Chapter Twenty-One: Who Am I?

"Now, please let me help Rhex, Tom. We can't leave him like this," Hermione pleaded.

Tom was still trying to process this new information, so he stepped to the side to let her pass. Hermione hurried by, dropped to the floor next to a bleeding Rhex, and brought her wand over his trembling, injured hand.

He watched on, but he wasn't really paying attention. Instead, his mind was reeling through this new information.

Because I didn't want you to find out that you're the heir of Slytherin!

…to find out that you're the heir of Slytherin!

…you're the heir of Slytherin!

…I didn't want you to find out –

His eyes flicked back to see Hermione's hunched over form healing Lestrange as best she could, and felt a new wave of anger course through him.

How dare her keep something like this from him? Did she even realize how monumental this was, if it were true? If he had Slytherin's blood coursing through his veins, he could get so much further ahead in life than living his life as a Muggleborn. More opportunities, more recognition, more power. Didn't she realize how they could both use this to their advantage? If he were to be publicly recognized in the Wizarding World as Slytherin's one and only heir, then no one could say anything about them. They couldn't say anything. They wouldn't have to hide anymore. Why would she think that withholding this information from him be protecting him?

First, he needed to find out for himself if it was true.

"There. I think I've healed most of it, but you should still get it looked at by Madam Pomfrey," Hermione spoke quietly, pulling Tom from his thoughts to focus back on them.

Lestrange sat up, and flexed his fingers. He smiled. "Nah, it feels normal to me. I think you did a better job than she would have. Thanks, Hermione."

Hermione smiled at the praise. "You're welcome."

Lestrange's leveled gaze flicked purposefully to Tom's; the brief smile on his face gone, but the smile in his eyes remained. Hermione turned around to look back at Tom, her smile falling when she remembered he was there.

He couldn't stay here. If he did, he knew he'd do something he couldn't take back. Tom stormed out of the room without another word.

"Tom!" he heard her call after him as she chased him down the creaking stairs. His long legs carried him quicker.

"Would you just stop and listen to me! Tom! I can't keep up with you."

He threw the door that led back through the tunnel open angrily with his magic. It banged against the wall, nearly falling off its rusty hinges.

"That's kind of the point," he managed to reply spitefully through his clenched teeth before casting a wordless Lumos to make his way through the tunnel.

"How am I supposed to talk to you if you keep running away from me!?" she screamed again and he heard her frantic footfalls gaining on him.

He continued to ignore her, because he couldn't even look at her right now. How could she have betrayed him like this? Even if there wasn't anything romantic going on, she knew how he felt about Lestrange, she knew she was putting herself in danger without telling him. And yet – and yet – she still found it in herself to go meet Lestrange behind his back, she still found it in herself to lie to him, and he knew she would still find a way to justify why she was right, like she always did; and he knew, with her logical mind and her logical words, that she just might convince him of it.

Tom didn't want to be convinced or hear her logic; he wanted to be furious and resentful and spiteful and feel something other than this overwhelming, gaping chasm in his chest that he absolutely refused to consider was hurt.

He wanted so badly to punish her, but he couldn't, he couldn't, he wouldn't –

He was almost to the end of the tunnel when he felt clumps of dirt and rotten leaves thrown at his back.

"Talk to me, you coward!" she screamed at him.

Something in him snapped. It all happened so quickly. Before he realized what he was doing, he already had her slammed against the dirt wall of the tunnel, his hand wrapped firmly around the base of her neck.

He watched the way her eyes went wide with surprise, but not with fear. The only one who held fear of him now was himself.

What am I? Who am I?

Tom managed to control his breathing and reel in his temper long enough to loosen his grip on her neck, watching on with a detached sort of fascination as he let his hand and fingers slide down and splay over her collarbones.

Hermione's chest rose and fell quickly underneath his hand; the dim light from his wand flickered between them.

"You call me a coward, yet look at yourself," Tom replied in a calmer tone than he felt, looking her up and down with a mix of frustration and disgust.

"Tom, please," she started desperately.

"Stop it, Hermione," he interrupted, then his upper lip curled over his teeth when he continued, "Do you even realize what you've done? How I hate the fact that I can't even look at you right now?"

"I'm sorry," she apologized – pleaded, her voice cracking from newly shed tears.

