Tears of a Basilisk

Journal entry the thirteenth.


Ah, lucky number thirteen. To be honest, I didn't think I'd be so invested in this journal that I would get even close to thirteen entries. Well, since this is something of an unexpected occasion, I feel that I should really pour my all into this one, more so than previous entries. The only question is what to cover. I could further explain about my life as Salazar, and move onto the founding of Hogwarts, or I could jump to the other end of the spectrum and cover the more recent events of my fifth year as Harry, which unbeknownst to every other party involved came perilously close to starting a chain reaction that would have heavily damaged Hogwarts. Why else would I be so upset, after all. It's not like I really cared about the mutt after all, certainly not enough to grieve over him as many perceived that I did. What the heck, I seem to have made the decision, so let's delve into the misery and chaos of my fifth year, shall we?


Once again, we return to the Dursley's for another summer 'holiday'. That year wasn't nearly as bad as the others, mostly because I went Slytherin on them. After all, I didn't need magic to keep them in fear of one such as I. Waking up in a bedroom filled with all kinds of poisonous snakes tends to change certain behaviours quite rapidly, especially when only one person can keep them from biting. Just for fun once I had a juvenile asp ride along with Vernon one day strategically placed under his trousers. Kept him in line rather nicely, I think. Snake-filled summer notwithstanding, let us move to the incident that defined the beginning of the 'adventure', my encounter with the Dementors with the boy-pig Dudders quivering at my side. Hm, boy-pig, I could have changed him into a pig and fed him to Sylvain.. maybe later.


Anyway, this wasn't my first, or even second encounter with Dementors, and the reality of the situation was worlds away from what the Ministry alleged what happened. The Dementors were after me, but they were not acting of their own volition. There is just not a lot known about Dementors on average, but once in a while someone stumbles upon one of their aspects and exploits it. It is possible to gain control over a Dementor if you can find a certain unique artifact, after which they respond much in the way of the djinn. Now, one might say that the odds of someone with a grudge against me getting their hands on such an artifact and using Dementors as a weapon are rather low. Normally I would agree with you,except that I know the artifact was at the time in the possession of the Department of Mysteries. What a lovely bit of entrapment that was, I must give Fudge credit for that bit of inventiveness. Really, it must have seemed like a win-win situation for him, either the Dementors kiss me or I fight them off and get expelled for underage use of magic. What he, like his co-conspirators, didn't count on was that I had something of a rapport with the Dementors. By rapport, I mean that they were terrified of me, of course.


Faced with these remote-controlled Dementors, rather than use the laughable Patronus charm that I already discredited I decided to give them the Stare. Hah, when I hear people accuse certain professors of having a death-glare, I have to rein in my laughter. If only they knew that sitting next to them was someone who had a basilisk blood-gift besides that of parseltongue, they would have run screaming in pure terror. While the basilisk Stare is only deadly to creatures that are living, it has an interesting effect on shades such as Dementors. Rather than absorb the life energy directly, as basilisks do with prey, the Stare absorbs some of the physical material of shades as well as their soul-energy. As deadly as the Stare is to mortals, it's even worse for those inbetween worlds. So, once I lifted up my crystal clear set of inner eyelids and turned my head in their direction, they fled rather rapidly. After all, their directions were to flee if they encountered any type of resistance, as I found out from those same dementors later that year. The Ministry did not expect me to be able to fight them off without resorting to magic, so when they couldn't find any underage use of magic on my part they simply made it up and forged the reports. Yes, they directly made up the entire story. At this point, if you dear reader are of a suspicious and observant mind, you may be wondering about the mysterious disappearance of several key members of the Ministry at the beginning of my final year. Well..... keep wondering. I'm not parting with that bit of information this early.


So, needless to say the whole trial was a farce, all it did was force me into the spotlight and once again portray the Great White Coot as my guardian and protector, as well as the Master of the Light. Ah, what fools these mortals be, if I may paraphrase the Bard. Oh, that reminds me, look closer at the tree, I'd say about two-thirds up the wall directly up from Tom. Anyway, I will admit that the trial was a strain on me, simply because I was getting sick and tired of pretending to the the Golden Boy, and I wasn't really looking forward to acting like an adolescent again, let alone on a public stage.


