All my thanks to Jared, Joe, and Kuilin, who beta-ed this chapter.

Chapter 30.

Descendants, Part II, Little Draco

6:52 am, June 28th, 1993

Lord Slytherin stretched his limbs outside the Mirror for the first time in several hundred years, and surveyed the room that he was currently in from more perspectives than just the inside of the Mirror. This was a room that was almost the size of the Great Hall, with high windows sending shafts of light down upon what looked like a city with towering walls, built of piles of broken and strange-looking furniture, tens of thousands of shattered bounded parchments, mountains of items with both mischievous and malevolent natures, old and dusty garments suited to strange tastes, remnants of ill-formed magical creatures, and rusty metal weapons with suspicious stains.

Salazar walked down a few aisles and saw a dusty tiara sitting on top of a bust of an ugly wizard. His eyes stayed on the tiara that was decorated with sapphire and amber, knowing it was the Diadem, the magical artefact that could point out the wearer's logical mistakes in his or her thought process. Such a powerful magical item should be able to resist dust by its own power. Unfortunately, the taint of Tom Riddle's imprint had impaired such abilities.

Salazar frowned, then retrieved a precious glass bottle that he bought when he had traveled to Constantinople. He opened the bottle, instructed Nagini to bite on the edge, and let her venom drain into the glass bottle.

After collecting about half a bottle of basilisk venom, Salazar used a hovering charm to direct the bottle to float to the tainted Diadem, and carefully dripped drops of venom on the edge of it. The moment the viscous black liquid made contact with the Diadem, a dark shadow somewhat resembling a human shape emerged from the tiara, shrieked desperately in vernacular and twisted like a wounded wild animal.

Salazar continued dripping without any hesitation. After dealing with dark magic for so many years, Salazar wouldn't have stopped even if the shadow had been speaking Parseltongue and promising world domination.

A few moments later, the dark shadow's voice lowered and became more incoherent, the dark fog distorted, then evaporated.

Salazar continued for a few more moments after the dark shadow had completely disappeared.

Before Salazar could further examine Rowena's Diadem, he heard something more from Tom Riddle's headquarters: Tom Riddle revealed some secrets of the Patronus charm to Lucius, and he said that secret might produce a Patronus powerful enough to block a killing curse.

-How is that possible? Tom Riddle said in Parseltongue that he had tried it once, but he didn't state the result. Hmm.

-According to Lucius, the more powerful Patronus that Severus wielded might be an essential part in the resurrection ritual that Severus used to bring Lucius back, and it takes life and magic, and the happy thought of life over death.

Salazar pondered this new riddle and tried, yet without success. His Patronus was still the same huge basilisk, although trying to put life into it could certainly make it brighter.

-Is Tom Riddle bluffing about the result?

Then after some conversation in the vernacular that Salazar really needed to learn, it seemed that Lucius, little Draco, and another wizard all learnt how to cast a more powerful Patronus, and therefore there must be something.

-Life over death, life over death…

-The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

-The Patronus drives away dementors, which form naturally when massive unnatural deaths occur. So the Patronus may be indeed the magic of life, not merely happiness. And resurrection is the victory of life over death, yes.

With that in mind, Salazar pushed his magic and a bit of his life into his wand, "Expecto Patronum!"

A large ball of bright light exited the tip of the elm wand that Salazar had used since he was ten years old. Some bright vapor extended from the bright ball, some shape resembling human neck and shoulder struggled to stabilize itself for quite a while, and yet it finally coiled back into the bright ball.

-Should the Patronus be a human instead of an animal? There is some riddle that I have yet to grasp, but this Patronus is indeed more powerful than any previous Patronus I have seen.

Salazar pondered the question further: Tom Riddle seemed to believe on a certain level that this Patronus might block the killing curse. Does this relate to the idea of "the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death"? Possibly so.

One puzzle that had bewildered Salazar for a long time was why the killing curse behaved so differently from all other spells. Powerful protection charms wielded by the Hogwarts Four could block almost every hex thrown by weaker wizards, except the killing curse. It couldn't be any problem with raw power, for the killing curse didn't require any more magic than the level of an average fifteen-year-old wizard, nor did it require any permanent sacrifice. For the sake of whatever gods or goddesses above if they really existed, the killing curse wasn't even an Interdicted spell!

Now, it seemed that one needed to sufficiently believe that death could be destroyed to use the advanced Patronus charm, and maybe this belief could also be used to block the killing curse.

