A/N: Is anyone still actually reading this?
Why's It Gotta Be A Snake
Ch 9
The chamber that I walk into is very long and dimly lit. A hushed voice whispers across the room and I hurriedly slip behind one of the many pillars holding up the ceiling.
"-almost time." A boy is whispering.
I slip silently through the dark shadows cast over the greenish gloom, and I feel suddenly very sick of the color.
The only thing I want to see it on, are Ginny's wide eyes.
I draw closer, unseen by the older boy that couldn't be more than sixteen years old.
He's a normal looking boy, with black hair and wearing the Hogwarts school robes.
But the odd thing is, is that he is blurry like the one time I looked through someone's glasses, and I can see through him like I am looking through a misted window.
It's very harsh on my eyes and makes me go cross-eyed.
He looks so very familiar, but I can't put my finger on where I've seen him before because my attention and worry is drawn elsewhere.
Ginny lay at his feet with Tom Riddle's diary a few feet away.
Panic surges in me until I can see the steady rise and fall of her chest. She's deathly pale.
A huge statue looms above her, looking old and sinister.
I draw closer, keeping my eyes on the fuzzy boy as I slip behind the man who founded my House, Salazar Slytherin.
He continues to talk in a soft voice to my unconscious best friend.
"It can't be much longer now, they'd have found the message by now and Harry Potter will be on his way to save you..."
I think about jumping out and start sending curses at him, but I don't know if it would do any good; he doesn't seem solid. A ghost maybe?
My hand moves to my boot and takes out my white-wood wand wand, clutching it tightly.
The room shudders slightly and dust falls from the ceiling.
The boy tilts his head back and smiles at the high stone.
"It's like he's trying to let me know that he's here." He looks back down at Ginny's limps form and kneels beside her.
His misty hand reaches over and caresses her cheek, as if he could touch it.
"You have been very much use to me." He says and stands, striding over to a pillar to lean against.
His eyes watch the wall I had walked through and his back is completely turned to me.
Now would be my chance, if I was to do something, but he said Harry is on his way. He could help. He's fought real threats before and he's bigger than me.
He will get us out of this, with Ginny still alive.
It seems like hours by the time the far wall slides open, and Harry walks cautiously inside the chamber.
He walks nervously through the pillars, eyes searching into the darkest corners as if expecting a monster jump out at him. His wand is clenched tightly in his wand.
"Ginny!" His mutter echoes around the tall walls when he sees her. He sprints toward her and falls to his knees at her side, much like I was wanting to do. "Ginny- don't be dead- please don't be dead-"
Stupid! I think when he flings his wand to the side to grab Ginny's shoulders to flip her over.
From this angle, I can see how white she really is. She needs help- soon.
"Ginny, please wake up," Harry murmurs desperately shaking her.
Doesn't he know not to shake someone who could possibly have a head injury?!
"She won't wake." The boy says softly from his shadow.
Harry jumps and spins around on his knees.
"Tom- Tom Riddle?"
A shudder goes through me at hearing his name. This is him? The one from the diary?
Riddle nods not taking his eyes from Harry's face.
"What d'you mean she won't wake?" Harry asks desperately. "She's not- she's not-?"
"She's alive." Tom says. "But only just."
Harry stares at him in confusion and a sort of fascination.
"Are you a ghost?" He asks uncertainly.
"A memory," I murmur just as he says it.
"Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He points to the little black book laying opened next in the unconscious girl.
"You've got to help me, Tom," Harry says shaking off whatever thought he was having and lifting Ginny's head. "We've got get out of here. There's a basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment... Please, help me-"
As expected, Riddle doesn't move.
A basilisk is the monster? Yes, of course it is; the feathers that Ginny was covered in were a rooster's, its caw is fatal to it, and a look into the snake's eyes petrifies you to death.
No one looked directly at it, Colin through a camera, Mrs. Norris through the water, Justin through Nearly Headless Nick, and Hermione and that Ravenclaw prefect through that mirror that was found near them, so no one died.
Harry hoists Ginny half off the floor and reaches for his wand, but it's gone.
"Did you see-?" He breaks off seeing Riddle, twirling his wand between his fingers idly.
"Thanks." Harry says holding his hand out for it and I want to scream at him that he's not on our side.
"Listen," he says sagging under my friend's weight. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes-"
"It won't come until it's called." Riddle says calmly.
Harry, unable to support her any more, lowers Ginny back onto the cold floor.
"What d'you mean? Look, give me my wand, I might need it-"
Riddle smiles widely. "You won't be needing it." He says and Harry stares at him dumbly.
"What d'you mean I won't be-?"
"I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter," Riddle says. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."
"Look, I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later-"
"We're going to talk now." He pockets Harry's wand.
