Salazar's Truth

Edmund searched the Chamber for nearly half an hour.

He checked the pillars, the floor, the walls, the serpent carvings, and the base of Slytherin's statue. Nothing responded. No hidden door opened. No rune lit up. No ancestral voice praised his bloodline.

At one point, Edmund seriously wondered whether the basilisk had tricked him. Then his gaze returned to the statue's face.

The carving was detailed, almost uncomfortably so. Every wrinkle, every line, every stern angle had been shaped with care. Yet the eyes were wrong. They were hollow, more like unfinished sockets than true pupils.

Edmund stared for a moment, then raised his wand.

"All right. Let us give you a proper look."

He carved carefully, shaping two pupils into the stone. The moment the second eye was complete, the statue trembled.

Stone steps rose from the floor behind the base, spiraling downward into a hidden passage. Edmund looked at the opening, then at Slytherin's newly finished eyes.

"So Tom failed because he did not improve the decor."

He descended the stairs.

The hidden chamber below was completely different from the hall above. The ceiling shimmered like a starry night. Bookshelves lined the walls, protected by preservation charms that had survived for a thousand years. In the center stood an old chair and a long table covered in dustless parchment.

Before Edmund could touch anything, silver light gathered in front of him. An old man appeared.

He had a long face, sharp eyes, and the same severe bearing as the statue above. His robes were archaic, his presence heavy with old magic, but he was not alive.

"A new heir," the figure said.

Edmund inclined his head. "Salazar Slytherin?"

"A remnant," the old man corrected. "A puppet carrying a fragment of my will and memory. The real Salazar Slytherin has been gone for centuries."

"Convenient," Edmund said. "Then I can ask questions without worrying about offending the dead."

The remnant's eyes narrowed. "You may try." Edmund did.

He asked about the Chamber. He asked about the basilisk. Then he asked the question every modern student would have asked first.

"Was this place built to purge Muggle-borns from Hogwarts?"

The remnant's expression darkened at once.

"Do not repeat that nonsense to me."

The air grew colder.

"In my age, the danger did not come from children with magic. It came from the Church, from frightened villages, from noble houses that would burn what they could not control. A child born to Muggle parents could expose the school without understanding what they had done."

His voice sharpened.

"I preferred old magical families because they understood secrecy. I did not build Hogwarts to slaughter our own people."

Edmund listened quietly.

"Then why leave?"

"Because Godric was an idealist," Slytherin said with disgust that had survived a thousand years. "He believed courage could solve every danger. I believed knowledge without caution would destroy us. We argued over students, over dangerous magic, over what should and should not be taught."

"And the basilisk?"

"A guardian. One that could sleep for centuries and obey Parseltongue."

"Tom Riddle used it to kill a student."

For the first time, the remnant went still. Edmund told him enough.

Not everything. Not the system. Not his own secrets. But he explained Voldemort, the blood purity extremism, the Horcruxes, and the fact that Tom had claimed Slytherin's name while turning it into a banner for murder.

By the end, Salazar Slytherin's remnant looked as though someone had fed him sour milk.

"A Horcrux," he said slowly. "That was his chosen path?"

"More than one."

"Idiot."

The word was flat, cold, and sincere. Edmund blinked.

Slytherin sneered. "In my era, there were at least five methods of extending life more elegant than cutting one's soul to pieces. Dangerous, yes. Difficult, certainly. But a Horcrux is the work of a butcher who mistakes mutilation for immortality."

Edmund found himself agreeing.

"Then I suppose you are not proud of your descendant."

"Do not insult me."

The remnant turned toward the table. The shelves along the walls stirred, as if waking from a long sleep.

"If you want my legacy, prove you deserve it. Blood opens the door. Blood does not make an heir."

Edmund smiled. That, at least, sounded like a proper trial.

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