Summer of Salt

“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.” 

― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

In the hushed stillness of the small hours, Ixchel awoke unexpectedly to the feeling of something amiss. Awareness came slowly as she blinked the sleep from her eyes, her breath hitching. Passive and drowsy, she noted her surroundings; the soft sounds of sleep from the other girls deeply slumbering, the moonlight that painted the airy room a muted periwinkle, her open bed curtains that she was sure she had closed before drifting to sleep, and the silhouette of a man standing over her bed. 

Preparing a breath to scream and scrambling for the reassuring feel of her wand, a hand clapped over her mouth.

“Shh! It’s just me. I did it. I did it, Ixchel!” 

Her gaze whipped to the intruder’s face. Lit by the luster of the crescent moon that spilt through the windows, Tom’s pale features shone. His dark hair looked cobalt in the light and the strong lines of his jaw and cheekbones were thrown in sharp relief. How he had made his way up to the Ravenclaw fifth year girls’ dormitory was beyond her and her sleep-logged mind. 

“Wha-?” Ixchel slurred under his palm still half-asleep and he quickly removed his hand from her mouth at the feel of her lips against his skin. 

“Come on,” he whispered, his voice low and smooth, “you’ll wake up the others. Follow me.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed her hand and pulled her swiftly from the bed. Her feet tangled in her bedding and her nightgown was high on her thighs before she managed to slip out and follow the boy clutching her without tumbling to the floor. 

Her bare feet padded softly on the flooring as Tom swiftly led her from her dorm to the Common Room and then out into the chilled halls of the castle. The icy feel of the flagstone on her toes and the biting air on her bare arms brought her out of her complacent stupor and she stopped running after her friend, planting herself firmly in the corridor dotted with sleeping portraits and the warm flicker of torch-light. 

When he felt the tug of her arm as she pulled her hand out of his own, he turned around bewildered. “Tom, I’m not taking another step until you tell me what in Merlin’s name is going on!” Ixchel whispered firmly. 

His eyes narrowed with true irritation in a way he rarely directed her way, but Ixchel remained uncowed and crossed her arms cooly, maintaining her dignity whilst clothed in only a thin nightgown and the headscarf that kept her hair in place overnight. 

“You’re testing my patience.”

She lifted her chin. “I won’t yield on this. You can tell me what you’ve dragged me out of bed for or you can suffer the humiliation of me levitating you straight into Slughorn’s office, shrieking some story about randy boys breaking into the dormitories.” 

His gaze dropped to the wand in her hand and assessed her as quite serious and wrathful at being awoken in such a disconcerting way. There was the barest flicker of a smile around the corners of his mouth. He nodded curtly, guiding her to an alcove hidden away from any potential interloper skulking the corridors for curfew breakers. 

“What did you find?” She whispered. 

His eyes shone in cold triumph. “My birthright. The Chamber. It exists and I’ve found it.”

She nearly dropped her wand in surprise at his declaration but maintained her poise. “The Chamber? Slytherin’s Chamber isn’t a myth?”

“It’s no myth. It’s mine and I have finally uncovered it.” He ran a hand through his hair, an unusually casual gesture for him as if still shocked by his discovery. “Months upon months of research and I’ve done it! Do you know what this means? The power….” The air between them was charged and Ixchel wished to fidget, nervously. “There is no door that won’t be opened to me now. To us now.” 

Rather than the excitement and fawning he surely expected after his proclamation, Ixchel gave a wary raise of her brow and scoffed. “Is this what has been keeping you locked away, only speaking to those simpering, gormless lackeys of yours?” She was angry, angry he gave weight to the opinions of the scornful Averys, Malfoys, Blacks and their ilk, angry he surrounded himself with their fairweather company, angry he had not even told her he was searching for his patrimony. And she knew she had no right to her anger which only made her more contrary and prickly. 

Tom scowled at her scornfully. “Those gormless lackeys as you have so eloquently put it have a purpose. A necessary insipidity to reach the halls of power.”

“Unimaginative!” She hissed in haughty disdain. “The sort of power you’re speaking of holds no appeal to me. What is the point in chasing that when you can have real power? Creating things rather than lording over people.”

"You’re being willfully thick, Eztli.” He so very rarely called her by her surname. “Imagine all the things you would change, all what’s wrong with the Wizarding World that you could fix.”

