By the time Lockhart caught up to Harry, he was just able to see as the back of the boy's head disappeared down a hole in the bathroom wall—which Lockhart definitely didn't remember being there before—with a yelp.

Heaving a resigned sigh of his own, Lockhart approached the entrance and, without hesitation, jumped in after his erstwhile student. And no, he did not scream in fright as he plummeted into the darkness.

Lockhart failed to consider the landing. Unfortunately, Harry paid the price for that oversight.

"Augh!" He exclaimed after Lockhart's heavier weight slammed into him, knocking him back to the floor, from which he had just risen. "Lockhart?" He questioned, pushing himself back up. "What are you doing here—did you follow me?!"

Gilderoy attempted his brightest smile. "I couldn't let you go gallivanting off into danger alone, now could I?"

They stared at each other in uncomfortable silence. Gilderoy errantly brushed a bit of grime from his robe.

"Whatever." Harry scoffed, dismissing the man, and turning around to venture deeper into the Chamber. "Just don't mess anything up. Ginny's life could be on the line."

Lockhart nodded, following Harry as the two of them started walking. Now wouldn't be a good time to remind the boy that he was the professor and the one with more experience doing this sort of thing. Saying that would only serve to prod at Harry's already frayed nerves. Instead, Lockhart silently cast a lumos charm and observed their surroundings.

It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before—and he'd been to just about every gaudy place worth talking about. Images of snakes and other symbols were carved perfectly into the walls and cast long shadows that created a writhing atmosphere of paranoia. Every depiction was so real that Lockhart honestly didn't know if he'd be able to tell the difference between an organic or stone figure should they choose to hide within the detailed work.

Part of him wanted to destroy the art just to be safe. A younger version of himself would have done just that but, learning the power of caution in his older years, he put aside his own unease and suffered the lifeless stares and coiling shadows. One wrong spell and he may very well pull the walls and ceiling down around not just him, but Harry too.

"This certainly looks like the Chamber of Secrets." He muttered, more to fill the silence than anything else. "Good job figuring it out. I never would have gotten this far."

He expected Harry to take a dig at him. That his charge remained silent set him on edge. "Harry?" He asked. "Talk to me. How are we going to confront this basilisk?"

Harry turned his head to look back at him. Despite the paleness of his skin and the dirt matted in his hair, his eyes were resolute. "I don't know." He said, completely contrasting the determination in his eyes. "Hermione was always the planner."

"Not the most comforting thought…"

"Do you have any ideas?" Lockhart could practically hear the derision in his tone. "You've probably fought loads of basilisks by now. What book was that in your series, again?"

Lockhart frowned. "I feel that you're underestimating just how capable I am, Harry." He admonished. "Yes, I write children's books, but that does not mean I have never been in dangerous situations—and this?" He waved his arm at their surroundings to emphasize the point. "This is quite dangerous. We're going to need to be at our best if we want to get out alive."

"And with Ginny," Harry added.

"Yes, and with Ms. Weasley."

The conversation came to a stop as they arrived at a set of doors, though gates may be more apt. Configured as a nest of snakes intricately woven over one another, it was less a door and more an obviously closed entrance.

"Any idea on how to open it?" Lockhart asked, fearing that he may just have to start throwing blasting curses at it. His hopes weren't high of that succeeding, however. If they'd lasted this long—and remained as polished and free of dust as they were now—the material had to be enchanted.

Harry, luckily, seemed to know exactly what to do. Leaning close to the door, he spoke in a series of sibilant hisses that were incomprehensible to Lockhart. The sound came as such a shock that he jumped in fright, swinging his wand around as if a horde of vipers were about to fall on him.

That sound couldn't have come from a human!

He was able, fortunately, to calm himself before Harry noticed. The last thing they needed right now was wariness and distrust—at least, more than was already there—between them. Lockhart was fairly confident his reaction would have only made Harry more resistant to working with him.

The sound of the hatch grinding open broke Lockhart out of his musings. He watched as the individual snakes slithered out of the way and vanished into the wall to provide access into the room. Exchanging a look with Harry, the two of them crept into the space. They would have to be careful; the Heir could be anywhere—

"Ginny!"

Whatever reservations Lockhart had about this being a potential trap obviously weren't shared by Harry as the young boy rushed towards the unmoving Weasley child. Her lifeless body lay sprawled out on the stone floor, completely alone. Briefly, Lockhart wondered if she had already died; icy tendrils of fear and guilt gripped his heart before the miniscule, labored rise and fall of her chest alerted him that, no, she hadn't left this world quite yet.

Still, Lockhart didn't follow Harry in sprinting to the aid of the girl. Whatever had dragged her down here had to be close—and forgetting that fact would only end poorly for them.

