Chapter 1 : My heart opens to your voice


"The further we look at the past, the further we foresee the future." (Winston Churchill)


Tom hated a lot of things, but the main targets of his hatred remained the Muggles and their world. He hated London, his paternal family, the Wool orphanage where he stayed imprisoned since his birth, the execrable directress who thought he was Satan, and the stupid and cruel children. He abhorred the Muggles' religion thanks to which the adults have tried to "purify" him, and he remained horrified and disgusted at the same time of the way they seemed to love to make war.

Forced to return to the orphanage every summer, Tom made sure he was always informed, and read the news once he found the edition of the newspaper of the day. Those nefarious beings still shone with intelligence succeeding in making all the countries falling under the yoke of armies. The shrill call of sirens announcing the bombardments and the noises of explosions were engraved forever in his memory, and he wished the magical world would never live this nightmare. A thirteen-years-old wizard, studying in third year at Hogwarts, able to defend himself even against Dementors, heir of the great Slytherin, could not decently hiding in the bottom of an anti-shell shelter dug in a garden!

Now Tom was fifteen and six months years old, and he felt inside that his hatred for Muggles increased, nearly making him lose his mind. He didn't feel any remorse to be the murderer of his paternal family, and made his conscience silent convincing himself of a new cause which he would be the new prophet : the extermination of Muggles and mudbloods.

If he was honest with himself, this cause only served to attract potential followers and exalt the traditionalist ideals of Pure-bloods ; it was actually an effective way for getting him access to power. The idea of ruling an army of pure-blood wizards seduced him, and as the magic in their veins was more powerful than the impure-blood wizards, they could see the future without worries.

This is why, in this month of September of 1942, he left his London prison again with relief, curious to see what this sixth year of studies at Hogwarts would reserve. Tom would be in this castle again, where he felt so comfortable and in security, his true home.

He spent hours to explore the corridors, discover even the most hidden secrets, enter discreetly in the library's Reserve to learn the most he could – the manuals of his courses were greatly insufficient for his thirst of knowledge. When he discovered that Salazar Slytherin was his ancestor, and he finally reached up the mystery of the existence and localisation of the Chamber of Secrets, it was as if a part of the castle was his property.

To his joy, his prefect status – got with no difficulty – conferred him a freedom of movement strongly appreciable inside the castle, and he liked to enjoy his authority. Those responsibilities also allowed him to refine his more or less authorised researches in discretion. A way for him to escape the irritating surveillance of Albus Dumbledore, who seemed to beware of him even more since the opening of the Chamber of Secrets and the death of this young girl, Mimi, killed the last year by the Basilisk of Salazar.

Indeed, beyond the fact to be a model student – brilliant, studious, disciplined and respectful, everything the teachers appreciate – known for his intelligence and his exemplary integrity, but also his extreme coldness, Tom had many human qualities : handsomeness, charm, charism, erudition, precise and smooth verb enounced by a suave voice, skills in the art of manipulation. All of this formed an apparent perfection that bewitched the most mistrustful, and even Dumbledore who looked at him suspiciously seemed to trust him enough to let him free.

The unknown-origins-orphan made indeed an effort to look elegant and clean, despite his second-hand clothes betraying his absence of fortune. These clothes enhanced his tall physical though, his slender stature and his cold and dark beauty. The grey and black uniform of Hogwarts contrasted with his pallor almost cadaveric, highlighting the darkness of his eyes. There was no woman or young girl in the school, sometimes more secretly some men, teachers or students, who didn't surprise themselves to admire the traits of his harmonious face, the straight nose of perfect proportions, the certainly soft lips designed with fineness, coloured with an exquisite red, sometimes curved in the shadow of a smile, the dark hair, fine, silky, that undulated gracefully on his forehand... Who could dare to blame him of any fault?

Sit in the Hogwarts Express, in a compartment also occupied by his "close relatives" Abraxas Malfoy, Lucretia Black, Walburga Black, one year older than him, and their brothers and cousins Orion and Cygnus Black entering in third year, Tom observed the English countryside's landscape of innumerable shades of green and grey scrolling behind the window. Lost in his reflexions, he didn't perceive the interrogative looks of his comrades, who were not used to surprise their ambitious friend in this state of thoughtful state. They ignored what perturbated him, as they ignored a murdered was sit by their side.

Those friends nourished the secret hope that at least one of them became elected to collect Tom's secrets, but the young man desperately remained silent. They tried : especially Walburga, daughter of Pollux Black and Irma Crabbe, one of the heirs of the very ancient house Black, attempted to become one day his confident, and she was seduced by his speech on pure-bloods' superiority and by his prestigious blood – because she was one of the privileged to who he confessed his noble ascendance.

Abraxas, representant of the very respected Malfoy line, as illustrious and fortunate as proud and blonde of hair, redoubled of efforts each year to please Tom, and his heart has been inflated of pride when, making resonate in the walls of Slytherin's common room a waltz, composed by a Russian wizard, Tom's look became curious and a spark of approbation furtively appeared in his eyes. Their potions professor, Horace Slughorn, was certainly right : Tom Riddle was promised to a great destiny.

