"She won't wake," said a soft voice.
Harry jumped and spun around on his knees. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.
"Tom? Tom Riddle?"
Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face.
"What do you mean, she won't wake?" Harry questioned desperately. "She's not...she's not...?"
"She's still alive." Riddle remarked. "But only just."
Harry stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen.
"Are you a ghost?" Harry inquired with uncertainty.
"A memory." Riddle replied quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."
He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary Harry had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, Harry wondered how it had got there,but there were more pressing matters to deal with.
"You've got to help me, Tom," Harry said, raising Ginny's head again. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk… I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment… Please, help me."
Riddle didn't move. Harry, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and bent to pick up his wand again.
But his wand had gone.
"Did you see...?"
He looked up. Riddle was still watching him, twirling Harry's wand between his long fingers.
"Thanks." Harry amended himself, stretching out his hand for it. A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. He continued to stare at Harry, twirling the wand idly.
"Listen." said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny's dead weight. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes..."
"It won't come until it is called." The memory cut him off calmly.
Harry lowered Ginny back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer.
"What do you mean?" he said. "Look, give me my wand, I might need it."
Riddle's smile broadened.
"You won't be needing it."
Harry stared at him.
"What d'you mean, I won't be…?"
"I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter." Riddle interrupted. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."
"Look," said Harry, losing patience, "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later."
"We're going to talk now." Riddle stated uncompromisingly, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed Harry's wand. Harry stared at him. There was something very funny going on her.
"How did Ginny get like this?" He asked slowly.
"Well, that's an interesting question." Riddle said pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."
"It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," The memory of Tom Riddle remarked. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you came in, Harry. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet…"
"And why did you want to meet me?" Harry questioned. Anger was coursing through him, and it took some effort to keep his voice steady.
"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," Riddle spoke unconcernedly. "Your whole fascinating history."
His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Harry's forehead, and their expression grew hungrier.
"I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust."
"Hagrid's my friend," Harry spat, his voice now shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but..."
Riddle laughed his high laugh again.
"It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parent-less but so brave, school prefect, model student… on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls… but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realise that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance… as if Hagrid had the brains! Or the power!
"Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed… Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did…"
"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," Harry sneered, his teeth gritted.
"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled." Riddle snapped carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."
"Well, you haven't finished it," said Harry triumphantly. "No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be alright again."
"Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "Killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been… you."
Harry stared at him.
"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery—particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue…
"So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her… She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last… I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter."
"Like what?" Harry spat, fists still clenched.
"Well." Riddle spoke softly, still smiling pleasantly. "How is it that you, a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent, managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.
"Why do you care how I escaped?" Harry retorted hotly. "Voldemort was after your time!"
"Voldemort..." Riddle whispered softly. "... is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter…"
He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words.
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves.
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
"You see?" He whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry, I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"
Harry's brain seemed to have gone on strike. He stared numbly at Riddle, at the orphaned boy who had grown up to murder Harry's own parents, and so many others. At last he forced himself to speak.
"You're not." He said lowly, his quiet voice full of hatred.
"Not what?" snapped Riddle.
"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world." Harry declared, breathing fast. "Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days."
The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.
"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" he hissed.
"He's not as gone as you might think!" Harry retorted. He was speaking at random, wanting to scare Riddle, wishing rather than believing it to be true.
Riddle opened his mouth, but froze.
Music was coming from somewhere. The young Voldemort whirled around to stare down the empty Chamber. The music was growing louder. It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Harry's scalp and made his heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size. Then, as the music reached such a pitch that Harry felt it vibrating inside his own ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest statue.
A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle.
A second later, the bird was flying straight at Harry. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying right into his hands and flew away.
"So this is what Dumbledore sends his great defender. A songbird, and an old hat." Tom sneered with wicked amusement. Then he turned to the statue of Slytherin's face.
Riddle opened his mouth again, and the hissing language of Parseltongue filled the Chamber.
"Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!"
The mouth of the statue ground open in response to Tom Riddle's Parseltongue, only darkness visible within. Then, in the depths of Salazar Slytherin's stone face, something stirred. Something truly horrifying. From within the black, luminous yellow eyes glittered. He quickly averted his own, casting his gaze down at the floor that was carpeted by rippling water instead of the deadly slits of the King of Serpents that could kill him in an instant. Something huge entered the pool of water directly in front of the statue of Slytherin.
