Been a shit week, month and year. It's getting better though! I'm a tiny bit sorry for the late update.
HUMOGOUS shout out to WArcturusBlack for being my first pa=tre=on supporter. There was some other guy that did sub before, but he cancelled it. That's probably my fault since he subbed for the 3rd tier that had a falsely advertised early access benefit, aka pre-released chaps.
I've edited chapters 1 through 6 since I had to re-read the fic to remember what happens in the story and oh god I found a lot of stuff to edit.
I discovered that in the the first line of the first chapter, I clearly stated that Hermione dumped Harry after his name came out of the goblet. In the following chapters, I seemed to have totally forgotten about that!
Anyway, there were no significant plot changes in the edits so there's no reason for anyone re-reading them after 12/03/2024, unless you want to go over the fic again and hopefully have a better reading experience than the last time.
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"Parseltongue"
"Normal talk"
'Thoughts'
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"W-What are you talking about? What's this about death and why are you talking about it as if it's an actual being?" he stuttered.
"My mother, Circe blesss her, was a born Peverell. Now you may not know what that meanss, ass my family'ss legacy was probably lost through the harshnesss of time. There's no reason to fret though, I'll happily enlighten you. The Peverell family, appointed by Death itself, had a duty to deal with the beings trying to run away from death. Whenever a budding immortal dark lord appeared, a Peverell was dispatched and not long after, the issue was solved," Salazar informed him.
Harry was gobsmacked.
'Bloody hell… Death is a being and my ancestors have had contact with it… Death is actually alive, or is it dead?'
"No matter that, it's getting late and you should go to sleep. Is there anything you wish to ask before that?" he asked, breaking Harry from his inner debate about Death's life condition.
"Actually, yes. I've talked with my best friend today and I wanted to get your opinion in bringing her in with what we're doing," Harry disclosed.
"Hmmm. Have you thought about this? Can she be trusted with this knowledge? What's her opinion on rituals and 'dark magic'? Are you sure she won't freak out and go straight to the authorities?"
"Of course I did. If she couldn't be trusted I wouldn't have mentioned her in the first place. To answer you second question though, not good. She, like most of the Magical Britain's population, believes everything that Dumbledore and the media spew. If I were to tell her, there's a chance she will think that I'm going nuts," Harry replied.
"There you go then, you've answered your own question. You can either fully keep in her in the cold or reveal a few tidbits to keep her satiated. Now, unless you have anything else to ask or say, go to sleep," he commanded.
With a sigh, Harry got comfortable on his couch and slowly drifted off to sleep. His last thoughts pertained a certain silver-haired beauty.
[BREAK]
"Damn that old geezer. If there was a bedroom inside the chambers couldn't he have mentioned it earlier? Was he ever going to do so if I haven't found it by myself?" he mumbled, while walking towards the great hall.
He immediately spotted Hermione, reading whilst eating, and immediately started heading towards her.
'No surprises there.'
"Morning Hermione," he muttered as he plopped down next to her.
"Good morning Harry. You seem tired," she observed as put down her cereal bowl.
"Yeah, I didn't sleep much."
'It's probably the stress,' she concluded.
Without exchanging any more words, Harry looked around his near vicinity, observing all the offered food.
'What to eat?' he wondered.
He'd usually go for sausages and fried eggs but he didn't feel like it at the moment.
Shaking his head, he grabbed a clean bowl and reached for a pot containing oatmeal. Using a soup spoon, he ladled a generous portion into his bowl. Then, taking a moment to savor the comforting aroma, he proceeded to pick up some strawberries from a fruit bowl and toss them inside his own bowl.
By the time he started eating, Hermione had put down her bowl again and was looking at him bemusedly.
"What's up?" Harry asked after noticing her gaze.
"You are eating porridge."
"You don't say," he replied, throwing her a sceptical look.
Hermione didn't say anything else and Harry's attention fell back to his breakfast.
While eating, he threw a few looks around to see if there was anything interesting going on.
