Chapter 20 - Specter Battles and Discoveries

Written by Nemesis

Sighing heavily, Tom turned the dusty parchment page of the manuscript, squinting to see the letters. He really should have been wearing his reading glasses, but he had accidentally left them up in his dormitory and was in no mood to be bothered at getting them. He leaned in close to the musty-smelling pages, eyes alert for anything that might be of aid. Every so often, Tom would dip his quill in his ink bottle and scribble down another note, but aside from that, he just read.

It was October of 1947, nearly a whole year after Lili had died. Tom had changed dramatically since then, both physically and in character. He was even taller, though his growth rate seemed to be slowing down at last, and his features were rather more defined than they had been. But this was not nearly as striking as the changes that had occurred in his mind.

Tom had spent the last ten months in a sort of haze. Right after he first fully comprehended what had happened, that old anguish had started to set in. Not wanting to feel that again, Tom forced his sorrow into anger. Though he knew it was bizarre to blame Muggles this time, he had grown used to the idea that Muggles caused all of the world's problems, and he had become obsessed with finding out everything about the Chamber of Secrets. He hoped if he got enough information, he might be able to find the Heir and get him to work with him. He had so much anger in him that he had to make someone suffer, and he did not care how many Muggle-borns he had to hurt or kill in the process. As long as their Muggle parents were miserable, that was all he cared about. Tom had become so manic-depressive that his friends were starting to grow afraid of him. Good, he had thought, he wanted people to fear him.

With a slight groan of exasperation, Tom slammed the book shut. It was no use, the silly thing had absolutely no information. Tom ran a hand through his hair and opened the next book, his prefect badge catching the light and glinting angrily silver in the dim library. Mr. Lamont gave him an irritable look, and Tom responded with a forced smile. In his eyes, Squibs were just the same as Muggles, if not worse.

There was a sudden booming noise, and moments later, Rubeus emerged around the bookshelves. He looked tired. "Hello," Tom said softly. Rubeus whirled gracelessly and stared.

"Tom! Yeh--yeh gave me a frigh'… what're yeh doin'?"

"Studying," Tom replied. "You?"

Rubeus looked a little uncomfortable. "I'm tryin' ter find summat on what ter feed a thousan' kilo spider. Aragog's been askin' fer some real food… seems ter think that mush isn' good enough anymore."

Tom coughed. It seemed to him that the spider probably wanted to eat a human, but he did not voice this opinion. "Good luck with that, Rubeus," he responded kindly, though in his mind he was picturing an enormous spider rampaging through the hallways. He smiled a little when he imagined it ripping Philip Cedric up into little pieces and gobbling him up, and smiled even wider when he pictured Francis Malfoy meeting this fate.

Rubeus gave Tom a funny look. "Yeh all righ', Tom?" he asked curiously. "Yeh look a li'l bit peaked, and yeh're smilin' like summat's funny but nothin' is."

"Hmmm?" Tom asked, a little angry at being jerked away from his daydream about his enemies' demises.

"Yeh haven' been gettin' much sleep, have yeh?" Rubeus asked, concerned. "Why don' yeh go ter sleep? Yeh can study later, yeh've got all weekend."

Tom felt a retort tingling on the tip of his tongue, but seeing as Rubeus was a good two feet taller and four times wider than he was, Tom was not exactly willing to argue. "Very well," he said with false submission, discreetly shoving a few books into his bookbag. "Good night, Rubeus."

Rubeus grinned in response and started scavenging about in the animal care section, while Tom got up slowly and strode out of the library. Wrapped up in his thoughts, Tom paid no attention to where he was going and crashed into someone on his way up the stairs to the tower. "Pardon," he muttered without looking up.

"Tom?" came Professor Dumbledore's voice. Tom stopped dead in his tracks and looked up, wide-eyed. Dumbledore was giving him a scrutinizing look. "Is everything all right?" he asked. "You look asleep on your feet."

"I'm fine," Tom squeaked, his stomach lurching.

