A Note: I have made some modifications to the original scene the Harry Potter books to accommodate the storyline.
...............................................
"Some where inside me there always will be the person I am tonight."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night
......................................................
Abigail passes by the bathroom, hearing a soft sob from within.
She peeks inside.
"Who is this? You okay?" She asks, whispering lumos underneath her breathe.
"Wh-Who is this? Are you coming to make-make fun of me again?" A voice sobbed.
"No. Myrtle, It's me, Abigail. Are you alright? Do you need anything?"
In truth, Abigail felt immensely sorry for the girl. Abigail understood what it felt like to be singled out, picked on, and made to feel worthless.
"Abi-Abigail Wool? The first year?"
"Yeah. That's me. Do you want to talk about anything? Come out. I have a chocolate frog here. Do you want it?" Abigail called, digging through her book bag.
Chocolate always made Abigail feel better.
"Oh. Oh-okay."
Myrtle opens the stall, revealing the tear-streaked, pimple dotted face of a slightly-overweight teenager.
She wiped her thick glasses on her robes, putting them back on and giving Abigail a small, timid smile.
Abigail steps inside the stall, sitting on the floor.
"You're going to be alright? They're just mean, you know. Don't take it to heart." She said, handing Myrtle the frog.
"I dunno. It's always been like this, you know. I-I mean, I don't know why. Why?"
"I don't know either. Why do people do bad things to other people anyways? My mama told me that people were cruel because they had something broken inside, like bad parts in a train engine. They need to fill that gap somehow." Abigail said, her mind traveling back to Miranda's words. In her young, naive mind, she failed to fathom the tremendous magnitude of malice that existed in this world. She failed to consider the capability of the human evil to destroy, to havoc.
"Who is that?" Myrtle said, her voice now high from fear.
Someone had entered the room. They were no longer alone.
"Be quiet." Myrtle said to Abigail. Abigail nodded, pressing her lips together in fear.
"Why are you in the girls bathroom? Hey! Why are you-" Myrtle said, her voice fading.
Suddenly, Abigail felt a piercing coldness seep in to the room. The light on her wand dimmed.
"Lumos." She said again, to no effect.
A figure stood behind her, whispering in tongues.
Myrtle shrieked, stepping back.
"Do-don't turn around." Myrtle said, her voice trembling.
Abigail drew in her breath, her body freezing.
Myrtle opens the door, and falls to the ground, without a single sound.
Abigail shrieks, shaking Myrtle's cold body.
Abigail turned around, face to face with the Basilisk.
The yellow eyes hungered, lusted for more blood. It moved closer to her, it's great body shifting near.
Can I take her? The other girl. She's not a mud blood. But can I still take her? Master?
The snake whispered, asking for it's master's approval.
Tom grants his approval. Hell, what difference would it make?
Abigail was cornered, frozen.
Her voice was caught in her throat, preventing her scream from reaching into the air.
Riddle looked away.
The Basilisk reached ever closer, coiling around her riding body.
Abigail felt the sharp scales own her skin, stabbing through her delicate flesh.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Was this her last breathe, last look?
Tom Riddle looks up in the yellow light, staring right into her hazel eyes. She sees him, her angel.
His eyes widen suddenly, seeing finally who this other girl was.
This was not part of the plan. No.
It was too late. Her blood was already on its scales, on the tip of its tongue.
Even Tom Riddle could not control a hungry, bloodthirsty Basilisk with fresh prey in its clutches.
He lunges, grabbing the Basilisk, stabbing it with his wand, yelling at it to stop.
Using a powerful spell, he temporarily stuns the great snake.
He grabs her from it's clutch of death, holding her in his strong arms. She opens her eyes, expecting death to greet her. She smiles, seeing his face, peering over her in intensity.
If this was death, then perhaps it wasn't so bad.
He shakes her, screaming.
Seeing her doe eyes, a deer in the yellow lights of the snake, shook him to his core. He could not lose her. He had not kept his promise of protecting her.
She was the one thing he couldn't afford to lose.
She belonged to him, and no one, nothing could ever touch her.
...............................................
Abigail opens her eyes, adjusting to the light.
She lied on a bed of rock.
She groans, her lips dry, her throat clutched.
He turned around, sitting down next to her, propping her up against his chest.
"Tom.....Tom. I knew you would save me. I knew you would." She whispered, leaning against that warm, familiar chest. She was home again, for the first time in a long time.
He held her head against his chest, pressing his lips softly on her hair.
"You could've died. What were you thinking?"
"I'm alive, aren't I? How is Myrtle? Is she fine? Did you save her too?" She said weakly, looking into his dark eyes.
He did not say anything, only drawing her in closer. Warmer.
"What about Myrtle? Is she okay now?" She asked again, alarmed.
Tom gently bends her head away from the corpse lying in the corner, not wanting her to see the ghastly sight.
"What is it?" She asked, anxious now. No. It was not possible.
"Myrtle? She's dead." Tom said curtly, dismissing it as if it were casual banter.
Abigail gasped in horror, her thin body shaking now.
"What happen to her? Can we still save her? Isn't there some kind of potion, some kind of magic-some kind of-" Abigail cried violently, tears rolling from her eyes. She had never seen death in another before, and could not bear to witness it.
