He was standing at the end of a 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.
His heart beating very fast, Harry stood listening to the chill silence. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Ginny? He pulled out his wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns.
Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. He kept his eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following him. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, he thought he saw one stir.
Then, as he drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall. Harry 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 a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.
"Ginny!" Harry muttered urgently, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees as he pleaded, "Ginny — don't be dead — please don't be dead —"
He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be…
"Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side. He tried for a few moments more before his efforts were interrupted.
"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 d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately, "She's not — she's not —?"
"She's still alive," said Riddle, "But only just."
Harry only 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 said uncertainly
"A memory," said Riddle 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 began, looking up at Riddle. The boy was still watching him — twirling Harry's wand between his long fingers. "Oh," Harry said with relief, stretching out his hand for it, "Thanks."
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 —" but Riddle interrupted him.
"It won't come until it is called," he said calmly as Harry lowered Ginny back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer.
"What d'you mean?" he asked, panting quietly, then shook his head to dismiss the irrelevant question. "Look, give me my wand, I might need it —" he tried instead, but he stopped short.
Riddle's smile had broadened.
He said, "You won't."
And then Harry knew there was something very wrong.
"What d'you mean, I won't be —?" he began, carefully keeping the panic out of his voice, but Riddle interrupted once again.
"I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter," said Riddle, "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."
"Very flattering," Harry drawled to hide his nervousness, ", but I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later."
"We're going to talk now," said Riddle, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed Harry's wand.
Yep, something was wrong here.
"How did Ginny get like this?" he asked, trying to keep the edge of fear out of his voice. Riddle had just pocketed his only possible weapon.
"Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly, as if happy that Harry had thought of it, "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.
"What are you, a poetry book?" Harry snapped, "Just answer the question."
Riddle quirked an eyebrow but complied nonetheless. "The diary," he said, "My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes — how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how —", Riddle's eyes glinted, "— how she didn't think famous, good, 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.
Almost…like…oh Gods.
"You're a pervert, aren't you?" Harry asked suddenly, unable to keep the fear out of his voice any longer. Riddle blinked, the grin slipping off of his face as he registered what Harry had just said.
"Wait…what?" he asked confusedly, taking an instinctual step forward, and Harry…
Well, what you have to understand is that Harry had been abused by the Dursleys his whole life. Physically, mentally, emotionally…he thought it was only a matter of time before it turned sexual. Thankfully he had nothing to worry about, but hey; he was twelve. And, well, he was already a bit unhinged from the, er, incident the year previously with the Philosopher's Stone. So in that moment, with a supposed pervert bearing down on him, something in Harry kind of…snapped.
…Again.
"Stay away from me!" he yelled, almost shrieked, hoisting Ginny up with a burst of adrenaline, "Pervert! Stranger danger! Rape! Help!"
Riddle was staring at Harry incredulously as the Boy-Who-Lived dragged the half-dead redhead away from Slytherin's statue, wondering where on Earth he had pulled that conclusion from. Oh well…
"Right," Riddle sighed, massaging his non-existent temples to ward off the headache he technically couldn't get, "Let's just skip straight to the part where I have the Basilisk kill you."
Miraculously this stopped Harry's screaming, and the boy paused in his flight to ask curiously, "What's a Basilisk?"
"An extremely poisonous giant snake that can kill with-" Riddle started carelessly, but was cut off by Harry screaming again. I suppose I could have worded that differently, he mused, then shook his head and turned to Slytherin's statue. "~Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts~ OW!" he yelped, turning to glare at Harry. Said boy had, not five seconds previously, thrown Riddle's diary with startling precision at the back of the boy's head.
One wonders how it even made contact.
"Continuing," Riddle growled, starting again.
"~Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts~ OW!" he yelped again, turning to look at Harry once again.
The poor boy had bent down to pull his shoe off and had thrown it at Riddle as well.
Vanishing Harry's remaining shoe, Riddle waited for Harry to pull something else out to throw at him before he was satisfied that nothing else would interrupt his long-awaited victory. Turning back to the statue, he hissed, "~Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!~" and began laughing maniacally as the statue's mouth opened and the Basilisk slid out.
