Tom Stark-Malfoy

~// Do not be alarmed!!! I have adjusted all chapters to make them shorter thus easier to read. Not published a ton of chapters at once.

This one is the only new chapter and it is a shorter chapter, as I will now begin to make shorter chapters and more frequent release dates. Now expect around a chapter every week set to release every Saturday at 8:00! Until again... I run out of chapters, but it wont happen anytime soon!//~

Third person P.O.V.

Draco reaches for the doorknob, but before he could grasp it, Catalipsie scuttled down his arm and jumped on the round silver knob. She turns around and stands on her hind legs with her tail wrapped around the doorknob for support, before pushing Draco's hand away with all her might.

"Silly girl. Don't try to stop me. This is important." Draco grins at his pet's antics and pulls the door open by holding its side. Catalipsie hissed and a loud 'No!' echoed through Draco's mind. "Yes" Draco hissed back, already fully mastering the tones and intonations of the well-practiced word from years of back and forth banter with his beloved reptile. [1]

Stepping into the room, Draco breathed in the stale musty air. Yet strangely enough, the room didn't have any build-up of dust or mold. Almost as though the entire room had been enchanted to preserve everything within it. Everything was in shades of Black, Grey, and Dark Brown. It would have been difficult for Draco to maneuver in the dark had he relied on his sight. Instead, he relied on the magic around him to guide him towards the thing that was almost screaming out loud.

Bumping on a wooden stool, Draco looked down and saw a curious black leather-bound notebook. He could feel that it was this item that was calling out to him. Quickly taking the notebook, he stuffed it in his mokeskin pouch and returned it to a pocket within his cloak.

"Tom!"

Draco jolts at the low seething voice that spoke of the man's anger. Turning around, Draco wasn't surprised to find his father storming towards him still as graceful as a peacock, but an angry peacock.

"What are you doing in here?!" Lucius grabs Draco, his hands trembling yet firm on Draco's shoulders.

'I wanted to come back for you father, but thought to find something that will help me do that in here.' No 'I got lost.' As if. All sorts of thoughts and excuses raced through Draco's mind in milliseconds. Yet none were satisfactory.

"I-"…

"I don't know." Indeed. Pleading innocence in the face of glaring evidence was cowardly, yet quite effective as this would make others come up with a more suitable explanation on the perpetrator's behalf. It was placing all your eggs in one basket, but it was the best solution Draco could come up with.

Lucious had been furious at Draco's palpable shamelessness, yet, almost as if the world made sense, gears turned in Lucius' mind. He could only come to one conclusion. Of course, if Tom didn't know what he was doing, the Horcrux must have manipulated him to come here.

Quickly glancing down at the wooden stool, Lucious found that the black leather-bound journal was still there. Uncovered and slightly different from its original position, yet remains on the stool. Heaving a sigh of relief, he tightly embraced Draco in his arms with eyes filled with tears, yet none were allowed to fall.

Having had a sufficient degree of ȧssuring himself that Tom was still safe, Lucius let go of his son and pushed him out of the room.

"Never come in here ever again Tom. This room holds more dangers than you could imagine. I have several things to sort through, could I place my trust in you and ask for you to wait for me in the dining area? There are important matters I need to discuss with you."

Lucius looks at Draco almost pleadingly, and Draco quickly replies with eyes shining with understanding and obedience.

"Of course father!" Lucius smiles and rubs Draco's head.

"Go now. I will be with you in a moment." Draco nods and turns around to head back into the dining room.

Once Lucius saw Tom enter the correct room from the hallway, he quickly shuts the door and heads back to the wooden stool. Bending down, he picks up the piece of cloth that was supposed to be covering the cursed thing. .

Heading over to a cabinet on the far-right corner of the room, Lucius opens it up with a quick wave of his wand and a silent incantation. Opening a hidden compartment, Lucius's muscles relax in relief seeing a certain cup still in its place. However, Lucius saw a round blurry light grey object moving behind him in the reflection of the cup's surface.

With a quick twist, Lucius fired a [diffindo] in the direction of the source of the movement - making a deep gash in the couch in the process. A tiny grey mammal appeared from under the couch meeting Lucius' gaze with its red beady eyes.

[confringo]

An orange blast shoots through Lucius' swiftly aimed wand, and scorches a third of the couch as well as a good 3-4 diameter circle on the floor. The tiny mammal scurried away and stopped at the other end of the couch, returning its bizarre gaze upon its attacker.

"A rat." Lucius muttered to himself. The rat glared at him, and Lucius was unnerved by the idea of a mere rat glaring at him.

"I should summon the elves for an extermination."

There was something in the rat's glare that seemed to fit a snake more than a lowly pest. 'I suppose some vermin have yet to learn their place.' Lucius unnaturally stood in place for a couple of seconds, neither moving nor averting his eyes as though unnerved by the unusual impasse.

Not before long, the pest scurried away. Lucius turned around and pushed the hidden compartment of the cabinet back in place; locking the entire cabinet back up with a wave of his wand and another incantation that was much lengthier than the one he used earlier.

Assuring himself everything was still alright; Lucius walks back out of the room. Behind him, a small reptilian creature silently wiggles out from under the cloth without disturbing its place on the wooden stool. Dropping on the floor, it quickly runs up the wall and onto the ceiling. As soon as Lucius opened the door of the room, the tiny reptilian creature crawled out through the top of the door opening. As soon as it was out, it scrambled down the ceiling while hiding in the shadows of the corridor towards its owner that was peacefully resting in another room.

Lucius, unaware of the masterful thievery that just took place and with a mind too muddled with various thoughts to notice anything odd, shut the door and locked it with an incantation and a key.

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[1] Yes you can canonically learn parseltongue, (though in Draco's case, he may have learned a dialect of snake language since Catalipsie isn't a snake) As demonstrated by Ron Weasley from chapter 31, "The Battle of Hogwarts".

"It's what you did to open the locket," he told Harry apologetically. "I had to have a few goes to get it right, but," he shrugged modestly, "we got there in the end."

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(I find it cute to make Draco speak parseltongue in dialect. Like Harry speaks fancy common snake language, and Draco speaks like a hillbilly snake from the boonies lol. But I guess it wouldn't be that bad. Maybe like British English and American English. Same but different.. But same.)