Professor Dumbledore's eyes narrowed a bit, and he nodded once. "You need to cut back on the studying," he said simply. "You may be excused, Mr. Riddle."

Tom gratefully ducked out of the hallway and dashed for the portrait hole, heart beating very quickly. He had always got the impression that Professor Dumbledore either thought he was mad or disliked him, but of late, Tom knew it. Dumbledore always took a long time to answer Tom's questions as though they were suspicious questions to ask, and whenever he looked at the boy his eyes would go strangely flinty. Tom was positive that Dumbledore suspected Tom was studying more than just schoolwork, but the teacher never let on. It got rather exasperating after a while.

With a heavy sigh, Tom solemnly gave the password to the painting of the wood nymph. The painting swung aside and Tom entered, looking around the common room. It was entirely empty, perfect for studying. He seated himself at one of the tables and took out a book he had borrowed from the Restricted Section. He summoned his reading glasses, put them on, and started reading.

"Up late, aren't we?" asked a sudden, cold voice. Tom whirled around to find the speaker, and Francis Malfoy looked over the back of his armchair mildly. Aside from growing a little nastier, he had not changed one jot. "Practicing your suicidal soliloquies, Hamlet?" he asked, smirking.

Taking off his glasses calmly, Tom told Francis to do something that he would never have dared to say in front of Dumbledore. Francis just smirked wider.

"I'll wait on that until you tell me what you're up to," he said cheerfully. "Oh, I get it… moping over your beloved Lili?"

Earlier on in his life, Tom would have cursed Francis promptly, but Tom simply drew out his wand, eyeing Francis slowly, waiting for further provocation. "What of it?" he demanded.

Francis shrugged. "Well, she was a pureblood… I thought your people respected us purebloods enough not to sigh about us and daydream about what may have been."

Tom's eyes narrowed. "Anyone, pureblood or no, who daydreams about you, must have very serious mental problems. Now for your information, Francis, I am studying and I would prefer if you shut your face so that I can continue."

"Make me, Mudblood," Francis said carelessly.

Tom stood up sharply, sending his books tumbling to the floor, and pointed his wand at Francis. "Did you just compare me to a Muggle?" he asked softly.

"And if I did?" Francis sneered.

Tom's eyes flickered with something that looked vaguely red, and he cursed Francis painfully. Francis tumbled out of his chair and shuddered with pain, waiting for the symptoms to subside. Tom watched until they did. He forced a smile, which turned out to look far more diabolical than even he had intended, and he took a few steps toward Francis. "Say it again," he hissed softly.

Francis started to reply, but suddenly became transfixed by Tom's eyes. "Holy--" he muttered. "Say--say what again?"

"Call me a Mudblood," Tom snapped, his eyes now almost completely red. "Tell me what you think of me, Francis… call me a worthless Muggle, an impurity, a disgrace to the name of wizard. You want to, don't you?"

Francis suddenly went so deathly and horribly pale that he looked like a ghost. "Riddle--Riddle, what are you doing?"

"I dare you to call me a Mudblood," Tom said, a rather demented grin on his face. "Come on, you've done it millions of times before. Do it once more. Call me Muggle scum… Mudblood. Two syllables. You can do that, can't you? Or are you too stupid?"

Francis, still twitching a little from the curse, backed away on his hands and knees, looking terrified. "Riddle," he squeaked. "Riddle, please--"

Tom's eyes narrowed. "I told you to do something, Malfoy," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Are you going to do it?"

Francis started to mumble something, but he stopped. "I can't!" he cried helplessly.

"You can't?" Tom smirked. "Why?"

"You'll hurt me!" Francis chirped. "Riddle, your eyes, they're--"

"I may hurt you, that's true," said Tom evilly. "But I will definitely hurt you if you don't SAY IT!" Francis, looking miserable, crunched himself up into a ball and made a soft noise. Tom scoffed. "That the best you can manage?" He raised his wand threateningly.

Francis put up his hands defensively. "MUDBLOOD! MUBLOOD!" he cried, cowering and trying to protect himself. "Leave me the bloody hell alone, you evil git!"

