To Ophelia, there seemed a disproportionate amount of cloak and dagger at work to merely have followed Tom to the lady's bathroom. Was it a peculiar destination for a sixteen year old boy to sneak off to in the dead of night? For sure. Did it seem anticlimactic to tail him all the way from the dungeons only to watch him slip into a restroom? Even more so.
Now that she thought about it, she never did ask him why she'd caught him walking out of one those weeks prior. She would have, had Dumbledore not interrupted, and then a thousand more interruptions chased the memory from her mind. Until now.
She paused, ear to the door, listening for any sound. None came. After waiting a minute more to be sure, she pulled lightly down on the handle and crept into the room.
Why was she sneaking? Surely, she had more right to be there than he did? Nonetheless, she chose to err on the side of caution, entirely for no reason, it turned out. He was nowhere to be found. That was not to say, however, that she didn't know where he'd gone. That much was obvious.
The massive gaping abyss in the middle of the room that she was almost entirely certain hadn't been there the last time she'd been inside was some indication. Edging up to it, she looked into the inky darkness only to find... more darkness.
Without any loose objects nearby forthcoming, she tore the top button from her shirt, enchanted it to a weight befitting that of a sizeable brick, and nudged it over the ledge.
She waited, her expression pulling down more and more into a frown the longer she waited without hearing the button thud against the ground.
"Accio button," she whispered, pulling out her wand after some time had passed.
One, two, three, four... nineteen seconds elapsed before the small plastic collided with her cold fingers with a painful whap! All the weight she'd added to make it hopefully land loud enough for her to hear instead created a propulsive force that shot into her hand with enough concentrated power to break bone.
She bit down her yelp, and had enough sense to move her wand to her right hand before waving it wildly in silent agony.
"I'm stronger than a bloody button," she muttered when she had enough self control to open her mouth without cursing loud enough to wake the entire floor. "I will not be defeated by a button of all things."
Shooting said button suspicious glances, she reversed it back to its correct weight and repaired it to its rightful place on her blouse.
Nineteen seconds from wherever it had been to her hand. She was no physicist, but Ophelia felt she could hazard a guess that that was at least a deep enough drop to be a "dead on impact" kind of jump. Which begged the question: had Tom really gone for it? He certainly wasn't anywhere else, so he must have.
Trusting her knowledge of Tom's character just enough to say he wouldn't throw himself into any mysterious holes if he thought it was going to be lethal, she propped herself upon the lip of the tunnel and leapt.
III
Although Ophelia had been prepared to cast a spell to prevent her grisly flattening, it turned out there was no need. The tunnel evened into a slide that dropped her only about a foot off the ground. Could have been worse, even if the grime that now coated her like a second skin was less than ideal. It was of a type that even after she vanished it all away, she could still feel its slickness, despite knowing it was all gone.
"Lumos."
For a moment, the chamber took her breath away. In contrast to the hazardous waste chute that was the tunnel to get there, the actual room was something out of an entirely different age. A different century. A different millennium. Unlit braziers that looked to be solid gold, based on the way they reflected her wandlight, hung at set intervals along the walls, not that Ophelia was foolish enough to light one. Even her meagre wandlight felt like too much as it was.
Reminding herself she didn't jump into a hole of questionable origins for sightseeing, Ophelia pressed forward.
III
"Don't presume to think I will not return you to your slumber if you disobey me any longer," Tom threatened in Parseltongue. "You are nothing to me. I will not have you ruining my plans."
The Basilisk reared it's head back in what would appear to be a menacing way to anyone else. "And you, human boy, presume to order me, king of serpents near and far, on what to do? I could kill now for the insolence! I could-" Abruptly, the beast's massive nostrils flared, and in a near purr, he continued, "I see you have brought me another snack."
Tom, although taken aback by the abrupt change in mood, got over his confusion swiftly. "Of course I didn't. I'm not here to reward your behaviour."
"Nevertheless, a little mouse has foolishly wandered into my lair..."
With no further warning, the Basilisk darted away to the entrance of the chamber as quick as it's massive body would allow. The ground nearby his rolling, weaving frame seemed to tremble with the force of his movement. Tom's searched past the writhing mountain of scales to the point of the beast's focus and his heart stalled, before it stopped beating altogether.
No.
Ophelia. It was impossible. She couldn't be here- shouldn't have been able to get in at all.
