Hello all~! So school has once more picked up and updating chapters will no longer be as abundance as they have been these past few days. I apologize, but school sure does take up a lot of time (especially since finals are coming up!) Jeez, the year has gone by fast... OMG THO, we're nearing the end of another wonderful adventure! Can ya'll believe it?! I feel like I started drafting this fic just yesterday :0

Well, without further ado, let us proceed further into the danger, shall we?

-M

"You're not," she said.

"Not what?" said Riddle coolly.

"You're not the greatest sorcerer in the world," said Arabella, breathing fast. "Sorry to disappoint you and all, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days —"

The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.

"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" he hissed.

"He's not as gone as you might think!" Arabella retorted. She was speaking at random, wanting to scare Riddle, wishing rather than believing it to be true.

Riddle opened his mouth but froze.

Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle whirled around to stare down the empty Chamber. The music was growing louder. It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Arabella's scalp and made her heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size. Then, as the music reached such a pitch that she felt it vibrating inside her own ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar. A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle.

A second later, the bird was flying straight at Arabella. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying at her feet, then landed heavily on the girls shoulder. As it folded its great wings, Arabella looked up and saw it had a long, sharp golden beak and a beady black eye. The bird stopped singing. It sat still and warm next to her cheek, gazing steadily at Riddle.

"That's a phoenix," said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it.

"Fawkes?" Arabella breathed, and she felt the bird's golden claws squeeze her shoulder gently.

"And that —" said Riddle, now eyeing the ragged thing that Fawkes had dropped, "that's the old school Sorting Hat —"

So it was. Patched, frayed, and dirty, the hat lay motionless at the girl's feet.

Riddle began to laugh again. He laughed so hard that the dark chamber rang with it, as though ten Riddles were laughing at once.

"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender?! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, little Arabella Potter? Do you feel safe now?"

She didn't answer. Arabella might not see what use Fawkes or the Sorting Hat were, but she was no longer alone, and she waited for Riddle to stop laughing with her courage mounting.

"To business, Arabella," said Riddle, still smiling broadly. "Twice— in your past, in my future— we have met. And twice I failed to kill you and your sister. How do you continue to survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he added softly, "the longer you stay alive."

Arabella was thinking fast, weighing her chances. Riddle had her wand. She, Arabella, had Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, neither of which would be much good in a duel. It looked bad... but the longer Riddle stood there, the more life was dwindling out of Astoria... and in the meantime, she noticed suddenly that Riddle's outline was becoming clearer, more solid... If it had to be a fight between her and Riddle, better sooner than later.

"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked the Potters," said Arabella abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because Lily Potter died to save her children. My common Muggle-born mother," she added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you from killing me and my sister. Lyla saw the real you, said you were a wreck. You're barely alive, Riddle. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, you're foul —"

Riddle's face contorted. Then he forced it into an awful smile. "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 half-bloods, orphans, and raised by Muggles. Probably the only 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."

Arabella stood, tense, waiting for Riddle to raise her wand. But Riddle's twisted smile was widening again.

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

He cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away. Arabella, fear spreading up her numb legs, 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 — but she understood what he was saying…

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."

Arabella wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes swaying on her shoulder.

Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, she saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole. And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.

Arabella backed away until she hit the dark Chamber wall, and as she shut her eyes tight, she felt Fawkes' wing sweep her cheek as he took flight. Arabella wanted to shout, "Don't leave me!" but what chance did a phoenix have against the king of serpents?

Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. Arabella felt it shudder — she knew what was happening, she could sense it, and could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth. Then he heard Riddle's hissing voice:

"Kill her."

The basilisk was moving toward Arabella; she could hear its heavy body slithering heavily across the dusty floor. Eyes still tightly shut, she began to run blindly sideways, her hands outstretched, feeling her way— Voldemort was laughing.

Arabella tripped. She fell hard onto the stone and tasted blood. The serpent was barely feet from where she lay; she could hear it coming.

Then, there was a loud, explosive spitting sound right above her, and then something heavy hit Arabela so hard that she was smashed into the wall. Waiting for fangs to sink through her body, she heard more mad hissing and something thrashing wildly off the pillars.

