Slytherin's Gift

Slytherin's Gift

Harry Potter trudged down the icy passageway that led to the dungeons. His latest Potions essay had been returned to him with the words '3/10. See me.' scribbled at the top. This had come as no surprise to Harry. Since the Ferret Fudge incident at the start of term, Snape had no longer been content with criticising him during lessons: he had begun summoning Harry to his office after classes to discuss the shortcomings of his work in person. The resulting meetings were invariably horrible experiences.

Reaching Snape's office, Harry drew a deep breath to fortify himself and knocked on the door.

'Enter,' snapped Snape.

Harry opened the door. As he stepped over the threshold, the air itself seemed to turn solid around him. He was held irresistibly in place as the walls sped past him in a grey blur. There was a ringing in his ears ... the floor shifted sickeningly under his feet ... he would have yelled in shock, but his voice was just as frozen as the rest of him ...

At last the corridor stopped moving. Harry found himself once more gazing into Snape's office. Although the room itself was the same, its contents had changed drastically. The shelves with jars of slimy things were gone, a cosy fire crackled in the grate and the wizard standing, wand outstretched, behind a handsome, elaborately carved desk was definitely not Snape.

The wizard surveyed Harry with a triumphant expression. He lowered his wand and said a few peculiar words.

'Who're you?' said Harry. 'Where's Professor Snape?'

He tried to back away, but whatever magic had brought him there still had him firmly in its grip.

'Let me go!' said Harry furiously, reaching for his wand. It was like trying to force his arm through a sea of treacle.

For a second or two, the wizard looked puzzled. Then his face cleared. He picked up a box from the desk and held it out for Harry to see. The box was made of green lacquered wood and had a pair of silver bands around it, each in the shape of serpent. The wizard opened his mouth and a strange, hissing noise came out, but now Harry could understand him perfectly. He was speaking Parseltongue.

'Don't be alarmed, descendant. I've summoned you here from the future by means of a Temporalis Charm. It's the pull of your own time on you that's holding you back. I am your ancestor -- Salazar Slytherin.'

Harry gaped at the wizard for a full minute. Then --

'You're mad,' he said, again struggling to draw his wand. 'You're not Salazar Slytherin, you can't be!'

'Why can't I be?' said the wizard reasonably.

'Because you don't --'

Harry broke off. It was true that he could detect little resemblance between the wizard behind the desk and the wizened, simian features of the statue he'd seen in the Chamber of Secrets. But this wizard was a much younger man ... in his thirties rather than in his nineties ...

'-- and anyway, Salazar Slytherin isn't my ancestor,' he finally said. 'Dumbledore said he wasn't.'

'Then I assure you, this Dumbledore was wrong,' said Slytherin. 'You may not be a part of the, ah, official line of descent --' he gave a slight smirk, '-- but I recognise my own flesh and blood. You have the Slytherin hair ... the Slytherin eyes ... Great Aunt Arethusa's nose and chin ...'

He eyed Harry fondly. Harry stared back with a sick feeling in his stomach. Slytherin or not, there was no denying that this wizard looked a lot like him. Bright green eyes ... jet-black hair ... something of James Potter in the line of his jaw ...

'Dear old Auntie Ari ...' said Slytherin mistily. 'It is almost as if someone had Transfigured her into a boy. She could put the fear of God into a filthy Muggle better than any witch or wizard I've ever known. And you, young Slytherin -- have you been doing your bit to uphold our family's proud tradition of Muggle-baiting?'

Recalling the many clashes he'd had with the Dursleys, Harry gave a hollow laugh.

'I know all about frightening Muggles,' he told Slytherin.

Whilst living in his cupboard, Harry had often dreamed of being found by some other relation. But to have it be Salazar Slytherin ...

'And what of the heir of Gryffindor?' said Slytherin. 'It was predicted that his successor and mine would come into conflict ...'

'I -- well, I'm not sure,' said Harry. 'Nobody in my time knows who the heir of Gryffindor is.'

It abruptly dawned on him that there was a ray of sunshine in this whole appalling situation. If Slytherin could tell Harry who Gryffindor's heir was, he'd be able to help him instead of fighting him. It was Harry's choices that mattered, after all, not his ancestors.

'Er -- this heir of Gryffindor -- can you give me any clues how I'll recognise him?'

Slytherin thought for a moment.

'If the Gryffindor blood has run true -- which considering the company Godric keeps, I very much doubt -- his heir should look something like that.'

He pointed past Harry at a large portrait that hung on the left wall. There were four people in it: Slytherin himself, a pair of witches and --

'That's Godric Gryffindor?' choked Harry.

The red-robed wizard gazed serenely out of the portrait at Harry. His face was brave and kind and wise and good -- and apart from that, the very image of Draco Malfoy.

'Remind you of someone, does he?' A hungry gleam had appeared in Slytherin's eyes.

'He ... yeah ... he's a boy in my year at Hogwarts,' stammered Harry, his mind reeling at the sight of Malfoy ... wearing Gryffindor colours ... looking noble ...

'Well I hope you've been showing this Gryffindor brat who's the better man!'

Harry suspected Slytherin would have spat the words even if he hadn't been speaking Parseltongue.

'Yeah,' he said, remembering the Quidditch matches he'd won against Malfoy. 'I've been showing him.'

