeling taking points wasn't enough, he punished the entire house with a detention.
Every weekend, one of the years, starting from the seventh and ending with the first, would have to clean the entire owlery, by hand, with no use of magic. This would repeat twice, with every year having to spend two entire weekend stuck in the middle of owl droppings.
It was a very harsh punishment, specially for the younger years, but no one even dared to speak up, they all understood Snape was being serious about the subject and feared that if any of them would speak up, the consequences could be even worse.
It was in the middle of all of all this tension that Daphne Greengrass found herself in. To add to all of this, her best friend was feeling very depressed, filled with the remorse of not having done something more in Harry's defense. Tracy was constantly in a terrible mood, and she dragged Daphne down with her. Blaise was even worse though, he had lost almost ten pounds and the dark circles under his eyes from a lot of sleepless nights were very noticeable.
So, when all of a sudden, they received a notice that Dumbledore was giving a press conference about the whereabouts of Harry Potter, a glimmer of hope filled the minds of every Slytherin in Hogwarts. At the same time, the expectation of the welcoming of Harry back into their house was dauting, no one knowing how it would go.
With a lot of mixed feelings, the Slytherin students, as well as the rest of the students of Hogwarts, made their way to the Great hall, were Dumbledore would speak to the student body as well as the press.
Fleur Delacour was in the Ravenclaw table together with some other Beauxbatons students, even though most of her colleagues didn't care enough about the situation to spend a part of their they there. Almost no Durmstrang student was present as well, with only their champion, Viktor Krum as well as two other students, friends of his, present.
There was a lot of press present was well, but the one most people kept looking at was a curly blonde woman who wore some unusual looking classes and a very ugly green jacket. Fleur assumed her to be Rita Skeeter, the women who wrote all those articles in Britain's main newspaper, the Daily Prophet.
While she waited, she looked around at the Hogwarts students. She noticed the girl from the picnic looking at her trying to stare her to death while the boyfriend sat on the opposite side of the table, looking at Fleur like she was the sun and the stars. 'God, I really did a number on that one, didn't I?' she thought to herself, feeling bad for the entire situation.
At that moment Dumbledore entered the room, and everyone went quiet.
With a slight Sonorous charm on himself, the old man started his statement.
"As your all aware, the whereabouts of Mister Harry Potter have been widely discussed in the last two weeks. Hypotheses have been put forward, from grounded possibilities t to widely insane ones. I've kept my silence in respect for Mister Potter wishes, as per the agreement we made on that fateful night, when his name has come out of the Goblet of Fire. And the plan was for the situation to stay that way, according to Mister Potter's desires. As his well-being is being put in question, as well as my competence to lead and protect the great students of Hogwarts, I've decided to provide you with some information about the matter.
Harry Potter is at the moment, as he has been in the past two weeks, in a location that shall remain a secret. Mister Potter personally asked me from some time away from the student body in order to prepare himself, both mentally as well as magically, for this tournament."
'Well that sounds weird' Thought Fleur to herself 'and why haven't we, the other champions, being granted similar benefits?' She could really use a few days away from people, without the constant effort to restrain her allure.
"Due to the fact that Mister Potter is at such a disadvantage against his opponents, I've decided to grant him that request, and mister potter shall return to Hogwarts when he feels ready, but not after the Wand Weighing Ceremony, that shall happen on the 21st of November, as I'm sure you are all aware. And that's all the information I will provide today. I just want to provide everyone at this school and the people paying attention at home a relief for their worries."
"How do we know you're not lying?" Asked the reporter that had caught Fleurs attention before.
"Ahh miss Skeeter, yes. You have been one of the most worried about Mister Potter, I'm sure. And to answer your question, the people of Britain have my word as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the ICW that all I have said today is true. Any other questions?"
"Yes, Mr. Dumbledore. My name is Kayla McDougall, for the Wizard news radio station. Can you speak a bit more about the kind of preparations Mister Potter is going through for the tournament?"
