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A wave of damp, stale air t him inside, thick with the sll of earth and mildew, untouched by candlelight.
"Lumos," Ian murmured.
A glowing orb of white-blue light erged from his wand tip and hovered into the air, floating beside him like a will-o'-the-wisp bound by charmcraft. As it brightened, it unveiled the full breadth of the hidden cave to his watchful eyes.
But this was no gleaming sanctum of power.
The space beyond was crude and uneven, the walls jagged with unpolished stone, slick with water and moss. The floor squelched beneath his boots, and the air hung heavy with the odour of mould and decay. There were no gilded artefacts, no crystalline shelves of ancient scrolls, just damp rock, like a forgotten animal den buried deep beneath the earth.
"This really is Slytherin's doghouse, no, wait, a snake's nest," Ian muttered, nose wrinkling in distaste.
He had hoped for a vault of arcane knowledge or a hidden relic left for his heirs, perhaps even a fragnt of a founder's soul or will, but what lay before him now was as underwhelming as a Niffler's empty pouch.
Perhaps the wretched Tom had already ransacked the place?
"Or maybe Slytherin really was a miser," Ian muttered, thinking back to Gryffindor's vault of treasures, sothing he'd never given up on finding, including that strange, talking portrait of the founder, rumoured to occasionally wander off the canvas.
While ntally criticizing Slytherin's stinginess, Ian let his gaze sweep across the cavern. All he could see were rock walls and dirt, not a glimr of light or enchantnt. It all seed depressingly bare, and, frankly, a bit pathetic for one of the greatest wizards in history.
"Hmm?"
Just as he turned to leave, a faint glimr caught the corner of his eye. In one shadowy nook of the cave, nestled behind what appeared to be an ordinary boulder, sat a decaying wizard's chessboard.
Its squares were weathered and the border was mottled with greenish mold, ti having worn away its sharp edges. Yet, despite the damage, the entire board radiated a subtle magical hum, sothing deeper than re dust and stone.
It was clear there were enchantnts woven into it.
"Is this what You-Know-Who deed unworthy of attention?" Ian mused aloud. Treasure or no treasure, he was adding this discovery to the ever-growing list of reasons he'd eventually present to Voldemort, with interest.
"Checkmate."
Etched faintly along the wooden edge of the chessboard, those words shimred as Ian drew closer. The board was nearly empty, save for a solitary piece lying on its side, a worn, grey king carved from stone. Covered in dust and dull as it looked, there was nothing particularly eye-catching about it.
No wonder Tom had overlooked it.
Still…
"There's a magical trace," Ian murmured, lifting the piece to examine it.
At once, the piece's eyes snapped open.
A dry, rasping voice echoed in the cave, low and ancient, like air escaping a thousand-year-old tomb. The sound seed to reverberate directly inside Ian's head.
"A true king must learn to bleed beneath his crown."
The voice stirred sothing familiar in Ian, it bore the tone of Pandero, his companion from the Twilight Realm, though deeper, wearier… as if the speaker had long since passed into legend.
"Fascinating."
Eyes narrowing in thought, Ian slipped the piece into his pouch. He couldn't say exactly why, but he had the distinct sense it would be important later. Even if it was nothing, better to be cautious than regretful. And besides, he had a habit of trusting odd magical relics.
"At the very least, I didn't leave empty-handed."
Retracing his steps, Ian clambered back up the tunnel, erging into the Chamber proper. As he stepped through the threshold,
Boom!
The great stone doors slamd shut behind him with a thunderous tremor. He paused, glancing over his shoulder.
"Well, that's more like it."
Half an hour later, Ian climbed out through the second-floor girls' lavatory, his robes slightly damp and his arms burdened with several fist-sized eralds pried from the Chamber door. He had needed a good deal of effort, and a fair amount of magic, to extract what he now jokingly called Slytherin's sickles.
After tidying up his robes with a quick charm and stowing the gems safely away, he stepped out into the corridor.
"Was that an earthquake?"
"rlin's beard, it went on forever!"
"I swear the floor shifted under my feet!"
"…Are we still expected to go to Charms after that?"
The hallway buzzed with students who had clearly abandoned their lessons, crowding around and whispering in anxious tones. Faces were pale, and voices filled with nervous excitent. It was obvious the tremor had stirred quite a bit of panic throughout the castle.
Ian, however, didn't pause to chat and made straight for the Alchemy professor's office.
"Ian," Nicolas Flal said, peering over a half-finished alchemical device as the boy entered. "Did you feel the tremor just now?"
The legendary alchemist hadn't been scheduled to teach that morning, and his robes were stained with silver and soot from tinkering.
"The others are calling it an earthquake." Ian's tone was calm, his expression unreadable as he spoke.
Flal shook his head firmly. "No. That was no earthquake. That was the sound of sothing large collapsing beneath us."
Ian blinked, feigning surprise. "Really? Maybe sothing down there finally gave way… Hogwarts is rather old, after all."
He averted his eyes. The collapse had clearly occurred after he'd taken the gems, though he hadn't touched any support structures. Could it have been connected to one of Voldemort's old experints?
It was very likely.
So… it wasn't his fault. Not directly.
Probably.
Still, Ian made a ntal note to add another tally to the long, grudging list of grievances he was keeping against Tom Riddle.
"Hmm. In any case, it's not my responsibility to look into. Dumbledore is the one in charge of the castle's secrets, not I," said Flal, not pressing further as he gave Ian's damp robes a brief glance before continuing his work.
"Was there sothing you needed?"
"I'm looking for Professor Dumbledore or Lockhart," Ian said without hesitation. "Sothing's wrong with Harry."
He had already checked the Marauder's Map, neither professor was anywhere within the visible bounds of the castle.
Which ant, if Ian's suspicions were right, either an alternate version of Dumbledore or even Grindelwald himself might be hidden sowhere nearby, displaced through ti. And Nicolas Flal, having been instruntal in aiding the two wizards with their temporal experints, would surely know if anything was amiss.
"Sothing wrong with the boy?" Flal raised a brow, though his expression lacked surprise. "Is it the soul shard in his scar?"
There it was, no hesitation, no denial. Clearly, the matter of Voldemort's Horcrux hadn't escaped the notice of the fad alchemist either.
He had spent the previous night closely studying the lightning-shaped scar on Harry Potter's forehead.
"Yes, I believe the fragnt of soul lodged in Harry's scar is unusually active. I'm concerned it might attempt to possess him, perhaps even to use his body for resurrection." Ian spoke plainly, holding nothing back, recounting in detail the conversation he'd had with Harry and all that had transpired since.
Nicolas Flal furrowed his brow slightly upon hearing the account.
"Indeed, the soul shard within Harry is far too restless. But even so, the Dark Lord's return is no straightforward affair."
"A Horcrux is no more than a mockery of death, a foul thod to elude the inevitable. But to use a Horcrux as a ans of full resurrection? That requires more than just a flick of the wand. It demands exacting rituals and exceedingly rare magical conditions."
"To bring back a soul from the brink, there must be a sacrifice, one soul exchanged for another. An ancient, twisted form of magical equivalence. A deceit against death itself."
"So long as no one dies here at Hogwarts, I don't believe Harry's condition will descend into the worst of outcos," Flal concluded, relying on a lifeti of arcane knowledge and careful study.
It would be unthinkable that the world's most renowned alchemist had not examined the dark lore of Horcruxes.
(To Be Continued…)
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