Harry backed up fast. The Basilisk had fully emerged, now rising from the water and looking to Tom. Suddenly the Sorting Hat delivered by Fawkes was very insignificant in the face of this ancient horror. He dropped it. It was useless anyway.
"Parseltongue won't save you this time Potter, it only obeys me!" Riddle taunted Harry. Then he gave the order.
"Kill him!"
The mighty serpent uncoiled and burst from the water, snapping its jaws shut with a deafening smack. Harry barely managed to get out of the way, rolling forward, and the Basilisk collided with one of the many serpentine statues that ran down either side of the chamber. But Harry didn't stop. He kept running, making for the gap in the statues, halfway down the chamber.
A familiar phoenix cried, flying down the chamber again. Fawkes lunged with his talons, plunging them into the fatal yellow eyes, ripping, tearing. Blood ran across the gargantuan serpent's scaly skin. The flame bird detached from the organ he had just shredded and assaulted the other slitted orb with his bloodied feet. With the eyes of his pet mutilated, Riddle all but screamed at the Basilisk.
"Leave the damn bird! The boy! Kill the boy! Smell him out!"
The dreaded creature whipped around, shaking Fawkes off. Its eyes may have been ruined but it still had its nose. It lunged for Harry. He had only just rounded the corner when the beastly serpent rammed headfirst into the wall of the giant pipe the Gryffindor student had entered.
The young Potter ran down the tunnel, not noticing the rats scurrying away from the looming serpent behind him. He dived at the nearest opening, throwing himself towards the exit. But it was ultimately for naught. A moss encrusted gate barred his bid for escape. An ominous hiss echoed from behind him. Slowly, Harry turned around. The sight of scaly hide froze him on the spot. His pupils dilated, his breath stopped and his blood felt like it had turned to ice. The Basilisk was upon him!
He sank silently to the ground. The chase was up. His left hand found stones, small one, barely big enough to make a noise if thrown. Wait, that was it! His grimy hand closed around the stones and he hurled them as quietly as he could. The rocks clattered against the tunnel floor and the great beast turned its head. It followed the sound, hunting the phantom Harry it unknowingly created for itself. The real Harry ran back into the main part of the Chamber of Secrets and to Ginny's side, disregarding Riddle.
"Don't you dare ignore me Harry, soon I will be the only living trace of Ginny Weasley in this world!"
Harry growled.
"Shut up."
"The transference is nearly complete. Soon, I shall cease to be a memory, I will become flesh once more and you will die alongside poor, foolish little Ginny. A meaningless death, fit for trash like the pair of you."
"Shut up!" Harry roared. "You don't know Ginny as well as you think, and you definitely don't know me! You made Ginny suffer alone this whole year, torturing her through that diary of yours! I know some of what she went through, and I hate it! You hurt innocent people for fun… I swear… I will stop you! I want to kill you so bad right now, I'm shaking!"
Then his eyes turned red, a single comma spinning into being around his pupil in each eye.
A glimmer of silver glittered within the Sorting Hat he had dropped. A sword hilt lay there. On a deep and powerful impulse, Harry seized and yanked it, pulling a glittering sword from the musty old hat. Right then, the Basilisk burst from the water again and reared up, screeching. But the movements that had been impossible to track before were a little clearer now. He could see a phantom image of the great serpent before exactly where it would be before it moved.
He knew what he had to do, and he would succeed, his own life be damned. Harry brandished the sword, and shouted a challenge to the King of Serpents.
"Come on!"
It lunged. The Basilisk's giant body came forth from the water like a torrent, a long and seemingly never-ending torpedo. It rapidly bore down on him, sword-like fangs bared, its maw wide open to smash down onto him, to crush and chew him. Harry raised the sword with both hands and struck. A squelch rebounded off every wall, assaulting the ears of all in the Chamber of Secrets.
"No!"
He had driven the blade straight up into the roof of the Basilisk's mouth, piercing clean through the brain and exiting on the outside, between the ruined eyes. It shrieked and hissed, but the damage was done. But as he tore the sword free when the massive snake reared back and started to thrash about, Harry saw them.
