"Please…" Evelyn rolled her dark eyes as she reached the bottom of the staircase, "Don't flatter yourself…isn't everyone else's enough to satisfy your ego?"
Tom seemed to have turned a deaf ear to any clever remark she made and instead grasped her hand from the railing and pulled her so close into him that she felt the rippling abs under his oxford shirt. She trembled from this feeling, but quickly recovered her dignity.
"I'm not your little house elf to do with as you please," she huffed at his forceful treatment, "not that you ever had any…" Even in the dim moonlight she saw a flash of anger shoot across his features and for a moment the smug grin that he wore so proudly fell into a sneer and she smirked triumphantly, knowing she had struck a chord, "Aw…did that hurt you? Is that all I have to do to kick you off your high horse?—Make a few comments about your poor…helpless…orphan—
"Now listen here you silly, stupid girl," he gnarled and she gasped; his grip on her wrist tightened to a frightening extent, "You know nothing—absolutely nothing about my past or my heritage, and if you did, you would be so speechless that you would never open those pretty little lips again," he said, smashing a finger into her trembling aperture. Every time she felt herself becoming intimated by the forceful, powerful figure that was Tom Riddle, she remembered, that he was just a boy, and she would not be conquered by this boy, "Ha…there's nothing you could say that would surprise me…why, you're the love child of Morgan Le Fay, sent to the future by a time turner, aren't you?"
Tom didn't seem to find the joke so very funny. He said nothing as he reeled around, his robes billowed behind him as he dragged her down the hallway. He would show her, once and for all, just exactly what his heritage was, and she would never speak another word against his bloodline again.
"I thought you were going to reverse—are we going to the girl's bathroom?" she hit a sudden realization as things began to seem eerily familiar.
He looked over his shoulder at her with a raised eyebrow, but turned back around, bent on the very destination, as they were now heading down the same armor suited corridor. Whispering a spell, the door flew open, which did in fact, reveal the girl's bathroom, the same one that Myrtle had died in.
"What did you bring me here for?" she stared at his cloaked back as he led her inside.
Tom showed no interest in her questions as he stood in front of one of the taps, imitating snake hisses.
"What in the he—
Evelyn's voice seemed to drop in her throat as she watched the top of the water taps rise up and the base lower into the floor. He turned to her, displaying the same self-satisfied grin as earlier, "Ladies first, unless of course you're too scared."
"No," she answered quickly and firmly, standing at the edge of the large hole that was now gaping in the middle of the bathroom floor. Evelyn meekly peered into the darkness below, "what do I do?"
"Just go," he answered as if annoyed by her trepidation, and lightly pushed her over the edge.
She screeched at the feeling of her feet falling out from under her as her legs roughly hit a metal slide and she descended further into the dark funnel-like path. A small ray of light peeked out at her as it quickly approached her, growing in size. She flung her hands out, ready to shield herself from whatever was at the end of the light. With a thud, she landed roughly on her arse, but quickly stood up, brushing the dirt and dust from her uniform. Unlike Evelyn's violent departure, Tom magicked himself to slow down and instead of falling off the slide, he came to a full stop and stood up, exiting with the same elegance and composure that he reserved for every other aspect of his life. She was acutely annoyed by his display of absolute control but it quickly dissipated at the site of the piles of small animal bones that littered the room, which was mostly hidden in shadow, save the small, flickering lights, emitting from two torches in front of them.
"Down there?" she pointed to a ladder that was sticking out of another, much smaller pipe, sitting between the two torches. He only nodded and Evelyn made her way down the pipe, into a much larger room, lined with marble statues, sculpted into snakes. The snake-lined walkway led to an enormous effigy of the founder of their own house—Salazar Slytherin.
'…a hidden chamber within the walls of Hogwarts…' the very line from Hogwarts, A History echoed into her thoughts.
"Is this…?" Evelyn stared blankly at the visage of Tom Riddle. His alabaster skin shown in the ethereal light that filled the chamber, his slivery eyes glowed, seemingly penetrating her.
"The Chamber of Secrets," his strong voice rang out crisp and clear through the vast room, reverberating off the statues, making the room seem to grow by the minute.
A ghostly shade crawled up her neck as her entire face grew pale, "So you're…?"
The horrified look in her brown eyes brought on a terrible realization.
He had made a mistake.
A horrible, irrevocable mistake. He should've never brought her down here. She had every reason to snitch. It didn't matter if he threatened her to stay quiet, if any professor got as much as an inkling that she might know something of importance they would easily read her mind. His heart pounded with anxiety as he realized the damage that had already been done by bringing her this far. How could he be so stupid as to allow his own pride to be his own downfall? How could he? After all the meticulous planning and surveying, how could this be the end of it all? An extremely stupid, taunting little prat managed to make him slip up! He stared at her for what seemed like years, trying to hide the fear of his blunder in his own eyes.
