A/N: It's been a long time since I've been inspired to really write, but I am excited to get into Sea of Monsters! I have so many ideas. Maybe three more chapters in Chamber of Secrets….then back to Camp Half Blood, which might take a little time because I need to read the book again. I can promise much more Clara in that one, though, and I am sorry I had to leave her out so much here. Anyway, here's chapter 25.
Renee POV:
Nobody tried to stop Harry and Ron as they left. I was still invisible, of course, but all the other Gryffindors felt so sorry for them that they didn't care. After we exited, Harry and Ron slipped under the cloak with me, and Harry led the way to Lockhart's office.
"Is there any chance that they're still….?" Ron didn't need to finish his sentence. I was ready to burst into tears at the thought of my best friend being dead, never able to see her smiling face or feel her sunny optimism ever again. Ron looked the same way as I felt.
I threw a ton of charmspeak into my voice. "It's possible, Ron." I prayed to Apollo and Hades to let them live as long as they possibly could, but my best friend's father and the god of death could only do so much.
We arrived at the door, and Harry knocked. Ron and I helped pull off the cloak. There seemed to be a lot of commotion going on there. Lockhart pulled open the door. The office seemed to be stripped bare; there were no posters of Lockhart's goofy, smiling face to be seen. "Are you….leaving, Professor?" I asked in shock.
"Er….well, yes," Lockhart said, tearing down the last remaining poster. "Urgent call….got to go, I'm afraid."
Ron and I both yelled, "What about my sister?" at the same time.
"Awfully sorry….no one regrets more than I….and Sanderson, why do you care? You're a Slytherin, you should be supporting all this, it's your monster after all. And that Hufflepuff girl is most definitely not your sister."
"Okay, that does it! You're the defense against the dark arts teacher! You're running away, aren't you? Aren't you?"
"Well, I must say, there was nothing in the qualifications when I took the job…."
"But what about everything you did in your books?" Ron demanded. "You weren't scared when you defeated all those yetis and vampires and banshees, were you? Aren't those your job qualifications in the first place?"
"Books can be misleading, Weasley."
"You wrote them!" I exclaimed. "Why are we here anyway, he's not going to help, let's just go get the girls!"
"Sanderson, if you're trying to guilt me into helping you, I can't. I may have written the books, but that by no means implies that I defeated all those creatures."
"So you just….took the credit for what other people did?" Harry asked, bewildered."
"It was never that simple. I had to track them all down….make sure they forgot and never told anyone….my books wouldn't have sold nearly as well if people knew that the real man who got rid of the werewolves of Wyoming was an old warlock with hairy warts!
"As a matter of fact, I suppose I shall need to perform a memory charm on you three. I can't have you blabbing to all your little friends, now, can I? I'd never sell another book!"
Lockhart raised his wand, but Harry was quicker. "Expelliarmus!" Lockhart's wand flew through the open window.
"Well, it was foolish of me to let Severus teach you that one, wasn't it? But I'm no help. I don't even know where the chamber is, or what's inside it, or-"
"Shut up. Please. We think we know where the chamber is. And how to get in." My charmspeak seemed to do the trick, and we walked quietly out the door, Harry leading the way to Myrtle's bathroom while Ron and I kept a tight hold on Lockhart, making sure he didn't flee.
"Back again, I see. One day you will get caught for being in a girl's washroom. But I do love the company." Myrtle gave a girlish giggle.
"Hey Myrtle," I said, ignoring her teasing. "We wanted to ask you how you died."
To my surprise, Myrtle broke into a wide grin. "Oooohh, it was dreadful! I was hiding in here, trying to escape from Olive Hornby's teasing. She had been really tormenting me that day. And then I heard a voice. It was a boy's voice, speaking in weird hissing tones, and I opened the door to tell him to get out, because, you know." She looked pointedly at Harry, Ron, and Lockhart. "And then I died."
"Did you see anything?"
"I saw a great big pair of yellow eyes. And then I died. Right over by that sink. I haunted Olive Hornby for years after, but they finally put a restraining order on me when I crashed her wedding. I've been here ever since." She gave a gleeful cackle, but we were no longer listening. We had rushed over to the sink, and there was a tiny engraving of a snake. Harry tried first.
"Nope. English," Ron said.
"Renee, I can't do it! I can't imagine it's real!"
I nodded. For me, it was very real. My only best friend was dying, and I would have to face all kinds of problems with her family, camp, and most importantly myself and self-worth if I couldn't at least try.
I walked up to the snake carving and whispered "open," in the best Parseltongue I could. Harry grabbed me as the floor where I had been standing fell away and opened into a giant slide.
"Well, it doesn't look like you'll be needing me anymore," Lockhart mumbled. We all stared, sort of only just remembering he was there.
"You can go first." I gave him a shove.
