Once everyone had gone to bed, Harry donned his Invisibility Cloak, held the Marauder's Map in his hand as he made his way to the first-floor girl's bathroom. Once inside, he cast a detection charm. He snickered when he found an alert charm - Dumbledore's work. Disabling it, he looked at the tap and hissed, " Open!"
When the pipe was visible to him, he stuffed the cloak inside the expanded pocket of his trousers and jumped. The pipe was just as slimy as last time and once he landed, he flicked his wand at himself, making the dirt and slime disappear from his body.
"Tippy!" he called. Harry frowned when no elf arrived. There were probably anti-elf wards in place. He went forward and examined the shed skin. There was so much shed skin here! He would have to harvest it all. Moving forward, he opened the door to the chamber and stepped inside.
The basilisk's corpse was perfectly preserved. The inherent magic of the snake must have preserved decay or there must be an ancient variety of a preservation charm on the entire chamber. He slowly went forward and looked at the corpse of the magnificent creature. It was probably the last of its kind and it had been killed. After a silent prayer of apology for taking its life, Harry got to work. He began casting detection charms in every direction. From what he knew, Tom Riddle had tried to search for any hidden room in the Chamber of Secrets, but he had been unsuccessful in getting past a barrier which was powered by ancient blood wards. But Harry was going to try it. He had been curious about it since the time he had read Godric's journal. According to Godric, Salazar's family had vivid emerald green eyes, a natural colour which had never been seen in any other human. This had gotten Harry curious. Was it possible?
Finding something strange at the base of the statue, he began hissing in Parseltongue, using detection and revealing spells. After twenty minutes of trial and error, a pedestal appeared. Harry understood what had to be done. Now he would know if his theory was correct. Taking a deep breath, he sliced his palm and let the drops of blood fall on the pedestal. The blood was absorbed and it glowed, making a stone door appear as it opened with a groan.
Harry's heart was beating a mile a minute. His theory was right! He and his mother were the descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself! There was no way he could have bypassed the blood ward if he did not have Slytherin blood in him.
It was a known fact - even though the traditionalist purebloods did not want to openly admit it - that all Muggle-borns were the descendants of a witch or wizard. Witches and wizards were different from Muggles at the microscopic level which was their DNA. That was where the differences started. Many witches and wizards had studied the differences over the centuries, but no real explanation was given as to why Muggles existed in the first place. It was also a proven fact that once upon a time, the planet had been a habitat to magical human beings only but at some point in time, a mutation had occurred in the DNA of select human beings, creating humans without the power of magic in their blood - Muggles.
Initially, they had been very limited in number, with magical humans being the dominant race, but several millennia later, especially in the period of the two thousand years before Harry's time, with the current century being the worst, Muggle population had increased drastically, outnumbering witches and wizards as they reproduced at an exponential and illogical rate. With the Magical Royal Houses having come to an end all over the world and Muggles taking their place, the balance had been irrevocably broken, completely shattering the last vestiges of peace between magical humans and Muggles.
Since their DNA itself was different, it was impossible for two Muggles to create a magical child. Through outward appearance, no one could tell if a human were magical or Muggle, but the differences went deeper than that. The average lifespan of a magical human, for example, was at least two or three times the average lifespan of a Muggle. Magical children too developed faster than Muggles, from babies to teenagers. This was also the reason Harry had been able to speak fluently when he was a child while Dudley could not. Witches and wizards entered puberty early and their body's accelerated growth would slow down at the age of seventeen, which was why it was universally considered the age of reaching adulthood in the case of magical humans. After that, witches and wizards would age slowly to the point where a ninety-year-old witch could easily pass off as a forty-year-old Muggle. The reason for all this was pure and simple - Magic.
Magic was the fundamental building block of the universe itself. It existed in every living thing, and no organism or inanimate object could exist without magic. Plants, animals, humans, rocks, soil, water, air, the vacuum of space - they all had a magical component in them. Muggles had magic too, but the level of magic in their blood was so ridiculously low because of the mutated DNA that even non-magical animals had more magic in their blood than them. The soul itself was nothing but pure magic, which was why splitting it was considered the biggest act of evil and not even the worst of the worst dark wizards would attempt it - except Herpo the Foul and Voldemort. Even dark wizards believed in the sanctity of Mother Magic, which was why even if they pushed the boundaries, they never crossed it.
That was the reason Voldemort and Herpo the Foul had been physically disfigured so badly. They had crossed the line and their bodies reflected it.
Magic existed everywhere and its source was infinite, however, magical creatures like humans, elves and goblins couldn't completely harness the infinite power available to them. While magic existed in the air or soil, only a certain small quantity of it could be used or tapped.
The wards powering Potter Castle was the best example of this.
While the castle wards could absorb magic from the lay lines present underground, the ward stone could only harness a limited amount of magic. The ward stones itself came in various forms, with different input and output configurations on how much magic it can absorb and use. This was the limitation to magic in that nobody could tap into its unlimited natural reserves. It was always finite as far as witches and wizards were concerned. Using a lot of magic to power the wards meant dumping a huge about of gold in maintaining it. The ward stones at Potter Castle were very expensive, which was why the war wards were not always powered. The standard wards would be powered when the Potters did not occupy the castle, but if the situation demanded it, the full might of the wards could be raised, but it did not come cheap.
Hogwarts and Gringotts worked on a similar approach. The school had extensive ward stones powering wards, but maintaining them was not easy, nor was it inexpensive. The castle had built a reputation for the reason that despite it being a school, the wards were well maintained. This, along with the cost of boarding and teaching, led to an increase in the fees of incoming students, which not everyone could afford. Hogwarts had always been an elite school for the rich or talented, while the rest of the British magical population attended the other magical schools of the realm.
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