Upon my return to Hogwarts, things really started to get ridiculous. I do not refer to the papers and fellow students turning on me, they have done that every single year after all and I was fairly used to it, rather I refer to that pathetic waste of life named Dolores Umbridge. Hag decided to take over Fudge's vendetta against me in the one place where I should have been at least partially protected. Now, by now Umbridge's various offenses, such as the blood quill, are well-known. What no one else figured out was that it wasn't her sole mission to make my life miserable and turn me over to Ministry custody one way or the other. No, far from it. Fudge may be an incompetent moron that I wouldn't even use for cannon fodder, but he had ambition in spades. Yes, he had ambition, but I'm not telling about that yet, am I? Her real agenda was to basically strip Hogwarts of her power by finding the Keystone and, if unable to destroy it, then to corrupt it to the point where the school would be stripped of much of her magic and defenses. What is the Keystone, you may be pondering at this point. Don't bother trying to research it, you won't find anything. The only souls to know about it's purpose, powers and location were we four Founders, and since we protected it even further with the much stronger original version of the Fidelus spell, only one person could say anything about it. And of course the secret keeper was the one Founder who was more or less immune to capture or torture, yours truly.


Of course, with these stipulations no one at the Ministry knew what they were looking for, since they had no knowledge about the Keystone, but they knew that somewhere in the castle was the magical core that gave Hogwarts the ability to be largely self-sustaining. They had no idea whether the core would be embedded in an object, or a certain ley line configuration, etc. so they equipped Umbridge with various magic-sensing spells and artifacts designed to point out areas with high magical concentration. I shudder to think how close she came to finding it. For a nasty, bitter toad she was fairly resourceful. There was no way she could have destroyed it, but she was equipped to do enough crippling damage to harm the school. If she had succeeded in her goal, the results wouldn't have been what she desired, but it would have still been terrible. For once I won't dive into the details of the consequences, just know dear reader that they still make me shudder to this day. In a sick way, Dumbles (who was working to some degree with the Ministry against me) shot his own plans all to hell. If I hadn't had my great awakening in the Chamber, where I regained all my past memories and powers in addition to my current ones, then she would have been unopposed in her quest to destroy Hogwarts, and likely would have succeeded to a degree.


People have been underestimating me for quite some time now, and this once I was grateful for that fact. With the lack of knowledge about what the Keystone really is, the Ministry was ill-equipped to go against me. They couldn't have realized that each Founder had imbued the artifact (no, it's not really a stone) with a portion of their own magical cores, as well as bound it with ancient blood-magic. Nor could they have realized that, because of that aspect, the Founders had complete direct control over every detail of Hogwarts. We could apparate in and out of the wards directly, change the shields with a thought, and even draw from the immense core of magical power that we bound to ourselves and the school. As the secret-keeper, I was tied even closer to the Keystone than the others, and since I was the strongest of the four in terms of sheer magical power due to my creature heritage, I was able to protect the school in a way the others could not. We wanted to ensure Hogwarts' survival for as long as possible, so in order to do that we enacted another blood-ritual, the purpose being that as long as at least one of my blood-kin survives, Hogwarts cannot fall. It can be damaged, but not destroyed. There was no stipulation as to whether the kin would be of humanoid descent, and I knew that many of my relatives were extremely hard to kill if not immortal. We all had equal status within the school, my being singled out was simply the most practical method. Human bloodlines can die out rather quickly, at least compared to mine. There are dragons and basilisks, for example, that are far older than I.


Once I had thwarted Umbridge, a process that took most of the year, things still didn't calm down for me. Forgive me if I skip past the tedious time with the DA, that was a pure front for Dumbles. As for my 'lessons' with Severus, I do regret that I stumbled into his pensieve. I am a natural Occulmens and Legilmens, and the strain of hiding this from Sev in order to maintain my facade, combined with the ever-growing fatigue from my illness, virtually ruined any slight chance of my getting even a kind word from the man. With his pensieve, I literally did stumble into it, my legs had decided to give up for a moment and down I went. A sad occurrence, to be sure, and possibly my only regret. I can't even apologize, since it would be rejected immediately.


Now, on to the Department of Mysteries fiasco. As I mentioned earlier, I never experienced the visions that I claimed to have regarding Voldemort. So, why did I rush off to the Department of Mysteries, if this wasn't the reason. After having my centaur allies capture Umbridge, I decided to interrogate her in the Chamber to gather information on any other plans being enacted. I was shocked to learn that they were setting up a trap to flush Voldie out into the open, if he even existed. After all my hard work giving him his body back, I wasn't about to let a bunch of fools have their one lucky day at his expense. So after concocting a proper sounding story which eventually became the official version of events once more, I rushed off to the Department to save Tom. I truly didn't expect Sirius to follow, but I do not blame myself for his encounter with the Veil. No, he is not really dead, like many artifacts the true history of the Veil is unknown to most. At some point, he will emerge from the Veil on his own. It could be an hour from now, or a hundred years, but he will come back at some point. I don't miss him very much, he wasn't around a lot to start with, and when he was I would get very tired of his antics.