Far back as he was, Lockhart witnessed a body suddenly manifest itself in the corner of his vision. It began as a series of ethereal wisps but soon coalesced into a more solid form. He looked like any other Hogwarts student, but Lockhart knew better; no regular student would be in the Chamber of Secrets. Nor would they be so emotionless in a situation like this.

With a slow and calculating poise, the boy leaned against the pillar before addressing Harry.

"She won't wake." He stated. The coldness of his voice startled Gilderoy. He spoke it as a fact, with no inflection of any sort, treating Ginny's state like it was merely scientific and detached from anything else.

Harry jumped at the voice, spinning around to face the newcomer. A flash of recognition crossed his face.

"Tom?"

'What?' Lockhart asked himself. 'Who is this? And how does Harry know who this is?'

He'd certainly never seen the boy before—and he was the professor! That Harry could recognize the boy… Lockhart was missing crucial information. Silently, he stepped behind the nearest pillar and cast a quick disillusionment spell on himself. It wouldn't be a perfect cover, but this Tom character hadn't noticed him yet and, so long as he wasn't expecting Lockhart to be here, had no reason to go searching for him.

"Are you a ghost?" Harry asked.

"A memory." Was the quiet response. "Preserved—trapped—in the diary for fifty years."

Lockhart and Harry followed the boy's finger as he pointed to a little black diary laying discarded a few feet away from him.

Harry, for his part, took the explanation exceptionally well.

And by that, he ignored the explanation and forged straight into the more pressing issue.

"You've got to help me, Tom." He pleaded, lacing his arms underneath Ginny's shoulders, and trying to lift her up. "There's a basilisk here! We have to get out of here before it comes back…Hurry!"

The boy, Tom, remained where he was. His facial expression didn't flicker; if anything, he looked unimpressed, displaying more interest in the wand he was examining than in listening to Harry's heartfelt plea.

Wait… that was Harry's wand! 'How did he get that?' Lockhart wondered. 'More importantly, how did Harry lose it so quickly?'

He'd need to have some words with the young Gryffindor once they got out of this…

"Don't worry about the basilisk," Tom whispered, still not looking at Harry. "It only comes when called."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. Lockhart didn't need any such clarification. The dread pooling in his stomach was enough. Carefully, as to not break the disillusionment enchantment, he tiptoed his way across the hall to get into a better position.

"Listen," Harry continued, reaching a hand out towards Tom, "Give me my wand and help me with Ginny. I'm going to need it if we run into anything on the way out."

"That won't be necessary." Tom finally looked at Harry. "You won't be leaving."

"What do you mean I won't be leaving?"

Tom scoffed. "And to think, you were the one that supposedly defeated Voldemort. You don't even realize who you're talking to!"

"This isn't funny, Tom!" Harry nervously yelled. "C'mon," He tried to rise to his feet, but Ginny's weight was too much. "We need to go."

"I don't need to do anything." Tom hissed, a scowl coming over his face. "In fact, I have everything I need… right where I want it."

Harry finally realized the danger he was in."

"Tom…" He began. "How did Ginny get like this?"

He smiled cruelly at him. "Like what? An empty husk? That would be because she spent months pouring her essence out into something that desperately needed it—and now, like one of those batteries those muggles are so fascinated with, she's run out of life to give."

"What?" Harry asked, dumbfounded.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Tom sighed. "The diary, you fool! Every night, she would write to me—and I would respond, encouraging her to continue opening herself up to me."

He laughed an ugly laugh. Harry flinched at the sound of it. "Soon, there was nothing she wouldn't share with me. All her deepest secrets, her biggest fears. Oh, the intricacies of her mind!"

He laughed again. Harry slowly began backing away from him. "You cannot imagine how petty and vengeful children can be when they don't think anyone is watching.

"That cat was a test." He acknowledged. "I didn't want to scare her off, you see. So, I chose something nobody would miss. And then, I let her choose the victims!

"She was so deliciously jealous; it was all too easy to indulge her." Tom slowly began advancing on Harry. Lockhart, frozen from shock, could only watch from his hiding spot and listen as events of the past year were slowly revealed to him. "She didn't like how much the first boy, Creevey was it, always hung around you. A few nudges here and there, and she was all but clamoring for his blood—though I doubt she would have ever acted on those feelings." He smiled indulgently at her prone form, now so close to her that he could lean down and pat her on the cheek. "That's what I was for." He continued. "To act as an outlet for all her negative desires… she never knew just how easily I could make her dreams reality.