Two holes in his right arm, created by the intrusion of the Basilisk's fangs past his skin and into his arm. A fang was still embedded in the top one, practically in the inside of his elbow joint. The venom was already in his blood, circulating, being pumped around by his heart, contaminating his blood that dripped from the open holes. A few more moments of thrashing and the Basilisk crashed to the sodden floor like a diminuendo that ended a performance.
Harry fell to his knees, propping himself up on the bloodstained silver sword. It was nearly over. He looked at the Basilisk's fang from his arm and turned about. Riddle was there, diary in hand, a look of shock and rage on his face. First, his features twisted, his nostrils flared then he bellowed,
"What have you done Harry Potter?!"
Adrenaline pumping through his veins, a raging fire that fuelled him, electrifying each and every part of him, Harry rose up. He stared Riddle right in the face. He broke into a stumbling run, heading right for the memory, grasping the sword tightly. The memory hurriedly raised Harry's wand to stop the boy from getting any further. Green light began to shine from the end and he uttered the incantation, or at least tried to.
"Avada…"
In the same instant that Tom Riddle began the incantation, Harry's entire left eye momentarily took a silver ripple pattern with 3 comma markings in the both first two rings, and tears of blood fell.
"Amaterasu!"
Black flames erupted from nowhere on the diary.
Fractures of light wracked the memory of Tom Riddle as the flames engulfed him slowly too, and Harry silently questioned the voice of a man who completely unknown to him echo from… his left eye?
The Boy-Who-Lived staggered back, watching shining bright cracks appear all over Tom Riddle beneath the black flames. The Heir of Slytherin swiped at him with his remaining hand but he couldn't reach. The cracks covered his entire form as Harry turned around. The memory spat one last time before bursting into a shower of sparks that dissipated.
"Damn you Harry Potter!"
The wand hit the chamber floor, rolling back to its master. But Harry didn't notice. The adrenaline rush had died and he could once again feel the poison.
The venom was in his heart.
Harry stumbled towards Ginny, then he seized up. He was overcome by a fierce pain in his eyes and he clutched them. Blood came from his left eye and mouth, slipping through his fingers and dropping to the sodden floor. It stained the pools with red, leaving a trail as he tried to stagger on.
He was just a mere 3 metres away from her now. As he seized up again, Harry dropped to his knees. The Boy Who Lived almost fell, rivulets of blood running down his chin into the water. He looked on. Ginny was still motionless on the chamber floor, spread-eagle. His hand reached forwards and he did his best to stumbled with his barely responsive feet, ignoring the Basilisk's venom in his heart.
3 metres.
He struggled to move. Black was creeping into the corners of his vision, turning everything dark.
'Just a little further…'
2 metres.
The darkness was growing, consuming his sight, dragging him down. His white shirt was stained red at the cuffs and collar and he was nearing Ginny. He had to get to her.
'Come on…'
1 metre.
He pitched forward to his knees, face down. With the last of his strength, Harry reached for her, his left hand shaking as it was extended. with only agony on his face. He looked up and saw the redhead girl lying unmoving, a mere metre from him. Damn it!
'Ginny…'
He was kneeling in his own blood. There was so much… he had wanted to do. Quidditch, hang out with Ron and Hermione, complete his wizarding education, enjoy a bit more time with the Weasley family, find someone he could love and have a family of his own one day and… Harry just wished he could of gotten to know Ginny… maybe… this wouldn't of happened if he had been there for her…
But it was too late for all that now.
He was dying down here in the Chamber of Secrets, cold and alone. He let the black take him, gradually falling into the deep slumber of death, his eyes half-closed. His final thoughts consisted of three words. Three words he would never of imagined he would ever think together at the start of the year.
'Ginny… I'm sorry…'
The black consumed his sight entirely, his hand falling slack and numb to the watery floor, the blood on his palm staining it red. He fell, twisting, and his head mercifully landed in Ginny's lap instead of crashing against the unforgiving stone.
Ginny's eyes blinked open. She couldn't see!
She shot up frantically, blinking fast. In hindsight, she wasn't blind. Everything was just blurry and dark. She waited a moment or two for things to come into focus and to adapt to the low level of light then took a look around.
She was in some kind of underground chamber, judging by the pools of freezing water covering the floor like a sheet. There was a giant carved stone face with its mouth open, and then her bright brown eyes fell upon the absolutely gargantuan serpent that lay dead. She was in the Chamber of Secrets!
