Review responses up later! Thank you for so many responses, and such detailed ones!

And here we go. This chapter was a blast to write.

Chapter Seventeen: Comes the Test

Harry was standing before the dark figures in his nightmare again, one screaming in a confined space, the other whimpering in a larger one, and trying to figure out what they meant when Riddle attacked.

The first he knew about it was Sylarana's hiss, trailing overhead like the hiss from Nagini, Voldemort's snake, when he flung her over the Forbidden Forest. Harry turned swiftly. Snape's shields were fraying. He could feel Riddle bucking in the box, while Sylarana fought to keep her coils lashed around it. The box's lid was starting to rise, Harry's own padlocks and chains fraying.

Wake up! Sylarana commanded him. You don't know your own dreams well enough to face him here.

Harry opened his eyes, and pain slammed into him. He moaned softly and touched his head. His scar was on fire, and already slick with blood.

The curtains jerked open on the right side of his bed, and Draco was there, his hands clenched on Harry's wrists, taking his hand away from his scar. Harry was grateful for that, and tried to convey as much with his gaze. Draco smiled back, but it was a grim smile, and his face had gone nearly as pale as it had when confronting his father.

"I'm here, Harry," Draco said, and his voice in his corner of Harry's mind echoed him. I'm here. It's all right.

Harry felt Snape wake in the next moment, worried for just a moment before he hid his worry under the coldness, and then flow to the attack. The shields strengthened. Snape would hold them so that Riddle could not rip through them, if Harry only asked.

Harry didn't want him to. That would assault the professor's mind, too. And he meant to use this as a test of his plan.

Let a bit of him out, Sylarana.

I should not—

Just a bit, Harry insisted. I know it might harm me, but we're never going to know if this works unless we try.

Sylarana relaxed her clutch on the box, and Snape stirred his shields backwards like curtains. Riddle was apparently suspicious at the sudden lack of pressure. The lid of the box opened, just a bit, and a fleeting black tendril stuck out.

Sylarana slammed the lid shut again, and the tendril, cut off and isolated in Harry's mind, slithered out, looking for some way to link to Harry's thoughts and control them.

Harry floated around it, using the training Snape had given him in Occlumency over the last two months to make himself look as insubstantial and fleeting as a mere memory. He felt rage flow around him, adding a red tinge to the haze inside his head. Behind him darted Draco. He often seemed to be almost as at home within Harry's mind as Sylarana or Harry himself did, and Harry wasn't worried that he would be hurt unless the tendril turned suddenly.

It tried.

Harry raised his magic, just a small portion of it—it wouldn't do to have Riddle figure out what he was doing from inside the box—and wrapped the tendril within it. The magic abruptly took form, when he thought of it, as a whirling, cutting maelstrom, edged with knives instead of winds. The knives stabbed down several wild times, slicing and dissecting.

When Harry dissipated the magic, Riddle's tendril was gone, one piece of him destroyed forever. Harry found that he was not sorry for it. It was less than Riddle would have done to him. At least the rest of his personality survived in the box. Harry doubted that he would have anything of himself left, if once Voldemort possessed his mind.

Besides, it wasn't destruction of Riddle's personality that he planned, so it wouldn't matter that much even if Riddle figured out what he had done just now.

He opened his eyes and nodded to Draco, the signal that this contest was done. Draco uttered a shaky breath and sat back on his heels, rubbing one hand across his own forehead. He was sweating, Harry saw with some surprise.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Did that frighten you?"

Draco glared at him. "I was frightened for you, you prat. This plan of yours is insanely risky."

Harry shrugged. "I know, but it's the only one that has a chance of succeeding." He glanced up as the curtains on the other side of his bed shivered and opened, and Blaise stood looking in, frowning at them.

"What's the matter, Potter?" he asked, with not quite a sneer in his voice. He knew Harry and Draco had a secret of some kind, and it was obviously driving him mad. "Nightmares?"

"Yes," said Harry calmly.

Blaise blinked for a moment, the wind taken out of his sails, and then winked at Draco. "Yes, of course it's a bad dream," he said. "That's why it requires Draco to be in bed with you."