'Excellent,' said Slytherin. 'And you've found my Chamber of Secrets?'

Harry nodded.

'Well done.'

Slytherin swept over to Harry and tucked the green, serpent-bound box into the crook of his elbow.

'Take this. It contains the Eye of the Seventh Serpent. You'll know what to do with it, of course.'

'Of course,' Harry repeated.

And he did know what to do with it: hide it away in the safest place he could find -- his vault at Gringotts, perhaps -- where it would never be used for any purpose Slytherin intended.

Slytherin stood aside and waved his wand, and the corridor rushed past Harry once more. When he could see the office again, Snape was back at his desk, scowling suspiciously. His eyes fell on the green box Harry was carrying.

'What's that you've got there?' said Snape sharply.

'Present from a relative,' said Harry, stuffing the box into his bag.

— THE END —

Gryffindor's Dream

Draco Malfoy sat at a table by the fire doing his Ancient Runes homework. It was hard slogging; the runes refused to remain in the shape they'd been put on the parchment. Draco lifted his quill, and the feoh he had just written turned a somersault and shifted rapidly from a nyð to an eþel to a daeg. He shook his head, sighed in frustration and inscribed his next rune, a man that changed instantly into a peorð.

Suddenly there was a violent hammering on the stone wall that concealed the entrance to the Slytherin common room.

'Open up!' shouted an angry voice. More and louder banging followed. 'I built this bloody school, damn you, now let me in!'

To Draco's astonishment, the door slid open. A burly blond wizard in scarlet robes strode through it. There was something oddly familiar about him ...

The wizard caught sight of Draco and stopped short.

'Salazar was spouting some rubbish about my heir being here,' he said. 'So it's you, is it?' He looked Draco up and down in a rather insulting fashion. 'Can't say you look like much. Ah, well -- with what my daughters have given me for sons-in-law, I wasn't expecting great things from my descendants ... Godric Gryffindor.'

Gryffindor held out his hand. Draco didn't take it.

Drawing himself up with a sneer, he said, 'Yes, I've heard of you. You're the reason they've been letting Mudblood filth into Hogwarts for the past thousand years. You think I'm your heir? My family have been Slytherins for ages. Now his heir's back, he'll be putting those jumped-up Muggles in their place, and I'll help him do it!'

Gryffindor's pale eyes narrowed. Draco was strongly reminded of how his father looked whenever Arthur Weasley was mentioned. It occurred to him that Gryffindor was rather bigger than he was, and Crabbe and Goyle were nowhere to be seen.

'One of Salazar's indolent little weasels, are you?' said Gryffindor. 'Yes, baiting a Muggle would be right up your alley. Don't have the nerve to hunt a real man's game -- dragons and giants and wild Hippogriffs ...'

He stalked towards Draco, a most unpleasant expression on his face. 'You may not be my heir, but by God I'll teach you some manners!'

Gryffindor seized Draco by the shoulders and shook him till his teeth rattled. The room began to spin around him; Draco yelled in fright:

'Crabbe! ... Goyle! ... Godric! ...'

*

'... Godric! ... Godric! ... That's me you're trying to strangle!'

Godric Gryffindor opened his eyes to meet the wrathful gaze of Rowena Ravenclaw. He hastily released the two handfuls of her blue silk nightrobes that he was clutching.

'Sorry, dear,' he mumbled.

This turned out to be a mistake. Rowena took a deep sniff.

'Pickled eels! What have I told you about eating those things before bed? You do this every year ...'

Godric cowered from her fury. Rowena twisted onto her side, yanked open the drawer of the bedside table and drew out a small amber bottle.

'... but this time I'm ready! I asked Helga to brew a potion -- drink!'

She uncorked the bottle and thrust it under his nose. Godric drank.

She'd probably asked Helga to make it extra bitter, too, he thought with a silent shudder, as he curled up on his third of the bed (the other two were Rowena's) and waited for the foul taste to fade from his mouth ...

*

'AAAAAAARRRRRRGGHHH!'

Draco Malfoy's eyes flew open. Gregory Goyle loomed above him, looking worried; his massive hands gripped Draco's shoulders.

'I'm awake, Goyle,' said Draco crossly, 'you can let me go.'

Goyle let him go. Draco sat up shakily and wiped the sweat from his brow. When he looked up again, he noticed Goyle staring hungrily at the jar of pickled eels on the bedside table.

'Have a pickled eel, Goyle,' said Draco in a sarcastic tone. 'Have the whole jar -- I don't want it any more.'

Goyle bore the jar off greedily to his own bed. Draco tugged the dark green hangings of his four-poster shut. Dearly as he loved pickled eels, they gave him nightmares and always had done, although never before as bad as this.

'That was Godric Gryffindor? What an absolute git!'

When Draco was small his father had told him stories about his ancestor Vitius Malfoy, who had beaten Godric Gryffindor to death with twenty whacks of a Manticore's thighbone. Whilst Draco approved of Gryffindor killing in principle, he'd thought that twenty whacks was going it a bit: a round dozen should have been enough to finish off the toughest wizard. Now, however, he could quite see his ancestor's point of view.

'I would've made it twenty-one,' Draco muttered, as he rolled over and fell back asleep.

— THE END —