Harry Potter: Beyond Good and Evil in the Wizarding World-Chapter 35 - 31. The Basilisk Hunt. Part 3. Salazar Slytherin

Chapter 35: Chapter 31. The Basilisk Hunt. Part 3. Salazar Slytherin

Chapter 31: The Basilisk Hunt. Part 3. Salazar Slytherin

After he shifted the last stone aside, the passage the basilisk had used was finally clear. Narrow, but wide enough for three people to crawl through abreast.

"Should I go first and check?"

"No need." He dropped into the tunnel and moved forward at a steady pace, crouching.

A couple of minutes later, after a winding crawl, he came out into an open space: a spacious cave with something resembling a nest in one corner. No eggs, of course. The basilisk had lived alone and could not fertilize itself.

"It is empty," Nagini said, with a note of disappointment. She had been expecting something more along the lines of a mountain of treasure.

"I would not say that." Severus went to the nest, raised both palms, and released a stream of flame that burned away the dry leaves and branches and other vegetation in a few seconds, most of which had arrived by some miracle through the wards.

When the flame died and the ash was blown aside, a palm-print was visible in the smooth stone beneath.

"Hm. Too straightforward."

"Maybe I should press my palm to it and say open?"

"You are wonderfully trusting," he said, patting her head gently as he smiled and placed his own palm in the hollow. A moment later came a sharp hissing sound and the smell of burning.

He lifted his hand and examined the glove. Not quite burned through, but close. He pulled it off immediately and replaced it with a fresh one: he had prepared three pairs for exactly this kind of situation.

"You see? This is an entrance, but only for Salazar’s blood. I felt something trying to pierce the glove to reach mine, and when it failed, it released acid, presumably to punish any non-heir who tried the door." A transparent dome formed over his head in the same instant, and acid began pouring from hundreds of tiny holes in the ceiling. "Predictable." He looked back at the entrance and found it already sealed shut.

"I did not know it was a trap. I did not want to."

Hearing her voice catch, and feeling the wave of emotion through their link, Severus gave a crooked smile.

"I am glad you have become more expressive. But can you see that we are in danger right now, and that I chose to step into this myself?" His face showed nothing but calm. It settled her somewhat, though she still found his reaction difficult to understand. "This is exactly why I never took a familiar in my past life. Constantly feeling someone else’s emotions is extraordinarily inconvenient."

He closed his eyes and let his focus spread outward, searching the walls for anything solid or unnatural in the magic around them.

The acid came down in a solid sheet and was not slowing. If anything, it was intensifying. The barrier held, but it was not indestructible: the magic in this cave could not be replenished through the materials the walls were built from, which made it a near-perfect trap for anyone careless enough to walk in without preparation. It was already several dozen centimetres deep on the floor and rising.

"There." He opened his eyes and crossed to the left-hand wall. He touched the uneven surface, bared his teeth, and let a burst of black flame out of his palm. It lasted only a few seconds before his core tightened and he had to stop.

It was enough. A large hole had burned clean through a metre of solid wall. He stepped through into a tunnel that ended at a door decorated in unmistakable Slytherin fashion: silver, bearing the house emblem, edged with green patterns, the handle shaped like a snake. Two statues flanked it, one a basilisk and the other an elderly bald wizard with a long pointed beard, dressed in flowing robes. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"Salazar, presumably." Severus looked at the statues with interest as he approached, casting a quiet nonverbal Reparo behind him. The hole healed over.

"I am sorry."

"It is fine. Work on controlling your impulses."

"I will try." Nagini studied the statues alongside him, her unease still present. "But what if this one is also—"

"Unlikely, though caution never hurts." He wrapped his hand in flames. Just as he was about to take the handle, it came alive and hissed at him. He did not pause: he took it anyway. The handle hissed more furiously, and then went still and became an ordinary handle. "Predictable." He opened the door.

The room beyond was small and vaguely resembled Dumbledore’s office, done entirely in green. Tall bookcases stood on either side. A red carpet ran to a table at the far end, on which lay several books, sheets of parchment, ink pens, and a snake figurine. Behind the table, a portrait of the same elderly wizard whose statue stood at the entrance hung on the wall.