"What good will it do?" he whined. I pushed him further, and he slid forward, down into the unknown. I heard what could have been a thud as he landed, and I jumped in after without even thinking.
"Renee!" Harry yelled, and I heard him clamber in after me. I shot out of the tunnel a moment later, Harry and Ron directly following.
"Okay," I said, wishing I had my weapon. It would be too dangerous, though, and too unlikely to work if I summoned it from this distance. We must have been miles under the school. No, under the lake. "We need to keep moving. We have to try, right?"
Harry and Ron quietly nodded. "If you hear anything, close your eyes immediately."
"Of course."
We walked for a few minutes before Lockhart screamed like one of my sisters who just found out her favorite makeup line was cancelled. And trust when Drew or anyone else does that, it's not pretty.
Directly above us there was a giant snake skin. Lockhart's knees gave way.
"Get up," said Ron sharply, pointing his wand at the professor. Lockhart did, and then tackled Ron. Harry tried to stop him, but when he straightened up, he had Ron's wand.
"Looks like the journey ends here," he said in mock sadness. "I'll just have to bring back some of this and tell them how you three tragically lost your minds at the sight of their mangled bodies." He pointed Ron's wand directly at us. "Obliviate!"
The next moment, he had doubled over. He then looked at us in bewilderment. "Where are we?"
Harry, Ron, and I glanced at each other. "Ron, you stay here," Harry said. "There's a small opening in that rock, Ron's wand caused a bit of an explosion. Renee, let's go."
"Why do I have to stay here? It's my sister."
"It's a giant snake, Ronald." I rolled my eyes. "We have Parseltongue. And I have charmspeak."
"Okay, fine, you win. I'll babysit the git. And I'll try to move some of that rock, you'll need a bigger space to get back."
Harry pushed his way through the rock with me at his heels. Once we got through, there were two large snakes carved on the wall. Harry and I both said, "Open," at the same time. It worked for both of us, and the wall opened to make a doorway.
The sight that greeted us was by no means pretty. I rushed over to Clara. "Clara, this is all my fault! We were in the hospital wing just minutes before you were taken! I wish I had better disposed of that diary!" I sank to my knees, and Harry came over and put his arm around me.
I started sobbing and couldn't stop. "Clara! Ginny! Please don't be dead!" I gasped through tears.
I ran my fingers through Clara's hair and flipped her over. Harry did the same with Ginny. They were pale with their eyes shut. They couldn't have been petrified, so they must have been….
"They won't wake," said a male voice from behind us. Harry turned around slowly and gasped.
"Tom….Tom Riddle?"
The man nodded, his eyes shifting between Harry and me.
"What do you mean, they won't wake? What happened to Clara?" I demanded.
"Are they dead?" Harry asked angrily.
"Still alive. But only just."
"Are you a ghost?" This was a strange question, but I figured Harry didn't think Riddle was an enemy. Unlike me. I needed to find a way to warn Harry without Riddle finding out.
"A memory. Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He indicated the diary on the floor next to the girls.
"You've got to help us, Tom!" Harry pleaded. "There's a basilisk, it could come any minute."
Harry managed to hoist Ginny up. I did the same with Clara. I had been smart enough to keep my wand hidden in my purse, but Harry had left his on the floor. When we looked back up, Riddle was twirling it between his fingers.
"Thanks," Harry said, reaching out for the wand. Riddle kept twirling it.
"Give him back his wand!" I used more charmspeak than ever before.
Riddle stopped for a second, appalled. Then he raised his eyebrows. "Ah. I know your kind, silly little girl. A demigod. Aphrodite, isn't it? Clarissa told me all about you."
"There's no time for this!" Harry exclaimed. "You don't understand, Tom, there's a basilisk, it could come any minute-"
"It won't come until it's called," said Riddle calmly. Harry gave me a look.
"What do you mean, called?"
Riddle waved his hand dismissively. "I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter and Renee Black."
"Waited for what, exactly?" I demanded. "And my name's Sanderson! Not Black!"
Riddle laughed.
"Tom, you don't understand, we can talk later, we need to get these girls out-"
"To meet you two, of course. Harry Potter, the one who defeated the Dark Lord as a tiny infant. And Renee Black, the baby wonder. How did you do it?"
"Do what, exactly? I'm like any other eleven year old girl!" Well, I was a demigod, but that wasn't what he was talking about.
Harry finally started to feel uncomfortable, I could feel it. We needed a signal to communicate, I could tell he and I, as well as Clara, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and maybe others could get into these situations a lot.
"We're going to talk now," Riddle said, as if reading my mind. "If Lord Voldemort had succeeded, neither of you would be alive. How did you manage it?"
"How did Ginny and Clara get like this?" I asked, trying to distract him. I might not get out alive, but I wanted to guarantee my friends would. Clara, Ginny, and Harry were worth too much for that.
