When I came to, I couldn't move. Thick ropes bound me to some kind of stone, the irregular surfaces pressing into my back making me believe it was a statue. It was cold and damp, with minimal light leaking through my eyelids, a rough, chill stone floor beneath me where I sat on the ground. It felt like my legs were also tied together, but not anchored to anything. A smell of wood fire and potion brewing covered the general mildewed air.
"I know you're awake, Dresden," Voldelockhart's voice chided. "I revivified you." I opened my eyes, since the game was up, and saw him a few paces away, still in the same blue outfit, hat still missing. He was lit primarily by the firelight coming from beneath an immense cauldron. Macnair was tending the oversized potion vessel, and the fact that he hadn't bothered with his Death Eater regalia made me believe they didn't intend for me to survive to provide any further evidence. He'd fashioned a new axe, leaned haphazardly against nearby trunks, likely of potion supplies, a high-backed chair, of all things, facing away from me behind it.
Due to the stillness of the air, lack of stars, and flickers of dim light on other structures, I got the sense that I was in some kind of vast underground room. As my eyes further adjusted, I could pick out a low-lying greenish light being emitted by rows of snake statues—no, snake-carved columns—likely similar to the one I was bound to. Focusing beyond the nearby firelight, I could make out a large, poorly-carved relief of a wizard with an almost-oversized face across the central wall to my left, obviously the focal point of the room.
"Hell's bells, there is a chamber of secrets," I realized.
"Do you like it?" Voldelockhart asked, looking around with pride. "I made it myself. It took most of the summer, before my seventh year, but I needed room for my creation to grow, and it seemed a fitting tribute to old Salazar. It was just a small cave system, when I found it, that sculpture all there was for decoration."
"You hatched your own Slytherin's monster," I guessed. "It wasn't big enough to actually kill anyone when you were in school, so you had to use the acromantula venom."
He nodded, "Old Dumbledore never could figure it out. Still looking for a new spell. That was most of the point, really. Build the myth of Salazar, so my heirship to Slytherin would be more meaningful, and divert suspicion at the same time. And big, dumb Hagrid to take the fall at the end."
"But Myrtle Warren forced you to speed up your timetable," I suggested.
There was a grimace, there. "I didn't realize when that girl's useful infatuation made her dangerously persistent. If she'd gone to Dumbledore with what she knew, it could have all fallen apart. I spent so much time researching ways to banish ghosts when it turned out she hadn't passed on… and then the stupid girl gave up no useful information for 50 years. I assume she finally talked to you?"
"She just needed someone to be nice to her," I tried to shrug, stopped by the ropes. "So why let this place sit for half a century and try to take it back over now?"
"Here isss where I ssshall continue the tale," a voice that was much more distinctively Voldemort's hissed from the shadowed chair. "It'sss ssso ssstrange, being in two placesss at oncsse. After you interfered with my acquisssition of the ssstone a year ago, my ssservants were at leassst ready with my backup plan. But then I wasss 'on the clock' to finisssh thisss ritual."
"The stone was a fake, by the way," I told him. "All I did was keep you from killing a bunch of kids for nothing." That got a hissed snort of annoyance. "Where is old Nott, by the way?"
Macnair started, apparently not having realized I knew who his partner was. Voldemort explained, "Running interferencsse. Sssomeone underssstimated the difficult of capturing the Weasssley twinsss." Voldelockhart looked both abashed and annoyed at being rebuked by the prime version of himself. "I meant to keep you until Sssunday and do the ritual at Eassster, but thisss will be good enough."
"And if I'd just hid behind wards all weekend?" I asked.
"Ssso many hossstagesss here to convince you to russsh out like a foolisssh Gryffindor to sssave them. It was only a bit of a sssurprissse you did ssso unbidden."