However, before he could issue even a single command, he was shocked into stillness when Harry began hissing as well. "~I have defeated Tom Marvolo Riddle twice before, once on All Hallows Eve of 1981 in Godric's Hollow and once last year in the dungeons of the very school you've been stalking through, and so by the ancient right of conquest, I claim my rightful position as your master!~ he hissed to the Basilisk, and it cocked its head to the side curiously.
"~Why on Earth are you talking like that?~" it asked in a cultured sort of voice.
"~It seemed appropriate,~" Harry hissed, somehow managing to sound deadpan when speaking Parsletongue, then continued, "~Anyway, bite that diary!~"
The snake blinked for a second, perplexed, but then seemed to stop caring and slithered around to find the book. It opened its mouth and, ever so carefully, pierced the diary with a fang.
"~Thank you,~" Harry said graciously as Riddle calmly exploded, then glanced down as Ginny began to stir. He quickly turned her around, hissing to the Basilisk, "~Any way you can turn off your death glare?~"
"~A second eyelid that blocks the effects completely,~" it replied, and Harry sighed in relief.
"~Lower it, if you would. And flick my wand over to me, please,~" Harry asked it, and it complied.
Ginny's eyes flickered open to find her head resting in the lap of Harry Potter, his hand gently carding through her hair as he smiled down at her softly. She managed to smile back for a moment before the tears overcame her.
"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…" she sobbed, and Harry Summoned the diary to show her.
"It's alright Ginny. See? The diary's finished, and so is Riddle," he said comfortingly, strategically dodging the unanswered question of the Basilisk, but she was a bit too smart for him.
"A-and the snake?" she hiccupped hopefully, but when Harry didn't answer her eyes grew fearful again.
"Uh…don't look up?", he tried, but of course that just made her arch her back to see-
"Oh. She fainted. Well," Harry said, pursing his lips as Fawkes landed beside him. He looked down at the bird to ask, "I don't suppose you have a way to carry her out of here?"
The phoenix looked up at him, and then they were on fire, and then they weren't.
"Why didn't you just do that to rescue her?" he complained to it, and the bird seemed to shrug before fluttering over to his perch. Harry's eyes followed him until he settled, jumping instinctively to Molly Weasley as she shrieked in relieved joy.
"Ginny!" she cried, rushing over to the girl, but Harry wasn't paying attention to her. "Fawkes! What about Ron?" he scolded the bird lightly, and he gave Harry a look that seemed to say 'do I have to' before hanging his head and flaming away. He returned a moment later with Ron and Lockhart, much to Harry's chagrin, but he conceded that the blonde-haired idiot couldn't stay down there. Harry rolled his eyes just before he was enveloped in a hug, courtesy of Molly Weasley.
"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?" she cried wetly, somehow managing to remain coherent through her relieved crying, and Professor McGonagall nodded her head weakly.
"I think we'd all like to know that." she stuttered out, but Dumbledore spoke up before Harry could begin explaining.
"I'm pretty sure I have an idea," the old wizard said, his eyes twinkling merrily, "You showed impressive courage, Harry, and loyalty to me, which called Fawkes to you so you could pull the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat to slay the Basilisk."
He was apparently ignoring the fact that the Sorting Hat was sitting on its regular perch, and that the Sword of Gryffindor was nowhere in sight. Harry was immensely confused.
"What? That's crazy! I accused Riddle of being a pervert and took control of the Basilisk while he was stunned," he said dismissively.
Dumbledore's eye twinkle seemed to bloom into an eye spark for a moment before dimming completely, evidence of his brain short-circuiting. McGonagall's everything was twitching, Mrs. Weasley was staring at Harry, aghast that he knew what a pervert was, and Mr. Weasley was nodding appreciatively. "Effective, it seems," he said, and Harry smirked.
"Indubitably," he replied.
"What's a pervert?" Ginny questioned innocently.
