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

Chapter 29.

Descendants, Part I, Tom Riddles

12:54 am, July 3rd, 1993

Salazar Slytherin silently exited the temporary residence of his black-haired descendant, completely fascinated by the small duplicated gadget in his hand.

The small golden clicking gadget was only the size of a locket. On its surface, it had three delicate metal pointers turning at different speeds. Roman numbers three, six, nine and twelve were embossed on the background, with smaller divisions in between the numbers. Some simple charms revealed that there were quite a number of turning parts inside its small cavity.

-From the sound of the "Tempus" charm Severus used before he drew out this gadget, that charm might have something to do with time. It must be a new charm invented after I locked myself in Time. The numbers shown in the air may reflect the current time, then. I need to learn the current spellings of numbers to fully understand what those mean.

-Perhaps this gadget has something to do with time as well? Maybe Severus got suspicious of his fogging memory, and checked if a Time-Turner was somehow involved? Hmm... so possibly this gadget can track time without being influenced by the use of a Time-Turner.

-What an exquisite invention! Do the larger intervals represent hours? As for the further divisions, hmm, I have heard that some Persian scholar had divided an hour into sixty parts, and each part into sixty second-part, and each second-part into sixty third-part, is that it?

Salazar counted as the thinnest and longest pointer turned a full sixty stops, saw the medium-sized pointer moved one small interval, and confirmed one of his guesses.

-Wizards are surely getting weaker and weaker as time passes by, but I have to admit they have made neat progresses elsewhere, such as this magical gadget, or the improvements with the luck potion. In my time, drinking a luck potion was as lethal as drinking unicorn blood, but later potioneers - including my interesting descendant Severus - have reduced a lot of the side-effects.

-As matter of fact, my crazy descendant Tom Riddle has made some important and powerful magical inventions as well.

Salazar felt quite a headache as he thought of his descendant in the Gaunt line, one Tom Morfin Riddle, who was referred to as "You-Know-Who", "the Dark Lord", "Harry Potter", and "the Boy-Who-Lived".

Salazar wasn't surprised that some of his descendants might become dark lords, for he himself was considered a dark lord by many idiots; but he was, for a while, confused by the complicated game played by this Tom Riddle. He thought back to his escape.

A few months ago in the eyes of the world outside the Mirror, while Salazar was busy deciphering Rowena's ward, he also took a quick scan of the garbage in the room to see if there was anything that he could use. To his surprise, he found Rowena's Diadem, tainted by some foolish wizard's horcrux spell many years ago, sitting on an ugly statue.

-What an idiot! And what a waste of a valuable magical artefact! The rumor that making horcruxes would hurt one's children didn't stop idiots from committing such follies, then.

Salazar sighed inwardly, allowing himself a moment to miss the good drinks he'd had with Godric, and the hilarious things that happened afterwards: who would believe the good and righteous Lord Godric Gryffindor would knowingly spread a rumor concocted by none other than the evil and dark Lord Salazar Slytherin?

-It didn't fully serve its purpose, though.

Salazar stopped his sentimental thoughts to focus on the current problems.

-What is worse, the Diadem has a "mind" now that it is a horcrux, so I can't use it to replace myself in the Mirror and escape, unless I can cleanse it of this nasty horcrux, because whatever has a mind has to come into the Mirror willingly.

Salazar briefly connected his magic to Hogwarts wards, discovering that the idiot who made the useless horcrux had a name of "Tom Morfin Riddle". Interestingly, there were also two overlapping "Tom Morfin Riddles" moving outside, and one of them was none other than the acclaimed hero for the "defeat" of his adult descendant, one "Harry Potter".

It took Salazar quite some extra energy, beyond what he was using to crack Rowena's interposed space, to determine the age of "Harry Potter", which turned out to be both twelve and sixty-six; as for the half-dead transfigured one overlapping with "Tom Morfin Riddle", he was sixty-six. Then Salazar finally understood what had happened: after this Tom Riddle had made Rowena's Diadem into his horcrux, for whatever stupid reasons, he also made a child named "Harry Potter" into his living horcrux. And this living horcrux is carrying a true body of "Tom Riddle" wherever he goes, so that he can use his true body for powerful magic as needed.

