Chapter 4
Lythiae was very frustrated.
She had worked very hard not to harm the children of Hogwarts but to protect them, as was her duty. Usually, protecting the children came before following her master's heirs, but Tom Riddle had found a loophole.
"Petrifying them doesn't hurt them. I'm sure you can find ways to do that, you are a very clever serpent."
It didn't hurt them physically, but it was still traumatizing.
She was saved by the hatchling.
One night, near the end of the school year, Tom Riddle's diary soul brought the annoying redheaded girl down to the chamber. She was weak and cold, and Lythiae could feel the girl's life draining slowly. The usually-transparent soul was becoming less so.
"~Soon, Lythiae,~" Tom purred. "~I will return.~" Lythiae remained silent, slithering around in the shadows. How could she stop this?
She heard something from the entrance of the outer chamber, and Tom quickly turned invisible. A tiny boy entered the cavern, glancing around in awe and worry. Then he spotted the girl and paused.
Lythiae thought he couldn't be older than eight, given how small the boy was, but her nose told her that he was twelve.
The boy took out his wand and advanced slowly, eyes wandering the room. He spotted Lythiae in the shadows and blinked.
"~Why aren't I dead?~" the boy asked in Parseltongue.
A speaker!
"~I have three eyelids, hatchling,~" Lythiae responded. "~I have two closed. You are safe to look.~"
"~Stop talking to him!~" Tom hissed at her angrily, quietly enough that the hatchling didn't hear. Lythiae was suddenly unable to speak.
"~Question,~" the boy smirked, "~if I'm a speaker, too, and Tommy is just a diary, wouldn't I be more in charge of you than him?~"
Tom reappeared in an outrage. "You aren't descended from Slytherin!"
Lythiae stuck out her forked tongue and laughed inwardly. The diary soul didn't realize he was yelling at his own son -- according to Magic, not DNA. Lythiae wasn't sure how that was possible, but she would ask the portrait of her first master.
"~Okay, then,~" the hatchling beamed. "~Bite the diary with your fang, please.~"
Lythiae felt the tie between her and Tom sever, and another, stronger one form between her and the hatchling. "~Of course, Little Master,~" she agreed sleekly, slithering over to the diary.
"No!" Tom screamed angrily. "~I am your master, not Potter!~"
This was Harry Potter? Interesting; he was nothing like that bratty girl described.
The hatchling's eyes widened in awe when he saw her. "~You're bloody gorgeous,~" he remarked. She preened.
"~Stop!~" Tom cried desperately.
Lythiae ignored him and buried her fang into the tiny black book. Tom screamed as his soul was forcibly ejected from the diary and attached to the boulder blocking one of her exits. Tom disappeared.
"~Thanks, ma'am,~" Harry Potter said as he walked over, checking over the girl. "~You can call me Harry, if you want. What's your name?~"
"~I was christened Lythiae, Master Harry.~"
"~I don't want the headmaster to know you're still alive,~" Harry said quickly, as the girl began to stir, "~so can you pretend to be dead? Please?~"
Lythiae lowered her head and stared into the distance, keeping still. She was happy that the boy gave her a choice, like her first master. She would remain loyal to this hatchling until she died.
Harry returned a few days later around midnight. "~Sorry it took so long to come visit,~" he apologized. "~I wanted to ask you a few questions.~"
Lythiae nodded. "~I have one myself, Master Harry.~"
"~Just Harry is fine,~" Harry insisted. "~I want family, not servants.~"
Her heart melted. She smiled softly at the hatchling. "~Of course, hatchling.~"
Harry blushed and quickly changed the subject. "~What was your question, ma'am?~"
"~You may call me Lythiae or Lyth,~" she responded softly. "~How did you know I did not want to harm Hogwarts' children?~"
The hatchling blinked. "~Oh, that's why you want to protect them. It was really weird that every single student was Petrified, and that the only victim you killed sounded a lot like an accident.~"
Lythiae felt a flash of pain. "~I did not know the child was there. No one uses that bathroom, the entrance to the Chamber has caused plumbing issues in that area.~"
Harry snorted. "~Yeah, one of my questions is why the bloody fuck is the entrance in a GIRL'S BATHROOM.~"
"~The Chamber was created long before plumbing was invented, hatchling,~" Lythiae said with amusement. Harry relaxed. "~When bathrooms were added to Hogwarts, the Heir had to alter the entrance so it wouldn't be discovered.~"
"~Why didn't they just move it?~" Harry frowned.
