28 Chapter 28: Pictures

(General POV)

 "I'm telling you the truth, Godric. They were hardly wearing anything at all." Neville whispered to Godric who was sitting across from him in their House Dormitory. "And they didn't care that you saw them? I don't know, Nev. It sounds a little too good to be true." Godric replied, not quite sure he believed what he had just been told.

"What are you two whispering about over here?" Harry asked after coming over and sitting on a stool beside Godric. "Apparently, according to Neville, some of the older girls from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw who were swimming were only wearing enough clothing to cover their tits and cunts." Godric said, much to the shock of both boys who immediately looked around to make sure no one else had heard him.

"You shouldn't talk like that Godric. It's very inappropriate." Neville chided in a worried tone. "You're starting to sound like Helga. That's not good, Neville." Godric retorted, not worried at all about his crass language. "He's not exactly wrong, Godric. Anyway, I believe what you're talking about are women's bikinis. They're a style of muggle swimwear." Harry said, defending Neville while shedding a bit of light on the situation for both Godric and Neville, who were both ignorant of the muggle world.

 "You're telling me these girls really are mostly naked in the pool?" Godric asked for clarification. "Well, I haven't been in the pools myself, but I think so." Harry answered honestly. "What kind of swimsuits do muggle-born wizards wear?!" He asked excitedly, wanting to go see this for himself as soon as possible.

"You know, shorts and tee-shirts or just shorts should be fine. Most guys don't care about that sort of thing." Harry answered simply, at which point Godric shot to his feet. "It's too late, Godric. The pool should be closed right now, and even if it isn't, only the Hufflepuffs would be there. You best wait until morning." Neville stated, crushing Godric's dreams before they even got the chance to take hold in his mind.

"You make an excellent point, Neville. I am nothing if not patient." Godric said, earning a scoff from Harry and causing poor Neville to begin sputtering. Glaring at the two of them, Godric continued, "Besides, I still need to get me some swimwear." He didn't look impressed at how they both reacted, and he was debating on whether or not to punish them for it.

"What's going on over here?" Hermione asked as she came over and stood before them. "Oh nothing, Hermione. Just joking around. Anyway, are you done looking over my notes for Transfiguration? I need it back before class in the morning." Godric said, expertly changing the topic from something that he knew the young girl wouldn't approve of to something he knew she would relish the opportunity to talk about.

 "Oh yes!" She said excitedly. "I loved the way you explained the details of Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration! You have some spelling errors mind you, but everything else was perfect! I still don't know how you use transfiguration to conjure something that is already charmed, but your notes are helping." Hermione finished while holding the notebook in question out for Godric to take.

"I know where every spelling error in here is, and in case you're wondering, they were all made on purpose." Godric said as he took the book from her. "Why would you do that?" Harry asked curiously. Holding the notebook up for all of them to see, Godric opened it to the last page where tomorrow's assignment was written.

"If you look at all of the misspelled words and take out the wrong letter added to them, you get an answer key, or a code word if you prefer. If you know where to put the code, it opens all sorts of secrets." Godric answered with a satisfied grin at the stunned looks on their faces. "What secrets does your code unlock?" Neville asked hopefully.

Looking at both Harry and Hermione, they too were both wanting to know the secrets too. Smiling broadly, Godric leaned forward before whispering, "I can't go into details, but the headmaster has given me an assignment. The codes in my notes are the keys to solving it. I'm sorry, but that's all I can tell you. It's too important to reveal anything more."

 Harry, Neville, and Hermione were all dumbstruck at the revelation that Godric was working on something top secret for the headmaster, though only Harry and Hermione felt the need to press further for answers.

"What are you doing for the headmaster, and why did he only ask you?!" Hermione whisper-shouted, demanding to know more. "Is there anything I can do to help?" Harry asked, hoping to both help out Godric with this task and maybe repay the headmaster for some of the things he had done to help him last year.

"I'm afraid that's classified, Hermione. As for why he asked me, it is because he knows I'm brilliant and can be trusted. And no, Harry. I'm afraid I must complete this task alone if I wish to impress him." Godric stated with a smirk, knowing full well two of his friends had fallen for the bait and that the third would be dragged into the trap by the first two.

