A/N: I'd like to apologize for my extended absence- I wasn't lying when I said I have multiple chapters done, but the problem occurred in that I don't have an editor or beta because I was out for the count I couldn't edit any of the stuff to line them up to be posted.
Why was I out for the count? I found out at the end of March/beginning of April that I am pregnant. The first trimester hit me like an absolute bag of bricks- I would wake up, go to work, come home, sleep for 13 hours, and then start all over again. My husband had to take over most of our household chores because I was consistently either asleep or throwing up. I found out at the end of April that I'm actually pregnant with twins (double surprise!), and I was getting twice the standard hormones of a normal pregnant woman because twins, and now that I'm hitting 4 months, I'm only just starting to get any energy back. I'm still nauseous and exhausted, but not the bone chilling level I was for the last few months. I was able to take a bit to review this and will work on reviewing the next chapter this weekend while I still have some energy in case I end up crashing again. Sorry again for the delay!
Everything turned around after that horrible encounter with Nott in early February. He and Mia and Tammy were back to how they had been before their fight and for some reason, Tom found it easier to interact with the rest of his friends as well. Even if it felt weird to think of any of them as his friends.
Tammy seemed to make a point to use the word loudly and often, often drawing confused looks from Chadwick, Lyall, Sable, and Delaney, but Tom refused to take the bait and would simply stare back at her innocently. He trusted that neither of them said anything to anyone about what he'd divulged, but he knew everyone had heard about what Nott had done. When Delaney asked him about it, he shot a glare at Tammy, but Delaney had explained that some of her friends in Ravenclaw had heard about it from some of the older students in Hufflepuff.
He found someone tended to be always stuck to his side after that and Nott didn't bother him again- though Tom had no way of knowing if that was because he'd already made his threat clear, or because there was someone with him. It was odd to think in a way he was suddenly less afraid of Nott than he had been. Nott had attacked him and broken his nose, and sure, he threatened him, but Tom had made it through the attack and saw no reason to fear it, or the other boy, again. It seemed counter-productive. Like some strange weight had been lifted from his shoulders he hadn't known was there.
With spring upon them and all of the teachers going mad to prep them for their finals and the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors going mad about Quidditch (something Tom only really heard about in passing between Lyall and Tammy when they'd begin arguing about it in the library), he barely had any time to finish the book Slughorn had loaned him. It was thick and very detailed, but he was determined to finish it before the end of the year, as he doubted Slughorn would let him bring it back to Wool's with him. Moving pictures in the book would be a bit hard to explain to anyone there, especially because occasionally the illustrated drawings of snakes on Slytherin's crest would hiss, but Tom couldn't understand them. He wondered if it was because the person who had charmed them wasn't a parselmouth, or if it only worked with real snakes.
Surprisingly enough, the book detailed Slytherin leaving the school as different than he'd read in the other books. While the author did agree that Slytherin became more conservative with his views on blood purity, they seemed to offer a reason as to why and that it was something he had not always viewed.
P.M. Black spent several pages reviewing Muggle history, some of which Tom had barely heard of, and Salazar's relationships with each of the monarchs that rose and fell, his apparent feelings on them, and theirs of him. The problem, Black claimed, truly came to a head during Edward the Confessor's reign in the 11th century.
Edward the Confessor was very religious, according to Black, and tended to view all forms of magic as dark and unholy, especially since a majority of wizarding families in that time period were all pagan in origin. While most of his predecessors for the throne took advice happily and eagerly from any of the Hogwarts founders, now Edward openly shunned them.
Since Edward the Confessor had a decently long reign, especially compared to some of his contemporaries, he was able to create more widespread sway with the people, and Salazar suspected that wizards and witches born to muggle families were being coerced by Edward into spying on the Founders while they were at Hogwarts and relaying anything and everything they could back to the king.
