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No potions master could resist the allure of rare ingredients—least of all something as legendary as the basilisk, a XXXXX-rated magical creature.
Basilisks couldn't be bred naturally, nor did they reproduce like other species. They had to be painstakingly produced, one by one, through dark wizardry.
Even Grindelwald, at the peak of his power, went through endless trouble to raise twenty basilisk eggs—only for Newt Scamander to destroy them all. Well… no wonder he nearly lost his mind with rage, cursing Newt every time he remembered him.
And now, Snape felt kinda the same.
This potions master had studied more than a few ancient recipes that used basilisk blood, flesh, even scales in potion-making.
He had ideas and theories of his own that could only be realized with such ingredients.
So when that massive corpse was laid out in front of him, his eyes practically sparkled.
And just like that—this damned woman, McGonagall, handed the whole thing over to Tom.
Snape opened his mouth to protest, but Tom moved faster. With a flick of his wrist, both halves of the basilisk vanished neatly into his possession. Even the blood spattered on the floor wasn't spared—his wand drew it together into a glistening orb before sealing it inside a glass vial.
"Riddle, I'll be heading back," the stone gargoyle said as it landed with a heavy thud beside Tom. "Next time you get into something this fun, call me. Doesn't matter who the enemy is—I'll smash them to bits for you."
Tom hesitated. As ridiculous as the offer sounded, it was tempting. The gargoyle's body was ridiculously tough, resistant to both magic and brute force. It would make the perfect shield.
"And what if I ran into enemies outside the school?" Tom asked.
The gargoyle froze. "Outside? Why would you be outside the school?"
"Because I go home during the holidays," Tom said flatly. Then he raised an eyebrow. "Wait—don't you get vacations? You've worked here for decades and never had one? Why not come with me? The world is a big place—I could show you around."
"The world… big… show me around…"
The gargoyle's voice drifted off, as if stunned. No one had ever said something like that to it before.
"Ahem. Now isn't the time for small talk," Professor McGonagall cut in sharply. If she let this boy go on, Dumbledore's trusted guard might actually get lured away.
She turned back toward the gawking students and barked orders:
"Prefects and Shadow Prefects, escort everyone back to their dormitories immediately! No one is to linger in the castle. If even one student is missing, the prefect responsible will write five thousand lines and serve a month of detention!"
Her half-threat, half-intimidation worked. The students grumbled but followed their prefects back. But even the prefects looked reluctant—they wanted to know what had happened. Where had the basilisk come from? Who in their right mind had unleashed it inside the school?
"Professor Flitwick, Professor Sprout, Professor Snape—thank you for patrolling the castle tonight," McGonagall added briskly. "Once I've gathered the facts, I'll join you."
The professors nodded.
"Harry! Stay here!" Tom called out just as Harry tried to slip away with the others. Then, turning to McGonagall, he said, "Professor, Harry and I need to go back down there. You can ask your questions on the way—it'll save time."
Harry had already explained a bit about the Chamber of Secrets earlier so McGonagall understood what Tom meant and gave a small nod. "Very well."
The three of them prepared to leave. The gargoyle, however, was still rooted in place, lost in thought.
McGonagall sighed. "You too, Mr. Gargoyle. The headmaster's office still needs guarding. We can't just leave the doors wide open, can we?"
The creature was an old fixture of the castle, so she addressed it with respect.
"Huh? Oh—right," the gargoyle snapped back to reality. "Riddle, next time you stop by, we'll have a proper chat. I'm off now!"
With a thunderous boom, boom, boom, it bounded away, leaving craters in the floor with each jump.
Harry stared nervously. At this rate, the staircases wouldn't survive the night. If the stairs collapsed, how was he supposed to get back to his dorm?
Then he glanced down at his own hospital gown and winced. Right. He probably wasn't making it back to the dorms anyway.
...
To give McGonagall the clearest picture, Tom led them to the second-floor girls' bathroom. After politely shooing Moaning Myrtle away, he hissed in Parseltongue to open the Chamber once more.
"Riddle, you can speak Parseltongue?" McGonagall exclaimed.