'Ron's eating like a pig, nothing new there, but he is throwing a lot of death stares in my direction though. It probably has to do something with Hermione sitting next to me I bet. Speaking of us, no one is sitting anywhere near us. Curious,' he mused, his eyes leaving the Gryffindor table.
'Absolutely no change with the Ravenclaws,' he concluded after peering at the blue table. Needless to say, he wasn't looking at his schoolmates but at the Beauxbaton students. The Beauxbaton champion to be exact.
'Damn, she's pretty.'
Sighing, he turned around to look at the Hufflepuffs. After a moment, he noticed something strange.
"Hey, Hermione," he said, nudging her arm and prompting her to look away from her book.
'What's she even reading?' he wondered.
"Hmm?"
"Am I finally going bonkers or does the whole Hufflepuff table seem to be glaring at me?" he asked in amusement.
Hermione turned her head at the aforementioned table, making many students from the younger years snap back to their food. However, a lot of older students kept unashamedly scowling at Harry, making her frown.
"No… They are definitely mad at you," she observed, contemplating their reason for doing so.
"They are probably mad at you for stealing Cedric's spotlight of becoming a tournament champion. Since Cedric got chosen as the champion of Hogwarts, Hufflepuff also got a chance to shine brighter than the other houses," she analysed.
"In other words, they are mad at me for being made a champion of the infamous tournament for its high death toll without my consent. Bunch of sheep," he chuckled mirthlessly.
'Huh, how come Harry is so calm? I expected for him to lose his temper when I finished my explanation.'
Against Hermione's expectations, Harry ignored the little badgers and looked towards the last and his least favorite house.
He wasn't surprised when he noticed Draco looking straight at him. He always showed an unhealthy interest towards himself for some apparent reason.
'Is he deluded into thinking that we are some sort of rivals?'
Was Draco really that stupid? He wasn't sure.
'It could also be a very roundabout way of him trying to show his feelings for me,' he thought, a chuckle escaping him.
Draco didn't seem too pleased that Harry was laughing while looking at him and he glowered at him.
Ignoring Draco, Harry returned his attention back to his bowl and quickly finished his food.
"I'm going to class. Coming?" he asked Hermione while grabbing his school bag from the bench on his right.
"Sure," she replied while closing her book and grabbing her own bag.
Without any delay, the two teenagers got out off the great hall and moved towards the defence against the dark arts classroom.
"When are we going to talk about your super safe and secret place?" Hermione suddenly asked.
'Was I a fool to hope that she would forgot about that…? Now how much do I tell her?' Harry pondered.
He looked behind them; no one was there.
'Ah fuck it.'
"The chamber of secrets," he said as casually as he could, trying to ease the impact.
"The chamber of secrets?"
They stopped walking.
"That's what I said, yes," he answered innocently.
"You are sleeping there? You can't! Isn't the dead basilisk in there?" she fired.
"Nah, don't worry. The body of the basilisk has long since decomposed and I levitated the bones away. I also cast a few charms here and there and the place became pretty comfy in my opinion," he said.
Luckily, Hermione had never gone inside the chamber of secrets and couldn't know that a few charms wouldn't change a thing in the humongous damp room.
'What are the odds she knows about a basilisk's decomposition rate?' he contemplated.
"If you say so… You'll have to take me there to see sometime though," she demanded.
"Yeah sure," he replied stiffly.
There was no way he'd take Hermione to the chamber of secrets any time soon.
[BREAK]
The fourth year's DADA lesson that day was interesting to say the least.
Professor Moody had taught them about all of the unforgivables and then proceeded to demonstrate them on a spider. He later cast them on the students!
Obviously, that didn't include neither the torturing or killing curse. He only cast the imperius curse to anyone who desired to test themselves against it.
Needles to say, not many had felt like tackling the worst of unforgivables, even one performed in a controlled environment and by a teacher…
Harry, knowing his luck, concluded that it'd be wiser for his first time being under the curse not to be done by a death eater, was one of the two aforementioned teens.
Hermione wasn't impressed with his thinking.
