Pure

It Takes One Knight

I made my way to the dungeons in the black of night. It was getting colder the farther down I went. From the pounding on the windows, and the occasional flash of light, I could tell that the mist of rain from earlier had turned into a thunderstorm. I shuddered, and continued to the Slytherin dungeons.

I arrived at the entrance two minutes early, and Riddle wasn't there yet. I frowned and shifted sideways so that I could lean against a wall. My eyes drifted to the articulate carvings etched on the stone ceiling.

Hundreds of snakes weaved together in loops, making a beautiful mosaic which opposed my previous image of the dungeon. I shouldn't have found it beautiful there. It was a snake pit. But, nonetheless, I was enticed.

"Admiring the scenery?" A voice said. To say the least, I was startled by his quiet presence. I didn't let it show though, casually turning towards him.

"Yes," I said, "There is a certain serenity to it... I didn't know the dungeon could be this beautiful," I added, truly speaking my feelings for once.

Riddle looked surprised at my response, gazing up at the ceiling too. "Yes, well some of us do call this dungeon home," he said, and I was surprised to hear his voice was not full of the masked malice that it usually was, almost... normal.

He looked back at me. "And you would be wise not to underestimate Slytherin taste." He had his usual sneer back on his face. I looked away again, mentally shaking my head at him.

"What is wrong with you?" Riddle spat at me, "You look like Thana Lavinthe staring aimlessly into thin air like that," Riddle sneered.

As a response, I put on a face almost as twisted as Riddle's, only both of us knew it was a lie. Riddle just didn't know how much of a lie it was.

"Come on then. Let's go," Riddle finally said after the silence lingered for a few more moments. He turned and swiftly glided past me, expecting me to follow him. And so I did.

We made our way up the stairs, and as we did so, I got a sickening feeling in my stomach, the same feeling I had when descending the stairs a few minutes earlier. I knew this route. I had taken it a hundred times last year. I had taken it the night I came to 1943. We were going to the Room of Requirement.

Riddle stopped at the wall on the seventh floor, and paced back and forth. If I hadn't known what he was doing, I probably would have believed he was deciding on how to murder me. He stepped back and a large door formed.

He looked at me, expecting confusion or awe, but he got none. I looked back at him with the same look I had before. He turned and opened the door, striding inside. I followed just as swiftly, glancing nervously at the door when Riddle's back was turned.

I was glad when I made it past the door frame unscathed, but also a little disappointed. Any inkling I had that the Room of Requirement was the reason I was in 1943 dissipated, and with that loss, I realized I was one step farther away from returning home.

There was nothing more than a long table in a spacious room. The walls were made of stone that was cut rawly, but similar to the ceiling in the dungeons, there was a carving on one wall, the only part of the walls that was smooth. A man's face was made in complete detail, save the eyes which were intentionally left unfinished, a depthless plane. His long beard sprawled onto the other walls, merging with the jagged edges of stone. A fireplace emerged from the man's open mouth, green flames leaving strange shadows in the dimly lit room. I glanced back at Riddle, who was looking at me with pride at his creation, expecting me to be impressed... which I was, though I was a little frightened too. If this is what his mind created, was this what Riddle's mind was like too?