AN - I'm sorry if there are mistakes, I didn't have enough time to check it properly.
The early 1940's
A thousand years is a long time.
Well, she thought it was a thousand years, maybe a bit more… or less. Either way, it's a long time to be imprisoned in the inflexible body of a decorative ornament. He'd certainly come up with a brilliant punishment, she thought savagely and not for the first time. Once more she cursed Godric Gryffindor and all of his descendants; yet the small amount of satisfaction she achieved from cursing him seemed to decrease every year she was stuck in this godforsaken castle. As did her magic, manmade structures sucking it out of her bit by bit. It took all of her force of will to not just give up and be bled of her magic till she was a lifeless body – a true decoration.
"The Fairy Mother," He had sneered, "will spend the rest of her life as a decoration for our castle walls! She is but a fairy after all, I believe it might even be a pleasure for her." All too well she remembered their expressions. Godric Gryffindor; that boastful grin, as always, proud of himself, Rowena Ravenclaw; a smirk that showed her pleasure at the revenge they had enacted, even Salazar Slytherin and Helga Hufflepuff had the slight quirk of the lips, as if it were but an amusement!
Godric Gryffindor had never totally understood what torture he had inflicted on her with his complex incantation, none of the "Four Great Founders" had really any idea what they had done, they had all taken part though and only with their death did they show any understanding of what magic really is. She may only be a fairy; but she was a ancient fairy, she had been considered old decades before any of the Founders were even conceived; she was from the days of true magic, and only she knew that these great wizards were weaklings beside the sorcerers of old. Yet that history was long gone, and the future rulers of this world were now the students who wandered these halls with their energy channelling wands. If only they knew the power they could hold.
She had watched them break apart; the opinions of the four had battled against each other, so that in the end Salazar had left. Helga had blamed her, claiming that she still had influence. For the next five decades she had been moved to the highest tower, to be a stone carving molded to the castle wall, that had been the worst place of all the years she had been trapped here, not even people to watch, and the weather… she shuddered to remember it.Even the pleasure of seeing her jailers finally wither away into death did not mask the dismal knowledge that with them died her only decent hope of ever escaping.
They had taken her freedom to their graves; and they did not even realise it.
With there deaths there had become a slight lift in the harshness of her punishment. Every now and again, after a few decades or more, the house elves took pity on her and moved her somewhere else; only they knew at the least something of why she was there. The Fairy Mother had passed into legend, Godric Gryffindor having "conquered" her a long time ago, and no student or teacher would even guess that the once feared creature of the Dark Forrest was the talking ornament of the castle; she was just another quirk, along with the moving staircases and talking paintings.
She had been in many places of this castle, in many forms, and for the past thirty years she had been a dark marble statue in the library; perched in a little alcove in the wall so that few noticed her, and those that did were usually trying to hide something from the librarian. Despite the house elf that placed her here's amusement, she failed to see the humour or irony of being put next to the dark creatures bookshelf. The lack of movement and magic were no longer so irritating, it was more the boredom; she contemplated just sleeping for another twenty years.
Closing her heavy marble eyelids slowly, she prepared herself for the hard work of switching off her thoughts. Then her eyes flashed open again as she felt something she hadn't for many a year. Not since Salazar Slytherin had been alive. A Parselmouth…
She surveyed the pale skinned, dark haired boy who had walked into her little corner of the library. A fifth year, she surmised, though he looked older. He had been in the library before, she recognised him, though had lingered always in the Dark Arts section, and had never come close enough for her to sense the language of the snakes in him, until now.
He was bending down and searching the shelves, muttering to himself all the while. What exactly was this boy looking for?
"Searching for something in particular?" She hissed, the language flowing freely off her lips; how she had missed speaking it, it was surely her favourite of tongues; none surpassed the serpents' knowledge of old lore, and the cursing... Few knew that the snakes were the most fluent and imaginative of all species when it came to curse words.
The boy looked up sharply, glancing around him at human height. He did not look for a snake! He didn't know his own skill; oh, how she could use this.
"Behind you…" At once he jumped up and spun around, wand raised. For those who comprehend the language of the serpents, but don't realise it, the first experience can be rather... eerie; like a voice in your head, that seems to be whispering to your very soul.
She enjoyed the bewildered look on his face, as he met with nothing but wall. "You should not overlook things, just because they at first glance appear to be no threat." She spoke in English. He looked up at her, failing to hide his confusion that an ornament was speaking. "After all," She smirked, "Danger comes in many a form."