However, the rest of the class didn't share her reluctance and they clapped as Harry kept staring at Moody's eyes, or eye, instead of jumping around like a monkey; the thing he was commanded to do.
Ron, in a vain attempt to not feel outshone by the boy-who-lived, went up next.
Unfortunately for him though, he didn't seem to have what it took.
"Imperio."
"Do your best imitation of the headmaster," Moody commanded gleefully.
Without missing a single beat, the redhead proceeded to do just as that.
Under the Imperius Curse, Ron's movements became unnaturally fluid, devoid of his usual laziness. With a vacant expression in his eyes, he stood straighter, his posture eerily reminiscent of Dumbledore's regal bearing.
"Ah children, how are you on this fine morning?" he asked, patting a non-existent beard and looking benevolent.
By the time the professor finally released his hold of him, most students were amidst roars of mirth.
Ron was so embarrassed after the whole fiasco that he darted out off the classroom. None saw him again that day.
[BREAK]
His whole demeanour changed in an instant after hearing Harry's revelation. His eyebrows were now furrowed, and there was a barely discernible tremble in his voice.
"Don't jest like that! Dragons? Are you sure about it?" demanded Salazar.
'They wouldn't, would they? I mean dragons? If a single cockatrice was able to ruin the last tournament, what do they reckon that four dragons would do? Spit some fire and lay down? Imbeciles…'
"One hundred percent. Do you remember Hagrid, the half-giant I talked to you about? I just came back from the forbidden forest with him. He took me deep inside the woods, to a recently set up camp that spanned for about a kilometre. After Hagrid's urging, I got under my invisibility cloak and went closer… There were people shouting and dragon handlers, as I found out later, running in every direction. It was pure chaos."
Harry's eyes became glassy as he concentrated more on the memory.
"In the centre of the camp, I found four large pits. The three of them were occupied with the dragons I mentioned. I assume that the last one has yet to arrive," he finished.
Neither talked for a while, letting the situation to sink in.
Salazar desperately tried to think of a way for Harry to escape the mortal situation while the boy himself, simply waited for the verdict.
'It can't be all that bad right? Perhaps, the idiots got baby dragons for the challenge!' he thought with some hope.
"How big did you say that the dragons were?" Salazar asked eagerly, his eyes lighting up to match his spirit.
"The smallest one had a length of about fifteen meters. I heard someone saying that the biggest one was exactly thirty meters," he answered with shaking hands.
He didn't even bother to attempt stopping his fear and anxiety from showing up.
He was fucked and that was an understatement. He was living on borrowed time.
'How did it come to this?' he wondered tiredly.
Someone up there hated him and they wanted him dead.
Every fucking year he was placed in mortal danger, and as if that wasn't enough it kept bloody worsening.
It was as if the world itself kept pushing and pushing his limits, eagerly trying to find his breaking point.
"How'sss this fucking fair?" he asked rhetorically.
It wasn't fair.
The universe didn't do fair when fiddling with him.
Asmodeus, that had been on Harry since the start, came out of his necktie and started rubbing Harry's cheek with his head.
"Sigh. Harry, allow me to ssspeak plainly… Assuming that you can fight a dragon with your current skill and experience is nothing more than pure lunacy. If the tasssssk isn't about fighting the dragon but insstead focusesss on doing something elsse, which I hope, as well as you undergo the ritual before the time comesss, you may just stand a chance of falling another day," he provided sadly.
Harry took a moment to digest the older man's words.
"I can't do the ritual after the task then huh? You said that doing it on yule would have greatly boosted its effects," he mumbled.
Was it going to be enough though?
"Exactly, doing it on yule would have definitely been the best choice considering the time frame, but we can't afford to be greedy now."
"Your sole goal should be to survive for now," Ash hissed.
"Sigh, Asmodeus is correct. I wished for you to grow stronger before openly acting against Dumbledore. Alas, it seems like you should try and get Fawkes to become your familiar as soon as possible. With a phoenix at your side, your chances of surviving the death trap should become exponentially higher," the Slytherin said.