"Well that, Miss Black, is a very interesting question." The man thought for a second, and I noticed he was becoming less blurry. I felt a shiver down my spine and willed myself not to think about what that meant.
"I guess it's because they poured out all their secrets to an invisible stranger."
"Your diary," I growled. "Who are you, Tom Riddle?"
Riddle ignored my question. "Ginny'd been writing in it for a month. Then, when she got to school, I was delighted to see that little Clarissa had picked it up with Ginny, as I knew she was the closest person to you. They told me all about how their brothers tease them, how they worried were going to fail school, how you, Miss Black, turned against them in their hardest moments, and of course, Ginny wrote about how Harry Potter would never love her back. Pathetic, really.
"It's so boring to have to listen to the silly troubles of two little girls. But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic and kind. And they were useful assets, being so close to you two.
"They simply loved me. 'No one's ever understood me like you, Tom,' 'I wish all my friends could be like you instead of Renee and Clarisse."
"Clara would never have said that! You did something to her!"
"Only the power of suggestion. I was really hoping she could get you on board, and then I'd only have to get to Harry. But I guess you did that part for me anyway."
"Me?"
"Potter found my diary in a bathroom. Later, Ginny told me that the diary was stolen. Clarissa, however, stopped writing to me shortly after. She, it seems had seen sense. But it was too late for her. I had to petrify her, and it was just my luck she was found with that Granger mudblood brat. I know Potter is nothing without her.
"Anyway, Ginny started to realize something was up, and she was frantic. Her entries became much more interesting. And then today she decided to spill the beans, so I had to take her. That, and, I needed the two of you.
"Back to the question at hand. How did you survive?"
"I don't know!" Harry screamed in frustration. "Why do you care, Voldemort was after your time.
"Voldemort," said Riddle, drawing a pattern with Harry's wand, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter." He used the wand to spell out his full name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. With a swish, it became "I am Lord Voldemort." I gasped.
"You, Renee Black, are a Slytherin. I will only offer once: join me. Join me and get glory. Ginny put too much of herself into me, Clara too. They will soon be dead, and Potter by their side. Join me or perish with them."
"I'd take death over you any day, with Hades I at least know what to expect! Expelliarmus!"
Voldemort deflected the spell. I groaned, nobody'd ever taught us the blocking for that spell. "You'd best be a bit more careful, Black! Very well. Dishonor Slytherin a little longer while you can still live to tell the tale!"
"Wait….did you frame Hagrid, then?" Harry roared.
"But of course. The only one who tried to stop me was Professor Dumbledore, who's been driven out by the mere image of me! He'll never return, and I will take over the school!"
"Dumbledore's probably already back tonight," I scoffed. "Help will always be given at Hogwarts for those who ask for it!"
"Yeah, and Dumbledore will always be here for those who remain loyal to him!" Harry added. He looked at me. "And we're loyal!" We yelled at the same time.
Riddle cackled. "Ha! Good one. But the loyal followers you are to Dumbledore can't save you from what's about to happen, Potter."
"Oh yeah?" I countered. "Then where's that music coming from?"
Harry looked around, he could hear it too, a low tune coming from above us. Suddenly, a giant bird swooped in, red and gold with a silver underbelly. It dropped something at our feet.
"Ha! So this is what Dumbledore gives his great defenders? A songbird and an old hat?" Voldemort then said something in Parseltongue that was too fast for us to catch. We heard a low rumbling, the snake was being released.
Without thinking, I held Clara tightly. "Oh your precious Bradley can't save you now, Black! I'd like to see you try to get out of this one."
My inner Clarisse finally started acting up. "Harry, behind that rock!" I yelled. The basilisk was looking right at him. Fawkes, the phoenix, had flown up and was doing his best to attack the basilisk while we cowered. Eventually, though, we had to step out. We laid Clara and Ginny behind the rock so that no harm would come to their bodies and then went back out. The snake was looking at us. I motioned Harry to come back and pulled him to the rock.
I conjured up a mirror with my wand. "Do you know the duplication spell?"
"Geminio?" Harry suggested. I nodded and tried it, and the mirror duplicated.
"Take this and run, but if it drops, leave it and go fight!"
Riddle was still cackling. "Ginny opened the chamber! She strangled Hagrid's roosters! Clara and Ginny wrote the messages."
By then I knew it was true. I tried to ignore Voldemort at all costs, and I ran for the hat. It was the sorting hat.
"Tell me everything, Potter," Voldemort was saying. "Why did you survive?"
"My mother died to save me! My common, Muggle-born mother! And you'll never understand that, will you?"
"I suppose not, but no matter-"
"Harry, don't let him distract you!" I yelled across the room. Harry didn't seem to hear me.
"I saw the real you! Last year! You're a wreck, you're barely alive! You can't do much to harm me right now!"
"Ah yes, but when the brats die I will be fully myself again."
