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SEPTEMBER 1944

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A damp room full of snake statues.

The snake hiss echoed by a male voice.

A black-leather book on the wet ground.

The classroom was lit only by the rays of the full moon. Aliena locked the door with her wand and applied a number of enchantments on it. The last thing she wanted was to be disturbed during her ritual. She'd scouted the place a few days earlier and came to one conclusion. Nobody was coming here, as evidenced by the thick layer of dust on the furniture and the stone floor. Here, she'd have peace and quiet.

She made her way to the back of the room and dropped her bag to the floor with a thud. She knew what she had to do. With her wand, she traced the outline of a pentacle, in the center of which she placed a small cauldron - barely larger than a bowl - which she filled with water. Then, she took a knife whose blade glinted in the moonlight, and slashed the palm of her hand without the slightest hesitation. She grimaced, before tracing several runes with her blood all around the cauldron.

Next, Aliena set about mixing the various ingredients. She had the presence of mind to prepare everything in advance, cutting up and crushing the roots to save time. One by one, she threw them into the cauldron, stirring the mixture regularly in one direction, then the other. She knew the recipe by heart, having watched her mother make it so many times she couldn't even count. Her heart sank at the thought, but she ignored it, pushing it to the back of her mind.

Finally, she added a scale and three pinches of chimaera powdered-eggshell. The potion crackled in her cauldron, forming little sparks on the surface. She was almost finished. She positioned her wounded hand over the container and clenched her fist. Three drops of blood fell into it, as she recited the same phrase over and over again, like a sweet melody.

"Pod bleskom zvezd tayny raskryvayutsya, proshloye, nastoyashcheye i budushcheye perepleteny, V zerkale sud'by tayny vremeni prostirayutsya pered moimi glazami"

When she had finished, the potion was as black as ink, so opaque that it seemed to have the power to swallow any source of light. Wisps of white smoke rose into the air. Aliena approached slowly her nose and sniffed. The potion had no particular smell or texture. It didn't stick to the sides of her cauldron neither.

It was ready.

Carefully, she filled four small vials. That would be enough for now. She tucked three of them into her bag, and kept the last one handy in the pocket of her wizard's robe. She would drink the contents just before bedtime. She knew the side effects. She wouldn't feel well for few hours. She'd feel dizzy, even nauseous, so it was better she took it in her dormitory than alone, in a dirty-deserted classroom, long time after the curfew.

Putting away her utensils, she cleaned the floor to erase her marks and tended the gash on her hand before leaving. Aliena put her ear against the wood of the door. There was no sound on the other side. But she didn't let her guard down as she cautiously opened the door, glancing into the corridor. The castle seemed to be asleep and she crept discreetly to her dormitory.

The room was plunged into darkness, and only the steady, sleepy breathing of her roommates could be heard. Aliena held back a sigh of relief. She would avoid a session of interrogation and suggestive innuendo on their part, at least for tonight.

She changed quickly, swapping her uniform for a nightgown, and dropped onto her bed. For several minutes, she watched the vial of potion nervously, moving it between her fingers before making up her mind. She drank it in one gulp and winced slightly, disgusted. Her mouth tasted of ashes.

She let her head fall back against her pillow, dreading closing her eyes. But soon, numb with the potion, she could resist any longer and fell asleep.

She was walking along a dark tunnel. Only the sound of her footsteps, echoing against the ground, was perceptible. She frowned. Something else was going on. A faint, wet sound could be heard as she walked. It was water. The ground was soaked.

Aliena heard a hiss in the distance, raising her head. She squinted as advanced cautiously. The path she was on was surrounded by snake-like statues, menacing, open-mouthed, ready to pounce on her. She shivered, remembering having seen them before, partially, quickly, in a previous vision. Now she could take the time to observe them from every angle. They glowed in the dark, increasing her fear a notch. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest as her blood was pounding against her temples. Her instincts were screaming at her to run away, to leave without looking back, but her legs decided otherwise and she moved forward.

At the far end of the room, the face of a bearded, long-haired man was carved into the stone. Salazar Slytherin. She knew it was him, she couldn't explain how or why, but she knew it. She studied him for a moment, then finally noticed a presence. A little further ahead, a dark-haired male figure turned his back to her. She felt her blood freeze in her veins and stopped. Aliena didn't dare call his name, even though she recognized him perfectly. She knew who was in this room.