Salazar pondered further on the question, keeping an ear on Tom Riddle, Lucius, and Severus the whole time.

After a while, it seemed that some further commotion came from Tom Riddle's headquarters. The flow of magic told Salazar that little Draco might have been blessed by Lucius, a witch called Narcissa Malfoy - presumably little Draco's mother, and Severus the Stutterer.

-Is this some important day for little Draco? Hmm, interesting.

Then, little Draco and a number of other wizards were dispatched to the general direction of the Forbidden Forest. A while later, Severus also dispatched quite a few snakes that he was commanding to go to the Forbidden Forest to prevent "eight-eyed giant sspiderss from l-running away, or con-contacting outsside v-wizarding kind".

-Nagini did mention that there were a lot of delicious giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest. Do the spiders follow instructions from outside wizards?

-Could it be some form of test for little Draco? But given the weird plots played by the Tom Riddles, this task might have been twisted into a murder plot, at the expense of the safety of Hogwarts!

Salazar controlled his anger toward Tom Riddle, and pondered the question. During the early years, the Hogwarts Four had to defend the school from magical and Muggle invaders many times, and Salazar clearly remembered that Lord Foul had used dementors. It was entirely possible that some magical giant spiders could be used for similar purposes.

Salazar extended his connection with the school wards to the fullest, soon finding one unauthorized mediocre wizard named Giuliani lurking on the edge of the Hogwarts wards. Salazar wrapped the Diadem with dragonhide and put it into a spare pouch, then put Nagini into his pouch for pets, disillusioned himself, and used his privilege as one of the Hogwarts Four to Apparate to that location.

In the familiar dense woods that looked quite similar to how it was before Salazar locked himself in Time stood the black-haired middle-aged wizard. That man was quite careful, because he kept his protection on all the time, and there were a number of interesting magical artefacts on him.

However, none of them was of any use in front of Lord Salazar Slytherin. Salazar's bright red stunning hex smashed the blue Protego Maxima into pieces and hit Giuliani's chest before any of the gadgets had any chance to activate.

Salazar sized up the wizard on the ground, determined that he was a complete ponce, for his skin was better than most five-year-olds, his teeth and nails were better kept than most witches Salazar had met, and the cloth of his garments was better than anything that Salazar had ever seen.

-Maybe I should torture information out of him, then ask his family for ransom, for this guy is surely quite rich.

"Legilimens."

The wizard tried to put up some mental defense against Salazar, yet his weak barrier was torn into pieces as easily as his poor excuse of a Protego Maxima. Then Salazar saw this ponce using charms on another wizard in red robes, and watched invisibly as the wizard in red robes talked with several eight-eyed spiders larger than bulls, again in the vernacular that Salazar couldn't understand.

-Hopefully, this ponce can understand Latin, Greek, or French.

"Quid hic agis?" Salazar released the binding on the wizard's mouth, and asked what he was doing here in Latin.

The ponce tried to keep silent, but Salazar's "Gom jabbar" soon taught him better. He began to answer Salazar's questions in Latin, with a disgusting accent that reminded Salazar of the Christian clergy in Rome.

What irked Salazar more was the content of Giuliani's answer: this ponce apparently thinks I am also someone seeking the power of the Stone, and offers to share whatever information on the Hogwarts wards he gets from the "acromantulas" with me in exchange for partnership in stealing the Stone.

Salazar turned and tossed this enemy's mind, but he didn't find any trace of this wizard being manipulated by others, especially a certain descendant of his. This helped Salazar suppress his rage. He pretended to be interested in the offer, and probed for further information.

As it turned out, about forty years ago, the "acromantulas" were brought into the Forbidden Forest by some dim-wit half-giant servant without letting anyone else know. Wizards in Hogwarts only found out about the man-eating spiders last night, and planned to move them somewhere else. Giuliani's contact in some institution called "Ministry of Magic" notified him of this development, so he quickly formed a plan to contact the English-speaking spiders.

Salazar was almost seething in fire now. He didn't care whether some Muggles were eaten by the giant spiders, but to raise these spiders that could easily bite off the head of a wizarding kid so near the school -

-Well, catastrophes could arise not only by the hands of clever villains such as the Tom Riddles, but also that by the hands of complete idiots. I really need to invent some new spells to use on the half-giant, and also invent some interdict to prevent any more half-beasts from exiting their mother's wombs! Of course, I need to kill all the spiders first.