Slytherin feared what this could do for the other wizarding children in their care should Edward find out where the most populous of the wizarding villages were located, though the other founders ignored his fears. The author speculated that they likely assumed he was paranoid or being ridiculous, which led to the schism, not his hatred of muggle-borns. It went on to discuss that Slytherin became a proponent of taking muggles who show magical aptitude away from their muggle families at a younger age to be raised by wizarding families, both to protect the children from being exploited by their family and their king and to protect the muggle families from unsuspecting explosions of uncontrolled magic.
Some of these claims had sources and footnotes attached, but when Tom found them listed in the index, they were from books even older than this by several centuries, which was infuriating, to say the least. If this book was so rare, then Merlin knew Tom wasn't going to be finding any of P.M. Black's sources any time soon.
He had half a mind to chummy up to some of the Black family to see if they had any of them in their personal family library, but the Black closest in age to him was Walburga Black, who was an unpleasant person at the best of times and a screaming banshee at the worst of them. There were two older ones as well, but Marius Black was friends with Hewitt, who was Nott's cousin, and he tried to stay away from them as often as possible, as several of Hewitt's friends, Black included, had helped Hewitt bully Tom the year before. Cedrella was in her sixth year and the oldest of the Black family on campus, and while she was not nearly as volatile as either of her cousins, she was known for her Ice Queen status and also spent a decent amount of time out of Slytherin House off Merlin knew where with her long term boyfriend, Septimus Weasley.
The only reason Tom knew any of this is Marius and Walburga both loudly disapproved of Cedrella's relationship with Weasley, not for his lack of blood purity or family's social standing, but because he was a Gryffindor and tended to be more modern in his speech and attire and how he acted.
Tom was curled in one of the wingback chairs in the Slytherin Common Room when he got to the last section of the book which was simply titled, "Myths, Legends, and Conspiracies". The author began a review of all of the information they had found on Slytherin that they could not find credence or credibility to. Some of the pieces they started with were laughable at best, which the author happily admitted, such as claims that Slytherin only wore green due to superstitions, that he had ridden a wyvern into battle, and that he himself was not a parselmouth, but rather that his wife was a lamia and that is why his descendants were able to speak parseltongue.
Almost all of these Black would cite sources as to why these were contradictory or impossible based on other known information, though others were explained as having no contradictory information, and no source to confirm the myth either. The chapter continued on to rumored relationships and the whereabouts of Slytherin during different historical events and what side he was assisting or advising, and the like.
Outside of the most outrageous ones at the beginning of the chapter, which Tom found amusing, the rest was rather droll. It seemed Black just wanted to discredit things written by others who may not be telling the full truth, or trying to push legends as facts. It wasn't until the last few pages of the book where Black veered out of these detailings and back towards Hogwarts that Tom became more interested and began to skim less.
Some of this was similar to what was written before, but as these began in reference to speculations of Slytherin's relationships with the other founders, Tom found it much more interesting. Black was smart enough to add their own speculation about the founders thinking Slytherin was paranoid to this list since they didn't have any evidence to back their claim.
Interestingly there were different rumors and myths about Slytherin having intimate relations with all three of the founders, depending on who told the story. Many reported that Slytherin and Gryffindor were secret lovers, while others said it was he and Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw. One myth mentioned that they believed Gryffindor and Slytherin came to blows over Ravenclaw's daughter's hand in marriage, which, Black noted with annoyance, was clearly false given both men had been married and had children by this point.
"While there are many stories that love to wax poetic about the dangers of Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets in the depths of Hogwarts, there is little factual evidence that a separate chamber outside of his old office suite has ever existed, and even that was gutted and repurposed during the 1632 renovation of Hogwarts to incorporate a variation of a muggle-invented sewage system on a large scale using magic to work out the kinks that the muggles have not."
It continued on to discuss what the different myths purported the Chamber to be- some said something evil and vile lay within, the final remains of Slytherin's madness, while others believe that a large collection of Slytherin's grimoires and creations were stashed there, as well as treasures he'd wanted to keep safe. Black mentioned that they themselves didn't think the Chamber existed, since the school had been searched many times by those with an interest in the Slytherin Family, and nothing has ever been found. Black suggested in another footnote that they believed that the term only came about as a sort of joke about students being summoned to Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets when being called to talk to their Head of House or professor, which, Black admitted, sounded like something that they would have done when they were a student.