At least Quirrell hadn't done both the stutter and the snakey speech-impediment; it was hard enough following him as it was, though I continued to be grateful for his tendency to monologue. I'd have hated to die without knowing what the hell was going on. "So, what, you need the blood of an enemy, forcibly taken as part of a ritual to get a new body? Are you going to jump right back on the scene, or is 'Gilderoy Lockhart' going to have a verifiable big hero moment, slay the basilisk, cover up the whoopsies, and then you've got two of you playing both sides?"
"I told you he wasss sssmart," Voldemort told his copy.
"I've had him in classes, and I have Lockhart's memories," the possessed professor agreed. "He actually taught Lockhart how to teach defense classes. The man just kept making him forget about those little sessions, to preserve his own image." That hurt. And suddenly made a lot of sense.
"Already a wand-crafter asss well." I saw a small, deformed hand hold my unicorn-horn focus over the edge of the chair. "I believe a brother core to my own, burned wand." He began to flick it, trying to cast spells, "Incomplete work, however." I realized they must have taken my foci, and glanced over to look for the others, not seeing them. Then my mother's amulet was also dangled off the side of the chair. "A pity that Margaret McGregor'sss ssson would be my enemy."
"That was pretty much on you, man," I told him. "You kept trying to possess me."
"It wasss on Margaret," he snarled. "Again and again, that girl failed to follow her ordersss. Leaving her asssssignment. Taking up with a muggle. Bearing him the ssson that wasss owed to another. Ssshe defied me again and again and…" he suddenly stopped, as if struck by a thought. Then he began a coughing, hissing chuckle, as if he'd realized something hilarious. "Ssself-fulfilling. Your tale did not truly begin until you were touched by Lord Voldemort directly. Reborn that day from the firesss that burned your childhood. Well, if I wasssn't going to kill you before, I would have to, now."
"Yeah. Ha ha ha ha…" I faked laughing along politely, "…good times. I don't get it?"
"Sssimply that I took a prophecssy too literally. No wonder the old meddler hasss been protecting you. He already figured it out. More luck to me, then, that he failed ssso utterly." The potion in the cauldron finally began to change color and emit its own sparks, the surface taking on a diamond-like sheen. "Well, it ssseemsss it isss time. Any more, quick quessstions, before your end?"
I wracked my brain, and finally came up with, "Severus Snape. Was he the Half-Blood Prince? And why did he really try to destroy you?"
"He wasss a half-blood, and his mother'sss name wasss Princsse, yesss. And the talesss are true. Asss with the Warren girl, I underessstimated how infatuation might ruin my plansss. It isss all the more humorousss that I needn't have worried about the Pottersss at all." More dark chuckling, and he ordered, "Macnair, Lockhart, begin."
Voldelockhart walked over toward the ugly giant relief of "Sal" while Macnair picked a small bundle up from the chair, and I realized that Voldemort had formed a tiny, deteriorating homunculus to inhabit. Had he looked like a rotting baby for months? If I survived this, I was going to have so many jokes to make.
I paid careful attention to where my foci were left poking slightly over the edge of the arm of the chair.
With a look almost of pity at me, the horrifying, diminutive form of Voldemort was dropped into the cauldron. Across the chamber, Voldelockhart hissed something at the statue, the only true example of medieval art in the room, and its mouth opened into a huge black hole, from which the immense form of the basilisk began to slither. I averted my eyes, but suspected that it would lid its own with friendlies in the area.
I heard a sharp crack of metal on stone, and the possessed professor walked back over holding a large shard of the carving. Macnair intoned, "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" The professor placed the stone chip into the cauldron, turning it a vivid blue.
"Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master!" he followed, and Voldelockhart moved over to the basilisk with his ritual knife, hissing quietly and soothingly. I chanced a look and the snake's eyes were closed. It truly was gigantic. The professor carefully prized off a few scales from under the snake's chin, and even there it looked like a ton of work to cut through. They, too, went into the cauldron, which began blazing red.
"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe," he finished and Voldelockhart started to move toward me with that knife. My time for stalling was up.
The main thing that crossed through my mind was that Voldemort actually had put me in a Bond villain death trap. The gallows humor would have been funnier if I was certain I could get out of it.