"Interesting." Severus scanned the shelves and noted, with genuine surprise, several quite compelling titles. One in particular stopped him: a book by Herpo the Foul, one of the most powerful dark wizards this world had produced. The title was extraordinarily tempting. "How to Become Immortal?" Even in my old world there were no true Immortals. Living forever is not forbidden, but the soul rots over that kind of eternity, which is why none of those hundreds of Creators survived until my time. And here someone is offering a how-to guide. I cannot wait.

"Severus. I saw his eyes move." Nagini whispered, pointing a trembling tail at the portrait.

From the moment they had entered, she had felt watched, and a strange whisper had been threading itself through the room.

"Do not worry. It is a living portrait. I just do not understand why he is pretending otherwise." Severus took one of the books off the shelf and threw it at the canvas.

"What in blazes do you think you are doing?! Have you been raised with no manners at all?!" The elderly wizard’s voice was furious and heavily salted with arrogance.

"Do not attempt to influence my companion again. If you try it once more, I will burn you." He did not look at the portrait and continued scanning the shelves until he found one book that jutted out slightly. "Hm."

"How dare you threaten the founder of your house?! Where is your respect for your elders?! Pathetic half-blood."

A fireball appeared in Severus’s hand. The portrait went quiet.

"Good. I am glad we understand each other."

"He is up to something."

"Yes. Right now he is attempting Legilimency, assuming I am not paying attention." Shock crossed Salazar’s face. "Better to let him try. At least it keeps him occupied." Nagini could not quite find words for a moment, but she did feel slightly less unsettled: Severus’s complete indifference to the portrait was reassuring, even though that cold painted gaze still sent a chill down her spine.

"Who are you? You are not a simple student."

"You should have stayed quiet," Severus said, finally turning his attention to the portrait. "But I will disappoint you. I am a student. A very talented one, nothing more."

"A student who can kill my familiar and reach this room is not a simple student."

"And yet, there it is." He turned back to the shelves. He pointed at the nearest bookcase and in an instant everything on it had transferred into his wallet, the second one, since the first was occupied by the basilisk’s remains. "As I thought." Three books remained in place, clearly part of some mechanism. What order?

The portrait looked as though it might combust with indignation. This was his office, and a half-blood was robbing him to his face, and the half-blood was not even slightly bothered.

"Put those back immediately! That is my collection, and you have no right—" But instead of returning anything, Severus’s smile only widened. He crossed to the second bookcase and emptied it as well. Again, three books remained.

He did not stop there. Amid the founder’s increasingly volcanic commentary, he stripped the office bare: decorations, books, certificates, cups, jewellery, artefacts, everything disappeared into the wallet. Nagini simply closed her eyes and retreated under his sweater, and somewhere she felt, reluctantly, a small flicker of sympathy for the portrait.

Ten minutes later the office was empty. Two cabinets remained. Everything else was gone.

"Thief! Vandal! You are robbing the dead! How can you have so little shame?!"

"Relax. I will sell most of it to Muggle-borns at half price."

"Not Muggle-borns! Why would you do this to me?! What did I ever do to you?!"

"You tried to drown us in acid. Is that not sufficient?" Severus studied the portrait’s frame. "Gold, yes?"

The question made Salazar go blank for a heartbeat. When he understood what Severus was about to do, something very much like a tear appeared in one eye.

"Green, red, green, blue, green. yellow."

"Thank you." Severus stepped away from the painting, moved to the cabinets, and began returning the books to the shelves in exactly that sequence.

"What if it is another trap?"

"It is not. He is trying to distract me from whatever is behind the portrait." Severus glanced at Salazar, who had gone the colour of old chalk, finished the sequence, and in the same moment a ladder began to descend from the ceiling.

"H-how did you—"

"You simply do not know how to use illusion magic properly."

The moment the founder caught Severus’s expression, he shuddered.

"You would not dare."

"Would I not?"

"At least be reasonable. Show some respect for the dead."

"If you are worrying about your family line, it has died out completely. You have no one left to pass anything to. Rest in peace."

"Rest in peace after hearing my entire line is extinct? You think I did not already know that?" Salazar’s voice turned glacially cold. "But I will not give anything to a half-blood like you." In the next instant the door slammed shut and the room shook. "You will die here!"

"I told you." Nagini poked her head out from under his sweater, a weary flatness in her voice. "Or rather. forget it. I said nothing. I am too tired to be surprised today. Wake me when you are done." She disappeared again.

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