– – – – – Rebirth Chapter 04 – – – – –

Summer came and the pair returned to London. Their first week back, they made several trips to Knockturn Alley, and primarily to a store there called 'Borgin and Burkes', which was basically a pawn shop for dark or questionably legal items. The man was a real scoundrel and tried to scam them on quite a few items by barely offering them even a quarter of the item's value, but Tom never fell for it, and would go through several rounds of bartering before he parted with anything.

The two spent most of their days either at the wizarding public library, or at this little pub and in down Knockturn, called Monte's Inferno. They would sit at one of the booths towards the back, order a few drinks – usually Butterbeer since, despite the establishment's questionable clientele, the bartender still refused to serve a 'couple of kids' fire whiskey – and they would spend their afternoon reading some of the books they had taken from the Hidden Room.

They spent as little time as possible at the orphanage. Now that they had a reasonable savings of money, they could afford to buy their lunches and dinners elsewhere on a daily basis, and had no need to even return to the orphanage for their meals. They were at the orphanage just long enough to sleep, bath, and leave again. As such, they became very familiar faces among the regular customers and the shop owners on Diagon and Knockturn Alley's – although mostly the latter.

Despite their attempts to keep as distanced as possible from the muggle world, the events going on around them were impossible to ignore.

Eisenhower had arrived in London the last week of June to begin planning the American's efforts in Europe with the other Allied Forces. The Germans had besieged Sevastopol earlier in June, and by July 3rd, they'd taken it and began to drive towards Stalingrad. The air raids over London continued, as well as countrywide rationing of food and supplies.

Word was tricking in from time to time about some Nazi camp called Auschwitz, where the German's were mass-killing all the Jews and the Gypsies they had managed to round up over the last few years of their occupation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and surrounding countries.

The Jews, Tom didn't seem to give a damn about, since they were 'just muggles', but the gypsies were another matter all together, since a vast many of them were actually witches and wizards, or squibs.

Tom had managed to get his hands on some sort of 'scientific paper' in relation to what the Nazi's were doing with the Jews, in addition to killing them all off, that is. It was called 'Eugenics' and the concept fascinated Tom to an almost frighten degree. When Heri had finally grown a bit frustrated with the whole thing, he'd asked why the hell Tom was so obsessed with some stupid muggle science? Tom had gotten that look in his eyes that would scare the daylights out of anyone else, but usually just made Heri a tad bit wary, since he usually associated it with something that would come and bite him in the ass later, and he would be forced to do damage control.

Tom had informed him that Eugenics was the 'applied science or the biosocial movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population," usually referring to human populations. When Heri had just blinked at him dumbly, Tom had rolled his eyes, made a small, frustrated growl in the base of his throat, and then spent several hours explaining how it could be used by wizards to solve a lot of their blood purity issues. That this Eugenics was basically just a new incarnation of a lot of Salazar Slytherin's ideals.

Heri didn't really see the connection, since the whole thing was derived from the muggle genetics science, which he, admittedly, knew very little about. But Tom had explained in an excited voice about how it was all about bloodlines and heredity. All about breeding, and weeding out the weakest traits.

The Nazis apparently had started sterilizing anyone who they deemed unfit to breed. Tom had then suggested with that excited, frightening, gleam in his eyes, that they could simply sterilize all the muggleborns and then there would be no risk at all of any contamination from their filthy blood.

Heri didn't know what to make of it all, and honestly, wasn't sure he had the mental capacity to think about it at all. What he did allow himself to worry about, were the stories of a powerful German wizard named Grindlewald, that was using the muggle war as a cover to conceal his incredibly fast rise to power. Tom, however, seemed rather excited by this, since the German wizard seemed to be mostly fighting for the rights of the oppressed Dark Wizard minority, and as far as Tom was concerned, that was a cause worth fighting for.

Heri couldn't disagree with that, but he worried that Grindlewald's efforts were becoming to open and obvious and his actions would risk exposing them all to the muggles. Tom had scoffed, insisting that the muggles were too blind, and too preoccupied with their little war to see a snidgit flying two inches in front of their own noses.

In the end, the summer had been blissfully uneventful, and it was once again time to return to Hogwarts.