She stewed over his words for a few moments in the empty, chilly space. "Alright," she said eventually, "you’re right. I'd need to be in a position of power to bring about any sort of change I’d like to see.” She gave a small secret smile. “Are you going to change the world, Tom?” 

“Of course. Now will you follow me before it’s breakfast, you stubborn harpy?” 

She gave a small smile and nodded, following him silently down the castle corridors to the second floor girls’ lavatory. She shot Tom a quizzical look but he ignored her in favour of striding towards the sink, the only sounds Tom’s echoing footsteps and her breath in her ears. He stopped in front of the sinks and traced his long fingers against the raised etching of snakes along the tap she had never paid mind to before. 

In the hissing, spitting language of Parseltongue, Tom spoke without drawing a breath and the stone column rose with a groan and the sinks yawned open to reveal a shaft too deep to see where it led. 

“Tom…”

He sat on the edge of the chasm, legs dangling into the darkness. He turned to her, "This wasn't always the entrance," Tom told her, looking shy and unexpectedly self-conscious, "the old plans show an original entrance that was removed after they put in modern plumbing.”

She wondered what other secrets were hidden in the stones of the castle as Hogwarts had been reworked over the years, but fear warred with her curiosity. Ixchel took an unconscious step back. “I don’t want to go down there, Tom.” She winced at hearing her voice go so thin and sharp. 

“You’re afraid.” He accused, as if he thought better of her. 

She raised her chin, defiantly. “No,” she lied and more truthfully said. “I’m practical. There’s a monster down there according to the myths that are apparently all true!” 

“There’s a basilisk down there and I’m the heir of Slytherin. You think I’d let anything happen?” To you went unsaid and her heart skipped a beat at the romance of his words even if he didn’t intend them as such. 

With a frown, Ixchel pulled the scarf from her head. Her hair tumbled past her shoulders as she transfigured the fabric into a pair of rather lumpy slippers. Catching Tom’s eye, she gave a cool smile. “I’m not going down there with no shoes.”

He conjured two small flames of pale light that hovered gently beside the two of them. “I’ll go first, it'll be worth it, I promise." He said, smiling, and stepped in, sliding away into the dark. She took a deep breath and followed, sliding down to face whatever lay beneath the castle.

He was at the base of the slide waiting for her, and caught her when she landed and she was pleased she had handled it gracefully enough to not stagger. Tom led her silently through the tunnel to the great stone wall, carved snakes entwined beautifully in the stonework, jewelled eyes glinting in the pale twin flames. 

With another hiss from him, the solid stone parted and slid away without a sound, the breeze fluttering Tom’s mused waves. 

The Chamber lay before them, grand snake-carved columns rose to the great expanse of the gothic ceiling lined a path into the Chamber. Their reflection shimmered in the water beneath them, regal and chilling. All attention was immediately drawn down the path to the looming and foreboding statue of a wizened, bearded man carved from dark and heavy stone. She tilted her head, assessing the statue. “Subtle.” 

Tom’s startled laugh echoed through the Chamber and she warmed at the lovely sound so seldom shared. “Now close your eyes and don’t open them until I tell you.” Reminded at just what lay in these tunnels, Ixchel did as told and steadied her breath. She grasped Tom’s sleeve and focused on the feel of the fabric in her hand as she heard him speak Parseltongue. There was a moment of stillness until the sound of scales on stone reached her ears. 

“Okay, you can open your eyes. I’ve told her to turn her head away from us.”  

With a deep breath, Ixchel moved her grip to Tom’s wrist before slowly opening her eyes. She gasped at the size of its- no her body, languid and curled before them. She followed the length of the basilisk, noted her turned head and shivered. 

Ixchel turned to watch Tom speak that spitting language as he conversed with the beast before them. His gaze caught her own and he smiled at her around the hissing words. She watched him shed his Prefect persona and her throat tightened at the sight of the real him; hungry, vicious, and beautiful. 

Tom cancelled the spell and Abraxas Malfoy took a shuddering breath, face pressed against the dark, wet stone. His hands- that he was now able to move, shook. The sixth year wouldn’t make the same foolish mistake again. 

“Riddle may be a descendant of Slytherin but no one who has been raised by muggles can ever understand our ways. He’ll never be one of us and has been ingrained with prissy muggle morality.”  

“Y-You used the Imperius on me.” He accused, weakly moving to stand.

