Tom's tone was icy, but not nearly as bone chilling as the look he fixed upon them, brimming with barely concealed rage. He directed his attention first to the unfortunate souls restraining Ophelia against the wall.
"Did I not tell you last time we spoke that that was enough of your foolishness?" He took a step closer, suddenly seeming far more dangerous barehanded than all four of the wand-wielding Slytherins before him put together. "I'm sure you're not defying me on purpose, friends. You are much too smart for that."
The smarter of the two retreated back several large steps, making as though he hadn't just been caught red-handed. "Of course not, Tom. We were only playing. No harm done."
The slower of the two shot this friend an incredulous look, no doubt wondering what his definition of "no harm" was if it included being slammed against stone.
"Your presence is being missed in class," Tom ordered, deciding he'd deal with them later. They were hardly worthy of his attention anyway. "Leave."
"Who are you to give us orders?" Walburga sneered, her uncharacteristic silence broken at last. "You're no better than that filth over there."
She nodded to Ophelia, who kept her expression pointedly blank, gingerly assessing the back of her head.
Fenella, not so subtly, stomped on her friend's foot.
Walburga Black had never been one to cave into the will of others, a trait Tom might have respected were they not constantly at odds. Despite all he'd done to prove himself, she insufferably thought herself his better. If she only knew the blood that ran the rough his veins...
Many days Tom wondered if he might despise her.
"What can you do?" Walburga said, brushing off Fenella entirely. "Give me detention? Take away house points? Do you forget I'm a prefect, too? You can't touch me."
Tom smiled at her misguided confidence. "How's Orion?"
Her sneer momentarily slipped, taken aback at the seemingly unrelated subject change. His implication hung freely in the air for a moment. When at last it filtered through her mind, however, a flicker of fear registered on her face, until it was squashed by the usual haughty disdain.
"We're leaving. Come Fenella," She turned on her heel, her robes flapping exaggeratedly at the movement. "Watch how you speak, Riddle. You won't always be safe within these walls."
"As always, it was a pleasure, Walburga," Tom said, his disarming smile not faltering. "I look forward to spending more time with you and your cousin."
Fenella looked hesitantly at Walburga's retreating back, then at Tom, then back to Walburga again.
Tom sighed. "I must admit, I expected better of you, Femella. I'm disappointed."
"Tom, I-"
"Don't peddle me your excuses," he said smoothly. "Just get out of my sight."
She but her lip and Tom got the impression she was fighting off an onslaught of tears, but she left to go chase after Walburga before any could fall.
Really, Tom thought, What does she have to cry for?
"You should go a little easier on her." Ophelia stared off after Fenella, looking troubled. "I, well, I sort of deserved it a little bit, didn't I? I want after her first."
"It doesn't matter. She knew I didn't want you targeted. She disobeyed me. She deserves far worse than a mere scolding."
Ophelia shook her head, grimacing in immediate regret at the jarring movement. "I find it hard to believe that you'd take the high rode if I cursed you into a wall right here and now."
"I wouldn't give you the chance," he replied shortly.
Ophelia shot him an appraising look. "You're lucky my duelling days are behind me, Tom, or I might have taught you a thing called humility. You have it in short supply."
"Curious words for someone who needed me to rescue you just now."
"I'll give you that." She paused, making a face like she'd rather give a Hungarian Horntail a bubble bath than say what she was about to. "I- er- suppose I should thank you. Again."
Tone shook his head. "Don't hurt yourself. We're late to class, anyway."
III
It soon became evident that Ophelia and Fenella would never be friends, though some truce seemed to spring up between them in the coming weeks. Most accepted her presence at their table and in their common room, or at least they were too afraid to voice their grievances, which personally suited Tom just fine. Even Walburga kept her insults to a minimum, his threat to her cousin no doubt still at the forefront of her mind.