 ----------

 "Look." Whispered an older Gryffindor boy to his friends as he gestured towards the Slytherin table across the room. Godric and the rest of his group could see a number of heads turning to look in that direction, and opted to look as well to see what had captured everyone's interest.

There at the Slytherin table was Draco Malfoy, who looked rather sullen compared to the uptight cunt they had all known before. No longer was he surrounded by his fellow housemates who would jump to follow his orders, but rather it looked as though he was largely ignored.

'I guess that'll happen after he lost his family and all the wealth and status they provided. To top it off, his father sold out a number of Death Eaters who were parents of other children. Oh well, he had it coming.' Godric thought, not the least bit sympathetic to Draco's plight.

 "I can't believe he's going to be living with me from now on over the summer." Harry said sadly, looking as though he very much was dreading the end of the year.

"You know, instead of pouting and moaning about your impending summer together, you could make an effort to find some common ground with Draco. Who knows, maybe the two of you could even be friends." Helga suggested, much to the disgust of everyone else present, save for Salazar who didn't particularly care about the current topic and was instead reading through more of Savrin's notes.

"You sound just like Sirius." Harry said in annoyance to the little blonde girl. "Helga, I understand that you want to treat everyone kindly, but it's Malfoy for heaven's sake. He's made fun of all of us at one point or another." Hannah informed Helga, who didn't see the problem with what she was suggesting.

"Yes, and so has Godric and Salazar. Yet we still tolerate them, don't we?" Helga refuted, earning mixed reactions from everyone else.

 "Excuse me, but how did this become about us? We didn't even say anything!" Godric said, not liking the comparison. "Why do you always lump me in with Godric? I almost always mind my own business." Salazar added, feeling the need to say something at this point.

"Oh please, Salazar. With all of your snide remarks, you're probably worse than Godric." Helga argued, which only seemed to get a wide grin from Godric who was nodding along. Apparently he didn't care that he was also being mocked or insulted so long as Salazar got it more.

 "Whatever, enough about Malfoy. Who's looking forward to our field trip tomorrow?" Rowena asked, changing the subject to anything that wasn't Malfoy. "I am! My aunt said she'd be able to take some time off during our lunch break to come and meet with me!" Susan said excitedly, no doubt looking forward to seeing her aunt after being apart from her for a month now.

"She even said she would give us a private tour of the Auror training field. None of the other years got to experience that." She added in a whisper, eliciting a few smiles from the others.

"Professor Callahan sure is making the extra effort to liven up History of Magic class. If we get to go spend the day at the Ministry just because that's our current topic, I wonder if we'll get to tour Gringotts when we discuss the Goblin treaties." Hermione said, genuinely curious if that would be possible.

"I doubt it." Godric stated, disrupting Hermione's train of thought. "The goblins aren't foolish enough to allow hundreds of witches and wizards to roam their grounds, even if they are only students. That seems like a problem waiting to happen." Godric finished, confident that none of them would be getting a tour of the goblin bank, not that he would have wanted to go in the first place.

 ----------

Once breakfast had ended, everyone seemed to go their own way. Godric and Harry departed for the Quidditch pitch for practice with the rest of their team. Susan, Hannah, and Sally went to go to the swimming pool, while Helga and Neville went to go to the greenhouses so Helga could show Neville the dancing cactus she had been cultivating for the last week.

For her part, Rowena headed off to the trials, deciding that she wanted to try and claim Godric's number one spot in the TRANSFIGURATION TRIAL. Of the seven trials, she held the number one spot in their year in three of them.

Godric held the number one spot in two of the trials, as did Salazar. She figured once Helga actually got around to taking the trials, she would probably steal the number one spot in the HERBOLOGY Trial from her, making so her, Salazar, and Godric would all be tied, but for now she felt proud that she had more than they did.

Besides, it would be kind of fun if she did manage to steal the spot in TRANSFIGURATION from Godric, making so Salazar was ahead of him in the number of first place spots they held. If that happened, the two of them would probably be at each other's throats, which was some of the best entertainment she had been able to find in both lives.

 Rather than go with the other girls to swim or to the trials to train, Hermione made her way to the library. She hoped to learn something about the secret codes Godric had talked about with her and Harry, but as of yet she hadn't found anything on the matter. Still, if there were answers somewhere in the school, she had no doubt they would be in the library.

