Chapter 29
The chamber’s air was thick with dust and something heavier—expectation.
I could still hear the grind of ancient stone in my ears, feel the way the door had responded to me, shifting beneath the weight of my words. Or at least, my attempt at words.
Parseltongue.
The sound of it still lingered in my throat like something foreign, something unnatural.
It had worked. That was the problem.
For years, I had scoffed at the idea that the Malfoy bloodline could be traced back to Salazar Slytherin. My father had whispered it when I was young, a legacy to be proud of, a claim to something greater than the rest of the wizarding world. But I had never believed it—not really. It was propaganda, a convenient story to stroke the egos of men who needed a reason to believe they were better.
Yet the door had listened to me.
The words had shaped themselves on my tongue, crude and awkward, but they had worked.
What did that mean?
Did I have Slytherin’s blood in my veins? Was there something deeper—something darker—waiting beneath the surface of my magic?
The idea sent a slow, uncomfortable twist through my chest.
Because I didn’t want it.
I had spent too many years trying to be the person my father wanted me to be, and all it had led to was a war I wanted no part in. A world where I was a pawn. Where my choices had already been made for me.
I didn’t want to belong to Slytherin’s legacy. Not in the way my family had always preached.
And yet… the door had listened.
I clenched my fists, pushing the thought away.
Now wasn’t the time for this.
I glanced over at Potter, still standing near the entrance, watching the newly opened passage with that stupid, pensive look he always wore when he was deciding whether or not to throw himself into mortal danger. Ginny stood beside him, looking completely unbothered, one hand on her hip, her griffin preening beside her like it belonged in a bloody royal crest.
They had coached me.
That was the other thing I couldn’t wrap my head around.
Potter had helped me. Ginny had encouraged me.
And it had made me angry.
Not because they were patronizing—though Merlin knew that would have been easier to stomach—but because they were… nice about it.
I had expected mockery, expected Weasley to throw some biting remark about how Malfoy was finally showing his true colors. But instead, Ginny had smirked and given actual, useful advice. Harry had been patient, repeating the words slowly, giving me space to fail without immediately pointing out my failure.
It was infuriating.
If I had struggled like that in my own home, my father would have sneered. Raised his wand. Scoffed about weakness. My mother would have pressed her lips into a thin line, silent but disappointed. My tutors would have looked away and let the weight of my failure hang between us, like it was my burden to fix alone.
Mistakes were unacceptable in my world.
And yet, when I stumbled over the first attempt at Parseltongue, Potter had only nodded. Told me to try again.
Ginny had grinned. “Almost. You had the second half right—try softening the first syllable.”
No mockery. No cold disapproval. Just… an expectation that I would get there eventually.
As if they actually believed I could.
The realization made something twist deep in my chest, something that made me want to shove them both and tell them to stop looking at me like that.
Because it was too foreign.
Too unfamiliar.
It took me a long moment to realize what it was.
This is what it feels like to have good friends.
Not allies. Not connections. Not people who would smile to my face and sharpen their knives behind my back.
Just… people who wanted me to succeed.
The thought sent a strange wave of warmth through my ribs—something I wanted to reject, something I wanted to keep at a distance.
Because if I let myself believe it—
If I let myself think that maybe I could belong here, that maybe they wouldn’t just tolerate me, but actually accept me—
Then it would mean admitting that I had never had that before.
And I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
I clenched my jaw and shoved my hands in my pockets, retreating back toward the doorway. I needed space.
Harry glanced at me. “You alright, Malfoy?”
I scowled. “Brilliant, Potter. Just taking a moment to bask in the glory of being your personal Parseltongue parrot.”
Ginny huffed a laugh. “Oh, don’t be such a drama queen.”
I shot her a glare, but she only smirked, unimpressed.
“Oi,” Ron cut in, rubbing at his arms. His wolf-like Eidolon bristled slightly beside him, sensing his unease. “Is anyone else getting a bad feeling about this passage?”
I exhaled slowly, forcing my thoughts into something useful. The past could wait.
For now, we had a doorway into the unknown.
And whatever was inside… it had been waiting for us.
The passage beyond the door was wrong.
Not in the way the Chamber of Secrets had always felt—ancient, eerie, filled with the echoes of something long forgotten.
No, this was different.
The air was thick, pressing against my skin like unseen hands, and the moment we stepped through the threshold, a pulse of something old rippled through the stone. The torches flickered violently, the magic in the walls shuddering like it recognized us, like it had been waiting for someone to come back.
No one spoke.
Even Weasley had stopped muttering complaints.
I exhaled slowly, keeping my hands loose at my sides. Prepared, but not showing it.
The passage stretched ahead, the ceiling lower than the main chamber, the walls rough and uneven as if they had been carved rather than built. The deeper we went, the colder it became, and I could feel the shift in the air—like magic had pooled here, thick and unmoving, growing stagnant over time.
Tenebris moved at my side, silent as a shadow, his golden eyes flickering with something sharp and knowing. He could feel it too.
This place wasn’t just old.
It was watching us.
