The small church Tom was forced to attend as a child had a basement that was always flooded. On hot summer days, you could smell it from under yourself and do nothing to escape it short of standing up and walking right out of the service (which he was caught doing once). He had never been down there personally (to his recollection), but he imagines it's something like this. Something like that.
Bones cracking under his feet, snapping. Clanking and crushed. Sickening. Like when the bones of his roast chicken snap under his eager, hungry fingers. The only respite is the knowledge that these bones are not human: his lumos maxima shows that. Reptilian, avian, rodent skeletons all litter the floor of the dungeon-like caverns the way dust coats many of the books in the Restricted Section.
Tom holds out his hand to steady himself on something, anything. His hand is met with a mossy wall. If he grips his hand into a fist, it comes off in clumps and squeezes cold water down his fingers and wrist. The air is dank. Wet. Full of echos and water. A cold breeze from some faraway opening creeps into the pipes. An entirely unique environment than just meters above him.
He wonders how long it will be until this area floods.
The pipes below the girl's bathroom are absurdly large. As if they were meant to be tunnels before the installation of plumbing, for some other place in the castle. Though marred with age, the stonework on the walls is solid and well done. As if it were meant to be seen, not hidden. It only makes the state of disarray all the more dreadful: amplified by the atmosphere of abandonment.
Tom walks on.
An impassive stone door, twice as tall as he, stands at the end of this corridor. There are two snakes intertwined with each other delicately carved into the cold stone, their eyes set with emeralds glittering from his lumos. Untouched, as opposed to the emblem on the sinks above him. Every last detail on their scales and head as crisp and perfect as the day they were made.
His free hand runs up along the bodies of the serpents, long ago memories of dueling and his first year come to him. Memories of wonderful magic being displayed before him[1]. The glow from his lumos makes the emerald eyes feel alive. Gleaming down at him, expecting him.
Tom tells the door to open. Hisses at it in the language of his ancestors, and it obeys him. And he knows that he is meant to be here. That this place is meant for him. Only him.
The chamber revealed by the door is as ostentatious as the portraits of Slytherin in the castle. As the gaudiness of the commonroom and as the flamboyant as many of the snake motifs around the dungeons. It's an altar, if anything, to some unknown cavernous god. Tall pillars rising into a ceiling so tall he cannot see it, embellished with more coiling snakes. A horde of them. An army, if he wants to try and be delphic[2]. He wonders if they move at his command. If they can come alive all at once and follow his every order.
At the end of the long chamber is a statue. Tremendous and imposing. It looks nothing like any of the portraits of his ancestor, and yet he knows it must be him. A statue of Salazar Slytherin as tall as his eye can see: young and brooding. Looking every bit the dark wizard Tom's made him out to be in his head. If he tries, he can see great resemblance, despite the generations of wizards in between them. He'd go as far as to say that they look like grandfather and grandchild.
He presses his lips together. Wets them. Speaks. «Awaken.»
His heart is beating violently in his throat, and he remembers the last time it's done this, it was when he was first pushed into the bomb shelter with the other children: fearful and crying and shaking, and he is not crying though he is certainly trembling with something like fear...But it is tinted with something much sweeter, it is the taste of anticipation and—
Nothing happens.
He tries again.
«Arise.»
Only his echoes reflect back to him.
«Come.»
The snakes on the pillars do not shift. His fingers twitch.
It is not just an empty chamber, it can't be. The blood in his veins wouldn't be rushing if it were. The gooseskin rising on the back of his neck wouldn't be tingling. The magic in his soul wouldn't be so tumultuous. Though it sits untouched, dusty, and dank for who knows how long, the chamber trills him. Soul and Magic. Body and Soul. It is treasure underneath the grounds of Hogwarts, hidden for all this time. All for him. Waiting for him. His secret to uncover. All of this and it's just an empty room? All of Corvinus Gaunt's scribbled, frantic searches for the heirloom and it's nothing?
The words come out desperate. Pleading. Demanding. Between submission and domination. He speaks to the chamber. To the statue of his ancestor. To the generations of wizards that have brought him here. «Speak to me! Slytherin! Greatest of the Hogwarts Four!»
Silence. And then:
The statue's mouth opens. Wider and wider, at an impossible degree for a human to do. The sight is grotesque and uncanny but that is not what makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand: something long and thick uncoils itself and drips out of Salazar's mouth. Hits the ground heavy, slithering toward Tom.
It is a basilisk.