Abraxas ignored how this music reached Tom's heart. He ignored how the notes, assembled in harmony, made sense in the model student's spirit. The intoxicating melody of the Russian waltz remained engraved in Tom's memory, twirling again and again in his mind, and among all the compositions he appreciated, this waltz easily became his favourite music. He would never confess it to anyone, obviously.

For a few weeks though, Tom heard a female voice invade his spirit, his dreams, resonating in his head like an echo, in every room of the orphanage, in every place he could go in London. He was the only one to hear it, he quickly noted.

Yet the former evening, he left the sinister and without decoration dormitory with a certain precipitation, attracting looks from the other teenagers who were not used to see the so cold and reserved "monster" of the orphanage hasten like this – without doubt, he must be impatient to see his demoniac comrades again. But Tom could not sleep of the whole night, the voice having haunted him ; he even heard it when he covered his eyes, it twirled in his mind.

The voice sang the melody of the Russian waltz his heart liked so much ; he easily imagined the blurred face of a woman, eyes in the emptiness, evaporated look, she sang with closed lips, and her song seemed to be a whisper and a cry at the same time, and she danced, twirled, waltzed, with no end. The melody never stopped, letting him little respite, and often he hold his head between his hands with a grimace, thinking he was becoming insane day after day. It was the most plausible explanation, or a malignant wizard enjoyed penetrating his spirit. The heir of Slytherin wondered if the voice reappeared in Hogwarts. He knew he was naïve on this point, because a tiny part of him hoped the magic of the school's walls would protect him from the undesirable intrusion.

- Is everything fine, Tom ? interrogated Walburga, worried, in a whisper to not precipitating the prefect in his reverie.

A few minutes later, Tom finally reacted, coming back to reality ; he turned his head in an extremely slow movement, and his confused look fixed an invisible point between his comrades, on the door behind them, his eyelids were heavy and inflated and his dark circles were impressive, betraying his exhaustion. He stayed immobile for a few seconds, like a catatonic, before reassuring with the same volume of his friend :

- Yes, Walburga. Everything is fine.

He simply became mad.

But the situation didn't ameliorate during the following days, nor the weeks. Three months after coming back to school, the voice was still present in Tom's head, during the meals, in the middle of the night, in every room he went to. The singing woman only let respite to him when he had classes and when he studied, therefore he drowned himself in his homework and readings, adding to his tiredness that accumulate day after day. His companions and even the teachers noticed a change in the most brilliant student of Hogwarts, no one could not miss the state of his eyes ; even Dumbledore, in the middle of his suspicions, worried for the health of his student. Tom didn't look like someone who plotted reprehensible acts, but more like someone who enforced himself to face a problem, in secret and alone. Instinct was a sense that never failed Dumbledore.

Christmas holidays just started, seeing the castle of Hogwarts being empty of its students who came back to their families for the festivities. Tom hated Christmas, because those songs reminded him the few masses he was forced to attend in his dark church, those decorations reminded him the cold streets of London and all the shops and colourful lights, and this atmosphere of camaraderie and dripping love nauseated him, rejecting to his face the fact that no one never offered any gift to him, or wished him "Merry Christmas". As good and virtuous Christian, it was not possible to celebrate the birth of the saviour Christ – strangely resurrected – and the feast of family and happiness with an ice man, possessed by Satan.

Then Tom felt in security inside Hogwarts. Some people and a few students also stayed in the castle for these two weeks, not letting him alone and oppressed between these walls. Likewise, even if the livings decide to leave the place, the ghosts were present here forever.

Enjoying the well welcomed calm, the heir of Slytherin moved even more freely, and it accommodated him : therefore the chances to be seen opening the Chamber of Secrets were lesser. Moreover, Dumbledore seemed to be preoccupied by something else, the movement of the Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald and the attacks by his followers, perhaps. Magic of Christmas or birthday present in advance, Tom saw himself being absolutely free, with no surveillance.

In this day of twenty-five of December, he would follow the singing voice that, he realised, seemed to be more audible near the toilets for girls. He would finally be able to unravel the mystery of his harasser, and the Basilisk could have a fresh meal, a festive dinner.

Luckily, the ghost of Mimi, the young teenager killed by the eyes of the Basilisk the former year, was not present at his habitual emplacement – one of the cabins of the toilets for girls, making him think she liked to live again her last moments – and then would not be an annoying witness.

Leaning on one of the sinks where the valve was discreetly ornate with small snakes, he whistled a few words in Pastletongue, immediately followed by a thud of mechanical machinery, the valves departing in a gapping hole, revealing a large pipe. Still giving orders in the language, he conjured stairs habitually allowing him to go down to the bottom without encumbers. He closed the entrance immediately and put an unformulated Lumos Maximas on.

A hundred of steps lowered a few minutes later, he found again the well-known way leading to the huge room decorated with gigantic statues of snake heads. The more his steps conducted him there, the more the singing voice became loud to his ears, hammering his head ; and while he was ready scream of rage, he arrived in the room and his eyes immediately perceived a shape on the opposite side of him, a few hundred metres from him. The big silhouette of the Basilisk was situated besides it, immobile, the head on its own curled up body, as if the creature let itself lull by the Russian waltz that threated Tom's sanity.