Then she felt the weight in her lap and saw the red water. She saw the blood. She traced to the source.
Harry Potter was collapsed on his back, a pool of his own blood mingling with the water. His eyes were only half-closed behind his glasses and they were glassy and glazed over. His head was what was in her lap.
He looked dead.
As an 11 year old girl and someone who just woke up from a death trance a few moments ago, Ginny did the only thing anyone could do in her present situation.
She screamed.
"Can you hear my voice Harry?"
Harry's emerald eyes snapped open, and he found himself standing in a place not unlike the Chamber, dim blue light from somewhere illuminating himself and the tall man who stood opposite him.
The man wore a black cloak with purple lining, and a grey, long-sleeved, collared shirt, over which he had a periwinkle vest. He also wore black trousers, a purple belt, and dark grey finger-less glove on his visible hand. He also had some kind of headband hanging from his left hip, blue material with a engraved metal plate that had a score across it.
Harry looked up at his face and saw that the man had black eyes, although only his right eye was visible due to his shoulder length, spiky hair that covered half his face.
It was then he found his voice. "Uh, yeah. Who are you? Where am I? And how do you know my name?"
The man only stared at him impassively as he answered.
"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. Presently, you're lying on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets with Ginny Weasley crying over your dying body, but what you see now is quite different. In my time, this place was called a mindscape, my mindscape to be exact. It's the representation of your mind as a physical place. And I know your name because we share a bond that goes beyond blood."
"Hold on." Harry interrupted. "What bond?"
"It's a long and complicated story, but all you need to know right now is that centuries before even my time there was a man called Indra Ōtsutsuki. He had a feud with his younger brother Ashura that they failed to settle in their lifetimes, which led to their vows to reincarnate until it was settled. You and I are such reincarnations."
The man's piercing gaze bore into him as his visible eye turned red with 3 black comma marks around the pupil.
"I can clearly see Indra's chakra clinging about you, though you would call it his magic. The feud was settled in my time between myself and the one I call my own younger brother, who was Ashura reincarnated to oppose Indra in me, so why Indra has been reincarnated again I don't know. But I sense Ashura has reincarnated again also."
Harry took a moment to process that. It was… a lot.
"You said I'm dying."
An amused smirk played across the Uchiha's lips and his red eye seemed to glow in the dark space they stood in. "You presume limits to my power. There are none. I hold life and death in my hand."
The red eye turned into a red six point star on a black iris with a black 3 point straight shuriken overlapping it and power radiated from his hidden eye. The man brought his right arm from under his cloak and made a single hand sign, his index and middle fingers extended and the other 3 digits curled in. His power flared into an ethereal green aura around him, and the aura appeared around Harry too.
Before the 12 year old could ask, Sasuke poked him in the forehead, like one would to an annoying kid. And the strangest thing was that he was smiling, however slight that it was.
"Go, live your life. We'll meet again someday."
Ginny couldn't bring herself to move as she cried over her crush's now clearly dead body. Her entire world had come crashing down, all because she'd trusted a stupid little book. Her tears fell freely, landing on Harry's bloody face. She hadn't moved since finding him sprawled out with his head in her lap except for her hands that were running through his untamed spiky hair.
'Why did I have to be stupid enough to trust that diary? This is all my fault! If I hadn't… Harry would still be…'
A gentle touch on her cheek shook her from her self-hatred. Ginny, scared and tired, dared to open her eyes and saw the person responsible.
"Ginny…"
Those beautiful emerald eyes were open beneath the cute glasses, gazing into her own, into her soul itself. And there was nothing but kindness in them. No blame, nothing but understanding, empathy. And his touch on her face was so gentle, his fingers gliding across her cheek to wipe her tears then falling slack to the floor in his weakness.
She was so shocked by his suddenly return to life that she almost missed him sitting up and turning to her. Joy at his life overwhelmed her and, next thing she knew, she found herself cradled in his embrace and feeling absolutely safe, if still totally drained.
"I'm so sorry for everything this year." Harry murmured into her hair, holding her close.
Damn it! He had to be so bloody noble that he'd apologise for something he had no control over. But she was too tired to complain aloud, so she just stayed in his arms. They were both too emotional to deal with it at the present moment, so they mutually agreed without words to only move when Ron got there.
And in the darkness, emerald eyes gave way to the Sharingan.