Disclaimer: I own neither Buffy nor Harry Potter… The originals are awesome though.

Chapter 10 – A Plan?

There were immediate protests from the professors, even Snape, unwilling to leave a student alone with the painting. There had already been so many revelations that had tilted their world's axis that they weren't sure how safe the Founder really were. Several of them had admitted to using dark magic in the past too.

"And I'm not willing to tell any of you what I know," Anne finally interrupted the arguments surrounding her. "I've told you I know how to defeat your dark lord once and for all and all you can do is complain about not entrusting the choice of whether to do it to the only person who can do it anyway."

Snape scowled, "You expect me to trust Potter to make an educated decision on something like this?"

"Have you failed so badly at educating him then?" Anne responded simply. "After all you've had a couple years to educate him. If you were a good teacher he'd have no trouble trusting you to tell you anything he felt relevant. You've allowed yourself to be biased, either because of your houses or because you knew his parents."

Snape's nearly invisible twitch wouldn't have been noticed by many people. Anne though, she was even older than the professors thought, and was very very good at reading people.

"He hated James," Remus explained.

"It's more than that though," Anne said as she examined Snape.

Snape sneared, "Fine! It's your mistake though."

He turned and stalked out of the room, his robe billowing behind him, giving Dumbledore an intense look on his way.

"He's a little dramatic isn't he?" Salazar said after the door closed.

Godric snorted, "Reminds me of you all when you were 16."

"We weren't really that bad were we Row?"

"Of course not. I was a perfect student at least," Rowena said agreeing with Salazar.

Anne gave a soft little laugh and let it drop. Rose tinted memories and all.

There was a long round of argument that then filled the room as they decided what to do. It took quite a lot of discussion, Anne worked well with goblins for a reason, before the adults agreed to leave the room. It wasn't like Harry could just leave the school without the teachers knowing. And Fawkes, although not human, was capable of babysitting Harry for this conversation. If he sensed any deceit he'd be able to act, he could also stop Harry from leaving the office, just in case the founders attempted to get him to leave through a secret passage that the headmaster was unaware of.

Harry was nervous as the teachers finally filed out of the room, leaving him alone with the painting of Hogwarts. Fawkes trilled softly from his perch before launching himself up into the air to glide into Harry's arms. Harry relaxed as a soft melody came from the phoenix in his arms.

"There is a way to defeat Riddle," Anne explained once she was sure there were no others in the room, even the other paintings were vacated after she'd glared at them. "I worked quite closely with the goblins and they have a magic that can basically ensure magical justice against one who has slain their own blood. There is a great deal of distance between the two of you on the family tree, but he's killed many many other descendants of ours. You'll have to make a list of as many of them as you can, you shouldn't have trouble getting the goblins to assist. You'll have to be the focal point of the spell since you're from two lines, both your parents were killed by him and he's attempted to kill you. There are a few other things and if your headmaster is right about him making horcruxes there is a way to… deal with that. We'll need Rowena's help with that part. He will greatly regret his choices, vengeance, justice, will be yours."

"Ahn!" Salazar exclaimed.

"What? It's true."

"Why couldn't you tell me this with the professors here?" Harry asked.

"You're the only one I'm trusting with this information. Too many things we've done to help have been twisted into things we don't approve of. What I'm telling you is top secret goblin information. And the less people know about horcruxes the better. The method we used to make this painting was altered into the technique to make a horcrux, the less people who might learn how to unmake this painting, the better. Also better to have as few people know that I can do this."

Harry gasped as Anne suddenly threw a ring at him through the painting. Fawkes catching it in his beak before dropping it into Harry's hand before taking flight back to his perch.

"This is my head of house ring. Salazar can't use it because he's not a wizard so I'm actually considered the head of the now ancient and noble house of Slytherin. Having this ring means I consider you my heir out of all my descendants. The goblins should remember what it means. It'll also act as a key to my vault at Gringotts."

"What do you want me to do?" Rowena asked. "The resouling spell? That's still very dark magic, even if his soul is hanging around in pieces rather than in limbo."

