Author's notes: Well, here it is: The promised chapter, just on time! Thanks to VMorticia and Flummox for beta-reading
The Snake-who-lived
"There is a strange resemblance between us, Harry Potter. You must have noticed. Both of us have Muggle blood, both of us are orphans, raised by Muggles. And we're probably the only Hogwarts students who can speak Parseltongue since the time of the great Slytherin himself. Even physically, we look alike… but in the end, the only thing that saved you from me is chance…"
Tom Marvolo Riddle, Harry Potter et la chambre des secrets, page 334
Chapter 24: The Chamber of Secrets (part IV)
Harry was running in an inch-deep pool of water, his frantic and terrified pace rhythmically sending splashing sounds echoing about the large room. Behind him, an enormous snake was taking chase, its movements tracing sinister lines in the water. He had to get away; if the Basilisk reached him, he was dead. If he looked back, he was dead. If he reached the outside of the room, then…
Then, he'd see.
…he didn't really know if that would help him, but at that point, his mind was willing to accept any glimmer of hope.
Unfortunately, because he had ran blindly to avoid any chance of ending face-to-face with the Basilisk's deadly gaze, his right foot suddenly collided against Ron Weasley's leg, his fall stopped reflexively by his hands. Hearing the snake approach, ignoring Tom Riddle's taunt from the other end of the room, Harry tried to scramble to his feet again, but ended up falling again, his glasses slipping off his nose and landing on the water; his foot was stuck in a fold of his friend's drenched robe.
Instantly, he thoughtlessly looked back to see what had stopped him, his bare emerald eyes opening…
At that instant, the Basilisk reached him…
For an instant, both stared at each other's eyes…
…and nothing happened after an instant.
"…eh?" Harry blinked, thoroughly confused as he stared directly into one of the snake's large yellow eyes, yet didn't feel anything wrong - he still felt warm and still needed to breathe, symptoms that even a child his age knows aren't common for dead people.
Absentmindedly, he noted that, once again, he had become the boy-who-lived. He did not rejoice.
The Basilisk seemed quite surprised as well and, if it hadn't been a snake, Harry was fairly certain it would have had the dejected, depressed look of a child with a broken toy.
"Not dead…?" It hissed.
"Er… sorry?" Harry replied, not quite sure of how to react. His heart was still beating like a punk music drummer and the adrenalin rush was still going strong all over his body.
"How can you still be alive?!" Tom roared. "You took the gaze directly!!"
Harry gave him a look and forced himself to calm down - the more off-balance Riddle was, the better for him. It looked like Riddle had no idea what had just happened, either. "Err... My lucky-lucky Guardian angel?" he suggested.
As if on cue, the Basilisk seemed to remember it had other weapons at its disposal. With almost blinding speed, the snake opened its jaws to reveal them:
Two, large, pointy fangs coated in a shimmering viridian fluid - probably venom. Behind those imposing teeth, he could see the Basilisk's long, forked, reddish tongue, and beyond that was the gaping black and red hole of its throat, from which a strong odor of decay stank, nearly stunning him with disgust.
With a near-shriek of alarm, Harry fumbled to his feet, picking up his glasses in the process, and hastily backed away. Eyes or not, big, nasty and poisonous fangs would be more than enough to do him in… if they reached him, that is.
Ok, so the Basilisk had fangs, possibly with one of the most potent venom in the world – not that he really wanted to test its deadliness; just-a-bit poisonous was just-a-bit too much for him. It also was very large and could quite possibly crush him by accident. Then, there was the slight – and rather blood-curling – possibility of being eaten alive and dying either digested or suffocated – its breath stunk badly enough for that.
What did he have?
Well, he had his wand.
A wizard's wand is like a weapon, an all-purpose tool and a lifeline rolled into one. Losing one's wand was like losing one's identity as a wizard. Without them, they are very much helpless against anything. With them, however, they are a force to be reckoned with.
At that moment, though, Harry quite wondered what he could do with it; poking the snake in the eye seemed to be a bad idea.
Let's see… the information on the Basilisk… huge snake, check. Poisonous fangs, check. Scares spiders off – and quite possibly twelve years old Slytherin boys – check.
Ah, right. The cry of a rooster kills it.
…now, where could he find a rooster?
