552AN: The gang are entering sixth year, there's going to be a fair few changes to how things pan out from the books from here on out. As I said, a lot of this is going to be told in longer form chapters with this acting as a prologue of sorts to the story. Let me know what you guys think but this story aims to go to Seventh Year and beyond, so I hope you like the ride!
Chapter One: The Heir of Slytherin, Again
The world had changed. It changed the day tiny proto-Death Eaters began wandering around Hogwarts looking for unsuspecting professors or Voldemort's other targets to kill. He should have had a life filled with exams and Quidditch and fumbling about figuring out how to talk to girls, which despite having had a girlfriend for the best part of two years, Harry Potter still wasn't entirely sure he knew what he was doing; but that was what he'd been meant to have. That life, a normal life, Harry knew, was never his to begin with.
Only as he lay in the room Sirius had built for him, staring up at the wooden beams above him, did he realise that everyone else had caught up to him. Every student in Hogwarts had gasped and wailed when they'd heard Death Eaters had infiltrated the school at the end of term speech. The Prophet was issuing warnings and tips on how to tell if someone was secretly a Death Eater - like they were any good - and people were scared.
They should be.
He still replayed the meeting he'd had with Dumbledore over and over in his mind. For weeks he'd questioned what he could have done, thought of more ingenious schemes to save people that hadn't occurred to him in the moment or wondered if he'd even done the right thing in the first place. He saw their faces, Cormac screaming as his parents sobbed, Cho's friend Marietta clawing at her throat as Voldemort closed her airways and made her choke to the point of death, only to let her draw in a shuddering breath before suffering all over again. The Death Eaters who'd failed.
He still wondered if he could have saved them, in his weaker moments, he wished Dumbledore had made the choice for him. Hermione had said later that they were too young, that Harry shouldn't have been put in that position, but how old had his father been? Twenty? Twenty-one? He'd faced Voldemort three times, three times he'd escaped the wrath of the man who only enjoyed murder. That was only a few years difference and James Potter hadn't been marked for death from birth. James Potter had fought because it was the right thing to do, the only thing he could do.
And so, as the days dragged on, Harry's thoughts had turned to the horcruxes. Dumbledore had explained the beginnings of his theory, how Voldemort had begun corrupting things closest to him before looking for more powerful magical objects. The Founder's magical items.
The cup. The locket. The diadem. The sword.
The sword didn't show any signs of magical occupancy and no one had seen the other items for years. As for the diary, well, that was destroyed. That left two. One, Dumbledore was fairly certain, was the snake, Nagini. That presented its own complications and difficulties. The final horcrux Dumbledore had been reticent to reveal and only at Harry's insistence had he mentioned a ring.
The Gaunt family ring.
His musings were interrupted by a knock at his door.
"Harry? You up yet?"
"Yeah," Harry called back, dragging himself quickly out of the confines of his double bed and hurrying over to the curtains. He was almost blinded by the sudden burst of summer sun as it invaded the room. His room. It was much larger than any he'd had at Privet Drive and Sirius had gone to town on making sure it felt like his. He'd had his pick from a selection of Quidditch posters, a rack to store his broom and general maintenance supplies and the walls had been painted a rich red to match Gryffindor's. Beside the window sat a large writing desk, which for the most of the holiday had been home to reels of parchment and an incredibly messy Hedwig's cage.
He wished he could be tidier, but even at the best of times he could never quite manage it and these weren't the best of times.
Sirius appeared in the doorway, a mug of tea levitating in front of him. With a wave of his wand he sent it flying gently towards Harry's desk, where it wobbled slightly as it landed, causing drips of tea to stain the light wood - or at least they would have if the wood wasn't magically stain repellent.
"You look terrible."
"Thanks," Harry huffed, scowling at his godfather as he picked up his cup of tea and leant against the desk.
"Just an observation," Sirius said, as cheerfully as he could. "You could get out. Touch grass. See people, that lovely girlfriend of yours, I hear she's quite nice."
"I've been thinking."
"Haven't we all? Horcruxes?"
"Yeah."
"Well, maybe I can help."
He'd not spoken to Sirius about anything since returning from Hogwarts, not because he didn't want to but because he'd needed the last few days to get his mind in order. To his credit, Sirius hadn't pushed him, he'd just waited and kindly provided food whenever Harry appeared from his room. Not that he didn't have enough to be dealing with thanks to the twenty or so Death Eater children he was helping the Order secretly re-home. At the last count, he'd apparently become Secret Keeper to fifteen houses, one of which included Pansy Parkinson, who was apparently quite enjoying life free of daily torture.
