"Oh, it's you." Myrtle batted her eyelashes as the Hammer ran in.

"Myrtle, where did you say you saw those eyes?" Harry cut straight to the chase, looking up and down the lavatory.

"Somewhere there," Myrtle pointed vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.

The Hammer walked over and began to look it over, top to bottom.

"Tell me again, what did that strange language sound like to you?" Harry asked as he traced his fingers down the side of the mirror, feeling the cold of the old iron frame.

"I don't know - it didn't sound like anything I've ever heard before. Maybe like heavy rain or a handful of sand sliding on metal." She said to him. On the side of one of the tarnished copper taps was a tiny snake raised in the embossing.

"That tap's never worked," Myrtle said with a hint of glee when Harry turned it.

"Alright, good sign." The Hammer muttered under his breath as he ran his finger over the snake again, "good sign."

He tried tapping his wand against it - nothing.

"Open sesame." he said. Myrtle giggled. Nothing happened.

Harry wracked his brain trying to figure it out, trying to make himself speak in Parseltongue as much as he couldn't believe he could speak it. He thought back to the garden snake in Diagon Alley commenting on the weather, back to commanding the snake in Justin's presence.

"Open!" He said, and this time, instead of Myrtle giggling, he heard a strange hissing escape his lips like the air from a balloon.

"Oooh, that was it!" Myrtle said, awe in her voice as the tap began to glow with a brilliant white light and began to spin in its mount. In the next second the sink began to move. The sink, in fact, sank right out of sight, leaving a large pipe wide enough for a grown man to slide into. Or a giant mythical snake to slither up out of.

The Hammer looked at the door, thinking of Longbaugh's instructions and his guarantee for help. In any situation otherwise he would have trusted the man, but there wasn't time. Harry looked to Myrtle, who gave him a coy smile with both hands behind her back. He steeled himself to go. This was it: he was in for it when all the chips were down. Was he a detective or a flobberworm?

"Harry," Myrtle said to him, interrupting his mental pep talk. He looked back up at her, "If you die down there, you can share my toilet."

"Thanks, doll." he said before placing his hand on his hat and sitting down onto the edge of the pipe and easing himself in.

Easing himself in didn't help. He picked up speed immediately going down what felt like an endless, slimy, dark slide. There were more pipes branching off in innumerable directions, but none of them were as large as the one he had jumped into. The darkness continued to rush by, the depth of his fall feeling like he had passed the lake and the dungeon for miles. The slimy dark just kept on going.

Just as he began to worry about casting a spell to fix his legs when they inevitably broke on the impact of his landing, the pipe leveled out and he shot out the end and skidded to a stop with a wet thud, a strange crunching underneath him.

"Lumos!" Harry lit his wand to reveal that he had landed on a bed of decaying animal bones, from the look of it, mostly rats. He got up with a shudder, his hand touching the slimy walls to help him stand. He didn't know how far the tunnel had dumped him out, but from the temperature and the slime, he guessed he had come out under the lake, somewhere.

Even with a lit wand, the darkness was oppressive, the echo of his damp footsteps dying on the stones as he made his way forward. It seemed like there were a lot of ways in at various sizes, but only one way he could walk. He wished Neville could have been down here with him.

Around a bend in the dark tunnel, the edge of something at the furthest reaches of his wandlight made the Hammer freeze. Just barely, he could see the outline of something enormous, undulating, and absolutely still. A chilly feeling in his spine, the Hammer took a cautious shuffle step forward. And then another. And another.

The light slid over a snake skin the length of an overground bus. His breath caught in his throat, he found that the skin was somehow still a vivid acid green, despite being curled and empty. The disheartening fact that snakes shed their skins to grow larger crossed his mind and he hated that he knew it.

The Hammer fixed his heart and took a step forward into its midst. The next step was easier, but he didn't find himself any less scared. He needed to rescue Ginny. He needed to solve the case.

Leaving the skin behind, he followed the twisting path of the tunnel that loomed over him, following it into the unknown depths of the school. It was ambivalence - wanting the tunnel itself to end so he could get where he needed to go and yet dreading what it was he would find on the other end. After a final bend, a wall with two intertwining serpents came up to him, their eyes set with enormous emeralds glinting under the light of his wand.