"Of course, she felt terribly guilty after the boy was found petrified in a hallway, but it wasn't like she did that to him, right?" Tom smirked in Harry's direction, carelessly stepping over Ginny's body. "After all, she couldn't remember anything about that night… Creevey's misfortune was but a happy accident."

"Still, I was cautious." Tom continued. "The next few targets weren't anything special. They helped to ease the guilt little Ginny was feeling." He laughed again. "As if she could take comfort in that! However, she was still cautious. More and more often, she would complain of losing her memory, of waking up in random classrooms with no idea how she'd gotten there. I feared that she was beginning to catch on to the danger of trusting in strangers.

"Indeed, she'd even decided to give the diary up. I felt her turmoil as she struggled to abandon me, as she realized just what her naivety had gotten her into…

"And then, someone new found me." Tom locked eyes with Harry, who had pushed himself against a pillar and had nowhere left to go. "They saved me from a toilet of all places!" He chuckled in genuine amusement. "And imagine my surprise when I discovered my savior was none other than Harry Potter, the very person Ginny had spent months idolizing!"

"You're the Heir," Harry muttered, disbelieving. "It was you all along."

"My, you are a slow one, aren't you," Tom muttered, scowling in disappointment. "Of course, I'm the Heir!"

Harry gasped and Lockhart could see the realization blossoming in his eyes. "You're the Heir." He repeated. "And the chamber was opened fifty years ago… that means that y-you're—" his eyes flicked towards Tom's teenaged face. "You're Voldemort!"

The boy preened at Harry's exclamation. "So, you've figured it out." He stated, crossing his arms in satisfaction. "Yes, Harry, I am that very person who vanquished all those years ago… the person that gave you that scar."

Whipping Harry's wand into action, he traced his name in the air, watching as fiery letters appeared in his wake. "Tom Marvolo Riddle." He said, sneering at the name. "The name given to a halfblood child of Merope Gaunt and left to whither away in an orphanage. Hardly the person you'd expect to be descended from the greatest wizard in history."

He flicked his wand and the letters answered, rearranging themselves to spell out "I am Lord Voldemort." Tom smiled in satisfaction. "But Lord Voldemort, he is a being that demands respect. He is who I truly am! The Dark Lord, the Heir of Slytherin, the greatest wizard Britain has seen for centuries!"

Suddenly, Tom's smile melted off his face, leaving a scowling visage underneath. "Yet, I was… defeated." He all but spat out the last word. "By a toddler.

"That cannot be the end of Lord Voldemort, the last true descendant of Salazar Slytherin."

He pointed his wand threateningly at Harry. "Now, I will show you that my first fall was a fluke, that no one can bring down me and my glory!"

A malicious smile curved his lips upwards. "It will be poetic, I think, to see you die at the teeth of my pet. We both know you're too weak to deserve me dirtying my hands doing away with you."

And then, he began hissing. Lockhart didn't know what he was saying exactly, but if Harry's rapid paling was any indication, it wasn't anything good. Raising his wand, he contemplated what to do. The boy appeared tangible, but was he human? Could he die?

Lockhart didn't want to risk it. If he tried to incapacitate Voldemort only to find out that the body could pull itself back together—or worse, siphon more life from Ginny to repair itself—he'd have lost the element of surprise.

His eyes traced the movement of Tom's wand, droning out the sibilant hissing that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. 'Expelliarmus,' he thought, silently casting the spell, and watching as it streaked across the space.

Tom felt the spell instantly and quickly turned around with surprise plastered over his features. It was too late; Lockhart was too close and his spell too powerful for him to avoid. It collided with the boy and sent the ebony wand spinning into the professor's hand. Then, as Tom went skidding back from the force of the spell, Lockhart grabbed hold of both Harry and Ginny with his magic and pulled them across the floor towards him. The last thing he needed was to get into a hostage situation with a teenage Voldemort.

"Who are you?!" Tom spat in indignant rage.

Gilderoy smiled winningly at him, bowing at the waist. "Gilderoy Lockhart, wizard extraordinaire at your service."

At hearing his theatrics, Tom's frown deepened. "The pretender?" He asked before scoffing in dismissal, deciding that interacting with Lockhart any longer wasn't worth his time. "No matter. You'll die the same as Potter."

The room started shaking. Harry's body tensed, his skin becoming even paler than usual. "P-professor," he began with a stutter, "we have to go. Now."

"You think it will be that simple?" Tom asked from across the room, laughing in glee. "There is no escape for you." He turned his attention to Lockhart. "It will be as I said: the girl's bones will lay in the Chamber forever. Yours will be joining them too."

"We'll see about that," Lockhart spoke, grimly straightening his posture and readying his wand. "I don't think you realize exactly what I've been through."