The pair was entering their fifth year, and Tom had received word in his Hogwarts letter that summer that he had been chosen as the male Slytherin Prefect. Heri had been very proud of his friend, and his accomplishment. When it came to ride the train to Hogsmeade, Tom had been hesitant to leave Heri behind in order to attend the prefect meeting and Heri had scoffed before shooing him out of the compartment. Outwardly, Heri tended to act annoyed or irritated at Tom's overprotective tendencies, but inwardly, he was actually rather touched that Tom hadn't wanted to leave him behind, even though being made a Prefect fell right in line with his goals for notoriety and respect.

Heri had spent the first few hours of the train ride with Lucretia, Orion, and Cygnus Black since he hadn't spent much time with any of them during the last term. Walburga was there for a moment in the start, but quickly left to go to the Prefect's car. Lucretia was a year above Tom and him, while Orion and Cygnus were only just now starting their second year. They shared no classes, and even their free periods didn't line up. When Tom returned from his duties patrolling the train, he dragged Heri off to the compartment that housed a selection of their year mates. Walter Gibbon, Casper Crouch, Astraea Malfoy, and Chthonia Carrow.

Duella Rosier had been made the other prefect for their year, and while she dropped in to say something to Tom, she didn't stick around.

Stories were exchanged about their summers, and Casper and Walter both seemed to be awestruck by Tom and Heri spending almost the whole summer hanging out in Knockturn Alley. It seemed that Walter's mother still refused to even let him set foot in the Alley, even with his father, and Casper had only ever gotten to go there a few times, and of course, always with a parent.

Astraea acted as if it were nothing at all, and kept her nose properly in the air, like a Malfoy should, but Chthonia kept hanging onto Tom and gushing over him, as if he were god's gift to wizarding kind. Heri couldn't help but find himself extremely annoyed by this and by the time the train arrived in Hogsmeade, he was glaring daggers at the bushy-haired girl. Tom didn't exactly look like he was enjoying her particular form of attention either, but her family was nearly as wealthy as the Malfoys were, and she had developed a tendency the previous year to buy Tom rather extravagant gifts – usually rare books, which was always a fantastic way to get onto Tom's limited good side – and Tom wasn't about to blow such a valuable resource. He was more than capable of pretending to be polite and charming when in annoying situations since as far as he was concerned, most of his life was an annoying situation.

The train arrived and the group took the carriages up to the castle. They met up with the rest of their year mates and all sat down in an orderly fashion at the Slytherin table; a stark contrast to the rowdy nature of the Gryffindors.

Tom sneered disdainfully at their behavior and turned to Heri.

"You'll never believe who they made head boy," he drawled with an obvious edge of derision.

"Who?"

"Charlus Potter," Tom spat.

Heri grimaced. "Bloody hell. Well, it's not much a surprise is it? He is Dumbledore's favorite." Heri turned and watched the Gryffindors for a moment, barely managing to contain his snickers as one particularly enormous third year accidentally caused the bench to wobble precariously when he sat down on it, and causing the boys to his left to fall off.

"Stupid oaf," Heri chuckled quietly under his breath.

"He's just a filthy half-breed. It's disgusting that they allow his sort even to attend." Tom sneered.

–

Term quickly got into full speed and the two easily settled back into their school routines. Tom was extremely well respected in Slytherin, and Heri by extension. Having become Prefect only added to Tom's respect level. It also added to his authority, something that really only added to his already powerful, smug sense of self-importance. Heri was only amused by it though, and he was happy for his friend.

When Tom did his prefect rounds, Heri would continue with his study into the Necromantic arts. Tom still scoffed at most of it, so Heri relegated most of his study to times when Tom was busy with something else. The only time Tom had shown any interest at all in his Necromancer's Grimoire was when Heri had told him about the section he'd found on reanimating corpses to create inferi. Heri considered it the most bare and simple form of necromancy though and held very little respect for it. He was far more interested in the control and manipulation of the spirit plane and its inhabitants.

Months passed and Heri and Tom were both frequently invited to Slug Club meetings with their head of house. In mid November Professor Slughorn announced that he was going to throw a big Yule party that year, the last week of term. There would be live music, dancing, and lots of mingling. And of course, there would be lots of people invited who were old students of the Professor – all former members of the Slug Club who had gone on to lead powerful and influential lives.

It was invitation only, but if you were asked to the dance by someone invited, you could attend. Since both Heri and Tom received invitations, the female population of Slytherin, and quite a few Ravenclaws as well, began to fawn over the two boys, all hoping to be allowed to attend the dance with one of them.