Even in the muted light of the spell, the snakes had taken on their own sort of life, the shake of his hand making their shadows dance in the dark. The Hammer cleared his throat,

"Open." Harry commanded, the word forming as a faint hiss.

The serpents parted and the wall cracked open, two halves sliding out of sight with nothing but the sound of stone grinding on stone. His fist gripped to white knuckles on his wand, the Hammer stepped into the new dark.

The next chamber was long and dimly lit. Stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents towered up into the darkness above him, supporting a ceiling he couldn't see; their shadows long and black through the odd greenish gloom. The Hammer closed one eye and tried to listen for the telltale sounds of a snake, some kind of slithering, that deadly voice he had heard before. Nothing. Where was Ginny?

Each step forward echoed off the walls. The Hammer tread with paranoid care over each stone, one eye closed and the other squinted and prepared to close in the event the snake reared its ugly head. Nothing did, though. Nothing but the hollow eyes of the carved stone snakes following his toiling progress to the back of the chamber.

Past the last set of pillars, a statue as large as the Chamber itself loomed over him, its back against the far wall. The form was that of an ancient wizard whose beard extended almost all the way down to the bottom of his robes, interrupted only by two enormous, grey stone feet at the chamber floor. Between the two feet, face down, lay a small black robed figure with flaming red hair.

The Hammer broke into a hurried shuffle step, swinging his wand left and right while maintaining his one-eyed squint to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him as he approached the unconscious girl on the floor. He set his wand down and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, her skin pallid and cold. She was unconscious, but malleable, which meant she hadn't been petrified.

"C'mon, Gin, wake up." The Hammer shook her gently, touching two fingers to her neck and feeling a weak pulse as her head lolled to one side.

"She won't wake." A voice spoke from the outer darkness.

The form of a black haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was the shade of campfire smoke, like someone had spritzed a fresh painting with water. The Hammer could barely put together why, but his face was unmistakable.

"Tom." Harry said, his eyes still narrowed, "Care to tell me why?"

"Oh, she's still alive," Riddle lifted himself from the pillar and walked toward him, "but only just."

"You, uh, some kind of ghost, Tom?" Harry asked, shifting himself around Ginny to face him."

"A memory," Riddle whispered, "Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He pointed toward the floor near the statue's toes. The little black diary that Harry had found in Myrtle's bathroom lay open on the stone floor. The Hammer cocked an eyebrow.

"You gonna help, Tom? Or are you just gonna stand there lying to me again?" Harry tried to move Ginny, managing to get one of her arms over his shoulders before bending down to grab for his wand. The Hammer's head flicked up to see that Riddle was still watching him, but now he was twirling Harry's wand between his fingers.

"So you knew." Tom said.

"I took a pretty good guess."

"You even tried to hide your real name, Harry Potter."

"It's Potter-Mason. I like that name. It's both my dads' names"

"Either way, I've been waiting to talk to you for a long time, Harry Potter."

The Hammer rolled his eyes, "What did you do to Ginny?"

"Well, that's an interesting question," Riddle said with a false joviality, "I suppose the reason Ginny Weasley got this way is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."

"She's been writing in your little black book all year." Harry concluded. Ron's concern made a lot more sense now.

"She's been telling me everything for months and months, all her pitiful worries and woes; how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with second-hand robes and books and how," Riddle had a sneer on his face, "how she didn't think the famous, good, great detective Harry Potter would ever notice her."

The Hammer looked down at her unconscious form, feeling a little guilty. He hadn't noticed. Riddle never stopped staring at Harry's face, a hungry look in his eyes.

"It's so very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven year old girl," Tom kept talking, "But I was patient. I wrote back, I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom… I'm ever so glad I've got this diary to confide in… It's like having a friend I can carry round in my pocket…"

Riddle laughed, high and cold. It didn't match the rugged youth of his face. The Hammer clenched his teeth.

"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…"

"So you used her. For what?'

"Don't you see, Harry? I made her open the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the serpent of Slytherin on those Mudbloods and the Squib's cat." The hell was a squib?

"You're a son of a bitch, Tom."

