Tom Marvolo Riddle was confused.

It was an unfamiliar emotion.

He didn't like it.

Myrtle Warren. She'd seemed unremarkable.

No great beauty. Or educational prowess. At least that's what it had seemed.

With only a couple of weeks left for the school year Tom redirected his attention on finding out as much about the girl who spoke parseltongue like a first language. The girl who'd looked into the lethal gaze of Slytherin's beast and didn't flinch, wasn't petrified and didn't die. The girl who seemed invulnerable. He had to know her secret.

He'd been so sure that horcruxes were his only way he'd survive. Only way to guarantee that death couldn't claim him and yet a seemingly muggleborn student turned those thoughts on their head.

Myrtle Warren was what the basilisk had stated, a contradiction, an enigma.

She was in third place in all her classes, she took pride in her work but she didn't seem to seek out the spotlight.

When asked Professor Slughorn couldn't seem to remember her existence, in fact it was like that for every teacher he asked. She was but a vague memory.

The basilisk curled around the chamber's library as Tom searched for the answer to the oddity that was Myrtle Warren.

~Little Storm would make a fine mate.~

Tom didn't even pause reading Slytherin's journals.

~She has great power.~

Tom blinked and looked through the archway where the basilisk rested it's giant head on its coils.

~How can you tell?~

~I've seen her practice in secret rooms.~

Tom grit his teeth, ~Why didn't you tell me?~

The basilisk almost seemed to shrug, its coils undulating. ~You never asked.~

Later that night Tom climbed through a secret passage after the basilisk until it paused and nodded toward an iron grate that looked into the room.

It was an empty storage room.

~She'll come. She never misses an evening.~

They did not have to wait long before the room flooded with light, and Myrtle Warren stood in the doorway. She walked...no…stalked into the room with an elegance he'd rarely seen even the most cultured Pureblood. Her robes swirled around her as she tossed them back against a chair showing her dressed in a pair of black pants, knee high boots, and a blouse that clung to her figure in a way that showcased the subtle petite curves of her body. She took off her glasses and set them aside, secured her long hair in a high do keeping strands out of her space before she waved her wand. No spell came from her lips but still from the rubbish in the room formed a golem.

He watched as she tucked her wand away with a flick before bringing her hands up and grinning wide at the golem.

"Attack!"

His eyes widened as the golem attacked speedily and she ducked away without a scratch.

Again and again she told it to attack faster and faster, and she moved lithely around it as if she were dancing.

More than an hour passed before she stopped, summoning her wand without a word and with a wave of it returning the golem back into rubbish.

When she left with another swirl of her robes, the basilisk turned back to her snakeling.

~Could you taste it? Her power is delicious.~

Tom was befuddled. Everyone he'd ever met had a color to their magic, it sparkled around them like dew when they cast. She however didn't have one.

~Does she...smell like the others?~

Unlike what he'd believed previously about the basilisk it couldn't tell if someone was Pureblood or not, merely the amount of power someone had. All wixen smelled the same to it, except those with more power stood out more.

~She is not like the others. I told you, snakeling, she smells like ancient storms.~

Tom furrowed his brow, "If she isn't wixen, then what is she?"