 With everyone else gone, that left Salazar sitting alone at the Hufflepuff table, which was a sight for anyone else who happened to be sitting in the room. "Your friends are gone, so you don't have to keep sitting at this table." Someone spoke, causing Salazar to look up and see three third or fourth-year Gryffindor boys standing in front of him.

"That's true, but if I get up now, I won't be able to find out the secrets of Medivh. Why don't you go patrol the Black Lake for mosquitos and I'll try to pretend none of you exist. Deal?" Salazar said, earning scowls from all of the boys.

"Are you trying to be smart with us?!" One of the boys said a bit aggressively, earning a chuckle from Salazar. "If you think I'm being smart, that's on you. Then again, given the lack of brain cells among those in your house, everyone else around you must sound smart. Now be gone, insects. Else you will see just how deadly a snake's fangs can be." Salazar said with such disinterest, even going so far as to continue reading his book, that the Gryffindor boys and everyone else who happened to be watching the scene unfold felt that Salazar didn't see the boys as anything more than a nuisance.

As one could probably guess, this did not sit well with the older Gryffindors who all drew their wands and pointed them at Salazar, who hadn't so much as glanced at them after going back to his book.

 Everyone waited to see if Salazar would turn to look at those who were threatening him, and hopefully draw his wand in defense, but sadly nothing of the sort happened. Even as one of the boys let out a scream when snakes began slithering up his legs, Salazar remained focused on the page in front of him.

It was only when all three boys were wrapped in snakes to the point where they could barely breathe that Salazar finally closed his book before storing it away, then slowly rose to his feet to address them. "You all should have listened to-" Salazar's speech was cut short when a bright light assaulted his vision.

 *FLASH!*

 "AHHH! DAMN IT!" Salazar cursed as he stumbled back into the table, not able to see what was going on around him due to being blinded by the familiar camera of a little boy he was already plotting to kill. He heard someone try running past him before he could see them, and figuring he knew who it was, Salazar reached out with his arms and snagged the clothes of what felt to be a small child.

"No! I-I-I'm s-sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you!" Collin cried out, but Salazar wasn't hearing any of it. "I warned you!" Salazar growled. "We all warned you! Its time you put an end to that fucking camera!"

With that, Salazar reached forward with the hand not holding Collin in place, then he ripped the camera from around Collin's neck. It was about this time when his vision was finally returning, and Salazar could see a number of people watching the scene unfold before their eyes.

 Before Collin could protest or ask for help, Salazar let go of the back of Collin's shirt so he could withdraw his wand from his sleeve, then tossed the camera into the air before firing a blast of magic at it, at once turning it into a million tiny little pieces.

Turning to look at the shocked little boy, Salazar saw Collin's eyes begin to tear up, but before he could let the waterworks fly, he went running from the room. 'Oh well, not my problem.' Salazar told himself before he turned his attention back to the still confined boys.

"If you don't want to end up like that camera, then fuck off somewhere else." He told them, then reclaimed his seat at the Hufflepuff table so he could finish reading his chapter while the three boys bolted out of the Great Hall as soon as the snakes fell to the floor. No one else bothered him after that.

 It wasn't until almost an hour later when Salazar finished reading all of the notes left behind by the great mage Medivh that he decided he would go test some of the new spells out in The Chamber of Secrets. Scarcely had he taken a step when he felt something crunch beneath his foot. Looking down, he saw a piece of the camera he had destroyed. It was a small engraved piece of what looked like the bottom corner of the camera. Lifting it up, he read what little of the writing that was left,

 (-OU TO MAKE MEMORIES.

-OVE MUM.)

 After seeing the piece of inscription, Salazar realized he probably had gone a tad bit overboard. 'God damn it!' He cursed over and over for a good minute before finally taking a deep breath. Pulling his wand once more, he pointed it at the piece of camera before inwardly chanting, 'Repairo.'

All at once, the pieces of the destroyed camera began flying through the air towards his position and colliding with the piece he held firmly in the palm of his hand. In less than ten seconds, Salazar was staring at the inscription on the bottom corner of the camera, only unlike a few seconds ago, it was complete.

