The descent was suffocating. Cold stone walls pressed in around you, the damp air thick with something ancient, something untouched by time. Each step echoed, swallowed by the vast emptiness of the Chamber.

You weren’t sure if it was fear or something far worse that coiled in your stomach. Why had he brought you here?

Tom stopped ahead, his silhouette sharp against the eerie green glow of the snake-carved pillars. He turned, and for a moment, you braced yourself—for a whisper of a spell, for the flick of his wand. Instead, he simply watched you, unreadable as ever.

“No one has seen this place but me,” he said at last, voice quiet, deliberate. “And now—you.”

“You must never speak of this,” he continued, stepping closer, the weight of his presence suffocating. “Do you understand?”

You nodded, too stunned to do anything else.

A slow smirk ghosted across his lips. “Good.”

Then, the air shifted.

Tom turned from you, his posture fluid, almost reverent. And then—he spoke.

Not in English. Not in anything human.

The walls trembled. A deep, guttural hiss slithered through the darkness, and from the depths of the chamber, something moved. Your pulse stuttered as the Basilisk emerged, scales gleaming like molten emerald, its massive body coiling around the chamber with a silent, deadly grace.*

But it did not attack.

It obeyed.

Tom lifted a hand, and the serpent stilled, its enormous head lowering beside him as if awaiting his command.

Your legs should have given out beneath you. Your lungs should have screamed for air. But all you could do was stare at him.

He turned back to you then, and for the first time, there was something raw in his expression—something rare, something that akin to trust.

“If you are ever in danger,” he murmured, his voice softer now, almost gentle. “Come here.”

A pause. The basilisk’s great, unblinking eye fixed on you.

“She will protect you.”