(CoS) CHAPTER THIRTY: THE CHAMBER, PART TWO
Ellie took out her wand at that, trying to remember the few things she had learned in the Dueling Club. Tom was still preoccupied with calling the basilisk, which meant she had a few more seconds to hit him with something.
"Stupefy!" she shouted, echoing the very Stunning Spell that Ginny had used to take down their friends in the bathroom. To her amazement, Tom was thrown backwards, landing hard on the floor.
Desperate not to let him get back up, she pointed her wand again, this time using the spell she had learned from Hermione the year before: "Petrificus Totalus!"
Tom's body turned cold and rigid.
"Ellie," Ginny whispered.
But Ellie knew what she was thinking without having to look: the basilisk was slithering into the chamber with them.
"Here," Ellie muttered, pulling off her sunglasses and handing them to Ginny. "Wear these."
Ginny blinked at them, confused, until finally she seemed to sort out the reason for them. She shook her head. "No. Keep them. I'm the reason for all this, Ellie—I deserve to die."
"No," said Ellie firmly, refusing to take them back. "I'm the reason for all this. I knew about the diary, and I did nothing about it. I'm so sorry, Ginny. Please just wear them. Please."
Ginny gave Ellie one last, reluctant look before putting on the sunglasses. Ellie reached for her locket, hoping to use the last moments of calm before the storm to say something to Fred, but dropped it again when she saw Tom's body stirring.
"Stupefy!" she shouted again, but it didn't seem to work quite as well this time. Tom seemed to be growing stronger by the minute—and Ginny seemed to be growing weaker.
And the basilisk in the room wasn't exactly helping.
Ellie sighed, whipping out the locket and fixing her gaze on Fred's wide, eager eyes. It helped, seeing them. It might be one of the last things she ever saw, and strangely enough, the thought gave her comfort.
"Tom Riddle is the Heir of Slytherin," she told him. "And he's Voldemort."
"What?" Fred demanded. "You—he—where's Ginny?"
"I'll do everything I can for her," she whispered. A tear dropped down her cheek, and she wiped it away, forcing a smile at him. "I love you."
And with that, she closed the locket again.
"How sweet," grumbled Tom as he stirred from his spot at the ground. She started to point her wand at him again, but he lifted a finger in warning. "Try it again, and I'll sick my basilisk on you faster than you can say 'Mudblood.'"
Reluctantly, Ellie lowered her wand. She glanced at Ginny, heart starting to pound. From the looks of things, Fred had been in McGonagall's office—nowhere near the Chamber. Harry hadn't shown up yet. In all likelihood, she and Ginny were alone in this—just as she had wanted.
If she was going to die, she at least had to die trying.
"Good," said Tom, rising to his feet. A smirk played at his lips as he said, "I'm still sicking the basilisk on you."
It was hard, working up the will to sing in that moment. It was hard to remember that her Perelli Charm existed, and even harder to feel the love and happiness required to make music. But she wasn't ready to die, and more importantly, she wasn't ready to let Ginny die. So she closed her eyes, thought of being on that stage with Fred, and sang the words to Everlong.
Not a moment too soon, she mused as she heard the deafening crunch of the basilisk's teeth sinking around the protection orb of her shield. She cringed in pain, clutching at her gut as she felt the effects of the shield deep within her. But she remained unscathed on the outside.
"A Perelli charm," observed Tom, looking impressed. "I tried my own hand at it while I was in school, but alas—it only works when performed by a parent onto an infant. Who did you say your father was, little girl?"
But she didn't answer him; if she did, her shield would disappear. It didn't matter, anyway, she supposed; this version of Voldemort was a memory who hadn't lived the same experiences his future self would. Anything he knew about her world, he only knew from Ginny.
"It's no matter," snarled Tom at her. "He may have thought he was doing you a favour, but it will only put a target on your back. The stronger your shield becomes, the more the Dark witches and wizards around you will take interest—just like the one before you."
She tried to ignore him and focus on her singing, but it was becoming harder and harder. She tried to recall McGonagall's words about the one person before her who had successfully been Perelli charmed. "'Successful' isn't the first word I'd choose," she had said to Dumbledore. At the time, Ellie had assumed she meant the charm wasn't all that strong. Now, though…
Her thoughts were forced to the backburner when she heard the panicked shouting of none other than Harry Potter off in the distance.
"Harry?" she shouted—forgetting, for a single instant, to sing. That instant was all Tom needed; he crashed into her, knocking her to the ground and reaching for her wand.
"Ellie!" Harry shouted, hearing the commotion and sprinting over to them. "Stupefy!" he casted at Tom, who was yet again knocked away from her.
"Harry!" she shouted, springing to her feet and grabbing him by the arms. She was relieved to see him, but also terrified for his safety. "Are you alone?"
He nodded. "Lockhart and Ron are on the other side of a cave-in—bit of a long story." His eyes trailed to Ginny, who was nearly unconscious by now. "What's going on?"