"So am I," he replied with an air of finality, then left her there to wallow in her own regret.

Over the past week, Tom had given her the cold shoulder. He wouldn't look at her and he wouldn't talk to her – not even when they had class together. Anytime she tried talking to him, he'd walk away. She hated how he was taking all this. If only he'd just give her a chance to explain herself, then everything would be better.

As they passed each other in the corridor between classes and Tom, yet again, refused to acknowledge her existence, Ron finally said something.

"Blimey, who pissed in your brother's pumpkin juice this morning? He looks like he's about to murder someone."

Hermione unconsciously brought her hand up to touch her neck, suddenly feeling very warm and very empty at the same time. The touch of his fingers lingered there, days later.

Honestly, Ron probably wasn't that far off the mark.

"Since when doesn't he look like that?" Harry joked, but went sheepish when she shot him a glare. "Sorry, 'Mione."

"He's just stressed about O.W.L.s. He's been studying like mad – hasn't been sleeping well," she lied.

Ron scoffed. "His grades are as good as yours, if not better – no offense. He has no reason to stress."

"You're right. He has no reason," she snapped irritably. "But you do. Have you even looked over those countercharm notes for Flitwick's class that I gave you? Our paper is due on Thursday."

"I…uh…I was planning on looking over those tonight, after supper," Ron stammered.

"Sure, you were," she replied sarcastically. "Whatever. I'm going to the library."

"But Hermione, it's our lunch period," Harry added, looking concerned.

"I'm not hungry," she muttered, then walked away from her friends.

As Hermione walked through the corridors, she shook her head, knowing that her anger was misplaced. She wasn't angry with Ronald; she was angry with herself, with Tom, with Rhex, and with this entire bloody mess of a situation.

She understood why Tom was upset with her, but she didn't understand why he was so severe about it. What she had done to him now was nothing compared to what he had done to her last year. Not that what she did was right, but she'd done what she'd thought was right. Now, though, she wasn't so sure.

Hermione dropped her things onto an empty table in the library, and briefly wondered if maybe she should have told Tom from the beginning.

But, if their roles were reversed, would he have told her?

She sighed, pulled out some parchment and books to make herself look busy, and thought of how she could get Tom to speak to her again.

Clouds of dust danced in the rays of sunlight streaming into the Hogwarts trophy room after Tom slammed another book closed. The dust caused one of the nameless floating trophies in the room to shoot out red sparks in retaliation to being disturbed, but he paid little attention to it.

He'd found absolutely nothing, as he'd been expecting, since he'd also found absolutely nothing about his heritage the one time he got curious and looked back in second year. He'd had that fleeting notion that maybe, just maybe, what his social worker told him his entire life had been false; that maybe, just maybe, his birth parents weren't some low-life nobodies; that maybe, just maybe, he was someone…special.

He thought of his sister and a hollow wave of desperation swept through him with how badly he wanted to be someone special. The ghost of the touch of her skin underneath his palm and the feel of her lips against his convinced him that if he couldn't find a way, then he'd force one.

"You can't keep pretending that I don't exist, you know. The school year is almost over and we have the same address," Hermione told him as she slid into the seat next to his in Defence Against the Dark Arts the next Monday morning.

Tom's writing hand froze for the briefest of moments before continuing. Other than that, he didn't acknowledge her.

She started unpacking her things, trying to think of a way to get him to talk to her before Professor Black made his appearance. She needed to do something – say something – to get his attention.

Hermione grabbed her quill, and scribbled on a scrap of parchment.

I can take you there, if you'd like.

She folded it in half, then slid it underneath his hand that was resting on the table, letting her fingers linger against his longer than was necessary.

She felt him tense before she pulled her hand away. He opened it almost immediately, but folded it in half again, saying nothing. She waited for him to reply, but he didn't. He just bounced his leg during the entire lesson, letting his fingers absently toy with the edges of her note while he listened to Professor Black talk about counter jinxes.

At the end of the class, Tom quickly gathered his things and left the classroom before everyone else.

Well, if she didn't have his attention before, she knew she certainly had it now.

Two days later, in their History of Magic class, Tom slid the note back to her.

Tonight. After Astronomy.

Hermione's heart raced with exhilaration. He'd let his fingers linger on hers longer than what was necessary.

