Chapter 13. Unseeingly

Now Tom looked irritated. "Fine," he ground out. "Let's start easy. Where'd you get that scar?"

Harry saw red. "That." He breathed out. "That is not easy, Riddle."

Was he seeing things, or did Tom look... nervous?

"Okay," the teen said quietly. "Okay. I won't ask that."

"Good. Now I'll ask you, Riddle. What. Did you find. This summer?"

Silence stretched out between the two of them as Harry struggled to reign in his anger.

"Answer me," he spat.

"...I found records," Tom said finally. "Records dating back to the time of the Founders."

"Oh fuck." The expletive slipped out before Harry could help it and his anger fled, fear gripping him instead. Oh god no. Tom knew. "Listen to me Tom," Harry demanded feverishly, voice low, "You can't go looking for it, you can't."

The teens' eyes narrowed. "And why not?"

"The Chamber is dangerous, Tom, you don't know what's in there."

"And you do?"

"Yes!"

"So it's real then?" Tom asked, eyes bright. "The Chamber of Secrets exists?"

What. Harry's stomach dropped. "...What do you mean?"

"I had no idea," Tom breathed.

"But-But," Harry stammered, "But the records?"

"Birth and marriage records confirming I am the Heir of Slytherin," Tom waved away dismissively, and Harry's mind went blank with horror. "It seems I must thank you, Harry. I had hoped to discover more about your past tonight, but this will do."

The teen smiled brightly, fondly, as if Harry's mind hadn't just broken.

"Tom," Harry pled. What he was pleading for, he didn't know.

"I know," he said softly, "I can wait. I know you'll tell me one day."

"No, you — you don't understand."

"I do," Tom whispered, reaching out. His hand stopped, hovering millimeters above Harry's own. "Don't worry about me, Harry. I'll be fine. I always am."

"Promise me you won't," Harry begged.

Tom smiled ruefully as he stood. "You know I can't."

Harry could only sit there watching as Tom packed his things.

"See you around, Harry."

Tom was long gone when Harry whispered, "I know."

"Mr. Evans?"

Harry stared unseeingly at the crystal ball in front of him, mind still stuck days back in the library.

He'd fucked up so bad.

"Mr. Evans?"

"Wh—What?" He looked up to see Trelawney rolling her magnified eyes again and decided he had never seen glasses so ugly.

Before Harry could so much as scowl Professor Lyptus swooped down on him. "Were you in the beyond?"

"Doubtful," Trelawney sniffed.

Eleven, Harry forcibly reminded himself. Eleven years old. Eleven-year-old girl.

"Let's let Harry answer, Sybill," Professor Lyptus chided softly before turning back to Harry. "Well? Any luck this time?"

Harry glanced back down at the fog swirling in the orb, willing it to change. It didn't. "No," he sighed. "Nothing."

"Well, I saw loads," Trelawney drawled and that was it—he didn't care if she was eleven he was going to—

"That's lovely Sybill," Lyptus said patronizingly. "Now why don't you write down what you saw while I talk with Mr. Evans, hm?"

Trelawney frowned deeply as Professor Lyptus turned her back to her.

Suddenly cheered for some reason, Harry sighed forcefully, "I just don't get it, Professor Lyptus. I've never had so much trouble Seeing before."

"Hmm... Perhaps this is an issue of channeling, then," she mused.

"Channeling?"

The woman nodded. "Tell me, Harry, do you know why we have third-year students practice Crystallomancy as opposed to seventh-years?"

Harry shook his head.

"We do it because Crystallomancy does not require a strong connection to the Divine." Professor Lyptus paused to smile a bit at Harry's expression. "Confused?"

"Er, yeah."

"No matter. Crystal balls," she explained, "are unique in that they themselves strongly channel the Divine, allowing the average witch or wizard to need only be open to the Divine as opposed to being channelers of the Divine themselves. Any wizard can use a crystal ball."

Behind Professor Lyptus, Trelawney (who was decidedly not writing down what she had seen) made eye contact with Harry and smirked. "Any wizard but you" was all but written on her face.

"I fear," Lyptus continued, "that you, being such a strong Divine channeler—"

Harry, who had been attempting to commit murder with his glare, Basilisk-style, saw his opportunity and took it.

"I am?" he interrupted.

"Oh, undoubtedly!" Professor Lyptus said, a little surprised. "To be able to See both the past and future is unprecedented!"