Before the conversation could go any further, the sound of scales sliding along stone echoed across the room. Lockhart glanced at the statue of Salazar Slytherin, identifying that as the source of the noise, before quickly looking back to Tom.

'This will be tricky.' He thought. 'Not only do I have to avoid looking at the basilisk, but I also have this new Voldemort to contend with.' Catching sight of Harry and Ginny in his periphery, Lockhart quickly realized that he also had to get more than just himself out of this alive. 'I'll be damned if any of us don't make it out of this.'

"Prepare yourself, Harry." He muttered. "One wrong move and we're done for."

He raised his wand and pointed it at Ginny's still unconscious form. With a flick, he opened a crevice underneath her, closing it up after gently setting her within. He couldn't afford to have her trampled or targeted by the basilisk during their fight.

Turning his attention back to the situation at hand, Lockhart saw as the basilisk's shadow darkened the room and heard as the sound of its slithering grew louder in his ears. Lockhart sent a spiraling blasting curse at the statue's opening to start off the confrontation. The stone architecture burst into fragments, revealing hints of green scales before he quickly diverted his gaze.

"Remember, don't look into its eyes." He warned, stretching his senses to track the beast.

'Just how big is this thing?!' He wondered as the scraping sound continued to grow. 'It hasn't even exited the statue yet!'

"How are we going to kill it?" Harry asked. Lockhart could hear the faint echo of desperation in his voice.

"Together," Lockhart replied, mustering all his resolve. "Don't worry, Harry. I'll get us through this."

Unsurprisingly, his words did not have the greatest effect on the young boy.

"Aim for the eyes." He advised. "They're the basilisk's most dangerous weapon. That will be our first step."

"Alright." Harry swallowed, raising his wand defensively.

And then, the battle commenced.

Lockhart had less than an instant to recognize that the basilisk had stopped moving before it suddenly shot forward, somehow launching its body across the room in a lunge that kept most of its bulk off the ground.

"Move!" He shouted, rolling out of the way, and only able to send a retaliatory curse at where he assumed the snake's eyes to be. The lack of reaction led him to believe that he'd missed his target.

"Vermillious!" Harry shouted from his side, casting a couple of red sparks from the tip of his wand. Lockhart didn't need to see them connect to know the effect of the spell.

"You're going to need something stronger than that!" He rebuked the boy.

"I don't know anything stronger!"

Right. Harry was only twelve. Lockhart berated himself for believing Harry had the knowledge or repertoire to combat a XXXXX magical beast—what, did he think he was a Triwizard Champion or something?

Watching the end of the basilisk's tail, Lockhart saw it begin its preparation for another lunging dive. "Don't bother attacking it," Lockhart advised. "Just remain focused on not dying."

Better prepared for the snake's attack, Lockhart waited until he saw its muscles release themselves in exertion before flicking his wand and raising a transfigured spire of stone from the floor. The hardened tip connected somewhere—he didn't dare see where—but failed to pierce the skin, crumbling on contact but nevertheless pushing the snake off to the side.

Worryingly, instead of attempting a third charge, the basilisk decided to reposition itself, dragging its body around them until it felt as if the beast had entirely encircled them with its body. Lockhart was at that moment thankful that basilisks were known for striking their prey rather than smothering them because he dreaded what would happen should the wall of scales begin to constrict on them.

"Where is its head?" Lockhart asked, closing his eyes, and pivoting in an effort to keep his wand focused on where he believed the front of the snake to be.

"To our right." Harry supplied. "I can hear it talking." He swallowed. "It's really bloodthirsty."

"I wouldn't expect anything less."

The snake's movement lessened. "What's it doing now, Harry?" He asked.

"Uhm... it's rising up." Harry replied. "I-I think it's about to fall on us!"

That would make sense, Lockhart recognized. After walling them off with its own body—and attacking them from above—the snake's chances of hitting them rose drastically.

Lockhart didn't know how to counter this coming attack. He didn't have the reaction time to beat a basilisk; it would be on him before he could even move—and he didn't fancy his chances of predicting the snake's movement.

"Fumos!" Harry cried, swishing his wand in a spiraling motion. Swathes of fog began filling the chamber, obscuring everyone's sight.

"What are you doing?" Lockhart demanded.

"If the basilisk can't see us, it won't know where we are!"

"It doesn't need to see us!" Lockhart replied. "Snakes use heat and other senses just as much as sight. This fog is just as detrimental to us as it is to it!"

"Then we'll just have to make sure it can't sense us that way, either." Harry bit back, casting a simple fire spell around them. The flames glowed through the fog like ominous beacons.