"I thought only the portraits had voices." He said.
She grinned again, "That is true, the paintings only have voice, no mind to speak of except for an imprint of personality."
"Is there a incantation on you? Just like the suits of armour a Christmas time?"
"An incantation…of a sort."
He touched his forehead gingerly, "You no longer speak in my mind."
"I never did." She hissed. He jumped back.
"You did! Just then!" He exclaimed and then stopped in wonder; he put a hand to his lips in surprise, he had felt his mouth forming different sounds than what he had intended. It seemed he could only speak Parseltongue when someone else near him also had the skill.
"Do not look so confused; understanding and acceptance will follow soon. What is your name?"
"What language am I speaking?" He breathed.
"Parseltongue, as am I."
"Serpent tongue?"
"Call it that if you must, though it is not normally done by those of the skill. It is normally spoken of like that by those whose ignorance brings them fear."
"I can speak the language of the snakes? It sounds just like English."
She was beginning to get exasperated. "To you maybe. But to anyone else, you are hissing like a serpent. What is your name boy?"
He took a long breath, and replied in English, "Tom Riddle."
The Fairy Mother blinked in surprise; he had grasped changing between the languages quickly, perhaps he was not as dim as he first appeared.
"I am glad to have met you Tom Riddle. It had been too long a time in which I haven't spoken with a fellow of the same unique skill."
"Who are you?" He replied, controlling his uncertainty and once more raising his wand, which had hung limp in his hand while we had been speaking.
With some difficulty, though she did not let it show, the Fairy Mother forced her marble body to bend in a bow; at least she had some influence on the stone that imprisoned her physical form.
"The Fairy Mother, at your service."
He snorted, "The Fairy Mother is but a myth!" He laughed, "Even if she did once exist, my ancestor and his friends banished her from Hogwarts a very long time ago, and she is well dead now."
"Not quite true… The Founders never banished me, only cursed me to remain in this forsaken castle as a meagre ornament, and as you can see, I am not dead; though it was a very long time ago-" She paused in her speech, suddenly noting what he had said, "Your ancestor?"
Tom Riddle smirked, "I am descended from Salazar Slytherin."
The Fairy Mother wiped any trace of emotion from her marble features. "That you are…"
"The man who supposedly caught and imprisoned you." If possible, Tom Riddle's smirk widened.
"Wrong again." She replied harshly, "It was Gryffindor who caught me, and all four Founders made sure I was trapped here." She did not mention that it had more than likely been Salazar who came up with the curse.
He grinned again, "Either way; your still trapped here, and no doubt will be until you finally give in and just die – it's your only way out I'm afraid."
He did not sound remotely sorry; and the Fairy Mother was suddenly despairing to be with just her own company again. He turned to leave, but with only the hope that he was just like his ancestor in his thirst for power, made her call out to him.
"What was it you were searching for?"
He turned back to face her, expressionless, "Something to bring me power- to give me the edge over the students."
She controlled the smile that threatened to show, and only replied, "Then you only have to follow the trail your ancestor left for you."
"For me?"
"You are his heir."
Comprehension dawned on him, and a wide smile spread on his features, "The Chamber…"
Hearing the heavy and unmistakable footsteps of her regular visitor to the Dark beasts section, she told Tom Riddle to hide behind the shelves.
"Stay quiet and you might hear something to your advantage." Surprisingly, he obeyed.
Her favourite student, though only because he had such a knack for getting into trouble; though he never intended it, rounded the corner.
"Hello Hagrid." She said sweetly, unlike Tom, Rebeus Hagrid had never doubted that she was trustworthy.
"'Allo, you doin' all righ'?" He replied, bending down to look at the books, he may only be 13, but his frame said differently.
"I'm fine, thank you."
Making sure that Tom Riddle was listening, and she had eye contact with him, she said, "The books on spiders have been moved to the top shelf Hagrid."
"Oh, cheers." Hagrid replied, hobbling over. She looked again at Tom Riddle, who was looking thoroughly confused. She smirked, and winked at him, he slowly moved away, making sure Hagrid hadn't seen him.
The Fairy Mother laughed to herself. Oh, Tom Riddle would have much to think of this night… and if he discovered Hagrid's little secret, well, all the better. She couldn't wait to see what events would evolve from this meddling; she laughed again. The Heir of Slytherin, of all the students to come waltzing past her, it had to be Salazar's descendant; things were looking much brighter this day. Little did she know that she would find it far more amusing than she had first predicted.