evelynn | t.riddle

21 | SERPENT'S TREASURE

TOM SMIRKS AS EVELYNN'S EYES WIDEN IN SHOCK... at the stairs built into the tunnel. "You didn't seriously...wait, never mind, you slid down there the whole way."

Evelynn gives him a mock glare, saying, "Well, it's not like I could've known! There wasn't exactly a note anywhere saying 'there are stairs built into the secret entrance' or anything!" Add to it that they were a little pressed for time- the school was going to close in mere hours- and they had a cowardly fraud with them, and she probably would've decided to slide down anyway.

Tom shakes his head, saying, "I found the Chamber while you were unconscious but haven't done anything regarding it yet beyond piling up the endless shed skin lying everywhere into a corner." He was so glad he muttered about wishing there were stairs. It was pure luck that they reacted to the word- not that he's ever admitting to it.

Evelynn nearly trips on a stair at that point, but Tom manages to catch her before she falls below - she may be immortal, but he's not eager to test that state of things. "What?! You mean you've got...what did you do with it?! All the shed skins?!"

Tom looks confused, even as he steadies Evelynn, keeps her away from the edge, and says, "Piled it up in a corner at the time. I hadn't yet learned the Banishing Charm. That was only last we-"

"Don't Banish it! Tom, that- I'll explain when we're down there!"

Thankfully, the stairs have something much like a reversed Expansion Charm on them - it compresses the space into the...twenty or so steps they have to walk down. Because she's looking too urgent and hasty for it not to be something big, and Tom's more than a little curious now.

When they reach the bottom, Evelynn chuckles and says, "This looks familiar. Bones and all. Open."

Tom asks, "Why shouldn't I eliminate all the Basilisk skin? Your reaction suggests there's an excellent reason."

Evelynn glances at him, asking, "Tom? How much do you know about Basilisks?"

He frowned at her, saying, "Everything I could read up on them after I found the Chamber and met Salazar's. Why?"

"Well, here's what most of the Wizarding World knows. Gigantic, extremely dangerous...and the Potion ingredients that one can harvest from them - don't give me that look, listen! - such as shed skin and venom are worth a bloody fortune."

Tom's furious glare disappears when he realizes she's not suggesting they kill the Basilisk, a connection to his ancestor, for potion ingredients... and then the implications hit him. "Bloody Merlin!" He doesn't usually swear, ever- he thinks it is a foul habit for lesser people, and has worked somewhat hard to keep his vocabulary clean even if his actions aren't so clean even now - but this is... this is almost as big as Evelynn's 'everything.'

Evelynn glances at him and asks, "Just how much Basilisk Skin was there when you got down here?" Tom doesn't usually swear, so this has got to be excellent. She's yet to hear him even lightly swear, even in Parseltongue.

"The piles were all taller than I am, Evelynn. And there were quite a few piles. Now it's a veritable mountain." The look on her face is priceless, absolutely priceless.

"A thousand years, and if it shed even just one a year...oh. My. Bloody. Merlin..." Tom quickly leads her into the Chamber, showing her the not-so-small mountain of Basilisk skin. Evelynn's legs give out under her, her eyes wide as she stares at the gigantic pile of shed basilisk skin. "That... that wasn't there last time I was here..." Evidently, he Banished them - and again, via Ginny, in her Second Year.

Tom sits beside her before his legs give out, and he asks, "Just how much was something like Basilisk Skin worth in your time?"

Evelynn shrugs, saying, "I don't know. I never knew it was worth anything until I mentioned it to Griphook in my Seventh year at the Shell Cottage. Rather, what should've been my seventh year? He asked what happened to the sword because it wasn't just Goblin Silver any longer. He was utterly amazed I'd...well, you know, survived. Gryffindor's sword had become infused with Basilisk Venom, making it worth more than most of the vaults in Gringotts had at the time. And then he asked what I did with...you know, the rest." She glances at the wall, clearly trying to put the death of a thousand-year-old Basilisk for Tom delicately. Something he appreciates, given the detail that it's Slytherin's own Basilisk.