'Good. Since it's such a powerful medium for magic, the most powerful and personal as far as we know, it can be used to create powerful wards, ones that only someone of the same blood can cross, such as those in this chamber, or ones that require a sacrifice of blood to bypass. The latter can be useful in creating traps, if your enemy thinks that spattering a bit of blood will grant him entry he might be tempted to risk it. Once he's within the wards a clever enough casting can leave him trapped or, two way wards that allow entry for everyone and exit for only one person are useful. I cast two sets over my home so that any attackers would be trapped between them for as long as I desired.'
'Can they be broken?'
'Blood magic wards are very powerful,' Slytherin responded, 'but yes, if you're of sufficient puissance then you can overpower the magic behind them and eradicate them. I wouldn't advise it, though. Anyone capable of creating blood magic wards is likely powerful in their own right, and since the magic is tied to their blood you'll be forced into a conflict of direct magical strength.'
'What about the wards tied to this chamber?' Harry inquired. 'How do they work?'
'The wards of this chamber are bound to my blood,' Salazar explained with a touch of pride. 'Only a parseltongue can open the entrances, and only someone of my bloodline can pass through the other wards. It's why you can apparate in and out of here, but nobody else can.'
'Except Voldemort,' Harry reminded him.
'Except Voldemort,' Slytherin admitted, 'but I doubt he would come here until it's worth the risk. He has nothing here that he cares for and no reason to come until he wants to enter the school. He never came back after leaving the school, not even at the height of his power.'
'What about portkeys?'
'Only someone of my blood can portkey here, though anyone who has seen the inside can create a portkey here.'
'What would happen if they tried?' Harry asked.
'I don't know,' Slytherin mused. 'Maybe you should get someone to try, just to find out. I suppose the portkey would just fail, or they might bounce off and arrive nearby. They might even vanish completely,' he enthused.
'Maybe another time,' Harry decided. He'd save playing with experimental magic until he no longer wanted to live a long and fulfilling life. 'How did you make the wards?' 'With great difficulty and over a very long time,' the painting replied proudly. 'I had to sacrifice something very dear to create them, I did it after my wife passed. We had matching lockets,' Harry's hand darted to the warm triangle of metal against his chest, 'my wife's went to my daughter, but I had to sacrifice mine to create these wards. It was the only thing I owned that I could use except my own life.'
'And apart from that?' Harry knew the founder would rather not talk about his wife and daughter too much. He still felt guilty for his sacrifice and the effect it had had on their lives afterwards.
'Every single protective spell I knew and could cast save the Fidelius Charm, which I considered trying to convert so that my bloodline would be permanent secret keepers, but the cost was already too high and I chose not to try.' 'I don't understand how you cast all these spells and then bind them to your bloodline,' Harry admitted.
'It's abstract magic,' Salazar agreed gently. 'You cast all the spells with runes rather than your wand, just as you did for the ritual to correct your eyesight. I drew a runic description of my intent within the confines of the chamber using my blood as ink, making it the medium and bond, and then combined with my intentional sacrifice that was enough.'
'I understand the concept,' Harry decided, turning it over in his head. 'I could probably draw the runes with a bit of help, but I'm not sure I would know what to do with the sacrifice.'
'As long as the value of what you're sacrificing is roughly proportional to what you're gaining then it will work. My locket was one of the last connections I had to my wife, losing it was painful, but protecting and aiding my future family was just as important, even if I personally valued the locket more highly than just about anything else.'
'I see,' Harry murmured. 'So if I wanted to create blood wards around a house to protect someone important to me I would have to sacrifice something of approximately equal value. I could use the ring Fleur gave me, then, to create more powerful wards than if I used my blood as the sacrifice.'
'Yes,' the painting agreed. 'Though if you only sacrificed the ring to create some effect unrelated to blood that would technically just be sacrificial magic, something Godric and I believed to be love based. It would also make no difference to the magic how great your sacrifice was once the maximum effect was reached. The ward you make can only be so strong, so there's a point at which sacrificing more makes no difference.' 'So how would I enchant something using blood magic?'
'That's the simplest use,' Slytherin answered quickly. 'The enchantments you place would simply be bound to your blood so only you and your descendants could safely use them, or use them at all. Using blood as a medium through which to create the enchantments would make them much stronger than normal too. Some of the most legendary magical artefacts made by wizards were likely made using a combination of sacrificial and a blood magic medium to create the desired effect.'
'A powerful sacrifice and a powerful medium to create the strongest possible enchantment,' Harry surmised.
'Exactly,' Salazar nodded. 'Though it would likely require a great deal of topical knowledge and a mastery of runes and relevant lore to have the understanding and intent required to create something quite so exceptional as those such artefacts.'
'The Caduceus is one,' Slytherin told him thoughtfully. 'It was seen in the classical era and earlier, but was lost after the fall of Rome. It was a staff of healing without comparison. Imagine a wand that was so powerful any healing spells cast through it were almost always successful. It was rumoured to be so strong that anything but death could be cured by a talented healer who possessed it. It was so famous it remains a part of non-magical mythology to this day.'
'Any others?' Harry asked, curious.
'A very long list,' Salazar smiled. 'I'll tell you about some of them in the future, but you have more important things to worry about now.'
'That's true,' Harry nodded. 'I can't think of a way to sneak out of here to the Department of Mysteries without running the risk of Dumbledore checking the wards and seeing I have left.'
'If you leave via the chamber he will not be directly alerted, but if he looks at the records at a later date it will be rather obvious.'
'So he has stop being headmaster for at least the time period in which I'm going to be away for,' Harry deduced.
'I believe so,' the founder agreed. 'You already have a plan to oust him, don't you?'
'Yes,' Harry agreed, 'but with the Minister losing power I don't know how long Dumbledore's exile will last.'
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