 I CAN'T ALWAYS BE THERE TO WATCH OVER YOU,

BUT HOPEFULLY WITH THIS CAMERA YOU CAN SHARE

YOUR EXPERIENCES WITH ME AND YOUR DAD.

I WANT YOU TO MAKE MEMORIES.

 LOVE MUM.

 After reading the full inscription, Salazar felt worse for what he had done to Collin, and he wasn't sure just giving the camera back to the boy would be enough to make amends. It was with that thought that an idea came to mind, one that was very out of the ordinary for him. Not wanting to give himself time to change his mind, Salazar headed off towards the dungeons.

 ---------

 The day had passed and there was only an hour before dinner, but Salazar felt as though he had done enough to make amends to the first-year Gryffindor, though he still had one thing left to do. Making his way back to his bedroom, he began developing the film using a few spells.

After finishing with every picture, he began to look over them to make sure they were everything he hoped them to be. The first few pictures were of the different assortment of magical creatures that he had been able to find.

There were some Puffskeins dancing around some books that they had been eating, which Salazar thought might interest the boy's mother when he showed her. There were a few pictures of the Gnomes down by Hagrid's hut, something that Salazar hoped Collin would find interesting, mostly because he didn't, but he was going for the experience here.

 A rare find that Salazar hadn't expected was a Fairy he had seen down by the Black Lake. He had only intended to get a picture of Godric's giant squid, but he didn't hesitate to take a number of pictures of the tiny winged creature.

In his opinion the fairy was cool, but he bet most people would be more interested in the monstrous squid that resided in the lake. Taking the pictures of each of the magical creatures, Salazar began to wave his wand over them, making the pictures almost come alive. In the bottom right of the pictures, gold lettering appeared, stating the name of each creature.

There was a Bowtruckle, Diricawl, Ghoul, Grindylow, Jobberknoll, Mooncalf, Fwooper, Hippogriff, Kneazle, Niffler, Pixie, Unicorn, and even a few pictures of the Merpeople, which Salazar had managed to take in the Slytherin common room.

It was well known that the Slytherins had a view of what was beneath the Black Lake, but no one outside of their house had ever seen it. Salazar hoped Collin would enjoy it, as well as the number of pictures he had taken of his house dormitory.

 Aside from the magical creatures, Salazar had gone around the castle taking pictures of interesting things. There was the dragon statue in the lower floors, and he had even gone to the kitchens and taken a picture of the house-elves making food.

A rare picture that only a handful of people had seen thus far was of the giant statue of "Salazar Slytherin" in The Chamber of Secrets. He had debated on revealing this one, but after deciding that it didn't matter in the long run, he decided to go ahead.

 Flipping through more of the pictures, Salazar saw the ones he had taken of Godric and the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team flying around on their brooms. When Oliver Wood had seen him taking pictures he had been livid, thinking he was spying on them so he could go back and inform the Slytherin team about them.

It was only after Godric and Harry had stepped in to defend him that Oliver calmed down, but he still asked that Salazar leave them, something he was all too willing to do. He didn't want to be around them longer than he needed to, so leaving was an action he welcomed.

'They sure look stupid, don't they.' He said to himself as he wondered what he should inscribe on the picture. Knowing this was a picture for a little kid that would no doubt be showing the picture to his family, Salazar felt it couldn't be too cruel, but one that aptly described what was going on.

"Dullards Playing Moronic Game" was what he settled on, though he thought Collin might change it later.

 There were pictures of each of the four house dormitories, something which Salazar bet no one else had together. He had used a simple illusionment charm to sneak his way into Hufflepuff, and then solved a simple riddle to get into Ravenclaw tower.

As for getting into Gryffindor Tower, he had guessed the password on his third try. Funny enough, with a notice-me-not charm on, no one, not even McGonagall or Flitwick took notice of him or tried to stop him from wandering around and taking pictures.

 Salazar made sure to put all of the pictures of each of the houses in their own section of the book he was putting the pictures in. This way he hoped that Collin would be able to leaf through it when he was at home and get to see all of these pictures.