"No. Unfortunately he doesn't have a body for us to put him into. I'm not sure we want to wait until he makes himself a new body. I think a modified version of the enjoining spell."

"It would have to be adjusted, of course, because I wouldn't want to include myself in the enjoining. But we'd need some sort of focus, to summon him into."

"It's more complicated than that I'm afraid."

"What?"

"If I'm right then part of why Harry survived is because his mother did something that messed up Riddle using Harry's death to make another horcrux. I've already read all the news articles and conjecture in the history books that have appeared in our library. The only things I didn't already know were Voldemort's real name and that he was making horcruxes, although I suppose I should have suspected."

Harry looked on in shock as he realized they were discussing the night his parents were murdered.

"What does that mean?" Harry asked. "My mother interfering with what he was doing."

Helga gasped as she realized what Anne was implying. "You think Harry is a horcrux don't you? That can't be. The human body isn't meant to store more than a single soul!"

"But that soul was just a tiny piece, and children's souls grow, he was young enough that his soul didn't know that it didn't belong. It's why he has a scar and it activated the parseltongue skill."

Harry's eyes widened as he realized what they meant, his hand rubbing against his scar, scared.

"You mean for him to do it, don't you?" Rowena asked grasping Helga's hand. "To pull the other pieces into himself, it would be enough for his body to reject the foreign soul and it could then be trapped and punished using goblin magic."

"Yes," Anne answered simply. "But it'll be very very painful. It won't be like when you joined together to empower Elizabeth. Your souls were willing bound together to share your strengths with each other, knowing it was temporary. Riddle is going to fight this with each piece of his soul and with any magical protections he put in place to guard his soul fragments. He will eventually try to take over Harry's body and take his place… Harry is still a child, younger than any of you when you started fighting. Younger than any of the soldiers that were trained here were, before they were sent to protect mankind from what is sealed away in the forest."

"How safe is this, Ahn?" Salazar asked, finally speaking up.

"Not enough, not yet anyway, which is why I want help from the goblins. I have many items of protection, and between us Harry will have everything we have at our disposal."

"Harry," Godric called in concern as he saw the panicking expression on the child's face. "If you do have a soul fragment in you I doubt it can harm you if it hasn't done anything yet. We won't force you to do this. In the end it'll come down to how strong your will is. It'll be your strength of self, your mental battle against this madman. We have time to come up with another plan if you don't have the confidence in this one. I daresay your headmaster might also have a plan in mind."

"… No," Harry said as he straightened his back. "I am scared, terrified even. As long as we use as many safety precautions as you can think of. As long as I feel convinced that it's enough I'm willing to do this. I just want this to be over with before he can start killing people again. I just want the chance to be normal."

"That's very brave of you," Rowena said with a gentle smile. "Don't underestimate what normal means though. Salazar was always the normal one, but look at his life. Not only did he help found this school, he has trained and led armies against the forces of darkness."

"I believe we might have mentioned it earlier but once while we were trying to fight a different battle without him he took out the zombies we didn't know about," Godric interjected.

"How did you all find out about that anyway?" Salazar asked.

"You talk in your sleep," Anne said.

Salazar stared at his wife for a moment, "And you decided to tell everyone?"

"I was bored. Besides, once you knew that they knew you'd mention it anytime people wanted to exclude someone you wanted included. What I don't understand is how it took you so many centuries to ask how everyone found out."

End Chapter 10

Author's Note: With everything happening in the world I'm currently stuck at home and hope everyone is keeping safe. …

So I'm finally working on some of my fanfics among other things. Hopefully I'll finish some of my stories over the next couple of weeks. I wonder which story I should work on next?

I write differently now than I used to (it's been almost 10 years!) so I'm winging it with this. I like to go back and re-read reviews, partly because they inspire me, and sometimes (usually on tth) I'll respond and it gives me a clue on how I was thinking, although sometimes I wonder at myself on my responses. I'm weird, really weird...