Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

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He Is Back (and so is she)

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          "Open up," hissed a cold voice that made Hermione shudder involuntarily. She fixed her eyes, instead, on the carving of the snake that began to glow white hot. When the sink finally sank out of sight, Tom looked at her, as if to say, "Valar is in there."

          Hermione ignored his glance, and promptly slid herself down the hollow of the tunnel. True, she was nervous about entering the Chamber, but she knew that the Bloody Baron's predictions were never wrong. At least, she hoped that he wasn't.

          Tom landed a few seconds later, and frowned a little. "You will be killed for this," he hissed, but she ignored that too. Instead, Hermione took out her wand, muttered "Lumos!" and adjusted her eyes, to suit the darkness. Unlike the future, the Chamber was still preserved, and no cave-ins had happened yet.

          "Give me the Book," she said to Tom, her hand in her pockets.

          But Tom only shook his head. "If I really did have the Book," he drawled, "wouldn't I have used it myself?"

          She folded her arms across her chest, her eyes level and very well aware of the fact that she had not combed her hair for days. It was flyaway and almost grizzly, but Hermione ignored her mad-like look, and slapped a centipede off her leg, instead.

          "Yes you would," she replied with equal frostiness. "Unless you don't know where it is yourself."

          "I didn't know that it even exists. And no, I didn't inherit it," he spat, a little defensively. The Chamber was his inner sanctum, and Hermione was the one making demands. "If you came here because of that Book, shouldn't it be with you, anyway?"

          "Yes.." she whispered. "But……"

          "But you dropped it," he answered, his wand directed at her, as a smile broke over his face. "Thank you, Gangly, for telling me the password. How useful you've been,"

          Hermione's mouth dropped open, and she sensed her folly, but it was too late. "So your friendliness was forced? Just to get the magic word?" I have been too stupid, she thought, moroseness and trepidation replacing her level-headedness. Why…of course I had the book with me. Unless someone stole it while I was unconscious…….

          "You have it don't you?" she breathed, eyeing his loose robes apprehensively. Somewhere…….in those pockets, lies my way home.

          "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do," replied Tom cheerfully. "Oh, Gangly, what did you expect? I am Lord Voldemort after all," he smiled. "And I have taught myself well. Feelings…..they're just distractions. They prevent you from doing great things. They are the hurdles to substantial power. Yes……I did have second thoughts about killing you. But after some light 'reading', my foolishness is cured. Now, my only obsession is to finish the works of my forefathers."

          Hermione wanted to run, to flee, or just to get away from the changed Riddle, but her legs held her as though they were rooted. "I will not die today," she said, as she repeated the Bloody Baron's words. It was dire, to be held at the tip of Tom's wand, but Hermione knew that if there was to be a time, when a Muggle-born survives the curse of Voldemort, it would be now.

          "Oh, no?" asked Tom candidly. "Then I suppose that you will live, even after hearing the call of death?"

          "Yes," she replied, her voice steady, and hands unshaking. After the Johnson incident, nothing can throw me off my feet, she told herself. Harry lived, and he had his Mother's protection. I too, shall live, by the words of the Bloody Baron.

          "And you're going to defeat me with your lighted wand? It wouldn't work, Hermione. It just wouldn't. This Chamber is sealed, bound by centuries of reinforced charms. There are certain spells, which only one in whose veins runs the power of magic, can break. You, a Mudblood, don't have a single drop of sorcery in your body."

          Hermione's mind raced, as she recalled the Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt be tested once again. So this was the test? A blood test?

          "That is absurd," she snapped, her neck flushing angrily. "Expelliarmus!" But the fact that Tom only continued to doodle his wand confirmed his taunts. She couldn't work aggressively against him.

          "Initially, the test was to fight the Basilisk," he said, a cold sneer adorning his face. "Only those, whose genesis traces back to a Pureblood, can blind Valar," he explained patronizingly. "But this is a very rare, very guarded secret, the Caecitasio Charm. Magic pure, potent but weak. Pure because only a Pureblood-descended being can work it. Potent because it's the only charm strong enough to shut a Basilisk's eyes. Weak…..weak because it affects no other creature, but the Basilisk. I sought it, all right, and yes, it has brought me closer to my keep. "

          Hermione shook her head, but even her perseverance was starting to wane. It was when she realised that the trick here was to not use magic against Tom. "Do you have the book with you now?" she asked steadily. That was the most important part, the reason she entered the Chamber. Either way, my journey begins here.

          "Ah…..Of course I do," he said brightly. His fingers reached into his pockets…and took out the object that had caused all the trouble. Hermione grimaced. "And yes, I am planning to pay my future self a visit," he said.

