Threats and Legends
Albus allowed the situation to continue for a week, and then another. The phoenix chick could not have had a more different personality from Fawkes, and yet it was undeniably the same kind of creature. It allowed itself to be carried about, not only to meals, but to classes. Miss Warren was now the most popular girl in the whole of Hogwarts. There had been a small number of incidents wherein another student attempted to simply take the chick away from her when she didn’t wish to hand it over. Those had resulted in burned fingers and everyone in the castle receiving an education in just how loudly an annoyed phoenix could shriek. It seemed that Mr. Riddle’s phoenix didn’t mind being treated like a pet, but did mind being fought over like an object.
It was clear as day that the creature belonged to Mr. Riddle rather than Miss Warren. While it would treat anyone to a variety of tuneful melodies and chatterings, there was a particular sound it made only when Mr. Riddle was present. It was a particular sort of chirp, insistent and sweet and piercingly audible across the entire Great Hall or grounds.
Albus knew that sound. Fawkes made one very much like it, and only for him. As a younger man, he had foolishly thought of it as something akin to the way a baby bird might call its mother. That erroneous notion had lasted until he discovered that Fawkes was far more powerful than himself, and that if anything, it was a sign that Fawkes thought Albus needed guidance or assistance rather than vice versa. That sound was a warning and a promise and an expression of devotion all bound up together into magic and song.
He suspected he understood exactly why Mr. Riddle was ignoring it.
He had hoped that Mr. Riddle would spontaneously decide to retrieve the chick from the Ravenclaw third years. Perhaps he would feel some tug on his heartstrings when he heard it singing. Perhaps he would realise that while the creature was currently small and ugly, it would soon grow into something strong and magnificent. Perhaps it might even occur to him that he could reduce the amount of attention he was drawing to himself by ignoring its calls. But instead of showing signs of reconsidering, he took to avoiding areas of the school frequented by the group of students caring for the chick. He even took to attempting to avoid being near Fawkes, who was considerably more mobile and tended to turn up wherever Albus was with little warning or predictability.
So at last, Albus called upon him to stay behind after transfiguration class and closed and warded the door.
“Mr. Riddle, I cannot allow this to continue,” he began.
“Can’t allow what to continue, Professor?” Mr. Riddle asked with an impressively innocent tone. Albus scrutinised his expression, sighed, and conjured a chair opposite his desk.
“Sit,” he instructed, and sat down himself. Mr. Riddle eyed him warily, then complied.
“You are able to command the basilisk that lives in the Chamber of Secrets, aren’t you?” Albus said.
Mr. Riddle leapt to his feet at once, his carefully composed expression cracking into sheer terror. Albus merely sat back in his chair and watched.
“How - how did you -”
“My dear boy, Miss Warren told me quite enough to figure it out. Your cover is well and truly blown,” Albus informed him. “Do sit down. It is not my intention to haul you before the Board of Governors.”
Mr. Riddle’s mouth dropped open for a moment before he got ahold of himself and closed it again. It took him somewhat longer to return to his seat, his fists clenching and unclenching and his magic roiling around him in confusion.
“What are you going to do to me, then?” he asked tightly.
“That depends on you, at this point,” Albus replied. “Your phoenix is currently unable to flame travel. Mine, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of delivering me to any location I can persuade him to.”
Mr. Riddle’s eyes widened in understanding and he sat forward in his chair.
“Don’t!” he exclaimed. “Don’t - you can’t hurt Regina!”
Albus raised his eyebrows.
“I assure you that I can. Basilisks are dangerous and rare, but not undefeatable,” he said.
“She didn’t hurt anybody,” Mr. Riddle insisted furiously.
“Do not play coy with me,” snapped Albus. “You are as aware as I that Miss Warren was an instant from death.”
“But she didn’t die,” Mr. Riddle pointed out. He sounded quite desperate.
“And why is that? Oh, yes. Because a legendary firebird took it upon itself to intervene,” Albus retorted harshly. Mr. Riddle’s shoulders tensed and he seemed to curl in on himself. “And never mind the petrified students who have lost weeks of their lives.”
“Please,” Mr. Riddle mumbled softly. “Regina is nearly a thousand years old. You can’t - please don’t - kill her now. Just because I - made a mistake.”
Albus considered that response for a moment before responding. Interesting that he had a name for the creature, and seemed to care about its wellbeing in some way.
“Elucidate for me the mistake you believe you have made, Mr. Riddle,” he instructed. The boy’s eyes flickered with fear and calculation. He was not going to tell the truth. Albus waited in silence for him to hang himself.
“Regina is only supposed to leave the Chamber to protect the school,” the boy whispered. “She told me so and I brought her out anyway.”
Well, that was unexpected. On multiple fronts.
“Who are you trying to protect, Mr. Riddle?” he asked. The boy glanced up long enough to glare at him darkly.
“The legacy of my ancestors,” he snapped. “Regina is mine. I inherited her. I’m the heir of Salazar Slytherin.”
That might or might not be a lie. It might or might not be a bending of the truth. But Mr. Riddle appeared to sincerely believe it. Parseltongue was, admittedly, a very rare talent. It was just barely possible. Mr. Riddle must have inherited it from somewhere, and his ancestry was unknown. There was no proof of his having been muggleborn, only that he had no living magical relative who knew of him so as to take him in.
“If Regina is the fabled monster of the Chamber of Secrets, I do believe she belongs to Hogwarts, Mr. Riddle,” he pointed out dryly.
“Well, if Hogwarts is in danger, she won’t come out unless I tell her to,” Mr. Riddle shot back. “Even the headmaster can’t call on her without Parseltongue.”