'Collect yourself!' Lockhart thought. 'Harry's trying—and he's actually doing something, which is better than what you would have done.' Mentally slapping himself, Lockhart continued brainstorming. 'We can work with this.'

He suddenly had an epiphany.

The basilisk, hesitating at the sudden changes to its surroundings, remained towering over them, giving Lockhart precious time to improvise his newest plan. Waving his wand overhead, a pack of ghostly hounds, gytrashes, joined the mist. Growling and prowling ethereally, they faded in and out of sight as the pack situated itself around him and Harry.

Almost immediately, Lockhart gained confidence. The gytrashes, conjured spirits, relayed information about the basilisk to him, without being affected by their opponent's deadly gaze. They also served to irritate the basilisk, nipping at its body and distracting it for a few seconds. Those seconds were all the time he needed to position everything in his mind.

With the location of the snake in relation to him achieved, Lockhart raised a slab of stone from beneath him and brandished it in front of him like a shield. Then, flourishing his wand in a series of interconnected motions, he transfigured the face of the tablet into reflective glass and polished it with as many vanity spells as he could, which, incidentally, was much more than the average witch or wizard. Once finished, Lockhart steeled his nerves and called to Harry.

"Get its attention." He urged. "I need that thing to look at us."

He felt Harry's bewildered gaze on him but didn't let his focus wander. "Do it." He commanded.

There was a moment of hesitation before Harry began hissing. Lockhart repressed a shudder that threatened to run down his spine at the sound appearing so close to him. Then, waiting until his hounds alerted him to the snake's new target, Lockhart flipped the tablet around and positioned it so that the basilisk was staring into its own reflection.

Nothing happened. There was no hiss of agony. The chamber remained eerily silent bar for the crackle of flames and the occasional growl of his conjured spirits.

"You didn't really think that would work, did you?" Tom's mocking voice sounded from across the room. "A basilisk can't be killed with its own gaze!" He laughed. "Much less with a reflection!"

Indeed, chancing a glance at where he knew the basilisk's neck to be, Lockhart saw that the only effect his trick seemed to have had been to cause a bit of stiffening in the snake's posture.

That was fine though. He wasn't stupid enough to think the reflection would kill it; a reflection couldn't even kill a cat! All he'd hoped to do was make the snake a little easier to hit.

Moving onto the next part of his plan, Lockhart cast the most potent piercing curse in his repertoire and fired twice at the basilisk's eyes. The twin orbs of magic shot through the mist unerringly, striking direct hits on the dazed snake and causing it to shriek in agony as its vision was suddenly stolen from it.

"No!" Tom yelled from across the room, suddenly displaying something other than indifference for the first time since his arrival. Lockhart may have feared an attack from the boy, but the basilisk's huge bulk served as a blessing. Just as he and Harry were unable to escape, so too was the young Voldemort unable to strike at them.

As an extra safety measure, Lockhart followed up his initial barrage with a quick, overpowered Ferula charm, which sent a swathe of bandages at the basilisk's ruined eyes that, upon connection, wrapped around its head and completely hid the destroyed sockets from view. He would not be taking any chance on the ruined eyes maintaining a residual effect. Just because the basilisk could no longer see did not make its deadly magic any less potent.

What Lockhart did not account for, however, was the desperate writhing that followed the basilisk's injury. Convulsing wildly, it was all he could do to erect a hasty Protego over himself and Harry before the snake's flailing body collided with them.

Luckily, the appendage missed Harry entirely. Lockhart was not so fortunate; his shield instantly shattered, and the contact sent him flying into the hard wall behind him, smacking against it with a crack. He was too dazed to decide whether the origin of that sound came from the wall or his back shattering.

Gripping his side, Lockhart felt liquid, probably blood, beginning to soak through his robes. 'This has to end.' He determined, watching as the basilisk continued to lash out sporadically. 'We can't take much more—the damned snake is just too big for conventional spells to do anything against it!'

The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly tingled and, as his instincts screamed out at him, it took all his remaining power to roll out of the way of an incoming spell.

"What have you done!?" Tom roared, stalking down the hall towards him, a wand—Ginny's wand—grasped firmly in his hand. Gone was the composed boy from before. There was no more cool dismissal in his expression. Now it was all rage and vitriol and uncontrolled fury.

Lockhart pushed himself to his feet, stumbling slightly as his body protested the movement. He smiled back at the irate boy. "You know me." He flicked a few locks of his hair over his shoulder. "Monster hunter extraordinaire."

"Quiet!" Tom hissed, raising his wand to cast another spell. "I've had to waste entirely too much time listening to your drivel already."

And then, the duel began.

