Bold*- parstletounge
Italics - thoughts
"Normal"- speech and narrative
Chapter 35: A Weasel In Danger
24/5/1993
~~~~~~~~~
Summer was arriving at Hogwarts. The lake and sky were beautiful shades of blue and the greenhouses, and grounds, were flourishing with life.
To Cass's joy, Hagrid was no longer striding the grounds, and Dumbledore was no longer strutting the castle.
Things were going great.
Potter and Weasley were slowly losing their morale as Madame Pomfrey had banned anyone from entering the hospital wing - therefore no visits to Granger.
With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before. There was barely a face to be seen in the school that didn't look worried and tense, and any laughter that rang through the corridors sounded shrill and unnatural and was quickly stifled.
All students seemed happy to be escorted to class by the teachers, those not in Slytherin anyway. Cassandra had been asked questions by the older years so she had told them the truth, earning cheers, claps on the back and more respect in the house order. The younger year had an idea but were not told the whole story, just that which wouldn't get Cass in trouble if they accidentally let something slip.
It was about two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid had left now and the group was enjoying a lovely potions lesson. Cassandra was sat on a bench next to Blaise and Draco. They knew Potter was behind them, so they decided to rile him up.
"I always thought Father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," Draco stated.
"I told you he thinks Dumbledore's the worst headmaster the school's ever had!"
"Maybe we'll get a decent headmaster now. Someone who won't want the Chamber of Secrets closed." Said Blaise.
"McGonagall won't last long," Cassandra replied, "she's only filling in..."
Snape swept past and Cass grinned. "Sir! Sir! Why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?"
"Now, now, Riddle!" said Severus, a hint of a smile on his face. "Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he'll be back with us soon enough."
"Yeah, right," said her cousin, smirking. "I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job! I'll tell Father you're the best teacher here, sir - mind you he does already know as Cass and I have told him several times!"
Sev smirked as he swept off around the dungeon.
"I'm quite surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now!" Blaise explained. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger-"
The bell rang at that moment, and behind her Cassandra saw Weasel being held back from attacking Blaise. She nearly laughed.
"Hurry up, I've got to take you all to Herbology," barked Snape over the class's heads, and off they marched.
The rest of the Herbology class was very subdued as there were now two missing from their number, Finch-Fletchley and Granger.
Professor Sprout set them all to work pruning the Abyssinian Shrivelfigs. When the lesson was over the head of Hufflepuff escorted the class to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson.
Lockhart bounded into the room and the class stared at him. "Of course he would be the one to take joy in a bad situation" Cass whispered to Daphne, "I'd bet you any money he starts talking about how everything is fine now and that he always knew Hagrid was no good!"
And that he did.
———
29/5/1993
'Her body will lie in the chamber forever'
Cass was standing behind a wall watching everything fall into plan. She followed Potter and Weasley as they went to Lockharts office and was actually quite surprised when they exited with the man at wand point.
She stealthy followed them to Moaning Myrtles bathroom and cast an invisibility and silencing charm on herself before jumping down the slide. She had left Fang in the common room to look after Astoria and Luna, who was visiting.
Cass watched as Lockhart took Weasleys wand and pointed it at Potter. An idea formed quickly in her head and she ran to Potters side. As Lockhart performed a memory charm she conjured a shield, rebounding the curse, in quick succession she performed a reducto charm - throwing Gilderoy backwards and collapsing the ceiling between Ron and Harry. Potter was on his own now.
He opened the door using parstletounge and rushed to Ginnys side, Cassandra hiding in the corner.
"Ginny!" She heard Potter mutter, sprinting to the girl and dropping to his knees. "Ginny, don't be dead, please don't be dead!"
He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Cassandra rolled her eyes as he shook her, "Ginny, please wake up!"
A shadow passed over her, even though she was invisible, he looked her straight in the eye and winked. The boy then walked towards Potter.
"She won't wake."
Harry jumped and spun around on his knees.
"Tom - Tom Riddle?"
The younger version of her father nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face.
"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Potter said desperately. "She's not - she's not-?"
"She's still alive," said Tom. "But only just."
"Are you a ghost?" Harry said eyeing him uncertainly. Cassandra laughed, she still had the silencing charm on her so Potter didn't hear. Her father, however, smirked.
"A memory, preserved in a diary, I mean journal, for fifty years."
He pointed toward the floor near the statue of their great great grandfather Salazar. Lying open there was the little black diary Lucius had planted in Ginnys possession.
"You're Cassandra Riddles father aren't you?" Asked Harry.
"Yes, yes I am."
