Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If I did, I certainly wouldn't be writing fanfiction. There would have been 13 books.
A/N: DIDYOUKNOWTHATHPANDTHECURSEDCHILDCAMEOUTYESTERDAYITISAWESOMEALBUSANDSCORPIUSAREBESTIESYAYYY! P.S. this chapter has direct book quotes.
So far in the novel, our hero, Harry Potter, has ventured into the Chamber of Secrets with one of his best friends, Ron Weasly, and his DADA professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, to save Ron's little sister, Ginny. On the way into the chamber, Lockhart chickened out and tried to escape by performing a memory charm on the two boys. Thanks to Ron's broken wand (Lockhart stole it), the charm backfired. Alas, there was an explosion, and Harry was separated from the two other voyagers.
"Now, Harry, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him…."
He cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away. Harry, fear spreading up his numb legs, watched Riddle stop between the high pillars and look up into the stone face of Slytherin, high above him in the half-darkness. Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed — but Harry understood what he was saying. . . .
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
Harry wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes swaying on his shoulder.
Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, Harry saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole. And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.
Harry backed away until he hit the dark Chamber wall, and as he shut his eyes tight he felt Fawkes' wing sweep his cheek as he took flight. Harry wanted to shout, "Don't leave me!" but what chance did a phoenix have against the king of serpents?
Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. Harry felt it shudder — he knew what was happening, he could sense it, could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth. Then he heard Riddle's hissing voice:
"Kill him."
The basilisk was moving toward Harry; he could hear its heavy body slithering heavily across the dusty floor. Eyes still tightly shut, Harry began to run blindly sideways, his hands outstretched, feeling his way — Voldemort was laughing —
Harry tripped. He fell hard onto the stone and tasted blood — the serpent was barely feet from him, he could hear it coming — There was a loud, explosive spitting sound right above him, and then something heavy hit Harry so hard that he was smashed into the wall. Waiting for fangs to sink through his body he heard more mad hissing, something thrashing wildly off the pillars —
He couldn't help it — he opened his eyes wide enough to squint at what was going on.
The enormous serpent, bright, poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, had raised itself high in the air and its great blunt head was weaving drunkenly between the pillars. As Harry trembled, ready to close his eyes if it turned, he saw what had distracted the snake.
Fawkes was soaring around its head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabers —
Fawkes dived. His long golden beak was aimed towards the Basilisk's face, but then, Fawkes bounced off some invisible force field. Fawkes seemed surprised, but didn't give up. He tried to attack once again, but bounced off. On his third try, Fawkes opened his eyes on accident. He died mid-flight.
"Oh, Potter. Look at what happened. One of your weapons died. Pity," Harry heard Riddle say. "Kill him."
Harry felt the serpent slither over and prepare to strike. But, before it could, Harry screamed out: "Stop! Stop! I demand you stop and don't kill me!"
Much to his surprise, the Basilisk stilled.
"What else would you like, young heir?" it hissed.
"I-I would like that you help me and Ginny get out of here. And don't kill me, please." Harry stuttered. The Basilisk listened to him! and he called him 'young heir'! How far would his luck go?
"Well, you're not dead, right? Is that all?"
"NO! Autumn, STOP fraternizing with the boy! KILL HIM!" Riddle screeched at the Basilisk— no, Autumn. But Autumn had other ideas.
"Oh, Tom, stop. Let me socialize with the boy. Anyway, shouldn't I be following his commands? He's alive, unlike you. You're mere a memory." she hissed.
"Autumn, I command you to obey me." Riddle demanded angrily.
"No."
"AUTUMN"
Harry opened his eyes all the way to a squint in time to see the serpent slither over to Riddle and bit his diary. There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted onto the floor, and Harry saw Riddle writhing and twisting. He was screaming and flailing and then— he was gone. It was absolutely silent, except for the steady drip drip of ink still oozing from the diary. As Autumn spit the diary out of her mouth, Harry saw that her venom burned a hole right through the diary.
"Young heir, the girl will begin to wake up in a minute. You can then take her back to the school. Anything else that you would like?" Autumn asked like the obedient servant she was.
"No, thank you. Wait- yes, you can do one last thing. Please stop targeting the muggleborns in the castle. One of the muggleborns that you petrified was one of my best friends."
"Oh, I apologize, young heir. I will reverse the petrification."
"You can un-petrify the people that you petrified?"
"Yes, young heir. It's a part of my magic. Anything else?"
