I don't own the story or the characters of Harry Potter, this work is entirely fan-made. The rights to everything Harry Potter belong to J.K Rowling. Some noticeable sections are from 'Lord of the Rings' by J.R.R Tolkien, which again, I do not own.
"This doesn't change our plans, nor does it accelerate them. We still have a chance of getting Ginny back alive if we stay calm and don't let the Ministry get in our way. That means no more shenanigans or time-wasting. We have to move, now!" Harry barked out as he ushered Neville and Zoe into the bathroom, hastily closing the doors. "Triple locking charm, now!" All three unleashed cries of "Colloportus!" and sealed the door shut with a loud squelching sound. Harry analysed the integrity of the door and made a quick judgement. "That won't hold against a prolonged barrage of any spell, so we have to get down there now." Harry hissed menacingly and opened the entrance to the chamber. "I'm going down first, then you two follow when I have a cushioning charm down." At Zoe and Neville's confused looks that he knew so much about the chamber already, he quickly explained. "Ok, so I already went down to check once and found the actual door to the inner chamber. We'll argue later, let's do this!" He jumped down the pipe with a moments notice and a final order for the door to the chamber: "Stay open!". He hurtled through the dingy tunnels and slid down onto the vaguely familiar stone floor, covered in mildew and moss. The floor had been covered to the final inch with bones, waste and a disturbing amount of faecal matter, though Harry had made sure to clean the whole path to the inner chamber to avoid tripping and other distractions. "Alright, come on down now!" He shouted up the slippery pipe as he added several cushioning charms to the stone that they would land on, hopefully softening their fall, though a sore arse would be the least of their concerns if they were unlucky. He could hear the two of them scream in either fear or excitement at the ride as they came down, landing with a soft thump at the bottom, at Harry's feet.
He pulled Zoe to her feet in a gesture of chivalry, though she scowled at the help, muttering something under breath that sounded suspiciously like "Bloody boys," Harry gave her a small smirk and started to lead them through the tunnels and winding catacombs. "Harry," Zoe spoke softly into the darkness, in Harry's general direction, if his Lumos spell was anything to go by "are there skeletons down here? Do you think that it has actually eaten anything in the past century?" Harry stopped and whirled around, pointing his wand in her direction "Do not feel sorry for this thing. It nearly killed Hermione… and those others. It's on my head. If I had realised sooner that the monster was a serpent, I could have ended this whole thing long ago. Hermione would be able to hear me when I read to her, sang to her, told her I loved her as I broke my promise." He shifted back and turned to walk in the right direction again. His snarl was unkind, harsh and raspy, punctuated with a stifled sob as he said "promise". Neville held her hand as his brother led the way again, brushing unshed tears from his eyes before he showed weakness in the face of danger. "Harry, it's ok to feel sad about her. She isn't gone though, and we will make it back to everyone, and I will let you be the first thing Hermione sees as she wakes up from this bad dream. Not Madam Pomfrey, not your parents, you." That comment was meant as a heartwarming sentiment but only served as a reminder that he had failed to protect the one he loved above all else. "Thanks, mate, but it wouldn't have been any other way if we make it out alive." He sadly said, turning his head back towards the route. He seemed to pause momentarily to look closer at the rock to their right. "Ok, we're at roughly the halfway point. This rock has the shed basilisk skin on it, meaning we aren't that far from the inner chamber now." They heard footsteps behind them, though the echoes suggested that the people were still a minute off from reaching their current location. "I think this is the right tunnel." Harry heard Amelia Bones say.
"Shit! They weren't supposed to get here just yet. We need more time. Neville, you and I, dual disarming charms on that rock, right in the centre." Harry hissed quietly, pointing at a stalactite on the roof of the cave. They both had to whisper the spell, so it was weaker than usual, though that wasn't saying a lot, considering their normal spell power which was beyond that of most fourth years. The red sparks hit their mark and the roof came crashing down, alerting the searching Auror squad to their presence. They had all moved behind the rockfall so that they could continue ahead, leaving the searchers to deal with the many large chunks of rock and calcium deposits in the ceiling. As the three Gryffindors ran ahead, watching their steps with caution, they heard frustrated cries of "Damnit!" and "Bloody Hell!" coming from the Aurors and strangely enough, Professor McGonagall. Neville let out a small bark of laughter at the Scottish Headmistress cursing, knowing that there were others with her that would likely think the same thing as he had. Harry kept a stoic face and Zoe's displayed nervousness, yet was still holding strong under the pressure. After a solid two minutes of careful and painful running, as they slipped several times on moss, Harry, Neville and Zoe came to a large, metal door, inlaid with two intertwined snakes. Their heads bore glistening green emeralds as eyes, which made them seem very strangely alive. "I think I have to use parseltongue to open it again." Harry made the same hissing noises that he had done on the taps at the top of the pipes, commanding the door to open, and making it stay that way once it had creaked aside. As the door swung open with a heave from the boys, all three saw the full majesty of the Chamber of Secrets.