"It's Riddle," she said, trying to mask the fear from her voice and failing. "He's Voldemort, Harry—the memory of Voldemort, from back then."
A laugh sounded from Tom at that as he stooped slowly to his feet again. "You can both cast all the Stunning Spells you want at me," he cackled. "It won't change the outcome. I have a basilisk, and you have nothing."
But he was interrupted by one of the most beautiful sounds Ellie had ever heard—almost like a songbird. She blinked up at the source of the noise, careful not to look in the direction that she knew the basilisk was waiting, and gasped with amazement to see Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix. In his claws was the Sorting Hat.
"This is what Dumbledore sends his great defender?" chuckled Tom as Fawkes dropped the hat into Harry's outstretched hands. "A songbird and a hat?"
But that wasn't all Fawkes did. In an instant, the great bird soared over to the basilisk. Ellie didn't dare look, but she could hear the deafening cries of the monster as Fawkes attacked it—and then the subsequent, even louder cry of Tom.
"Your bird may have blinded my basilisk," growled Tom as Fawkes soared away from the beast, "but it can still hear you."
"He sent you the hat for a reason," Ellie whispered urgently to Harry. "Figure out why—I'll distract him."
And without waiting for a response, she shifted into her dog form and launched herself at Tom.
He was unbelievably strong by now, shoving her off him with ease. But she kept going for more, distracting him long enough for Harry to pull something out of the hat—a long, glittering sword.
"I've had enough of you," Tom snapped at Ellie's dog form, reaching for her neck. But she shifted back, diving away from him and pointing her wand at him again.
"Focus on the basilisk!" she shouted at Harry, who was far too distracted by worrying about Ellie. "I'll be fine! He doesn't have a wand!"
She hated having to leave Harry to fight a gigantic, fanged serpent on his own, but fighting a memory of Lord Voldemort wasn't exactly a treat, either, and Ginny was down for the count at that point.
They went on for several minutes like that. Harry climbed his way up the chamber walls, slashing here and there at the blinded basilisk, as Ellie switched alternated between her dog to her human forms, each time narrowly escaping Tom's clutches. Even without a wand, he was starting to use magic against her. She tried to stammer out a few lines of Everlong to protect herself as she fought him, and it seemed to do the trick, but she wasn't sure how much longer it would work.
Finally, she and Tom were both distracted by the piercing cries of both Harry and the basilisk. Ellie's eyes shot over to them, and she gasped when she saw it. Harry had successfully driven the sword up the roof of the beast's mouth, killing it, but at a cost: one of its fangs had driven its way into his arm.
"Harry!" she shrieked, sprinting up to him. She caught his body as it fell from the ledge, then yanked the basilisk fang from his arm. There was a lot of blood.
"Basilisk venom is deadly," said Tom gleefully as he watched her cradle Harry's body. "Within a few minutes, your little boyfriend will be dead—and the redhead along with him. How much longer do you think you can fend me off, little girl?"
Before she could answer him, Fawkes soared over to them, tiled his head toward Harry's wound, and closed his eyes. A bright, sparkling tear landed on Harry's wound, followed by another—and another.
"How touching," chuckled Tom. "Even the bird knows I've won."
But the bird wasn't just crying, Ellie realized as she stared down at Harry's wound. It was healing Harry.
Tom cursed as Harry slowly returned to his feet. "Of course—phoenix tears have healing patters. No matter—I could take two infants like you in my sleep."
But Ellie wasn't so sure he could. She felt stronger now, with Harry at her side and the basilisk dead. She'd been holding her own against Tom all this time; couldn't she defeat him now that they were together?
Only… how, exactly, did one defeat the memory of Lord Voldemort?
Harry seemed to have the answer. "Cover me," he whispered to Ellie, who obediently changed back into her dog form to launch herself at Tom once again. In the corner of her eye, she saw Harry stoop down to grab the basilisk fang, then dive over to Ginny's fallen body—more specifically, to the diary next to it. In one, swift motion, he stabbed the fang into the diary.
A blinding light appeared in the middle of Tom's body—the same spot Harry had stabbed the diary with.
"It's working!" Ellie shouted at him, having changed back into her human form to somersault away from Tom. Once glance at Ginny's slowly-stirring body told her that it was not only hurting Tom, but also healing Ginny. "Again!"
Harry stabbed the diary again—this time at the top. Another blinding light appeared, this time through Tom's head. As Harry stabbed at the diary again and again, ink spewed out from the pages—almost like blood.
Finally, the body of Tom Riddle disappeared entirely, leaving them staring at nothing but fragmented wisps of light.
Harry turned to Ellie, chest heaving. "You're okay?" he whispered.
She nodded.
He closed the distance between them in two long strides, grabbed her, and kissed her harder than she'd ever been kissed before.
Not so different from the original book in this chapter, but hey, we got our heroine in there, kicking ass! Interesting comments Tom made about the Perelli charm... we'll learn more about that in future books, but it's a nice taste of what's to come. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please leave a review if so!