It wasn't the first time that people had fawned over either of them, of course. The girls were always hanging all over Tom, although he usually managed to turn down their advances in a polite and charming way. Heri rarely bothered with being charming or polite about his dismissals. He was usually a rather quiet and aloof personality in Slytherin house, so when approached by some giggling girl, he would usually just raise a single brow and give them a cold, hard look, that seemed to question their sanity for bothering to approach him. Tom seemed amused by this. While Heri was huffing in frustrated annoyance at their persistent advances, Tom's eyes would dance with mirth and amusement.

But Heri simply wasn't interested in any of those girls. They were all annoying, simpering, bubble-headed bints as far as he was concerned. None of them were up to par, intellectually. He certainly couldn't carry on an intelligent conversation or debate with any of them. Not a one of them interested him at all, and he found he wasn't even the slightest bit attracted to any of them either.

And so by the time the dance rolled around, he had decided to simply go stag, because he wasn't wasting his time with some stupid girl would just fawn all over him all night long.

Tom had invited Astraea Malfoy, since she was too poised and proud to spend the night hanging all over him, and giggling was beneath her. Tom had no actual interest in her at all, and Heri knew that, and yet he still got the oddest twisting feeling in his gut as he watched Tom and Astraea dance.

–

The Yule holidays finally arrived and the school emptied of its chaos-creating populace. Tom, once again, took advantage of the empty school and three solid weeks without classes, to continue his search for the Chamber. Heri went back to the Room of Hidden Things to go digging through more of the books and things contained within it. It was a cathedral-sized room with an incredibly tall ceiling. He knew it had to be space expanded because it could simply not fit inside the school, given the size and shape of this part of the castle from the outside. It also meant that no matter how many times he visited it to go digging about, there was always something more to find the next time he came back.

He'd collected a sizable stack of books to look through and slipped them into space-expanded knapsack he'd discovered in the Room months earlier. He'd just left the room and was about to head back down to the Grand Staircases when he had a bit of an epiphany. He turned back and looked at the blank wall and thought about how he activated the room. He walked past it three times while focusing on the thought, 'I need a place to hid things' and it would appear. But he wondered suddenly, what it would do if he needed something else.

He'd been wishing for a place where he could practice necromancy skills. It was a banned Dark Art and he was worried that performing any of the more advanced spells would get him caught by the school's wards, and he obviously couldn't do it over the summer since he was still underaged.

He began to walk back and forth in front of the blank wall while thinking, 'I need a room where I can practice really Dark Arts and not get caught'. On his third pass, a door appeared. It was a different door than he was used to though, and his eyes grew wide with excitement and his heart began to race in his chest.

He pulled the door open and went inside. It was a large, empty room with columns along the dark stonewalls. The only things in the room were three dummies, standing in a row along one wall. Mustering up his determination, Heri took out his wand, aimed it at one of the dummies and cast one of the darker curses that he and Tom had learned from one of their many Dark Arts books. The usually only practiced that one in the Forbidden Forest, aiming at trees. The spell impacted the dummy and a wide, deep gash appeared across its abdomen, and rubbery-looking bits in the shape of intestines, spilled out and onto the floor with a thud.

Heri stood frozen for a moment before he ran to the door, poked his head out, and looked around cautiously, wondering if anyone was coming to expel him.

No one came. After fifteen minutes, he went back into the room and gleefully began practicing away. Tom was going to be so excited!

–

"I found it!" Tom exclaimed with the most powerful, maniacal, accomplished gleam Heri had ever seen in his eyes.

Heri blinked at him. "Found what?"

"The Chamber!"

Heri gasped. "You're kidding!"

"No! I found it!"

"Where?" Heri hissed as he stood up from his bed and hurried over to Tom who was standing in the entrance to their room.

Tom laughed humorlessly. "Oh, it's the most ridiculous place. It's in a girls lavatory!"

"You're kidding!"

"No. The girls lav on the second floor. One of the sinks doesn't work. On the faucet is a tiny snake. A little parseltongue and the sinks all moved to the side to reveal a large pipe."

"Have you gone down?" Heri asked, suddenly feeling a bit left out.

Tom gave him a very small smile. "Not yet. I wanted to wait and bring you with me.

A relieved smile spread across Heri's lips. "Thanks... Oh! I've discovered something rather incredible too!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah, you know how we activate the Room of Hidden Things?"

"Yes?"

"Well, if you think something else, instead of 'I need to hide something', you get a different room. I tried thinking 'I need a place to practice Dark spells and not get caught', and I got this huge warded practice room with target dummies that simulate the wounds the spells cause."