Transfiguring one on the spot was out of question already: they didn't learn transfiguration involving living beings until fourth year – so Hermione had said, anyway. Plus, Transfiguration had never been his strong point. And there was the fact that, with a forty-bloody-feet long crawler trying to bite his limbs, arse and/or head off, he could hardly find time to visualize anything turning into a rooster.
Scrap that idea, then. Time for plan #2:
"STUPEFY!!"
So, perhaps it was a bit stupid to believe that the almighty king of serpents, one of the creatures classed as extremely dangerous by every single book on monsters, chosen vassal of lord Slytherin's revenge, meant to kill off every Muggle-born student in the school, could be taken out with a simple stunning hex, even one aimed at its eye.
Perhaps he was hoping that the snake's defenses weren't planned for someone immune to its glare, or perhaps he was just desperate, but he felt a pang of hope rise in his gut.
Hope quickly crushed when the snake's eyelid shut itself at lightning-fast speeds and the crimson ray of light ricocheted, harmlessly landing against a pillar and leaving a scorch mark.
As if to antagonize him further, Riddle burst out in that high-pitched and frankly irritating laugh of his. "Well, it doesn't matter if you can stand its gaze; if that's your best shot, it looks like you'll die anyway!" He gloated.
'That wasn't my best shot...' Harry mused as he backed away from the approaching reptile; it seemed to like the chase, and was taking its sweet time getting closer, like a limbless cat stalking a humanoid mouse.
After another quick weighing of his chances, Harry decided it was time to invoke a Slytherin law: When fair means have failed you, it's time to resort to foul.
At that moment, the Basilisk's mouth burst open again and half of its body uncoiled, launching the deadly fangs forward. Harry barely avoided the attack and, instead, the basilisk rammed directly against a pillar, stunning itself few a few seconds. With a frankly evil grin, Harry quickly remembered one of his Christmases at the Dursleys', and thought of the spell that could possibly be the most effective in this situation.
"Imperio!!"
Harry had almost gotten used to the power rush that came with the casting of dark magic. He had gotten fairly accustomed to the intense chill his wand took and of the bursting heat on his forehead.
Yet, after the almost vaporous ray of magical light rammed against the snake's closed eyelid and seeped underneath, the feelings that assaulted him were so intense that he was taken off-guard – this was much… much… better/worse/interesting – he couldn't decide – than when he was being taught by the lexicon...
However, as he felt his mind push the Basilisk's aside to take over its body, he realized an immediate problem: it was much more difficult, as well. The snake, unlike the book's "rats", resisted the intrusion and instinctively pushed back.
And suddenly, Harry's mind was filled with images he had never seen before, yet felt like he did. He felt his tiny fangs sink into the soft, rubbery flesh of a toad while the rest of his limbless body was still half coiled inside a chicken egg… he saw the face of someone who could stand his gaze... someone who gave him a purpose…
Salazar Slytherin, Harry realized absentmindedly.
…the face of Tom Riddle, who also stood his gaze calmly, if with a bit of surprise… The face of a plump, black haired boy, not even eleven years old, his eyes wearing glasses, an instant before he fell, petrified… the face of a lanky young man with red hair, wearing a prefect badge, looking at him from a wall-mirror in a bathroom… the face of a young girl with large glasses in her hand, who stared back with tear-filled eyes…
Myrtle
…the faces of Mrs. Norris, through a puddle of water, Percy Weasley, a bunch of freshly picked flowers in his hand, re-adjusting his glasses in disbelief, Creevey, looking through his camera, trying to catch him on film, Finch-Fletchley and the Bloody Baron, the former staring through the latter…
A tiny mirror peeking out of a corner, while he obediently slid behind Ginny, the faces of Blaise and Hermione just barely visible through it…
The shock suddenly jolted him out of what he realized were not his thoughts, but the Basilisk, apparently trying to invade his mind. Not quite knowing how to fight back, Harry sent more of his strength to the spell while ignoring the images. He felt his forehead give an especially strong burn, and then...
...he saw himself... yet he saw the Basilisk... he saw Tom from the corner of his yellow eyes, yet he did not from his green ones... he only had a tail, yet he had legs and arms...
He had done it. He had managed to use the Imperius curse on a true living creature, he realized with a rising wave of pride.
Testing his power over the much larger creature, Harry made it mockingly flicker its tongue at the Riddle. When it responded, he couldn't stop the feral grin from appearing on his face.