Reducto. Severing charm. Entrails-expelling curse. Bone-Breaker. All cast in quick succession by the boy. If Lockhart didn't know that Tom would grow up to be one of the most terrifying wizards in British history, he would have been too shocked to counter the sudden onslaught.

As it was, Lockhart went into the duel expecting to face Voldemort himself. As he was pushed back, barely avoiding a spell that slipped past his shield, he was glad to be proven wrong. Tom was exceptional—better than most wizards could ever dream to be even. But he wasn't the Voldemort that induced enough paranoia that people were unwilling to so much as speak his name. Not yet.

As the duel progressed, Lockhart became more aware of just how skilled his opponent was. The imitation of Voldemort was unrelenting in his attack, leaving no room for a counter of any sort. Moreover, his depth of knowledge provided him with an artillery of hundreds of spells. Paired with the speed and ease in which he cast—most of which were silent or, at the very least, whispered too quietly to decipher—made fighting him more a struggle to survive than any sort of combat.

All the while, the basilisk continued thrashing about, threatening to bring down the entire Chamber on their heads.

Lockhart shielded against a blasting curse, rolled out of the way of a bone-breaker that flew through the dust, and hastily raised a wall of stone to block the incoming blood-boiler before getting in a single cutting hex of his own before fading back into the defensive again.

His eyes caught sight of Harry, fearfully pointing his wand between the basilisk and Tom, uncertain of how to contribute. Lockhart suffered from that moment of observation as a blasting curse broke through his shield and sent him off balance. Not even bothering to regain his footing, Lockhart dropped to the floor as a flurry of hastily sent severing curses flew overhead. From his position on the ground, he conjured another cloud of fog, erecting a series of figures from the floor in an attempt to confuse Tom and buy a moment of rest.

He had to end this or else he'd die a painful death. It was a blow to his pride, but Lockhart recognized that he was no match against Voldemort, even as a student.

A spell whizzed by his head, exploding one of his constructs and bringing his attention back to the boy. Tom had taken up a central position in the Chamber and, for the last handful of minutes, had been slowly pushing him into a corner. Soon, Lockhart would have nowhere to dodge, and they both knew his shielding wasn't strong enough to hold off against Tom.

Spying the boy's confident stance through the fog, Lockhart's eye caught sight of the diary. It lay discarded at the base of Salazar's statue, on the other side of Tom.

Lockhart breathed a steadying breath in preparation. Then, rolling out of the fog, he cast two spells in quick succession: an arcing cutting hex too wide to dodge and a silent summoning spell towards his true target.

So focused on the approaching diary, he missed Tom's quick rebuttal. The flashing light of his spell was the only warning Lockhart received before pain erupted throughout his body.

"A valiant effort, I suppose." Tom casually remarked from where he stood. Despite the indifference in his voice, Lockhart could see that the duel had, at the very least, pushed him enough to dirty his robes and rid him of his pristine appearance. However, that was all Lockhart could observe before another bout of racking pain sent his body into convulsions. He fell to his knees, letting out choked gasps as his body felt as though it was burning him from the inside out.

"But now, you die." From the cruel smirk sent his way, Lockhart knew that his death wouldn't be quick. Indeed, he'd bet every galleon in his vault that Tom intended to make him suffer under the curse until it eventually killed him. "I hope you find your final moments worth it before your blood begins to sear a hole through your veins." Tom shrugged. "Or maybe your body will prove more resilient than that and continue to suffer until the rising temperature evaporates all the blood in your body and leaves you as nothing more than a dried-out husk."

Lockhart glared at the boy. His hands trembled as he placed the tip of his wand against the diary.

Tom merely laughed at him. "You think you can destroy that so easily?" He asked. "You can't even hold your wand properly!"

Lockhart's glare intensified, even as he acknowledged the truth behind that statement. Besides, even if he did have the ability to cast a sufficient spell, the only one he knew would work was Fiendfyre. Suffice it to say, unleashing such a destructive spell mere inches from his own body would not be a good idea.

"H-Harry…" He choked out, switching to look for the child he was supposed to protect. In doing so, another wave of agony made his arms give way and sent him collapsing onto the floor.

"D-destroy the diary." A weakened banishing charm, more a desperate willing on Lockhart's part than an actual spell, sent the diary towards Harry.

By now, the corners of Lockhart's vision were growing fuzzy. He couldn't focus. Despite knowing he was laying on the floor, the room felt as if it were spinning. And everything was burning; his blood was too hot. It wanted out—and it wanted out now. Lockhart almost wished he had enough dexterity to open his own veins and let the burning liquid run free of his body.

"Basilisk…" he all but whispered. "Poison the diary…"

His vision went white. Then it went black. Lockhart couldn't feel his body anymore; he couldn't feel anything.