"Oh." His eyes flicked to Trelawney.

"Yes, well, as I was saying, with your powerful connection to the Divine—"

The girl was no longer smirking.

"—I fear that tools such as Crystallomancy would be all but useless to you."

Harry dared to hope. "...So I don't need lessons then?"

"Of course you need lessons!"

Great.

"We just need to change our approach! As a strong, intrinsic channeler, I believe your skills would be best honed using Divine methods with a strong connection to the Self... Tell me, Harry... What do you know of Dream Interpretation?"

Harry thought of hospital room ceilings and groaned.

"She's a nightmare!" Harry exploded, slamming his new dream journal onto the Gryffindor table before collapsing onto the bench next to Minnie and Al.

"Well, hello to you, too," Minnie snarked. Harry rolled his eyes.

"That bad?" Al asked sympathetically.

Frustrated, Harry ran his hand through his hair. "Worse."

"Really?" Augusta asked doubtfully, craning her neck to peer over at the Ravenclaw table where Trelawney was sitting. "She doesn't look like a nightmare. She's kinda cute. In a twitchy sort of way."

"Yeah, well I'd rather be locked in a room with an angry hippogriff than her," he said seriously.

Al laughed.

"Anyways, other than the 'nightmare,' how'd the lesson itself go?" Minnie asked curiously.

Harry groaned. "Fine, I guess. I just don't see why I have to do this in the first place."

"Well, if it helps you figure out how to stop getting visions when you don't want them, it'll be worth it," Al pointed out.

Harry silently cursed Draco Malfoy for the thousandth time and lied, "Yeah, that's true."

"Harry Evans?"

At the unfamiliar, timid voice, Harry turned in surprise to look behind him. His mind went blank at who he saw.

"Are you Harry Evans?" Myrtle Warren asked.

He could only blink at her.

Minnie's sharp elbow to the side quickly remedied that. "Oof—god, Minnie! Yeah, yes. I'm Harry Evans."

"Here you go." Myrtle handed him a note.

As the girl turned and left, Harry stared after her, mind still reeling until—

"Knock it off, Evans," Minnie snapped. "Don't be a creep."

"What?" Harry balked.

"C'mon," Al said soothingly, "Let's see who the note is from, hm?"

Still blinking, Harry unfurled the parchment.

Dear Harry, it read.

If it would please you to join me in my office tonight for dinner, I would be much obliged. I hope you are enjoying your classes.

Yours sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

"It's from Dumbledore," Harry told the others. "He wants me to join him for dinner. Probably wants to check in." He checked his watch and frowned. "I guess I should probably go."

"Aw, alright," Augusta said, "Have fun!"

Al said goodbye and Minnie (who still looked a little peeved) waved him off before Harry spent the walk to the Transfiguration office speculating why Dumbledore wanted to check in now.

It didn't take him long thanks to the use of some handy secret passageways before he found himself knocking on Dumbledore's door.

"Is that you Harry?"

"Yessir."

"Come on in!"

Harry pushed open the door to Dumbledore's office to find the man sitting, not at his usual desk, but at a small two-person dining table. "Hello," he said, somewhat awkwardly.

"Ah, Harry," the man said warmly, "Won't you join me?" He gestured to the chair across from him.

Harry crossed the room and sat. "Good evening, sir."

"A good evening indeed!" he proclaimed happily. "Here, take some."

"Er, alright." Harry helped himself to the food laid out in front of him, "What's going on, sir?"

"I just wanted to check in on you, see how you were doing," Dumbledore explained lightly as he spooned some peas and carrots onto his plate, "We haven't spoken too much outside of classes, which is, of course, entirely my fault."

"It's alright," Harry assured him, "Things are going fine."

"I'm glad to hear it," the man smiled, "I'm sure it must be... odd, going to Hogwarts in this era."

"It is different," he agreed, "But I like it. It's weird though, having different teachers. Except Professor Binns," he added on second thought. "Though I suppose he's a lot more... Lively."

Dumbledore chuckled. "I can imagine."

Harry grinned and began to eat.

"I must confess, my boy," Dumbledore said after several moments, "that I am a little worried. I've noticed you've been a bit quiet in your past couple of classes."

The smile on Harry's face slipped. "Yeah, well..." he shrugged and took a massive bite of chicken. He didn't want to talk to Dumbledore about Tom until he had to.

