The same but different

Chapter 6 intruder

At last, it was the weekend.

Ron still wasn't thrilled with Harry, so it was pretty easy for him to beg off going to Hogsmeade and stay back in the dorm. At least, that's where he'd told them he would be. In reality, Harry was back down in the chamber, carefully dismantling Cleopatra's corpse into its useable components.

Cedric had offered to help. Luna and Neville, too - though Neville had looked a little green around the gills when he did so. But Harry wanted - needed - to do this by himself. Cleo had been his responsibility, and he had been the one to end her life. He could mourn her in every delicate sweep of his knife, every reverently folded pile of scales. Vials upon vials of venom were lined up against the back wall, and slowly the bones were becoming clean. The flesh was practically worthless, and Harry had it piled up to burn, but the rest of it, he could use. The goblins would appreciate parts of the skeleton, should he ever need a bargaining chip with them - basilisk bone was excellent for blades, if you knew how to shape it properly.

He was dripping with sweat as he worked, muscles burning with a feeling he usually only got doing chores for the Dursleys. It was weirdly nice, doing these things because he wanted to. A pair of house elves had left him a packed lunch, and he was taking his time to process his grief - both for Cleopatra, and for everything else he'd lost to time.

When he was finished, he stood with his hands on his hips, watching the burning pile of remains with tears streaking through the ash on his cheeks. He had a spell venting the smoke out safely, but it wasn't perfect. For a while he'd thought about letting the fire consume the whole chamber, starting afresh, but he couldn't risk it.

Instead, he turned to the awful statue blocking his private office. He and Cedric had made pretty decent headway on destroying it a few nights ago, and a few waves of Harry's wand later he had the doorway to his office cleared if nothing else. Carefully levitating his new potions ingredients behind him, he stepped up to the office and spoke the password, letting the ancient wards flow over him and recognise his magic. The wall slid aside, and his breath caught in his throat.

It was almost exactly how he remembered it. A little dusty, but not as much as one might expect after a thousand years. The fireplace jumped to life with a gesture and light spilled through the room. The loveseat he and Helga had often curled up on was still in front of the fire, a book resting on the arm, her yellow shawl draped across the back. The desk was neat, as he always kept it, with a stack of parchment in one corner, Salazar's handwriting scrawled across every page. Looking at the long wall of bookshelves, Harry couldn't see any glaring omissions - truly, no one had been in since he'd left.

He glanced at the door to his private potions' lab, grimacing at the prospect of what a thousand years might have done to his ingredients cabinet. Tackling that was a task for another day.

Much like in Salazar's time, when the castle was full of life the chamber was the only place he could truly get peace. Sinking into his armchair, body relaxing as the cushions gave way as they always did, Harry closed his eyes and let himself truly relax.

His patched-up occlumency shields had held for the week, but it wasn't a permanent fix. Now, cocooned in the safest place he'd ever had in his past life, he could finally start processing things properly.

A few slow, steadying breaths later, and Harry was deep in the task of building Salazar's old mindscape. A castle, much like Hogwarts, but with more traps and tricks than even the school had.

It was easy, with Salazar's memories. There had been a time where they were all he had, and every single one had a place already marked out for it. The real problem was in finding space for Harry's memories within them. He didn't want his old life to overtake the new - he was still Harry Potter, and he had too much to do in this life to let it be erased.