Before Harry could offer his own thoughts though, he started speaking again.
"Don't fret on it now. Let me think about the task for a day or two and I'll assemble a final plan for you," he offered, prompting Harry to give him a grateful nod.
It hasn't been long since he started thinking for himself and he couldn't compare his own ideas to the older man's wisdom.
Anything Salazar could offer would probably be much better than anything he could come up with.
"Thank you Salazar… I would have been so lost without you," he commented appreciatively.
Finding his portrait had been extremely fortuitous; he had Ash to thank for that.
'Ash was an unexpected blessing as well,' he thought, subconsciously moving his hand to caress the snake.
"Do not even think about it heir… Now that we finished discussing the news you brought, I believe it is time that we talk about what I discovered while going over what you told me yesterday," he said with a frown.
Harry knew when to expect bad news.
'Are there ever good news?' he wondered defeated.
In an attempt to emotionally prepare himself, he drew three deep breaths.
"Can you recall the night your parents died?" he posed the question without seeking for a response.
There was no way Harry had forgotten about that.
There was also no way that the meagre self control he had managed to build up, would hold against anything to do with that incident.
"Please bear with me," he added quickly as he saw Harry's quickly darkening expression.
Harry shook his head and visibly relaxed as he gave the man a nod, prompting for him to continue.
"Now, think back to what everyone said that night," he urged.
A sigh escaped Harry's lips.
'What is he talking about? Fine, I'll humour you Salazar since you've yet to fail me. Dad told mum to take me and run… And mum… Well she begged Voldemort to spare me and also pleaded for him to kill her instead of me. Voldemort then repeatedly told her to move away. Come to think of it, why didn't he just kill her straight away? Wasn't his goal? Why did he come to our house then? Was it to just kill dad? Nah, he would have left straight after then.'
He looked up at Salazar.
'Why is he looking so stiff? It's almost as if he knows something horrible about that night that I seem to miss.'
Harry closed his eyes as his mind went back to that horrible night once more.
'Why did my parents go into hiding? Bloody hell, they even used the fidelius on the house. Why would they take such extreme measures when many others didn't? Wait, didn't that happen right before I was born? What else, beside my parents, was inside that house except myself as a bab-'
He suddenly dashed from the couch he was sitting on, and stood right before Salazar, his eyes wide open now.
"Voldemort came to our house to kill me."
It wasn't a question.
"His stupid obsession with me didn't start after I was hailed as the boy-who-lived. That instead, was an after-product of him failing to eliminate me. And whatever reason he had, my parents knew about it."
"It is exactly as you say."
Salazar gave him a grave nod, but Harry wasn't done yet.
"Ah, I'm the reason for my parents' deaths. Then there's also the person who cast the fidelius charm on the house. Hey Sal, wanna bet that Albus fucking Dumbledore knows the real reason I became an orphan and isn't planning on sharing?" he spew.
Right after that, all hell broke loose.
[BREAK]
"Ugh," Harry woke up with a groan.
"Finally awake are you?" came a sarcastic voice from above him.
"Who? Oh, Salazar is that you?" he mumbled while rubbing his eyes.
"Yesss, now get up before I banish another chair at your idiotic head," he stated, slowly clenching and unclenching his fists.
Of course Harry couldn't see the gesture from his position.
'He sure sounds angry huh. Now, what this about chairs?'
With that thought, he slowly got up from the… floor?
Why was he on the floor and why were there broken furniture beside him?
"What happened…"
Suddenly, his memory of the previous night came back, making him wince.
"Uh, sorry Salazar?" he tried.
He didn't waste any time taking out his wand and mumbling a few reparos towards the mess he caused in his catatonic state, the night before.
'To be fair, Dumbledore can be really annoying,' he thought, barely managing to suppress summoning last day's anger.
He couldn't block out the gloom though…
"Try harming another book from my library and I'll show you who's sorry," he snarked.
'Ah that's right. The last thing I remember was sending a spell towards a bookshelf. That sure does explains a lot; Salazar is pretty fond of his library,' he thought, feeling a tiny bit ashamed for his earlier outburst.
