An Heir

Part Fifteen- Questions left Unanswered

It was smaller than the cave before; but it was completely untouched- and looked as if it had been for a very long time.

“This place is sacred.” Sthyss began and I glided ahead closer to the centre of the cavern.

“This is the true chamber.” I realised looking through the beauty in front of me.

The light from the outside world that seemed so far away had been refracted and twisted further and further as it travelled and seeped through the earth into this place of darkness until here it came down in columns, the glow of the water created an intricate pattern of webs on the roof that added to those of the spiders’ and created clouds of beauty. All the glowing centralised on a single point in the room that was set above from the rest. A pedestal that as a snake looked huge.

I turned back into a human and perfected the process; the key was merely being fully aware of the body you were going into, and being sure that you weren’t becoming something that was half formed in your mind.

My hair felt unnatural and I stood with my bare feet and calves in the icy water, with the warm cavern air circulating around my legs and causing a film of evaporated droplets to rise in whirls off my skin and into the air around me. I stepped slowly up to the pedestal; water streaming down my body in rivulets running from my hair. The pedestal was more of a podium, there was no mistaking that whole column was made from the skulls of humans; I thought of how I should have reacted to the surprisingly moss free skeletal mound- but thought it was rather beautiful, in a dark and morbid way. I reached it and felt my way through the rocky floor, gently laying a hand to rest on the top of the stack, Sthyss seemed cautious around the pedestal as well, though he seemed to be familiar with this all of this. The top of the pedestal was flat and glossy like tree sap; it had a mossy green glow that reflected the light through the entire pile, in the very middle of the smooth platform there was a single skull staring balefully up directly at me, I ran two fingertips over the very top and it was as hard as rock but as smooth as silk.

“Bring your hands to the centre and listen.” Sthyss commanded me and I realised what he meant; placing my hands on either side of the skull I felt like I was being held down with glue, looking intently at my hands I realised that the sap-like substance was swelling and my hands were passing through the platform deeper until they were forced around the base of the central skull by a sort of phantom current.

“Child.” It rose as a whispered echo from beneath my fists in the pedestal; I didn’t move a muscle, something about the smooth, high voice was stern and commanding. “You are the final legacy I will leave, my servant- Sthyss; has found you and you have been marked as mine, you have already released the basilisk else you would not have reached this place. You must revolutionise my school and remove the taint of the muggle-born’s from the great halls of Hogwarts.” I could believe what I was hearing and that made it all the more scary; if Harry hadn’t stopped Voldemort then my grandfathers' will would have been fulfilled, what confused me was how this room had seemed untouched before I had entered.

“Hopefully you are not the last of my line but you are the only person who can do this. Fulfil your purpose for the greater good of the magical community and rid the world of this poison.”

My hands were expelled from the pedestal and the force of it pushed me backwards and for a second I was positive that I was going to end up on the sharp rocks, thankfully my reflexes were fast and I flipped over and rolled through the air to the right of the rocks and landed face down in the cold water; coming up gasping for air.

“What was the purpose of that?” I spluttered at Sthyss and he shrugged.

“I wanted you to understand Salazar’s’ perspective- and exactly what he was willing to do to create his ‘better society’.”