The steps that lead down to the ladder were wet, slippery and felt oddly like seaweed when stepped on, so the three were careful not to lose their balance or grip on each other. The ladder stank of rotten fish and was coated in a slimy substance that none of them even thought of sniffing, for fear of passing out. While Harry and Neville wore looks of pure disgust at the gaudy statues of snakes, Zoe looked at them in awe of the magnificent creature they were modelled after. Fangs that were at least forty centimetres long, eyes, sunken and hollow, yet still radiating intimidation and the texture of tiny scales, ones which would glitter if exposed to any sort of light. They all looked forward at Harry's whisper and saw the bust of Salazar Slytherin, carved into the rock, glittering as if it was seeing sunlight for the first time in decades, though it was just the tacky marble it was made out of. "He really must be overcompensating for something," Harry said as they all shared a moment of quiet laughter.
That feeling disappeared as two figures came into view beneath the light of their wands. Ginny Weasley, lying in a crumpled heap on the dingy floor, hair splayed out like being blasted by the wind. And above her, Tom Riddle, a pale boy, looking sixteen and wearing a simple look of surprise, that vanished as he saw Harry.
"You, you're Tom Riddle aren't you? How? I saw you in that diary looking the same, which was nearly fifty years ago." Harry asked, looking at the pale boy with curiosity. Neville and Zoe rushed over to Ginny, who lay, still with white eyes, nearly devoid of any colour. Tom tilted his head slightly, looking at Harry with the same morbid curiosity that he had shown him. He snapped his head back towards the little girl on the floor, showing no empathy or semblance of emotion towards the dying child. "She won't wake. Her life and her magic are fuelling me. The process is nearly complete. She will soon be nothing more than a cold, dead, emaciated husk of a child. Quite a pity that I couldn't have gotten someone older or more powerful, such as that Mudblood coming back from the library." Harry turned his head and looked the phantom in the eyes, seeing the tiniest twinge of excitement in the dull, blue pupils. "You, you were controlling the snake this entire time. You're the Heir of Slytherin. You tried to take my Hermione from me!" Harry swung for the boy's jaw and was cast back by a shield spell surrounding the forming body. He slid across the floor and landed a foot away, growing angrier by each passing second. Neville checked Ginny's pulse as Zoe got her into a sitting position, though it was a futile effort, as her body was nearing complete rigor mortis in her decaying state. Tom spoke in a cold and icy tone again. "So, you were smart enough to figure out Slytherin's creature. It matter's not. You will die just as painfully, whether you know the fangs that tear you to pieces or not." He turned to the statue and uttered threatening words in parseltongue, as Harry watched on, pulling his wand from his holster on his wrist. "Neville, Zoe, shield charm! Now!" he shouted as the lips of Slytherin began to open, revealing the serpent in the shadows of his mouth. "Let's see you beat this Potter!" Tom called to him, seeming to enjoy taunting a twelve-year-old.
Neville, Zoe and Harry had banded together to use a shield charm to cover Neville and the girls, but Harry was standing out in the open, refusing to go down without first seeing his task through. "I love you, Hermione." He whispered to himself, seeing the long, scaly body of the basilisk slither from its depths in the stone Slytherin's stomach. Tom shouted more orders at the basilisk as Harry hissed out only one. "Target me, and Riddle, not the other three," Harry ordered. The giant serpent looked sceptically from Tom to Harry, to the huddled group under a shield, and looked as if it was bowing its head to both him and the Slytherin boy. Being the one in its direct line of sight, Harry started to run to an antechamber off to the side but stopped as he heard a shrill song, echoing through the chamber. Harry looked up to see a brilliant red and yellow blur that clawed out the eyes of the basilisk, splattering the stones with dark crimson blood, after dropping a bundle of rags at Neville's feet. "Fawkes?!" Harry shouted, and the bird called off its attack, landing close to Ginny and bending his head over. The shout of Harry's that had been aimed at the phoenix had caught the snake's attention and the giant beast slithered over to the last place it heard something come from. Harry ran out of the way, only to be met with reverberating sounds of footsteps in his wake. Getting back up, Harry sprinted back onto his original path, down the antechamber, praying that Tom would follow the beast into the tunnels. Harry had one backup spell that could come in useful now, one that would only work temporarily, hopefully drawing the Aurors to his location too.
As Neville and Zoe knelt helplessly by Ginny's side, the Phoenix that had claimed the basilisk's eyes flew over to them and nodded his head in sadness. Zoe was able to use her legilimency to tell what it was trying to convey. "Neville, open her mouth," she commanded. Despite his confused look, he did as she said, seeing water droplets trickle into Ginny's mouth. Looking up at the bird, he saw that those weren't drops of water, but phoenix tears, gently cascading down its feathers. The two Gryffindor's gasped and stared, unable to take their eyes off the magical sight. "They can hopefully prolong her life, but she needs to have the soul purge interrupted. I'm pretty sure that's what Fawkes wants. Riddle stood nearby, watching as the creature wept about a stupid girl. "You bore me, there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO! She is as good as gone." He smirked again, doing a near-perfect impersonation of Draco Malfoy. The boy strode off, leaving nothing but the three students, Fawkes and a bundle of cloth in the central chamber. The brown material seemed to be calling to Neville, begging him to pick it up. He wandered over to it, careful not to alert the Slytherin again. "The sorting hat?" he asked himself. It became suddenly heavier as if made of pure steel, so Neville took to shaking it, and feeling inside the cloth. He jumped as he touched a cold, metal handle. Grasping it, he hoisted the Sword of Gryffindor high into the air, lifting it almost as if it was a feather.
The final chapter in 'The Heir of Slytherin' approaches. Hope you all liked this one, as it and the next chapter are the finale of year two.
Stay Safe
-E