Tom allowed himself a small smile. "I didn't know you had it in you, Francis," he purred. "You're braver than I thought. Now, do you want to know exactly who you're calling a Mudblood?" Francis whimpered, but Tom continued anyway. "Lord Voldemort. The last living descendant of Salazar Slytherin. As you can see, Francis, any mud in my blood is purified by the magical part of it. If anything, my blood is purer even than yours."

"You--you're related to…?" Francis stared at him in disbelief, then lowered his eyes. "I'll never do it again--My Lord," he added.

An odd shudder passed over Tom's face. Half of him was shrieking in pain, and the other was laughing hysterically. The red vanished from Tom's left eye, but remained in the right. Francis glanced up when Tom did not reply and saw that he looked extremely dizzy. It was perfectly understandable. Inside Tom's head, the two little voices were fighting like cats and dogs. The one that seemed to be located on the left was pleading with the other one to stop whatever it was doing, and the one on the right was insulting the one on the left. Tom shut his eyes and put a hand to his forehead, leaning on a nearby chair for support, but the lightheaded feeling did not go away. The voices suddenly grew louder, and there was an unbearable searing, stabbing pain in the left half of Tom's brain. Then, nothing. Everything vanished without a trace.

"Riddle?" Francis asked uncertainly. Tom looked at him, and Francis noted with relief that both of his eyes had gone back to their old turquoise.

The taller boy nodded, flinching. "Leave me alone," he added sharply. Francis obeyed immediately and scrambled out of sight. Tom collapsed into the nearest armchair and pocketed his wand, blinking a few times. "That was… interesting," he said to no one in particular. With a weary sigh, he waved his hand, and the book he had been reading sailed over and landed open in his palm. Tom flipped back to the index and skimmed it, not really expecting to find much of anything. That is why, of course, it came as a great shock when he did. Right under the letter C was exactly what he had been searching for--a twelve-page entry on the Chamber of Secrets. A few pages beyond that was a shorter essay on "Slytherin, Heir of."

Eagerly, Tom opened to the right page and started reading avidly, taking notes as usual. When he turned to the passage about the Heir of Slytherin, however, his quill slipped out of his hand and his notes lay forgotten on the armrest.

Salazar Slytherin prophesied that his true Heir (and greatest descendant) would come to Hogwarts about a thousand years after his own death. He said that this Heir would have much in common with himself, and that the Heir would have to use the inherited talents and traits in order to find the Chamber of Secrets and control the monster. He wrote that his Heir must possess "serpentine qualities," which is believed to mean that the Heir must be a Parselmouth. Slytherin was unable to find any other Parselmouths even among his own children, but his true Heir, he wrote, "would be rather an embodiment of myself in a later time." The Heir would likely look like Slytherin, at least vaguely, and share many traits, "right down to the date of birth and quill hand." Also, based on Slytherin's description of the Heir in his prophecy, it appears highly likely that the child will be a member of either the Circle of Light or the Circle of Darkness.

Tom just sat there rather blankly, staring down at the passage. He then wondered how he could be so abysmally stupid as to not figure it out on his own. He was the Heir of Slytherin. When faced with the information, it suddenly seemed extremely obvious. Of course it was him. He was the last living relative of Slytherin himself, after all, and they did have a frightening number of things in common. Both Parselmouths, raised by Muggles, left-handed, Olwyns, haters of Muggles, adept at Seeing… the list went on and on. The passage was right, even their birthdays were the same.

This set Tom's mind to churning. He seized the pile of notes he had taken about the Chamber itself. He skimmed the notes and immediately began starting to put two and two together. If he had to be a Parselmouth to be Slytherin's Heir, it seemed extremely likely that he would have to use Parseltongue to get into the Chamber, perhaps even to control the monster. And if he needed to speak Parseltongue to get the monster to obey, it could only be one thing. A snake.