"If only you knew. She didn't know she was doing it at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries. They became far more interesting: Dear Tom," He recited with glee while looking into Harry's dark expression, "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 Hallowe'en but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. 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 the one attacking everyone, Tom!"

Harry ground his back teeth together, glaring at the misty figure.

"It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," Riddle said, "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you came in, Harry-" Riddle stopped a moment, like it was the first time he had actually taken a look at him, "What-what year is it? Did you lie to me? You're dressed exactly like those filthy muggles that were around."

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"No, regardless, I couldn't have been more delighted to have it be you. Of all the people it could have been, the person I was most anxious to meet…"

"Yeah? Why me?" The Hammer's hand strayed back to Ginny's porcelain neck, feeling her pulse again to make sure she was still with him. He laid her down gently and stood to face Riddle.

"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry. Your whole fascinating history," his eyes roved over the spot above Harry's right eye, the hunger in his expression deepening, "I knew I needed to 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."

"Except I wasn't buying your snake oil. You framed an innocent man for the work of a monster."

Riddle laughed his villain's laugh.

"It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the 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 realise that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the heir of Slytherin. It had 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!"

"You're lucky the Ministry can't tell their eye from their ass, Tom. I bet you the Chief knew."

"The Chief? Who's he? The only one who suspected was the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore. He was the one who persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid on as gameskeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed. Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did…"

"That's the Chief. He seems like a pretty good judge of character. He knows more than he lets on."

"Well he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled. I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again whilst I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd 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."

"Cute trick, Tom. How'd you do it? Making the diary."

Riddle scoffed, "It is the Darkest of magic. Most complex and to some, vile; but I did it with ease. I used the soul of that mudblood in the lavatory. I left part of my soul in these pages and through it, I cannot die."

"Well you can't succeed either, Tom. Nobody's dead yet. Not even the cat, and you just copped to murdering Myrtle up there so I've got all the answers I need."

Riddle gave a wicked grin, "Haven't I already told you that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been you."
"I'm flattered, but I'm not into boys."

Riddle's expression grew more angry, "Imagine how livid I was when the next time my diary was opened and it was that filthy Mudlbood who was writing to me, not you. Ginny saw that you had handed off the diary to that mudblood girl and panicked. She offered to help her with my silence and I used her then, to attack your best friend and sweeten the pot. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir and you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery. She had told me the whole school was abuzz because you could speak Parseltongue…
"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." Harry's eyes darted around the room - Riddle was too far to attack directly and Ginny was an open invitation. He only had the time to stall.

"Like what?"

"Well," Riddle smiled like they were at high tea, "how is it that a baby with no extraordinary magical talent managed to beat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"

Tom had a literal red-eyed look of insatiable madness to him, looking the Hammer over with a jitter like a junkie looking to score.

"What's it matter to you, Tom? Voldemort wasn't a problem for your time."

"Voldemort," Riddle with great care, making sure to emphasize every syllable, "is my past, present and future, Harry Potter…"

He used Harry's wand to trace through the air, writing three shimmering words:

"TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE"

Then he waved the wand once and the letters of his name rearranged themselves,

"I AM LORD VOLDEMORT"

"You see?" Tom said in a whisper, "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 for ever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry. I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world."

The irony wasn't quite lost on the Hammer, who still had a grudge against Mickey Spillane.

"That's a dumb name. I'm just going to call you Tom. As far as great sorcerers go, you seem to be pretty bad at this. The Chief's got a better head on his shoulders than you do and a far better reputation. I mean, you couldn't even beat a baby. My nappy was probably soiled when you blew yourself up, Tom."

There was a snarky grin on Harry's face contrasted to the grim glower on Tom's. The Hammer knew he was just buying time - the madder he could make the teenage villain, the more mistakes he would make. Harry bet it against the sands falling through Ginny's hourglass.

"You insolent child. Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" He yelled.

"Dumbledore left because a bunch of bureaucrats made a dumb decision. Knowing the Chief, I bet he's got a few aces up his sleeve that aren't just me. The man knows how to make a plan." The Hammer said matter of factly, tugging down on the brim of his hat to try and obscure the rising anxiety he felt.

Riddle opened his mouth to retort, but froze.