“Lumos,” Harry muttered. His wand tip flared to life, casting long, stretching shadows against the walls.
The others followed suit, their lights cutting into the darkness, but it only made the passage look worse—the uneven grooves in the stone like claw marks, the deep cracks running through the floor like something had been trying to break free.
Ginny ran her fingers along the wall, her brows pulling together. “The stone feels different here. It’s not like the rest of the Chamber.”
“She’s right,” Hermione murmured, voice tight with focus. “This wasn’t part of Slytherin’s original design. It was added later.”
I frowned. “By who?”
She shook her head, but her fingers skimmed along the carved ridges, pausing on what looked like a symbol etched into the stone—a series of jagged lines, half-eroded by time. “I don’t know. But whatever this is… it’s layered in magic. I can feel it.”
That didn’t make me feel better.
We pressed forward, the corridor narrowing until we had to walk single file, the walls closing in around us. The deeper we went, the harder it was to breathe—not from exertion, but from something unseen.
It was pressing at my chest now, heavy and slow, like the weight of a thousand voices whispering just beyond hearing.
I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like any of this.
Then, we reached the end.
A solid wall of dark stone, towering and smooth, as if it had been grown rather than built. It was different from the rest of the passage—untouched by time, unweathered by age.
And in the center, a carved emblem.
The same one Hermione had traced her fingers over before, but now whole, complete, radiating something unreadable.
I didn’t realize I had stepped forward until I was right in front of it, the pull of it too strong to ignore.
I could feel the weight of the others behind me, watching, waiting.
Harry moved beside me, running his wand tip over the surface, his face unreadable. “It’s a seal,” he muttered. “A magical lock.”
Hermione was already rifling through her mind, muttering half-thoughts under her breath. “It could be an old containment spell. Or a ward placed to keep something hidden—”
“Or to keep something in,” Weasley muttered.
None of us disagreed.
Because it felt like that.
Like this wasn’t a door meant to be opened.
Like someone had wanted it sealed forever.
I exhaled slowly, eyes flicking over the emblem, trying to piece together its meaning. Trying to understand why it felt familiar.
And then I saw it.
The serpent.
Twisting between the carved lines, fangs bared, its body coiled around the center of the symbol like it was protecting something.
Or hiding it.
My stomach curled.
“Another Parseltongue door,” Ginny said, exhaling sharply.
I clenched my jaw, already hating where this was going.
Harry studied it, his expression tight. “It’s different from the others. It’s not just a phrase—it’s an incantation. A command.”
Hermione nodded. “It’s warded against non-speakers. That means only someone who can truly speak Parseltongue can open it.”
I already knew what she was going to say next, and I already hated it.
“We need you to try again, Draco.”
I let out a slow, sharp breath. “Of course we do.”
Harry stepped back, watching me. “It reacted to you last time. It might work.”
Or it might kill me.
That wasn’t exactly an irrational concern.
I turned to face the door fully, feeling the weight of everyone’s expectation press against my back. My magic thrummed beneath my skin, uneasy. I didn’t want to do this.
Didn’t want to feel that slithering cadence crawl back into my throat.
Didn’t want to open something that didn’t want to be opened.
But I also knew we didn’t have another choice.
I took a breath, ignoring the feeling clawing at my ribs and focused on the symbol.
Then, slowly, I shaped the words.
Or, I tried.
The first attempt was useless. Too human. Too sharp at the edges. It wasn’t right.
I tried again, drawing from the memory of how Harry had sounded.
This time, the air shuddered.
The carved serpent shifted.
The stone rippled like liquid, and for one terrible, gut-wrenching moment, I thought it was working.
And then—
Pain.
A sharp, lancing shock burst through my chest, like something was being ripped out of me.
I stumbled back, choking on air, my ears ringing with a sound I couldn’t hear.
Hands caught my arms. A voice—Hermione’s?—was calling my name, but it was distant, muffled beneath the thunder in my skull.
Something inside the wall was rejecting me.
Rejecting my blood.
And then, just as quickly as it had started—
The magic stopped.
I gasped, knees weak, my body still shuddering with the force of it. The pain had vanished, but it left something else in its place.
Something cold.
Something final.
I looked up at the door, at the symbol that hadn’t moved.
Hadn’t opened.
And I knew.
I wasn’t an heir.
I had no connection to Slytherin.
Whatever had let me through before—it hadn’t been blood.
It had been Voldemort’s magic.
My father’s oath.
Nothing else.
A cold, sharp breath filled my lungs, and I realized—I was relieved.
For the first time in my life, I knew for certain.
I was not my father.
And I never would be.
The tension in my ribs unraveled, something unspoken settling into place inside me.
Harry stepped forward, his face unreadable. “It didn’t work.”
I exhaled sharply, shaking off the last of the magic’s grip on my body.
“No,” I muttered, flexing my fingers.
“But I know who it will work for.”
I turned to Potter.
And this time, I wasn’t guessing.
This door would only open for him.
It would open because for all of his life, part of the heir lived inside him. That part, even drained, would leave a lasting effect. He would always hold a part of the Slytherin heir inside of him, and so would his descendants.