An icy shiver ran up her spine and her shirt clung to the sweat on her chest.

Tom finally turned to her, his face impassive. He opened his mouth, but she didn't understand a word he said. Hissing. She could only hear hissing. And suddenly, she felt a heavy presence behind her, something brushing against her back. She didn't know where she found the courage to turn, but did so anyway. And her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her lips.

In front of her, several meters long, stood a huge snake with dark green scales.

A basilisk.

The name tingled on the tip of her tongue.

Aliena took a step back, then toppled into the void.

The scenery around her changed abruptly. She was no longer in the cave, but in a far less unusual room : the washroom. The floor pitched under her feet and she barely caught herself on the edge of a white porcelain washbasin. Aliena looked up, meeting her own reflection in the mirror. Strands of hair stuck to her forehead. She was breathing rapidly, too rapidly, and tried to calm herself when a tiny silver snake emerged from the tap. She jumped back, watching it wriggle into the sink, like a fish out of water, before it froze on the plumbing.

The next moment, another hissing sound was heard, making her recoil. But she tripped over something and nearly toppled backwards into one of the toilet cubicles. She grabbed the wooden panel of the door and looked towards the floor. There was something on it, or rather, someone. She stared in horror at the lifeless body beneath her.

It was a young ravenclaw girl. She couldn't have been more than eleven, twelve at the most. Her complexion was waxy, her eyes bulging. Her thin blue lips were half-open, but no more air passed through them. Her chest remained immobile.

The hiss sounded again, much, much closer this time. Aliena looked ahead.

The washbasin had given way to a gaping hole in the floor, from which she could see two big yellow eyes staring back at her. The basilisk reared up, opened its mouth and attacked. It lunged at her, closing its sharp murderous fangs on her.

She screamed.

Aliena woke up swimming, tangled in the sheets and blankets of her bed. She panted, gasping desperately for breath. Her body was shaking with tremors. She struggled to her feet, her legs barely supporting her, and headed for the bathroom.

She paused for a moment as her gaze fell on the plumbing, then shook her head to banish the memory of the tiny silver snake. She ran water over her face several times, before resting her forehead against the cold porcelain of the sink, eyes closed. Until she felt a warm liquid flowing from one of her nostrils and brought her fingers to it.

Blood.

It was blood. She was bleeding.

"I though you were better," came an accusatory voice from behind her.

Aliena gasped and looked up at the mirror.

There, she met Isadora's polar-blue pupils, who had been staring at her from the doorway.

"I am," she replied, still panting a bit.

"You don't seem so."

"Thank you for your consideration Isadora," she spated.

Elaine, traces of sleep still visible on her face, appeared at that moment.

"Aliena ? Are you alright ?"

She turned to face them, sighing.

"I'm fine, it was just a nightmare. It's not still forbidden, is it ?" she said, slightly annoyed.

She ran her hand under her nose, wiping away the last traces of blood. It was a nightmare. It had to be. How could it be otherwise? It had to be the only explanation. Aliena refused to let it be anything else. She'd had a nightmare, but as she climbed back into bed, she couldn't help trembling. If it had really been a nightmare, then why had it seemed so real ? And why did it fit so well with the events of two years ago ?

The next few days, Aliena acting on as if nothing had happened. She ignored her nightmare - or her vision - and avoided the second-floor corridor like the plague. The problem was, every time she caught a glimpse of Tom Riddle in the common room, the classroom, or even around the bend in a corridor, she couldn't help but think about it.

What if it was true ? What if he had unleashed a basilisk on some muggle-borns ?

What if he was responsible for the murder of one of them ?

Her stomach weighed heavy in her chest.

A damp room full of snake statues.

The hiss echoed by a male voice.

A black-leather diary on the wet ground.