“Very astute.” Tom mocked, rolling his shoulders as he straightened himself, looking away from the patrician blond as if he no longer held any of his interest. “Muggle morality. Hmm…” He mused, walking the Chamber floor, his steps echoing as he examined Malfoy’s elm wand. “Muggle morality. What a strange phrase. Though I suppose you wouldn’t understand the irony of your comment, coddled as you are in Wiltshire. You wouldn’t understand the war, the hatred and destruction. I fear,” Tom drawled, pocketing the wand in front of the trembling older boy, “you simply do not have the imagination to envision how living amongst muggles has created a stronger conviction regarding my forefather’s cause. Perhaps you would like to see for yourself.” 

And he hissed to his basilisk, “You may show yourself.”

Malfoy stood grimly, the colour drained from his face as he heard the heavy slithering of the basilisk and shut his eyes tightly. 

“Open your eyes, Malfoy!” Tom demanded. “Or I will kill you with your own wand and no one will ever find your body.”  

After a tense moment where Tom was nearly worried he would be called out on his bluff, Malfoy opened his eyes to the long body that circled the two. Her eyes were turned away from the boys, facing the path they had used to enter the Chamber. Tom could see Malfoy’s relax minutely, seeing no yellow eyes that would send him to his death. 

“We share a common goal, Malfoy.” Tom lied. “You were of course misguided in directing your vitriol my way, but you are correct. Muggle morality has no place here. Mudbloods have no place here.” He stamped down the way that word had made him feel as a first year. Tom knew he would throw every last one to the wolves in order to gain power. It was only sensible.

“Your slumber is over.” 

They returned to the Slytherin Common Room and what little colour Malfoy’s complexion carried slowly returned. Before he entered his dormitory, he gave Tom a respectful, if stiff nod. 

That morning at breakfast the Great Hall buzzed with the hushed whispers of the scores of its students. A second year Gryffindor had been found petrified outside the kitchens. A muggle-born if the rumours were anything to go by. 

The following week, a fifth year Hufflepuff girl was found frozen in mid step in the third-floor corridors and was swiftly brought to the hospital wing where she lay motionless next to the other petrified student. The school gossip turned fearful and children began walking to their classes and meals in large groups, huddled close together. House points were rarely taken as no one dared the dark, solitary corridors at night to break curfew. 

Tom ignored the looks of thinly veiled suspicion shot his way by Professor Dumbledore in favour of the nods and deferment he received from his Housemates. His fellow Slytherins went out of their way to please him and rare books were sent to Tom from pureblood homes that were never sold in shops, tickets to international quidditch games proffered, and invitations to the old estates for term time holidays extended. Gifts and opportunities that were given to him to tell him in their subtext ‘Choose me. I can elevate your status.’ What was being offered was entry to the upper echelon, chances to be seen with the right sort of people by the right sort of people. 

It was dreadfully tedious and uninteresting, this aspect of social climbing necessary to reach the heights Tom desired. He thanked everyone for their gifts and offerings with his easy and false smile, knowing it was a necessary mundanity. But the conventional success craved for and enjoyed by his Housemates was dull. ‘Unimaginative’ Tom remembered Ixchel’s scorn. Those crumbs of power came with rules and protocol made by someone else and Tom was done with following the orders of others. He just had to be patient. 

The days were growing longer now, the purple shadows stretching across the rugged landscape of the Scottish Highlands and winter’s grasp was loosening. He had to wait longer every day for the hush of dark in order to leave the Common Room. Tom had charmed his steps silent, though he was confident he would not pass any others in the corridors of Hogwarts as very few others were braving the monster that lurked in the walls of the castle. 

He did the perfunctory pacing, walking three times past the entryway to the Come and Go Room on the seventh floor and walked in without hesitation when the familiar door presented itself to him. Tom stuttered to a stop when he spotted Ixchel; Ravenclaw blue jumper, hair in loose waves down her back, legs crossed primly at the ankles and her expression icy. 

“You think I didn’t know where you were hiding yourself away? You don’t give me enough credit.” She looked around the Come and Go Room, eyes brushing over the layout of a perfect model of her own home. “Though I didn’t expect the decor to be so... familiar.” She looked him over in such an assessing way he felt exposed under her gaze and bristled. Her disapproval was enough to be made clear but discreet enough that there was no way for him to defend himself.

She gestured at the seat beside her own. “Come on, sit. You were coming here for a reason I’m sure.” When he didn’t move and merely glared, Ixchel frowned and with a wave of her wand the chair pulled out from under its desk, scraping against the hardwood floor. 