The walk from the astronomy tower to the second-floor girls' lavatory was torturous. Hermione was thrumming with an equal amount of excitement and trepidation. Excitement, because she'd spent countless hours scouring the school for evidence of the damn entrance and now, Tom just might be able to open it. They might be the ones who finally discover a one thousand-year-old secret that has been chalked up as myth and legend.

But she also felt that trepidation, because he'd still not breathed a word to her the entire evening, so it put her on edge. It was an awkward sort of tension that wasn't enjoyable, in the least.

Hermione did feel a little guilty that she hadn't told Rhex about coming, but ever since the incident a week and a half ago, he'd stayed away. It was something she wasn't about to complain about; and with what Tom had done to him, she didn't quite blame him for keeping his distance. All she wanted was for Tom to forgive her and she realized that she didn't care what the consequences were.

She glanced up at Tom's profile in the moonlight and thought that, in a way, she was even more selfish than he was.

"Here?" he asked disbelievingly.

His voice made her hand resting against the girls' lavatory door handle jolt. She nodded, and opened the door.

They walked into the room and Tom silently watched her, waiting. She rubbed the sweat from her palms against her skirt, feeling even more anxious with the weight of his stare.

"It's um…here, somewhere," Hermione stepped closer to the sinks.

Tom followed closely behind her. "Somewhere?"

"Y-yes. I found a…uh, snake. Right here," she said, pointing to the etching on the faucet.

He crouched down, his long fingers touching it. "I remember this."

"You do?" she asked.

He nodded. "In first year. Remember when Weasley made you cry and I found you in here?"

"Yes, I remember."

"And then we planned on sabotaging his cauldron in Potions. Good times," he deadpanned.

Hermione crossed her arms, and rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I've tried every possible spell I could think of to open it, but nothing's worked. I'm guessing it's like a lever of some sort that opens a passageway somewhere else in the room, but then I also thought that it might be –"

Tom held up a hand to silence her, his gaze intently focused on the faucet.

"Heshaaasssa," he murmured sibilantly, then stood and stepped back when the top of the sinks lifted into the air, and the basins shifted apart.

She backed away with him, her mouth opened in awe. When everything stopped moving, they looked at each other, then back at the gaping hole in the floor.

"It worked," she said quietly, watching Tom stride closer to peer down the hole.

Tom pulled out his wand, and sat on the edge, letting his long legs dangle down.

"What are you doing? You're not honestly thinking of going down that, are you?" she asked, walking closer to him to peer over the side.

Hermione noticed the roguish smirk on his face a split-second too late.

"Oh, I'm not thinking of going. We are going," he replied, then he snatched her wrist, and hauled her onto his lap.

She yelped, and grabbed onto his shirt for dear life. "Tom, I swear to God, if you –"

The last thing he said before he pushed them forward was, "Just shut up, and enjoy the ride, Hermione."

The air hitting her face made her eyes water, and left her forgetting how to breathe. It was a good thing, too, because she probably would have screamed the entire way down. It wasn't that far of a descent, thankfully, because it felt like only a few seconds before they crashed to the bottom in a pile of…

Hermione yelped, scrambling away from all the brittle bones breaking underneath her weight. She grabbed the ledge of the small pit they'd landed in, went to pull herself up, then screamed again when she saw a line of spiders scurrying past her hands. She let go of the ledge, and fell back into the bones. Tom grabbed her arm, and hauled her to her feet.

"You're making a fool of yourself," he said coolly, paying more attention to their surroundings than to her.

She shook his hand off her arm, and brushed her skirt off. "I guess it's a good thing that you're the only one here to see it, then."

Tom walked away, drawn to the enormous circular door with snakes carved onto it. Before Hermione had a chance to open her mouth again, Tom was already speaking.

"Heshaaasssa."

As each snake curved back, the sound of the door unlocking sounded. After the last snake moved, the door creaked open. Tom went to open it, but she stopped him.

"Wait," she said.

Tom frowned. "Why?"

"Because, Tom, I'm scared. We don't know what's down there."

His shoulders slumped and he groaned. "There's nothing down here, Hermione."

"How do you know? Slytherin's monster –"

"Is long dead," he interrupted. "Slytherin built this chamber over a thousand years ago. Nothing he brought down here could survive that long."

"Not without magic, maybe," she argued.