At that moment, Fawkes swooped in. I noticed he had been battling it out with the basilisk, and suddenly the snake gave out something like a scream. I looked up, the phoenix had blinded the monster.
Now was the time for me to dash and grab the hat, maybe it had some advice or something. Voldemort was yelling at the snake now. "Don't go for the bird, go for the boy, he's right there, the boy! You can still smell him!"
I ran for the hat and jammed it on my head. "Black! How did you manage to live when the greatest sorcerer in the world was at your heels? I tracked you from the minute you came out of the Lotus Casino as an infant! Black!"
I gasped, wishing Silena was there to confirm it. But now I had to respond. "You're not the greatest sorcerer alive, that's Albus Dumbledore!"
Suddenly, the hat started to tighten. It was getting so tight, and then something fell out of it. It was a bright, ruby-encrusted sword. I knew how to use a sword, so I beckoned to Harry. "Take my wand, Harry!"
He nodded and grabbed the wand from me. "Where did you get that?" he whispered to me.
"It was in the hat. Let's get that snake!" Harry nodded. Then he ran as the snake swooped upon him. I screamed as it sank its fangs into Harry's arm. He flailed, but the snake held on. That was when I decided to do something stupid. I took a flying leap onto the beast's back to pull it off of my friend.
"Renee, NO!" Harry yelled, but it was too late. What I had done was gotten the snake to release him. But now it noticed me.
"You're a dead woman, Black!" Voldemort yelled as the snake whipped around to face me. Fawkes was circling Harry, and I was alone. Suddenly Harry rose. I could tell he had no strength, but he held my wand. "Im….immo….immobulus!" Then he collapsed. But the damage had been done, the snake could no longer move for the time being. I held the sword confidently and stabbed it into the basilisk's neck. I took a flying leap as its head came rolling off.
I somehow landed just right, but Riddle was gaining form quickly. Harry, however, had picked up a fang with his last energy, and walked over to the diary.
"No! Stop! What are you doing?" Riddle yelled in agony. He was fading, and then he was gone. I ran to Harry. Fawkes landed beside us, and Clara and Ginny started to stir.
"Renee, get them out, find Ron, and get yourselves up! Leave me!"
"Harry, no!"
Fawkes was crying next to Harry on his wound.
"Even the bird knows I'm gone, see? He's crying over me."
I thought back to what Dumbledore had said about phoenixes. "Harry, no. He's not. Phoenix tears have healing powers, remember?" I broke into a grin, then looked back at the girls. Clara woke first.
"Wren, what happened," she mumbled. "I was in the library, and then I was coming down here with Ginny! It's all so fuzzy!"
"Relax, Clara. Everything's okay now. Relax."
"Wren, Ginny and I opened the chamber. We didn't mean to, it was Riddle, you were right not to trust him."
I slipped my arm around her. Harry came over and handed me my wand. He'd retrieved his own when Riddle disappeared. Fawkes led us back through the hole we had come through.
Ron was overjoyed to see us. "Ginny!" He exclaimed, rushing over to hug his sister. Then, he looked at Harry and me. "What happened?"
"Later," Harry whispered back, it seemed he didn't want to tell Ron who Tom Riddle really was in the presence of Ginny and Clara in their fragile state. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. This git's not, though, he was blasted with his own memory charm."
I started laughing uncontrollably. After everything I'd done today, the fact that Lockhart had been given a taste of his own medicine was downright hilarious. Soon we were all laughing, even Ginny. Then Lockhart came over to us.
"Who are all you lovely fellows?"
I thought fast. "We're Dorothy, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, and Toto."
Harry and Clara burst into laughter again. Ron and Ginny giggled confusedly.
"And who am I?"
"The Wizard of Oz."
I noticed Fawkes looked impatient (well, as much as a bird could). His wing was outstretched to me, as if asking me to grab on. Ron noticed too.
"Does he think he can….carry us?"
"Fawkes," I said, my eyes twinkling, "is an extraordinary bird." I winked at Clara to show her this was the same bird from Dumbledore's office. She grinned, and I grabbed onto the wing. Clara grabbed my hand, Ginny took hers, Ron took Ginny's, Lockhart to Ron, and Harry bringing up the rear. Then we were off, and Lockhart yelled "This is amazing! It's just like magic!" and that just set all five of us off again.
A/N so this is chapter 25. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd really like some commentary on the fight scene, it's my first one I find successful. I mean, I know I only have two or three before this but I just really want to know what you thought. I'll also let you know that this, like many of my chapters, was basically written off the top of my head, so if it's a little jumbled, sorry. Also it's 1 am where I am, so please excuse any typos but point out anything that looks like it was written at 1 in the morning.
I'll probably do two more filler-type chapters and then get into Sea of Monsters. Hope you enjoyed it. Please rate/review!
Hufflepufferfish