Music was coming from somewhere. Tom turned around to stare down the empty Chamber. The music was growing louder. It was hollow, eerie in a way that ran up the Hammer's spine. His hair stood on end and his heart swelled. Just as the music reached a pitch that shook the Hammer's ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar.

A deep vermillion bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping the strange music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons. The bird dove off the pillar and landed heavily on the Hammer's shoulder. Harry looked up at it as it folded its wings, recognizing the curve of the sharp golden beak and beady black eyes.

The bird stopped singing. It sat still and radiated a comforting warmth next to Harry's cheek, never breaking its gaze from Riddle.

"A phoenix…" Riddle said, staring back at it.

"The Chief was right, you do look a lot better at top form." The bird squeezed Harry's shoulder gently.

Riddle began to laugh that high, cold laugh again, the sound of it resonating in the chamber and magnifying his volume tenfold.

"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender? A songbird! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?"

The Hammer scratched underneath Fawke's belly, waiting for Tom to finish his big evil monologue.

"To business, Harry." Riddle smiled again, "Twice - in your past, in my future we have met. And twice I have failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he dropped his volume to a sinister threat, "the longer you survive."

It wasn't in anyone's best interest to humour Tom. The longer Harry talked the more of Ginny's life he would steal - but Tom had the wand and Harry hadn't ever practised magic without one. Riddle's outline had become clearer and more solid by the minute. All of his options had dwindled down to the most straightforward: he'd have to try and fight Tom, and it'd be better off sooner than later.

"You want the truth? Nobody knows, Tom. You're the idiot who tried to cast a killing curse on a baby instead of hitting it with a brick. My mother put herself between you and me. My Muggle-born mother stopped you from killing me. I killed a professor you were using last year and the real you had to run away screaming all smoke and noise. You're a top rate git, Tom, too thick to figure out how to do things without trying to prove you're the best wizard ever."

Riddle lost his cool for a moment before contorting his face into a smile,

"So your mother died to save you. I see. That's a powerful counter-charm. There's nothing special about you after all. I wondered, you see. Because there are strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike… But after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That's all I wanted to know."

"Some days I'd rather be lucky than good." Harry said, putting his hand over his belt pouch, waiting for Riddle to raise the wand. Instead, Riddle's smile grew wider.

"Now, Harry, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him."

He cast an amused eye over Fawkes before walking away. Harry felt the twist in his stomach as he watched Riddle stop between the high pillars and look up into the stone face of Slytherin, high above him in the half-darkness. Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed, words that Harry understood.

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four." Harry had other opinions.

Fawkes swayed on his shoulder as Harry turned to look up at the statue. Its face was moving, the mouth slid open into a gaping maw, framing an abyssal darkness. Something was stirring from inside it. The Hammer put some distance between himself and Ginny, pulling his hat down over his face so it blocked everything except for a few bare stones in front of him as he ran. Tom still needed her and the further away he was, the less danger she would be in.

"Stick with me here, pal," he said to Fawkes, coming to a stop near one of the other pillars, "You'll know it when it's time."

Fawkes gripped his shoulder just shy of painfully to let him know he understood. The bird took wing with the feeling of feathers brushing the Hammer's cheek - he'd have to trust it. Something huge hit the stone floor of the chamber. Harry couldn't do anything but keep his back to the pillar as he felt the giant serpent uncoiling itself from within Slytherin's mouth. Riddle hissed a final command, "Kill him."

"No, kill him!" The Hammer tried yelling at it, the weird hissing coming out of his throat disconcerting.

"Parseltongue won't save you here, Harry! It only obeys my commands!" Riddle gloated.

Harry moved on, pulling the Weasleys' creation out of his belt pouch and holding it up in the air above him, his hat still pulled down over his eyes.

"What? What is that?" Riddle yelled as Harry held up the garishly bright, yellow, rubber bird.

"Now, Fawkes!" Harry yelled, squeezing the body of the rubber chicken.

Something that sounded like a rooster's crow emanated from the little joke-shop toy at the volume of a lorry horn. The sound of mad hissing filled in the silence in its wake, the giant serpent swinging from side to side and coming into contact with the other pillars. Fawkes's screech brought up the rear. The call had been almost spot on for a rooster's crow, but had it worked? Harry couldn't tell.