However, Care of Magical Creatures was not Tom's strong point. He had no idea what kind of snakes were monsters--except, of course, for the fact that some people thought all snakes were. Tom scratched his head. He knew nothing about magical creatures… but there was someone else who did. Making a decision, Tom stood up and ran up to his dormitory. Francis could be heard whimpering quietly into his pillow, but Tom ignored him bitterly. He threw open his trunk and dug around for his Invisibility Cloak, wincing a little as he remembered where he had got it. Tom forced himself to think of the matter at hand instead of Lili, and he threw the cloak about his shoulders. That done, he quit the chamber and dashed down the stairs, leaving through the portrait hole.

He found Rubeus tending to Aragog in the dungeon, as he always did in the evenings. Tom watched for a few minutes, hidden by the Invisibility Cloak and by the shadows. Aragog had to be as tall as a man now, and Tom shuddered to think of getting too close to it. Taking off the cloak, he slowly said, "Good evening, Rubeus."

Rubeus jumped a full two feet into the air and whirled around wildly. When he saw Tom, he sighed with relief. "Tom… it's only you… I though' it was a professor…" Rubeus suddenly laughed. "Close enough," he chortled. "Here ter see Aragog, then, are yeh?"

"Get him away," the spider clicked ferociously, jerking an arm in Tom's direction. "He is not wanted here." Tom folded his arms and scowled darkly at Aragog, who only clicked more loudly.

"He's in a bit of a mood," Rubeus apologized. "Come on, Aragog, into yer box… Tha's it… Now le's go out inter the hallway and we can talk ou' there."

Tom agreed to this, and they left Aragog in his dungeon. "Rubeus," Tom asked in a would-be casual voice, "do you know any kind of magical creature in the form of a giant snake?"

Rubeus did not read into this, but he was clearly excited about the question. "Well, there're white anacondas… nasty li'l blighters those are, they can bite through anythin'. Then yeh've got yer Bavarian Snodwabbler--it c'n crush yeh in its coils in jus' a minute." Rubeus continued in this vein for quite some time, while Tom was mentally drawing conclusions. So far, none of the suggestions seemed to fit. All of them seemed too upfront, too aggressive. Tom thought the monster would have to reflect the traits of Slytherin House--sly, cunning, and discreet, yet venomous.

"…Las' one I can think of is the Welsh Basilisk," Rubeus was saying. "Really devilish, those. They can poison yeh ter death with their bite, either that or just meet eyes with yeh… if yeh look a basilisk square in the eye, yeh're dead as a doornail unless yeh're a born Parselmouth. An' no one's a Parselmouth, much less a born one, so yeh're basically jus' dead if yeh go anywhere near 'un."

Tom's heart must have skipped a few beats. It was perfect. It had to be a Welsh Basilisk. Everything fit--why, Salazar Slytherin had even lived in Wales, so getting his hands on one would have been far easier than some of the other snakes. Tom's spirits lifted. "Thank you, Rubeus," he said, his voice sounding almost cheerful.

"No problem… why'd yeh ask?"

"I was just curious," Tom said hurriedly. "I'm trying to write an extra credit report on all of the major magical snake breeds, you see, and I needed to know which names to look up." This was a relatively legitimate excuse, and even if it had not been, Tom was such a good liar that it would have come off perfectly anyway. Rubeus, of course, accepted this with a grin and hurried back to work with Aragog again.

Tom threw on the cloak once more and sneaked back up to his common room with a new spring in his step. As he reached the portrait of the wood nymph, however, he halted abruptly. If it was a basilisk, how on earth was the fifty-foot creature going to get around the school without being noticed?

********************

"Go away!" Tom shouted furiously. "I don't need you!"

The Specter shot another painful curse at him, which sent him reeling. "You're right," the Specter hissed coolly. You don't need me. But Tom does. Don't you want Tom to be great?"

"I AM Tom," Tom yelled. The Specter tutted, shaking its head.

"Not anymore," it mock-sighed. An evil grin spread across its flat face and he cursed Tom again, harder this time, and he fell over, doubled up with pain. The Specter bent over and looked Tom in the face. "Not going to fight back?" it whispered.