The others seemed more accepting, almost to a troubling extent, especially when it came to Rabastan. Tom wasn't sure he appreciated yet how well the two got on, but, alas, he had greater concerns. With no new leads forthcoming, his immediate interests had swayed far from Ophelia, though not enough to prompt him to banish her from his circle entirely.
She'd only been meant to be a temporary distraction, after all, but she'd done the job too well, distracted him too much from his greater goal: finding the lauded Chamber of Secrets. If it existed, and if the legends were to be believed that it could only be opened by the heir of Slytherin, who more suitable than Tom to rediscover it?
He'd practically torn apart every nook and cranny in the school, all to no avail, despite months of sleepless nights spent creeping around after dark. Tom was well aware how mad he must have looked, whispering what must have seemed like indecipherable ramblings to brass doorknobs and suspicious paintings. He'd found it, eventually, even if it was in the literal last place he'd thought to look.
Which of his foolish ancestors had thought to lock it away in a sink, least of all one in the girl's restroom?
Because no Gaunt had attended Hogwarts for several generations, by the time Tom stumbled upon the Chamber it made the Gryffindor team changing room look about as sanitary as the hospital wing. The air hung heavily so far below the school, reeking of mould and death, complemented by the bones of whatever vermin had found itself down there without a means of escape.
Tom had been... disappointed, to say the least. Where was the Slytherin monster? He'd expected it to meet him- maybe even attack him- but all was still. The dust had long since settled into thick sheets along the ground, undisturbed for decades, if not longer. No monster had roamed the chamber in a long time, no living creature larger than a common rat had so much as set foot in there for many generations. The place was barren even of cobwebs.
And then he found it- or rather felt it first. A slow rumble of the earth, too smooth for an earthquake, coming from what at first seemed a mere statue. His creature slept on, deep beneath its second skin of dust that painted him grey, unaware of his new company, his new master.
The Basilisk was a mighty creature and to say he disagreed with Tom's assessment of their relationship wouldn't quite have done him justice. He'd lived a thousand years, far longer than any others of his kind, by being placed into an enchanted sleep whenever a Slytherin Heir left Hogwarts, so he wasn't keen on being ordered about by a fifteen year old.
A king does not bow before a lamb, he'd hissed.
Tom bristled at the memory. Draconem, as the serpent called himself, only grudgingly agreed not to eat Tom on the spot. He tried smuggling food from the kitchen, all to which Draconem turned his scaled nose up at, claiming it wasn't fresh enough. "Fresh," Tom eventually discovered, meant living.
Whether it was the food that didn't consist of rats, or how tirelessly Tom worked to clean the chamber, or gratitude at at last being awoken, Draconem grew to grudgingly accept Tom's presence, even to the point of ceasing his comments about how delicious Tom smelled, which was something of a relief. Tom wasn't satisfied, however. He'd make the basilisk see in him a new master, as he hadn't since Salazar created him, but Tom was patient.
At half past two in late March, the only thing that tore Tom from his continued cleaning and exploration of the Chamber was the fact that the O.W.L.'s were fast coming. Professors were piling on borderline abusive levels of homework, and although that wouldn't have normally posed a problem for Tom, the lack of sleep was catching up, something that certain keen-eyed teachers didn't miss.
Tom eased out of the Chamber, stone grinding on stone as it slid shut behind him. His fingers barely grazed the metal door handle when it flung wide and a figure crashed into him.
"Tom!" Ophelia gasped. "What are you doing here? And," she paused, suddenly equal parts confused and stern as she narrowed her eyes, "why are you coming out of the girl's restroom?"
"What are you doing out at this hour?" he countered, placing his hands to each of her shoulders and taking a measured step back.
"I could very well ask you the same thing."
There was an edge to her voice he couldn't quite identify. Distrust? Suspicion, perhaps?
"I don't need to explain myself to-" He froze, straining his hearing? Had he imagined the soft sound of footsteps padding down the corridor?
When Ophelia stiffened up right beside him, he knew he hadn't. Before he could so much as blink, Tom felt himself being shoved back into the restroom, the door only narrowly avoiding catching on his robes as Ophelia pulled it shut.