The Hammer crouched and lifted his hat up just a hair, enough to see an enormous snake, acid green from head to tail, thick as an oak trunk with its top half raised up swaying madly and weaving drunkenly between the pillars. Fawkes had followed through, soaring about its head as the Basilisk snapped and lunged furiously at the bird.

Fawkes dove, his long golden beak sinking out of sight somewhere in the Basilisk's head, showering the floor with a dark splatter of blood. The snake's tail thrashed in Harry's direction and he dodged, his hat coming loose as he dove to the side. Before he could grab it, the snake turned to face him - but instead of the two bulbous yellow eyes he had expected, the Hammer saw dark pools of blood. Fawkes had stabbed the both of them out and the serpent was spitting in agony.

"No!" Riddle screamed, "Leave the bird! Leave the bird! The boy is behind you! You can still smell him! Kill him!"

The blinded serpent paused in a sway, confused but still deadly. Fawkes circled around its head, just out of reach, piping out that eerie song from earlier like he was taunting it, jabbing occasionally at the snake's nose when the opportunity presented itself.

The Hammer turned to run down the length of the main chamber, moving the rubber chicken to his other hand and using his right to bring out the catapult.

"Go! GET HIM!" Riddle screamed as Harry turned around to face the creature, giving the chicken another squeeze before throwing it toward the serpent. The creature made a hiss that passed for a painful scream as it slammed to the ground and began to slither toward the Hammer.

Harry called out the remade firework from his pouch, taking it into his left hand and holding it against his chest, the serpent nearing him.

"Kill the boy! Kill the boy! He's behind you! Sniff - smell him!" Tom was still trying to wrangle the basilisk as it came toward Harry. The Hammer went sideways toward one of the chamber walls, jumping out of the way when the snake lunged at him. Harry did a hobbling hop-step backwards without being able to regain his balance, instead landing on his back near a puddle. He jammed the explosive into the water before nocking it into the catapult's cup. The serpent reared back, its forked tongue lashing out left and right, trying to sense him. Its jaw opened when it recognised where the Hammer lay, its mouth opening to prepare for the lunge, enormous fangs like sabres glinting in the green gloom. The Hammer loosed the orb, praying his aim was true.

The serpent began its lunge before an explosion rocked the chamber, so loud that it felt like Harry had been hit in the chest by a Whomping Willow, knocking loose stones and damp dust from the ceiling. Serpent bits went everywhere, the basilisk's free flying head continuing in the arc of the strike, a mutilated body behind it, the punctured eyes still bleeding its black blood.

The Hammer held up his arms to block the landing, screaming as the snake head struck the ground around his torso, a sharp, searing pain running up from Harry's right thigh. The Hammer opened his eyes and lowered his arms to find that the Basilisk's head had mostly missed him. Mostly.

A long, poisonous fang had buried itself into his leg and snapped off from the skull near the hilt. Harry rolled what was left of the serpent's head off of him and reached down to yank on the tooth. White-hot pain was spreading slowly and steadily from the wound. Harry screamed, tears coming from his eyes as the fang came free in his hand, the ivory white tooth covered in a mixture of blood and poison. The Hammer's vision swam, the whole world going foggy. Even the green miasma of the Chamber seemed to be fading away. It occurred to the Hammer that this would have been the perfect time for a cigarette.

A patch of scarlet swam past and Harry heard the soft ticking of claws beside him.

"Fawkes." Harry spoke through numbing lips, "Thanks for the help, pal. Too bad…" He felt the bird lay its handsome head on the spot where the serpent's fang had pierced him.

"You're dead, Harry Potter." Tom's voice carried over the sound of his footsteps, a long shadow falling over the Hammer.

"Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Can you see what he's doing, Potter? He's crying."

Harry blinked. Fawkes's head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the glossy feathers. Part of Harry wondered if his mum and dad would cry like that at the funeral. Petunia would make such a scene. He didn't want to die.

"I'm going to sit here and watch you die, Harry Potter. Take your time. I'm in no hurry."

The Hammer felt drowsy, he wanted to say something to Tom, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Everything around him seemed to be spinning.