          "I won't let you," she whispered. "You've done enough damage already…..You were given a second chance, but he is going to defeat you anyway," she spat, thinking of Harry. "You don't have half his powers."

          "Shut up!" shouted Tom, and a few rats scuttled away. "Dumbledore may be back, he returned yesterday. But even that Muggle-lover can't stop me. I have youth, and the cunning that he doesn't. He will die, by my wand."

          Hermione glared. If anyone had told her, a week ago, that she would be defying Lord Voldemort in The Chamber of Secrets, she would have sent them straight to Madam Pomfrey. But now, Hermione realised, that everything was possible. So…..it is also possible that I will live….to return.

          "Either way, my journey begins here," she said, her hand wandering further into her pocket. It was time……he may be Voldemort, but now, Tom was, as he said, a mere youth. And with youth comes folly.

          "What did you say?" asked Tom acidly. "No, let me rephrase that. I don't care what you say. You will be dead...now." 

          He opened his mouth to shout the deadly Unforgivable Curse, but as he did, Hermione's hand had already emerged from her pocket, bearing her secret weapon.

          "I will not die today!" she shouted, as she sprayed the pepper-spray viciously at his glittering, shocked eyes. "I will die," she snarled incandescently, "but it shall be another day!"

          Tom let out a howl of irascibility, as the substance stung his eyes with the ferocity of the Cruciatus curse. His hand slackened, and Hermione triumphantly snatched the book away.

          "You cannot leave!" he shrieked, wiping his orbs with his sleeves. But Tom was blinded, and Hermione could not care less. She might not be able to perform the Caecitasio spell on a Basilisk, but fortunately, Tom wasn't one.

          "I can," she answered chillily. Just for old times sake, Hermione diffused the painful substance a second time. The pepper-spray was formidable enough to counter a grizzly bear, she smiled. "And I will."

          She tapped the Book with her wand, and prayed that it was only aggressive spells that would be dysfunctional. Tom's howls of rages sounded very sinister, as though he was hissing like a spitting serpent. And then she realised….he was calling the basilisk!

          "Yu won't die today," reminded a familiar voice behind her. Tom was still writhing, but his voiced continued to echo all over the Chamber. In no time, the Basilisk would arrive, and Hermione didn't trust the pepper-spray to hold Valar off.

          It was Johnson. Johnson her deceiver. Johnson the burnt portrait. Johnson the walking, living wizard.

          Hermione, jaded as she was, couldn't help gasping as his arrival. But it was not unexpected, as she had learnt. Nothing was unexpected here. "You live," she breathed. "That couldn't be possible. Not unless you had been…"

          Johnson the Deceiver smiled, a warm, understanding smile, like the one that was etched on his face during his final moments in the fire. It was not sinister, or even spiteful. But it was a smile that she would have expected to see on Dumbledore's face. It didn't suit him.

          "Let me silence that wretched boy first," he answered, whipping out his own wand. Hermione gaped, when the hisses actually died from Tom's mouth. "You're a Pureblood."

          "Yes I am," he said, his eyes sliding towards Tom. "And it takes one to defeat one, in this cursed place."

          But Hermione still held the pepper-spray in her hand, as she asked, "whose side are you on? You've told more lies than a snake."

          "I did," he admitted, rubbing his chin. "But it was this……..git, who put the Imperious Curse on me, forcing me to reveal every single on-goings in Dippet's Office. During your third year, eh?" he asked giving Tom a long, shrewd look.

          "And I lived, because of my own greed. I put a part of myself in the portrait, waiting to emerge at the right time."

          Hermione frowned. Was it possible? Tom had preserved part of his sixteen-year-old self in the diary, after all. But Johnson…….

          "But your portrait was burnt," she said sharply. "You should be dead."

          "I should," he answered, his eyes narrowed. "But part of the 'contract' stated that I was to be burnt, by the inferno of the eternal fire, to be released. Thank you, I should say."

          Hermione stared. How many ways were there to keep oneself immortal? The Secret Diary.and now a portrait?

          "But you wouldn't live, would you?" she asked Johnson, sensing that something was amidst. "You're only part alive. This isn't you."

          "No," he answered quietly. "I died many, many decades ago. Killed by my own potion. It seeped unknowingly into my veins, merging with my blood. Experiments can be a deadly thing, as I found out the hard way. It cost me my life."

          "So the point of your existence is…….?"

          "Is forbidden. Creature of the living are only given one chance to live. Those who trick death, whether by conserving themselves by Dark Arts, or otherwise, shall know that in the end, their entity would not be sustained."

          "Which means that….?"

          "That I will expire soon."

          Hermione bit her lip. According to Harry, Tom grew stronger as Ginny's condition deteriorated. He needs energy……fuel, she realised.