Tom shook his head violently. "Not going to stoop to your level," he snapped.

The Specter proceeded to laugh that hideous laugh it had. "Idiot boy," he snarled. "It's no wonder he's almost all mine now… you thought you'd dominate forever, didn't you? Well guess what, little boy, it's looking down now, isn't it? Foolish pacifist. CRUCIO!"

Tom felt every atom of his being explode with pain. Each cell underwent a fiery apocalypse; the serrated agony echoed throughout his body with the force of a charging dragon. "Let it end!" Tom thought miserably. "Oh, God, let it end…"

"Tom! TOM!"

Tom's eyelids fluttered open and he found himself staring into Adrian's horrified face. The other boy had been shaking his shoulders, trying to wake him, and he looked scared out of his wits. Beyond him was Zuhayr, who was shockingly pale in contrast to his usual swarthy complexion, and just behind him were Francis Malfoy and Richard Zabini, who looked afraid and repulsed. "Wha--?" Tom said dully.

"Tom… you were screaming in your sleep." Adrian's blue eyes were very wide. "You were yelling for help… I think you asked someone to leave you alone--" Adrian stopped short as the moonlight caught Tom's face.

"What is it?" Tom asked immediately.

Adrian was backing away slowly. "Zuhayr, get Madam Viola," he said sharply. Zuhayr, who had been staring in shock, did not need telling twice.

Wordlessly, Tom stood up next to his bed--and promptly felt a wave of nausea. His left leg did not seem to want to support his weight; in fact, it hurt horribly. With one knee shaking violently, Tom gradually made his way over to the mirror. If he had not been half-expecting it, he would have passed out. What he could see of his body was covered with lacerations, slits, and burns… but only on the left side. The right side was completely normal, aside from being more than a little paler than usual. He realized with a jolt that his left arm was broken in several places. And yet, his right side remained perfectly intact. Tom swore magnificently and grabbed onto a nearby bedside cabinet for more support. "Tell me I'm still dreaming," he said flatly.

The several minutes of dead silence that followed were interrupted as Madam Viola burst into the dormitory. "Dear God," she murmured, and shooed the other boys to the other side of the room. She immediately conjured a stretcher. "Just lie down on this, Mr. Riddle, everything's going to be fine." However, from the way she was panicking, Tom got the distinct impression that everything was not going to be fine. Madam Viola looked as though she had just encountered the devil; her face was sheet-white and she seemed to be resisting the urge to scream.

Tom obeyed her in a sort of daze, staring down at his hands. The contrast was bizarre. Madam Viola threw the doors open again and dashed down the stairs, the stretcher following her a few feet off the ground. Tom's right hand clenched around the side of the stretcher; he was not quite sure that it was immune to capsizing.

As they reached the hospital wing, Madam Viola magicked Tom onto a bed and promptly bustled off to find her case of potions. Tom tried his best not to look down at the mess on his left side, but it was so painful that it was hard to ignore. Every time he glanced down, he shuddered at the sight; he looked like either a leper or someone who had been exposed to intense radiation.

Madam Viola plunked down in the chair next to his bed and rather gingerly started to examine him. "It's only on the one side," she kept saying. "Dear God, dear God…"

"Am I going to die?" Tom asked, his voice breaking a little.

"No, you're not," Madam Viola insisted soothingly, though she still looked worried. After using her wand to mend his arm, she unscrewed a bottle of healing salve and began to apply it liberally to Tom's face. Tom tried not to cry out. Whenever one of the abrasions was touched it unleashed a howling demon of pain shooting along his nerve endings, and on top of that, the healing salve itself stung and burned. "Do you think you can put this on the rest of you?" Madam Viola asked, looking flustered. "I have to go look something up in my book."

"Of course," Tom winced, and started to fumble with the bottle of potion. Madam Viola ducked out of the compartment and left Tom trying to apply the potion and avoid looking at his skin at the same time. It was horrible--even if he did not look, there was still the pain, and the skin felt rough and bumpy under his fingers. It was almost like running his hand over a rock covered with barnacles.