"There's five of them," Harry explained, although Sirius already knew that, but it helped to list them. "Voldemort started making them out of things personal to him. His diary, a Gaunt ring, Nagini, that kind of thing, but then, I don't know, he got bored? He wanted more power? Who knows, who cares, the point is, he wound up trying to stick bits of himself inside objects that belonged to the Founders."
"Of Hogwarts?"
"It was the only place that had felt like home," Harry mused, a rather revolting thought given his own feelings about the castle. "There's a cup, with a badger on it, a diadem, whatever one of those is, and a -"
"Locket?"
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"It doesn't happen to have a great big snake on it by any chance?" Sirius asked. "Perhaps in the shape of an 'S'?" Harry nodded, he'd never seen any pictures but that sounded right. "Then I might be able to make that four horcruxes. C'mon, get dressed, we've got a piece of Voldemort to kill."
Grimmauld Place was barely recognisable to Harry when they arrived. It was still shabby and dark and dingy and depressing, but it was also home to a lot of children he didn't recognise. They peered at him from huddled groups in the Dining Room, some whispered as he passed them on the first floor landing and the room he'd shared with Ron was occupied by two young boys, no older than thirteen.
He'd heard that the Order were putting out feelers to purebloods scared of Voldemort, people who wanted to keep their children safe but couldn't do it on their own, he hadn't for a minute stopped to think what it would look like. He didn't know what was worse, the fact their parents were nowhere to be seen or the gratitude that shone from each and every one of their faces. To them he was a hero, the Boy Who Lived, destined to kill Voldemort, he was their saviour.
Funny. He didn't feel like a hero.
"Kreacher took to knicking a bunch of stuff last summer," Sirius explained when they'd made it past the rooms of children. He wondered how many of them had agreed to be Death Eaters. "Clothes, hairbrushes, my dad's old pants if you'd believe it. He hid them in his den, until I found it. Thinks I don't know where he moved them."
"Here?"
"Where I wouldn't look," Sirius answered, pushing open the door to his childhood room. It would've been everything Harry expected it to be, except that on the bed he saw a mound of mouldy clothes, glittering jewels, Black family heirlooms and goblets that, when sold, would feed an entire family for a year. "I was going to get rid of it all, but then I started building our place and Dumbledore reached out about the…" He trailed off at the look that no doubt crossed Harry's face. "Anyway. I thought I'd seen something that looked particularly Slytherin-y, which was strange seeing as my family were obsessed with themselves more than anyone else."
He began throwing robes, garments and general waste across the room with reckless abandon.
"Where is Kreacher, Sirius?"
"Hogwarts kitchens. Couldn't have him telling on the Order but I'll be damned if I'll have him frightening kids who're already scared enough. Aha!"
With a flourish, he yanked a golden chain free from the pile and held out the small golden locket that Harry had described. It glittered even in the dim light of the room, which didn't seem possible, yet there it was. Something made Harry reach for it, a strange kind of pull, similar to the kind he'd felt in the Department of Mysteries when looking at the prophecies that weren't his.
As his fingers brushed the hard surface, he heard the cold laugh that haunted his nightmares echo in his ears. Yet, as much as he wanted to destroy it, another more distant part of him rejoiced at the sight of the tiny locket. Keep it safe. It wasn't Voldemort's voice, nor was it his own, the words that whispered tantalisingly in his mind came from the mouth of the boy who'd framed Hagrid and freed a giant Basilisk. Tom.
"You alright, Harry?"
"He's in there," Harry breathed. "I can… I can feel it. Can you?"
"Not a thing." There was no judgement in Sirius' voice, instead Harry only heard mild concern hidden behind a forced casual tone. "Your turn."
"What?"
"You're the horcrux killer," Sirius said as jovially as he could. "So, how do we kill it?"
"I…" The voice was still pulling at him, despite the fact that Sirius had moved the locket out of his grip. "The Basilisk. I stabbed the diary."
"With the sword?"
"A fang."
"And how did you manage to get a Basilisk to give you its fang?"
"Easy," Harry shrugged, "it bit me."
Sirius stared at him. "And I thought James was reckless."