          "I have to go," she said finally. "And you…?"

          "I will stay, and hold off his monster," answered Johnson in a flat tone. "He has called, and although he is silenced, she will come. She always comes to her master."

          Hermione felt like crying. It sounded as though Johnson was giving up, and walking to his death. She knew that he couldn't survive, because more than 50 years later, the Basilisk would challenge Harry Potter, and there was no sign of any man by the name of Johnson. It meant that the Basilisk would live, but not him.

          "You can come with me," she found herself saying. "Dumbledore would help you to…..live."

          But Johnson only shook his head, as he fingered his wand. "There is no other way, not unless I …feed on another," he replied curtly. "And after years of enslavement, I would rather be free, than be used as a puppet by this abomination," he spat at Tom.

          Tom's eyes watered, but his tears did not materialised out of regret. He watched, his wand out of reach.

          "Go now," said Johnson, as he tilted his head towards a gargantuan statue. Hermione watched, as the monkey-like figurine's mouth started to open……

          "I owe my freedom to you. Now, it is time for me to pay back the hours that I owe Death."

          Hermione dabbed at her eyes, and she tapped the book with a finale glance at Johnson. "Revelatio!" she said, and a familiar sensation hugged her torso. It was time to leave……….

          Her last vision, before she woke up in the hospital wing, many, many years later, was that of a thin man with a goatee, shouting at a huge, serpent that slithered out of the serpent's mouth……….

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Epilogue

          "So," said Ron as he came in with a basketful of Chocolate Frogs. "Big adventure?"

          Hermione remained silent, as her mind raced back to the Chamber……..the past two days, when she was deceived continuously by a portrait, then Voldemort himself. But as she learnt, death…….death was a relative thing.

          But who had given her the Book in the first place? If it didn't belong to Tom, then……..her eyes caught the sight of a house elf lurking guiltily by her bed.

          "Hitta?"

          "Mistress must not be angry," whimpered the creature, as she bowed lowly. Hermione saw that her eyes were glistening with tears.

          "Hitta has to it it..Hitta must! That was his last wish to Hitta!"

          Hermione sat up bolt upright. "Whose last wish? Who is your master?"

          She blinked. The elf had said "Johnson,"

          "Johnson was your master?" she asked, rubbing her temples. "It was his book?"

          "Yes!" the morose creature wept. "Hitta tolds him that it was Bad Magic! Hitta did! But he want to live forever……….and he say that if all goes wrong, only this Book can save him! Mistress must forgive Hitta! Hitta…..Hitta gives this to Mistress because Mistress hides socks in dustbins!"

          Hermione's breath was halted in her throat. "Johnson was counting on someone to travel back in time to save him?" she asked incredulously. "I could've died! I could've-"
But she said no more. But I didn't die, she told herself sensibly. Imagine, being trapped in a picture frame playing spy for Tom. He was caged………and he didn't want to return.

          "But risking MY life!"

          Hitta sobbed, shaking her head. Hermione took a few deep breaths, and calmed her frazzled nerves down. "Don't cry," she said weakly. "I met your master………and he was an…..honourable man."

          Hitta sniffled and looked up. "Yes, yes," she said sadly. "Only, he was too hasty. Did he die?"

          Hermione wanted to say "yes," because no one could survive the Basilisk's glare…..but she caught herself in time. After all, as she had learnt, nothing was impossible.

          "I don't know," she said truthfully. "But Hitta……..was Hagrid expelled?"

          Ron, who had been remaining silent all the time, glanced at Hitta, and told her to leave. Harry had entered the room, and he headed towards Hermione. "Was Hagrid expelled?" she asked again, looking at Harry.

          "What a strange thing to ask," replied the green-eyed boy. And when she looked into his orbs, she knew.

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Author's note:

Finally! Finished at last!

Mrs.shigwa.cobain: I hope you find this alright. No, Hagrid ISN'T expelled, and that was the one thing that Hermione could change. Sheesh! Anyway, your reviews were always nice, telling me when the chapter isn't that good and when it's alright. Alright, from my Most Feared Reviewer, you're officially promoted to………….my Friend. An e-friend, at least. Bye!

Lady Nessa Fefalas: Haha! You're always so hyper and all……gosh, I'm glad I sent you that e-mail! If you want me to read your stories, just say the word. I'm not a harsh critic, but I'm trying not to be too lenient as well. Oh, well, see ya in my other unfinished story!

Aletha: I remember you. Well…….hope you enjoyed this fic!

Miss Mina Murray: Awwww….you don't want it to end? Me too, but come Feb 28, my idle life will be over. So now, I'm trying to wrap everything up, before I go back to my boring, torturous school-life. Arrrrggghhhh! Once again, you make me smile.