Tom's eyes widened with interest. "That sounds... brilliant."

"Yeah, we'll have to check it out soon, but first..."

"The Chamber of Secrets," Tom finished with a wide, feral grin.

"We'll have to do it tomorrow. Dinner is in a half hour and if we aren't there, Slughorn will wonder what we're up to." Heri said.

"More likely that Dumbledore would start to wonder what we're up to," Tom sneered and Heri nodded in agreement.

"They won't care too much if we miss lunch. We can go down early in the morning and spend the whole day down there."

"Right," Tom agreed.

Heri paused and took on a hesitant, worried, look. "Hey, Tom?"

"Yes?"

"Well, the Chamber is supposed to have some sort of monster in it, right?"

"Yes?"

"Well, what if it tries to eat us?"

"I'm the heir of Slytherin, Heri. It won't try to eat me," he said with absolute confidence.

"Yeah, but I'm not. It might try to eat me."

"I'll tell it not to. It's no doubt some sort of serpent. I'll speak to it in parseltongue and tell it not to harm you."

Heri sighed and shrugged. All he could do was trust that Tom was right and that it really would be as simple as he seemed to think it would be.

–

The next day the pair of them got up early and as soon as breakfast was finished, they escaped to the second floor girl's bathroom and Heri watched as Tom hissed at the sink and opened the secret entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

They both grimaced at the state of the slimy-looking pipe. Tom looked thoughtful for a moment before he started hissing at the opening to the pipe. After a minute, the slippery slide suddenly began to morph and transfigure into steep steps instead.

Heri smirked approvingly at Tom, who had a smug look on his face. The two started to make their way down the long, narrow stairs and as soon as both their heads had cleared the entrance, Tom hissed at it and it closed behind them. They both used their wands to illuminate the path, and continued the long journey down.

It felt like ages before they finally reached the bottom. There was a small mountain of dead animal bones at the base. They made their way down a long tunnel, seemingly carved directly out of the stone bedrock, and finally came upon an elaborate door with large serpents on it.

Tom hissed at it and a moment later the snakes started moving across the front of the door, seemingly unlocking it, and allowing the door to swing open on its own.

The Chamber itself was a huge temple-like room with rows of pillars and carved serpents. At the far end was a massive statue of Salazar Slytherin from the shoulders, up. The two slowly walked down the center of the chamber, looking around with awe-struck expressions as they took in the elaborate, beautiful room.

It was cold, and there were pools of standing water between some of the pillars. As soon as they stepped inside, rows of torches mounted to the pillars, erupted into blue flame, illuminating the grand space in soft shades of blue and green as the light reflected off the deep greenish pools of water.

The two began to examine different parts of the vast room, searching for any signs of what Slytherin's 'monster' could be. There were some tunnels extending from the room, but they all appeared to just circle back and connect with the main chamber again. Most of them had lots of standing water in them, and they all seemed to be filled with the skeletal remains of various small animals.

"Well it's been a millennium since the school was founded. I suppose it is rather silly to expect the creature to still be alive down here." Heri said with a sigh.

Tom just scowled at him and huffed as he continued to walk along the walls, tracing his hand and fingers over the rough carved rock surface, looking for clues.

Heri sighed at Tom's determination, but smiled softly at his dear friend. He resumed searching as well, using his wand to cast various magical detection spells, searching for any sign of a secret entrance or hidden objects.

"Heri! Come here!" Tom called out suddenly and Heri jogged across the chamber to where Tom was examining the wall to the side of the large statue. Tom was tracing his fingers over the wall and Heri just looked at it with confusion written across his face.

"What?"

"Don't you see it?" Tom asked, his wild, excited eyes, turning towards Heri.

Heri looked back at the wall, squinted and searched it for anything, but saw nothing unusual.

"No... nothing."

"Just more proof that I'm his heir," Tom whispered. "That must be why I can see it."

"What do you see?" Heri asked in a hushed voice.

"It's writing. It wiggles a little. Like tiny squirming baby snakes, slithering in and out of each other... but I can see understand it, almost as if it were written in English."

"So... written parseltongue?" Heri gasped.

Tom nodded.

"What's it say?"

"It lists what to say to open the door to his library..."

"There's a library down here?" Heri gasped.

"...and it says what to say to call the basilisk out."

"BASILISK?"