Salazar knocked Giuliani unconscious, broke the defensive spells on Giuliani's pouch, and retrieved the other wizard's broomstick, for his Legilimency showed a glimpse of a broomstick that was flying much faster than the one Salazar owned. He touched the well-polished broomstick, and felt the delicate magic on it. This was indeed a fine work of art. Salazar tried the broomstick. The speed, smoothness, and control were superb.

Salazar threw a disillusionment charm on the unconscious Giuliani, tossed him into an empty backup pouch, and flew off.

-Maybe the current wizards do possess some unexpected magic that I don't know of. Nagini didn't mention anything particular powerful about the broomstick spell, just that you could apply it onto your own bones. There must be some finesse in broomstick magic that is not Interdicted.

With help from the Hogwarts wards, Salazar quickly found Draco and a dozen wizards in red robes talking to a swarm of giant spiders larger than manticores.

Before Salazar flew near, he sensed some magic artefact that was much more powerful than those on Giuliani. He paused, and quickly determined that was some form of powerful magical detection device on one of the people in red robes, whom the Hogwarts wards told him was "Alastor Moody".

Salazar had heard that a Urulat wizard named Vance had attempted to create powerful magical artefacts that could replace aged parts on his body so as to make himself immortal - it was rumored that he even wanted to replace his heart with a magical artefact that he could transfer all his memories and thoughts to, and use it to think. Unfortunately, he was slayed by his enemies before he could make a heart, and the parts he already made were all robbed away. The Hogwarts Four had discussed how each body part Vance made might work, and the sense of detection was similar to what Rowena had speculated about the Eye of Vance, that it could see through magical illusions and non-magical obstructs. The Hogwarts Four had discussed this Eye of Vance and similar magical eyes, and believed that they only saw through "illusions", and thus you could create true light and true images to fool such devices. To put it simply, you could duplicate all the lights coming to your back and project the duplicated light to your front, and do this all around yourself. Therefore, the image the wielders of magical eyes saw was not illusions created by magic projected to the viewer's heart, but true light.

"Circaduplucem!" Salazar cast the powerful spell invented by Rowena and perfected by Helga, which was even taxing for Godric, the most powerful of the Hogwarts Four in terms of raw magic.

-Well, if this doesn't work against the Eye of Vance, I can always stun the wearer.

Salazar flew nearer, and the holder of Eye of Vance didn't detect anything abnormal. Beside the holder, was little Draco.

The sight of little Draco made Salazar both happy and greatly annoyed. The sleek white-blond hair of that boy was identical to that of Armand and the first Draco, and the pointed face had some combined features of Armand and Salazar himself. The wand little Draco wielded was obviously made by none other than Salazar himself, with Armand's heartstring.

-However, what the hell is Draco wearing? Slytherin House is surely aristocratic, and I am happy that the Malfoys are doing well now, but does he have to be more of a ponce than Giuliani? I need to have some stern talks with Lucius.

Then Salazar saw the oldest and largest giant spider nod to Draco, and then address something in vernacular to some smaller spiders. Draco then spoke something more to the spiders, seemingly gaining some respect from the leader of the spiders.

Salazar smiled at little Draco's success in the power play, but he still needed to know what was happening. Salazar retrieved Giuliani out from his spare pouch, woke him up, and forced him to translate the conversation below into Latin.

It seemed that Draco was teaching the acromantula patriarch Aragog how to rule its descendants better, and the giant spider had adopted Draco's advice on how to deal with the fraction of acromantulas that planned to sell Hogwarts' secrets.

-Successful as little Draco is, doesn't he know cannibalistic beasts are never to be trusted? Too soft, and too naive. I need to teach him better.

Many powerful wizards had boasted in great detail on how they had won their combats with highly intelligent and powerful magical animals such as manticores, sphinxes, and trolls, but Salazar only used two very efficient spells: "Legilimens" and "Imperio". Obviously, no matter how spell-resistant the skins of the beasts were, they had never learnt how to protect their minds. And the human-language-speaking spiders were no exception to this rule.

A few well-placed mind-affecting charms later, a number of spiders suddenly started to openly rebel against their own patriarch.

Salazar observed the fights between several spiders, and it appeared that they were quite inefficient combatants when they were fighting each other. Their powerful legs that could easily break bones of human beings didn't cause too much damage when the legs of one spider clashed with another's, and the venom of acromantulas that could paralyze most types of prey was completely useless against another acromantula. What was worse, the cold-blooded nature of the giant spiders made them incapable of long intense fighting like wizards, therefore, for the most part, two dueling spiders were just circling each other.