Tom quickly clarified, "Professor, I studied it after the fact. Not like Harry here—he's a natural-born Dark wizard seed."
Harry: "…"
Did you really need to spell that out so bluntly?
McGonagall frowned. "Not everyone who speaks Parseltongue becomes a Dark wizard. True, there are more of them than not—but that doesn't justify prejudice."
Harry rushed to assure her. "Professor, I swear I'll never become a Dark wizard."
"I believe you, Potter."
Her voice carried absolute certainty. With Harry's brain and character, she simply couldn't picture him going Dark.
Not that Harry cared about her reasoning—he was just thrilled to hear it.
Tom grabbed Harry and leapt down the pipe, using his flight spell.
McGonagall's composure faltered at the sight. Such elegant flight magic—aside from Voldemort, Tom was the only wizard she had ever seen perform it. Was that a Tom Riddles thing?
"So Professor, it's like this...."
On their way, Tom began recounting the whole affair of the diary, how it came to be, and everything that had happened since.
He glossed over plenty, of course—like how he tormented Voldemort or the less-than-polite greetings exchanged—and dressed the story up with a few rhetorical flourishes. In short, everything was Dumbles' fault.
And that was more than enough to leave McGonagall fuming.
"Albus! How could he possibly hand something this dangerous over to a student to deal with? This is the Dark Lord we're talking about—even a fifth-year version of him is no trivial threat!"
"I'm fine, Professor." Tom waved it off casually. "For the safety of the school, taking a bit of risk doesn't bother me. And the outcome was good, wasn't it? Voldemort is handled, the basilisk is dead, and no one was hurt. That's more than enough for me."
"It means we failed in our duties," McGonagall sighed. The professors should be protecting the students, ensuring a stable place to learn. Yet for two years straight, it was Tom solving the school's problems—first Quirrell, then that fraud Lockhart, and now a basilisk. Tom was doing the headmaster's job better than the headmaster.
Hic!
The enclosed chamber echoed with Harry's sudden hiccup. He could've sworn the air reeked of hypocrisy.
...
When they finally reached the true heart of the Chamber, Harry remembered his wand was still lying here. He scrambled forward to snatch it up.
Tom, meanwhile, led McGonagall beneath the raised arm of Slytherin's statue. There, hidden in shadow, yawned a pitch-black passage.
"Professor," Tom said softly. "Slytherin's legacy is inside."
"Don't be reckless." McGonagall blocked his way, and with a sweep of her sleeve, the rubble at her feet transfigured into small animals that darted into the tunnel.
Soon after, an eerie green glow flickered from within. She layered on a few more detection charms, and only once she was certain there were no traps did she allow herself to breathe out and nod.
"We can go in."
Even she couldn't deny her curiosity about what the Founders had left behind.
She led the way, with Tom and Harry following close behind. After just a dozen paces, they stepped into a stone chamber.
The walls—even the entrance itself—were covered top to bottom in twisting, writhing characters.
While McGonagall was still puzzling over how to begin, Tom had already spotted the four magical nodes hidden among the carvings. He tapped them one by one. The inscriptions shifted and danced in dizzying patterns, weaving into new forms. After five long minutes, the walls finally stilled.
Tom and McGonagall immediately began reading. Harry, however, stood rooted to the spot, utterly lost.
Catching sight of him floundering, McGonagall seized the chance to lecture. "Potter, remember— Salazar Slytherin lived a thousand years ago. English didn't even exist then. Wizards and scholars of that age used Old Latin."
"If you want to pursue magic seriously, you'll need to master Latin too. Understood?"
"Yes, Professor," Harry muttered, face burning.
Once again, he felt like an illiterate fool. Tom could read Latin fluently, while he couldn't even recognize the alphabet.
Suddenly, Draco Malfoy's words from the start of the term came back to him. At the time, he'd been furious—but now, thinking it over, they didn't sound so wrong.
As Harry drifted in self-recrimination, Tom and McGonagall's faces grew steadily more grave.
McGonagall glanced at the boy's tightly furrowed brow. She hesitated, torn over whether she should stop him from reading further.
In the end, she stayed silent.
.
.
.