The beast was under his control and would obey his every whim. Now what could he do? Anything, actually, he realized with a burst of… some emotion he couldn't quite identify. He could have it dance, like he could have it roll around in the pools… yet no matter how amusing that would be, it wouldn't be very useful to him… He could have it try to attack Riddle... but Ginny...
Her fault
Hmm... Ginny had been stupid, hadn't she...? it was her fault she was down here, in some way... Therefore, if she died, it would be her fault and Riddle's, not his...
No blame... accident...
Right... they'd never blame him, no proof at all... Nobody would know he was the one…
Except fe'ya, y'mean.
His forehead suddenly gave a sharp burn and the idea vanished from his head, replaced by cold dread. What exactly had he been thinking? That he could simply attack Riddle, risk killing Ginny in the process and just walk away like that?
Savagely, thoughtlessly, he mentally barked his next order. His other half – The Basilisk, he reminded himself forcefully – suddenly flailed about, coiling most of its body to get ready to lunge... and did so directly against the left side wall.
The impact was deafening and reverberated across the room. The walls trembled, the floor shook and flecks of dust fell from the roof, staining the otherwise flawlessly clean tiles. Harry felt an instant of pain and reflexively pushed the source away, cutting the spell.
For a second, he feared that the Basilisk would simply shake its head and continue its attack, but when it tilted to the side, giving the impression of a massive, reptilian tree being cut, Harry almost grinned victoriously. Had he managed to knock it out?
With no noise of its own, the enormous snake fell in the water pool, causing a loud splash and a wave of water to splash over the walkway, and Harry. For a few seconds, both boys stared at the fallen Basilisk in disbelief, at the growing patch of red staining the crystal clear water and at the blood escaping through the broken scales on top of its head, where hints of red-stained white bones poked out. Harry had, indirectly, cracked its skull.
"You... You..." Tom stuttered, staring at the snake in disbelief. "You've killed it... The legacy of Slytherin…"
Harry did not reply, instead concentrating on slowing his heart down. Tom's words were true, though... he had done it.
He, Harry Potter, twelve years old, had defeated the monster of Slytherin. He, in two spells, had killed a Basilisk. He felt a pang of pride at it...
...and of pity at the fallen monster. He had to admit that, if things had been different, he would have admitted the Basilisk to being a beautiful creature, although a bit... umm... murderous? Yes, that description fit it quite well.
'Note to self, stop spending time around Hagrid.' He mused, before turning to Tom.
"You lost, Riddle." He said, grinning ferociously. "Let Ginny go."
Tom gave him a sharp glare. "Where did you learn that spell, Potter?"
"Does it matter?" Harry retorted tauntingly, using the same words he had used in their first conversation.
"Of course it does," Riddle replied with a cunning sneer, "knowledge is power, after all… and power is life."
Perhaps the aim had been to destabilize the younger boy, or to satisfy a suspicion. Perhaps the words had simply been said as a hard earned lesson of life on his part, but whatever his intentions were, Harry didn't manage to stop his startled surprise from appearing.
"So, you do have the lexicon," Riddle guessed with a smirk. "Interesting… I never actually finished my lessons, it's nice to know I'll be able to continue them once I get out of here…"
"You're not getting out." Harry replied flatly.
"Oh, believe me, I am… you see, Ginny here," He waved at the fallen shape sprawled near the feet of the statue of Lord Slytherin, "is dying, slowly."
"N…No…" Harry gasped in horror. He had assumed that, perhaps, she had been bait, that she was simply stunned… Not dying… she couldn't be…
"Oh, yes," Tom replied, grinning victoriously. "As we are speaking, her life is slowly draining away into me. And once it's complete, I'll have a new body, a new life, free from the confines of that stupid diary, and I'll be able to enact my revenge, starting with you, then with the Mudbloods and their protectors—"
"Shut up… Shut up… just SHUT UP!" Harry roared in anger. "STUPEFY!"
Another shot of red light flew out of his wand with perfect aim, directly at Riddle's throat. If it had connected, it would have probably picked him up and sent him against the wall, the back of his neck and head first. Unfortunately, as Riddle wasn't quite corporeal, the spell harmlessly passed through and hit the statue of Slytherin, once again, only leaving a burn mark instead of digging a crater as the previous attempt had done.