-This Tom Riddle, he couldn't… he couldn't also be the adult descendant who was "defeated" by "Harry Potter", could he?

Salazar briefly imagined the scene of several Tom Riddles fighting - or pretending to fight - each other, then sighed in complete frustration. Somehow, that was exactly the level of craziness that he himself might reach if he really had infinite life and no Godric to duel.

-Although a horcrux doesn't really give you infinite life, this crazy descendant, or descendants, might have gained virtual infinite life by the Stone.

-Does this have something to do with the fact that the Stone is available to a lot of wizards now? One of the Tom Riddles is pretending to be an idealistic hero, and another is dressing up as a smart evil lord? How many other identities does he have?

Even Lord Slytherin had a limit for insanity. He decided that after he extracted himself from the Mirror, he needed to hunt down all the Tom Riddles. He would teach them a good lesson.

After Salazar finally dug a hole into Rowena's chamber, he called for the snakes to come into the chamber and enter the Mirror. Most of the snakes did, except one basilisk named Nagini, who had unfortunately eaten too many acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest, gaining so much fat it couldn't crawl in through the narrow tunnel even after vomiting all the contents of its stomach.

Still trapped in the Mirror because of the gluttony of Nagini, the more mobile Lord Slytherin worked further on the tunnels to allow Nagini in, and started to ask the basilisk a few questions about the outside world.

And Salazar felt quite lucky that he had asked, for Nagini revealed that its previous master, one named "Tom Riddle", had transferred all the knowledge Salazar left to Herpo and quite a few other secrets of powerful magic to Nagini.

-So this crazy descendant of mine must have met Herpo before it died, and got the idea of using a basilisk from there.

Then it hit Salazar: this crazy descendant of mine met Herpo before it died!

Now Salazar began to speculate how Herpo had died.

-I made sure that my descendants could only meet Herpo each time after they had promised that they had not and would not to hurt Herpo the Basilisk by any means in Parseltongue. If Tom Riddle did kill Herpo, how did he do it?

Salazar pondered this question, then it became apparent: Tom Riddle could have made Herpo "not Herpo", and then killed it. For example, some time after Tom Riddle had learnt all the secrets, he could have killed someone in front of Herpo, and made himself a horcrux. Obviously, Herpo would have given him a stern lecture on how useless horcruxes were, then tried to destroy the horcrux with its fangs. Maybe Tom Riddle had made some improvements on his horcrux spell, so that the horcrux could have occupied Herpo, and make it "Tom Riddle". Then, one Tom Riddle could have killed another Tom Riddle.

Then Salazar remembered something much simpler - the Hogwarts wards allowed one to willingly change one's own name upon marriage.

When the first wizarding school had just been built, witches and wizards from all walks of life came and studied magic under the powerful Hogwarts Four. As the students aged from eleven all the way up to one hundred and six, it was inevitable that a lot of them got married during their Hogwarts years. Salazar had encouraged such unions, for these marriages would ensure the purity of wizarding blood.

-Tom Riddle could have found another powerful snake and introduced them. He might tell Herpo that it was customary for the wizarding kind to change their names upon marriage. Oh, stupid snakes!

-Or if Herpo didn't change its name upon marriage, Riddle could aim his curses at Herpo's bride or babies, and …

The image of the loyal basilisk inserting itself between the green light and its bride, and the scene of Herpo rushing desperately into Fiendfyre to save its babies, flashed alternatively inside Salazar's mind, and irked the old wizard greatly.

Salazar didn't want to kill his descendants, but he would surely make the "lessons" much harsher for this Tom Riddle, and Salazar even began to wonder if killing all the Tom Riddles would be a good idea for the safety of Hogwarts.

Then, Nagini told Salazar the details of the powerful wizardry in Tom Riddle's knowledge that Salazar didn't know.

Salazar had to admit to himself, that he was shocked to learn how much powerful magic his descendant had learnt from parts of the world that Salazar himself had never explored, and how much Tom Riddle had invented: with the improvements on the horcrux spell and the ritual to create a semi-true body with bone of father, blood of enemy, and flesh of servant, a wizard has virtually infinite life even without the Stone of Permanency!