"SHUT YOUR EYES!" Tom thundered, not entirely sure to whom the command was directed.
Only when his Basilisk slid to an abrupt halt did he realise how the words had tore from his mouth in a rasping hiss. They felt heavy, as though they held a physical weight in the air, and Tom knew, for the first time with absolute certainty, that the Basilisk would obey. He knew it the same way that he knew if he pricked his finger he would bleed, or that if he ventured outside he'd see stars.
Ophelia was nearly as quick. Where others would have ran away screaming or fainted to a massive snake charging towards them, she lunged to the side, wordlessly conjouring a staggering shockwave. The spell stood no chance against the basilisk's magically enhanced scales, but it's dying ripples nearly lifted Tom off his feet, despite not being in the direct path.
The basilisk whipped its head around, following Ophelia by scent as she ducked away. His forked tasted the air where she'd stood seconds before, ravenously hungering for the first real meal he'd had in centuries.
"Stop," Tom commanded as the creature's muscles tensed to lunge once more.
The same heaviness accompanied the words as before, and the beast tremored, as though fighting against invisible chains wrapping themselves around every inch of the straining, furious serpent.
Ophelia lifted her wand again, but Tom was faster. "Expelliarmus!"
Only as her her wand was torn from her hand did her face turn truly ashen, dots no doubt connecting nefariously as her wide blue and black eyes darted between him and the restrained Basilisk.
Tensing up as though in preparation to run at a moment's notice, her voice came out surprisingly calm, if not a bit tight. "What the hell is this."
Not a question.
"Give. Me. My. Wand," she continued through clenched teeth.
"Not until I explain," Tom said, taking several careful steps forward.
She matched each of them backwards, shaking her head in disbelief. And something else. Distrust. She hadn't looked at him that way in months, not since he'd first proposed their sham friendship.
"Or what? What you going to do to me?"
Tom couldn't mistake that real trace of fear underlying her words, despite the haughty tone. She didn't think he would hurt her, but she didn't know either. Doubts still needled her mind, no matter how adept she was at hiding it, and, unlike before, Tom learned how to see past the many fronts she put up to mask her thoughts that had once kept him in the dark. It wasn't Legilimency; that still proved ineffective. He actually hadn't even attempted to force his way into her mind in... too long. He hadn't even realised he stopped.
"I'm not going to do anything to you," he said warily, surprised to find the words tasted true on his tongue. "We are just going to talk."
She huffed out a laugh, one that said she found nothing remotely funny about the situation. Derisive. Cynical. "About what? I'm no idiot, Tom Riddle. I may have never heard Parseltongue before, but that doesn't mean I can't recognise it! You- and that thing- are behind the attack on that boy, aren't you? What else could have done it?"
Tom twirled their wands absently between his long fingers, her redwood one feeling both foreign and unnaturally warm in his hands, and not in a altogether pleasant way. It resented being stolen from its chosen master.
"Let me explain," he repeated.
"I can't believe I was beginning to trust you! I thought- I thought maybe I was being too paranoid, but I never would have guessed I was not being paranoid enough-"
"I will not beg!" Tom finally snapped, his patience finally at its end. "But I will remind you that I, at least, listened before passing judgement on you and Grindelwald."
Ophelia opened and closed her mouth several times, evidently at a loss for words. With the air of someone already regretting their decision, she ground out, "At least let me have my wand."
"If you promise not to run away screaming the second it's in your hands."
She bristled. "I do not scream."
"You didn't say anything about running," he noted.
"Send your pet away and you have a deal," she said unhappily, holding a hand out expectantly. "For some reason, having blood thirsty monsters breathing over my shoulder is rather distracting."
"Leave us," he commanded, not breaking eye contact with Ophelia as he bridged the gap between them to place her wand in her hand, his fingers lingering a second too long.
She pulled away first, and strode purposefully past him deeper into the newly Basilisk-free Chamber, spinning in a slow circle. "Is this place what I think it is?"
He nodded.
"Then I think you had better start explaining before I change my mind about running away screaming."
His lips twitched. "I thought you said you don't scream."
"Between you and Rubeus, it's a miracle I'm even staying on this continent. How many man-eating monsters can one school have?"
"Better not tell you about the chimaera in the Trophy Room, then," Tom said, deadpan.