Tom gave a look at the burn, then at the crater and finally at the fallen Basilisk before turning back to Harry. "The only way you could stop me now is by destroying my power source…"
He clicked his fingers. As if on cue, Ginny groaned and slowly got up, her limbs shaking at the effort, her arm still clutching the diary.
"Y…You mean…"
"Her life, or both of yours, Potter. You choose."
Harry sneered, his forehead bursting in head and his wand growing cold in response to his anger. Ginny looked like she was ready to fall already – only Riddle's mental grip on her prevented her from falling to the floor. The arm holding the little black book trembled frightfully, as if it was protesting against holding something extremely heavy. She looked like the smallest impact could finish her off. She looked
Weak
weak… pathetically so. He felt that, even if he did manage to find a way to save her – somehow – she was
Doomed
doomed already and, therefore, it didn't matter if he found another way, since she wouldn't survive… it would be extremely easy… a single stunning hex, or perhaps a laughing hex, to exhaust the rest of her energy...
Dark magic
Or maybe his dark spells? Yes… she wouldn't survive anything he knew, would she? And he'd get to feel strong again, too… He could already picture her body being flung away by a wave of magic flames… Oh, look, there was a nice, pointy shard of the wall, right at her feet… wasn't that convenient? He could just use the Imperius curse again to make her kill herself with it…
His forehead burst into an almost painful wave of fiery heat and, once more, he realized what he had been thinking.
He had actually considered killing Ginny.
Not just taking the risk of harming her, but of actually committing the murder of one of his friends.
And in creative ways, too.
Shuddering at himself, he forced his mind to concentrate on a way – any way – to stop Riddle, that did not involve-
The easy way
-the wrong way.
Standing at the other end of the room, Tom frowned at him, crossing his arms.
"Humph," he snorted, "and here I thought you might actually have common sense. Well, I should have known better – you have befriended Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers, after all. A pity about Malfoy, though, I actually had high hopes for him… Well, no matter. Since you're obviously not going to do anything, I guess I might as well kill you now."
For an instant, Harry was pretty sure Riddle was joking. After all, he couldn't even touch a wand, right? And his Basilisk had just died! So how could he hope to kill him?
"Avada Kedavra."
Yet when the soft, weak incantation from Ginny came to his ears, sending shivers of familiarity up his spine for a reason he ignored, he was startled enough to nearly be caught unprepared by the following blinding flash of green light. Quidditch instincts, drilled into him by Flint during the whole year, kicked in, causing him to quickly duck to the side, barely avoiding the almost gaseous beam of magic and fall on his left ribs, knocking the wind out of him. The spell impacted against the pillar behind him, barely leaving a sizzle. Whatever that spell was, it was pitifully weak.
Or perhaps it was because of Ginny.
The girl was barely standing, now. Her face was drenched with sweat, her knees holding each other in a strange arch-legged stance, her arms hanging limply at her sides, yet her fists were clenched, one around her wand, the other around the inconspicuous diary of Tom Riddle—
'…that's IT!' He gasped mentally, clenching his wand tighter in his fist.
The diary – it held Riddle's spirit, which was slowly sucking Ginny's life away. Therefore, since he could not attack Riddle and didn't dare attack Ginny, he only had one target. The blasted book that had started it all.
Yet how could he get it out of her grip? Riddle would not let her simply hand it over, and would probably use all of her remaining strength to make her hold it; if he tried to wrestle it away, he could harm her. Stunning or body-binding her was out of question as well, for the same reason. He needed a weak spell, strong enough to make her drop it, and confined enough not to hurt her.
And he found one, after an instant of racking his memories.
"Dextera Mortis!!"
He felt his magic being sucked away by the tiring 'hand and wrist bind' hex. That meant that he was almost out of strength himself. Already, he could feel the strange, detached feeling of magical exhaustion pass over him, distracting and weakening his thoughts.
…he couldn't help but feel like a lot more of what was necessary had been taken away, though.
Yet his aim was true. The girl's limp arm gave a shudder as the localized jinx impacted directly against her thumb. Her hand went numb and the book fell to the floor.
"NO!" Riddle gasped, guessing what he wanted to do. "Y-You can't—"
"Get stuffed, Riddle!" Harry yelled back, lifting his wand. His opponent's distress was a good sign.
He did not notice the other boy grin victoriously as he aimed at the diary.