He had taken the idea from the picture book Hagrid had given Harry of his parents at the end of last year. Harry had held onto the book as though it was his greatest treasure, and though Salazar didn't think this book would hold as much value to Collin as the book did to Harry, he hoped it would still be a treasure.

 Finally, for the last section of the book, Salazar began placing all of the pictures of the different people Collin had taken. Thankfully the film had repaired itself as well when he fixed the camera, because he had no desire to go around and take pictures of people. 'That would have sucked.' He complained internally, shuddering at the thought.

There was no rhyme or reason to his placement of the photos of people, not organizing them by year or house, but he didn't particularly care at his point. Especially because most of the pictures Collin had taken were of Godric and the rest of their group sitting around the table or wandering the halls together. There were at least twenty of them, and Salazar wondered if Collin was obsessed with them.

 Salazar was almost finished going through the stack of pictures when he came across one that caught his attention. His eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat as he carefully picked up the picture, fearing that it would disappear if he was too rough with it. There in the picture was the same person he had seen on that first night back at Hogwarts.

His first thought was, 'Delia' and how he hadn't in fact imagined her. He admired the picture, and looked it over in great detail, taking in the silver eyes that stared back at him, and that same dreamy smile he had longed to see.

"She's not Delia." Salazar whispered to himself, finding a few differences here and there, though that didn't stop him from thinking the girl in the picture might be a ghost sent to haunt him.

 Salazar looked at the picture far longer than he intended to, and it was only when he heard his stomach growl that he realized he was missing dinner. Quickly placing the rest of the picture in the book, Salazar began cleaning everything up when he realized he was still holding onto the picture of the girl.

Without wanting to think about it, he waved his wand at the picture, creating a copy of it, which he quickly put in the book, then placed the original picture on his bed. He would try and find her later, but for now he had to go.

 ---------

 Walking into the Great Hall, Salazar saw that dinner was already in full swing, and that most people had finished eating and were now chatting with their friends. Speaking of friends, he noticed all of his friends were sitting in their usual section at the far end of the Hufflepuff table. Harry was the first to notice his arrival and waved at him to come on over, but he had something to take care of first.

Scanning the Gryffindor table, it took Salazar a minute before he saw a saddened Collin Creevey at the far end of the room, near the same end that Godric and them were seated at. The kid looked depressed, and if the food on his plate was anything to go off of, he hadn't eaten anything.

'Yup, I'm a troll.' He mentally chided himself before heading off down the aisle between the tables. When he stopped, he was standing in front of Collin who had yet to notice his approach. It was only when another first-year sitting next to Collin nudged his shoulder that Collin looked up, only to fall off of his chair in fright as he let out a shriek that gained them more than a little bit of attention from everyone else in the room.

 "D-Don't hurt me!" Collin cried as he scrambled to his feet. His cry for mercy seemed to cause the room to die down as everyone looked over to see just what was going on. Out of the corner of his eye, Salazar saw McGonagall begin to rise from her chair, but a raised hand from Savrin seemed to make her sit back down.

Evidently it seemed Savrin knew he wasn't trying to harm the kid, or at least knew he wouldn't dare harm the kid if he knew what was good for him, so Salazar decided to get this over with.

"Calm down, Collin. I'm not here to hurt you. I came to apologize and to give you this." Salazar said as he held out the large book towards the First-year Gryffindor boy who seemed far too warry to take it from him.

Eventually, and after looking to the head-table for assurance that the teachers would step in if the book cursed him, Collin took the book from Salazar and flipped it open, only to be stumped when he saw a picture of Hogwarts castle from the same angle a first-year would see it for the first time, only it was day time instead of night.

 Collin flipped through the pages with wide eyes as he looked over creatures he had never seen or heard about. He eventually got to the pictures of people and things that he had taken, and looked up at Salazar with a questioning look on his face, and it was then he saw an all too familiar camera held out towards him.

Placing the book down on the table, Collin quickly grabbed the camera and turned it around so he could read the familiar inscription.

"I apologize for what I did to your camera, Collin. I hope you'll forgive me." Salazar said, then turned to go over to where his friends were sitting with their mouths agape. He ignored them as he began piling food onto a plate.

It was only after taking a bite of food that he looked over at them, and it was then he noticed their dumbfounded expressions. "What?" He asked, not seeing the big deal.

