A Portrait of Time

By Sozuki

Chapter Three

Salazar glared. Though the glare was meant for Godric, he did not take his eyes off the young man before him.

"As you can plainly see, Godric," he drawled. "I have found and cornered our intruders."

"Technically, we aren't even that." Harry muttered. His face was slowly reddening due to the fact that the snake wrapped around his neck and shoulder area. The snake wasn't tight enough to cut off his breathing, but it was enough to make it slightly difficult and Harry was positive that it was putting more pressure than necessary on a main artery since the blood didn't seem in much of a hurry to leave.

"Excuse me, beautiful." Harry said to the snake, hoping she understood English since he didn't dare speak Parseltongue since Parselmouths were rare in this time.

Actually, he thought to himself. The very first is right in front of me.

"But since I don't think your master would want me dead yet, could you possibly loosen enough for me to breath properly? All the blood pounding in my head certainly isn't helping my headache either."

Sasha didn't know whether she should feel offended by the stranger's words or preen under the attention, because after all, she was a beautiful snake.

"Should I, master?" She hissed to Salazar. "To request such a thing in this situation," she paused for a beat, "He's either very stupid, or very powerful."

Salazar nodded his approval and Harry let out a sigh of relief when Sasha loosened her hold. He gripped the two books he held in his left hand tighter and shifted them slightly behind him, much like how Draco had done, so they didn't attract attention.

"You are a unusual one, aren't you?" She asked no one in particular. Harry glanced down at the snake, her dark head mere inches from his face. It was difficult to pretend as though he didn't understand her.

If only you knew. He thought. After giving up the brief staring contest, he looked back to what was going on around him.

"How about we all go sit down, have some tea, and talk?" Harry suggested, mentally laughing at the idea as well as wanting it at the same time.

"Well aren't you feeling optimistic." Draco drawled. "Not that long ago you were pacing around the bloody room saying over and over how doomed we were."

"No tea then?"

"Potter..." Draco growled.

"Look at the situation we are in, Malfoy. Don't you think it would be a smart idea to try and compromise? Hell. There are two very powerful wizards right in front of us. Maybe they know something."

Draco continued to glare at him, and Harry glared right back. "Look, Malfoy. You're a Slytherin, aren't you? Isn't knowing when to give up in the job description?"

"Well it seems we switched places. Suddenly I'm a stubborn Gryffindor and you are a sneaky Slytherin. Just goes to show you we've been around each other too much." He raised his hands, his wand slipping back up his sleeve. "Fine. They can probably help us … if they don't kill us first." He shook his head and sighed.

The two founders followed the conversation closely only to find that they both had more questions then they had a moment ago.

"Tea then?" Godric was rather fond of tea. Salazar groaned.

"Definitely a Gryffindor trait." Draco muttered to himself.

"Fine. But since you are here, you get him." The Slytherin gestured towards Draco. "I already caught that one." He vaguely gestured toward Harry.

'That one', Harry thought. I don't even get a gender identification. I'm a 'that'.

Godric walked over, unafraid and not at all worried, towards Draco. "You found them both and you are fully capable of dealing with both. Why do I have to help?" He complained, grabbing hold of Draco's left upper arm and started to leave the corridor, not bothering to apologize as Draco stumbled.

Harry had to bite back a laugh at the rather disgruntled look on is friend's face. However, his amusement didn't last long as Salazar came up and grabbed him as well, following Godric out of the corridor.

"Helga and Rowena have always tried to get us to share when we were younger. Maybe I'm just now taking it to heart." Sarcasm dripped from his words.

---

The four of them arrived at the stair case that normally lead to the Headmaster's office, however Harry and Draco noted that the gargoyle was absent and the stairs were unmoving. Unfortunately, they would have to climb the flight without magical aid

Instead of a desk, past headmaster portraits, and random books and gadgets, there was a half-circle table with papers scattered everywhere and a couple bookshelves lined the walls.

Two people were already present in the room. A beautiful dark brown, near black, haired woman, with royal blue robes and glittering, ocean blue eyes, gazed curiously at the newcomers. The other was a wavy-haired blonde woman with bright green eyes, her robes an almost mustard shade of yellow. They both looked like they could be in their mid-late twenties.

Salazar and Godric dragged them to the two chairs that were a little ways away from the flat side of the table. Godric turned and went to a side table so he could prepare the tea. Salazar stood in front of them.

