As Snape and Theo entered the sitting room, Hadrian walked up to the portrait of Salazar Slytherin; pushing a small amount of magic into his lord ring he willed it to switch from the Potter ring to the Slytherin ring. Pressing the ring into the bottom frame of the portrait, Hadrian pushed his magic into the portrait. When he was finished he stepped back and joined Theo on the couch. Together with Snape they watched as the painting of Salazar Slytherin blinked his eyes open, stretched and gave a big yawn as if he had just woken up from a long nap. Blinking slowly, and smacking his lips he looked at the three people gathered having tea. "Hello" he said, "did one of you wake me up?"

Hadrian raised his hand, "I did."

Salazar beamed at him, "Oh it's so good to meet you. How long has it been since I was last activated? It feels like it's been hundreds of years since I last spoke to anyone."

"When did you last speak to anyone, sir? '' asked Hadrian.

Salazar tillted his head to the side, and began muttering under his breath before speaking up, "I believe it was somewhere around the 13th century.

Theo blanched, "Merlin, that's at least seven hundred years."

Salazar blinked down at Theo, "yes I believe you are right, the last person I spoke to was a young boy named Merlin. Was it really that long ago?"

Surprised Hadrian asked, "you knew Merlin?"

"Yes," supplied Salazar," he was in my house, you know. He somehow managed to find his way down here even though he wasn't a parseltongue. What a lovely young man he was…"

At this point Salazar just seemed to be reminiscing about how much he liked Merlin."

"Ahem," interrupted Snape, "I don't mean to interrupt, but perhaps introductions are in order."

"Ahh, yes introductions, I knew I was forgetting something. I am Salazar Slytherin. I helped found this school and am the potions master."

Snape nodded and introduced himself next, "I am Severus Snape, the current head of the Slytherin house and potion master of Hogwarts."

"And I am Hadrian Potter," introduced Hadrian, "and this is my husband Theodore."

"Ah, how nice it is to see young love again." sighed Salazar. "Mr. Potter, would I be correct in identifying you as the parselmouth to open my chamber?"

Hadrian bowed his head "yes sir. I am."

"Oh, good," Salazar said as he clapped his hands together, "then I take it you met my little forþecce?"

The three humans glanced nervously at each other. Theo timidly spoke up "do you mean the basilisk?" He grimaced at the painting's nod.

"I'm very sorry sir," apologized Hadrian, "I was forced to kill her in my second year."

Salazar frowned, although his eyes looked more sad than angry. "Please tell me what transpired."

Hadrian nodded and began his explanation of second year. "In my second year, something began to petrify muggle-born students. With some research my friends and I discovered it was a basilisk, so we guessed it must have come from the Chamber of Secrets, with it being a big snake and all. Then we needed to find the Chamber and answer the question of who was opening it. After all you have to be a parselmouth and as far as we knew I was the only one in the school. It turned out that my friend's little sister had been possessed by the diary of Tom Riddle. We followed her down to the chamber where I confronted Tom and learned that he was Lord Voldemort. Eventually he commanded the basilisk to attack me. I tried talking to her, but I don't think she was listening. Eventually I had to kill her to save both myself and my friend's sister. I'm very sorry sir, I wish I could have saved her."

Salazar listened intently through Hadrian's explanation. "I wish you could have saved her as well, but I understand that you did what you needed to. Now I have several questions. First, who is Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort?"

Snape cleared his throat, "perhaps it is best if I answered that one. Tom Riddle was a half-blood student here from 1938 to 1945 and was sorted into Slytherin house. Later in life he styled himself as Lord Voldemort and became a Dark Lord. With his followers, the death eaters, the Dark Lord waged war on muggles and muggleborns. Until he attacked the Potters on Halloween of 1981. That night both of Hadrian's parents were killed. When the Dark Lord turned his wand on young Hadrian to cast the killing curse; the curse rebound on the Dark Lord. Most believe that he is dead, but some believe that he is still alive."

After Snape's explanation Salazar blinked in surprise. "Gosh," he said, "this Tom Riddle fellow sounds truly insane. You said that he was a parselmouth? I hope he wasn't one of my descendants?"

"He was one of your descendants," said Hadrian "I'm Lord Slytherin now by right of conquest."

"You seem disappointed in the Dark Lord? Didn't you hate muggles and muggleborns as well? Everyone says that you did," asked Theo.

Salazar tilted his head to the side in confusion. "What are muggles and muggleborns?"

"A muggle is a person with no magic and a muggleborn is a person with magic born from parents with no magic," answered Snape.

Salazar glanced around at the three wizards, "why on earth would I hate those people? Hogwarts is meant to be open to anyone willing to learn. Haven't you realized that the majority of magical people are these so-called muggle-borns? In my day there were many of these people in my house, not to mention a few of the people you call muggles as well."

At Salazar's words Theo began choking on his drink, while Shape let out a loud snort and subtly spit his drink back into his cup.

While Hadrian turned to help Theo, Snape asked, "Muggles at Hogwarts, surely not! But what about the Statute of Secrecy?"

Salazar narrowed his eyes and huffed "And just what is the Statute of Secrecy?"

"The Statute of Secrecy prohibits wixen from doing magic in muggle areas and from disclosing to muggles that magic exists. There is an exception of course for muggle-borns and their parents. The Statute helps protect us from muggles who may want to harm us. After all, surely you remember the witch burnings? Everyone says that you and the other founders wanted to protect magical children from them."