-And his use of the Resurrection Stone to connect his improved horcrux system - it is so incredibly clever and selfish. I had never thought it could be used for oneself like that.

Then, Salazar had a wonderful realization: Actually, that is the missing part in all my designs of resurrection rituals without the preserved heart! That is how the Resurrection Stone is supposed to be used, for oneself, not for summoning the loved ones from afterlife. Everyone says the Resurrection Stone can only summon the ghost of your own memory, for it is your own memory. And that's exactly what it is: the summoning of one's own memory upon the touch of one's body. If I can conjure Godric's body from his hair in my pouch, and use the Stone of Permanency to make it true, then I can use the Resurrection Stone on the true body to summon Godric's memories and thoughts!

-Oh, I have such a wonderful collection of hair from my one hundred and fifty years of life.

Salazar felt great glee, no longer worried about going insane like Tom Riddle after he gained infinite life: because I can bring my wife and my son back - they died so young, before they even turned one hundred. And, of course, Godric, Rowena, and Helga. I guess they won't mind too much that I broke into their tombs after I heard about their deaths. What a shame that even Helga, the youngest of Hogwarts Four, died before I figured out how to preserve one's heart over a long period of time.

Salazar happily dug out a wider passage for Nagini, and kept the basilisk outside the Mirror, because it had too much useful information to be temporarily locked in Time.

Naturally, Salazar now also extended his senses to a wider range of Hogwarts, especially towards the few interesting persons he now knew.

Breaking the series of charms usually used by current wizards took Salazar some time, but he himself was the ultimate Hogwarts defense expert, and Nagini was the best guide to contemporary magical developments. Salazar obtained full auditory access to all parts of Hogwarts, especially "Harry Potter's" headquarters and the Headmistress' Office, just in time for him to catch some interesting conversations between several of his descendants.

As it turned out, the interesting mediocre wizard, the former Head of Slytherin, was also Salazar's descendant. Unfortunately, this "Severus Snape" might be a stutterer, which was a detrimental disability for any serious wizard.

Disabled and mediocre a wizard as Severus was, he apparently had done something that Salazar had never accomplished in one hundred and fifty years - Severus had revived someone.

-And much better than reviving someone random, that person is also my descendant, one Lucius Malfoy. Judging by how happy little Draco is, Lucius might be little Draco's father.

-Hmm, maybe I should try to figure out a way to cure stammer. Severus' cunning is quite to my taste.

The eavesdropping on the Parseltongue conversation between the Tom Riddle in the form of a child and Lucius Malfoy revealed something much more important than the contemporary political struggles among his descendants: it seemed that both of the Parselmouths honestly believed that something could lead to world destruction, and there was a "Vow" - possibly an Unbreakable Vow - involved.

Unfortunately, most other conversations were carried out in the current vernacular that Salazar didn't understand, yet some words that Salazar did understand made him worry: some words sounding like "prophecy", "destroy", "world", and "Unbreakable Vow" were mentioned quite several times.

These words stopped Salazar from carrying out his original plans of luring the two squib servants. Salazar decided that he need to be more careful, and not attract any possible attention before he figured out everything.

Luckily, one of the Tom Riddles - maybe the adult one called "the Dark Lord", soon made another scene that scared Severus, little Draco, and the girl full of smells of unicorn and troll. This somehow lead to a lot of outside wizards coming into Hogwarts, also bringing many magical snakes in, which was just to Salazar's taste.

Yet to Salazar's disgust, the Tom Riddle in the form of a child not only completely fooled Severus into thinking of him as a leader for the "Light", but he also misled Severus into believing killing Herpo or other basilisks would grant great power. Salazar instantaneously saw the scheme: this Tom Riddle is afraid that Severus might meet Nagini unexpectedly, and Severus might learn the secrets of powerful magic from Nagini and therefore no longer be under his control. So, Tom indicated that Severus should kill Nagini, instead of talking with it.

Salazar's hand trembled slightly. In an instant, he wanted to tear all the Tom Riddles into pieces. But he had waited for so long, he could wait a little longer.

Whatever weird plots the Tom Riddles were playing at, the many magical snakes brought into the tunnels and sewers were definitely helpful for the lord trapped in the Mirror.