She broke down less than a week later, couldn't take it anymore. She had to know — She needed to know. She was tired of asking herself thousand questions and worrying, perhaps for nothing. She wasn't as stupidly brave and fearless as the gryffindors, but she wasn't a coward either. Aliena hadn't been brought up that way. So one evening, she plucked up the courage after leaving the library. Curfew would fall in less than five minutes. Normally, she'd barely have time to get to the common room, but damn for damn …

The young woman walked slowly, as calmly as possible, and arrived in the dark - and thankfully deserted - corridor on the second floor. She could see the door of the girls' washroom in the distance, and every step that brought her closer drove a nail into her gut. She stopped in front of the wooden door and took a deep breath before stepping inside.

The door closed behind her with a dull creak. There was no one there, nor any other sign of life. No girls had come here since Myrtle Warren's death. Aliena relaxed a little ; she'd almost expected to run into the basilisk and felt stupid at the thought. A giant snake could never have passed unnoticed in the castle corridors, it didn't make sense.

It was stupid. She'd either really had a nightmare, or misinterpreted her vision. Maybe it wasn't as clear as day ? Maybe she had to try and make sense of it, interpret the signs ?

She sighed, then moved towards the washbasins, tightening the strap on her bag. She approached and watched her reflection in the mirror for a while, before setting her eyes on the silver faucet. Slowly, apprehensively, she placed her fingers on the cold surface of the plumbing. She enjoyed the cool, perfectly smooth feel of the piping beneath her skin. She let out a sigh of relief, before freezing.

Under her fingers, she could feel a raised pattern, like an engraving in the metal. She bent down, and in the moonlight, she caught the delicate, fine engraving of a small snake. She stepped back abruptly, her back striking a rigid surface behind her. Aliena turned around just as the door of one of the toilet cubicles swung open.

She was pretty sure it was the same one she'd seen in her vision, when she'd spotted Myrtle Warren's lifeless body.

Fearing, she ran away. She ran through the deserted corridors of the castle, her heart racing. She didn't know where she was going ; it was as if her brain had stopped working. She was unaware of her surroundings, unaware of her thoughts or even her movements. All she could see, all she could though about was the lifeless body of the ravenclaw girl.

Aliena stopped abruptly at the corner of a corridor, lungs on fire, legs flailing. At the other end of the corridor, a horribly familiar figure walked slowly in her direction, wand in hand. She could almost have whimpered in despair. She'd run straight into the wolf's mouth.

Or into the snake's mouth.

"Bletchey ? What are you doing here, at this hour ? You know it's long past curfew ?"

She twitched.

"I could ask you the same," she retorted.

Her voice was rather trembling and she cleared her throat to regain composure.

Tom let a low chuckle escape his lips.

"You could. And I'd answer that, as Head Boy, I have to make regular rounds at night, in case there are any disobedient students outside their dormitories. Students like you," he punctuated his sentence by stopping right in front of her.

Aliena had to lift her head to be able to look him in the eye.

"Are you going to take points off me ?" she dared, bordering on insolence.

"That would be shooting myself in the foot. We are on the same house after all."

She moistened her lips slightly, then glanced over his shoulder in search of someone else. A teacher, another prefect, even a ghost. Anybody that would mean that she would no longer be alone with him.

"I didn't know you got special treatment," he continued.

Aliena turned her attention back to him and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"That you were allowed to break curfew," Tom explained.

"I don't. I just wanted to be ... Alone. I didn't see the time."

"You're trembling," he pointed out.

She took it upon herself not to back down, not to betray the fear that was creeping through her veins. Unconsciously, she groped for her wand in the pockets of her wizard's robe.

"I'm just cold," she lied.

He nodded, before taking a step to the side.

"Come on. I'll see you out."

"Don't," she almost choked, causing Tom to frown. "I can ... I can do it by myself, I know the way. You probably have other things to do. Don't worry I'll be fine."

"I cannot. If you meet another prefect or teacher, they won't be as forgiving as I am. You would be making slytherin lose points."

"You're Head Boy, I'm pretty sure you can sort it out."

He ignores his comment

"Let's go."

It was not a request, it was a order. Skillfully disguised, but an order nonetheless.

Tom started walking before turning back to her, waiting. He left her no choice so, with a heavy heart, she followed him. Aliena remained silent all the way back, taking care to walk several paces away from him, never brushing up against him too closely or meeting his gaze even once. She stubbornly kept her gaze raised straight ahead, her throat dry. She knew, and she could no longer pretend not to understand.

Her visions were true.

And Tom Riddle was a part of them.