"Err, yes. Can you please not call me 'young heir'? Harry would be fine."
"Yes, youn- Harry." Autumn began to slither back to Slytherin's statue. "Oh, and Harry? You can open your eyes. My gaze can't kill my heirs. And please, visit me sometime. I get quite lonely down here."
"Yes, Autumn. I'll visit you. But, I'll keep my eyes closed for the moment." he stood up and collected the sorting hat; Autumn had swept it over towards him when she destroyed the diary.
"Oh Harry," she sighed. "You can trust me." Then came a faint moan from the end of the Chamber. Ginny was stirring. "Ah, this is my cue. Farewell Harry." Autumn left the Chamber. Harry could finally open his eyes. The first thing he did was collect the phoenix's body, then ran over to Ginny.
As Harry hurried toward her, she sat up. Her bemused eyes traveled from the ink-spattered diary, over Harry, in his dusty attire with the sorting hat, then to the dead form of Fawkes. She drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down her face.
"Harry — oh, Harry — I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn't say it in front of Percy — it was me, Harry — but I — I s-swear I d-didn't mean to — R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over — and — how did you kill that — that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary —"
"It's all right," said Harry, holding up the diary, and showing Ginny the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the diary. C'mon, Ginny, let's get out of here —"
"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny wept as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. "I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and — w-what'll Mum and Dad say?"
Harry urged Ginny forward; they stepped over the ink spatters from the diary, probably collected from all the writing the pair had done from the past year, through the echoing gloom, and back into the tunnel. Harry heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss.
After a few minutes' progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry's ears.
"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"
He heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make in the rockfall.
"Ginny!" Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened? How — what — where did that bird come from?" He pointed at the limp form of Fawkes.
"He's Dumbledore's," said Harry, squeezing through himself.
"How come you've got the sorting hat?" said Ron, eying the old hat.
"I'll explain when we get out of here," said Harry with a sideways
glance at Ginny, who was crying harder than ever. "But —"
"Later," Harry said shortly. He didn't think it was a good idea to tell Ron yet who'd been opening the Chamber, not in front of Ginny, anyway. "Where's Lockhart?"
"Back there," said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."
Led by Ron, whose robes billowed out dust at every step, they walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.
"His memory's gone," said Ron. "The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself."
Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at them all.
"Hello," he said. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"
"No," said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry.
Harry bent down and looked up the long, dark pipe.
"Have you thought how we're going to get back up this?" he said to Ron.
"Well, if the heir of Slytherin in the past could get back up, we can too, right? Umm, Harry. Say something in parseltongue. Maybe that'll help." Ron mused.
"Okay… up." Harry hissed.
Suddenly, the tunnel began to change. The pipe was moving so that it was pointing downwards, like a slide.
"Bloody hell," Ron whispered. Back to his normal voice, he asked Harry: "Hey, mate. Can you clean the pipe a bit? It's rather slimy."
"Yeah, sure." Harry replied. Then, he turned to the weeping figure of Ginny and asked: "Ginny, can you help me clean the pipe? The spell is scourgify."
Ginny looked up with red eyes. "Su-sure, Harry. I-I'll help"
Harry and Ginny then pointed their wands at the pipe and said "Scourgify."
"What is this? You just made the Jello disappear! Like magic! But why? I wanted to eat it! That bloke," Lockhart gestured to Ron, "wouldn't let me. He's rather mean, isn't he?"
"He's insane" Ron muttered.
"See? That just proves I'm right! He said I'm insane!" Lockhart exclaimed. "You're not a very nice host. I don't ever want to come to your house ever again. It's too dusty anyway." he sniffed.
"Anyway, let's go. Your mum and dad are worried sick about you, Ginny." Harry told Ginny. Ginny replied by bursting into tears again.
"Oh dear," Lockhart said. "Poor girl."
"Le-le-let's go." Ginny said through sobs. "Let's not keep them wa-waiting." She then went to the pipe, sat down, and slid down into the darkness.
Harry and Ron looked at each other and shrugged. After they convinced Lockhart to go down the pipe (they told him it was a slide), they too slid down into the darkness, out of the Chamber.
Yay! New story! Maybe there'll be two more chapters, maybe only one. Oh well. I'm also going to update my other story, Bad Luck, later today. Oh, and sorry if I update at strange hours. I'm in a different country (Germany), which therefore means a different timezone. Thanks for reading!