Without quite realizing it, Harry thought of Blaise and Hermione, motionlessly waiting in the infirmary for the potion that would bring them back to life, and felt his forehead burst into heat before he cast his spell:
"Geisttötend Zauber!"
And Riddle's face went from bearing a victorious grin to a horrified, panicked stare as the purple beam of magical light impacted against his diary. For an instant, the black leather glowed a dark crimson color and shook violently, as if it was trying to absorb the spell.
The glow intensified, along with a loud electric-like buzz as the book shook more and more strongly. And then, a tentacle-like, ethereal dark purple shadow came out of the diary, slowly edging toward Riddle, as if trying to ensnare him away. The ghostly boy tried to back away, yet his back hit an invisible barrier when he reached his maximum distance from the diary.
It did not help.
"ARGHHHH!!!!"
As soon as the tentacle reached him, the other boy burst into horrible, agonizing screams as his shape convulsed, like images on a bad TV. Harry blocked his ears with his hands, wincing in pain as a headache ripped his head in half. Finally, it was over. Riddle flickered one last time, gave a final furious and vengeful look at Harry before disappearing in a pop that, had he simply assisted the scene from outside the chamber, he would have called anticlimactic, if not ridiculous.
For a few seconds, Harry stood there, in the middle of the walkway, his robes drenched, his glasses almost useless from all the water on them, his skin sticky with cold sweat, his wand slowly warming back to room temperature, his body's aches and pains returning as adrenaline stopped flowing in his veins, staring at where Riddle had been in complete disbelief.
Was it over? Had he, a mere twelve years old boy, faced against Riddle, also known as the dark lord Voldemort, and the dreaded king of serpents and monster of Slytherin, a Basilisk, and actually managed to win?!
He felt a strange urge to fall into giddy laughter.
'Sucks to be you, Voldemort… that's three times I beat you, and I'm in second year. Better luck next time…' He thought numbly through the strange sensations caused by the magical exhaustion suddenly taking its toll on him, thanks to the vanishing adrenaline. He would normally not have wished good luck to someone out to kill him.
"oww… what hit me…?" Ron's voice came from the left pool, somewhere behind him. The boy had apparently just woken up.
"Are you feeling all right?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, sure… as soon as Hagrid stops stomping on my head…" The red-head replied, rubbing his right temples before shooting him a glance. "Why is it that every time I follow you on your crazy schemes, I always end up getting bludgeoned?"
"Karma?" Harry supposed with a snigger. He would have laughed, but his head rung oddly whenever he talked. Kinda like someone had replaced his brain for a bunch of bells… maybe he was going… Bongers? Was that a word?
"Well, whatever I did, it has to be pretty bad…" The taller boy said, before getting up and looking around the room; he saw the crater in Lord Slytherin's statue's kneecap, the cracked pillar, the fissured wall, the fallen Basilisk bathing in its own blood, and finally the numerous spell burns around the room. With an impressed whistle, he turned toward the smaller boy.
"Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time I'm about to get you hacked off at me, hit me."
Snorting, Harry nodded. "Promise."
Oooh, maybe he shouldn't have nodded like that… the whole room suddenly seemed less solidly attached to the earth, which was an impressive feat for something built underground… Now, if only the floor would stop trying to do the Macarena…
…oh, wait, floors don't move, do they…?
Oh, look at the pretty snitches…
And Harry fell to the floor in an exhausted faint, just as a group of adults walked in through the doors, led by a boy with flashy blonde hair holding a black and red snake...
Author's notes:
Had to make large edits at one point; one of the scenes revealed just too much – if I had released it, people would have connected the dots by early book 3… well, some dots. Not all of them.
I don't believe I ever said what kind of spell Geisttötend Zauber is… my bad, I'll correct that in the rewrites: It's an unsouling hex, only usable against thinking magical objects, say: enchanted mirrors, Ford Angelias and Marauder's maps. Consider it a killing curse for objects. (And a very useful plot device ^_-)
"Snitches?" Erm… don't ask.
"Tom can't touch a wand? WTF??!". Ok. That scene is in Harry's POV. Riddle, as far as Harry knows, can't be hit by anything physical. So, to him, he's some kind of ghost – can't touch wands, either. I haven't unexplainably changed that part of cannon – Riddle just prefers to freak Harry out and make him attack Ginny. Why?
