Continuing! Thanks for your reviews, BettyAwesome715, Raine and Kat!
Finally, Harry and Helga came across the two people they were looking for. Ginny lay face down, but when Harry turned her over, she appeared unconscious, pale and still. Lila lay next to her, her plaits still neatly tied up with green bows.
Even Helga, who still couldn't help resenting Lila since Arnold's crush on her in fourth grade, felt scared for her when she turned the smaller girl over and saw the pallor of Lila's usual rosy complexion, and the lack of her usual sweet smile.
"Come on, Lila, wake up!" Helga muttered, giving the girl a little shake.
"Ginny, please wake up." Harry murmured, shaking Ginny in the same way.
"They won't wake." Both kids jerked their head up at the voice. It was a boy of about sixteen.
"Tom...Tom Riddle?" Harry asked. The boy nodded. "What do you mean, they won't wake? They're not – they're not..."
"They're still alive." Riddle answered. "But only just."
"Are you a ghost?" Harry asked.
"A memory." Riddle answered. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He pointed at the little black diary Ginny and Lila had been writing in all year. It lay in between them.
Helga looked at the boy. She could see he was a Slytherin, and a student, so she wasn't too shocked. "How did you get down here?" she asked. "Are you a Parselmouth, too?"
"You've got to help us." Harry said. "We've got to get them 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 even react. When Harry went to pick up his wand, though, Riddle had it. Helga glanced down, realizing she'd dropped her own wand, then looked back. Riddle had her wand, too.
He refused to give them back, saying they wouldn't need them.
Helga glared at him. "Listen, bucko," she scowled, "I don't care whether I need my wand or not. It's still mine, so give it back before I introduce you to my fists!"
Riddle ignored her. His eyes were trained on Harry. According to him, he'd just been waiting to talk to him, and they were going to talk now.
Finally, Harry asked a question. "How did Ginny and Lila get like this?"
"That's an interesting question." Riddle said. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason they're like this is because they opened their hearts and spilled all their secrets to an invisible stranger."
"What in the heck are you talking about?" Helga asked aggressively.
"The diary. My diary. Little Ginny had started writing in it at the start of the year and went on for months and months, telling me all her woes, how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with second-hand robes and books...how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..." Riddle smirked. "And then there was sweet little Lila. She was the only one to notice Ginny's devotion to this diary, and decided to start writing in it herself, telling me all her own worries, how the work is 'ever so hard', how she thinks she's drifting apart from her friends...it's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of a couple of eleven-year-old girls. But I was patient. I wrote back, I was sympathetic, I was kind. The two of them simply loved me." He laughed cruelly, sending shivers up the two kids' spines. Helga had her own evil laugh, but hers wasn't a patch on his.
Riddle explained how he'd been able to control the two girls. He'd made Ginny open the Chamber of Secrets and set the Basilisk on Mrs Norris, then Colin. He'd used Lila for Justin, as well as for Hermione, Phoebe and Penelope. He'd also gotten them to do other things to make it easier for him. Ginny had killed the roosters outside school, as their call was what could kill a Basilisk.
Over the holidays, Ginny had tried to get rid of the diary, as both herself and Lila were getting scared. That's where Harry came in. He'd picked it up, and Riddle had been very interested to meet him.
"You see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry. Your whole fascinating history. I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could." Through the diary, he'd been able to gain Harry's trust by showing him a memory of him turning Hagrid in the first time the Chamber was opened, although he had only framed him for the crime. It was easy, because Riddle was a favourite with the teachers, while the young Hagrid was always in trouble. He'd been expelled from Hogwarts because of the Chamber thing. Whereas, in reality, it was always Riddle.
But Hagrid had been allowed to remain as gamekeeper, due to Dumbledore, who was the Transfiguration teacher at the time. He always seemed to know that Riddle wasn't quite as innocent as everyone thought, and so he persuaded the Headmaster of the time to let him stay.
But, as Harry triumphantly stated, Riddle hadn't killed anyone. They'd be fine after they'd been given the Mandrake Draught.
"Haven't I already told you that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me any more?" Riddle said. "For many months now, my new target has been...you."
He hadn't been happy when Lila and Ginny raided Harry's dorm to get the diary back. So he got the girls to write the message on the wall and came down to the Chamber. They didn't have much life left, since they'd put too much into the diary. Now, Riddle wanted some answers from Harry.
"Like what?" Harry asked.
"Well, how is it that a baby with no extraordinary magical talent managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
Helga shuddered at the name. Hardly anyone said the name of the wizard, although he hadn't been around since a few months after she was born.
Harry wasn't scared, though. He knew that fear of a name only increased the fear of the thing itself. "Why do you care how I escaped?" he asked calmly. "Voldemort was after your time."
"Voldemort," Riddle said quietly, "Is my past, present, and future..." He used Harry's wand to write the glowing words Tom Marvolo Riddle in the air. Then he waved the wand, and the letters moved around to spell out...
I am Lord Voldemort.
Things happened. Riddle kept explaining things, why he had taken that alias for himself at such a young age, so young that no one even connected him with the infamous Dark wizard.
Helga, who was backed up against the wall at this point, was silent. Usually, when she got scared, her first instinct was to scarper, or curl up in the foetal position sobbing, or failing that, run up and down screaming "We're all gonna die!" This time, she was as frozen as any of those Petrified students.
Only when Riddle called the Basilisk to kill Harry did she move, closing her eyes tightly to avoid seeing the murderous yellow eyes. She didn't see the Sorting Hat arrive, or Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, come to help, and she didn't see him fight the Basilisk after he pulled the sword of Gryffindor out of the Hat. But when she opened her eyes, the Basilisk was dead, Harry was lying on the ground with a Basilisk fang just pulled out of his arm, and Fawkes' healing tears were saving his life.
Helga instinctively knelt down next to Harry as Fawkes flew a little way away, and then dropped the diary into her lap. She held it out to Harry wordlessly. He took it, then picked up the fang and stabbed it into the diary.
Riddle screamed as he faded away, ink poured out of the diary, and finally, the two students picked up the wands, just as Lila and Ginny finally woke, their life force restored.
Tears ran down Ginny's face. "Harry, I tried to tell you at breakfast, remember-" she managed to gasp out.
"But we just couldn't say it." Lila continued, also crying. "It was us, but we swear we didn't mean to-"
"Riddle made us, he took us over-"
"And the last thing we saw was him coming out of the diary. Where is he now?"
"Riddle's finished." Harry assured the two first-year girls. "Him and the Basilisk." As Ginny and Lila continued to cry, Harry led the little group back to the rock wall. Helga trailed behind, feeling useless. She hadn't done a thing except put her life in danger. All she'd done was terrify herself and watch Harry nearly die.
Depressing chapter, huh? Well, it's a good thing the next one is so happy!
PLEASE READ: If anyone does fanart, could someone please do some fanart for this fic or any others? You know, a picture of something like Lila and Ginny hanging out together, Helga at the Ravenclaw table with everyone staring, Rhonda flirting with Draco Malfoy, Hermione and Phoebe in the library together, Harry and Helga in the Chamber Of Secrets, the first years in class...that kind of thing. PLEASE? This fic more than any other.