I think I'll end this entry here. I know I haven't covered the prophecy yet, but the rocker in me loves to leave my audience wanting more. Tonight should be fun, I've got dual billing with one of my musical idols, the Thin White Duke himself. Apparently he heard that I do this fantastic cover of 'Life on Mars', and decided to pay me a visit while in town. I'm becoming something of a celebrity in the musical world, almost as much as in the wizarding one. The key difference is that I earned my rock star status, of course, and that the attention is welcome and mutually beneficial. I give them a hell of a performance, they sustain me magically, everyone's happy. Hm, I wonder if Draco and Neville got the tickets to the show tonight that I sent them, anonymously of course. I've taking a liking to those two. Well, enough for now, on with the show!


I wish that I could say that this version of events is surprising, but I've become resistant to his shocking revelations. Of course I am dying with curiousity regarding the elusive magical core of Hogwarts, and I can't help but wonder if the true history of it is lost for all time. If only I could have told Harry that I did, reluctantly, forgive him for his intrusion into my pensieve, maybe my waking hours wouldn't be plagued with such guilt.


Finally, after taunting me with references to his rock star status, he gives me a clue to work with. I must admit, the look of shock on Draco's face when I asked him about that concert was satisfying in a twisted way. I don't think I'll tell him how I know quite yet, he is still a bit shy about making his relationship with Neville public. After a few pointed questions, Draco revealed all he knew about the mysterious singer. In every show, he wore a long black leather duster covered in silver runes, with no shirt underneath. Around his neck he wore a silver serpent collar with gleaming green-yellow eyes and no visible seams, and a large dark green top hat with a single black feather in the brim obscured most of his face. Skin-tight black leather pants and old roman-style sandals rounded out his ensemble. He stood roughly 6 feet tall, with lean but not bulky muscles, and the only clearly visible part of his face was, oddly enough, his eyes, which in certain lighting seemed to glow a vivid green. Draco mentioned that occasionally, when the lighting was right, he could see a strange scar beneath his left eye that ran across the bridge of his nose. When performing, he usually used the name Lazaras, which seems to fit in with his style of taunting his audience.


Wondering at my interest, Draco left briefly to get the only CD he ever recorded, which consists of mostly cover songs that were crowd favourites, but mixed in are two original tracks. The track names are written in ancient runes, something that I'm sure appealed to his twisted sense of humour, but Draco informed me that they loosely translate to “Son of Blood” and “Flight of Death”. The first title is a bit ambiguous, but the second made me burst into laughter. Harry was really mocking the overall intelligence of the wizarding world with that one. Flight of death, of course, can be translated in French as Vol de mort. I'll give him credit for that sick, but intelligent joke, that showed a certain level of style that I can appreciate. Draco, alas, did not connect those two pieces, and was spooked by my sudden laughing fit. I think I'll take the CD tonight for the late night drinking session with Tom, it seems oddly appropriate to do so.


Before I take my leave tonight, I feel compelled to write an update about the bane of my existence at the moment, that Merlin-forsaken bloody bird. It's been getting bolder and bolder as of late, I have even encountered it in my private chambers, resting on the back of my favourite reading chair. At mealtimes in the Great Hall it often flits around stealing food from everyone's plates. That bird just can't be natural, it's showing a level of intelligence and cunning that outstrips even the first years. Even the house elves are nervous about serving any type of poultry dish, even through the crow seems to enjoy their roasted chicken. It's been disrupting most classes as well, although in History of Magic it does keep the students from dozing off during Binns' lectures. That blasted bird has even joined the occasional Potion's class. Either there has been a string of extraordinary coincidences or that bird knows what it's doing, but it has actually prevented several cauldrons from exploding by stealing and usually eating the wrong ingredients before they get added to the potion. That may be giving it too much credit, but it certainly is not some garden-variety crow.


Occasionally it actually lands on my shoulder, digging in its impossibly long and sharp talons slightly if I try to swat it off, so I am forced to act as that bloody bird's chauffeur if I wish to keep my arm attached to my body. In a castle filled with powerful, battle-ready wizards and witches, we are held hostage of sorts by an apparently non-magical large crow. Bloody marvelous. And, of course, the bird has seen fit to torment me especially, disturbing papers on my desk, making enough noise to wake the dead while I'm trying to grade papers, and so forth. I find myself grabbing for my wand more frequently than I should, but I just get the feeling that the bird would dodge whatever I throw at it. Now I really need a drink, so I will take my leave for the night. Hopefully, it will be crow-free, but that's getting to be too much to hope for.