Draco flushed and sputtered out a denial as he scrambled from Harry's bed. Harry didn't see why he bothered. Blaise was going to think what he liked, and it wasn't as though the accusation was true. Harry didn't have time for that kind of thing yet.

Nor will I ever, with Connor as the center of my life, he thought.

You're a prat, said Draco childishly into the forefront of his mind. And Connor's a prat.

Harry shut Draco away into his corner again as Snape rewove the shields to keep Riddle blind and uncertain. They had proved what Harry had wanted to prove, that they could act together as a team when danger threatened. Obviously the test of facing Riddle himself, and not just a piece of him, would be different.

But Harry was confident, now, that he could face it.

"All right there, Potter?"

Harry blinked and looked up. A green tinge had covered his eyes since he got up that morning. It was the eighteenth day of December, and Harry had held Riddle captive for nearly a month and a half. He was quite obviously getting tired of it, since he was twisting Harry's vision whenever he could.

But he wasn't free. Not yet.

Justin Finch-Fletchley was staring at him in concern from in front of the table, ignoring the Slytherins, including Draco, who gave him odd or resentful looks. Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott stood at his shoulders, and they were—well, they didn't look concerned, exactly, Harry thought, but they weren't screaming in panic about there being something wrong with Harry, either, and that was enough for him.

"I'm not exactly fine," he said, and closed his eyes with a sigh. "But I should be better with a little food and sleep." He poked ineffectually at his dinner. He hadn't eaten more than a few bites, despite Draco urging him to and Sylarana making a point of humming in delight whenever she took a mouthful.

"Take care of yourself, Potter," said Justin, and gripped his shoulder briefly. Then he turned and strode out of the Great Hall. Ernie and Hannah peeled away from him as he reached the doors, heading in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room. Justin looked as if he were going upstairs, probably to the library.

Harry's vision warped and twisted and swam, and Harry heard Sylarana cry out in surprise and pain.

Harry let out a low breath and tried to calm himself, though his heart had picked up enough speed to sing in his ears.

It's now, he told Draco and Snape. Tom Riddle is attacking now.

He heard a sound from the staff table, where Snape had set his goblet down a little too loudly. He didn't think that anyone else was suspicious, though. Draco stood, one arm around Harry's shoulders, urging him forward. Harry moaned despite himself. The room was entirely a blur now. His scar burned as though doused in oil. His body shook, and he fought the need to be sick.

"Here we go," murmured Draco as they left the Great Hall. "We can get you to the dungeons, and—"

"No," Harry said, pulling away and drawing his wand. He wasn't sure that he could perform the spell that he needed to without his wand. "We discussed this, Draco." Every word came harder and harder through the haze. He could hear Riddle's voice now, as he hadn't heard it in months, whispering and laughing, promising Harry rewards if he set him free and pain if he didn't. "You have to go back to the dungeons and I have to face him alone physically, except for Sylarana. You'll hold yourself back as an alarm system."

And I? Snape asked in his head. Harry started. Snape spoke so rarely that, were it not for the spiked feel of his mind, Harry would forget he was there.

Stay where you are, thank you, Harry told him. Or anywhere else where you can sit in comfort and hold the shields, sir. You're the last line of defense if the rest of this doesn't go as planned.

You give me such confidence, Potter.

Harry took comfort even in the sneer. It was the same. Everything about it was the same, and he was about to do something entirely new and unexpected.

He looked through the Great Hall doors, and forced his eyes to focus by sheer effort of will. He could see Connor sitting at the Gryffindor table. He'd looked up when Draco took Harry out, but then glanced back down at his plate. He'd made a point of not looking at Harry lately, and going out of his way to avoid a confrontation. Harry didn't know what that meant, except that he wasn't going to take it for an apology until his brother actually offered one.

Stop thinking about that, Harry. Concentrate.

He did, bringing up the battle-trained well hardened to steel in the last months by his struggles with his emotions and his training with Snape, and whispered, "Fugitivus Animus Cogitatio."

