In Horace Slughorn's defence, he couldn't have known that all this would happen. All he had wanted to do was play match-maker between his two favourite students, Tom Riddle and Artemis Potter.
...
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----------------------> TOM RIDDLE FROZE. It was impossible. Tom had personally told the basilisk who to attack, she couldn't do it any way else. He had been targeting mudbloods, but unfortunately, those pieces of filth had been lucky enough to only be petrified and not killed. Well, until today that is.
Tom had seen Artemis just this morning, all smiling and happy, and he had not asked the basilisk to harm anyone else today except that mudblood girl he met in the bathroom. He was also confident that Artemis hadn't been in the bathroom during that time, there was nobody else there and he hadn't heard anybody as well.
Tom had even stayed behind for a few moments to confirm that not another living soul was present in the lavatory before he ordered the basilisk to retreat and quickly exited the room so he wouldn't be caught.
So how was it that Artemis Potter had managed to get petrified?
Unless...
Unless the half-breed freak's monster of a creature had actually managed to harm her.
Tom should have just killed them both when he had the chance. He would have been able to claim it was self-defence later on. After all, who were they more likely to believe?
"You're lying," Tom told Abraxas coldly, making the latter shake his head frantically.
"I'm not. I really wish I was, believe me. I do not want to believe that the Heir of Salazar Slytherin can harm purebloods, but-" he hesitated. "My cousin from my mother's side -Aleana Abbot, you remember her, don't you?- she had been visiting some mud blood from her class in the infirmary wing when Slughorn and Flitwick appeared levitating her body. Artemis was unmoving, apparently. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was parted. Aleana told me she looked very scared and a little shocked. Anyway, apparently, Fleamont cried and wrote to his parents. Lord and Lady Potter should be arriving soon, I presume."
A foreign emotion gripped Tom's heart. "Where was she found?" He asked, managing to keep his voice steady somehow and once again, Abraxas stunned him with his response.
"She was apparently found laying still about a foot away from the dead mudblood in the second-floor girl's lavatory." He replied dutifully before pausing. "Why?"
Without dignifying him with an answer, Tom Riddle walked out of the Slytherin Common Room in the direction of the hospital wing.
------> 0o0 <------
Unfortunately, it seemed what Abraxas had told him about was true. Tom's feet seemed stuck to the cool tiles of the infirmary as he blatantly stared at Artemis' unmoving form.
Her golden hair surrounded her lovely yet scared, horror-stricken face like a halo. Her beautiful blue eyes were wide and her lips were parted with a silent gasp. Her hands were in a position as if she had been levitating something heavy, except she wasn't holding her wand, which was kept on a stand beside her bed.
