Disclaimer: Harry Potter and its characters belong to J.K. Rowling. This story is written by Neverthetruth and no profit is gained from it.
A/N: Excuse the pig Latin- I used Google translate. This is a prologue; other chapters will be longer.
PROLOGUE
~0~
And where the startled wilderness beheld
A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood
~0~
She stirred in sleep. The millennium had flitted by in an irrelevant dream: she could vividly remember Salazar Slytherin's farewell- a swift and silent retreat, devoid of any finesse to brood on in the upcoming years of solitude. He hadn't looked back.
It was fortunate, for her eyes never left his figure: it was a salute reciprocated in silence, held for as long as she could still smell his sweet, honorable scent.
She hadn't stopped dreaming of him for all those idle years, and no two dreams were exactly identical. An acquaintance of a mere hundred days had served to console her solitude in the next millennium: it was all the memories she had since her very existence. Salazar Slytherin fondling her in his hands, Salazar Slytherin patiently training her in the Chamber; she was his creation, his pride, his friend and confidant, his humble slave. I vivere servire: I live to serve, and waiting was only a small part of the role she was created to play. Days, nights- there was no daylight in the Chamber- she had lost count. Whether she had waited for centuries or mere days was no longer relevant; she would wait.
Salazar had left her, as a newly hatched infant, to nurture her unlimited abilities. One day you will be free, he had promised; his heir would unleash her, and until then she would wait silently in hibernation for the appearance of his noble bloodline. She had never stopped meditating on his words. Our cause will rise.
~0~
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!"
Her eyes opened to a familiar scent: Salazar? Her forked tongue trembled with anticipation. Even after all those years of isolation she could not have been mistaken. The burning sensation in her throat was enough- though the newcomer's eloquent grasp of her own tongue was an equally obvious indication. The echos bounced off the Chamber walls, singing at the hint of his name. The thrill of being manipulated flushed through her veins once again. You have come?
Her senses now sharpened, she realized that the voice had belonged to a stranger. Though he inherited Slytherin's noble blood, the intruder had smelt slightly different: less pure, slightly less fragrant. No doubt the bloodline had been tarnished throughout these years, she brooded; no-one would ever smell as excruciatingly beautiful to her as Salazar did.
But that was her calling; the heir was here, and she was ready.
Tom Riddle. The newcomer replied, voice steady. I am Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Close your eyes, heir of Slytherin. I have no wish to harm you. She whispered, feeling the age-old stone door vibrate under her excitement. The boy was stimulating her dormant senses. If Basilisks have adrenaline, hers would be accelerating wildly: already her senses were in resonance with her seducer's, vividly anticipating his lust for blood. For the first time in many years, the granite moaned softly, its twin snake lock sliding to open the statue's gigantic mouth.
Aperire. She could hear his fear and determination.
Cool pools of the Chamber quivered a tinkling harmony, the only background music to enhance the drama of her entrance. She slithered out of her long hibernation, breathing deeply in the damp aura of Salazar's Chamber: the Chamber he created for her, the Chamber which harbored many precious memories, the Chamber which, she could sense, was no longer his. She allowed for her lengthy body to stretch out in the familiar hall, shedding off the last of her old skin. The Basilisk exited completely from Salazar Slytherin's statue and fixed her amber eyes on the young intruder.
Tom Marvolo Riddle.