The air stirred, and he felt the spell rush away from him in one long, cool purl of strength. It hit Connor, and to Harry's eyes, he acquired a faint shine. Everyone around him, except Snape, turned towards him like flowers to the sun. There were low murmurs about him, and Harry could hear speculations about how good he was at Quidditch, whether he had been right about his brother, whether he would defeat Voldemort again at the end of this school year, and more.

Mr. Potter. Snape's voice was a snarl. Where did you learn that?

From a book, said Harry blandly, and then winced as his sight fled again in the wake of Riddle's attack. We don't have time for this right now, Professor. I have to make sure that no one wants to leave the Hall. This is between me and Riddle alone, and someone intruding will just make it harder.

Snape said nothing, which Harry took to be agreement. He couldn't really care if it wasn't, he decided. He had other things to care about.

He felt Draco squeeze his shoulder and whisper, "Good luck." Good luck, his thoughts echoed, with an edge of warmth to them that was buried by fear in his voice.

Harry nodded, and then headed upstairs.

He had deduced that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets had to be somewhere on the second floor, since all the attacks had happened there, and he didn't think that the monster could have roamed around from floor to floor without encountering and Petrifying more students. It was a gamble, of course, an educated guess, but one he had to make. Riddle had shut away or stolen his memories of opening the Chamber completely; Snape had encountered no trace of them in his thorough searches of Harry's mind.

Harry climbed the stairs, his head bowed and his will bent. He gathered strength around him like lassos, like claws, like coils. He could not know what form Riddle's strength would take when it finally came out of the box, and he prepared several forms of his own, mind shifting from shape to shape.

He had just reached the top of the staircase to the second floor when Sylarana screamed. Harry closed his eyes and felt her near to tearing apart at the seams.

Let him out!

But you—

I'll be fine, Harry lied, his pulse high and fast and thready in his throat. Let him out. You know what you have to do.

Sylarana released the box.

Riddle boiled out, a cloud of fury and power and loathing, and aimed straight for Harry. Harry wondered if he was even aware of Sylarana looping around the box again, locking his retreat against him.

Now Riddle couldn't go back, and neither could Harry. They faced each other in his mind, and Harry smiled. He felt much the same way he had when facing the Lestranges last year. It was dangerous, it was battle, it was war, but it was what his training had bred him to answer, and there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that his highest purpose in living was about to be fulfilled.

Riddle presented a less composed picture to Harry's mental eyes than he once had. His hair stood out wildly from his head, his mouth was pursed, and his eyes flashed dark lightning. He extended one hand towards Harry, a gesture that was menacing enough in and of itself, never mind the words he said.

"Do you know what I am going to do to you for keeping me cooped up in there? Do you know what I will make you do?'

"I can make a fairly good guess," said Harry. He spared a brief moment to wonder what was happening to his body, if he had fainted or stood upright and said these words to no one at all, but that did not matter. He was fighting Riddle now. "You will possess me and make me use my magic against my friends, and make me open the Chamber of Secrets and set free the monster inside again."

Riddle laughed, a laugh that was too knowing and too cold for someone his apparent age. Do not be fooled, Harry reminded himself as he gathered the last breath and the least burst of strength he thought he would be permitted to before the battle began. This is Voldemort.

"That is only the beginning," Riddle whispered. "I have had a month to think." And then he sprang, and his magic came with him.

Harry rolled, not directly engaging him but coming in from beneath. His magic lifted and lashed in firm coils around Riddle's, binding him to Harry and not letting him fly too far. Riddle let out a surprised gasp, then spat and turned on Harry, wielding his own magic like claws.

Harry found the limit of his power almost immediately. Riddle was stronger, that was all, and he knew techniques of sheer raw battle that Harry had never learned. Harry could hear him muttering spells, and almost enacting them. The spells were spells of compulsion and control, and they would flood every corner of Harry's mind soon, giving him other enemies to battle.

Harry dived.

He left some of his magic behind, so that Riddle rolled and bounced about for a good while before he realized Harry wasn't there and tore loose to follow him. Harry felt him dive through the Occlumency fog that filled the wounds in his mind, now and then pausing to rip at them.