Salazar gave them a flat look,"If you mean burnings as a method of execution then yes that was fairly common. However it happened to both magical and non-magical folk. And I can assure you that everyone that was burned was guilty of a crime. My friends and I did oppose burnings as a method of execution, however no one was burned for merely having magic."

Hadrian gave a resigned sigh, "I suspected as much. When I was doing research over the summer I compared the dates in magical history books with those in the muggle ones. Muggles didn't even really start witch trials until the 1500's about 100 years before the Statute was enforced. Then I started to wonder how much muggles knew about magic before the Statute of Secrecy began being enforced."

Salazar gave Hadrian a wide grin, "Oh it's so nice to see that at least one Lord of my house is thinking things through and looking at the world and magic as a whole rather than just separate parts." Salazar turned his gaze to Snape, "now as Hogwarts potion master and the head of my house I take it you have found my private potion lab?"

Snape raised an eyebrow in question, "I don't believe I have."

Salazar frowned in disappointment, "really. No? Huh. No one's found it? Behind the fireplace in the Slytherin common room?"

With wide eyes Snape silently shook his head no.

"Oh well," Salazar spoke softly, before imploring "there is a small snake carved into the left hand side of the fireplace, pressing it will open the fireplace to my private potions lab. The only person who can open the fireplace is the head of house. Please make use of it as you wish."

Snape bowed his head to the portrait, "thank you." Then muttered into his tea, "how the bloody hell has no one found that yet."

Salazar beamed at him, "I'm so glad that someone else will get to make use of my wonderful lab." Glancing around at his audience Salazar said "It looks like the three of you have finished your meal. I presume you all have tasks to get back to?"

When they all nodded in agreement Salazar said "well what are you waiting around here for, you best get to it."

As They all began to get up to go about their tasks Theo asked "sir, is the floo for the chamber still working?"

Salazar tilted his head and thought before kneeling on the bottom frame of his portrait and attempting to lean down to peer at the floo below him. It was one of the most ridiculous positions Theo had ever seen a painting in. "Hmm," thought Salazar, "It should work, I'd replace the floo powder, and maybe test it by sending an object through first, but I think it will work."

Theo grinned "Thank you sir."

After lunch Snape gleefully returned to finish harvesting the basilisk parts, even though he now felt a bit guilty at using what seemed to be Salazar Slytherin's beloved pet.

Hadrian and Theo headed into the library. In the library Theo and Hadrian browsed through the book each creating a stack that they wanted to take back to their rooms.

Hadrian collected books on beginning parselmagic and a few of Salazar Slytherins diary's.

Theo collected books that he thought would help him in his electives. Mostly on arithmancy and ancient runes. He did manage to find a few books on beginning warding that he was eager to get started on.

Together they chose some potion books that Snape might want to barrow.

Once they had finished gathering books they headed out to the main chamber to see how Snape was doing. Luckily it seemed that he was nearly done, with just the packing up left to do.

After Snape had finished packing up his tools and had banished them back to his rooms, he began explaining to Theo and Hadrian what he had harvested. Walking over to several large jars of clear fluid, "first we have the venom, this is used in several very rare potions." Gesturing to the folded skin he explained, "next there is the skin while it is occasionally used in potion brewing, it is more commonly used to construct spell proof clothing. Then perhaps the most useful for potions is the blood and other internal organs, they are used in several exceedingly rare potions. Lastly we have the meat, while it is not used in any potions, I have heard that it makes for a very good meal."

Theo and Hadrian gazed around at everything that Snape had managed to harvest from the basilisk. Hadrian offered his hand to Snape.

When Snape accepted the handshake, Hadrian said, "thank you sir, for your hard work. Theo and I would like to offer you 25% of each venom, skin, blood and organs, and the meat as payment."

For a moment Snape stared in shock, before sputtering out "thank you."

Hadrian grinned "Good, now there's a few hours until dinner. How about I have Dobby put everything away, then we can head upstairs."

At Snape and Theo's agreement Hadrian called "Dobby."

"What can Dobby bes doing for Master," here Dobby glanced over his shoulder at Snape, "Potters."

Hadrian grinned "thank you Dobby," Hadrian gestured to Snape's portion of ingredients, "can you please bring these to Professor Snape's room, the rest can be brought to our rooms. Please make sure that anything perishable is left under a stasis spell. There are also some books that need to be delivered to our rooms left out on a table in the library, any potions books should go to Professor Snape."

Dobby saluted Hadrian, "Dobby can dos." Then began furiously snapping his fingers. With each snap another item disappeared from the chamber.

When Dobby had finished he asked "bes there anything else Dobby can bes doing for Master Potters."

Hadrian smiled gently down at the elf "thank you Dobby, that will be all." When Dobby popped away Hadrian turned to Theo and Snape, "shall we head back upstairs?'

When they all exited the closet and entered the sitting room Snape turned to Theo and Hadrian, "thank you for the…unique opportunity, I'll be seeing myself out."

Just as Snape was about to exit through the portrait into the hall he turned around and warned, "Potters, you may want to consider making an appearance at your house tables for the next few meals. Certain parties have noticed you missing from meals and your common rooms."

Theo scowled at the thought of who would have noticed them missing, "thank you for the warning, Professor."