Harry bit his lip thoughtfully, then nodded himself. He followed most of that. Salazar was right, it had simple principles at least until the connection was made.
'What about after the connection has been created?'
'Much more complicated,' Salazar told him with a wry smile. 'Every wizard does it differently because we all think slightly differently from each other. The goal is to get your victim to think about what you want to know, you can do it by showing them images, your own memories and thoughts, or by following and dissecting theirs like Riddle tried to do to you. That's why practice is so important, you need to create your own style and tactics.'
'So teaching Neville to try and protect a secret while I learn how to get it out of him is a good idea?' Harry asked.
'As long as you trust Neville implicitly or are prepared to use the memory charm on him repeatedly,' Salazar warned.
'I trust him,' Harry decided. An idea struck him. 'Can you use legilimency on yourself?'
Salazar stared at him curiously. 'Why would you want to?'
'To see how well I can occlude my mind,' Harry answered, he'd thought it was rather obvious.
'I don't know,' Slytherin mused. 'It's something to experiment with.' The portrait sounded quite excited by the idea. 'You could use the time-turner so you had a version of yourself to attack and defend, or you could try and create a connection from your mind to itself,' he had lapsed into parseltongue in his enthusiasm, 'I have no idea what might happen.'
'Perhaps it's best not to try, in case I make a mess of something important,' Harry suggested.
'But we have to know,' Salazar pleaded. 'Try with the time-turner, you'd be expecting yourself, and not affecting anything too much so it won't do anything too terrible,' and if it does you can leave yourself a warning by going back and warning yourself not to do it.'
'I'm not doing that unless I'm very desperate,' Harry decided. 'It sounds like a great way to kill myself twice in the same moment or too get myself stuck in some ridiculous time loop.'
'Fine,' the painting sulked, 'waste the chance to discover something incredible.'
'I will,' Harry retorted just as childishly.
'You need to go back to Gryffindor Tower,' the founder told him, looking at his brand new clock, something he had complained didn't match the decor of his study until Harry asked him why he had never put one in the first place. He didn't really feel that being able to cast the tempus charm was a valid excuse, but Slytherin had been adamant it was a good enough reason.
'So I do,' Harry realised. 'It's almost time for Quidditch practice.'
Katie had told Angelina that she needed to hold tryouts, and within a week Angelina had managed to book the pitch, despite the best efforts of Hufflepuff's team to book it up to the beginning of the season. 'Before you go,' Salazar began seriously, 'make sure you only portkey out to France from within my chamber.'
'Why?' Harry was confident that he had, though it was only by coincidence.
'The school's wards inform the headmaster the moment a student leaves when they aren't supposed to. The chamber is a loophole. You move outside of the wards which is recorded, but you don't actually leave the castle, so they aren't triggered to actually alert the headmaster.' Slytherin seemed slightly smug. 'So you can leave from here and Dumbledore won't know you've left unless he actually goes to check you're still at Hogwarts.'
'That's how he knew I could apparate,' Harry realised. 'He saw I had a new wand and realised I must have gone to Diagon Alley, so he checked to see if I had left. If he ever looks he'll be able to see every time I've gone to France this year.'
'Yes,' the portrait agreed. 'Don't give him a reason to check, Harry. The only time periods he can't check are those he wasn't headmaster for.'
'Does he know about the loophole of the Chamber of Secrets?' Harry asked
'There are only three wizards who know any of the secrets of this place and Dumbledore is not one of them,' Salazar said simply.
'As long as he doesn't have a reason to look for when I've left I'll be fine,' Harry decided, making a mental note never to trigger the alerts or to let Dumbledore suspect that he'd left the castle at all.
That makes things even more complicated.
'Practice your legilimency,' the founder called after him as he left, striding past the sooty shadow of the basilisk upon the chamber floor.
I will, mother, Harry thought.
'Myrtle,' he called quietly. The ghost wasn't always in the toilet on the second floor, she often wandered the plumbing, rather like the basilisk had, though not quite as terrifying.
There was no reply, even after waiting for a few minutes, so he disillusioned himself and walked far enough from the bathroom to avoid suspicion before dispelling the charm and continuing back towards Gryffindor Tower.
He found the chairs by the fire occupied by Neville and his newfound following of devoted pupils. Somehow the previously shy wizard had managed to teach all three of Ron, Seamus and Dean to produce a half-decent shield charm. They were having what sounded like a highly technical discussion about that very spell, while Colin Creevey dozed across the only other chair, leaning dangerously far across the arm of the chair.
Well, Salazar said to practice.
He owed Creevey for all those photos in the second year anyway.
'Legilimens,' he murmured, pointing his wand out the tip of sleeve of the sleeping fourth year.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you enjoy reading? Visit my site on Tiendup! There you will find the advanced chapter in PDF format, ready for your convenience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://fictiontopia.tiendup.com/