Tom was silent at that, but the frown was still on his face. He opened the door, and walked through.

At this point, they both had their wands out and lit – it was impossible to see without it. Hermione gasped when she saw the long hallway adorned with snake statues and the relief of an old man with a monkey-like face at the end of it.

When they got to the statue of who she assumed was Salazar Slytherin, Tom paused and said, "This place is a dump."

Hermione hummed in agreement. "Were you expecting something else?"

"Something useful," he sighed in agitation. "Ancient texts, priceless artefacts…anything besides rat carcasses and mold. There's nothing useful here – just a rotting legacy."

"What if we search these tunnels? They might lead to more rooms," she offered, part of her hoping he'd say 'no' and turn back around and leave, neither of them ever coming back again. Another part of her, a much smaller part, silently begged him to say 'yes'.

Tom nodded. "We'll split up."

Hermione tensed up at his idea. "What? That's a terrible idea."

"No, it's not. We'll cover more ground that way."

"We should stick together. What if we get lost, or hurt?" she asked.

"You have magic. Use it," he bit out, irritated.

She flinched at his tone; he was still angry with her. Hermione sighed.

"Fine. I'll go this way?" she asked, pointing to the tunnel to the left.

Tom only nodded once before he was gone, leaving her behind without another word. Her shoulders sagged for only a moment before she realized that she was alone in this place and her body went rigid.

Hermione shook her head, mentally reminding herself that she was in Gryffindor for a reason. She mentally reminded herself that she didn't need Tom, but she also mentally reminded herself that she wanted him.

As Tom thrashed through the ankle-deep water a little less carefully than he normally would of, he told himself that he needed to calm down. It was hard, because he was still so angry. The problem was, he didn't know who he was angry with anymore. Hermione? Lestrange? His parents? Slytherin? Himself? The world? His anger wasn't as solidified as it usually was; it was more…permeated. Spread out, like a dense fog dispersing across a field at dawn. It made it much more difficult to distinguish.

He ran a hand through his hair as he walked through the murky pipe, and took several deep, steadying breaths.

Once he put into perspective as to why he was down there, he calmed somewhat. He was down there to find anything he could about his birthright, to find any proof of who he really was.

Initially, he'd been skeptical when Hermione told him he was the heir of Slytherin. How could he be? He was left, alone, in the Muggle world with nothing and no one to his name. No one cared about him; no one loved him. If he were someone as important and special as the heir of Slytherin, wouldn't someone have come to find him?

Unless…unless one of his parents – it had to have been his father – had been a Squib, and didn't know about his heritage?

Tom reached a turn in the pipe and frowned. He was just getting angrier thinking about all this, so he focused more on his surroundings again.

He slowly turned the corner and froze. There was a dark mass the size of a large man blocking the pathway. Tom increased the light coming from his wand, and stepped forward to examine it. As he stepped closer, a terrible odor assaulted him, and he covered his nose with the long sleeve of his shirt to help block out the stench.

Whatever it was, it wasn't alive, but…it wasn't dead, either.

Tom's eyes widened when he realized what it was.

It was feces and it was fresh.

The pipes were absolutely vile and Hermione was rather proud of the fact that she hadn't screamed her bloody head off when a rat scurried underneath her feet and through a large grate.

She sighed, composed herself, and carried on through the pipes, making sure to keep track of when she took a right or a left. It was a labyrinth down there and she did not need to get lost.

She came to the end of the pipe, but she couldn't see very much of the room with her regular Lumos spell. So, she waved her wand, casting a wordless Lumos Maxima, which allowed her to see that the pipe opened into a cylindrical room with five other pipes leading elsewhere. Great. Perfect.

That wasn't what caught her attention, though. What caught her attention was the long, white, crumpled thing hanging out of one of the pipes to her right.

A small voice told her to turn back around, find Tom, and get the Hell out of there, but she ignored it. She wanted to know what it was.

Hermione walked parallel with it down the pipe, slowly running her fingers over the smooth, yet bumpy, surface. It just went on and on and on and it oddly reminded her of a –

She paused, letting her fingers linger as she frowned to herself as her brain caught up.

"The spiders," she murmured, suddenly remembering passages from the book Harry bought her last year as a gift: Dark & Dangerous Creatures Through the Ages.