Approaching with rushed steps, the dark teenager distinguished better the singer : it was a woman, dressed in a long black dress with a round and discreet neckline, the long sleeves flared at elbow level, and the legs were not only hidden by the dark fabric but also by a thick black mist, masking everything until the bottom of the dress, until her feet, as if she floated a few centimetres above the ground.

She had something vaporous, a skin of a phebean clarity, nearly translucid that made her look like a dead, but living enough to not look like a ghost. The idea of a lemure coming to curse him crossed Tom's mind, but the young man pushed it away, finding it absurd. Singing without stopping the melody of the waltz, the woman twirled on herself, as if she wished to expulse something from her body, as if she wanted to inflict herself vertigo. Her movements were not rapid, but a few minutes were necessary for Tom to get a clear image of the unknown face.

She was a very stunning woman, with a hair as dark as his, and the undulations lied down on its entire length. The curls fell gracefully on her shoulders and followed her back, the hair departing from her body following the twirl. Her pale lips, kept closed, were thin and well designed, calling a kiss, and her straight nose was discreet, in harmony with the oval face and slightly sharped at chin level.

The woman kept her eyes open, eyes with heavy and made up eyelids that seemed to look at nothing, black and sad eyes that lose themselves on the emptiness. Tom stopped at respectable distance to observe her better : the unknown woman was the mirror image of him, his female version, and this observation disturbed him.

Jaded and afflicted by exhaustion, his spirit wandered towards suppositions more crazy and irrational than others, even emitting the hypothesis that a parallel universe could exist, like the Muggle world and the magical world, and that himself lived in this parallel world in a female shape. He would have laughed of his own absurdity if he was in full possession of his faculties. The melody of the waltz continued to be sang, as if it escaped from the woman's lips in an invisible trickle of notes, and the latter rolled herself up in this never-ending musical trickle.

Taken aback, Tom finally adressed someone who could give him an answer : whistling in Parseltongue, he asked to the Basilisk the identity of this woman and what the reason of her presence here could be, hinting the question of the way she could have used to enter into the Chamber while he was the last Parselmouth in the wizard world.

However, the creature was not able to give him answers, and the heir of Slytherin let his anger to shoot up, his impulsive character revived by his tiredness. He ordered to the snake to kill the intruder, but to his big surprise the animal didn't grant his request.

- Why don't you obey me, Basilisk? Am I not your master? he lashed, the virulent words making the language to become guttural.

- I ignore the identity of this woman, master, the snake retorted with a mix of resentment and irritation, but I cannot do any harm to her. No sound except this chant went out from her throat, then I cannot certify she speaks our tongue, but I feel something inside here ; beyond the physical resemblances with you, her corporal smell is yours, her magical aura is yours, even more powerful and darker. In a way I am unable to explain, she is bounded to you.

A hidden sister?

Slowly approaching towards the still twirling shape, Tom took care of not making abrupt movements. He approached more, his feet delicately settling on the ground with no sound, and when the folds of the dress and the hair ends brushed him, he reached out his arms to catch the woman's. Surprisingly, no shock was seen on her face, no move was sketched to escape his fists firmly maintaining her. Her dance, that looked before like a call to goétie, was stopped.

When Tom forced the unknown person to raise her eyes to his own face, the melody she was still singing transformed : her breath becoming faster, sound, jerky, her eyes widing, her lips, starting to shake and draw a wry smile, let escape another interpretation of the Russian waltz. The delicate chant was transformed in a desperate thrène, and for one second Tom believed this change of behaviour was explained by his person, as if the woman recognised him, as if she feared to see him and panicked to be under his threat.

Before he could enounce the sketch of a question, the ghostly woman suddenly kept silent. Weeks, days, minutes earlier, Tom would have been the most relieved man in the world to be finally rid of the voice as beautiful as nefarious, but in the present context he worried instead of the sudden dumbness of his new interlocutor : yes, she recognised him.

Feeling a slight pressure in the hollow of his right hand, the prefect freed the woman's left hand, who slowly raised it to his face, before delicately pose her palm on his cheek. Her fingers were frozen, and still the contact of this hand was burning Tom. As incongruous this situation could be, never a woman already had a soft gesture on him like this one, and he deduced this woman knew him and appreciated him. Why ?

The dark eyes met their twins. They ran through the whole male face, as one could admire an artwork. When her pink lips slightly parted, Tom lowered his eyes on them, impatient to know the words they could form. But he was surprised when he saw the tip of a tongue to nest between the rows of teeth, and a weak whistle but perfectly audible could be heard :

- Peer at me, she whispered in Parseltongue, softly, intimately, as if she was afraid her words could be interpreted as orders, whereas she was not in right to emit some.

Therefore, in an access of lucidity as sudden as unexpected, Tom understood : this woman was one of his family, and she asked him, in their ancestor Salazar Slytherin's language, to directly rummage in her memory to get the answers he greedily waited for. He did not know what secrets he'd discover.


"Relive the past, only if you use it to build the future." (Domenico Cieri Estrada)