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Even after years, she still remembered that day. The bright green-eyed boy, still covered in basilisk blood, trembled in her arms.
"I was scared," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I'm here now," she said, hugging him tighter.
Talitha never imagined that she would enter the secret chamber.
She felt like she was dreaming as she followed the green-robed boy (the dark curls always neat, the perfect posture) down the pipe to where she knew the creature her cousin had killed was.
It couldn't be. It couldn't be him.
But it was. She watched as he hissed at the door (the huge face of Salazar Slytherin, surrounded by snakes, just as her cousin had said) and entered the cold, dark chamber. One hissed word from Tom and the torches lit up with a green flame.
He looked at her, a childlike expectation on his face.
- What do you reckon? - he asked, barely able to contain his excitement. - I spent months searching after finding out about my noble blood. I am the very descendant of Salazar himself, the rightful king of Slytherin.
Talitha could only stare at him, trying to connect Tom Riddle to the monster that had haunted her cousin all life.
- And I was thinking," he continued walking further into the chamber. - "The descendant of Salazar Slytherin can't have a name as common as Tom. I need a big name, a name that shows my greatness for the future, a name like...
- Voldemort. - Talitha says.
Tom stops, surprised, seeming to think.
- Yes, Voldemort is a good name.
She felt ice all over her body. It can't be. It can't be him.
But it was.
The handsome young man in front of her talking about the great future they would have (when did she become part of his future?) was the same monster who took the lives of dozens, who started a war, who killed his godparents.
(Part of her wonders when he started losing his hair)
What was she supposed to do?