CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE SNAKE'S TONGUE
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The boys decided to entrust Maya with the important task of rushing cat-Hermione to the hospital wing, while they went off to infiltrate the Slytherin common room. Before the girl could shove in another word of protest, Harry, as Crabbe, waved an arm quickly to the two girls to hurry out of the bathroom as the hallways were clear of any lingering students. Maya could only look back regretfully as she hurried her friend down the dimly lit corridors she had traversed herself barely an hour ago.
Maya had been keeping Hermione company in the hospital wing when Harry and Ron returned, faces sour. She instinctively stood up, clenching her fists.
It was a wonder to her how Madam Pomfrey didn't ask many questions, even when the boys came running in with clothes twice their size, whispering and wildly gesticulating to the two girls about their discoveries.
She had only shown the barest hint of concern when Maya walked into her quarters ("You're back?" Madam Pomfrey had muttered, wide-eyed in muted outrage, "But I let you out only an hour ago! What have you done now — oh, dear, what happened here?") Her sharp eyes had caught sight of Hermione, who had been hiding behind Maya, emerge with a cat's face. She was immediately forgotten in face of Hermione's feline issues, which she was half-grateful for as she was left to ruminate over her mess of thoughts.
However, moments after Harry and Ron had declared that Malfoy was not in fact the heir of Slytherin, and that the last incident was 50 years ago, Madam Pomfrey had decided to emerge from her office and finally throw in the weight of her authority.
She kicked the unhospitalised trio out with clear demands to not get in any trouble that will end with any of them in her quarters, and they headed back to the Gryffindor common room. It seemed to Maya that what occurred in the bathroom an hour before had escaped their minds, and she was almost certain she wouldn't get the chance to explain what had happened when Ron yawned that he was going to head to bed.
"You coming, Harry?"
He shook his head, "Not yet, I'll come up in a bit."
Ron mumbled something in response and disappeared up the bend to the Boys' Dormitories. The common room was quiet, empty save for the two second-years. The fire crackled warmly as the last vestiges of firewood remained.
Maya, feeling a pair of eyes on her, scrambled for what to say as she considered that maybe she wasn't safe from an interrogation after all.
Where would she begin with an explanation? She couldn't very well claim her innocence after she had confessed everything was her fault (twice, she remembered sourly), nor could she actually tell the truth about what had happened. The black thing shivered in her chest, slimy voice hissing with clear rapture in her ears. Maya continued to avoid Harry's eyes; any courage remaining in her had died out.
She shifted uncomfortably and wet her lips. "...m, I'm gonna go—"
"Why is it your fault?"
Maya froze in place, head pounding with the lubdubdub of her racing pulse. After a pause she confessed, looking regretfully into his eyes.
"I don't know how to tell you."
Harry had furrowed his brows in response. "What do you mean?"
"Every time I try to tell you what happened I—" Her throat clenched. "The thing inside—" It sunk its claws in deeper. She just wanted to talk, Merlin let me talk—
"—It stops me from saying too much! "
If Harry had noticed the change in her choice of words, her choice of language, he doesn't give it away. "What? What does?"
It was like a dam had broken; everything Maya had been holding in rushed out in forking rivers and she was so relieved to finally tell someone what had truly happened that night, that she didn't notice the black thing singing in glee in her mind.
She told him everything. She went to find Ginny because she noticed she was holding Tom Riddle's diary, and had tried getting her to talk to her but then the creature came.
"It wanted to kill Ginny, Harry," she hissed, anger and horror seeping into her voice, "I couldn't let that happen! I pushed her out of its way but — I don't know what happened, it managed to petrify her, and then something — something black, and like smoke, came out of the diary and clung to me and now it's inside me Harry and it hurts and I don't know what to do!"
By the end Maya was gasping, breaths shallow and eyes hooded with exhaustion. She pushed on. "Whenever I get close to saying what happened, all I feel is pain."
Except now, she realised. What's different now?
Harry could feel his growing shock at every hiss that escaped her, his mind scrambling to make sense of it all. He stepped forward, hand reaching out towards the girl in front of him before stopping abruptly.
"There must be a reason why you're only able to tell me this in Parseltongue..."
Maya's eyes opened wide at that, and her gaze snapped up to meet his despite her every limb screaming at her to go to sleep. She couldn't stop the derisive huff of laughter that escaped her; of course. Of course the only way she'd be able to communicate with people would be in the snake's tongue, of course it all came down to her being a Riddle.
Harry looked at her calculatingly; cautiously. "Maya? You don't look so good, are you—"
"'m fine." She interrupted, not fine at all. She could feel her blood boiling, magic simmering as if to reject her heritage. His heritage. The slimy voice sang chillingly in her ears. She huffed a laugh again, not bothering to hide the way her voice caught in her throat. She swiped at her eyes. "I'm just tired. So tired."
Maya turned suddenly, moving to the staircase on the right. "Good night, Harry." She climbed swiftly up the stairs, green eyes watching her every move before she slipped behind the walls of the girls dormitories. She stumbled then towards her bed, trying her hardest to ignore the shadows morphing into snakes that pulled at her peripherals.
Later at night, she fell into a fitful sleep, full of darkness and cold and black strings pulling away at her skin, revealing rotting flesh that spelled 'traitor'.
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[Written: 04/05/20]
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𝐀 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐒 | h. potter
Fanfic"Don't fucking touch me," she snarled, and turned her eye on the woman who had tried to grab her. The lanterns flickering above their heads shattered and the light snuffed out as a chill tore through the alley. She instantly backed away, signalling...
