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Chapter 19.

The Disappeared Lord

May 5th, 1075

All the lore and stories about Salazar Slytherin agreed on one point: Lord Slytherin disappeared in his old age, and nobody knew where and when he died.

Disappeared indeed, but who said that the greatest of the Hogwarts Four and King of the Serpents had died?

At the age of one hundred and fifty, after giving his blessings to Angitia and her new husband Draco Malfoy, and expressing his concern about Circe's choice on her second husband Telemachus Gaunt - who also happened to be her stepson, Lord Slytherin knew it was Time.

Things had been set in motion long before, and all it took was to return Hogwarts, and to stand in front of the Mirror.

People had rumored that Godric had become a long-living giant squid in the Great Lake, so Salazar paid a visit to the lake before he entered the castle. However, the squid showed neither intelligence nor Godric's characteristic self-righteousness, for Salazar sliced a screaming merman into pieces in front of the squid, yet the squid just ate the meat from Salazar's hands like a good pet. Salazar considered killing a mudblood in front of the squid to make sure, but decided that he shouldn't attract attention.

-What a pity, Godric didn't seek immortality after all. Who shall I fight after I wake up from Time? Dueling him was the most fun I had in the past one hundred and fifty years.

Salazar also visited Rowena's tomb by the lake. To be honest, Salazar was quite angry at Rowena when he heard that she died from heartbreak after her disobedient and treacherous daughter was killed. He had hoped that Rowena, the most knowledgeable and most clever one in the Hogwarts Four, would one day come to her senses, and see his point that all mudbloods were dirty illiterate little traitors who should never learn magic. But no, Rowena died pathetically over her empty-headed daughter Helena's treason and subsequent death. If Helena were his daughter, Salazar would have cursed her into her senses, or simply imperiused her years ago. Now come to think of it, he should slip Helena some interesting potions before he left Hogwarts. What a waste!

And Helga, powerful witch as she was, just wasted her time and talent on creating some pointless games. Salazar watched one Kwidditch game for about a quarter of an hour, and decided that woman was completely hopeless, so he canceled his plan to visit Helga's tomb in the herbology garden.

After a final check on his faithful pet Herpo the Basilisk and his charm on the Sorting hat, Salazar slipped into a highly guarded room linked to the Headmaster's office. When Godric was still in the Headmaster's room, it might be onerous for Salazar to come in without invitation; now, it was less than a minute's wand work. Salazar sadly acknowledged the fact that if going without the most powerful lord, any ward created in this fading age after Merlin and long after Atlantis could be broken by a cunning and powerful wizard. Therefore, for his plan to work, Salazar had to turn to the Mirror, the evidence of the last attempt of Atlanteans to save their civilization.

Salazar looked at the Mirror, and willed himself to refuse the image of his younger self. Then, the Mirror showed the true image of an old wizard.

Salazar scrutinized the wrinkled face which no longer shone the light of youth, the hunchbacked body which had lost almost seven inches of its original six feet height, the obtrusive belly that refused to lose its content no matter what potions Salazar created, and the lined and spotted hands that occasionally trembled and prevented him from precise wand movements. And there were things that the Mirror didn't show: it didn't show the stiffness and pain in the joints that prevented Salazar from dancing to his heart's content in his granddaughter's wedding, or the blurred vision that gave him a headache whenever he tried to read something for too long, or the slow recession of the powerful magic that was flowing inside him. It was Time.

-Hopefully, Herpo, with its knowledge of most of my powerful magic, can keep Hogwarts from falling apart before I wake up.

Salazar setted the trigger to wake himself from frozen Time upon the appearance of the Stone of Permanency, then began his next great journey.

More than nine hundred years later

After what resembled both one thousand years and one second of Time, Salazar slowly woke up from Time, knowing that the Stone of Permanency must be very near, even inside the Mirror.

-Finally, someone had combined the two powerful magical relics, and the King of Serpents had fulfilled the Prophecy. Now, Herpo, it is Time to call your companions, come to the Mirror, and replace yourselves with me. I shall grab some mudbloods to get you out later.