His eyes meet with the ground, though the rest of his posture stays confident. Almost arrogant, if he were another person. Tom knows he is a formidable wizard, but the stare of the Basilisk is lethal. He would be left alone in this chamber to rot and no one would be the wiser. He needs a plan. He has his wand and his wit and he will not be killed, not here—
«You summoned me.» The voice isn't spoken so much as echoed in his mind. «You are a speaker.» The great beast hisses at him. In parsel. It shouldn't surprise him so, to know that the king of serpents speaks the same tongue as its lessers, but it does. He feels as if he had just heard King George speak in cockney. «It has been a long time since the last speaker.»
He's terrified. His hands tremble and there's sweat crawling down the side of his head, as itching as an insect, but he does not dare wipe it away. His stomach has morphed into a spiral, ever-tightening and building pressure in his gut.
«Be not afraid snakelet. Arise. I obey only the kin of my master.»
Tom still trembles. But with it is that spect of anticipation again. Of disbelief. It is meant for him. All of this. This chamber and this monster. Who only obeys the kin of her master. Her master. His ancestor.
He swallows the anxiety in his throat. Choses his words to the beast carefully.
«I am the heir of Slytherin.» It feels glorious to say it out loud. To an audience. «Will I not perish if I meet your gaze?»
He can see the rough exterior of the basilisk from his periphery. She is close. He would have been eaten if he were anyone else. «My eyes do not hurt my kind.»
My kind. As if he were a beast himself. What did Ximena tell him about the origins of Parsel in man? He can't remember. All he can focus on is his own thundering heartbeat. He raises his chin upwards.
The king of serpents (or rather, queen) is hideous in the most wonderful of ways. A great monster to strike fear into the souls of man, an excellent nightmare to use as a cautionary tale against treason. She is a viper the size of a tall oak tree, perhaps sixty meters long, it's hard to tell with her body coiled up. Her eyes, indeed, do not kill him, though he stays looking at the bridge between them, just in case. «I am not your kind. How does this possible?»
The basilisk nods her blunt head, and for a moment, Tom is reminded of the Matron at Wool's. Of Professor Merrythought. Of Señora Rivera and Doña Inés. Her movements are sagely. As if he really were some hatchling asking her all the questions she expects to hear.
Their talk is long. The basilisk has pauses in her speech often, the deep sleep from which Tom awoke her from still affecting her. As tempting as it is for him to look into her mind, he knows better. Not until he has a guarantee that death will not become him upon looking her in the eyes.
The snakes in the garden have never been as interesting as this. Their lives are short and cut by the people and motorcars in the street. The basilisk has lived for a thousand years, at least, having hatched under the watchful eye of a young Salazar Slytherin. «He was younger than you, even. Eight springs old.»
Tom tries to remember what it was like being eight, but the more he tries, the more he wants to stop. That's behind him now. It doesn't matter if he would have done the same had he access to his magical heritage. It doesn't matter if he wonders whether he was anything like Salazar at that age.
But the basilisk tells him that anyways. That they share the same black hair and sullen look. That Salazar too, was too curious for his own good and often discovered great things without always meaning to. That their way of speaking is alike and how they carried themselves is uncannily similar.
And it doesn't matter. None of this matters, he didn't ask for any of it. It does not bring him satisfaction or joy or fulfillment to know that he has a connection with someone, however far. However dead. That he can look at a statue, a portrait, of a relative and see himself in them. Rubbish. Sentimental poppycock.
Tom asks about her purpose. Why is she here? Why has she been hidden? Does anyone else know she is here?
«I was placed here to protect the students.» Pride glows in her words, «From the dangers of Muggles and their kin.»
He raises a brow. Muggles? A threat to wizards? There were burnings, yes. Hangings and drownings and stoning to death. But on actual magical people?
«You doubt me.» The disappointment reminds him once again of the women in his life. «You do not know of what life was before the school of my master. Of the dangers of simply existing.»
He does not, but he does not like being treated like an idiot. All that was written in Hogwarts: A History was that education was not standardized. An over-simplification, he knows, but he could never find more on it.
«Muggles are weak.» Were weak. Nowadays, however... «How could they harm real magicians?»
Perhaps he truly is more arrogant than he would like to believe. The basilisk tells him of the poorer magical folk: those without means to learn or study. To afford wands that obeyed them as opposed to inherited wands that were little more useful than the ice lolly sticks mass-produced today. How easy it was to kill them. How hard it was for her master to stand and watch as his people were murdered.
«Even their own children. The Muggles would butcher them, claim them to be changelings. Mothers drowning their young in rivers. Fathers taking them out into the woods to die. How could my master trust any Magbob that entered the school when there were so many who wished those children harm?»
Salazar's distrust was warranted. Even today, Tom hears horror stories about the Muggleborn students and their uneasy families. In an age where witchhunts are a thing of the past, and science and reason dominate over silly religious superstitions. He, himself, was prayed over once, by a priest: an attempt to extract influences of the devil from him. It had not gotten so far as drowning, though, because by then he had learned to keep that side of him quiet.