Memories began playing before his closed (or were they open? He couldn't tell anymore) eyelids. Dueling an emaciated black-haired witch, spending hours studying in a decrepit library, feeling so numbingly cold within a dreary cell.

Emerald eyes flashed through his vision. And large glasses. Raven hair. A mischievous smile.

Then the emerald flash returned, but it was different. Sickly and cruel and evil, he cringed away from the light.

'No!' the man suddenly screamed within himself. 'Not James! Not Harry! I can't lose them. Not again.'

Blind, unfeeling hands squeezed themselves open and closed in search of an answer. He was holding something. What was he holding?

His veins throbbed. He wanted nothing more than to rid himself of the pain. If only he had a… a wand!

Methodically and with as much care as he could muster, he grasped the object between both hands and, turning it towards himself, folded his arms inward until there could be no possibility of missing. His body scraped against the floor, writhing in agony as he did so, but Lockhart would not be dissuaded.

Rationality had left him. All that remained was desperation and a will to survive.

He began murmuring to himself. To an outsider, it would sound like the gibberish of the delusional. Perhaps that's what it truly was. To the man, however, he was creating a mantra, repeatedly gathering his frayed and broken magic into a recitation that continued to fail.

His magic built up like a wave before stuttering into fragmented ripples when he released. He gathered it again, building on the previous cast and raising the tide higher before sending it crashing back down.

Finally, blessedly, an icy coolness formed. It stood out to him within the field of indecipherable throbbing, a constant pain that he wasn't even aware of until he'd realized just what it meant to feel something else.

The coolness raced along his veins, bringing feeling back to his body, if not sensation. Even after the boiling heat was flushed out, his nerves still tingled in pain.

He opened his eyes, gasping at the feeling of actually seeing, of comprehending an outside world.

Someone had moved him. The wall felt cool against his tired back; his wand lay at his side, having fallen out of his slackened grip.

Catching the glaring reflection of light from a set of scales, Lockhart was reminded of exactly where he was. Frantically, he swung his head around in search of the rest of the inhabitants. He felt someone beside him.

"Harry?" He asked, already knowing who it was, who it had to be. "Where's Tom?"

"Dead, I think." The boy responded, uncertain. "I threw the diary into the basilisk's mouth. And then... then," he stuttered. "There was this screaming. It wasn't human, but when I looked to see what had happened, Tom was fading out of existence. It was like he was never here, like he was a spirit. I've never even read about anything like that!"

Lockhart grunted in reply, too tired to give an actual explanation as to what happened.

"And the basilisk?" He asked. "Any idea on how we're going to deal with that?"

"Uh," Harry grimaced, "I don't know. It's angry and in a lot of pain. I can't even understand half of what it's saying anymore."

He looks to where the snake was still tearing up the chamber. With the vanishing of his gytrashes and the quiet brought forth from Tom's removal, the beast had calmed its movements, but Lockhart knew not to take that as any sign that the basilisk would be easier to deal with.

"We probably can't just leave it here, either." He muttered. "There's nothing stopping it from escaping the chamber the same way it used to and, without someone to direct it…" Lockhart didn't need to finish his sentence for Harry to understand. If Voldemort had used the basilisk as a tool to root out undesirables, what would it do when given free, unmitigated reign?

"But how are we going to kill it?" Harry questioned. "I don't know anything strong enough to even scratch it, and you can't even stand right now!"

He smiled in response. "Where's the confidence, Harry?" He asked. "Don't you know who I am?"

Nevertheless, Harry had a point. Even at his peak, Lockhart didn't know any spells capable of piercing the basilisk's thick hide. The only way to sufficiently bring one down was to bypass the hide altogether and, given that he had no wish to uncover the snake's eye sockets, that left only the gaping maw filled with poisonous fangs as the target.

Analyzing the situation, Lockhart recognized the feeling creeping into the pit of his stomach. It wasn't because he didn't have a plan. No, it was because he did have one that he was suddenly growing anxious.

He fumbled for his wand, cursing to himself when the piece of wood slipped between his fingers the first few times. After getting a firm grip on it, he focused his energy on the stone in front of him, first transfiguring it into shining steel before slowly crafting a long shaft from the floor.

His core burned from exertion, but Lockhart didn't let that stop him. He had one more thing to do, then he could rest. He soldiered on, diligently refining the improvised shaft, and ensuring there were no weaknesses.

"What are you doing?" Harry questioned from beside him. "You're not going to fire that at it, are you?" He sounded bewildered. "You'll never hit it!"

"I know." He replied. "I don't have enough magic left to propel it hard enough, anyways."

"So, what are you going to do with it, then?"