She couldn't help it— she opened one of her eyes just enough to squint at what was going on. The enormous serpent, bright, poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, had raised itself high in the air and its great blunt head was weaving drunkenly between the pillars. As Arabella trembled, ready to close her eyes if it turned, she saw what had distracted the snake.

Fawkes the phoenix was soaring around its 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, narrowly missing Arabella, and before she could shut her eyes, it turned — Arabella looking straight into its face seeing that its eyes, both its great, bulbous yellow eyes, had been punctured by the phoenix's claws; blood was streaming to the floor, and the snake was spitting in agony.

"NO!" Riddle was screaming. "LEAVE THE BIRD! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE GIRL IS BEHIND YOU. YOU CAN STILL SMELL HER. KILL HER!"

The blinded serpent swayed, confused. Fawkes was circling its head, piping his eerie song, jabbing here and there at its scaly nose as the blood poured from its ruined eyes.

"Help me, help me," Arabella muttered wildly, "someone— anyone..."

The snake's tail whipped across the floor again. She ducked. Something soft hit his face.

The basilisk had swept the Sorting Hat into Arabella's arms. She seized it. It was all she had left, her only chance — she rammed it onto her head and threw herself flat onto the floor as the basilisk's tail swung over her again. As it slid past her ears, something very hard and heavy thudded onto the top of her head. Stars winking in front of her eyes, she grabbed the top of the hat to pull it off and felt something long and hard beneath it.

A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the hat, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs.

"KILL THE GIRL! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE GIRL IS BEHIND YOU. SNIFF — SMELL HER!"

Arabella was on her feet, ready. The basilisk's head was falling, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face her. She could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous —It lunged blindly — Arabella dodged and it hit the Chamber wall. It lunged again, and its forked tongue lashed her side. She raised the sword in both his hands — The basilisk lunged again, and this time its aim was true — Arabella threw her whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth — But as warm blood drenched her arms, she also felt a searing pain just above her elbow. One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into her forearm and it splintered as the basilisk keeled over sideways and fell, twitching, to the floor.

Gasping, Arabella slid down the wall. She gripped the fang that was spreading poison through her body and wrenched it out with a painful yelp. But she knew it was too late. White-hot pain was spreading slowly and steadily from the wound. Even as she dropped the fang and watched her own blood soaking her robes, her vision went foggy. The Chamber was dissolving in a whirl of dull color.

A patch of scarlet swam past, and she heard a soft clatter of claws beside him. "Fawkes," said Arabella through a thick mouth of cotton. "You were fantastic, Fawkes..."

She felt the bird lay its beautiful head on the spot where the serpent's fang had pierced him. She could hear echoing footsteps and then a dark shadow moved in front of him.

"You're dead, Arabela Potter," said Riddle's voice above him. "Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing, Potter? He's crying. It's pathetic."

Arabella blinked. Fawke's head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the glossy feathers.

"I'm going to sit here and watch you die," said Riddle with relish. "Take your time. I'm in no hurry."

Arabella was beginning to feel drowsy. Everything around the girl seemed to be spinning.

"So ends the famous Arabella Potter," said Riddle's distant voice. "Alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by her friends and family, defeated at last by the Dark Lord she so unwisely challenged. You'll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, as well as that sister of yours... Lily Potter bought you twelve years of borrowed time... but Lord Voldemort got you in the end, as you knew he must..."

If this is dying it's wasn't so bad. Even the pain was leaving her… But was this dying? Instead of going black, the Chamber seemed to be coming back into focus. Arabella gave her head a little shake and there was Fawkes, still resting his head on her arm. A pearly patch of tears was shining all around the wound— except that there was no wound.

"Get away, bird," said Riddle's voice suddenly. "Get away from her— I said, get awa —"

Arabella raised her head. Riddle was pointing her wand at Fawkes; there was a bang like a gun, and Fawkes took flight again in a whirl of gold and scarlet.

"Phoenix tears..." said Riddle quietly, staring at her arm. "Of course... healing powers... I forgot..." He looked into Arabella's face. "But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Arabella Potter... you and me..."

He raised the wand. Then, in a rush of wings, Fawkes had soared back overhead and something fell into Arabella's lap— the diary.

