Chapter Eleven: Lockheart and the Snakehunt
Harry headed swiftly for the Defence classroom, his feet making no sound on the stone floor of the corridors. Entering the office, he saw Lockheart packing swiftly and slammed the door shut, extending his wand as he did so.
"Going somewhere, Lockheart?" he said icily.
Lockheart looked up, frightened by seeing Harry's wand pointed at him. He babbled some excuse about a sick relative but Harry snarled and jabbed his wand closer.
"I would have thought that you would be able to help, being the oh so wonderful Gilderoy Lockheart," he sneered. "Or are your books all fakes?" He knew he'd hit a nerve when Lockheart flushed, but wasn't prepared for the wizard to pull his own wand.
"I'm quite gifted with memory charms, Harry. I'm going to have to put one on you, can't have you blabbing my secret about. Obliviate!"
Harry's focus narrowed to the beam of light shooting towards him. He sidestepped it, and then focused with the Force. The charm stopped, then flew back in the opposite direction, hitting Lockheart instead. The fool fell over and then exhibited all the signs of memory modification – a large modification as the charm had basically wiped his entire memory. Harry growled with annoyance, locked the idiot in his office and then made his way to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
Slipping in the door he made his way over to the sink. He looked at it but couldn't see anything abnormal about it. Shrugging he called for Myrtle.
"Myrtle" he called out. The ghost floated out of the stall nearest him.
"Yes, what do you want?" she snapped.
Harry rolled his eyes; dealing with Myrtle was frustrating at times. "I want to ask you how you died," he said. He was rather disturbed at the fact that the ghost seemed to enjoy telling him how she'd died.
After getting the information, he thanked Myrtle and made his way back to the sink. Looking down under the taps he saw a small carved snake on one sink. Standing back he hissed :Open:
There was a grinding sound, and the sinks split apart and rotated out of the way, the drain cover sank down out of sight and disappeared. When the dust settled, he was looking at a gigantic drainpipe. He edged closer and said in Parseltongue :I wonder if there's any stairs:
He got a huge shock when a staircase materialised down the drainpipe. Shrugging, he started down them, using his wand for light, and sincerely wishing that he had his lightsaber with him. He wished that even harder when he came upon the shed skin of the Basilisk; it was nearly sixty feet long. He swallowed hard. 'If I get out of this alive my master is really going to kill me.' Continuing on he became aware that he was walking over rat skulls and various other unidentifiable skeletons. Quelling the urge to vomit, he kept walking, at last coming to a great iron door with snakes on the outside.
:Open: he hissed again, and the snakes started moving. The ones in the centre drew back as a snake slithered round the outer edge. When it had gone full circle, the door silently swung open. The twelve-year-old Jedi took a large breath and stepped inside.
The first thing he saw was Ginny. She was lying next to the statue of someone that Harry assumed was Salazar Slytherin. Lying next to her was the diary. He checked her and found her cold and almost dead. Looking around he sensed another presence.
Out of the shadows stepped Tom Riddle, the Riddle from the diary. Harry frowned and got up, still holding his wand.
"Who are you?" he demanded. The boy laughed before walking forward. Harry noticed the Slytherin crest on his robes.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle, and you are Harry Potter. Ginny told me all about you, and your Jedi status. Where's that lightsaber of yours, Potter, I thought the Jedi were never without it." Tom stated mockingly.
Harry ground his teeth before replying. "That's none of your business. Why are you here anyway, you're supposed to be older. What are you?" Riddle became serious.
"I am a memory, preserved in this diary for fifty years. Ginny has been writing to me all year, feeding me so that I could finally take physical form again. When she dies, I will become real again, and I won't need the diary any longer. I'm most interested in you, though. How did a baby manage to survive Lord Voldemort's killing curse?"
Harry snarled. This conversation was wearing on him and he knew that Tom was stalling for time. He had to end this and fast. He stood up, meeting Tom's eyes challengingly.
"Why do you care whether I lived or not? Voldemort was after your time."
Harry suddenly had a very bad feeling about what was coming. Tom snatched his wand and wrote in fiery letters in the air:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
He then swished the wand and the letters rearranged themselves into:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
Harry suddenly realised that he was facing the sixteen-year-old form of Voldemort. He looked at Ginny again, missing what Voldemort was doing until he heard the first hiss. He looked up and saw the basilisk coming out of the statue's mouth. Voldemort laughed as Harry ran round the Chamber, avoiding the gigantic snake. Harry was now swearing mentally and promising to himself that he would never let his lightsaber get so low on power again. Suddenly there was a flash of flame and Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, dropped the Sorting Hat at his feet. More surprisingly, a silver sword materialised out of it. Harry heart leapt with hope, he was now able to kill the basilisk. Grabbing the sword he scrambled up onto the head of the statue, while the basilisk was attempting to lunge at him. It had been blinded by Fawkes so Harry was safe from its deadly gaze. He couldn't help thinking, though, that there was one deadly gaze that Fawkes couldn't save him from, and that one happened to belong to his master. He ignored this train of thought as the basilisk opened its mouth and lunged. As it did so, Harry held the sword like he would his lightsaber and pierced the roof of its mouth with the blade, thrusting up into its brain.
The snake gave a shriek of agony and thrashed around before collapsing to the floor dead. Harry barely managed to avoid the deadly path of one fang as it came near his arm as the beast went down.
He jumped off the statue and ran to Ginny. She was now only minutes away from death and the teenage Voldemort was looking more and more solid. Harry glanced at the diary and then at the basilisk. Understanding came in a flash. He grabbed the diary, jumped up and made his way over to the dead snake. Looking straight at Voldemort, he jammed the book up into the closest fang, so that the venom penetrated the pages. Tom screamed in agony and Harry did it again and again, before letting the diary fall as he watched Tom Riddle explode in a shower of light.
Harry ran back over to Ginny, and was there when she woke up. After soothing her fears of being expelled away, and cracking a joke that if there was trouble in the parental department, then she wouldn't be the only one, he then looked at Fawkes. The phoenix trilled at him.
#Are you all right young Jedi# he heard in his head.
"Yes I am, Fawkes but, why did you come and help me?" he said mentally. He heard the phoenix equivalent of a chuckle.
#You might not like Dumbledore very much, young Harry, but you are pure of heart and also, all Light creatures will help a Jedi. You will find that certain Dark creatures will offer you a measure of respect as well, in that they will not attack you or anyone else you have under your protection.#
"Uh, thanks. Ginny and I need to be going now; we need to get back above." Harry said, rather shocked at this information. Fawkes trilled again, and offered Harry and Ginny a lift. Accepting it, they found themselves in Myrtle's bathroom again.
Harry followed his Force sense to where he sensed Ginny's parents, Professor McGonagall and the Headmaster. He gulped when he realised that he could also sense his master's presence, and then realised that she would have been called when he disappeared, like the Weasley's had been called when Ginny had been taken. Steeling himself, he opened the door.