Harry felt the pain, but did not let it settle at the top of his mind. For the first time, he could see his own thoughts as webs, spiraling around him in vast dizzy patterns just as Draco and Snape had said they did, and he knew where he had to go. He plunged towards the center of them, and Riddle came behind him.

He could feel Draco's and Snape's anxious presences, waiting to assist him if they could. Harry knew they wouldn't be able to. This was a contest of strength, not to destroy but to win, and he knew, without having to brag about it, that neither Draco nor Snape were as magically powerful as he was, though Snape was, in some ways, close.

Down he plunged, down, and the webs whipped past him, faster and faster. Riddle came along, never far behind, snarling. Harry controlled his fear, and replaced it with confidence, not quite blithe but close. He had practiced for this and practiced for it, and in the end, he would drive Riddle from his head. He did not have to destroy him.

They reached the center of the webs, and Harry dropped past what he saw as an enormous glinting block of white marble, wound with strands of silk. That was his goal of saving, protecting, and defending Connor, and it sang out as Harry dropped past it. It gave him a renewed surge of strength and reminded him of why he was doing this. Harry smiled and increased the speed of his fall.

His thoughts were lessening as he dropped, thinning, becoming a narrow and focused cone. For a moment, he still felt Riddle above him, pausing to consider the white marble block and then deciding that it wasn't worth the effort to destroy. Then he lost the sensation of that, and fell through the hole in the center of the webs.

Riddle would not be far behind, he thought, his thoughts coming as difficult bursts, even though he could not feel him.

Harry whirled in the blackness beneath the webs and called on his magic.

It rose in answer.

Harry felt it as cold water, streaming around him and up through him and past him, the relentless tides of a black sea, eating the barriers that had kept it pinned so far. Harry drew and drew and drew, called and called and called, and still the magic answered him, wave after pulsing wave of power. He sent down one final call, hoping this would be enough, not sure if it would.

An icy voice spoke in his head, a new voice, neither Draco nor Snape nor Sylarana nor Riddle, but resembling Riddle's more than any other of those voices.

I come.

And a freezing tsunami caught him, howling, and bore the faint spark that Harry still clung to as himself in the midst of all that power back up through the gap in his webs, back into the flickering light of memory and conscious purpose.

Riddle was screaming. That was the first thought that came to Harry, and he rejoiced in it. The icy voice laughed around him, and he found himself laughing with it, pushing forward, crashing over Riddle and drowning him.

Riddle also held furiously to himself in the middle of that, as Harry had suspected he would. This was Voldemort, the man so determined to live that he had not been killed when hit by Connor's reflected Avada Kedavra. He would not die that easily, even if he was a fragment of himself, a memory of sixteen years old. He turned, and Harry felt him whisper a spell that he didn't recognize, caught and glittering in spikes. It floated towards Harry's webs, landed on them, and began to tear them apart, chewing them wildly, sending memories flickering and spinning through the water.

Harry closed the waters around Riddle, pincering him in pure magic, and began to squeeze.

Riddle screamed again, but did not stop whispering his spells. And now he was drawing power from somewhere else, a warm funnel of magic that sprang from far above them and felt like Harry's own. Harry stretched out a brief flicker of perception in Sylarana's direction, and found her still locked about the box. The magic was not coming from there.

Then he remembered what Riddle had said to him when he first let Harry know he was still in his mind, just before he had Petrified Neville.

Your scar. A conduit to me. So peaceful here. So at home.

Harry had no bloody clue how his scar was a conduit to Riddle—it was Connor who had taken the curse scar from Voldemort's wand, not him—but he was sure that that was where the magic came from, skimmed off his own being and warmed and twisted to Riddle's own foul purposes. The problem was that he didn't know how best to fight it. He had planned only so far as enraging Riddle, blocking his retreat, fighting him and trying to drive him out of his head, and then having Draco and Snape wait in the background as last-minute guards.

The icy voice laughed at him. He is reaching high, taking the magic from the conduit. You know what you must do. The opposite.

"Sap magic from my feet?" Harry sniped, and bore down harder on Riddle. He tore more viciously at Harry's memories in response. Harry blinked away a sudden intense vision of himself at his and Connor's tenth birthday party, and listened intently to the voice's answer.