“Hmm,” Albus said. He could argue that point, and might have done if the purpose of this conversation had been different. There were a great many things the Hogwarts headmaster might accomplish with the aid of the wards, even things that individual would not have been capable of without the castle’s guidance. Admittedly, Armando was perhaps less likely than some previous headmasters to manage waking and controlling Slytherin’s monster in a time of need. If that was truly what the basilisk was intended to do.
“What do I have to do to convince you to leave her alone?” Mr. Riddle asked.
It was in that moment that Albus realised something profound that he had somehow failed to notice prior. Tom Riddle… was terrified of him. He looked and sounded utterly cowed, and it was not an act. Albus had seen him act, nearly every minute of term for the past five years. But this was no act. He had been caught, and he knew it, and he was frightened. He had been frightened when he ran away from the person he’d nearly murdered and the phoenix that had prevented it. He was frightened now, in this classroom. He was, in fact, so terrified that he was willing to ask directly what he could do to escape Albus’s ire. He was so terrified that his face was pale and his hands were shaking.
And this, from the boy who had responded to being informed that magic was real by coolly demanding proof.
Well. At least he was taking the situation seriously. Given that it was, indeed, very serious.
“Mr. Riddle, why have you not accepted the phoenix that has claimed you?” Albus asked. The boy paled further.
“It’s not mine. I don’t want it,” he said. Albus nodded.
“Unfortunately, you will find that it is yours whether you want it or not. You have… perhaps another two weeks or so until its feathers have grown in enough for flight. If you think it difficult to avoid now, you will find that a phoenix with the power of flight and flame travel can be very stubborn indeed,” he advised.
“But I don’t want it!” Mr. Riddle exclaimed in dismay. “Let Warren have it! She’s obviously happy to have a bird sticking its beak in her dinner and, and singing at her. What am I supposed to do with a songbird?” His voice had risen to a high, alarmed pitch and Albus rather thought that if he laid a hand on his wand just now it would produce sparks at the very least.
“I think you are aware that phoenixes are not merely songbirds, Mr. Riddle. They are beings of immense power. While our understanding of them certainly has its limits, it is a known fact that they only appear to those who have the capacity for immense works, whether great or terrible,” he replied.
Mr. Riddle looked rather like he was being made to swallow a slice of lemon.
“I don’t need -”
Albus was on his feet in an instant, and the boy fell silent before he even said a word.
“You nearly murdered another student! A student under my care. Do not speak to me of whether you need the supervision of a legendary beast to keep you from causing further harm to this school, or to the world. You are lucky, do you understand me? Miraculously lucky. If you are concerned about suffering my wrath now, imagine what I might feel compelled to do to you if you had, in fact, left another child dead on the floor!” He managed to restrain himself there, just barely, and if only to take a breath.
Mr. Riddle was now huddled in his chair, half turned away as though preparing to shield his face from a blow.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“Are you?” demanded Albus. The boy flinched. He was too furious to care. “Are you sorry, Tom? Because if you are not, that tiny golden bird you’re so set on rejecting will one day rise up and cleanse you from the face of the earth. I need not raise a finger.
“Do you know what muggles call phoenixes? They are the angels of justice. The sword and shield of the gods. To us, they are messengers of magic itself made manifest. And you are risking obliteration with every day that you turn your face away.”
The boy was silent, head bowed. A tear slipped from the end of his nose. He swiped another away with a curt gesture without making a single sound. Not a sniffle, not a sob. He seemingly had not a single thing to say to Albus’s tirade.
It was, perhaps, too much force. He should not have shouted. He should not have allowed his magical aura to snap so threateningly. He was speaking to a boy of sixteen. Not himself. Not Gellert, who was afraid of absolutely nothing unless it demonstrated that it could strike him flat.
Albus took a breath to calm himself. Mr. Riddle did not move. Yes. It had been too much force. As always.
He sighed and sat back down, then dropped his glasses on his desk with an irritable clatter and rubbed his eyes.
“Accept the phoenix chick, Mr. Riddle,” he advised tiredly. “And for Merlin’s sake, leave the basilisk where Slytherin put her. She is not a toy. She is a deadly weapon.”
The boy finally lifted his head a little. One dark eye peered warily at Albus.
“If I take the phoenix from Warren and leave Regina in the Chamber, you won’t hurt her? You won’t… tell the others that you could get to her?” he asked slowly.
Because of course he was aware that the staff was in an uproar trying to find a way in to destroy the monster, and that without either a Parselmouth or some method of circumventing the requirement of having a Parselmouth to reveal the Chamber there would be no such finding or destroying without levelling the entire castle.
“Yes. If you do not give me further reason to believe the basilisk is an unconscionable danger to the school, I will likewise abstain from harming her,” he said.
“Alright,” Mr. Riddle muttered. “Alright.” He sat up, watching Albus carefully the whole way. Then he produced a handkerchief and tidied up his tear streaked face. He was not quite able to put himself back to rights, but it was a valiant effort. Albus waited patiently to let him do so before sending him away.
But he must have waited a fraction of a second too long, because Mr. Riddle managed to scrape together enough wherewithal to ask one of the shrewd questions he had hoped he would not.
“Who did you almost kill, Professor?”
My brother. As though losing Ariana wasn’t enough.
“I’m afraid you haven’t earned that much insight into my personal business, Mr. Riddle,” he said sharply. “Dismissed.”
Fawkes appeared after the boy left, as though he’d merely been waiting outside the door.
“And what do you think of this development, hmm?” Albus muttered. The crimson bird let out a spill of melody. “You had best be optimistic enough for both of us, then. That boy hasn’t a kind bone in his body.”