Harry stares at him and I think he finally starts to realize that something is not right.
"How did Ginny get like this?" He asks slowly.
"Well, that's an interesting question," Riddle says almost pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled her secrets to an invisible stranger."
I can feel my face pale.
"What are you talking about?" Harry asks.
"The diary." He says. "My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes- how her brothers tease her, how she had come to school with secondhand robes and books, how"- I can see Riddle's eyes glint- "how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."
My fists clench. He shouldn't be saying this stuff to him; he shouldn't be just telling him her secrets.
"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was 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 little friend I can carry around in my pocket..."
A small pang of sorrow twinges in my chest. Was I not enough of a friend?
Riddle laughs a high cold laugh that really doesn't suit him.
I think Harry is finally starting to get that he's the bad guy.
"If I say so myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."
My stomach flips and flounders in my being.
"What d'you mean?" Harry seems to be saying that a lot.
"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" Riddle asks softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat."
I find it hard to swallow.
"No." Harry whispers.
"Yes," Riddle says calmly. "Of course she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... far more interesting, they became...Dear Tom," he recites. "I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Alex says not to tell anyone, even Hermione. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me... There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad... I think I'm attacking everyone, Tom!"
I clench my eyes shut and my nails cut into my palm.
I should have done more, helped her more, listened more. She should have known that she could talk to me.
"It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," Riddle says. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. 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?" I can see from my hiding place, anger is rising in him.
"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," Tom says. "Your whole fascinating history." His eyes move to the lighting scar on his forehead. "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 says, voice shaking audibly. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but-"
Riddle laughs his high laugh again.
"It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless 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 realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It has taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance...as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power!"
"He really is mad!" I mutter to myself as he continues on with his rant.
"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 teaches did..."
"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," Harry says gritting his teeth.
"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," Riddle says carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still in school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I 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," Harry says 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 all right again-"
"Haven't I already told you," Riddle says quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter anymore? For many months now, my new target has been- you."
What? I lean forward slightly to get a better view.
"Imaging 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 those 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 what Ginny had told me, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery- particularly if one of your best friends were attacked. And Ginny told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parsletongue...
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."
Oh Ginny, I'm sorry I told you to take the book back.
"Like what?" Harry spits.
Riddle smiles pleasantly. "Well, how is it that you- a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent- manage to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
I can't help but shrink away from his hungry eyes, even though they are not directed at me.
"Why do you care how I escaped? Voldemort was after your time," Harry says slowly.
"Voldemort," Riddle says softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..."
I watch open mouthed as he takes out Harry's wand and traces it through the air, writing three shimmering words.
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
He waves the wand and the letters rearrange themselves.
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
My hands slap over my mouth to keep from gasping.
"You see?" He whispers. "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?"
He continues on and on but I'm not listening anymore.
No, a picture has just popped into my head, of where I know this boy. I have seen it many times in my life, but never cared much to take a close look. It was just another decoration on the wall to me...
"He's not as gone as you might think!" I hear Harry say and I'm snapped back to the present.
Wait, what? What's going on?
A music fills the air and Riddle whirls around to stare down the empty chamber. But the sound grows louder, eerie and spine-tingling. It's unearthly tune lifts every hair on my body and then the music reaches such a pitch that I feel it vibrating inside my own ribs.
Flames erupt from the closest pillar and a crimson bird the size of a swan soars high above, piping its weird song to the vaulted ceiling.
A phoenix! I think in amazement as its golden tail fans out behind it and gleaming golden talons grip a bundle of some sort.
The bird flies straight at Harry, dropping the ragged thing at his feet and landing heavily on his shoulder.
"That's a phoenix," Riddle says staring shrewdly at the beautiful avian.
"Fawkes?" Harry breaths, looking at the bird in amazement.
"And that-" says Riddle, now eyeing the ragged thing Fawkes had dropped, "that's the school Sorting Hat-"
Riddle begins to laugh again. He laughs so hard that the dark Chamber rings with it.
My eyes fall on Ginny, pale and tiny beneath the monstrous statue.
If I reached out, I could touch her. But they'd see me and that boy sends terror down my spine, but not because of his power or who is; no, my fear is something totally different.
He hisses something and I look up to see him staring up at the stone Salazar.
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
Harry spins around to watch, but his eyes meet mine, widening in shock as they see my horror filled eyes hiding in the shadows, and then they rise to Slytherin's gigantic mouth opening wider and wider to make a huge black hole.
Something stirs in its depths, slithering up as Harry backs away until he hits the Chamber wall.
Fawkes takes flight and I hide farther into the shadows. But Ginny, she's out in the open...
The ground shudders and the massive snake falls to the ground and I hear Riddle's voice, "Kill him."