"Does she know about the diary? Does she know you could have talked to her all this time?"
"No"
"Why not? Why would you not have left it with her? Why would you have not let her know her father? I would give anything to talk to my parents again!"
"Well-"
"You know what never mind! You've got to help me, Tom!" Harry said, looking down at Ginny again. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment... Please, help me."
Cass's father didn't move. Potter, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and bent to pick up his wand again.
Cassandra smirked, during their little chat Tom had taken the boys wand.
"Did you see-?"
He looked up and saw the boy twirling it between his fingers.
"Thanks!" said Harry, stretching out his hand for it.
Tom did not pass it to him.
"Listen," said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny's dead weight. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes-"
"She won't come until she is called," said her father calmly.
"What d'you mean?" said Potter, dropping Weaslette onto the floor - unable to carry her much longer. "Look, give me my wand, I might need it!"
Both Riddle's smiled broadened.
"You won't be needing it," the memory said.
Potter just stared at him, face blank.
"What d'you mean, we have to go! We have to save her!!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that Harry!" Cassandra's father stated. "You see, as poor Ginny grows weaker, I grow stronger!"
"What! But she's dying!"
"Yes. I'm afraid so. But then, she's been in so much pain, poor Ginny. She's been writing to me for months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes. Ginny poured her soul out to me. I grew stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful enough to start feeding Ginny a few secrets, to start pouring a bit of my soul back into her..."
Tom grinned cruelly as a look of realisation sat on Harry's face. "Yes, Harry, it was Ginny Weasley who opened the Chamber of Secrets!"
"No, she couldn't - she wouldn't!"
Tom ignored the boy. "It was Ginny who set the Basilisk on the Mudbloods and Filch's cat. Ginny who wrote threatening messages on the walls!"
"Why!?" Said Potter distraught.
"Because I told her to! You'll find that I can be very... persuasive." He grinned, "not that she knew what she was doing of course. She was, shall we say, in a kind of trance. Still, the power of the diary began to scare her and she tried to dispose of it in the girls' bathroom. But then, who should find it, but you. The very person I was most anxious to meet!"
"And why did you want to meet me?"
Cass's father still ignored the boy. "Ginny told me all about you. I knew I had to talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my capture of that brainless oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust!"
"HAGRIDS MY FRIEND!" Potter yelled, "and you framed him, didn't you?"
"It was my word against Hagrid's. Only Dumbledore seemed to think he was innocent."
Potter grinned. "I'll bet Dumbledore saw right through you!"
The boy scowled, "he certainly kept an annoyingly close eye on me after that, and I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. So I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day... I would be able to lead another to finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work!"
"Well, you haven't finished it this time. In a few hours Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was petrified will be all right again!"
"Haven't I already told you?! Killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore! For many months now, my new target has been you!"
He started circling the boy.
"Me? Why?"
"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?"
"Why do you care how I escaped Voldemort was after your time."
Cassandra grinned as she quoted with her father, "Voldemort is my past, present and future."
Tom Riddle then took Harry's wand from his pocket and begins to trace it through the air, writing three words: "TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE"
Then, with a wave, he re-arranges them: "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT"
"You! You're the heir of Slytherin?! You're Voldemort? - wait that means that Riddle is..."
"Voldemort's daughter? Yes. Not that she knows it but you are correct, I am Voldemort!"
"Why did you change your name?"
"I thought my father was a filthy muggle, surely you didn't think I would keep his last name? But then, after I had changed it, I found out he wasn't actually a muggle at all. He was descended from a long line of squibs - so not even he knew about it. Therefore he was a pureblood, and so am I. It was too late to change my name back, however, so Voldemort I was! I knew it would be a name that wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I became the greatest sorcerer in the world!"
"Albus Dumbledore is the greatest sorcerer in the world!" Yelled Potter.
"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" Tom snapped.
"He'll never be gone! Not as long as those who remain are loyal to him!"
Suddenly a crimson bird the size of a swan appeared. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle.
Cassandra sighed sadly. Dumbledore must have used a powerful binding spell to tie the bird to him if it was responding to acts of loyalty by Gryffindor's. Now the only way to get Fawkes back to his real owners was for Dumbledore to die and she honestly didn't know how long that would take.
Don't worry father, she thought, I will get you your familiar back eventually - even if I have to one day kill Dumbledore myself!
She shook her head and glanced back at the scene in front of her. Fawkes had dropped the thing it was carrying at Potters feet, then landed on his shoulder.
"That's a phoenix!" said Tom, a fire lightning in his eyes as he knew by magic that it was his familiar.
