Chapter 12

Hermione crawled over to Weaselette, checking her pulse yet again. Only this time, she felt nothing.

"She's dead," Hermione said to Draco. The pair of them looked over at the Dark Lord, who rose smoothly to his feet, alive once again. Hermione stared at him in awe, not quite believing that they had actually managed to pull this off.

"Let us finish up here so we can leave this place," the Dark Lord said. Draco nodded and handed him Weaselette's confession and suicide note. He read through it quickly, nodding, "I will kill the monster, but I have chosen to die along with it—very poetic. Give me your wand."

Once Draco had passed the Dark Lord his wand, he tapped the parchment and it glowed faintly for a moment. He then handed Draco back his wand and dropped the parchment to the ground by Weaselette's body.

"Now I will call my pet and dispose of him. After that, you will carry the body and the letter out of the Chamber, Draco. Miss Granger, you will help me leave the castle undetected."

The two Slytherins nodded their agreement.

"As soon as you can get away, Draco, use Dumbledore's Floo to get home. We will be there. I expect your father will want to see you as well."

"How will I convince them to let me go home?" Draco asked.

"You have just been through a traumatic experience, I suspect they'll let you do just about anything." The Dark Lord replied, "Now, the basilisk will not attack you but as you well know, don't look it in the eyes."

With the Dark Lord uttered a series of hisses. Hermione and Draco kept their eyes on the ground, but could feel the presence of the snake. Hermione saw the Dark Lord lean over to pick up Weaselette's wand. She could see him twirling the wand between his fingers as he determined how to kill the snake. It has to be a way that wouldn't kill it instantly, Hermione determined, because Weaselette would need it to be alive so she can look it in the eyes to kill her.

"Diffindo," Tom Riddle said, smoothly, pointing to the midsection of the basilisk. The basilisk let out a shriek, but the Dark Lord hissed at it again and it remained still and complacent as it bled out. "That should do it," he said, dropping the wand, "Shall we go?"

They nodded. Hermione smiled slightly at Draco as he grabbed Weaselette's wand and pocketed it. He then levitated Weaselette's body and grabbed the confession off of the chamber floor—some of the basilisk's blood had seeped onto the parchment, giving it a genuinely sinister quality. Hermione watched as he walked away. The Dark Lord leaned over and picked something up that Hermione hadn't noticed before—his diary.

"I want you to keep this safe," he said, handing it to her.

Hermione put the diary into her bag.

"The exit is this way," the Dark Lord told her, and the pair of them starting in that direction. The two walked in silence for a few minutes, before the Dark Lord spoke again, "I suspect you've figured out a way to get us out of the castle without being seen."

Hermione nodded, quickly rooting through her bag. She pulled out Potter's invisibility cloak.

"I stole this from Potter before we entered the Chamber. I'll have to return it before he notices it missing."

The Dark Lord nodded.

"I'm impressed at you and your friends' abilities, Miss Granger. You have managed to help me return—something even my most powerful followers had not been able to accomplish. I will not forget this. The four of you have the potential of being very talented Death Eaters in the future."

Hermione grinned at this, trying to hide her reddening cheeks.

"Thank you, my Lord."

"You know that you cannot formally become a Death Eater until you are older, but that does not mean that you won't be able to help me in my missions." He told her.

"I'll do anything you ask of me, my Lord. As will my friends."

The Dark Lord nodded, apparently already realizing that this was the truth.

"You said Lucius got the diary into Weasley's possession?" He asked, calmly.

"Yes, my Lord. He slipped it in with her school supplies when we were at Diagon Alley." Hermione confirmed. He nodded again, but didn't say anything more about the subject.

"I obviously don't need to tell you that you are to tell no one that I have returned. I shall only be alerting the Inner Circle. I even must contemplate if it is safe to tell Severus at the current time. After all, he's been in Dumbledore's pocket for far too long."

"Lucius is convinced that he is loyal," Hermione told him, "But Blaise's father has his doubts, as does mine."

"It might be best to keep it from him then, for now. Do you know which of my followers are in Azkaban at this time?"

Hermione winced, knowing that he would not be happy with the amount of Death Eaters currently incarcerated.

"Antonin Dolohov, Bellatrix, Rabastan and Rodolpuhus Lestrange, Mulciber, Augustus Rookwood," Hermione recited, having talked to her father before about who had been imprisoned. She paused, thinking deeply, knowing there were four more at least. "Oh, and Travers. But I don't remember the other three."

The Dark Lord frowned.

"That displeases me, but I will orchestrate a break-out soon enough. Fortunately, there are still many members of the Inner Circle that seemed to have evaded capture. I am especially interested in how your father dodged his connection to me."

"He burnt our house down, destroying all evidence that the Ministry had hoped to find" Hermione answered, "and we moved out of the country for a while."

"I see," the Dark Lord said, "Your father always did have a way with the dramatics. His father was the same way. Ah, here we are." He let out another series of hissing noises, which opened up the door into another tunnel.

They weren't in the tunnel for long before it let to a stone wall. The Dark Lord put his hand to it, and it opened at his touch. The pair walked out of the tunnel and found themselves in the dungeons, near the Slytherin common room.

Wordlessly, Hermione handed the Dark Lord the invisibility cloak, and he slipped it on. Due to his height, she could still see his feet but unless she heard someone coming, she wasn't too worried about it. They headed toward the front door, Hermione cautiously looking around. Right as she opened the door, she heard footsteps coming down a nearby hallway.

"Quickly," she whispered and they slipped outside and closed the door just before Argus Filch stepped into sight.

"Hogwarts hasn't changed," the Dark Lord said, slipping off the cloak and handing it back to her. Apparently he wasn't worried about being seen outside. It did seem highly unlikely, since it was a new moon and the grounds were dark as pitch.

"We should head into the Forbidden Forest and walk until we can Apparate," Hermione said, "less of a risk of being seen than if we walked to Hogsmeade."

It took the pair a little under an hour to get out of range of the Anti-Apparition charm. Without a word, the Dark Lord grabbed Hermione's hand and they Disapparated.

The Malfoy Manor came into sight, and Hermione suddenly was incredibly eager to see Lucius' reaction to the Dark Lord's return. She knew that he would have wards up, and was already alerted to their presence. As always, Hermione was correct, because the door swung open just as they reached. Due to the darkness, though, Lucius could not see who stood there.

"Hello, Mr. Malfoy," Hermione said, courteously. Tom Riddle remained in the shadows, obviously letting her have her moment, "I've brought someone who really wanted to visit."

"Hermione, how on earth did you get here?" Lucius asked, puzzled, "And why so late at night?"

"Ah, Lucius," the Dark Lord said, stepping into the light, "She thought you might want to see me."

Author's Note: Well it's official everyone.. Two more chapters left in this fic and I've already written both of them. That means updates will be coming very regularly and then Book 3 will start! Again, that means anyone who is following this story will need to follow me for updates if they want to know when I post the next book!

Thanks to Ellybelly07, mollu123456789, Ramyfan, cleotheo, and a guest for reviewing!

Special thanks to Lady Eleanor Boleyn who left me a review that had me laughing out loud. I'm glad that you were smirking at your computer and rooting on the Slytherins. ;)