Tom Riddle smiled, not taking his eyes off Arabella's face.
"What do you mean, she won't wake?" Arabella said desperately. "She's not— she's not —?"
"Oh no, she's still alive," assured Riddle. "But only just."
Arabella stared at the boy. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen.
"Are you– are you a ghost?" she said uncertainly.
"A memory," said Riddle quietly, "preserved in a diary for fifty years."
He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary they had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, she wondered how it had gotten there— but there were more pressing matters to deal with.
"You've got to help me, Tom," she now said, raising Astoria's head 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."
Riddle didn't move. Sweating, Arabella managed to hoist the unconscious girl half off the floor and bent to pick up her wand. But her wand was gone.
"Have you seen —?"
She looked up. Riddle was still watching her— twirling the girl's wand between his long fingers thoughtfully.
"Oh, thank you," said Arabella, stretching out his hand for it.
A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. He continued to stare at Arabella, twirling the wand idly.
"Listen," said Arabella urgently, her knees sagging with Astoria's dead weight. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes —"
"It won't come until it is called," said Riddle calmly.
Arabella lowered Astoria back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "Look, give me my wand, I might need it—"
Riddle's smile broadened.
"You won't be needing it," he purred.
Arabella stared at him.
"What do you mean, I won't be —?"
"I've waited a long time for this, Arabella Potter," said Riddle. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you. It would be all I dreamt of if your dear sister were here, but alas…"
"Look," said Arabella, losing patience, "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later —"
"We're going to talk now," said Riddle, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed the girl's wand.
Arabella stared at him. There was something very funny going on here…
"How did Astoria get like this?" she asked slowly.
"Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason little Astoria Greengrass is like this is because, believing she was saving her dear friend Ginny Weasley, took my book. She tried to ignore me, she really did, but in the end, she ended up opening her heart and spilling all her secrets to an invisible stranger."
"What are you talking about?" said Arabella.
"The diary," said Riddle with a lazy smile. "My diary. Little Ginny started writing in it at the start of term, wrote in it for a month, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes— how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, and how —" Riddle's eyes glinted "— how she didn't think famous, good, great Potter sisters would ever like her… But then Astoria saw it and persuaded her to give it up. Called it a product of 'dark magic,' and she indeed would know what dark magic looks like, being a Greengrass… told her friend that she'd send the diary to her father, but then Astoria began writing to me, drawn in by my kind demeanor, and understanding manner… and she soon began to write her woes– her fears of her mother's health– if her own life would look something similar…"
All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Arabella's face. There was an almost hungry look in them.
"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of eleven-year-old girls," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me, and soon, Astoria grew to love and trust me as well… No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket..."
Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Arabella's neck.
"If I say it myself, dear Arabella, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. And, in the possession of Astoria, she poured her souls 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 the Greengrass Powerful enough to start feeding her a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."
"What does that mean?" asked Arabella, whose mouth had gone very dry.
"Haven't you guessed yet, Arabella Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Astoria Greengrass opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and left threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat."
"No," Arabella whispered. "That's– that's impossible–!"
"Not quite," said Riddle, calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... far more interesting, they became... Dear Tom," he recited, watching horror slowly dawn on Arabella's face, "'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 Halloween, 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!'"
Arabella's fists were clenched, her nails digging deep into her palms.
"It took a very long time for stupid little Astoria to stop trusting her diary," said Riddle. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you came in, you and your dear sister. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted! Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you, the very people I was most anxious to meet..."
"And why did you want to meet me!" said Arabella. Anger was coursing through her, and it was an effort to keep her voice steady.
"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Arabella," said Riddle. "And Astoria filed me in on Lyla and your whole fascinating history." His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Arabella's forehead, and their expression grew hungrier. "I knew I must 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 —"
"Hagrid is my friend," interrupted Arabella, her voice now shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you'd made a mistake, but —"
Riddle laughed his high laugh again.
"It was my word against Hagrid's, dear. Well, you can imagine how it looked to the 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 realize 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! Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed... Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did..."
"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," seethed Arabella through gritted teeth.
"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," said Riddle carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while 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."
"Well, you haven't finished it," said Arabella triumphantly. "No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours, the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be alright again —"
"Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been — the Potter sisters."
Arabella stared at him.
"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery— particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue… Then Astoria became my possessor, and so I made her 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 now... 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, Arabella Potter."
"Well, you've just got me," laughed Arabella, "and if you lay a finger on Lyla, I'll kill you."
"Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "that wouldn't happen because you'd already be dead by then, I think. But my question now is this. How is it that you and your sister —two skinny girls with no extraordinary magical talent — managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but scars, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.
"Why do you care how we escaped?" said Arabella slowly. "Voldemort was after your time..."
"Voldemort," purred Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Arabella Potter..."
He pulled her wand from his pocket and began to trace it 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?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. Do you think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? 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, Arabella— 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!"
Arabella's brain seemed to have jammed. She stared numbly at Riddle, at the orphaned boy who had grown up to murder her own parents, and so many others...
At last, she forced herself to speak.
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