"And that... that's the old school Sorting Hat-"
Riddle began to laugh. He laughed so hard that the dark chamber rang with it, Cassandra joined in.
"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?"
The Gryffindor didn't answer.
"To business, Harry,! Twice, in your past and in my future, we have met." He stated, including the time that, last year, Dumbledore had manipulated Harry into believing Voldemort was attacking him when in fact he was at home relaxing. "And twice I failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk, the longer you stay alive!"
"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with what Cass imagined was suppressed rage.
"She stopped you killing me. And I've seen the real you, I saw you last year. You're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, you're foul-"
Riddle's face contorted into an smirk, for he knew he looked the same - it was only a glamour charm after all that made him look like a noseless freak. He also knew he had his body, and was close to getting his full power back now that he had the elixir of life.
"So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful countercharm. I can see now... there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both orphans, 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."
Potter tensed and Tom's twisted smile was widening again.
"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 another amused look over at Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away.
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!"
Cassandra watched as Potter wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes swaying on his shoulder.
Gem was awakening.
Potter backed away until he hit the dark Chamber wall, shutting his eyes tight.
"Kill him!"
Gem was moving toward Potter, who no longer had the Phoenix on his shoulder. He began to run blindly sideways, his hands outstretched, feeling his way - Tom and Cass were laughing.
He then tripped.
Suddenly Fawkes was soaring around Gems head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabers Fawkes dived.
His long golden beak sank out of sight and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor. The snake's tail thrashed in pain, she was screaming out. Cassandra watched open mouthed as Gems great, bulbous yellow eyes, had been punctured by the phoenix; blood was streaming to the floor, and the snake was spitting in agony.
"NO!" Her and her father yelled as they watched one familiar hurting the other.
Tears were welling up in Cassandras eyes as her father yelled at Potter, "YOUR BIRD MIGHT HAVE BLINDED THE BASILISK BUT SHE CAN STILL SMELL YOU!"
From that moment everything was a bit of a blur to Cass. Gem had chased Potter around the pipes, giving her enough time to hug her father. He had then returned to the main chamber and grabbed the sorting hat - Gryffindor's sword appearing and Potter taking it in hand.
He had climbed the statue of her relative and swung it at Gem. Cass made a mental note to learn sword fighting.
A terrifying shriek then erupted from Gem. Cassandra looked up. "NOOOO!" She screamed, but to no avail. The sword of Gryffindor had pierced through the top of the basilisks mouth and she fell to the floor with a thud.
She didn't even notice Potter had a fang stuck in his arm. She didn't even register what he said to her father. All she heard was her fathers screams that followed that of his closest friend.
The girl sank to the floor as Potter exited with the Weasley girl. When they were truly gone she removed the disillusion charm and crawled up to Gem. She stroked the creatures head, blood covering her school uniform.
"I'm so sorry girl. This wasn't meant to happen! Don't you worry, when the time comes your death will be avenged! I promise! I will look after Fang for you, and I will make you proud!"
She then let the tears fall and cried.
———
She didn't know how long she stayed in the chamber sobbing but she returned to the common room late, still convered in Gems blood.
"Cassandra!" Yelled Draco. "Where have you been? And why are you all covered in blood? You'll never guess what's happened!"
She smiled weakly, "what?"
"Dumbledore returned and Potter saved the Weasley girl. Lockharts got sent to sent Mungos also. Also scarhead freed Dobby!"
"What!"
"Yup! But being a half-blood, and an idiot, he didn't realise that if a witch or wizard has a personal elf, if it is freed it then belongs to their child! If Dobby was just a Malfoy elf he would have been freed entirely, but lucky for us he was dad's personal elf, which means-"
"Dobby is now your elf!"
"Exactly! Father's a bit pissed but he'd be angrier if he was gone all together, especially cause Dobby was the elf that helped grandfather and grandmother raise him, just like Emerald helped raise you. Now cousin, you never answered my question! Why are you covered in blood? And have you been crying?"
Just then Fang slithered over. "Misstressss, what isss..." he paused, "mother? Why is mothers blood on you?"
Cassandra broke down into tears again, pulling the baby basilisk into her arms, "I'm sorry Fang, there was nothing I could do!"
He let out a giant wail that had most of the common room flinch. Cassie clung to him, comforting the snakelet who had just lost his mother. Blaise, the only one brave enough at that moment, went up to Cass and wrapped his arms around her.
She smiled up at him and leaned her head on his chest, Blaise was always there for her when she needed it. He was like the brother she never had. So she let him hold her, as she held Fang, the whole common room watching as they let the night drift away...
