Chapter 18
Stale water leaked and dripped from the tarnished taps onto the grimy tiled floor, making a damp smell hang in the stagnant air. A slow creaking noise could be heard as a young girl sneakily opened the door and slipped into the bathroom.
Amaris had awoken early this morning with an entire Saturday to go about her plans without the pesky disruption of lessons. She had quickly gotten washed and dressed for the day, eaten a quick but solitary breakfast excluded from the other Slytherins before rushing to the abandoned girls loo on the second floor. She had managed to pry the location of the Chambers entrance from the Diary, with the promise she would release the starving basilisk into the school to "cleanse" the student population of muggleborns. Tom hadn't been easy to convince, but after talking about how much she despised dumbledoor he had been more willing to give up information.
Walking over to the dust covered sinks, Amris trailed her hand across the top of them all. She glanced up to the mirrors above them and was quickly distracted by what she saw. Instead of her entire head of hair being the warm auburn tone she was used to, at the very front of her head was a streak of the whitest hair she had ever seen. It reminded her of the way her skin glows in all of its pale glory. She brushed it the the side as if to check it was really there, before sucking in a sharp breath and tucking it behind her ear. She had come here for other more important things, her strange hair colour change could wait a few more hours.
She carted on walking besides the sinks before stopping in front of the second largest one on the row. The sink was the only one to have such intricate detailing and beautiful, if not a little worn down, engraved snakes.
She crouched down to gain a better view, minding the way the water beneath her feet squelched and sloshed with her movements, and traced each of the snakes with a delicate finger. The craftsmanship of the sink was simply astonishing making it look incredibly out of place compared to the rest of the mundane communal bathroom. Amaris wondered how no one besides Voldemort ever realized that this was the opening to the chamber. It stood out quite a lot, after all.
She took in a slightly shaky breath in anticipation before whispering an almost silent "open" in parseltongue.
In just a short moment, the sink was sliding down and opening with a deep, low rumble to reveal what looked to Amaris, like an endless black hole. She couldn't see a bottom, and could only just make out that the sides of the dark tunnel seemed to made out of a slimy metal, like a pipe.
Amaris quickly cast a wandless cushioning charm on herself and a scourgify on the tunnel. She wasn't wearing her best clothing today but she did rather like the oversized brown and navy coogi sweater she was practically swaddled in.
She dangled her shoes over the edge and without the chance to chicken out, she jumped into the nothingness.
It was like rushing down an endless, wet, stinky slide. She could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as the one she was in, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and she knew that she was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons.
She landed with a squelch and crack as the soggy bones underneath her feet shattered. Her only light source being her glowing skin, Amris grimaced and began to tread through the bones until her feet met stone floors.
The tunnel she was in was so dark that she could only see a little distance ahead. Her glow cast an eerie light across the moist stone.
Something a few mètres ahead cast a large shadow that caught Amris off guard for a split second. She tightly squeezed her eyes shut and spoke clearly, only a hint of apprehension in her parseltongue words
"Is that you, Slytherins serpent?"
No reply came, so Amris slowly flicked her eyes open to see that the large thing in front of her hadn't even moved. She thought for a moment that perhaps the giant snake had died, and she was looking at its carcass, but as she took a few hesitant steps dwarfs she quickly came to realize that it was simply a shed skin. She made a mental note to, if she could befriend the basilisk, ask if she could take the skin to harvest ingredients. Maybe she could make a lovely pair of basilisk skin gloves.
As she headed further into the bending tunnel, she finally came upon an end. She saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds. Even though Amris knew it was not possible, they looked strangely... alive.
She could guess what he had to do. Amris cleared her throat, and the glittering emerald eyes seemed to flicker.
"Open ," said Amris , in a smooth, faint hiss.
The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Amaris, a small pit of anxiety growing in her stomach, walked inside.
She was standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. Amris could taste the damp on her tongue as walked over to a large pillar and crouched behind it. The basilisk could be anywhere, and until she knew it was not a threat, she needed to be careful.
Taking in a deep breath, she stood back up and confidently strode to the centre of the chamber, her eyes almost completely squeezed shut.
She took a last few steps forwards, making sure to keep her balance of the slippery floor. A statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.
Amris had to crane her neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor.
Amirs looked up into the stone face of Slytherin, high above her in the half-darkness. And whispered what Riddle had told her to
"speak to me, Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts four"
Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Awestruck, Amris saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole.
And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.
Amris took a single step back, her eyes not completely strewn closed. Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. Amaris felt it shudder.
"Speaker? Who goes there" came a hissed a slightly feminine voice.
"I am Lady Slytherin, and I have come to talk to you" Amris hissed back
She could feel the giant snakes hot breath fanning her skin and it came closer and tasted the air around her, reading her scent.
"Lady slytherin? My last master some time ago was Heir Slytherin, are you his mate?"
Amaris shuddered at the thought.
"No. Tom riddle was defeated and I claimed the title of lady Slytherin"
The basalisk seemed to hiss something incoherent and shake its giant head side to side, before changing the subject.
"I am Serpent Fidi, What is your name, lady speaker?"
"Amaris Potter"
"Amaris? You are named after the daughter of the moon, young lady speaker"
Amatis scuffed her shoes together, her eyes still tightly closed. She hadn't realised that anyone on Midgard might have heard of her, she should probably look through the mythology books in the library, maybe there'd be something about her.
She let out a shaky laugh "you could say I am, I suppose"
There was a pregnant pause before the snake hissed "you can open your eyes, lady speaker. My gaze will not harm you"
Amris held her breathe before giving a mental 'fuck this' and snapping her eyes open.
The snakes ginormous head was hovering directly in front of her, it's shockingly yellow eyes rating directly into her own green ones. It's scales were large and forest in colour, they almost looked to glitter in the light of AMaris' glowing skin. It was terrifyingly, mesmerisingly beautiful.
"Why can I look at you?" Amaris asked.
"You are my new Mistress, lady speaker. I shall protect, not harm, you or those under your protection"