"Of course not." Deny—that was all he had to do. He growled out the answer irritably, as he much would've liked to tell her the truth—that he really was the famed heir of Slytherin—the very driving force behind the monster that terrified all of Hogwarts, but the truth (as much as he would've—for once—liked to have succumb to it) would only lead to more trouble.
"Then how did you find—
A plan to cover it all was quickly forming in his mind, "Anyone can find it if you know where to look."
"But you opened it—and only th-the heir of Slytherin is supposed to be able to open it," she grew more fearful by the moment, backing away from him.
"Supposed to, but the reality is…that anyone who knows Parseltongue can open it. You see…Salazar Slytherin was a well known Parseltongue—
"I know what a Parseltongue is," she answered indignantly.
"Anyway," he pressed on; irritated at the unnecessary interruption, "to possess such a gift is extremely rare in wizards. I found out very early that I had this gift. Once I realized exactly what it was and who it was connected to, I had a strong guess that I might be a descendant of his…but I was wrong. I investigated my wizarding blood line through my father's side," (a theory he had in fact once hoped was true), "to find that it only goes back a few hundred years. I do not know how or why I was born a Parseltongue, but I suppose it's just by chance really. The reason…why I brought you here is to show you this. This is the Chamber of Secrets, but I do not know who the heir is. The house elves comment did strike a chord. Your parents are wealthy purebloods, am I correct?"
"Well…" the color of her face was now returning in a shade of bright red, "ex-parents really," she mumbled.
"Regardless," he decided that now was not the time to take advantage of her well-known misfortune, "I assume you and your parents knew many other pureblood families who came from Slytherin, one of which probably carries the heir."
"Y-yes, but there's so many different pureblood students in Hogwarts, how do we even know that they had to be sorted in Slytherin? They could be in other houses…and it could be either a boy or a girl," Evelyn's brain seemed overwhelmed with all of the new information that it was trying to take in.
"No it couldn't," Tom quickly corrected her, knowing full well that it wasn't.
"How do you know that?" she asked haughtily.
"Because it would've said heiress."
"If I'm so dumb, why do you want me to help you anyway? Couldn't your goons Malfoy, Lestrange and the rest of them brainstorm for you?" she grew angry, beginning to walk away towards the ladder that brought them down there.
"Because you need the heir to be caught just as badly as I do," Tom answered coolly.
"And what makes you think that?" she fired back, stopping in her tracks.
"Because Dippet's already threatened to close the school if nothing comes up—and you know where that puts us? Oh sure, the rest of the students will go home to their mums and dads, but you and I—well, I don't know where you'll end up, but I'm on my way back to the orphanage, and you will have to make a decision between the orphanage or the streets." Her brown eyes were brimmed with tears as she kept her back turned. She had tried not to imagine what her future would be like, but Tom's vocalization put everything into a horrifying perspective. By circumstance, the two were now more alike than Evelyn would ever want to acknowledge.
She whirled around in alarm, immediately aware of something, "If this is the chamber, then where is the beast?"
"I don't know," Tom answered, trying to sound sincere as if wondering that himself, "I've only been down here a few times, trying to catch the heir, but I've never seen him or the beast…now just think," he added in a softer voice, pulling her gently to him and placing his arm around her shoulders, "do we know anyone that would have any sort of control over a beast?"
She furrowed her brow, trying to think of anyone that might seem suspicious, "Well," she piped up, "there is one person—that half-giant, Hagrid."
"The Gryffindor?" Tom decided that this set back had been more useful than he could've imagined, "what about him?"
"About a month ago I was in Dippet's office and I overheard him talking to Hagrid about keeping some sort of prohibited animals."
"Really?" his dark eyebrow arched in obvious intrigue.
"I mean, he's not in Slytherin, so I guess by your standards he couldn't be the heir…"
"I didn't say that," he quickly corrected her, feeling that she was on to something, "I said that it had to be a male." The idea was ludicrous—Hagrid, a lowly, trouble-making, half-giant could be the glorious heir of Slytherin. As shameful as that would be to the name of Slytherin, he was a perfect candidate none the less. It was all too easy to blame him. The professors would believe Tom in an instant because they wouldn't want to close their precious Hogwarts and lose their jobs just as badly as he didn't want to go back to the orphanage. Even if a few did have their doubts, they would want to believe that Hagrid was the heir, given his past record. He wanted to almost laugh at how effortlessly this would all work. The only thing that he would have to do is get a hold of one of Hagrid's harmless animals and claim that it was the beast of Slytherin.
Evelyn tensed up as she heard something scrape against the ground, "Tom there's something in here!" she whispered, jumping out of his grasp and withdrawing her wand.
Evelyn turned about to be met by huge, glowing, red eyes.
"Evelyn!"
Tom's voice was the last thing she heard as the stone walls seemed to darken and close over her.
A/N: In honor of everyone's favorite villain's birthday (New Year's Eve), I've finished another chapter. Hooray! Happy Birthday Voldy:) Please review, and Happy New Year!