Tom began to skim again as the author began to describe other areas of the castle that had once existed that had since been removed for one reason or another and the reported personal touches that Slytherin had made. Multiple sources apparently talked at length about how Slytherin made sure there were paintings or sculptures of snakes everywhere in the castle, which Black did say was actually true, but that many of them have since been removed in renovations to the castle, but the legend part came in when many of the sources claimed that each and every painting and sculpture was enchanted, similarly to all of the enchanted portraits and tapestries that occupied so many of the walls in Hogwarts, and that Slytherin had done this in his later years to monitor the students and staff, apparently able to talk to the snakes in parseltongue and that the snakes would divulge what they had witnessed. Black stated that while they had plenty of sources that confirmed the existence of snakes everywhere in the castle during Slytherin's time and directly following it, there was no testimony from a parselmouth that they could find that verified these claims. They also pointed out the widespread decoration was true of all four of the founders' animals, but that while occasionally a painting of a snake or a surviving sculpture or engraving could be found in random places of the castle, the only place that still homed a majority of the original ones created by Slytherin, was in Slytherin House itself.
Tom sat up and immediately looked around the room. There was a healthy number of his housemates out since it was only just post-dinner. Many of them were finishing up homework for the next day or reading or talking with their friends. With so many people around he didn't want to draw attention to himself, so instead of immediately rising to inspect the serpentine decoration he'd grown accustomed to, he stayed in his seat and let his eyes slowly glance around the room.
No one would think it odd that so many decorations of snakes existed within Slytherin House since it was his symbol. He wouldn't doubt there were a comparable amount of lions and ravens in the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Houses, and he'd certainly seen plenty of badgers decorating the Hufflepuff common room when he'd been there.
While some of the snakes were generic-looking, most of them were very detailed and ornate, and he longed to try talking to one of them. He hadn't spoken parseltongue since he'd been at Wool's the previous summer and had coaxed a garden snake out from under one of the chairs in the dining room. Luckily he'd heard it before lunch and before anyone else had noticed it, so he'd been able to safely deposit it outside, but there was little reason to speak a language only he could speak when it would also draw him a lot of attention among his classmates and housemates. Unwanted attention.
He read the rest of the book, finishing it off as he tried to wait out the other students. While most of the younger students began heading to bed before curfew, the older students continued on with their homework and conversations. One of the prefects shot him a hard look when he lingered past nine and he nodded and took the hint, heading for his dorm. While the prefects and staff tended to be lax on the curfew on Fridays and Saturdays, they were usually harsher on school nights, with the older students only getting an extra hour.
The rest of the boys were already in bed- thankfully Nott seemed to already be asleep, and Avery was out as well. Mulciber was reclining in bed reading a novel and only cast the briefest glance at Tom when he entered. Tom returned the glance but said nothing and got ready for bed, taking as long as physically possible before climbing in and closing the bed curtains.
He laid back and while usually, his bed was comfy enough that he had no problems drifting off, that night he laid there- waiting. He could hear the occasional creak on the stairs outside as other boys went to their dorm rooms and eventually Mulciber closed his book, doused the light from his wand, and rolled over and went to sleep.
The time dragged on for what seemed like ages. He knew he needed to sleep, but he also knew he wouldn't be able to until he could test what the book had said. He wondered if Black was a parselmouth, but rather doubted it, since Tom assumed that they would have attempted to verify this themselves if they could, or would have said they were unable to verify it by trying themselves.
Eventually, it had been quiet enough for long enough that Tom felt safe peering out into the hallway. The clock that hung on the wall in their dorm stated it was just after midnight, but Tom couldn't see any lights coming from underneath the doors near him.
Just in case, he trod lightly, taking the stairs as quietly as possible. He knew there were silencing spells, but he hadn't learned any yet and wondered how long it would be until it came up. Until then he just had to be as quiet as humanly possible.
