Months passed and the winter finally gave way to spring. He had kept the toad immobile in a box, atop a layer of bedding, under which he hid an egg. It was not merely a chicken egg, as legend went, for he had learned the actual truth in India. Within the live egg lay a naag mani, a rare glowing pearl formed from pure snake venom, an essential step that could only be done with magic. When fused with a live egg, the naag mani would begin to consume the burgeoning chick, and it was through the death of the chick that the serpent came to life. The boy was not the least bit aware of what was going on beneath the toad, though he wouldn't stop prying about the reason for keeping her. Tom Riddle tried to make it sound like he was nurturing an injured toad but in all honesty, he did not care if the boy believed him so long as he continued to bring insects.
Finally, the day had arrived where he, Tom Riddle, could cease to be pestered by the boy. The egg was about to hatch, and he thought there would be none more suited to bear witness to it than the boy himself.
Tom Riddle ordered the boy to sit and watch over the toad in the study while he pretended to head to his bedroom to retrieve something. Any time now, the egg would crack, and the fruit of his labour would emerge to look the boy dead in the eye. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He did not want to admit it, but this was more thrilling than he thought it would be.
He picked up a book and kicked back on his bed. He was just a few pages in when he heard the boy's ringing laughter cut across the room.
"You were...you were trying to create a basilisk!" the boy exclaimed. "Better luck next time."
Tom Riddle flared up instantly with rage. He threw the book down and stormed into the other room, only to see the boy playing with an infant snake on the desk, resolutely alive. The snake coiled around his fingers, and then, without notice, bit down hard.
The boy began to cry out in pain, falling onto the floor. "It hurts! It hurts!" he wailed, trying in vain to pry the snake's jaws from the flesh between his thumb and his index finger.
Where did his plan go awry? He had followed the ancient instructions exactly thus the failure evidently originated from the boy. Tom Riddle stood over him, watching him writhe in agony on the floor from the snake's bite, suffering from a punishment he fully deserved. He had half a mind to deliver a kick into the boy's solar plexus because he hated the way he had laughed at him so mockingly just moments before, but he thought it inelegant in delivery, so he let the snake do her work. Owing to her infancy her venom was not potent enough to kill, and after she had run out she withdrew her fangs. Released from the snake's jaws, the boy sat up, bewildered and in wild disarray. He looked up at Tom Riddle with a tearful face, and, picking himself up, fled out of the room all while choking and crying, stumbling left and right from the agony of the poison.
Tom Riddle looked at the snake, who had been flung to the floor. She was a failed basilisk, he thought, bending down to pick her up. She coiled around his wrist, barely an inch in girth and probably just over one foot in length. He held her soft, dry body, gently rolling the length of it between his fingers. He squeezed down upon her neck. He could kill her that way, just by snapping her in two. He could end the life of this miserable failure and start all over. He pressed down with a firmer grip, and he could feel the snake resisting. She twisted and thrashed her body about, and hissed in pain.
Suddenly, there was a sharp rap on the door.
"Tom Tomovich?" came a fruity, unctuous voice. It could only be Igor Karkaroff. "I know you're in there. I need to speak to you."
Tom Riddle stuffed the snake into his pocket and let him in. "Igor Vasilievich," he said.
"Tom Tomovich," Karkaroff greeted sinuously. "I am sorry I have to do this but I need to warn you against being indiscreet. Now I do not want to be so strict with my staff, you understand, but there are some things I actively discourage. It is not proper for teachers to be doing certain things with ah, pupils, but if you simply must then please try to keep it under wraps."
Tom was getting impatient with Karkaroff, who bobbed about ingratiatingly as he spoke.
"It is unacceptable to have boys spilling out of your room looking so dishevelled and abused, Tom Tomovich. Was it only recently that I saw this same boy tumble out of your room with just a fur coat and nothing else on? I know some of these boys are nearly irresistible, just like angels, and they cause a lot of trouble just by being in this school but at the very least you mustn't be so brutal—"
"If you must be so blunt, Igor Vasilievich, I am not fucking that boy."
"Ivan Kasimirovich?" Karkaroff asked with a distinct note of surprise. He stroked his beard even more keenly as he pondered the fact.
"Who is Ivan Kasimirovich?" Tom Riddle asked.
"The poor boy that just spilled out of your room, Tom Tomovich!"
Tom Riddle paused to consider this information. Not that he cared, but he distinctly remembered the boy offering a different name when asked all that time ago.
Igor Karkaroff made a face. He seemed overcome by an anxiety about his reputation as Headmaster, being newly appointed to the role, and was eager to prove he had a faultless record with school discipline.
"In any case I must warn you about Vanya," Karkaroff continued. "He is a dangerous boy. Intelligent, yes, but I tell all my teachers to stay away from him. Male teachers, I mean. No problem with the females, although they dote on him too much like a son. It is not right for a boy to have a face like that. It incites one to inappropriate thoughts. It's not...it's not safe to be around him." Karkaroff's voice dropped to a low whisper at the last words.
He looked Tom Riddle up and down, silently making notes in his head.
"You must heed my warning," Karkaroff repeated desperately. "He's not, how do I say this? He's not clean."