For a split second, both Arabella and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, without considering, as though she had meant to do it all along, the young witch seized the basilisk fang on the floor next to her and plunged it straight into the heart of the book. There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over her hands, flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing, and then —

He had gone. Arabella's wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Silence except for the steady drip-drip of ink still oozing from the diary. The basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it.

Shaking all over, Arabella pulled herself up. Her head was spinning as though she'd just traveled miles by Floo powder. Slowly, she gathered together her wand and the Sorting Hat, and, with a huge tug, retrieved the glittering sword from the roof of the basilisk's mouth.

Then came a faint moan from the end of the Chamber. Ginny was stirring. As Arabella hurried toward Astoria, she sat up. Her bemused eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead basilisk, over Arabella in her blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in her hand. She drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down her face.

"Arabella — oh, Arabella — it was me— but I — I s-swear I d-didn't mean to — R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over — and — how did you k-kill that — that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary —"

"It's all over now," said Arabella, holding up the diary, and showing the girl the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. Let's get out of here now — the others—"

"I'm g-going to be expelled!" Astoria wept as Arabella helped her awkwardly to her feet. "I've looked forward to c-coming to Hogwarts ever since I was l-little, and n-now I'll have to leave and —"

Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber entrance. Arabella urged the sobbing girl forward.

"Everything will be fine," she told the trembling girl, "Don't think about that just now, focus on getting out of here first."

They stepped over the motionless coils of the dead basilisk, through the echoing gloom, and back into the tunnel. Arabella heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss. After a few minutes' progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry's ears.

"Daphne!" she yelled, speeding up. "Astoria's okay! I've got her!"

She heard her friend give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see her eager face staring through the sizable gap she had managed to make in the rock fall away.

"Oh, Astoria!" Daphne thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her sister through first. "You're alive! I don't believe it!

"What happened?!" asked Ron frantically. "How — what — where did that bird come from?"

Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Arabella.

"He's Dumbledore's," said Lyla with a gasp. She threw herself over Arabella and squeezed her tight. "How are you? You look terribly— so bloody—"

"How come you've got a sword?" asked Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Arabella's hand.

"I'll explain when we get out of here," she said exhaustively with a sideways glance at Astoria, who was crying harder than ever.

"But —"

"Later, Ron," Arabella said shortly. She didn't think it was a good idea to tell any of her friends who had been opening the Chamber, not in front of sobbing Astoria, anyway.

"Where's Lockhart?"

"Back there," said Lyla in a low whisper. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."

Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, they walked back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.

"His memory's gone," explained Daphne. "The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself."

Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at them all.

"Hello," he said cheerily. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"

"No," said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Arabella.

"Have you lot thought about how we're going to get this back up this?" asked Arabella.

Daphne shook her head, but Fawkes the phoenix had swooped past them all and was now fluttering in front of Lyla, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers. Arabella looked uncertainly at him.

"He looks like he wants you to grab hold..." said Daphne, looking perplexed. "But we're much too heavy for a bird to pull up there —"

"Fawkes," said Arabella, "isn't an ordinary bird." She turned quickly to the others. "We've got to hold on to each other. Astoria, grab Daphne's hand. Ron, you grab onto Lyla's hand, and Professor Lockhart —"

"She means you," said Ron sharply to Lockhart.

"You hold Astoria's other hand —"

Arabella tucked the sword and the Sorting Hat into her robes as best she could, Ron took hold of the back of her robes with one hand, and Arabella reached out and took hold of Fawkes's strangely hot tail feathers. An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through his whole body and the next second, in a rush of wings, they were flying upward through the pipe. She could hear Lockhart dangling below her, saying, "Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!" The chill air was whipping through Arabella's hair, and before she'd stopped enjoying the ride, it was over — all of them were hitting the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat, the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place.

Myrtle goggled at them.

"You're alive," she said blankly.

"There's no need to sound so disappointed," Lyla said grimly.

"Oh, well... I'd just been thinking... if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet," said Myrtle, blushing silver.

"Urgh!" said Daphne as they left the bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. "I hate to say it, but I think Myrtle's grown fond of you two! You and Ginny have got some serious competition," she said to Astoria in a cheerful, teasing tone. "Better watch out!"

Astoria only cracked a faint smile.

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