He insisted that Harry tell him the whole story on the way to Hogwarts, which thanks to magical travel, took all of fifteen minutes. One second they were in London and the next they were walking through the gates of the old castle, Harry trying not to stagger as his head spun and his stomach lurched.
"It's in a bathroom?"
"On the second floor."
"Salazar Slytherin hid the entrance to his secret chamber, which just so happened to be home to one of the most deadly creatures imaginable, in a girl's bathroom." Sirius let out a bark-like laugh as they passed Hagrid's hut, the half-giant conspicuous only by his absence. It was strange, not seeing him there. "Merlin's beard."
"No one found it," Harry pointed out, "so I guess it worked."
"Maybe that's where Voldmort's chucked his soul," Sirius grinned as they trudged up the path towards the school. "Shoved them all down in the sewers where no one'll look."
"If he has, you're down there first."
"You're smaller."
"You can use magic outside of the castle."
"You do more ridiculous things than I do."
"You escaped Azkaban. As a dog."
"You got bit by a Basilisk, fought off about a hundred Dementors at once from the future."
Harry faltered. "Okay, when you put it like that, yeah, maybe. But you're still going into the sewers first."
They continued in that vein as they made their way up through the castle, Sirius making more and more ridiculous cases as to why Harry should be the one to be covered in grime and faeces, which Harry had to admit did more than he thought it would to lift his mood. His room hadn't been pleasant company and the only letters he'd looked forward to were Daphne's. She'd suggested visiting, more than once, but he hadn't been ready for that. He'd needed to think and for once she'd accepted it. He knew it would've killed her, that she'd be going mad and that her father would either be teasing her or incredibly understanding. He seemed to flit between the two, largely based on just how upset either of his daughters were.
Whatever good mood he'd managed to build was almost destroyed upon entering the girl's bathroom. A soft wailing met their ears as they opened the door, punctured only by dramatic sniffing, and Harry knew that sound. He turned to Sirius and pressed a finger to his lips. Careful not to let the door slam shut, Harry held his breath. Sirius, bemused, leant against the wall.
After almost a full minute of waiting, there was a distant splash and the wailing ceased.
"I didn't think you'd be afraid of ghosts."
"I'm not," Harry muttered darkly, hurrying to the sink before the infatuated ghost could return. "We brewed Polyjuice Potion in here, in second year, and, well, Myrtle kind of…"
A sly smirk twisted Sirius' lips. "Moaning Myrtle."
"Shut up."
"She used to chuck taps at Peter," Sirius recalled fondly, "and you're saying -"
"No."
"If only your dad could see you."
"We're not talking about this."
"How would that even work?"
Harry had to resist throwing a tap of his own at Sirius. Instead of rising to his godfather's taunting, he shut out the laughter and tried to picture the snake before him as if it were coiling up his hand, writhing, ready to strike.
"Open."
Just as it had done more than three years previously, the sink began to descend into the floor, the rest of the tower magically dispersing and doing the same, revealing the very tunnel that the basilisk had slithered through in his second year. Sirius' laughter had long since died by the time the final sink disappeared and instead of teasing his godson, the ex-convict was left staring at Harry.
"You first," Harry said, taking a step back from the tunnel. Disgust crossed Sirius' face.
"You jumped down there?"
"Yeah."
"And Voldemort?"
"I guess so."
Sirius paused, considering the hole in the floor. "Can you imagine Voldemort diving into that?"
"Well, no," Harry admitted. If he was honest, he couldn't imagine himself or Ron leaping into it, but they had. "But there's not any stairs."
"Did you ask?"
"What? For stairs? You think if I just say stairs it'll just -" There was a great juddering thunk and as Harry turned to face the entrance to the Chamber he saw holes open up in the walls of the tunnel and stone steps materialise where previously there had been nothing but empty space. "Oh."
"Hermione wasn't with you, was she?"
Sirius' laughter echoed in the tunnel as, together, they descended into the depths of Slytherin's chamber. It took a lot longer than the last time he'd made the trip, primarily because they were walking rather than sliding down a near-vertical tunnel. Sirius' smugness quickly evaporated in the face of his screaming knees, Harry would've rubbed it in his face but the closer they got to the chamber the darker his mood became. It was as though every step were draining the humour from his body. The same pull he'd felt before was telling him to lunge for Sirius, to rip the locket from him and flee back up the stairs. It was almost as if the thing could sense what they wanted to do.