Lythiae paused. "~Oh, dear. It would have been easier, and less likely to have been discovered. One wrong Reducto, and the entrance would be revealed. I sincerely hope Alaric didn't keep the entrance there for... unsavory reasons.~"
"~I wish I could move it,~" Harry admitted with a sigh, "~but Dumbledore would get suspicious.~"
Lythiae bristled. "~Dumbledore is the headmaster?! It should be Devon Applebee!~"
"~I don't know who that is,~" the hatchling said slowly. "~Maybe he died in the war, and Dumbledore was next in line? Anyway, I'm pretty sure he would kill you and say he moved you to an uninhabited island so I wouldn't get upset, so I'd prefer that he didn't know.~"
"~Have you told your friends?~" Lythiae asked, gazing at the hatchling. "~I believe the annoying redhead... Ginny, called them Hermione and Ron?~"
"~Yeah, but I had to tell them that Dumbledore knew about you so they wouldn't tell him themselves,~" Harry said with a sigh. "~They'd do it out of concern for me. I told them that Dumbledore asked them not to discuss it with anyone, and not to talk about it in public in case someone overhears, so hopefully nobody else, especially Dumbledore, will find out about you.~"
The hatchling came back as often as he could to talk to her, and their meetings were very interesting and worrying. Her hatchling kept getting attacked by Dementors and mermaids and Dark Lords and fuckiing blood quills, and she couldn't leave to protect him. Harry insisted he was fine, but Lythiae saw his exhaustion and fear.
He did bring his friends to meet her in his third year, and Hermione Granger came back during his fourth to ask, excitedly, whether dragons could speak Parseltongue; apparently, her hatchling wanted to find the safest way to complete his task. It worked, to Lythiae's relief; she was furious that her hatchling was forced to take an egg from a mother dragon. It didn't matter that the egg wasn't theirs, all mother dragons were possessive and protective of eggs.
When her hatchling visited again in his sixth year, he was worried. A boy Harry had mentioned many times -- one Lythiae was quite sure he had a crush on -- had been forced to become a Death Eater, under the threat of losing both of his parents. He had no idea what to do; he couldn't help young Malfoy, for fear of alerting Dumbledore, and he couldn't comfort him, for fear of alerting Voldemort. Lythiae couldn't help her hatchling with this, either, and so just wrapped him into a gentle hug.
Severus Snape was minding his own bloody business when a tall, cloaked figure appeared in the headmaster's office. Severus almost fell out of his chair.
"Entitatem Death?!"
Magical Aura Test of Severus Tobias Snape:
Core: Dark
Level: Merlin (ATTEMPTED BLOCK; PARTIALLY FAILED)
Affinities: Dueling, Dark Magic, Natural Occlumens
Abilities: Animagus (hemohound), Legillimens, Occlumens
Creature: Quarter-Vampire (100% BLOCKED)
Soulmate(s): Harrison James Potter, aliases Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, Death's Apprentice (human; living); Draco Lucius Malfoy, alias(es) Heir Malfoy (eighth-Veela; living)
Familiar(s): None
Soul: CLEANSING REQUIRED
Compulsions: Hate Harrison James Potter, Distrust Harrison James Potter (PARTIALLY FAILED), Bully Harrison James Potter, Treat Gryffindors Badly, Distrust Tom Marvolo Riddle, Trust Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore (FAILED)
Other: Unbreakable Vow to Protect Harrison James Potter, Unbreakable Vow to Protect Draco Lucius Malfoy, Armortentia (keyed to Lily Potter Nee Evans, applied by Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore; FAILED)
Compulsions and blocks cast by Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore.