Chapter Two: The Difference Just One Charge Can Make
12 Grimmauld Place, Islington, London
August 4th, 1997
The white light emanating from the Mirror of Infinite Possibilities vanished, and the Golden Trio – still caught in the grip of their vision of a different timeline, one where Severus Snape had replaced Rubeus Hagrid in delivering Harry's Hogwarts letter all those years ago – flailed around blindly for a moment.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron demanded, as his vision cleared up and he took in the image of Draco Malfoy smirking at him from within the Mirror.
"Your grandfather – good old Seppy – he didn't explain much of how I work to you, did he, Weasel?" Mirror Draco said patronizingly. "Well, for those like you and Scarhead and the Gryffindor princess here –"
"Stop calling me that! Because I'm not some scatterbrained idiot who needs to be pampered and protected, like something out of a fairy tale!" Hermione snarled at Mirror Draco.
"Sorry, but I already told you – not even the Weasel can order me to stop describing people as I see fit," Mirror Draco replied, now smiling broadly. "And as for the Weasel's other question, what you all saw and heard just now? That was just an example of my power – to show you one of the infinite possibilities, one of the 'might have beens' if things had happened differently back then."
"But how...?" Hermione asked blankly, and Ron could tell that her tremendous brain was struggling to make sense of what had just happened. He had to sympathize – he couldn't figure it out either...
"Yeah, how'd you let us get inside the eleven-year-old Harry's head that way? I actually heard his thoughts – Hermione, did you-?" Ron asked, before the Granger girl started nodding vigorously.
"Oh, no – you, you two heard what I was thinking? Oh, God, I feel so embarrassed!" Harry's face flushed a deep purple-red color as he turned away, the mortification visible to everyone present.
"Never mind that, Harry! And it wasn't just you – I mean, that voice in my head telling me things just before the end, was that-?" Hermione abruptly turned and stared at Mirror Draco.
"Yep. You guessed right, princess, it was me," the image of the platinum-blond youth within the Mirror smirked at her. "And as for that question of how did I do what I did? Magic, of course!"
"Ugh. You're obviously just as much of a git as the real Draco Malfoy, you know that?" Hermione snapped.
"I don't know any such thing, actually. I'm the Mirror of Infinite Possibilities – I can be anything I want to be! Remember?" Mirror Draco shot back, grinning madly.
"Wait, stop, hold on a moment," Harry spoke up, holding a hand up to his forehead – his scar, Ron could help noting in alarm. "Are you saying – if Hagrid really had broken his leg back then, like Snape mentioned... then that's what would have happened? I really would have become a Slytherin or a Hufflepuff, instead of a Gryffindor?"
"You simply don't listen, do you, Scarhead?" Mirror Draco now looked annoyed. "I already told you how that was just one possibility, not the only one! There are lots of others – for example, McGonagall could have come to deliver your letter that night. Or Flitwick. Or Babbling. Or Vector. Or Trelawney. Even that boring-as-hell ghost Binns could have been selected for the job!"
"And – you're saying Harry wouldn't have ended up dating Ginny, if he hadn't become a Gryffindor?" Ron mused, looking at his best mate curiously. Harry went red with embarrassment all over again, but Ron ignored that and added, "He would have caught the interest of Sue Bones? And Hannah Abbott? Or else those two Slytherin birds, whoever they were?"
"Daphne Greengrass and Tracy Davis. Honestly, Ron, didn't you pay any attention to the other students at Hogwarts?" Hermione sniped at him.
"I would have, if I actually knew who they were! It's a big school, you know," Ron defended himself.
"I know who they are," Harry spoke up, looking contemplative now. "I noticed them a few times during meals in the Great Hall, actually, those two were always sitting on their own with Blaise Zabini..."
"Oh! Right, I know him – he's the bloke whose mum got married seven times, with all of her husbands dying in mysterious circumstances and leaving her a ruddy fortune," Ron nodded, before his eyes went wide. "Wait, hang on – I have seen those two Slytherin girls, after all! I remember now – Davis is the dark-haired one with the good-looking arse and heart-shaped face, isn't she? And Greengrass, she's the unforgettable blond one with the huge knockers – OW!"
Ron started hopping around on one foot, grabbing his aching left leg in pain and glaring at Hermione. "What the bleeding heck was that for?!"
"If you honestly can't figure it out, Weasel, then you're even stupider than you look," Mirror Draco smirked at him knowingly.
"Getting back on topic – you said that Harry eventually ended up slaying the killer of his parents, whether he was sorted into Hufflepuff or Slytherin," Hermione said primly, ignoring the ginger's moans of pain. "All right, I want details –"
"Well, you're not going to get them, princess – and no point asking the Weasel to get me to provide them, either," Mirror Draco quickly added, as Hermione opened her mouth to protest. "Besides – I'd have thought you'd be more interested in learning how Longbottom eventually ended up running a sex dungeon, for rich purebloods?"
Hermione's face went red as Ron (who had stopped hopping around and moaning, by this point) asked in confusion, "Yeah, uh, what exactly is a-?"
"NEVER MIND!" Hermione shrieked, as both Harry and Ron winced at the sheer volume of her voice. "And just for the record, I refuse to believe that someone as moral and steadfast and, and Gryffindor as Neville could ever end up doing something like that for a living!"
"You mean, just like Peter Pettigrew's friends would have refused to ever believe that he was going to betray them, and spy for the Dark Lard?" Mirror Draco shot back, an odd glint in his eyes. "Just like you and the Weasel and the Scarhead would have refused to believe Loopy the werewolf wanted to ditch his wife and kid, if you hadn't witnessed it for yourselves? So don't lecture me on what is and isn't possible, princess. Plus, there are other questions you'd be wise to ask me."
"Like what?" Ron demanded, before getting the nasty feeling he shouldn't have asked, that he wouldn't want to know –
"Well, if Scarhead here had ended up in Slytherin, the way the Sorting Hat thought he should have... would Dumbledore have had a wizard coronary? Would Snape have had to pretend to be nice to the Pot-head in public, and give him House points? Would Malfoy have had to leave him alone, whatever his father's orders had been? Would Scarhead have won the House Cup for Slytherin every year? Would there have been open war between him and the Weasley twins in the castle halls? Would Zabini have taught the dunderhead how to use his fame in order to shag lots of witches, the moment puberty set in? Would –"
"That's enough!" Hermione screamed in disgust, glaring at Mirror Draco. "You, you are the most revolting, the most horrid magical artefact I've ever come across! Your mind – if you even have one – is the vilest gutter it's ever been my misfortune to encounter!"
"Thanks, princess, I'll take that as a compliment," Mirror Draco smirked in extreme satisfaction.
"You – wait, I just remembered. What exactly did you mean by, 'either way, the future didn't exactly look good' for me?" Hermione suddenly demanded, her face growing somewhat pale.
"Well, think about it," Mirror Draco smirked. "What happened back in your first year? And what would have been different, if the Pot-head hadn't been there to make the Weasel pull his head out of his arse that Halloween?"
"Oi!" Ron shouted in annoyance, before he noticed Hermione grow even paler. "Hermione, what-?"
"No," she muttered thickly, shaking her bushy mane of hair. "No, no, no..."
"Yes, actually," Mirror Draco grinned sadistically. "Death by troll, princess. Really nasty way to go, too, wouldn't you say?"
"NO!" Ron shouted angrily, his face reflecting both the fear and horror he felt upon hearing that. "It wouldn't have happened that way! It couldn't have!"
"Oh, it could have, all right," Mirror Draco replied, looking amused. "Then again, your brother Percy might have saved Granger's life that night, perfect prefect that he was – at the expense of his own survival, anyway. Or maybe dying in vain? I did mention that that future didn't look good for you and your family, remember? Especially your sister, the Weaselette..."
"Ginny? What about her?" Harry demanded.
"Oh, I'm glad you asked, Pot-head! Hrmm... let me show you how things could have turned out with regards to her, towards the end of your second year!" Mirror Draco smiled evilly, and then that blinding white light erupted out of the enchanted mirror once more.
This time, the Golden Trio saw and heard –
Tunnel leading to the Chamber of Secrets, beneath Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
May 29th, 1993
Very slowly, his eyes as narrow as he could make them and still see, Harry edged forward, his lit wand held high.
The light slid over a gigantic snake skin, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feet long, at least at the point of shedding.
"Blimey," Ron said weakly. Harry couldn't blame him; they'd known the basilisk that had been terrorizing the school this year would be big, but not this big!
There was a sudden movement behind them. Gilderoy Lockhart – Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, fraud and a disgrace to teachers everywhere (not to mention wizardkind in general) – his knees had given way.
"Get up," Ron said sharply, pointing his wand at Lockhart.
Lockhart got to his feet – then unexpectedly he dived at Ron, knocking him to the ground.
Harry jumped forward, but too late – Lockhart was straightening up, panting, Ron's wand in his hand and a gleaming smile on his somewhat sweaty, nervous face.
"The adventure ends here, boys!" he said, loud and clear. "I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you two –"
That was all he managed to say, though, before Ron got to his feet and charged at Lockhart, slamming his intended target into the nearest tunnel wall, taking the fraud completely by surprise – and rendering him thoroughly unconscious.
"Bloody git," Ron growled, before he gave the insensate professor a vicious kick directly in the kidneys. Lockhart twitched slightly, but didn't wake up. The ginger then grabbed his Spell-o-taped wand back before he turned to Harry and said, "C'mon, let's go!"
Harry hesitated. "We're just going to leave Lockhart here?"
Ron's eyes narrowed. "Who's more important – Ginny, or him?"
{ Good point, } Harry shrugged to himself, quickly recalling that message on the wall; 'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.' "You're right. Come on, then..."
The two boys set off down the tunnel, the taller redhead with his longer stride quickly overtaking Harry in his desperation to find his missing little sister. Harry lost track of time during the journey – and then, at last, as they came around yet another bend, he saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
"Is this it, you reckon?" Ron asked cautiously, looking at the wall with some trepidation.
"Yeah." Harry could guess what he had to do next. So he cleared his throat, and the serpents' emerald eyes seemed to flicker.
"Open," Harry said in parseltongue, in what sounded to Ron like a low, faint hiss.
The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry followed his best mate into the legendary Chamber as Ron yelled out, "GINNY! GINNY!"
{ Bloody hell, there goes any hope for surprise... } Harry thought to himself worriedly, withdrawing his wand as they ran through the very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.
Harry couldn't help noticing there was nothing but silence apart from his and Ron's footsteps, which were echoing loudly through the Chamber. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Ginny? Not for the first time, he cursed the fact that he and Ron had been forced to come here alone, that none of the adults were present to help –
"GINNY! There she is!" Ron called out excitedly, as they drew level with the last pair of pillars.
Just for a moment, Harry couldn't help staring at a statue as high as the Chamber itself, standing against the back wall. He had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: it was ancient and monkey-ish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, face down, lay the small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair whom Ron had identified as Ginevra Molly Weasley.
"Is she alive?" Harry blurted out without thinking. Before he berated himself for an idiot, asking Ginny's big brother of all people that!
Ron dropped to his knees. "Ginny – don't be dead – please don't be dead –" He flung his damaged wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned his little sister over.
Her face was as white as marble, and yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. Harry thought maybe she might be –
"She's not dead!" Ron muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side. "Come on, Harry, help me get her out of here!"
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a soft voice, just as Harry put his wand away and moved to grab Ginny's legs.
Harry jumped and spun around to face the source of that unexpected voice. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching them. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking his face and form.
"Tom – Tom Riddle?" Harry asked in confusion.
"Harry, you know this bloke?" Ron demanded, taking in the older boy's appearance – the color of his House tie – before Weasley's eyes narrowed. "You're a Slytherin. And what did you mean, we shouldn't do that?"
"She won't wake up. She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."
Harry stared at him. As far as he knew, 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. { This doesn't make any sense, he should be nearly seventy years old by now... }
"Are you a ghost?" Harry asked uncertainly.
"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 right now.
"You've got to help us, Tom," Harry said, as Ron lowered Ginny's head to the floor and came to stand alongside him. "We've got to get Ginny out of here. There's a basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be here at any moment... Please, help –"
"A memory?" Ron interrupted. He then pointed to the badge pinned to Tom's Hogwarts robes. "And if you're a prefect, then why haven't you brought a professor for help or something?"
Riddle ignored the question and picked up Ron's discarded wand off the floor. He examined it carefully, before turning up his nose in disgust. "It's damaged. Why haven't you repaired it, or gotten a new wand?"
"Who the hell bloody cares about that right now, you arse?!" Ron roared, the tips of his ears turning a tell-tale shade of red. Harry knew the topic was a sore one, given the Weasley family's lack of money, but Ron was right – that wasn't a priority right now. "Now are you going to help us carry Gin out of here, or not?"
"Calm down. And if you're worried about the basilisk, it won't come – not unless it's called," Tom replied, again refusing to answer the question.
"Bugger this, Harry – grab Ginny's legs, we don't need him –" Ron started to say.
"Stupefy!" Riddle suddenly shouted, and a stream of red light shot out of Ron's damaged wand and rendered the Weasley as unconscious as his sister. "That's better."
"RON!" Harry shouted, as he ran over to check on his friend. Then he looked back at Riddle and said, "Why did you-?"