Lord Slytherin sent out the signal, yet received no response. After what Salazar felt like one day, he decided that the Time might be too long, Herpo was probably dead, and other snakes might be too far away to receive the weak signal that he could manage through the Mirror. He needed to initiate a backup plan, such as attracting some powerful wizard to enter the Mirror to replace him.

Salazar reached out of the Mirror with the little magic the Mirror allowed him to, and tried to sense the outside world. The problem was, what he sensed as Time passing by was definitely different from how Time ran in the outside world, and his range of senses was quite limited. He heard conversations way too fast for him to grasp, and sensed people came and went in front of the Mirror faster than sound. There wasn't enough Time for him to plot, or to lure anyone inside.

However, Lord Slytherin was as patient as a snake in the dark, because he could detect the magical trap setup by some moderately powerful wizard, probably the current Headmaster of Hogwarts, to lure his enemy in. With a little bit of twitching, things would work to Lord Slytherin's advantage.

A few days passed, or maybe a few months, he wasn't sure, the Stone left the Mirror before Salazar could react. An instant later, the wizard who set the Time trap walked willingly into the Mirror. Maybe that wizard did this for some grandeur reason, just like Godric always was. The decision of the current Headmaster was not Salazar's business, but his sacrifice did help. Although that stupid wizard's power was too weak to let Salazar out, the Time differences inside and outside the Mirror became smaller, Salazar could see the outside of the Mirror, and hear conversations inside Hogwarts better.

The Mirror was apparently in some chamber in Hogwarts, and there was a semi-powerful adult wizard and a child in front of it. From the magical sense, the adult was probably holding the Stone. The adult laughed hard, maybe at his enemy's stupidity. Then they said something in a language that Salazar didn't understand. The rapid sounds somewhat resembled English and French, but not quite.

There must be a long Time passed between his entry of the Mirror and now, for they no longer spoke Latin at school, and the vernacular was different from anything Salazar knew.

Then, to Salazar's delight, the adult spoke in Parseltongue. Unfortunately, even the Parseltongue was too fast for Salazar to fully grasp, but he did manage to distinguish some words: "helped … yess … time … ressurrect ... girl … "

-Resurrect! Some of my descendents have figured out how to resurrect others! Hopefully, it is not the useless horcrux type. And, does this resurrection need the Stone?

-And oh, the child held hostage by the adult apparently also understands Parseltongue, therefore he is also my descendent. Well, what can one expect after such a long time?

Salazar watched as the child and the adult left, and tracked their path with magic. Unfortunately, these two only used Parseltongue to open Salazar's Chamber of Secrets, and other conversation were all in a vernacular that Salazar was unable to understand.

Salazar was a little disappointed when the adult and child left the detectable range, but he was a patient snake. He knew, if he could lure enough wizards or magical creatures into the Mirror and free himself, neither the adult nor the child could possibly overpower the greatest of the Hogwarts Four in an ambush. He could afford to wait.

Salazar turned his attention to Hogwarts in general. From the senses of magical existence, the majority of the school children were in the yard, apparently watching the pointless game that Helga wasted her time on. There were also a number of unconscious or controlled people near the chamber of the Mirror, and there was multiple copies of one particular wizard in Hogwarts. One was controlled by Salazar's adult descendent, guarding the entrance to the chamber of the Mirror; two were in separate rooms, each holding a copy of the Stone of Permanency, busy making duplicates of a number of heads and bodies permanent; and there might be a fourth one that was fast fleeing Hogwarts castle without the Stone. And ahha, one copy of his child descendent was washing himself in a first floor bathroom, staggered toward the yard, also with the Stone.

It seemed that some very interesting plot was going on in the school. And amazingly, the child might have outsmarted the adult descendent in the future/past. Interesting indeed. A master plotter as Salazar would really like to try his hand in something like this, but he could wait.

After what felt like only a few minutes, one copy of the interesting wizard in one room left quickly with the Stone, one copy disappeared from his room - probably the work of a Time turner, and then the copy guarding the chamber fell down, and there came a loud CRACK. Soon after the CRACK, the copy in front of the chamber door disappeared quickly, while another copy of that wizard flew quickly through the corridors, and deliberately fell down hard at the location where he just left.