First a sigh, which blew across him hard enough to leave a pattern of frost on his skin, Harry was sure. Then the voice said, No. Go deeper.

Harry swallowed. He had already gone as far down as he dared, drawing all this magic that he had floating about in him to combat Riddle, and that had not been enough. He feared that if he reached down any further, he would find only the scraped and belittled dregs of his magic, all of it drained for this duel.

No, you won't, the icy voice said, and caressed his mind. It sounded eager. Go down deeper. Further. Is there any end to the heart of a wizard's magic? No, not until he finds it, and you have not found it yet.

Harry reached down further, plunging through dark water and tearing webs, and back into the hole underneath the webs. It seemed almost tame now, no longer seething with power, and he sank through it, and down, and down, and still found no trace of new magic waiting for him.

Then he called.

With wild rejoicing, with a glad cry, the power was free, and rushed up and around him. Harry had never felt such magic. It was mad. It would tear everything apart if it could, take the sun and the moon from the sky and use them as juggling balls. It knew no boundaries, no limitations.

Except that it will, thought Harry, and brought down his own will upon it.

The magic bucked and fought him like a wild horse, and it was ten times worse than Tom Riddle's fighting had been, because Riddle was at least foreign to his mind, and this was familiar. But Harry was stern. He would call that power to defeat Riddle and to help Connor. He was never going to call it simply to sit around awash in it, as he had that day in Dumbledore's office. Their mother had trained him well. He could be corrupted if he did that, and he would not be corrupted.

This is for you, said the icy voice.

This is for my brother, said Harry, and bore down, and the icy voice died with a snap and a wail, and Harry was back in his mind, fully in control of his own actions, identifying Tom Riddle as a drifting speck, identifying…

He stood on the second floor. The shadow of an enormous snake played on the wall. It was just around the corner, and was writhing eagerly, hungrily, wanting to come around the corner and feed.

In front of him was Justin, one hand extended and nearly touching him. "Harry?" he breathed.

Harry felt a surge of pure fury. Riddle had brought forth the monster in whatever memory-destroying way he had while Harry was engaged in battle with him, and he would have Petrified someone else whom Harry considered a friend.

The snake started to come around the corner.

Snake who Petrifies people, Harry's training whispered to him. Basilisk.

Harry swung to face the shadow. He held up one hand, and pushed both down and out with his magic—down on Riddle, outward to the waiting basilisk. "Stay," he said, and knew it was in Parseltongue, and heard Justin gasp, and did not care.

The shadow continued moving forward.

Riddle laughed at him—pained and breathless, but still a sound of amusement. Any Parselmouth can speak to a basilisk. Only the Heir of Slytherin can control the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets.

Enraged, Harry whirled on him, and managed a grim smile as Riddle squeaked. Thank you for telling me that, Tom.

He tore Riddle's voice out and forced it through his own mouth, the same way that Riddle must have before, when he used Harry to open the Chamber and command the snake. "Back! Back to your nest. Wait there until I, and only I, instruct you to come forth again."

The basilisk responded in a voice nothing like Sylarana's, a voice of mindless hunger. "I want to rip. Tear. Grind bones. Crunch. Blood. Kill." The basilisk's shadow grew a flickering appendage that Harry suspected was its forked tongue. "I can smell the Mudblood. Want a proper feast."

Harry felt his lip curl, and wasn't sure if that was his own reaction or Riddle's. He decided it didn't matter right now. "Back to your nest. You have no choice. Slytherin raised you, made you, tamed you. Obey me."

The basilisk whined for a moment longer, and then turned and slithered back down the hallway. Harry waited until the shadow faded and stuck his heard around the corner, hoping against hope that he would not see another Petrified student lying there. He did not know how long the basilisk had been free.

The hallway was empty of both students and basilisk. Harry let out a low breath, and then turned his attention to Riddle, still lost in both pain and astonishment in Harry's mind.

I don't want you here any longer, Harry thought, more determined than he could ever remember being, and bore down with all his weight.