Then, the memory of the moving image of a monstrous serpent from the book lashed out at her mind, causing her to jump away with a gasp, as if it had burned her.

"Basilisk," she whispered to herself in horrified wonder, shaking her head as she gradually backed away from the molted skin.

With only the thought of getting to Tom as quickly as she could, she whirled around, and collided into something warm.

Hermione closed her eyes and screamed.

Tom sprung to his feet, his wand arm tense and ready.

He'd been wrong. Oh, how'd he'd been terribly wrong and arrogant to assume that someone as powerful as Salazar Slytherin wouldn't find some way to keep whatever monster he had down here alive for hundreds and hundreds of years. Hermione had been right. Hermione had been –

Come to me…

Tom's entire body froze at the faint, beckoning words echoing through the pipes, his senses sharp. Was he imagining it, or…?

…so hungry…fresh blood…I smell…fresh blood to taste…

No, he was definitely not imagining it. Hermione – he had to find her immediately.

The exact moment he took one step forward was also the exact moment he heard Hermione's scream echo through the pipes in all directions.

Tom didn't think – he ran.

"You arse!" she hissed, punching Rhex's arm. "What in the Hell are you doing down here? Did you follow us?"

"Ouch," he whined, rubbing his arm. "I should be asking you why you came down here without me! We're supposed to be finding this thing together, remember?"

"Well, pardon me if I didn't think it would be a good idea for you and Tom to be in the same room together, especially somewhere where they'd never find your body," she muttered darkly.

Rhex's eyebrows shot up and he nodded in agreement. "Eh, touché."

Hermione shook her head frantically. "It doesn't matter, though. We need to get out of here – now."

"Wait. Why?" he asked, frowning.

As if on cue, a low, guttural hiss echoed from the first pipe Hermione came from. Her blood ran cold.

She grabbed Rhex's arm and whispered unsteadily, "Run."

He didn't question her command as they ran as fast as they could through the ducts, splashing loudly the entire way. Hermione had no idea where they were going and it felt like they were going deeper and deeper into the channels of the Hogwarts sewers. And she knew it was quickly gaining on them, but she also knew that she couldn't look behind, or else she would, quite literally, drop dead.

"This way!" she yelled to Rhex, both of them taking a sharp turn down a pipe to their right.

"What the fuck is that thing?" he panted between breaths, going to turn his head to look behind him.

"No!" she shrieked at him. "Don't look at it! It's a basilisk! It'll kill you with its eyes! Just keep running!"

Rhexenor swore again when they heard it crash into a wall, letting out an ear-splitting shriek. Hermione prayed that it had injured itself, so they could outrun it, but she quickly realized that it wouldn't've mattered if it injured itself, because they were met with a tall, rusted sluice gate blocking their way. They were trapped.

"No!" she yelled, slapping her free hand against the gate in a panic.

"Move!" Rhex yelled, shoved her out of the way, and pointed his dark wand at the large gate. "I'll blast it open."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "Don't you realize that this gate is holding back tonnes of water? If you blast that open, we'll drown before it even gets the chance to kill us!"

Hermione's eyes widened in horror when Rhex grabbed her hand tightly. He grinned.

"Better hold your breath, then," he said, then sent a fiery Confringo curse at the gate, blasting it wide open.

Hermione inhaled sharply, and held her breath right as the sharp sting of the frigid lake water pelted against her face.

The force of the water knocked her off her feet and her reflexes told her to grab onto something – anything, and she'd almost forgotten that she was still holding on tight to Rhexenor's hand. She had no idea where the water was taking them as it twisted them furiously right and left and up and down through the labyrinth of ducts. And she didn't know where the basilisk was, or where Tom was, for that matter; all she knew was that if they survived this, she was probably going to murder Rhex.

As if she weren't afraid enough already, her body started screaming at her for more air. Waves of dizziness hit her and it felt like her lungs were set on fire. She needed to breathe, breathe, breathe…

Right as she started to take a big gulp of dirty lake water into her lungs, they were spit out viciously onto a stone floor.

Hermione lay on her stomach, her hair in tangles around her, coughing up the water she'd inhaled. She was afraid to observe her surroundings, but she quickly realized they were back in the large room with the statue of the snakes and Salazar Slytherin again.

"Fuck me," Rhex swore, coughing up some water of his own.