"If you do not impose any danger, then you wouldn't mind leaving your wands temporarily in our care." He waited, arms crossed.

Harry and Draco exchanged a brief glance before looking back at the man.

"We may be young..." Draco began.

"But we aren't stupid." Harry finished, causing Draco to wince.

"I would have used a better word. Please try and improve your vocabulary."

"Cry me a river."

Neither looked away from Salazar while that exchange took place.

"Then how do we know you don't intend to do something?" Helga asked in her soft voice.

"A 2:1 ratio isn't exactly the best of odds." Draco said, ignoring the confused looks being sent their way. Neither him nor Harry bothered mentioning they've done just that before and came out on top.

"Why should they trust us when we have their wands?" Another voice chimed in, this time Rowena's. She nodded her thanks to Godric who provided her with tea before he took his seat next to Helga.

"Fine." Salazar spat and turned to take his seat between Godric and Rowena. Sasha unraveled herself from Harry's neck and followed after the man, sliding herself into one of the man's larger robe pockets.

Now all four of the Founders of Hogwarts where sitting in front of them drinking tea. Harry found the whole situation kind of surreal.

And thus, the interrogation began.

"What are your names?" Godric asked, starting with the basics. But the basics were never the basics when it came to Harry Potter and whoever had the misfortune of being dragged along for the ride.

"Well, you see..." Harry started. "This might be a problem." He turned to Draco for help.

"What?" Draco asked, wide eyed and with false innocence. "You expected to be served tea as well? Would you really drink tea offered by strangers?" He relented when Harry glared. "The Malfoy family line was around during this time and I'm sure the Potters were as well. If we can't trust them with our names, how the hell are we supposed to get back?"

Harry sighed and gripped the books in his lap tighter.

"Draco Malfoy." He told them with his head held high.

"Harry Potter." Harry muttered.

"How old are you?" Godric continued questioning.

"We are both seventeen." Draco answered.

"How did you get into the school?"

"We're students here." Harry sighed, rubbing his temples.

"No, you defiantly are not. I would remember. We are three quarters of the way done with the school year, after all." Godric countered.

"What the clod means," Draco shot Harry a dark look, "Is that we got here by accident. Some idiot said something about time in front of a certain painting."

"We are too students here and I already told you that it wasn't my fault!"

"Students from this time and students from our time are completely different! And this is definitely you're fault. You're Harry Bloody Potter after all! You were born to make things difficult!"

Harry stood from his chair, the books falling loudly to the floor. "That's right, I am Harry Bloody Potter! The-Boy-Who-Bloody-Lived! That makes everything terrible that has happened from the very day I was born to this very moment my fault!"

"Couldn't have said it better myself." Draco said, crossing his arms.

Helga stood from her place at the end of the table. "Come now, boys. Settle down and we'll talk this over. I'm sure everything will be just fine once it's all sorted out."

Harry was shaking in anger, ignoring everyone else in the room but Draco.

"If this whole thing is my fault, then you won't mind if I make everything worse, will you?" He growled. Staling to the table only to slam his hands down upon the hard wooden surface. Harry ignored the sudden stinging pain that shot up his arms and slowly abated.

"We are seventh year students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Just this year, I started a personal mission to try and clean up a hazardous mess that you two made," He glared at Salazar, who didn't look the least bit concerned and Godric, who was wide eyed but interested at the turn of events.

"As a result, I got upset and went to the third floor corridor and and went to sulk in one of the few rooms off the third floor corridor. There is a painting in that room that must have taken us back in time, because there is no other way we could have gotten here except for that stupid painting of a time turner! When we got here, we thought we could find books in the library that could tell us how to get back to our time. I think you know the story from there." He said the last line sarcastically.

Turning, he went and plopped himself back into his chair next to Draco. Resting his head in his hands, he groaned softly.

"My head still really hurts." He muttered, his head pounded in time with his still rapidly beating heart.

"Well at least you covered everything." Draco shrugged. "I would have done it better of course."

"Of course." Harry rolled his eyes and winced.

---

First of all, I'd like to thank Reader for offering to be my beta for this story. Hugs and Chocolates for her! hugs

Second, thank you all again for the reviews and story alerts! I'm surprised there are so many people that like this story, but I wont complain! THANK YOU GUYS!!!