The professor waited for him to swallow only for Harry to stubbornly gulp some pumpkin juice down. He sighed. "I must ask... Is it your visions?"

Harry swallowed before answering. "No. They haven't really been an issue." Not since the wards.

Dumbledore glanced down at his arms. "And your dreams?"

"Fine." On second thought... "They've been getting shorter actually, which is nice."

Dumbledore frowned. "Shorter?"

"Yeah, I don't mind. Gets boring staring at the ceiling all night. Most interesting thing is the diagnostic charms, but I know them by heart now."

The man's eyes grew distant; Harry felt a flash of anger.

"Look, can we not talk about my dreams?"

"Of course," Dumbledore said quickly. "I apologize."

The two of them continued to eat quietly.

"I heard you're performing very well in Defense," the professor said after a while. "Galatea raved about your Patronus for days."

Harry's lips curled a little, pride warming his chest. "Yeah. I like Defense."

"Are you excited about the Dueling tournament then? Heaven knows I've heard enough chatter before classes," Dumbledore smiled. "And between classes, if I'm being honest." He glanced around before leaning in to give a conspiratorial whisper, "Believe it or not, the faculty betting pool has reached the hundreds of galleons."

Harry couldn't help grinning. "Are you in on it, sir?"

"But of course, Harry! I was the one to suggest it!"

Harry laughed and dreams were forgotten.

Hogwarts was home to Tom like nowhere else was. He had known this since the fourth day of his first year when Clyde Selwyn and his bastard friends had all but cornered him. He had been forced to retreat, his skills, even advanced as they were for his age, no match for five pureblood fourteen-year-olds eager to put the Mudblood who dared be a Slytherin in his place. Dashing around a corner, he had groaned at the dead-end that would have trapped him had it not been for his magic flaring in panic, and had it not been for the castle who had listened. A door had bloomed in front of him, creating a room that had sheltered him while Selwyn and the others were none the wiser. He'd known then that Hogwarts was home.

He'd also known then that Hogwarts was alive. That Hogwarts would always give help to those who were worthy.

He hoped that Hogwarts would help him now.

Tom silently slipped around the corner of the darkened dungeon corridor with practiced ease, instinctively melting into the shadows. Realistically, he had no need to exercise such caution cloaked in disillusionment and silencing charms as he was, but old habits died hard. A quick sweep of the corridor confirmed that he was alone. He was unsurprised. Even during daylight hours, this corridor of the dungeons was often avoided. He turned to face the wall and the reason why.

Even with the lighting dim as it was, the carvings were grand. Creeping ivy served as the background to two elaborately detailed serpents. Fangs bared with eyes of emeralds, the two snakes were entwined together. Though clearly carved into stone, they hissed and danced, forever undulating in a hypnotic pattern. Tom reached out to touch one of them. The castle stone was cold and rough beneath the pads of his fingers but the serpents' magic was colder, harsher.

"Who dares!?"

The outcry hissed in duplicate in his mind as the serpents' sway changed, their movements growing faster in their agitation. Tom let the silencing and disillusionment charms die.

"I do."

Tom relished the sound and feel of Parseltongue almost as much as the sudden rush of warmth beneath his fingers.

"A speaker!"

"Yes," Tom replied, "We have spoken before."

"Have we?"

Tom's lips twitched, fond. "Yes."

"Why do you seek us out, speaker?"

"I need your guidance."

"Speak."

"I search for the Great Chamber. The Chamber of Secrets."

An old legend, a myth. One he had only read of once and one that had been dismissed as hearsay by a prominent historian in the same sentence. Tom had almost forgotten about the Chamber of Secrets.

Good thing Harry had reminded him.

"We cannot help you, speaker. Only the Heir."

"But I am the Heir. The Heir of Slytherin."

At "Slytherin," the serpents' magic flared hot and sharp, their eyes burning green. Despite his shock, Tom somehow managed to fight the urge to snatch his hand back, only to feel pain stab his thumb; he did recoil then, hissing in pain. Blood dripped on the floor.

"We open before the Heir."

Tom stumbled away, gasping, as the two snakes began to unravel, the stone between them splitting as they slithered apart until an archway yawned black before him. The heads of the serpents met at the apex, eyes glowing down at him.

The words they hissed next sent a shiver down his spine.

"Welcome, Heir, to the Athenaeum of Slytherin."