She realized they were still holding hands and she let go, pushing herself up weakly to her knees. "We need to find Tom."

Rhex groaned, then swore again. "What we need to bloody do is get the fuck out of here."

"Then go. I'm not leaving without him," she said stubbornly, then started to shakily pull herself to her feet.

He helped her up and said, "I know."

Hermione looked up at him in mild alarm, feeling like there was some hidden message between his words, but she didn't have time to think about that right now.

"He went down this way," she said, pointing with her chin.

They didn't get very far, though, because as soon as Hermione took a step forward on her right foot, she collapsed to the floor with a cry.

"Shit," he swore again, dropping down next to her. "It's broken?"

Hermione rolled her ankle and hissed. The pain was excruciating. "I must have hit it against a wall."

"Can you heal it?" he asked, but she didn't get a chance to answer.

The loud, blood curdling wail of the basilisk carried down the duct they'd just been spit from.

Rhex and Hermione looked at each other with wide, horrified eyes, then he quickly scrambled to lift her arm over his shoulder, hauling her up. He steered her back toward the exit, but Hermione stopped in her tracks.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"I'm getting you out of here," he replied, putting a forceful hand on her lower back to urge her forward.

She refused to budge. "No. I already told you, I'm not leaving without my brother!"

"Fucking Hell, Hermione! If your brother really is the heir of Slytherin, then he doesn't have a damn thing to worry about, now does he?" he snapped.

Her mouth fell open and she stammered. "That's – that's not the point."

"Then what is the point? Because we're wasting valuable time here," he replied sarcastically.

Damn it. Her emotions were running high, but she knew he was right.

"Fine," she snarled.

Rhex didn't say another word as they hurried as fast as they could down the corridor with the snake statues, but it wasn't fast enough with Hermione's broken foot. They could hear it – feel it barreling toward them at a tremendous speed. There was no way they could outrun it, even if she weren't injured.

"Fuuuck!" Rhex shouted, then cast them both down to the floor – hard, throwing himself on top of her back to shield her.

Hermione covered her ears and screamed, bracing herself for the pain of fangs sinking deep, deep, deep into her flesh.

"Sssiasssieth…"

The pain never came. A hot, heavy, and rancid breath fanned against the back of her head, instead. The basilisk had stopped and she knew she shouldn't look behind her to see why, she knew it could kill her, but it was all entirely impulsive, because she knew it was Tom she heard speaking to the basilisk.

She turned her head and what she saw, she knew she would never forget for the rest of her life.

There her brother stood, face to face with a monstrous snake that was well over six meters long. They hissed back and forth to each other for a few seconds, then the basilisk slowly glided into the now open mouth of Salazar Slytherin's statue. Tom watched it leave, but before it was even all the way out of sight, he'd turned back to look right at her – his face unreadable.

He looked horrifying and magnificent all at once.

"Tom," she managed to whisper to herself, then started pushing herself up.

"Huh? Is it gone?" Rhex asked, then shifted his weight off her, and sat on the wet floor in bewilderment.

Hermione somehow managed to pull herself up to stand, and started limping toward Tom. It wasn't fast enough.

"Tom," she repeated louder, her voice cracking under the pressure of her tears. She hadn't even known she'd been crying.

He seemed to snap out of whatever trance he'd been in, and ran down the long hallway toward her. She cried harder when his long arms wrapped around her, his face burying into her soaking wet hair.

Tom pulled away from her, and hurriedly pushed her hair out of her face, his eyes searching hers.

"I almost lost you," he stated furiously.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she let out a sob, "I thought you were dead. I thought I was going to die. But you stopped it, Tom. How –"

"I told her to stop. I told her to leave you alone," he replied coldly.

"But – but you looked it right in the eyes. It's a basilisk. You should be dead right now."

Tom shook his head slowly. "It can't kill me. I'm it's master now."

She stilled, feeling unusually cold, even with his warm arms wrapped firmly around her.

"Master?" she repeated quietly.

Tom pulled her to him again, pressing his dry lips against her forehead. She heard him murmur against her skin, a contented smile in his voice, "You were right, Hermione. I am special."

A/N: Boy, oh, boy. My poor anxiety.

Anyway, I've decided that I'll only be working on this story from now on until it's finished, so please don't expect any of my other WIPs to be updated for a while. ily!