"Fancy seeing you here, Professor," Ophelia said, the words reaching Tom slightly muffled through the closed door.
"A nice evening for midnight strolls, it seems," Dumbledore mused pleasantly. "What enchantments bring you out of bed so long after curfew?"
Ophelia laughed awkwardly. "The girl's restroom in Gryffindor Tower was flooded and I couldn't wait until morning to go."
"Not a single girl in your entire house knew the banishing charm?" Dumbledore asked genially, without accusation.
"Well, I wouldn't have been very popular if I woke up the whole house, would I?" she pointed out with surprising sass.
Tom could here the amusement in Dumbledore's tone when he prompted, "I see. And might I ask what's the truth?"
Ophelia sighed, deflated at being caught. "There's no answer I can give that will keep me out of trouble, so why bother?"
"Give it a try and we'll see."
Tom, bracing himself to be hung out to dry, did a quick cost-benefit analysis of reopening the chamber to hide. On the one hand, he had the potential to avoid Dumbledore's scrutiny, but on the other, if he miscalculated the timing, he would practically hand the existence of the chamber to the old man on a silver platter, not to mention that Ophelia would still know something suspicious transpired.
"I should probably come clean here," Ophelia began after a moments hesitation. "If I'm going to get in trouble might as well do a thorough job of it, I suppose. You see, I was studying for an Ancient Runes exam with James Wales and Annabelle Lovegood in Ravenvlaw Tower last night."
"Commendable behaviour."
"I know that look, professor. They aren't my friends. We were merely bonding over our mutual desire not to fail the class, so don't look so pleased."
"I wouldn't dream of it," he responded mildly. "Continue."
She grumbled something under her breathe Tom couldn't quite make out. "We didn't realize it got so late, so they said I could stay on a couch in the Common Room until morning to avoid trouble. I had planned on doing just that, but I... er... I wasn't lying when I said I had to go to the restroom, only the second I opened the door I heard crying and Myrtle- Myrtle Warren, you know- nearly blew my head off. I'm rather fond of my head the way it is, thank you very much, so I let her be, coming here instead."
Dumbledore paused to ponder her words, probing for another lie. Evidently satisfied, he said, "I see. We can discuss your punishment more on the way back to your bed."
"You could let me off just this once, Professor," Ophelia grumbled, her voice growing distant as she accompanied him down the hall. "No one would ever know."
The last thing Tom heard before they turned the corner was Dumbledore's soft chuckle.
Tom waited several minutes to ensue the coast was clear before slipping from the restroom. The return trip to the dungeons was uneventful, not so much as a ghost crossing his path now that Dumbledore was sufficiently distracted.
At quarter to four, he still laid awake in his four-poster, stiff as a board and staring far past the ceiling to wear his thoughts communed with the stars. The same thought incessantly bit at the edges of his mind, chasing off sleep: If Ophelia had showed up even a minute earlier, nothing Tom could have done would have prevented her from staring directly into the eyes of the Basilisk as he attempted to reseal the chamber. Nothing could have stopped her from dying then and there, and it bothered Tom more than he ever thought it would.
A/N
I wish I could say I had an excuse for why this chapter took so long but~ I didn't. I had serious writers block and ended up revising how I want the plot to go, not the ending, but just how I get from point A to point B.
Anyway, writing for Walburga Black is the Worst. I don't want to make her quite as exaggerated as JKR did, bc she's still a person with layers, but I still need to try and keep her essence, which is annoying. Who else finds it interesting in canon that she's only a year older than Voldemort? When I discovered that I couldn't not include her.
I know Tom isn't quite the Big Bad he's portrayed as in the books, "pure evil" and all, but I think it's more believable that the evil happened as a progression. At some point he was just a kid, maybe more cold and calculating and talented, but not born evil. I'm going to explore his whirlwind into evil a lot, like the catalyst and everything, so that will be fun.
Thoughts?