"Abi. Abi, listen to me. Nothing can bring back the dead." Tom said, shaking her back to the real world, away from her trance.
"It's my fault, isn't it? If i hadn't come in here...If I hadn't talked to her.." Abigail wailed, her small hands digging deeper and deeper into Tom Riddle's robes.
Her innocence, her colossally brilliant yet magnificently foolish sense of kindness still amazed him.
She was his antithesis.
To Tom Riddle, the death of some forgotten, bullied girl in a cold bathroom was nothing. But to her, it was everything.
"It's alright. It's nothing, Abi. Nothing. Look away now, she isn't so pretty." Tom whispered, shielding Abigail's eyes with his arms, drawing her close in, until her ear pressed against his heartbeat.
The rhythm of his heartbeat seemed to calm her, and she breathed, again.
"The snake....where did it come from? Did it hurt you, Tom?"
"No. It didn't hurt me. I'm fine. But you....." He said, taking a slender finger to stroke her bloodied cheeks. The snake's scales had teared apart her delicate skin, leaving blood. He took in her bruised, batter hands. The scars on her legs from quidditch. The dark rings under her bright eyes. The fresh wounds on her body.
"Where did it come from?" She whispered, holding on to his hand.
"I called it." He said, seeing the words land on the solid stone, the look on her face.
"No." She said, shaking her head, denying the possibility that he was capable of hurting Myrtle. Of hurting her.
"Yes, Abigail." He said, letting go of her and standing up to his full height.
Suddenly, Abigail saw another projection of Riddle, one she had never seen before, not in its full scale. Before, she had caught mere glimpses of it in an injured, resigned boy, full of anger, full of vengeance. She had caught silvers of this ambition, this darkness before.
But in her earnest devotion, she believed it to be a mere trick of the light, a mere manisfestation of the hard times.
He was an angel, after all. Angels weren't capable of murder, of destruction.
"I called it today. I killed Myrtle." Tom said, mustering a cold, empty laugh.
"No. No." She whispered, trying to stand up, but unable.
"You see, it's me. It's the Basilisk, and I called on it, to purge the castle of all mud bloods."
Abigail clutched to his robes, refusing to believe, refusing to let go.
"Mud bloods?" She had heard the derogatory term before. She heard someone calling Myrtle that, but she did not understand tis meaning.
"Muggle-borns, Abigail."
"Like me?" Abigail asked.
"No. You're not a muggle born. You're a half-blood." Tom Riddle told her sharply.
"What does it matter?"
He laughs.
"Of course it does."
"I'll send you to Madame Earnhart. Tell her you've slipped down a flight of stairs. She'll believe you."
And then, he would leave her again, like nothing ever happened.....
"No." Abigail said, making her voice as assertive as she could.
"Leave, Abigail." Tom said, turning his back to her.
"Why?" She asked.
"Leave, Abigail. Leave."
She grabs on to his robes, but he pries her hands off.
"If you hated me this much, why did you save me, why didn't you just let me die?" She asked, her voice so quiet.
He froze.
Tom Riddle certainly had all the hate in the world. But it wasn't for her.
"Get away, Abigail. Get away from me."
"Why?" She asked again, the tears falling.
"It's best this way."
"Best? Best? Tom Riddle, who do you think you are? Why do you get to leave whenever you want without giving me an answer?"
Riddle turns around, seeing the small, sobbing girl on the floor.
"I'm a murderer. I kill people, Abigail. I destroy things. Look at Myrtle. There will be more of them, I promise you. And I don't care. I enjoy it, even." he laughs, cold, still as empty. "Stay away from me, if you know what's good for you."
Does she? If she knew what was good for her, she would run away, as far as she could. She would chain herself to the wall if she had to, just to stay away from Tom Riddle. Had she turned away, rationalized, she would have spared herself a lifetime of misery, of a love never quite right, yet perfect in all the wrong ways.
Even in her twelve year old mind, she could not find that painfully obvious reason to turn away.
"You're good for me." She said, looking into those dark, powerful eyes, wizened far beyond his age.
"I'm not the same person anymore, Abigail. I've changed."
"I don't care. You're Tom Riddle. Now, then, and forever." She said, standing up, facing him.
"I've killed."
"You didn't mean to. It was an accident." She said softly, her voice hanging gently in the cool air. She bit back all reservations. More so, she tried to convince herself.
All her life, she had followed behind him. She did not know what she would do if he wasn't there, guiding her, accompanying her. These years, parts of him melted into her, unbreakable. She no longer could separate the pieces of him inside from her own.
Without him, she lost her direction.
In her ever-lasting optimism, she hoped to change him, even. Guide him down the correct path, steer him away from the darkness. Surely the angels would guide him.
Only, the darkness had already engulfed him, ever since the days of the orphanage. Only she could not see it.
Suddenly, he could do this no longer. No longer could he keep her at a distance, watching her slowly destroy herself.
What would he become, if he couldn't even protect her?
"Aren't you scared of me? You should be." He asks.
"No. Never."
He helped her up, staring at the old scars on her arms. Thomas Lind's needles in the nursery.
"Stupid girl. Do you know what you're doing, Abigail? My world is not for you."
But he was her world.
" I know, Tom. I know."
"Don't be stupid, Abigail. How many times do I need to tell you that?" he said, pinching her cheek lightly.
She smiled, her heart warming at his cold touch.