Tom nodded his head. "Yes... it says that Slytherin's creature was the king of serpents; the basilisk."

"But a basilisk can kill with a single look into its eyes! One look and you're dead!"

Tom nodded his head gravely. "We'll have to take precautions when we call her out."

Heri coughed out a humorless laugh in response. "Yeah... well... let's check out this library thing first. At least the library probably won't kill us... probably..."

Tom chuckled and led Harry into one of the cylindrical tube-tunnels that circled out and around the outer walls of the Chamber and came to stop at a blank bit of wall and hissed at it. A moment later, a circular door seemed to carve itself from the curved wall and opened. The two walked through and down another short hallway before emerging into a large, circular room with bookshelves making up the entire length of the outer wall. In the center of the room was a single desk, with a single chair.

"...wow." Heri said in an awestruck voice.

He glanced over at Tom and saw that fierce, triumphant glow in his eyes. This was all his now.

–

The following day, Heri took Tom to the Room of Hidden things, but summoned the magic practice room instead. Tom seemed mildly impressed, but in the end, he rarely took advantage of the room. He was far too preoccupied with the Chamber and the treasure trove that was Salazar Slytherin's personal library.

Heri quickly realized that the library wouldn't be a lot of good to him, since the majority of the books in it were written in either parseltongue, or a very old English dialect he could hardly decipher at all. One book, however, did draw his attention. He felt as if it were calling to him because when he and Tom had explored the library, Heri had gone straight to it like a moth to the flame.

It was a Necromancer's Grimoire. Even older than the one he had gotten from the Black Library, and it reeked of powerful black magic. Just holding it filled him with a sense of power. To say he was excited and elated would be a severe understatement. Aside from the Grimoire from the Blacks, Heri hadn't managed to find a single detailed source of information on the Necromantic Arts. Now he would finally have two. He could cross-reference, and see if the authors of these two books agreed or disagreed with each other on some of the more important issues that had drawn his interest.

Tom had looked over his shoulder and scowled when he found himself magically compelled to look away from the book. Heri had laughed at him and told him it was only fair since when Heri looked at the rest of the books in this library, all he saw were meaningless squiggles. It was only fair that he could have at least one book where the tables were turned.

And so the rest of their holidays were spent visiting the Chamber as often as they could manage to get away and spending their days reading.

They didn't summon the creature yet since neither was exactly feeling comfortable with the idea just yet. Before they knew it, classes were back in session and all of the students were back in the castle. It also meant that they had considerably less time to get down into the Chamber. Heri didn't exactly feel like there was a lot of reason for him to go all the way down there anyway, since only the one book was any use to him, and he had taken it with him. So while Tom continued to go down into the Chamber to read through Slytherin's books and journals, Heri began to retire into the Hidden Room's magical training room and finally practicing all of the things he was learning from his two Necromancer Grimoires. By March, he'd learned how to induce the trance necessary to begin transporting his conscious mind along his ethereal tether that connected his physical body to his astral body in the astral plane – which was the foundation for all more advanced necromantic magical exploration.

It was dangerous to tamper with such things because a person could easily lose themselves in the astral plane and never find the way back to their physical body – leaving it an empty shell until it would just die.

During that time, Heri and Tom had also begun investigating another side-project. One of the seventh years had informed them that there was a way – a mixture of charms, potions, and a ritual – to magically generate an accurate family tree. It was apparently often used in disputes over inheritance when the deceased left no will and it was difficult to determine if all parties claiming interest were actually related to the deceased. It was also the spell used to create the elaborate family tapestries that they had both witnessed at some of their more wealthy housemates' homes during their brief and limited visits.

Tom had continued to put most of his time into exploring the Slytherin Library, and had said if he came across anything while there that seemed worthwhile to their hereditary pursuit that he'd set it aside, but Heri was the one who was primarily responsible for researching the spells and potions necessary for the task. By March, he had determined everything that was necessary and had begun ordering all of the ingredients they would need for the two potions they would brew – one for each of them with their blood as the key ingredient. The potions would take one lunar cycle to brew, but once it was done, all they had to do was soak a large piece of parchment or tapestry cloth in the potion, hang it up to dry, and perform a few specific charms on it. Twenty-four hours later, a detailed family tree going back ten generations would have completely appeared. At the full moon, Tom and he both started their potions.