[BREAK]
Three weeks had passed since Harry became aware of the true ongoings on that Halloween night.
In the beginning, the news were weighing his mind very heavily, making him depressed. However, Salazar wouldn't have his heir mopping around while his death approached.
He explained to Harry that because his parents knew about the impending attack, they could have chosen to leave the country and withdraw from the war.
Instead they chose to stay and fight. While that was admirable and all, they had left their son an orphan and to a life filled with more hardships than one could count.
Salazar then proceeded to fully start Harry's tutelage, beginning with lessons on occlumency.
While at first, they had both decided that Harry should continue his schooling normally, the news about the task, understandably changed things.
No one had seen Harry since that day, as Salazar and he had chosen to fully ignore everything going on at Hogwarts.
The founder had gone full teacher mode and taught Harry about every branch of magic he knew about. Albeit, he mostly taught him about the basics, forgoing the complex stuff as they did not have enough time. That was done so Harry would have a broader and better understanding of magic.
The rest of their time was mostly spent on charms, curses and family magics, both of Slytherin and Peverell origin.
However, what surprised both of them the most, was Harry's occlumency progress.
"Your talent with the mind arts surpasses that of a natural born occlumens. It probably has something to go with subconsciously defending your mind from a dark lord's soul piece for so long," he had said.
Harry was immensely pleased to hear those news. While having a sound mind couldn't damage a grown dragon, his control over his emotional state had grown by leaps and bounds.
The fact that his mind also kept sharpening at an inhuman rate was not unwelcomed.
"I'm not gonna be a monkey anymore!" he had exclaimed upon hearing the news.
Gone were the terrible mood swings and the stupidity, most of it at least, that plagued him for all his life. In his head, there was only peace now. And a dark lord of course.
While Harry didn't go to any lessons, that is not to say that he was cooped all day in the chamber.
He went to the dragon camp every few days, hoping to catch a glimpse of the last dragon. He had no luck towards that front though…
Naturally, he had long since researched the other dragons and together with Salazar concluded that the best dragon to face would be the Hungarian Horntail. The dragon had black scales, a spiked tail, and was lizard-like in appearance. It was also falsely considered to be one of the most dangerous dragon breeds.
If there was any fool in Hogwarts that believed that, they would get enlightened at the first task.
The Hungarian Horntail was the smallest one of the bunch, sitting at fifteen meters of length, and the least dangerous one.
During his night adventures, Harry also found out about the task's goal.
FLASHBACK
Harry was heading back to the castle when his ears picked on a most curious conversation.
"So what will the champions have to do?" asked a familiar voice from a nearby tent.
Slowly, making sure as to walk carefully, Harry closed in on the source of the voice.
While his cloak would hide him from everyone and anything, it didn't offer the same benefit to the his immediate surroundings.
"Hasn't any told you yet?" fired back a befuddled voice.
"No… Will they have to slay the dragons?" asked the first man again excitedly.
By that time, Harry was standing on the tent's entrance and quickly identified the inquiring man.
It was the bloody minister of magic, Cornelius Fudge.
'Of course he'd want that. I'm surprised that he didn't put a hand on planning the first task though.'
The man laughed whilst shaking his head. Appearance-wise, he was not unlike Fudge.
"Of course not Cornelius. I'm sure that'd be an epic sight to see, however they'll simply have to survive for a quarter of an hour and cause as much damage to their respective dragon without killing it. Needless to say, they wouldn't be able to slay the dragons but we'll still say it as one of the task's requirements. We don't want any of the champions having any funny ideas and endangering our drakes," the man revealed.
"Hmmm. How will the champions get assigned their dragons?" asked the minister, pleasing Harry.
That was a question he and Salazar couldn't answer.
"Ah, that's quite simple. We'll present them a small pouch, right before the task starts, from where they'll each pick up their dragon's transfigured, miniature form."
"I see, I see. Simple and fair. Let's have a toast for the success of the first task now," he said while grabbing a bottle that Harry would later learn to be firewhisky.