They trekked in near silence, Sirius remarking on the gigantic snake skin Harry and Ron had discovered or the cave in that had trapped Harry from Ron and Lockhart. By that stage, Harry could barely manage a grunt but did his best to offer muttered explanations. More than once Sirius tried to get them to stop and more than once Harry bit back viciously, far more cutting than he'd ever wanted to be. To his credit, Sirius didn't rise to it, nor did he admonish his godson, he would simply nod and resume leading the way deeper into the chamber.
Dread was mixing with a strange thrill of excitement, beginning in his stomach and then soaring up into his chest. Every step became a crippling contradiction and with a sickening twist in his stomach, Harry realised he was walking the same path Tom Riddle had taken and that the sudden rush of anticipation wasn't a reaction to his current surroundings but the distant fifty-year-old memory of a boy about to wreak havoc on a school filled with children.
He supposed it should've been intoxicating, after all, it had driven Riddle to become Voldemort, but all it made him feel was sick and ashamed. Embarrassed that his own body was reacting to the sycophantic dreams of a baby Voldemort.
"We're here," Harry managed to say when they entered the gigantic chamber that had been home to Ginny's lifeless body. He gestured to the enormous skeleton, his jaw tight, not daring to say anything else.
"And that's…"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry. I should've been here, you should never have -"
Before they'd walked into the Chamber, before they'd found the locket, before the day had begun, those words may have warmed his heart. Instead, all they managed to do was stoke another fire that wanted to rage inside his chest until it burned what was left of his heart. "I shouldn't have had to do a lot of things, Sirius. Let's just get this over with."
Forcing himself to move away from his godfather and tear his gaze away from the locket that dangled from Sirius's fist, Harry hurried towards the snake's remains. It wasn't anywhere near as intimidating as it had been in life, a husk of the beast that had punctured a hole in his arm and tormented an entire school. As it lay on the chamber floor, nothing but disgust coursed through Harry's veins. That had been Slytherin's best. A snake that had been beaten by a boy with a sword and no hope in hell of surviving.
What a legacy.
To Sirius' credit he didn't say a word as Harry strode forwards, trying to ignore the shaking in his fingers and the racing in his heart. He wanted to run or the locket did or Voldemort. It wasn't clear. Voices overlapped, urges tried to take him in different directions, every step was like a victory and a loss all at once.
The fang was cold. He tried to focus on it, rather than the locket that Sirius produced.
"I can -"
"No." Neither can live while the other survives. "I have to." And not because of some stupid prophecy. Sirius hunkered down beside him, placing the locket on the floor before him. A part of him wished he were back there again, Ginny dying beside him and the only option moving forwards. He hadn't thought about it then, hadn't been forced to fight for every inch as he dragged his hand up and over his head. It was easier in the face of mortal danger, he supposed, that was instinct, this was planned.
He could run.
He could hide.
He could surrender.
Closed eyes. Calming breaths. Nothing was working. Do it. Just do it. Run. Do it. Run. Do. It. Save me.
Revulsion sent his hand forwards, disgust plunged the fang towards the locket, desperation clawed in his chest as a scream echoed around the Chamber. It was only as he struck it again and again that he realised it was his own feral rage bursting from his mouth.
"Harry." He ignored him, ignored everything but the high-pitched laughing that reverberated around his skull. "Harry!"
A hand wrapped around his wrist, wrenching him away from the locket. The first thing he saw was Sirius' face, etched with concern, his dark eyes searching Harry's face as acrid smoke rose up behind him. Looking down, Harry saw the remnants of what had once been Salazaar Slytherin's locket, taken to his Chamber and destroyed. The Heir of Slytherin was, at least in that thing, no more.
"You alright?"
"Fine."
"It's okay," Sirius said quietly, the fang that had been in Harry's hand rattling on the stone floor as it fell from his grip. "To not be."
"I know."
"Do you?" Sirius pushed as gently as he could.
"I will be," Harry corrected. "That'll do for now." It would have to. "Can we go home?"
Sirius looked like he wanted to say more, but relented, his shoulders sagging. He snatched up the broken locket and any fangs he could, before stuffing them impossibly into the pocket of his robes. Then, when he was done, he forced what looked like a grimace onto his face and said: "Sure. Let's go."
If Harry had known what would come next, he might've stayed in the Chamber, but that wasn't what happened. He thought his life had changed already, but he was wrong, he just didn't realise how wrong.