Harry Potter :Diamond Heart

'A tragedy I remain unable to correct,' Salazar sighed. For all the mock disappointment in his tone his expression remained soft, though Harry did detect a slightly victorious glint to his eyes. The founder was no doubt very glad that Harry had had a change of heart and his last living family members would not die killing each other.

'So what now?' Harry murmured. There was so much more he could do now the axe was no longer hanging over his neck.

'Focus on the tournament,' Salazar told him. 'Win it, the experience of using magic outside a classroom and in dangerous or testing circumstances will be invaluable. You will be far stronger for it.'

'Of course.' A slightly cold smile found its way onto his lips as he imagined outstripped the other champions. Fleur Delacour would be coming second, at best.

'You'll need to learn the charms to reverse self-transfigurations in case you make a mistake with your lungs. It's simple enough, an extension on the prior incantem, actually.'

'It is?' It seemed a long way from detecting the last charm a wand used to reversing it.

'The charm detects the exact strength, flow and intent of the piece of magic used and then applies its exact opposite. There are many different levels of it under different names and it's widely used by healers.' 'You know a lot of healing magic?' Harry queried.

'Snakes are not just associated with biting people,' he responded acidly. 'They were a symbol of healing and longevity before that was forgotten. I was never as gifted as Helga, she could use that charm to cure almost anything, but I was better than most. My skill at healing kept my wife alive for years longer than we thought possible after my other friends had passed.'

'How did the other founders die?'

'Rowena fell ill after he daughter was killed,' Salazar answered sadly. 'Godric was killed in a duel, searching after some wand he deemed too dangerous to be left in the hands of others well into his old age, the idiot. Helga outlived us all, perhaps she died peacefully.' Harry frowned. He had, for some reason, expected them to all to die peacefully. 'Mundane, in the end, weren't we?' Slytherin remarked bitterly. 'You cannot escape death, and those who try are often consumed by their attempt. Tom Riddle certainly was.'

'And you?' Harry dared to ask.

'I was consumed,' Salazar answered darkly. 'My search for a way to circumvent the barrier of death took everything I had. I died searching from my bed, too frail to do anything more than think and hope that my daughter might succeed in my place.'

'Did she?' Harry wondered.

'I would not know,' the painting responded sadly. 'Like all such creations I was enchanted to carry the knowledge of my original self from death. Anything that happened after that point I have needed to learn from an outside source. You, or Tom Riddle.'

'We were the only ones?' Harry asked, shocked. It had been a thousand years, a hundred generations of his family must have passed through these walls.

'It only takes our shared blood to open this chamber,' Salazar smiled ruefully, 'but far more is needed to ever find it, or want to. I overlooked that when I made it, assuming all my family members would be as I was. I told you my only company was the basilisk.'

'I thought you might have turned the other away,' Harry admitted. 'Found them unsuitable.'

'Found them unsuitable,' the painting frowned. 'They would have been my family, my legacy. You are as like Godric as me, an irony of time you cannot fully understand, but I did not turn you away just because you are not identical to myself. That is not how family works.'

It was how my family worked, Harry wanted to say. Vernon, Petunia and Dudley had hated anything that had not been the same as they were. He got the impression that the founder was offended he had ever considered the notion.

'Sorry,' he apologised. Slytherin should not be tarred with the same brush as the Dursleys.

'Apology accepted,' the founder said graciously. 'It was not, I think, a mistake entirely of your making and not the first time I have been accused of such.'

'I did not accuse you,' Harry denied, then his mind caught up to his mouth. 'Riddle said the same thing?'

'I told you that you were similar,' Salazar reminded him. 'It takes a crucible of terrible caliber to forge a person of such strength. The greatest wizards and witches are always born from adversity. Every single one you name suffered and was stronger for it. Some chose to rise above their pain and fears, others embraced them and chose revenge.'

'Tom Riddle succumbed,' Harry deduced.

'No,' an odd smile hovered about the painting's lips. 'Tom Riddle's path was not defined by revenge. Like you, he learned to simply let go of the things that hurt him. I do not know what drove and then consumed him. Logic and cunning were his masters, though he was proud to the point of arrogance and believed himself different to all other wizards, and he rarely gave in to emotions. I suspect it was partially his fear of death that caused him to become what he did, but I feel that there must be more than that to it. Everyone fears dying. Tom Riddle loathed it with inexplicable hatred.' The founder sighed and shook his head. 'It does not matter now, what he has become is more important than the path that led him there.'

'He cannot be allowed to return,' Harry agreed.

'Tom Riddle was rarely stopped from getting what he wanted,' Salazar warned. 'It will not be easy, especially when neither of us knows how he might attempt to return to a body.'

'The book was singularly unhelpful on that,' Harry remembered. Riddle's notes, which must have had an additional source to Secrets of the Darkest Arts, had only referred to metaphors of rebirth and the book itself only detailed how to create and destroy the horcruxes themselves.

'It is no longer a problem for the immediate future,' Salazar reminded him and Harry felt a jolt of pleasure knowing that it was true. 'You have a tournament to win. There are two wizards who want you dead, for one reason or another. Voldemort, and Albus Dumbledore. They aren't going to listen to a weak, ignorant fourteen year old who cannot earn their respect.'

'Voldemort is unlikely to listen at all,' Harry remarked.

'Do you think Albus Dumbledore will believe you either?' Slytherin asked his question with a degree of venom. 'He did not listen to Tom, when the boy warned him he would not be safe at the orphanage, and sent him back regardless.' It was the first time he had heard the founder refer to him by his first name alone and the first real hint of the affection Slytherin must have once had for the young wizard.

'I will not tell him,' Harry responded. 'Neither will listen, neither will change from their attempts to decide my fate. If they are my crucible then I shall rise above them and outstrip them both.'

'Such ambition,' Salazar smiled proudly. 'You, my heir, will make me every bit as proud as my own daughter did whenever she surpassed or bested me.'

📖📖📖

🪄✨This novel is available in pdf format with more than 400 chapters if you want you can visit our store🪄✨

⬇️⬇️⬇️

🪄✨https://sunflowersfic.tiendup.com/🪄✨