“Sit .” She said, and there was no room for argument.  He moved stiffly and sat down at the high back chair without a word. 

She returned to the book in her lap and the room was heavy with a tense silence, the only noise the crackling of a cosy fire tucked away in the corner of the room. Annoyed at her act- for she obviously had something to say if she had waited for him in such a hidden away place, Tom broke the weighty silence first.

“Out with it. Did you need something or do you just enjoy pretending to be omniscient?”  

With a sigh and put upon coolness, Ixchel slid a bookmark between the pages and closed her book. “You’re right, I’m here to tell you something that I thought would be obvious. You’re acting mindlessly and not thinking ahead.” 

Startled at her unexpected criticism, Tom leaned back in his chair absorbing her words. He snorted in derision. “Of course I’m thinking ahead. Years ahead, I’m thinking beyond Hogwarts and House points, and quidditch, and petty House rivalries. This is a necessary step. Who wields sway in England outside of these walls? The old families- the old English families,” and he smirked at getting his own against her harsh words when she frowned, “are the ones with connections and money. Prejudice against mudbloods plays into wizarding biases and no one is being permanently hurt.” 

“That word is crass.” Ixchel scolded, cutting him off before he could expand upon just how shortsighted she was being. “Do not act like you’re above this all, like it’s some necessary evil to get a leg up you wouldn’t be able to otherwise, Tom.” Ixchel stood suddenly, arms crossed and lips a thin line in her brewing anger. “I know how you feel about muggles, and I believe your anger even if I don’t understand it all, but you are not being clever!”

Tom felt anger swell in his throat like sickness. He didn’t need to explain himself to her, this girl who never had to work for anything in her life. A girl who lived in a sheltered bubble of magic and wealth, who could look down in disdain at others taking the steps necessary to access something she had been born into by pure chance. He felt defensive and exposed, and could not understand why Ixchel was not celebrating the power he was gaining with him.

“What righteous anger, righteous anger when you’ve done nothing! We all have parts that scare us, that we secret away in the shadows of ourselves. I’m the only one willing to admit this, willing to use it. I don’t care about ideologies beyond what they can provide, you know this!” He spit at Ixchel. 

She seemed furious, her dark eyes flashing in anger, face flushing before she regained her control. “So you would do this? Terrify muggleborns who’ve done nothing to you? Are you lying to yourself that you don’t care? Merlin, it’s somehow worse that you've deluded yourself so.” 

He shot out from the chair without thinking and stormed over to Ixchel until she was cornered between the plaster walls and his body. He was close enough to smell the gentle scent of her perfume, feel the heat from her body, and see the flutter of her pulse in her throat. He could hear a tinny ringing in his ears and he placed his forearms on the cool walls behind Ixchel, her face framed by his arms, and his thumb brushed unthinkingly against her temple. Tom’s gaze traced the plush of her lips before looking steadily into eyes far darker than his own. “I am the heir of Slytherin and I will do what it takes to bend the world to my making!” 

Tom saw the clench of her jaw as she gritted her teeth, but rather than continue in her anger, Ixchel smoothed her expression and pushed through the cage of his arms to sit back down in her seat. With a flick of her wand she added another log to the dwindling fire like the two weren’t experiencing the first real row of their friendship. 

She gave a weary sigh too old for her and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Try to justify it as you’d like Tom. I’m not interested in your reasons. I’m here to tell you that your lack of foresight is going to leave you reeling. Headmaster Dippet will be pressured sooner or later to take action. But I’m not your keeper, Tom. You’ll learn the hard way.” 

And with that she looked back down to her book, dismissing him completely. In his outrage at her brush-off he considered hexing the infuriating cow. He gripped his wand and nearly spit out a spell but gathered himself stiffly and without a word, stalked out of the Come and Go Room, slamming the door behind him so hard it shuddered. 

They didn’t speak again. They no longer searched for each other unconsciously in the halls, Ixchel’s placid smile no longer graced him when their eyes met. Tom and Ixchel clumsily avoided each other in classes and Tom purposefully avoided the library, pacing in front of the seventh floor door to instead study solely in a room he made sure Ixchel was not allowed entry.

Days passed, bleeding into weeks and not a word was shared between the childhood friends. The number of those petrified by his basilisk steadily grew and whilst they didn’t speak, with every body found, he felt her cool gaze on him.