At the best of it, he'd get smacked upside the head and scolded. At the worst of it he'd get a detention, but since he hadn't had to serve any detentions to date, he'd rather avoid it if he could. When he finished climbing the stairs up to the common room, he opened the door a small crack, peering through it to see if anyone was still out there- a prefect or older student breaking curfew perhaps. But he couldn't see much- the room was dark, almost all of the lights were all out and the only reason he could see anything at all was from the red and orange glow of the fireplace and a few of the gently glowing green lanterns that hung suspended from the walls.
Tom looked around, trying to pick out the snakes he'd seen before in the darkness. The ones closest to him caught his attention first. Iron-wrought snakes curled around the fire poker stand, while there were raised etchings of snakes all over the edge of the fireplace.
Now that he was up there, standing there in the common room in his pajamas, he felt just a bit silly. Black certainly hadn't believed it, but if they hadn't tried it themselves, then Tom wanted to give it a go.
"Can you hear me?" He asked quietly, but the moment he said it, he knew it wasn't parseltongue. He blinked, feeling even more stupid- parseltongue had always come naturally from him when he spoke to snakes, it was never a mental switch he'd had to make, but these weren't really snakes in front of him. He paused and took a deep breath and tried again.
"This feels rather silly," he started, knowing every time he heard the words aloud that they were still in the King's English, but he kept quietly talking, trying to force the switch, "But a book said you were all enchanted."
He paused again and closed his eyes. A lot of his professors told him visualization (along with proper pronunciation and wand movements) was the key to making magic work just right.
This time he kept his eyes closed, picturing the snake he'd rescued from the dining room the previous summer. "Can you hear me?"
The moment the words were out, he felt a shiver and opened his eyes- he'd heard the tell-tale undertone of a hiss to the words and there was an odd sort of rustling around him.
The snakes were moving- all of them. It started at the fireplace but then he could hear things all around the room moving, ever so slightly. The etchings in the walls- the paintings and tapestries, and the statues all shifting restlessly- their eyes on him. He was both terrified and amazed.
It had worked.
"Heir of Ssslytherin," several of the snakes on the mantle of the fireplace hissed in unison, sending another shiver up his spine. Black was officially wrong about at least one of the legends. He wondered how many more they were wrong about.
"Hello," He said quietly, looking at the snakes on the mantel that seemed to be directly talking to him. "My name is Tom."
"Tom, Heir of Sslytherin," the snakes hissed. Usually, he was fairly good at reading the emotions of the snakes he encountered, but these were stone and did not give off the same signs and emotions as real snakes. But they were moving slowly, twisting around on themselves- all of the snakes in the room seemed to be fidgeting, refusing to stop moving in their spots and Tom worried it would wake someone- or worse, if someone came up and saw this, what they would think.
"It has been sso long since one of Slytherin's Heirs came to uss," The snakes said, "We have waited here for you to come back to uss."
Tom hesitantly raised a hand and ran his fingers over one of the raised etchings, and the snake responded in kind, hissing happily and without meaning, twisting around so Tom could touch its scales in different places.
"When was the last time one of his Heirs was here?" Tom asked quietly.
"Long ago," the snakes said simply.
Tom shouldn't have been surprised- if the snakes were enchanted and had been stuck in the common room for decades on end without interaction, he could only imagine that time started to blend together. At least the sorting hat had something to do each year. "Are you always watching, even when an Heir isn't at Hogwarts?"
"Yess," the snakes all around him seemed to hiss quietly.
He wished he'd brought the book down with him- if these snakes had once spoken directly to Salazar, they'd likely know more about some of the things than the author had. "Can you still see around the castle?" He asked, instead.
"Ssome places," the snakes hissed, sounding annoyed, "many of us are gone now, but we exist still in some places. Those of uss in the paintings can move anywhere there is a frame."
"That makes sense-" Tom said, given the rest of the enchanted portraits' abilities to move between their neighboring frames. He moved his hand to touch another one of the snakes. They seemed attention-starved, which he certainly understood if they'd been here so long without anyone to talk to.