He glanced at Harry from the corner of his eye, lips quirking up mischievously. "If I can't send this to the snake, we'll just have to send the snake to us."

Harry paled. Lockhart, having finished his transfiguration, turned his attention fully to the boy. "Call it here, Harry." He urged, wrapping an arm around him, and pulling him close. They were situated directly opposite the basilisk.

"What happens if you miss?"

Lockhart chuckled. Even to his own ears, it did not sound pleasant. "Then we die painful deaths," he answered. "But we're going to die anyway if we don't kill that snake so, really, what's it matter if death comes a bit sooner?"

He felt Harry tense under his grip. "We can't hope that someone's going to come rescue us?" He murmured. "What about Dumbledore? Surely someone must be aware that we've gone missing too?"

Lockhart sighed. "One of the first things to learn about growing up is to fend for yourself, Harry," he answered. "You can't rely on others coming to your aid because, quite frankly, they're not going to spend their effort getting you out of trouble, no matter how little you deserve it." Lockhart hoped he didn't sound too bitter at the end of his speech. It wouldn't do to instill such a sense of cynicism in a twelve-year-old.

But, then again, the sooner someone learns that Albus Dumbledore isn't around every corner waiting to spring them from their miseries, the better in his mind.

"C'mon Harry." He repeated. "Let's do this. One last thing and we can go back to Hogwarts."

"O-Okay." He stammered, visibly pushing his discomfort down. Harry looked across the chamber at the basilisk for a moment, knitting his eyebrows in concentration, before opening his mouth and letting loose an assortment of hisses.

The sight of such noises coming from Harry's mouth was still unnerving to Lockhart, but he quickly brushed it aside and turned his attention to the basilisk. It had stopped its thrashing at the sound of Harry's voice and turned its head unerringly in their direction. Even knowing that its eyes had been destroyed and bound behind wrappings, the reptilian face was no less intimidating.

The snake grew taut, hunching in on itself in preparation before, in the blink of an eye, it pushed and came soaring towards them, mouth already open and dripping with poisonous saliva.

He barely had time to react, flicking his wand to align the shaft with the snake's trajectory before the two connected. The basilisk swallowed the transfigured construct, moving unobstructed towards them until, suddenly, it stopped. Simultaneously, a sickening rip could be heard as the steel tip pierced the back of the basilisk's throat and ripped its way out of the snake's body. Even then, the initial puncture wasn't enough to fully stop its charge. The basilisk continued for a handful of meters, tearing an even larger gash in the newly created wound before coming to a stop.

Lockhart released a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Is it… is it dead?" Harry asked, fearfully staring at where the basilisk lay, its body still twitching.

"Not yet." He answered, appraising the beast. "But it's too injured to recover. The basilisk won't make it to the end of the week." He pushed himself to his feet, only staggering slightly before regaining his footing. "C'mon." He called to Harry. "Let's get out of here."

He walked a few paces around the basilisk before pointing his wand at a section of the floor, vanishing the top layer and levitating Ginny's still comatose form out.

However, while he was doing that, he was unaware that something had changed. His previously golden hair darkened to a shaggy black and fell limply down his neck. His robes became looser as his body thinned slightly even as he grew a few inches between steps.

Lockhart noticed none of these changes. He didn't know anything was amiss until, turning around with Ginny in tow, he saw Harry pointing his wand at him.

"You're not Lockhart," Harry stated.

"Aren't I?"

The moment he spoke, he realized his mistake. It wasn't the dandy voice of Gilderoy Lockhart that came from his mouth but a lower, more gravely register. His eyes matched Harry's own as they widened in shock, albeit for vastly different reasons.

He, hurriedly reaching into his robes in search of something, missed Harry's gasp of surprise. He did not miss the following exclamation.

"You're Sirius Black!"

Withdrawing a canteen from the inside of his robes, Sirius watched in dismay as the last drops of his potion dripped out from a puncture in the container. He slowly raised his eyes to meet Harry's panicked ones. Sheepishly smiling at the impossible situation, Sirius offered the only response he could think of.

"…Surprise?"

A/N:

Once Lockhart becomes Sirius, he's really capable of doing some great things, isn't he?

If anyone's upset that Harry didn't do much, please read the available spells on the HP fandom before complaining. Harry doesn't know, hasn't had time to learn, and, quite frankly, hasn't shown any inclination in learning magic. He, therefore, cannot be supposed to suddenly be capable of defending himself.

As for the confrontation itself, I hope it was enjoyable. I tried to think of something new—it would have been horribly boring if I chose one of the overly used options, like conjuring a rooster or throwing a killing curse at it, or, the most unimaginative, somehow had a deux ex machina phoenix appear with a McGuffin from God.