-If I want the spiders to quickly kill each other until there are no spiders left, I need to teach them a new way of fighting.

Salazar tried several ways, and it proved that although the inside part of the legs and the bottom of the feet of the acromantulas was resistant against the stickiness of spider silk, the other parts of their body were not. Therefore, ejecting spider silk from a distance toward the upper legs and body of enemy spiders to immobilize them was a good technique. Additionally, if one spider could rush quickly enough to overcome the other spider's defensive legs, or to attack from the top or bottom, as long as it could bite off some vital parts of the other spider, it was also a decisive win.

With the help of Legilimency, the smaller faction of rebellious acromantulas soon all learnt the advanced fighting techniques, and started to kill Aragog's faction with passable efficiency.

On the other hand, Salazar was glad to see that little Draco was no fool. The blond boy on a faster broomstick quickly recognized the advanced attack techniques, and taught them to Aragog's followers. When two bull-sized acromantulas in Aragog's faction retreated quickly as they were chased by several manticore-sized spiders, a number of smaller sheep-sized spiders jumped down from several trees onto the only path the chasers had to pass, biting down hard on the necks of the enemies, while the running acromantulas turned and ejected plenty of silk to bind the legs of the previous chasers.

Salazar grinned and taught the spiders how to organize an anti-ambush, then something about anti-anti-ambushes.

When Draco handed the spiders some sealed potion cauldrons and green glasses, Salazar was really intrigued, and conjured one pair for himself when all the Aurors turned their glasses green. He needed to see what this was about.

Salazar watched with amusement when Aragog's glasses-wearing underlings broke the seals on the cauldrons, piecing light erupted wherever the potion landed, and the green glasses apparently minimized the effect somehow, for Aragog's fraction was still able to attack while the other spiders were blinded by the strong light.

Salazar laughed, which sent the blinded Giuliani into shudders.

-I have not had such fun in years! As naive a kid as little Draco is, he surely has potential. Well, he probably didn't think of the fact that the dense woods would diminish the effect of his potion. Let Grandpa Salazar teach you how to do better.

It was impossible for Lord Slytherin to brew a potion with similar effects within a short time, but it was easy to fake better effects with certain things in his pouch and some additional charms. Salazar retrieved several clay grenades of Greek Fire used by wizards in the Eastern Roman Empire, and charmed them into emitting strong light when they caught on fire. Salazar handed the clay containers to spiders in his faction, and continued watching.

When Aragog's faction charged, the rebels tossed out the grenades. Salazar had to admit that the spiders' legs were not made for throwing, so they didn't throw too far. But since the improved Greek Fire turned trees nearby into blinding torches, and Salazar's enchanted spiders were not affected by the searing light, the shortcoming was tolerable. As for little Draco's astonished and confused face - well, Salazar would have paid one-tenth of his gold to see it again.

-Little Draco, didn't you see that the previous battle had some resemblance to your mock battle near Rowena's Chamber, when you were fighting against stronger enemies? Grandpa Salazar would teach you more.

"Qui puer, Draco Malfoy," Giuliani chose this moment to suggest his idea, "est utilis tool."

Salazar didn't need Giuliani to suggest that Draco could be an useful tool. This annoyed Lord Slytherin quite a lot.

Moreover, since Salazar observed that the wizards called "Aurors" protecting Draco were all wearing garments of similar quality to his prisoner's, he guessed that the textiles today were just far better than they were in the old days; and since the "Aurors" were riding broomsticks similar to his prisoner's, all inferior to Draco's, Salazar speculated the broomsticks today were just better as well.

Lord Slytherin reached the logical conclusion that Giuliani wasn't as rich as he thought before, and therefore this enemy of Hogwarts wasn't even good for ransom.

Giuliani seemed to have taken Salazar's silence as approval, and proposed ways to abduct Draco. Salazar's answer was pretty succinct: "Avada Kedavra."

When Draco began to suspect someone was toying with him, Salazar laughed, tossed Giuliani's body to the spiders, and Imperiused the spiders on both sides to kill each other until there were no spiders or eggs left.

Salazar Apparated back into Hogwarts, looking for Lucius.

-Let me evaluate Lucius, and see if I shall plot something to free him from the Tom Riddles.