They had gotten permission from Professor Slughorn to use one of the empty classrooms in the dungeons to brew, and even gotten him to allow them to lock the door so no one could come in and disturb the process. It was a low maintenance potion, and Tom – being busy with the Chamber – left most of it to Heri.

–

One day in early April, Tom came into their dorm room, with wild, half-mad eyes, and a rather frazzled and uncharacteristically disheveled appearance.

"I did it," Tom panted.

"Did what?" Heri asked as he cautiously stood up from his bed and took in Tom's crazed expression.

"I called the basilisk. I released it into the school."

Heri felt as if someone had just poured a bucket of ice water down the back of his shirt.

"You did what?" he hissed. "Are you out of your mind?"

"I'm going to complete Salazar's noble work! I'm going to finally rid this school of all the filthy mudbloods!" Tom exclaimed in a harsh whisper.

"You're going to get yourself expelled, or worse, locked up in Azkaban, is what you're going to do!" Heri snapped back. "Is it out there now? Has it... did it kill anyone?"

"She's back in the Chamber right now. We encountered one filthy little mudblood girl in the bathroom. She spotted the basilisk in the mirror and only got petrified," Tom sneered with disappointment.

Heri gaped at him. "Are you insane? You nearly killed... Tom, how can... I..." Heri shook his head before lowering it and pinching the bridge of his nose as he attempted to calm his breathing. "Circe, I hope you know what the hell you're doing, and for Merlin's sake, don't get caught!" he hissed angrily as he looked back up and glared at Tom harshly.

"Of course not!" Tom snapped angrily. "Do you take me for some stupid impetuous Gryffindor?"

"Well, this seems rather sudden to me. How long have you been planning this?"

"Don't be a fool, Heri – what do you think we've spent the last three years searching for the Chamber of Secrets for? So that I could go up to Slytherin's monster and have a chat?" Tom spat.

Heri snorted. "Even I'm not that naïve, but I certainly didn't expect you to release the damn thing while we were only in our fifth year!"

"What did you expect, that I would wait till the last week of term in seventh? That's hardly enough time to deal with all the filth inhabiting this school right now. It will take time. The basilisk needs to regain her strength. She's been in a stasis sleep for centuries. She's only allowed to wake for a brief period of time every few hundred years, and an automated compulsion charm draws in large quantities of small animals through a small cave and tunnel that comes from the Forbidden Forest. She eats her fill and then goes back to sleep. She needs to regain her strength right now, before I really set her loose in the school."

Heri sighed a small bit. "Okay... and how long will that take? Do you seriously intend to have this thing start killing students? How exactly are you going to make the beast distinguish between the mudbloods and the rest of the students? What if it starts eating everything in sight? If you have to go around babysitting the damn thing to make sure it only kills the right people, you're bound to get caught! How big is this thing anyway?"

Tom's face grew wicked again and a greedy grin spread across his face. "She's enormous. Probably the largest basilisk that's ever existed. She's nearly fifty feet long!"

Heri sucked in a harsh breath through his teeth, making a hissing sound.

"Fifty feet? FIFTY FEET? That's insane! How are you supposed to be subtle with a fucking FIFTY FOOT SNAKE?"

"Be Quiet!" Tom hissed.

"No! No, Tom, this is insane! You're out of your mind!"

"This is my duty as Slytherin's heir! He left the chamber behind in hopes that his heir would one day discover it and fulfill his wishes. Complete his noble task! I'm simply –"

"Don't pull that shit with me, Tom! You're not doing this out of any sense of hereditary duty! You're doing this because you want to! You're looking for that powerful rush you used to get when you killed the other kid's pets! You just want to kill something, but the animals aren't enough for you anymore! You figured that out with the roosters you had to kill, didn't you? I know you were the one that offed all of Ogg's roosters. Couldn't risk one of them crowing while you had the monster out of it's safe little cave, could you? So you killed them, but it just wasn't enough.

"Well, if you're so damn eager to kill someone, why can't you just wait until this summer when we can do it with some subtly? We'll have our hereditary trees done by then and we can finally track down any living family we have and make them pay for never even trying to find us! Kill someone who has specifically wronged you – don't do this random, meaningless slaughter that's liable to get you caught!" Heri hissed in an angry harsh whisper.

Tom stood up tall, raising his chin and looking down at Heri imperiously.

"I'm not going to get caught." Tom snapped in a crisp tone as he stared at Heri with narrowed eyes.

"You say that now..."

"I'm no fool! I know what I'm doing."

"I sure as hell hope you do."

–