But not everyone can do that.
«My forefather's cause was just.» A pause. «But if you were placed here to protect us, why are you a secret?» Why isn't this chamber known to all? Why was it never taught? Why is there no mention of it in any of the history books?
«My master's brood did not agree with him.» There's venom in her hiss, as moronic as that sounds. «They refused to see the danger. Refused to see how the Magbobs put us all at risk.»
Of course. The fools. This must be the famous disagreement that led Salazar to leave Hogwarts. «So he left.»
The basilisk inclines her head: a movement that looks more humanlike everytime he sees it.
Outrage! The injustice of it all... Salazar was the champion of students and their safety, worrying over their lives as a teacher should. As any adult should. Caring for the children while no other did... He's disgusted.
In his first year, his ex-mentor told him that Muggleborns cannot be sorted into Slytherin. Years later, Cygnus told him that exceptions are made for Muggleborns with the right mindset. Both theories sounded ridiculous at the time: made up and supported with nothing but confirmation bias. But now that he listens to the real history. The events that transpired in the past. He can believe it. That Muggleborns are kept out of Slytherin. Those unworthy of the name wizard. Not due to skill or ability, but due to loyalty. Which world will they choose, at the end of it all?
'--There's no evidence for a mudblood being in Slytherin, but would you expect to find proof if there was one? The hat knows what it's doing...Salazar himself took in half-bloods during his time here--Provided, of course, that they renounce their Muggle side and all. And the hat thinks like him, right? Alongside the other founders, so it rests his judgment on everyone.' [3]
He understands, now.
That the organization Corvinus planned in his diary was meant to dispose of the muck in school. That the basilisk was placed here by his ancestor to kill. That they both meant for him to pick up the reigns and finish their work.
Tom thinks about the Muggleborns in the school. About Martha, who looks lonely without Ximena at her side in classes. About the mute Ravenclaw that matches his wit in Charms. About Elle, who writes to him as much as she can, struggling to keep positive despite everything.
He thinks about the purebloods in the school. About Katux, who upon first glance and without merit deemed Tom unworthy. About his ex-mentor, who wouldn't have taken him under his wing if he suspected that he were anything less than half pure. About Slughorn, who looked over him upon immediate mention of his family name, and stayed ignorant of Tom until he demanded his attention with superior grades.
He thinks about the Muggle caretaker at Wool's who disappeared when he was young.
His chin lifts, «You obey me only.» It is a question and a confirmation. The basilisk hisses her agreement. «Even if my purpose differs from your master?»
If a basilisk could have a curious look, the one before him wears it now. He supposes that's somewhat fair: most wizards seem to be obsessed with legacy and the goals of their predecessors.
But he is not like other wizards.
«My enemies are greater than mere Muggles and their brood.» They always have been. He was just unable to see it. «Their time will come. But my reckoning is after those who ignore the suffering of others.»
The war will take out many Muggles. It will also take out witches like him. Cursed to live away from their kind. With no one to help. With no protegos inside their bomb shelters and no magical feasts that appear before their very eyes. No houselves to pick up after them, no resources at all. Not even permission to use the very thing that they were born with. The thing that makes them special. It's illegal. It could get them expelled. Taken away from the very place where they belong. The only place that Tom has ever called h--
He is trembling again. In exquisite anger. In ferocious righteousness. His right hand tight in a fist so compact that his knuckles are white.
«No flesh shall be spared.»[4]
---
[1] "A small branch, perhaps about 25 centimeters, with sprigs of leaves appearing to be growing out of it. Two thick and stiff vines intertwining together. To Tom, it looked like two green snakes coiling around each other." -Chapter 2: His Observation
[2] "Relating to the ancient Greek oracle at Delphi. (typically of a pronouncement) deliberately obscure or ambiguous." I wanted to use the word delphic to mean that Tom wants this all to be a sign that he'll have an army at his disposal one day/soon. Prophetic, in other words. Pretentious in truer words.
[3] Cygnus recites this to Tom in Chapter 19: AWOL
[4] Mark 13:20
Re-reading Chamber of Secrets was interesting because canon Tom is such a brat. Also, he apparently had researched for five years in order to find the chamber, so canon Tom knew about it since he was 12? Interesting. When I rewrite Serpentine one day, I'd like to clean up bits like that.
My personal playbys for young Salazar are Taner Ölmez and Aneurin Barnard (I also write him as a muse on tumblr roleplay--as well as his wife), if anyone's curious.
LMR has been updated with moodboards and character/shipping playlists. I plan on writing a Cinderella parody/au for it soon... Stay tuned for that.
Jac didn't look over this chapter because she's going to London for her overseas studies!!! gl jac!!