"Because he was incredibly annoying, and I've been waiting a long time for this, Harry Potter," Riddle replied, twirling Ron's wand around. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."
"Me? Why me?"
"Well, that's an interesting question," Riddle said pleasantly. "And the answer has to do with how Ginny opened her heart, and spilled all her secrets, to me."
"What are you talking about?" Harry demanded, both annoyed and starting to get a very bad feeling about this.
"The diary," said Riddle. "Poor little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes – how her brothers always tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how..." – Riddle's eyes glinted – "...how she didn't think the famous, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."
All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Harry's face. There was an almost... hungry look in them.
"It's been very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl; useless things that they are," Riddle went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, and kind. Ginny simply loved me. 'No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket...'"
Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't seem to suit him at all. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harry's neck. Riddle then continued his evil monologue about how easy it had been to fool Ron's sister, and how delighted he'd been that Harry had eventually found the Diary – that Riddle had been anxiously waiting for the chance to meet him...
"And why'd you want to meet me?" Harry demanded, clenching his hands into fists tightly. Anger was coursing through him now, and it was quite an effort to keep his voice steady and not respond foolishly to Tom's mocking tone. The moment he withdrew his wand, Riddle would undoubtedly hex him before he could get a single spell off –
"Well, you see – Ginny told me all about you, Harry," Riddle said, eyeing him carefully. "Your whole fascinating history." His eyes roved over the lightning bolt scar on Harry's forehead, and Tom's expression grew hungrier. "I knew I had to find out more about you, talk to you, meet you down here 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 interrupted, his voice now shaking. "And you framed him for what happened then, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but you actually –"
Riddle laughed his high, cold laugh again. "It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. That's why he persuaded the Headmaster, Dippet, to keep Hagrid on and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed the truth... he never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did..."
"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," Harry replied, his teeth gritted.
"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," Riddle replied 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 all those long years I'd spent searching for it. Thus I made plans so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's most noble work."
"Well, you haven't finished it," Harry responded triumphantly. "No one's died this time, not even that bloody cat. In a few hours, the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again –"
"Haven't you realized," Riddle interrupted quietly, "that killing mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been – you."
Harry stared at him. Riddle then went on and on about how he'd forced Ginny to write her own epitaph on the wall and come down here to the Chamber, all because he had questions to ask the Boy-Who-Lived...
"What do you want to know?" Harry spat, fists still clenched. He glanced back at Ron and Ginny, just for a moment, but they were both still unconscious. { How am I going to get them both out of here? I should wake up Ron first, I suppose, unlike Ginny he's just been hit with a Stunner... }
"Well, for starters," Riddle replied, smiling pleasantly and distracting Harry from his thoughts, "how is it that you – a skinny little boy with no extraordinary magical talent – managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar that night, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
There was an odd, reddish gleam in Tom Riddle's eyes now. Harry ignored it and said, "Why do you care how I escaped death from the Killing Curse? Voldemort was long after your time..."
"Oh, Harry. Voldemort," Riddle said softly, "is my past, present, and future. Haven't you figured it out yet...?"
Riddle used Ron's stolen wand began to wave 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.'
Riddle started talking again, prattling on about how he'd changed his name and planned to become the world's greatest sorcerer and what-not, but Harry's brain seemed to have jammed to a halt. He stared numbly at Tom 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," Harry said, his quiet voice full of hatred.
"Not what?" snapped Riddle.
"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," Harry told him, breathing fast. "Sorry to disappoint you, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you still didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts, did you? Dumbledore saw through you when you were just a student, and he still frightens you now, wherever the real you is 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 merely wanted to scare his opponent, or else distract Riddle long enough to bring his wand out, rather than truly stating a fact. And so Riddle opened his mouth to reply, but then he froze.
A song had burst into existence, somewhere close by. Riddle whirled around to stare down the empty Chamber, as the song grew louder. It was eerie, spine-tingling, and 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 song reached such a pitch that Harry felt it vibrating inside his own ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar.
A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird song 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 at his feet, then landed heavily on his shoulder. As it folded its great wings, Harry looked up and saw it had a long, sharp golden beak and a beady black eye.
The bird stopped singing. It sat still and warm next to Harry's cheek, gazing steadily at Riddle.
"That's a phoenix..." Riddle said slowly, staring shrewdly back at it.
"Fawkes?" Harry breathed, and he felt the bird's golden claws squeeze his shoulder gently.