Riddle crashed against the webs of Harry's mind, against the marble block, and barely escaped the black hole waiting to eat him. He wailed, his web-shredding spell and his sheer presence ripped and torn between the force of his unyielding will, Harry's unyielding will, and Harry's magic.

At last he screamed. You have not seen the last of me, Harry Potter!

What an insipid thing to say, Harry said, and squeezed one last time. Go away now, little boy.

Riddle wailed again, and was flushed from his mind. Harry felt his scar briefly burn as Riddle shot away, and opened his eyes swiftly to make sure that Riddle didn't go into Justin. Justin only stood there in bewilderment, however, and Harry felt Riddle's presence shoot away from him, curving downward. Harry smiled. Probably going back to the diary, which I would bet a dozen Galleons is in the Chamber of Secrets. I don't think he could survive anywhere else outside it.

And then it was done.

Harry sagged to his knees, breathing harshly. His scar felt like an open wound, and blood poured steadily down his face. Every muscle in his body ached. Sylarana shifted weakly on his arm. But none of those was as great a potential problem as the magic shifting and beating its wings around him.

He lifted his head and felt the magic snap to attention. It would do anything that he wanted of it. He was stronger than he had imagined. He could perhaps have killed Tom Riddle after all, though he didn't want to count on it. He was certainly stronger than Connor. What did he want his magic to do?

"What I want you to do," Harry whispered, "is to go away."

The power reared in protest, but Harry was already catching it, binding it in the coils and ropes he hadn't used to catch Riddle, dragging it back down. He put it in the hole under his webs, pumped his mind clear of the cold water, and ordered the magic to shut its eyes and go to sleep. He would content himself with the ordinary, everyday kind of magic he could carry in his mind and being most of the time.

He thought he heard a snarl from the icy voice before it shut its eyes. He did not care. He was master of himself, and he would not use his magic for evil.

"Harry."

Harry lifted his head. He could feel Draco pounding upstairs from the dungeons and Snape making his way swiftly along the corridors, but it was Justin who stood over him now, one hand extended and his face solemn.

"I saw the monster's shadow," he said. "And I know that something was wrong, that you were fighting—something. The possession that your brother talked about, maybe, assuming that he isn't always full of shit. Thank you for my life."

"I'm sorry for endangering it in the first place," said Harry, clasping the hand and letting Justin shake it. He couldn't stand yet. "I didn't know you were there until it was almost too late."

Justin shrugged. "Can't change the past. Besides, it was my fault. I thought I saw you following me, and I doubled back to talk to you." He eyed Harry's face and grimaced. "Merlin, you look bad."

Harry nodded, not surprised. "Will you excuse me a moment?" he asked. "There's something I have to do."

"I don't think you can walk to the hospital wing," said Justin, kneeling down beside him.

"Not that," Harry murmured, and closed his eyes. He could see the bonds with Draco and Snape now that he looked for them, not the golden braid woven deep into his thoughts that Sylarana was, but clear strands running from the very outer edges of his central web.

He broke them. There was a brief flare of pain, and of surprise from both Snape's and Draco's sides. Harry didn't care. He had studied up on the potion that created the bonds in the first place, and learned how to cleave them. He wasn't living with other people in his head.

Except for me, said Sylarana.

You're a special case, Harry pointed out as he dropped forward. His body had decided that it had enough of sitting up and wanted to lie on the floor.

I'm very special, Sylarana agreed dazedly.

Such a beautiful snake, Harry murmured. And such an obedient one, to hold the box through all that battle and not come rushing to my aid.

I don't obey you, said Sylarana. I judge you. And you looked as if you had the battle well in hand. I will take the other compliment, though. And then her voice cut off, and Harry knew she'd fallen asleep.

"Harry!"

Harry heard the rush of footsteps across the floor, and smiled as he felt Draco drop down beside him. "I'm all right, Draco," he said, his voice slurring with exhaustion. "Or I will be."

"If you will stand aside, Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Finch-Fletchley," said Snape's cold voice, "I will escort Mr. Potter to the hospital wing."

More like carry, Harry thought, and then he was gone.