"So ends the famous Harry Potter." Riddle kept monologuing, "Alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by his friends, defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged. You'll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry. She bought you twelve years of borrowed time, but Lord Voldemort got you in the end as you knew he must."

The Hammer glared at Tom with one eye from under the brim of his hat. This was it. Was this what dying was supposed to be like? The Chamber seemed to be coming back into focus. Harry gave his head a little shake, and there was Fawkes, still resting his head on Harry's leg with a pearly patch of tears surrounding the wound. Except the wound was gone.

"Get away, bird." Riddle spoke up, "Get away from him. I said, get away!"

Harry looked up. Riddle was pointing Harry's wand at Fawkes and there was a loud bang before Fawkes took flight again in a whirl of gold and scarlet. Harry needed to learn how to cast spells without announcing it.

"Phoenix tears" Riddle spoke, looking at the hole in Harry's trousers, "Of course… healing powers… I forgot." Idiot.

He looked into Harry's face, "But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter… you and me…" He raised the wand.

Then in a rush of wings, Fawkes soared back overhead and something fell into Harry's lap - the diary.

For a split second, both Harry and Tom, wand still raised, stared at it.

"Fuck you, Tom." Harry said before plunging the basilisk fang on the floor next to him straight through the cover and into the heart of the book.

There was a long, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary, bleeding out half a century of malice all over Harry's hands, flooding the floor around him. Riddle was writhing, screaming, twisting and flailing on the ground and was gone. Harry's wand fell to the floor with a clatter, and then there was a stillness. Everything was silent as a held breath save for the steady dripping of ink still oozing from the diary. The Basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it.

The Hammer dragged himself up off the floor, holding onto the diary by the Basilisk fang still stabbed through it. He picked up his wand again and began his exhausted hobble toward the far end of the chamber.

Ginny moaned like a sleeper awakening from a nightmare. The Hammer hurried to her as she sat up. She looked to him, the pieces of the enormous snake scattered about the room, and finally to the skewered diary in the Hammer's hand. She drew in a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down her face.

"Harry - Hammer - oh Harry - I tried to say something. I tried to tell, but I just couldn't. It was me Harry - but I - I s-swear I didn't mean to - R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over - and - how did you kill that - that thing? Where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary."

"Tom's dead, sweetheart. Don't worry. Tom's dead." The Hammer held up the remains of the diary for her to see. "Let's get out of here, Gin. This place really kills the mood."

"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny wept as Harry helped her to her feet, "I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and - w-what'll Mum and Dad say?"

"Hell of a first year, right?" The Hammer said as he ushered her back toward the Chamber's entrance. Fawkes was already waiting for them, hovering whilst Harry helped her step over the bits and pieces of Basilisk, through the echoing gloom and back into the tunnel. The Hammer heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss. Ginny kept weeping, talking about her own demise and expulsion, saying that they were going to put her in Azkaban for this.

"Don't worry about it. I killed a professor last year and I'm still here. Buck up, kiddo." Harry said matter-of-factly as he led her through the dark tunnels, "And Gin? Next time you need someone to talk to, come up to the office before you bare your heart to a magic book."

He caught a look of wonder on her blushing face as they followed Fawkes up through the tunnels.

Back at the area Harry had landed in, he looked back up the pipe he had slid down from, seeing it disappear back up into darkness.

"You wouldn't happen to know a good levitation spell, would you?" Harry asked aloud as he wondered about the logistics of it. Fawkes pecked his hand lightly, taking flight again and hovering in front of the two of them.

"I- I think he wants you to grab hold." Ginny said.

"Grab a foot?" Harry asked, Fawkes nodded as he bobbed in the air.

The Hammer motioned for Ginny to grab on first - she took one side and Harry took the other. An otherworldly lightness seemed to spread throughout his whole body and with a woosh, they were flying upward through the pipe. Ginny wrapped an arm around Harry to hold on, the Hammer returning the gesture for balance.

Before he knew it, the ride was over. Harry found himself hitting the wet floor of Myrtle's bathroom, still entangled with Ginny Weasley.

"You're alive!" Myrtle ogled them.

"No need to be so disappointed about it." The Hammer said, wiping the grime from his glasses. A few moments later, the door burst open and a handful of Professors rushed in.