"Statuess are stuck," the etchings continued, pulsing and rising under his touch. He raised a second hand and he realized all of the etchings in the mantel were surrounding where his hands touched. "But usss, we in the sstone- we can move to any of the stones still enchanted for uss."
"What do you mean still enchanted?" Tom hissed back quietly, confused.
"Slytherin made stones for us to travel through, to come back and forth and deliver news and messages," the snakes hissed, "but after he left they changed things-" the snakes paused, almost hesitating as if they didn't have the words to describe what happened, but Tom thought he understood.
"Stoness were replaced and we could no longer pass through them," the snakes finally hissed, and Tom nodded his head.
"How far can you go outside the common room then?" Tom asked, curious.
"Far enough," the snakes replied simply, and Tom had no clue what that specifically entailed, but it must have been enough of the castle. Maybe it was just specific areas where the entire section of the castle had been renovated. Like-
"Do you know where the Chamber of Secrets is?" Tom asked, the name popping into his head.
The snakes all became excited at the question and the voices all around him echoed, "the chamber."
"Yes, Slytherin's Chamber," Tom repeated calmly, "Do you know where it is and how to get to it?"
"Yess, his solitude, his legacy," the snakes said, having calmed down a little more. "They are in his nest."
"Nest?" Tom asked with confusion and then immediately realized what they meant- "You mean his office?"
"Yesss," the snakes hissed, still overzealously hissing around him, but less so than before.
"Okay, but his office is gone," Tom said, trying to think it through, "So was the entrance moved?"
"No," the snakes hissed, "Still there, still hidden for his heirs to find."
"So it was moved to one of the offices they split his up into?" Tom continued to question, but the snakes didn't seem to know what he was asking, or perhaps they didn't have an answer and didn't want to admit it. If the entirety of the second-floor area where Slytherin's office suite had been was renovated, then these snakes wouldn't likely be able to access the area, and likely had less of an idea, even if they previously had known exactly where it was.
He was still thinking hard about this, the snakes having quieted down somewhat, but still twisting restlessly, when he heard a floorboard creak on the stairs that led to the dormitories. He moved to the side of the fireplace, pressing himself into the edge and becoming as still as possible.
The snakes seemed to read his body language because they all stilled as well, nary a hiss from any of them, but the creak didn't ascend or come closer to the common room door- likely one of the older students shuffling about or going to the loo.
He probably stood there, pressed deathly still against the fireplace for at least five minutes before he allowed himself to breathe and pulled himself away from the wall.
"Thank you," Tom said, raising a hand and touching the etchings, running his hand in an arch over the majority of the snakes carved on the mantle.
"Will you speak to us again?" the snakes hissed, sounding just a bit hopeful.
"Of course," Tom said, finally moving away from the fireplace to examine some of the other sentient charmed snakes through the common room- the snakes that framed the wood on the satin and silk couches eagerly accepted his touch and the statues moved even more realistically than the others. "But not in front of the rest of the house," He added suddenly.
"Why not?" he realized the snakes through the entire common room had been answering this entire time, but it had been quietly enough he'd only heard the ones closest to him. Now it was the snake bookends that propped some of the reference books on the shelf up, and the snake on their house tapestry.
"Because this is my secret," he said simply, and was surprised by the enthusiasm that the snakes immediately showed.
"Oh yess, we are good at secrets," the snake hissed happily.
"Then we shall talk often," Tom said- realizing oddly enough that his cheeks were beginning to ache just a bit from smiling so much.
A/N: Arthur learned his love of muggle technology from SOMEWHERE, OKAY. I just like to think the entire time Septimus is trying to learn about muggle stuff and teach their sons, Cedrella was in the background screaming at him to not break the statue of secrecy. She's loves him, but he's a fucking idiot sometimes.
Also- no, the stone snakes have no idea what Tom means- they don't know what the renovated area looks like because they can no longer access that part of the second floor. So they're kind of just giving him confused shrugs, happy just to have someone to talk to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