Well, I gave a big clue. Chocolate frogs to anyone who guesses ^_-. Answer's in the next chapter, believe it or not. A lot of 'em, in fact. I'm closing this book off.
I also gave a big clue as to why Harry managed to survive looking at the Basilisk. C'mon. It's easy to guess. I practically said it. (Which is something in my case :P)
Joyeux Noël, tout le monde! Merry Christmas everyone!
ANSWERS TO THE VOICES IN THE REVIEWERS' HEADS:
(Number of people who complained to last chapter's cliffhanger: 12) Woo!! Go me! ^_^
Risty: That's because I removed the apology note for when I accidentally deleted everything. Yes, killing Harry would cause some problems; I'd have to switch main character, and it would be a bit annoying – I mean, all the work I put into manipulating him like that… *sigh* ^_-
Eriee: Sorry, chapter 25 is being a b*tch. Just doesn't want to write itself. And I think you meant Cliffie – I feel offended by saying I put a cliché!! *Looks everywhere, trying to find one*
Lotus Myst: Thank you for the compliment! I do enjoy being evil so much…
J.J. Martinson: Thanks, I know, and no, that's not quite why, or else Myrtle wouldn't have died either, would she?
W'rkncacnter: …your name is weird… And how could I do this? Simple, I'm evil. And about the mandrake thing… er… what? I think you're confusing with another fic; I barely put the mandrakes anywhere… *grumbles* should have… *normal voice* and I didn't say he was immune. *blink* which review did you check…?
Vladzaharia: 'nother weird name… You'll love book 3. I just can't wait to write it, too, although there are strings loose that I have to decide how to tie up… ^_-
Denaumo: Thanks!
Luna Alef writer: Well, I do my best, and lol for the second review, btw ^_-
Blackheart Syaoran: Snake-fight! Snake-fight! Snake-fight! Woot!! ^_-
Natara: Woo, Lily clones! *lecherous grin* Erm… you didn't read that last word… *Lecherous* erm!! I mean, that one!! *sigh* oh, whatever. And as I have explained before, if it had something to do with blurry vision, then Myrtle wouldn't have died – I can hardly think of anything more blurry than… well, anything, if I don't have my glasses and I'm crying (Not that I do, 'course, being the macho, strong man that I am ^_-). I like Mrs. Zabini, too, but *gets mouth blocked* Mphf, fine. Oh no, she's coming… Quick, Draco clones! Escape!! *Opens a latch… straight into a 18 wheeler with caged windows* Suckers… hehehe ^_^
Jeffo: *blink* er… is that a flame? *GRINS* Just kidding. And I'm seriously not afraid of Mary-sue hunters – I've hardly done a character more flawed than Blaise, and she's the most likely "Mary-sue" of the bunch.
Demon_Slayer127: GAHHHH!! NOOO, he wants to kill me!! *blink* er? You liked it? *wipes brow* heh, no problem… *chuckles nervously* ^_-
Simply Myself: If you say so… Just wait 'till *gets mouth blocked* GAHH, damn censors… oh well, it's for the good of secrecy… ^_-. Sorry, any scenes with Elmira and Draco in the last chapter (or this one) would have broken the story's flow rather horribly.
Szelij: Hmm… well, maybe Harry (canon) is of Slytherin descent, but until JK says it, I'm not touching Harry's family history except for what we know. (Lily and James, James's parents were nice, Lily is muggle-born, etc)
Watcher Tale Neith: Harry's glasses fell off his face. You're not the first… did I note that, in the last chapter…?
Lunawolf: Can't really, I'm… well, was at the time you're reading this, busy 'till Monday. See you Tuesday, then!
Ray Jane Potter: Oh, I so love nice compliments! Yes, I know and I'm very glad to be totally bonkers! ^_^ The cliffie is… well, 'cuz I'm an evil, vindictive bastard who enjoys seeing you lot squirm. ^_^
Silver Blaze: Hehehe…
Aithne: *tsk tsk* impatience is *baaad*… ^_-
Athenakitty: *twitch*
Mirie: I do my best! ^_^
RaistlinofMetallica: *chuckle* Here, then. *Hands thumbscrews, stretchers, TV sets set on Teletubbies and sharp, straight corners to ram pinky toes onto*
Alexise-z: Thank you for the compliment! I admit I'm evil. Gladly.