"And that..." Riddle went on, now eyeing the ragged thing that Fawkes had dropped, "that's the school Sorting Hat!"
Indeed, it was. Patched, frayed, and dirty, the Sorting Hat lay motionless at Harry's feet.
Riddle began to laugh again. He laughed so hard that the Chamber echoed with it, as though ten Riddles were laughing at once. "So this is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel safe now, Harry Potter? The coward didn't bother to come himself!"
"Wha's goin' on-?" Ron's voice suddenly distracted them both, as the ginger finally woke up.
"RON!" Harry shrieked, glancing back at his friend. "Grab Ginny and go! I'll keep him distracted –"
"Answer me, Potter," Riddle went on, ignoring the exchange. "In your past, and my future – we have met. And somehow, I failed to kill you. How, how did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he added softly, "the longer you stay alive."
"What? What's he goin' on about-?" Ron shook his head as if to clear it, looking completely confused. "Ginny!"
Ignoring everyone and everything else, Ron got to his feet and grabbed his little sister. Finally deigning to take notice of him, Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed; and Harry understood what the teenage version of Voldemort was saying, even if Ron didn't.
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
Harry wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes swaying on his shoulder. He saw how Salazar Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horror-struck, Harry witnessed the 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.
{ The basilisk! He's summoned it! } Harry thought madly. Stumbling backwards, he grabbed a confused Ron and dragged him away, as Fawkes keened loudly and took off from his shoulder.
"No! HARRY! We can't just leave her-!" Ron protested, pointing at Ginny.
"The basilisk's coming!" Harry yelled at him, "It'll kill us, the moment we look at it!" He dragged Ron all the way to the nearest Chamber wall...
Just before they got there, Riddle hissed at the King of Serpents, "Kill them both."
Harry was pretty sure that both he and his best mate, not to mention Ginny, were doomed – but then he realized the enormous green serpent was distracted by Fawkes. The phoenix was soaring around the serpent's head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at the bird, with fangs as long and thin as sabers –
Fawkes dived. His long, golden beak darted forward and sank out of sight, and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor. The snake's tail thrashed, narrowly missing Harry and Ron; and before the boys could think to avert their eyes, they looked straight into the serpent's face. The basilisk's eyes – both its great, bulbous yellow eyes – had been punctured by the phoenix; blood was streaming to the floor, and the snake was spitting in agony.
"NO!" Riddle screamed in fury, and Harry couldn't help noticing Tom's outline was becoming clearer, more solid... which probably meant nothing good, as far as Ginny was concerned. "FORGET THE BIRD! YOU CAN STILL SMELL THE WIZARDS! KILL THEM!"
The next few minutes were a nightmare come to life, as Harry and Ron ran from the basilisk, keeping to the walls and hiding as best they could. Along the way, they picked up the Sorting Hat – and hoping that the manky old piece of fabric could help somehow, Harry put it on top of his head as they ran.
A few minutes later, Harry's head was hit with something heavy; a gleaming silver sword, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs...
Unfortunately, even blind, the basilisk eventually caught up with them after Harry and Ron had climbed up Slytherin's statue. Lashing out blindly, Harry stabbed at it with the silver sword, and his luck was incredible – the blade went all the way to the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth...
"HARRY!" Ron yelled, as the Boy-Who-Lived felt a searing pain just above the elbow, and white-hot agony coursed through Harry's body as the basilisk fang snapped off at the same time the beast collapsed to the ground, thoroughly dead.
Ron yanked the fang out and said desperately, "Harry? HARRY! Don't die – don't die, please! I – what the bloody hell-?"
Harry noticed dimly that Fawkes had landed on his arm, as the phoenix's head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the phoenix's face, and dropping into the bloody wound.
"Wicked," Ron breathed, as Harry's pain abruptly vanished and his eyes managed to focus down on his wound – except the wound wasn't there anymore. A now-healed patch of scar tissue marked where he'd been bitten. Ginny's brother then added, "Fawkes, you're magnificent! Harry, are you okay?"
"I, I think so," Harry stammered. "But how-?"
"Phoenix tears," Ron told him, helping him up. "My brother Perce mentioned it once – exactly the sort of thing he'd know – the tears of a phoenix can heal any wound. Overcome any poison. Even basilisk venom, it looks like."
"Oh, good," Harry said vaguely, marveling at how close he'd come to death and yet surviving. Again.
"C'mon, we've still got to rescue Ginny!" Ron said grimly, as the boys made their way down the statue and Fawkes vanished in a burst of golden fire.