After about ten minutes, Madam Viola re-entered, and to Tom's surprise, she was carrying a pendant with her. She placed it around Tom's neck without giving an explanation, and the thing instantly began to hum gently. Tom looked at it. It was carved from what had to be obsidian, apparently hollow in the middle, with a flaming light coming out of holes that had been bored into it. With every beat of Tom's heart, the light went from white to blue, then back to white again. "What's this?" he inquired curiously.

"It's called an Antidaimenus," she said swiftly.

"What do Antidaimenae do?" Tom demanded.

Madam Viola did not answer. Instead, she instructed him to lie back and try to get some sleep, tapped the Antidaimenus with her wand once (which appeared to do nothing whatsoever), and ducked out again. Still grimacing with pain, Tom let his head fall back onto the pillow and shut his eyes against the Antidaemenus's light. The humming was not grating at all, but soothing, and it eventually lulled him to sleep despite everything.

He woke up at about four o'clock in the morning to see firelight shining through the canvas. In the fulgent glow of the nurse's lantern, Tom could see two blurry shapes. One of them was short and plump--that had to be Madam Viola--and the other was tall and rather thin. "Are you sure it was a--" the stranger started to say, and Tom could tell from the voice that it was Professor Chapman.

"Positive," said Madam Viola softly. "He had all the symptoms… I gave him an Antidaimenus, of course, I just hope it will be enough."

"Well, it all fits," Chapman replied in a whisper. "Did anyone ever tell you why Medéa McGonagall came in a year ago? It was because the Ministry had heard about some other cases of this same ailment in a nearby village. She was doing some work with them. In any case, it seems that a lot of people are getting it now… the Dark Underworld is getting more active. Thank God we have Antidaimenae, otherwise we'd have to resort to the--er, old-fashioned forms of exorcism." Tom felt anger rise in his throat. They thought he was possessed?

"It--well, it could have been something else," Madam Viola admitted. "But he really had nearly all the symptoms--except, of course, it's usually the right side that's attacked. And he's acting normally, hasn't tried to kill anyone."

"As I recall, that is a crucial symptom," Chapman said dryly. "Of course, it's better safe than sorry, but… if it isn't a demonic possession… what else could it be?"

"Search me," Madam Viola sighed. "Maybe we should take this discussion to my office--I don't much like the idea of waking him, the poor boy." The lantern slowly bobbed out of sight, and there was a sudden, hissing voice.

"Masssster?" a snakelike voice asked softly. Tom turned his head painfully to the left and saw Nepenthe's face.

"Yes?"

"Masssster, I heard what happened from a dussssst ssssnake in your room. He ssssaid that you woke up sssscreaming and that--that--" Nepenthe's voice sounded dreadfully concerned, and he visibly shuddered. "You are looking better than the other ssssnake desssscribed you," he said, laughing nervously. "But Masssster, I came here to tell you ssssomething… The other ssssnakes have told me that the monsssster is sssstill killing any ssssnakes who come near… and they ssssay that this monsssster has been talking about an Heir coming for it…"

Tom would have sat up abruptly had he not been tied down by pain. "What?! I thought it was Aragog who was eating all the snakes!"

"No," said Nepenthe quietly. "It is another ssssnake. The other ssssnakes visit it to try and ssssee what it wantssss, but all of them are killed." Tom got a sudden mental picture of a set of snakes slithering through some sort of tunnel to go see a giant basilisk--and suddenly it clicked.

"THAT'S IT!" Tom cried. "Nepenthe, you're a genius! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Hush!" Nepenthe barked.

Tom calmed down, but in his mind, he was triumphant. Pipes. A giant snake could get around the school through the pipes. That had to be it. The only connections the main school had to the plumbing system were the bathrooms, which meant that the entrance had to be in a bathroom. Hogwarts had a moderate number of bathrooms, but a thorough search of each one would only take a few minutes.

Ignoring the pain coursing through his left side, Tom smiled slightly and settled back in bed. With a bit of luck, he would have discovered the Chamber of Secrets in less than a week.

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