 "Did you seriously steal his camera from him?" Rowena asked in disbelief. "Of course not." Salazar answered, finding the idea ridiculous, though he guessed that's probably how it looked from those watching what just happened. "I blew it up." He added nonchalantly.

When it looked as though Helga was going to jump over the table and strangle him, he clarified everything that happened, about being blinded, destroying the camera, and feeling guilty and fixing it so he could return it.

When asked about the book, he said it was filled with the pictures that were on the camera. He didn't feel the need to explain how he had taken more pictures, but he suspected Godric already knew, given the way he was looking at him. He supposed it would make sense that Godric had figured it out, seeing as how he had seen him taking pictures at the quidditch pitch.

 "I'm glad you apologized, but I still can't believe you did that. You could have traumatized the poor boy!" Helga scolded him, though Salazar didn't seem to care. "Actually, I think he did. Did you see how scared he was of Salazar?" Rowena chimed in, not helping matters.

"Go cry me a river. What's done is done, and I don't want to hear anymore about it." Salazar stated, not in the mood to hear more of Helga's wining. She did that too often to him, and he was getting rather fed up with it.

Helga looked as though she wanted to say more on the matter, but if past experience was anything to go by, there was only so much she could get away with before Salazar and the others stopped caring. It seemed Salazar was at that stage, and she knew better than to waste her breath.

 Salazar finished his meal in peace, and when everyone else was getting up to go to their dormitories for the night he got to his feet to do the same. However, he paused suddenly when he realized someone was standing a few feet away, looking at him awestruck.

"What is it, Collin?" He asked, hoping to put this whole matter to rest now. "I just wanted to thank you. F-For fixing my camera and the book!" He said quickly as he held the book up in the air.

"No problem. Now, goodnight, Collin." Salazar said, then paused as he thought of something. With all of the pictures Collin had taken of their group, it dawned on Salazar that maybe Collin took those pictures because he wanted to feel as though he was a part of it.

"You know, you can come sit with us tomorrow if you want to." With that, Salazar headed back to his room, figuring he had done his good deed for the year.

 -----------

 (Savrin POV)

 [Four holds no significance in magic, and there is nothing special about it. Seven is a number often associated with magic, therefore it is the ideal number for rituals and anything else.] Voldy wrote in the diary.

It had been a number of days since "Draco" had written to Tom, so when Savrin finally cracked it open and scribbled a few words, Voldy latched on to anything he could. At first Savrin had a little fun, going on about what his least favorite food was, then casually threw in that the best number in the world was four.

Voldy had chimed in that four was in fact, not the best number in the world, and that it was actually seven, however Savrin argued the point that four was much better. Somehow they had talked about two numbers for almost an hour, at which point Voldy finished listing all of the ways in which Seven was intrinsically linked with magic, and was just finishing up his point now.

 [So the ideal number of horcruxes you would make would be seven then?] He wrote back, which seemed to have the added effect of silencing Voldy.

[What are you talking about?] Voldy finally wrote back after a few minutes of nothing.

[Oh, just that you made somewhere between four and seven horcruxes in your life, and that I don't need to find more than that to kill you. You're a fool who has failed at being a wizard, and you were better off not existing in this world.] Savrin wrote back, then with a smirk he channeled magic into the book, causing shrieks of pain to be heard from it.

Savrin took great pleasure in prolonging the piece of soul's suffering for as long as he could, but eventually he got bored and decided to just kill it, which resulted in globs of ink coming out of it, as though it was being wrung dry. There was a small *poof* sound, and the piece of Voldy's soul that resided inside the diary was no more.

 "Well, I'm certainly glad that that's finally gone." Elysia said from beside him. "There are still a few more of him to sort out, but I'll find the rest in due time." Savrin said, causing the woman to nod her head as she stared at him.

The silence between them lasted for only a minute before Elysia asked, "Want to go have sex in a broom closet?" For his part, Savrin merely shrugged his shoulders before getting to his feet.

Once more the castle would shake tonight, only no one besides the portraits and ghosts would hear the moaning, so at least the residents in the castle would be able to get some sleep tonight, which was good, because the Second-Years were looking forward to their trip to the Ministry tomorrow.