He had to thank occlumency for stopping him cursing the two pathetic men.
"What about Harry Potter. Has anyone heard about him since his absence at the Wand Weighing ceremony?" asked the unknown man.
Harry didn't care to listen to any gossip and left to inform Salazar about the new info. They had to revise their plans again.
PRESENT
Ash was coiled around Harry's neck while the teen was peacefully reading a potion journal on his favourite couch.
"Did you triple check the ingredients of the ritual? You'll be doing it tomorrow night," voiced an annoying voice, disturbing Harry's studying.
While not as magically significant as yule, the next night's full moon would help boost the ritual's efficiency by a bit.
Harry closed his the book as he lazily stood up, looking at Salazar's portait.
The boy standing in front of Salazar had not changed much in appearance since he had first met him. His demeanor and eyes though, couldn't be any different.
'Not boy. Man,' he corrected.
"I did even better, you old fossil. I've checked them five whole timesss," came Harry's steady his.
"Repeat our plan for me please," requested Salazar, unbothered by his heir's remark, prompting Harry to sigh before indulging the man's whims.
During his hours of research, Harry had found a few interesting things about the tri-wizard tournament. As one might expect, the duo would exploit everything they could.
'I'm sure Dumbledore had forgotten to mention that while competing, no rule apply to the champions. I could kill the lemon-loving bastard himself and no one would be able to take any legal actions against me later. I could try to…' he considered.
"After I leave the chamber, I'll drink the whole vial of felix felicis I managed to buy by selling some of your basilisk's venom. I'll then head straight to the arena that was recently set up. With the potion working its wonders, I'll choose to be the first one to pick their dragon and get the Hungarian Horntail. Hopefully by the time I go into the pit, the potion will be still working. I'll then drink the magical strengthening potions we made with the basilisk's venom and try damaging the dragon with the Slytherin spells you taught me in parseltongue, while keeping safe. If all fails, I'll summon my firebolt and do my best to not become bacon or dragon treat for the remaining time," he said.
The plan was pretty solid.
Felix felicis was a miracle maker so the first part was going to succeed.
'Managing to find and buy one, was truly lucky. Hah, I made a pun… I doubt any of the others could get one. The liquid luck costs hundreds of thousands of galleons. Makes me appreciate Asmodeus senior's help from the other side,' Harry thought with some amusement.
Who knew that the slayed basilisk would help him survive another magical creature in the future.
Then there were the potions he and Sal made, again with the older Asmodeus' help.
Salazar, in another display of his genius, managed to string a potion meant to substantially boost magical prowess for fifteen minutes, exactly as much as they needed, thus maximising its potential.
'The side effects sure do suck though… Magical coma for a week and poison potent enough to kill anyone without active phoenix tears inside their system. I don't even want to think back to how difficult it was to manage brewing the thing without the cauldron melting…'
"And the phoenix?" Salazar asked, feigning an unimpressed attitude.
"Assuming that I manage to get Fawkes become my familiar before the task, I'll have him fly over the arena and do his best to keep me alive."
"You have two days," stated the monkey-ish man.
"I know Sal," he simply said.
Harry grabbed Asmodeus and tried putting him down, but the snake slithered off his hold and sneaked inside his clothes.
"Why are you taking me off?" he hissed, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
Being curled on Harry was comfortable…
"I'll go check the camp again, they ssshould have brought the last dragon by now," he hissed back.
"I want to come with you."
"Fine."
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And that's the chap!
I've some amazing ideas for the task, can't wait to actually write them down and see your responses.
I sincerely hope that you liked the chapter, since writing these isn't exactly easy and quick.
Fret not though, you can help!
I'm definitely not going to beg you to follow WArcturusBlack's example and give me all your money on my favourite website (p.s. p=a=t=r=e=o=n=.=c=o=m/Mr_0ne), but PLEASE do join my dis=cord server.
Seriously, I'm lonely there…
[d=i=s=c=o=r=d=.=g=g/NJ3WV9RVgR ]