"Miss McDougall, an excellent question. Unfortunately, doing by best to respect Mister Potter desire for privacy, I will not provide any more information about what he's currently going through."
This went on for a while, with the reporters trying to squeeze more information from Dumbledore, and his responding in his typical grandfather style, but not providing any more useful information.
Fleur didn't pay them almost any attention, with the information she wanted having already been confirmed.
She would be able to confront the boy in one week's time.
Dear harry,
Hope all the training and preparation your going through for the task is going well.
Dumbledore spoke today and told everyone what happened, your request for privacy and all.
But despite that, I felt the need to write you this letter. Tracy and I have been worried sick about something happening to you.
The regret we both feel about not standing up to help you is palpable. Tracy has been in a depressed state for almost a week.
And Blaise is even worst. He barely eats and I'm pretty sure he hasn't slept in days.
They both understand you are angry with them but trust me when I say if the situation was to happen again, they would fight every single member of our house in your defense.
They are both, we all are, taking your disappearance very hard. I know we haven't been the best of friends, but a word from you to them would do wanders.
I hope this letter reaches you wherever you are staying.
Best of luck with the preparations and, if we don't speak before, with the wand weighing ceremony and the first task,
Daphne
She had read the letter at least twenty times, but couldn't find a way to make it better, so she tied it to one of the Hogwarts owls, and said
"Please deliver this to Harry Potter"
The owl looked at her for a few seconds and then lifted high in the air and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
Because the curfew time was close, she made haste in the direction of the dungeons.
Harry fell face first on the floor. Apparating was proving to be harder than he thought. He spent the first couple of hours in the same place, not moving even one inch, all the while Salazar was laughing at him. Then all the sudden he was falling to the floor, several feet away from him starting position.
He kept trying, luckily with only minor injuries, even though he was going to have to go to madam Pomfrey to ask I f she could regrow the half eyebrow he had lost. At this point, he was being able to apparate close to the place he was setting as his destination, but he still wasn't being able to stick the landing softly and ended up on the floor almost half his tries.
Salazar was roaring with laughter, declaring that it was the most fun he had in centuries.
Harry was not as happy as Salazar, but the feeling of accomplishment, was starting to make itself present, as his tries were becoming more and more successful.
Harry was focusing on his destination again, when the flap of wings scared him to death.
"I didn't know owls could find us here" he commented to Salazar.
"I built this place with long stays in mind, you really thought I would not provide owls with a way in? Sometimes I really question if you really are my heir, from those dumb assumptions you make."
Taking that comment lightly, as he was starting to get use to Salazar half sarcastic half bitter remarks, we grabbed the letter from the arriving owl. She disappeared seconds later, as Harry was reading the letter.
He was surprised Daphne had written him. They were friends, yes, but not that close. He'd expect Tracy and specially Blaise to do it first. As he kept reading the letter, he started getting angry.
'how dared Dumbledore speak on his name, and lie?'
He read the letter out loud to Salazar, and angrily asked when he finished
"How dares that useless old man to lie in my name? I'll have to come out and explain everything!"
"Most important of all," interrupted Salazar "What is that wand weighing ceremony the girl spoke about?"
AN: And this completes the fifth chapter of this work. I want to thank you all for the support, the fact that this fic has almost 3k views from both platforms I post in (ao3 and fnfcdotnet) and around 200 followers/kudos in just 3 days is more than I ever imagine would happen, so thank you all.
Galagon17: as I said before, I've read that story, and I'm aware there's some similarities for now. The pairings are similar yes, but as I said before, this is the story I would like to read, and these two are my favorite pairings, so I've chosen them. The concept of the Chambers as more than the place for the basilisk to rest and with a conscious Salazar in there is a concept I loved since I read "A Cadmean Victory" from DarknessEnthroned (a fic I would absolutely recommend btw). The story will differ from HP&ITT, and a lot.
This chapter puts this work over 10k words, and that was a big milestone to me, now lets aim for that 100k?
Thanks for following, reviewing, kudos, and all.