She stilled momentarily, as though considering the legitimacy his claim. "Ha. Ha. Very funny."
"I certainly thought so."
"Excuse me, mister Minister of Magic, sir," she said sweetly to an imaginary figure before her, pasting on her best doe-eyed expression, "You would not believe who is behind these strange attacks. Yes, it's actually the perfect Thomas Eustice Abernathy Riddle. I know, he surprised me too. And we all thought so very highly of him." She shook her head with exaggerated solemnity.
Tom was not amused. "That's not even close to my middle name, and you can't just make my first name longer because you feel like it."
"Well, I just did, didn't I?" she retorted wickedly.
Adopting her same over the top humility and ridiculously despairing tone, Tom said, "While you're here, Minister, you might actually find a particular fugitive you've been after. You know, nothing pains me more than this ongoing wizarding war with Grindelwald-"
"Okay, okay, okay, okay!" she cut him off, rolling her eyes. "Mutually assured destruction. Gotcha." She ran her fingers absently along the smooth marble head of a snarling serpentine statue, one of dozens that lined the path leading up to a massive effigy of Salazar Slytherin. Somberly, she peered up at him out of the corner of her eyes, expectantly. "Well? Are going to explain? And it better be one hell of an explanation, because if it isn't I'm going to be breaking down the headmaster's door before you have time to even think 'Obliviate,' let alone say it."
Her joking tone bellied a true threat, and Tom didn't doubt her sincerity. The tightness around her eyes and the way her fingers flexed around her wand, winding and unwinding again and again, spoke volumes.
So he spoke. Starting the very beginning and leaving nothing out, even as he sometimes itched to gloss over the less glamorous aspects of his life, he stayed the course. Under any other circumstances, he would have undoubtedly balked at the idea of sharing so much with anyone. What business was it of others to know about his life? Yet, there was a sense of familiarity in Ophelia that drew him in, like a kindred spirit. She, too, was an orphan, shadowed by the legacy of near-legendary relatives, and hiding her true capabilities in order to blend in, but, whereas Tom was driven forward by a grand sense of purpose, she was suspended in time, too afraid to go forward and too conflicted to turn back while the grains of time enveloped her in their unforgiving embrace and threatened to swallow her whole.
And, not an inconsiderable part of him, felt a thrilling surge of satisfaction at the fact that another would finally see him as he was: the heir to the one of the greatest wizard's to ever live.
When he finished explaining how he'd found the chamber and it's unwilling inhabitant, detailing with an excessive emphasis how he had not ordered the attacks on the various pets and that student, she frowned and asked, "I still don't see why I shouldn't tell someone. If you can't control it-"
"I can," he cut in smoothly. "I wasn't properly... motivated before, but I can control him now. After all, if I couldn't, you would have dearly regretted following me here."
"I can't deny that," she said, grimacing. "I probably taste delicious."
"Don't give yourself too much credit. He eats rats."
Looking offended, she crossed her arms and assured him, "I'll have you know, I taste much better than a rodent."
"You are taking this rather well," he observed suspiciously, shaking his head at the ridiculous turn their conversation had taken.
"No." She laid back on the chamber floor and stared fixedly at the ceiling. "I most certainly am not taking this well, thank you very much, but it's too early in the morning to feel actual human emotions. Check up with me again in like four hours and I'm sure you'll find me properly distressed."
"I see."
"I won't say a word," she decided slowly, after a few minutes heavy silence. Tom looked at her sharply and she continued, "I won't say a word, but I swear, Tom, if I hear that so much as Hagrid's horrible, awful pet spider dies mysteriously, or even a tadpole, I'm telling Professor Dumbledore."
"That won't happen. I told you, I'm in control now."
"What changed?"
Tom raised an eyebrow, asking her to elaborate.
"You couldn't control it this morning. What's changed since then?"
The question was in earnest, but Tom couldn't answer her. Even as the dim torch illuminated her face, her eyes, and he felt something foreign stir in his chest, he knew he couldn't- wouldn't- say. To admit it to himself was poison, but to admit it to her would be a dagger he handed her to stab him in the chest.
He found something he couldn't stand to lose. That's what changed, what awakened in him the ability to control the Basilisk. He didn't want her to die.
Instead, he simply answered, "I don't know."
Thankfully, for once, she didn't see through the lie and accepted his response easily.