Something Better Than This

Chapter 10: There's a Locket in My Pocket

"Is everything all right?" Ron asked in a low voice. "You look a little strained. He wasn't threatening you, was he? That hissing always sounds angry, but there was one point I thought he actually looked it."

"I think it's all right." Harry took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose, then put them back on. "He thought for a minute I was insulting his daughter for being a Squib."

"Are you kidding? Jak--"

"Stop!" Harry said sharply. Ron gave him a baffled look. Harry shook his head. "Sorry, but -- try not to use names. I'm sure he knows we're talking about him, and he doesn't seem to mind if I tell you what he's said generally, but he can recognize those and I'd rather not give him more than necessary to wonder about."

"Of course not," Hermione said. "We show up dressed in outlandish clothes, none of us but you speaking a language he recognizes, and we don't know how we got here. I can't imagine what he could possibly be wondering about."

Ron gave a muffled laugh. Harry shot a nervous glance at Slytherin, who had indeed looked over at them but merely raised his eyebrows and went back to his root vegetables.

"Anyway," Ron said, "are you serious about his daughter being a Squib? He's a lot nicer to her than I'd expect of Sl-- of him. I'd have thought he'd be more like Thaddeus Thurkell."

"What, and turn her into a hedgehog?" Hermione glanced at Slytherin in her turn. "She doesn't seem frightened or uncomfortable around him at all."

"No," Harry said, "she doesn't. And Merope Gaunt wasn't even really a Squib, just too nervous to do anything right, and the way her father treated her...." He shook his head. "Anyway. He says that the reason he left the school was that G-- er, our House's Founder insulted her for it."

"But that can't be right!" Hermione protested. "It says in--" She checked herself before she could let out the name of the school, but Harry felt quite sure that there was no more question in Ron's mind than his what book she'd been about to mention. "And Binns didn't argue with that part, even when he said that the Chamber of Secrets was only a legend -- and the Sorting Hat said the same thing! They argued over what students to admit, and Slytherin didn't want Muggle-borns, but the rest did."

"We know that, Hermione." Harry patted her arm. "I'm just telling you what he said. It makes a little more sense if you let me finish. He admitted they'd been arguing a lot. Something about not agreeing on anything for the past ten years. And he said they were arguing over Muggle-borns at the time. He thought it was a waste to teach them. He says our Founder said keeping his daughter there was a waste. I think maybe ours tried to make him see he wasn't being consistent."

"And he wouldn't listen and took it all the wrong way," Hermione said, looking relieved. "That does make more sense. At any rate it seems to fit better with all our other sources, though I suppose they could be biased in... well, in one side's favor."

"You don't honestly think he's got it right, do you?" Ron demanded.

"Well, he was there! But for your information, no, as I just said, I think it's much more likely that Harry's right and, er, our host misinterpreted things. Though I'm sure all four of them did have their flaws."

"Probably," Harry agreed hastily, hoping to forestall any further derailment. "But can we try to figure out what to tell him? Or ask him? Maybe it would be a good idea to ask about getting to the school, if we can do it without offending him."

"You mean if you can do it without offending him," Ron said.

"That too. Anyway, he offered to help us get back on track if we told him how we got lost, and that's going to be a really awkward explanation."

Hermione pursed her lips. "Oh, dear. You're right. If we can't find out what effect the locket had, anything he tells us might not be any use... and if we show him the locket he might think we stole it."

"So offer to give it back to him," Ron suggested, "but warn him somebody's put nasty spells on it in the meantime before we got it."

"And explain who and what kind?" Harry asked. The door scraped across the floor behind him, and he twisted around to see Jakinda coming back in with a basket filled with greens and at least one turnip. She looked toward their end of the table and caught his eye; Harry tried offering what he hoped was a friendly smile, despite his worries, and was disconcerted when she nearly dropped the basket. She recovered quickly and smiled back, somewhat awkwardly, then tugged free a strand of hair that had come loose and been caught in a chain at her neck.

Harry had to jerk his eyes away and turn back around to avoid staring when the pendant attached to the chain was pulled out from the neckline of her dress. It wasn't a sure thing in the dim light or from a distance, but it definitely looked familiar.

"Well," Hermione murmured, her eyes following Jakinda, "I suppose he won't think we've stolen it if they still have it. But then we'd really have to give him an explanation of why we have it, or one very like it."

"Maybe we should just tell him the truth and see if he believes it," said Harry. "I'm starting to think that would be easier."

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They settled on the truth, with the amount and structure of this truth to be at Harry's discretion, on the grounds that he was both the one with the greatest stake in the story he'd be telling and the only one who was actually capable of telling it under the circumstances.

This left Harry with the unenviable problem of how to approach Salazar Slytherin with the notion that they were from a thousand years in the future and engaged in a war against his last descendant. Perhaps he could leave out that last part, but the first was bizarre enough that Harry was still having trouble believing it himself.

Harry considered starting out by offering to help with the soup, but he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to begin his story immediately after making a request that involved handling sharp knives. Instead he merely slid a little way down the bench toward Salazar, placing both hands on the table in plain sight. "I apologize for taking so long," he hissed, when the two Slytherins stopped talking to each other and looked up inquiringly. "We've been trying to figure out how," and whether, but there was no need to mention that, "to explain. You see, when I said we don't know how we got here... I mean we really don't have the slightest idea how we got here. We were trying to Apparate back to Ron's home." At this point he paused, as it occurred to him to wonder whether Apparition had been invented yet or not, but Slytherin merely looked at him politely and waited for him to continue instead of asking why he was making up words. "And... well," Harry floundered, "we obviously didn't end up there."

"I do have a few redheads in the family," Salazar said encouragingly, "but not, I am fairly certain, that one."