The two boys made their way back to Tom Riddle, as Harry passed the sword to Ron and withdrew his own wand. The former prefect just stared at them, before his features curled into a soft sneer.
"So. You killed the basilisk, bully for you! But it doesn't matter, Harry. You haven't won; in fact, you haven't even postponed the inevitable. I'm almost fully alive, and you can't stop the process, either –"
"Incendio! Immobulus! Rictusempra!" Harry cast all the spells he knew, everything he had learned over the past two years at Hogwarts. But all his efforts were futile, before Ron – Gryffindor to the point of mindless, knee-jerk heroics – charged at Tom Riddle with the silver sword in his hand.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Riddle cast the Killing Curse with the broken wand, which subsequently exploded into splinters in his hand – but not before the emerald-green light burst from the wand and Ronald Bilius Weasley collapsed face-down into the ground, mid-flight.
"RON!" Harry immediately went over to check on his friend, but it was too late; the Weasley was as dead as a doornail. Harry started hyperventilating with shock and horror –
"Is that it? Is that all you have, Harry? If so, then that was truly pathetic," Riddle sneered, as Harry looked up at him. "As last stands go, it really left a lot to be desired. And now, oh, yes, at any moment now..."
Harry followed Riddle's gaze, staring at Ginny down on the floor – as the diary suddenly erupted in flames, and the Weasley girl's eyes opened for one timeless instant.
And then her skin turned from white to ash-grey, and Ginny's body started to crumble apart.
"No!" Harry yelled in horror. "No, no, NOOOO!"
But to no avail. Ginny's body was already dissolving, collapsing into ashes, and in moments there was nothing but a set of dusty Hogwarts first year robes present.
Her parents wouldn't even have a body to bury, later on.
Riddle yelled exultantly, "I'M ALIVE!", and Harry knew it was true; the sixteen-year-old boy was no longer blurry around at the edges, at all, and Riddle took several deep breaths, before triumphant mad laughter began to echo throughout the Chamber.
The laughter abruptly turned into a choked gasping, though, as Tom blinked – and saw that he'd been run through with the silver sword Ron had dropped, before he'd been killed mere moments prior to his sister's death. "What-?"
Harry was heaving great gasps of air, not even remembering picking up the sword and running his enemy through. And yet, the evidence was right there in front of him. { Did I do that? I... I think I did. I must have, mustn't I? }
"Not – possible," Riddle choked out, before collapsing to his knees and then onto his side. "You can't... have killed... me... twice..."
"Three times, actually," Harry corrected the resurrected shade of his parents' murderer.
"Wha..." Riddle gasped in agony.
"The Halloween when I was fifteen months old, last year when your shade tried to steal the Sorcerer's Stone; and now this," Harry enumerated each time his enemy had been defeated, his lips quirking upwards slightly as he saw Riddle's eyes widen with shock and panic.
"That's three times now you've lost against me, Tom," Harry said, briefly enjoying the expression of mixed rage, dread and horror on the other boy's face – before taking in Ron's corpse not far away, and Ginny's dusty robes, and then all such feelings vanished. He simply added, "Maybe you should just give up on coming back to life, since I always seem to beat you, somehow."
Harry then watched Riddle twitch and spasm in agony, as the serpentine poison on the blade started to make its way through the brand-new body. At the back of his mind, the memory of confronting Professor Quirrell last year and watching him die after burning him surfaced – but Harry quickly banished it, wanting to make sure Riddle didn't pull off some sort of miracle and save himself...
He didn't. In less than forty-five seconds, Tom Marvolo Riddle was dead from the poisoned blade, just as dead as Ron and Ginny. Harry just stared at the body, wondering what to do next...
"I say, Harry," Gilderoy Lockhart's voice intruded on his consciousness, as Harry turned and stared at the so-called professor, who had finally entered the Chamber after regaining consciousness in the nearby tunnel. "What have you done?"
All things considered, it was fortunate for Lockhart that Harry didn't immediately either hex him or stab him with the basilisk fang.
Well, it was fortunate until the ensuing investigation by the DMLE uncovered the whole truth, and Gilderoy ended up in Azkaban for his crimes – right next to the cell containing Sirius Black.
If there was only one positive thing to come out of this whole tragic affair, it was how Sirius ended up escaping Azkaban earlier than he otherwise would have, to seek out his godson...
A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and PM'ed about this story so far! All feedback is truly most appreciated, and I hope you keep it coming. Oh, and this 'might have been' initially begins near the end of chapter 16 (p. 303) of JKR's 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,' and everything from therein definitely does not belong to me!