𝕬 𝕷𝖎𝖙𝖙𝖑𝖊 𝕳𝖊𝖎𝖗 𝕽𝖎𝖘𝖊𝖘 | 𝑇𝑜𝑚 𝑅𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒 |

Chapter 12- His Body Will Lie in the Chamber Forever

Tom had made it almost through a horrific journey he'd only ever made in his nightmares. Despite walking towards his death for yet another time this year, he was miraculously calm. Tom hadn't even been bothered by the pile of rat bones he 'd landed on when he was ungraciously slid onto the dank floor. Tom quickly lit his wand and began to wander towards the only path forward. It was shrouded in total darkness, but at least he need not worry about the Basilisk being hidden around every corner he turned. Since he was valuable and they needed him alive, nothing bad would happen until he was standing in front of the statue of his ancestor at the end of the line. No sound could be heard other than his footsteps on the stone pavement . He was utterly alone. While in the past Tom would've enjoyed the rare moments of complete solitude and found it a nice treat, he had come to hate being alone. There was this sinking feeling of dread that now accompanied isolation. The already cramped space seemed to be closing in on him, but Tom willed himself to just keep going. As if that weren't already a difficult thing to deal with, on the long walk there, Tom couldn't help but think of Frankie. He could nearly still hear her calling his name and begging him to come back.He could nearly still hear her calling his name and begging him to come back.He could nearly still hear her calling his name and begging him to come back.

Eventually, he arrived at a circular door with two carved snakes locking it tightly. Tom hissed in Parseltongue, and they slowly slid out of the way. He stepped into the chamber. It was exactly like the nightmares he'd been having, so he couldn't say any of it was a particularly shocking sight to behold. The small corridors had opened up into a large room with giant stone snake pillars that mimicked the Basilisk, so that all prisoners Salazar Slytherin kept there would be frightened they would die at any moment. Tom couldn't help but wonder who else had perished here, or if Slytherin had disgraced himself before the chamber ever found use. The statue of Salazar Slytherin was so tall that most of it was lost into the darkness. Tom spent a brief moment looking up at him in vain, before turning to the closer shadows and the monsters hiding in them.

"—Alright. I'm here, Gaunt! I've come alone, just as you've asked. Show yourself already!" Tom snapped, quite bravely at a figure he could not see but knew had to be concealed in the darkness somewhere.

"My, my—I didn't see you clearly enough when you came to my house, but you're exactly what I imagined..." the darkness remarked, smoothly.

Tom looked puzzled. That didn't sound like the man he knew to be his relative. It wasn't crackly and wizen, but rather youthful and ill-fitting of his cruel nature. Surely not suited for a man so wicked. He finally stepped into the light and Tom got a proper look. It wasn't Zell Gaunt at all. It was the muggle boy. The one who had been sent away to the countryside with Frankie.

"Your muggle father really fits the Gaunt aesthetic, doesn't he?" he said, still examining Tom keenly. "Certainly, better then Arthur here. A Gryffindor boy, if I ever saw one."

"You?—It can't be." Tom remarked, baffled by this horrific reveal. He had been expecting to face a giant snake and a decaying man desperately clinging to the last bits of life. "What're you doing here? Where's Zell Gaunt?"

"I am Zell Gaunt." he smiled. It was somehow worse than facing an old man with stolen magic. Tom unconsciously took a step back from what was surely the work of some fearsome dark magic. "My old body couldn't take Gryffindor's magic and, even if it could, wouldn't be lasting much longer anyway. I needed a new one and I had this spare just laying around my house."

"You've killed him then?" Tom inquired. While it was particularly difficult to pity anyone but himself, he couldn't help but feel a tad sorry for the muggle boy's misfortune. From what little Frankie had told him, the war had basically left him an orphan like them. The even more unfortunate point was that he could've still walked away from this unscathed by magic. None of this had anything to do with him and he was set to live out an ordinary muggle life before he met Frankie. Tom couldn't be expected to care too much about a boy he'd only met once, but part of him still felt that horrible pity. The other part of him was a mixture of frightened and curious about the particular terms of this dark magic. Tom couldn't help but be intrigued about the spell that Gaunt had used on him. He knew his fate must be heading in the same direction and unfortunately his inquisitive nature wanted as many of the gruesome details as possible.