"Right. Well. We think something pulled us off track." Swallowing hard, Harry reached into his pocket and placed the heavy golden locket quickly on the table, then flattened his hands against the wooden surface again. "And the only thing different from the last time we'd Apparated was that we'd found this."

Salazar's knife stilled, and he looked from the locket on the table to the one hanging from his daughter's neck, though to Harry's secret relief he did not grab hold of it and drag her around. Nor did he do anything else violent. He did, after several seconds that felt very long, look Harry in the eye and say coolly, "Explain how you came by this."

"It was in my godfather's house," Harry said. "I'm honestly not sure how it got there. I do know at one point it had been bought from one of your descendants who'd... who was in hard times."

"It seems stretching a point to call any of my grandchildren descendants. Besides that, they were all fine as of the last news I had -- which was recent -- and moreover I only made one pendant anything like that, and I know exactly where it is."

Harry took a deep breath. "It's the same one."

Slytherin frowned at him. "You seem to be talking nonsense. Besides, the one you have is different. It's been divided, and it has hinges."

Harry blinked, thrown off by this. "It has your mark, though."

"So it does." Salazar drew his wand and poked at the ornate serpentine S on the locket; a green spark sizzled. "A genuine one, too. And yet, there are the changes, and there at Jakinda's throat is one I am quite sure is real." He nodded to his daughter and flicked his wand in her direction; she didn't flinch as the thin green spark stretched across the table to her necklace and then winked out. "So," said Salazar, "you appear to be having some trouble giving me your explanation, but I sincerely hope you have a good one, even if it is difficult. Out with it."

"We're not foreign," Harry said, as Slytherin's eyes caught his gaze and held it. He lifted his chin a little. "We're from almost a thousand years later than now. Maybe somebody did something to the locket -- pendant, I mean -- in the meantime, to make it a locket. I know there are some more recent spells put on it. But your descendants definitely believed it had been yours."

Salazar appeared to sink into thought for a long moment. "Rowena believed that time travel would be possible," he said slowly. "I never sought to try it, but I did enchant my daughter's pendant so that anyone who might attempt to kidnap her or to steal it should at once find themselves on their way back here... or to me, if I happened to be elsewhere. Apparition should have landed you practically at my door, if it worked at all, but perhaps coming across time -- which I was not expecting, but I did make the spell very powerful -- had an effect. Or perhaps it was the fact that Jakinda was still wearing it and safe here."

"You believe me?" Harry asked incredulously, before he could stop himself.

Slytherin raised an eyebrow at him. "Why shouldn't I? Are you lying?"

Harry spluttered. "Well, no, but--"

"No, I don't think you are. Your story is ridiculous and implausible, but it hangs together in itself and with your strange dress and speech, and I can see how my spells might perhaps have had the effect you describe." To Harry's surprise, Salazar's teeth flashed in a smile. "Believing your tale does require me to assume that I provided the enchantments with an impressive amount of power and made them to last much longer than anyone would normally expect, but I'm prepared to consider that possibility."

Harry grinned at that. "All right, then. I'm still confused about it myself, is the thing." He sobered. "I don't know how we're going to get back, though. And we do need to."

Salazar nodded agreement. "I'm sure you all want to get back to your family -- families?" He eyed Ron and Hermione briefly. "Yes, you mentioned Ron Weasley's home separately. I don't know how you'll do it either, and I can make you no promises," he said bluntly. "Still, if it was possible to come backward so far, it seems it may be possible to return. It is more natural to move forward in time, after all... just not quite so quickly." He began chopping vegetables again.

"I knew about people going backward in time before," Harry said slowly. "I don't know about jumping forward without living through it, though." The Death Eater in the Department of Mysteries had aged and de-aged... youthened? Harry didn't think he and Hermione had grown any younger using the Time-Turner, so perhaps that was a better fit... he didn't think any of them had disappeared and turned up later instead of jumping back in time to break again and again, but then, it would have been hard to notice and he'd had other things on his mind.

"You'd known of going backwards?" Salazar asked sharply. "Well, I suppose they must have learned something new in a thousand years. Were you developing new magic?"

"No. We... weren't finished with our schooling, yet."

"Schooling... apprenticeships? Ah. Where were you in school?"

Harry blinked at him. "Hogwarts. Where else?"

A broad grin spread across Salazar's face. "Where else, you say. Hogwarts lasted a thousand years, then, and it's 'Where else?' is it? Whose houses were you in? Mine, I hope? I hear they've kept it."

"Er," said Harry. "Gryffindor."

Salazar's face fell. "Gryffindor? All of you? A Parselmouth!" He scowled suspiciously. "Are you still using that Thinking Cap?"

"The Sorting Hat?" Harry asked, startled. "Yes...."

"Hmph." It sounded more like "Ssssth," with a spit at the end. Salazar shook his head and got up to throw a handful of root vegetables into his cauldron, muttering. "I should never have agreed to letting him use his own hat. I could almost wish I hadn't left. Parselmouths in Gryffindor, indeed. Ah, well, you're probably all very loyal to it now." He turned. "In that case, what were you doing with jewelry that belonged to my family?"

"Well, most of my godfather's family was in your House," Harry began, though this hadn't really had all that much to do with it. Voldemort had taken the locket back from one of Hufflepuff's descendants. Then again, the Blacks had produced more than one Death Eater, perhaps including the mysterious R. A. B. "Regulus!" Harry exclaimed suddenly, remembering the name of Sirius's brother who had backed out of being a Death Eater and died for it.

Salazar gave him a peculiar look.

"Er, sorry. I didn't -- never mind that." If he ever got back to that horrible tapestry in the Black house, he'd look to see if Regulus Black's middle name was on it. "Anyway, I was trying to find out about Horcruxes-- glk!"

Slytherin's wand was digging into his throat.

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