-Mediocre wizard as he is, a cunning one indeed. I would be quite disappointed if this one is not in my House. And the child as well. Watching your own descendents plotting against each other is truly amusing.

There came some commotions in the yard, and then mourning sounds in vernacular.

By the sunrise of the second day, which only felt like less than one hour for Salazar, he had figured out the interesting wizard was the Head of his House; and the child was a centerpiece or something, probably for defeating his semi-powerful adult descendent, and a Ravenclaw.

Salazar was somewhat disappointed at the discovery of the identities of the interesting wizard and the child.

-Interesting and cunning wizard that one is, his power level is mediocre to put it mildly. how can such a wizard be the Head of House Slytherin! Moreover, how did my cunning child descendent end up in Ravenclaw? There must be some way that I can steer him to Slytherin.

And by breakfast time, Salazar heard some announcement in vernacular. Because it was slow enough, Salazar was able to make out some names, including one Draco Malfoy, and a child in Slytherin cried out upon hearing this name. And several others were calling him by the name "Draco".

-Probably a descendant of Draco and Angitia, then. Good to hear that some of my descendants are in Slytherin House. Did some relative of the current Draco die last night? No matter, this Draco doesn't need to worry about the loss of powerful magic upon someone's death. Grandpa Salazar can teach little Draco magic that no one else know.

Needless to say, more of Salazar's attention was on his child descendent with the Stone. That boy locked himself in a deserted classroom, tested the power of the Stone, then entered the Headmaster's office, and met a bunch of mediocre witches and wizards.

Soon after, the Mirror was moved to Rowena's Private Chamber, which only contained a lot of junk now. Salazar felt quite indignant at this: what are the current wizards thinking? How dare they treated Rowena's Private Chamber like this? Do they have any idea of the real power of her Chamber, let alone the Mirror? I need to think of something creative to punish those idiots!

However, a few moments later, Salazar realized that the current wizards did know the value of Rowena's Chamber and the value of the Mirror, yet what they did was not to Salazar's advantage. The current wizards left the Chamber, thought of something else, entered the Chamber, and began to shower protection spells in the new Chamber, and there were always some people in there. By the rules of observation effect, nobody had access to the Chamber that Salazar was in, they could only enter the new Chamber with someone already in. Salazar had to admit, although the surrounding junk was highly unpleasant, this was a good way to protect the Mirror from stealth. However, Salazar was trapped in Rowena's semi-interposed Space nonetheless.

Probably a few days later for the outside world and a few hours for Salazar, someone held the Stone entered the new Chamber. Then, a constant stream of very sick people began to be shipped in, and shipped out as completely healthy individuals.

It took almost an hour for Salazar to fully comprehend what had happened: some good idiots have offered the healing power of the Stone to a lot of wizards. Oh, whatever gods and goddesses, are the current wizards completely nuts? Hogwarts will soon be conquered by wizards from all over Europe, and wizards from the East will come as well! And the current headmistress cannot even use the Hogwarts defense wards properly. I need to exit the Mirror, soon.

Salazar tried his best to send signals to all snakes in the Forbidden Forest, let them tell all the snakes, that all basilisks should come to the Forbidden Forest in a discreet way.

Then, Salazar concentrated all his energy on one thing: breaking the security system and interposed Space set up by Rowena. Salazar needed to create a passage for the basilisks, or whatever intelligent magical animals, or wizards that he could use to free himself. After all, he could always throw in enough griffins, giant squids, or some other unpleasant animals such as mudbloods, to free his snakes and the wizards later.

After some diligent work that Salazar thought might add an entire year to his age, a narrow passage just enough for a small basilisk was finally connected to his Chamber of Secrets. Now, Salazar could call for the two basilisks that had arrived in the Forbidden Forest while Salazar was deciphering Rowena's riddles.

The next chapter will be up 6 pm (EDT), 04/17/2015.