"Turn here," Tom said insistently in Harry's head. Harry scoffed and turned obediently.
"You better not be lying, Tom," he hissed under his breath.
"Why would I lie to you, Harry? Look, it's just there."
"There's nothing here but a wall, Tom."
"You're not doing it right. You really have to think about how much you need the room. Think about your poor friend in the infirmary." Harry was trying hard not to think about Hermione's frozen form on her bed in the infirmary. The image appeared in his mind anyway and his gut flipped with the guilt. He should have told her what he knew, told her about the basilisk. She would never have been near the library researching. There was no way he could help her the way he did with Collin without implicating himself in the attacks. If all of them recovered while he was in the infirmary, it wouldn't take long for anyone to put two and two together. His only choice was to end the attacks with his own hands. With Tom's help, he would have to power to face the basilisk.
"Well I'll be damned," Harry said as the door to the Room of Requirement appeared before him. He could just imagine Tom's snobbish grin spreading over his face. He stepped into the room and found himself standing in an expansive training room with mirror walls and training dummies.
"Not a word," Harry said as Tom appeared before him.
"Please, Harry, gloating is beneath me."
"Your face says it all." Tom merely shrugged and looked about the room.
"What is this place? Are you sure no one can find us in here?"
"It's an unplottable room that Hogwarts will only lend to those who absolutely need it. It's what I call the old girl's rebellious side. Not even Dumbledore can get in here, though I'm certain he knows about it."
"Good. He's been watching me too closely since the holidays ended." It was true. Though Dumbledore made every assurance during their chat in his office that he was under no suspicion, the headmaster had suddenly appeared around every corner during his free periods.
"You called for a training room?"
"You were going to teach me, right?"
"Yes, but I didn't think we would reach offensive spellwork for a few weeks at least. You're a second year, right? You can't be past tickling hexes and I dunno, incendio yet."
Harry sighed, lifted an arm and aimed it straight at a training dummy. The dummy exploded into tiny shards of metal. Tom nodded his head and raised his eyebrows.
"My, my, you are powerful. A wandless, silent reducto." Tom raised his own hand against another dummy and closed his fingers into a tight fist. This time, the dummy dissolved quietly and efficiently into tiny particles of dust. Harry's eyes widened and his breathing sped up as he watched it happen. He could see how Tom's magic infiltrated the dummy and took it apart, but he couldn't even begin imagine how Tom had managed it.
"How'd you do that?" He turned to Tom expectantly.
"Oh the exact same things you did, except I maintained greater control over my magic. I didn't use more power or a different spell. The intent was the same, but the execution was a more efficient use of magic. That Sight of yours, Harry. You could see everything I did?" Harry nodded, confused.
"It's holding you back, Harry. You can see everything, but you can't feel it. Are you aware of exactly where your magic is going and what it's doing? Can you track it from origin to destination? Close your eyes and try it." Harry did as he was told and tried the spell again. Trying to locate the dummy by feel was a great deal harder and directing his magic to do as he pleased was even harder. When he finally made contact with the dummy, he found it difficult to take the dummy apart, not for lack of power, but because he couldn't maintain the spell long enough to get through the entire dummy. When he opened his eyes again, only the dummy's arm lay in a pile of dust on the floor. It had taken him almost five minutes.
"So your problem is stamina and focus. You've had it too easy with the Sight and you're relying on it entirely too much. Come, come. Sit with me." Tom plopped lightly onto the floor in one graceful movement and Harry followed, sitting cross legged across from him. He conjured a pile of sand in between them and closed his eyes. Harry looked at him with a boggled expression that he wiped off his face when the sand began to move. The whole mound of sand moved like water in the air and the individual particles picked themselves up, spreading themselves out until they hung in the air all around the room. Harry could see that every grain had a magical thread holding it up still and completely without motion. Tom still hadn't moved. In the next moment, the grains of sand moved faster than even he could see and rejoined in the air between them, compressing to form a perfect sphere of solid glass. Tom opened his eyes and laughed.
"Remember to breathe, Harry." Harry released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. They spent the next hour working on that exercise, training Harry's stamina and focus by forcing him to hold up the sand with multiple streams of magic farther and farther away from his body.
"Alright, you can stop before you hurt yourself," Tom said at last. Harry dropped the sand in an ungraceful heap and flopped back onto the ground to stretch out his fatigued muscles. It was more exertion than he had to endure during quidditch practice.
"You've come remarkably far considering your age," Tom said, flopping down at Harry's side. "You're quite fortunate you came into your talent and suitable instruction at your age. I only wish I had your youth."
"No you don't," Harry laughed. "Snape keeps telling me to tone it down because I'm too young. I burned my hand after I overdid it once. Guess he was right."
"Ah, but he didn't know how to teach you. It's all about pacing. Efficiency over power. That is how to go about it. I had a similar experience when I was your age."
"You? How?"
"Oh yes I burned all of the skin off of the palm of my hand trying to cast a particularly advanced bit of magic. I had to tell the nurse at the time that I'd touched a potions cauldron on accident. I'm surprised I got away with it."
"That makes you sound old."
"I've been sixteen for fifty years, Harry," Tom chuckled, "I am old."
"You've been asleep in the diary, though. How much do you know about how the world is now?"
Tom shrugged, and said, "I got enough out of the minds of those two girls. In truth, not much has changed. The wizarding world tends to be that way. The Weasley girl, she was worrying about her father surviving in the ministry and she poured her heart out to me in that diary about her little crush on you."
"Oh no," Harry groaned, "I hope you didn't encourage that."
"Don't worry, I only said enough to possess her. The Greengrass girl was worrying about the same things. Her father was running into some trouble in the ministry and she was quite upset about having to marry another pureblood her father picked out for her. It's all the same no matter what decade it is. It's as if I never left."
Harry and his friends watched from afar weeks later as solicitor Lawson escorted Hagrid from castle grounds, fighting Fudge with every step.
"Minister, there is no evidence of my client's involvement with the recent attacks on the school, nor has there ever been any evidence that he was behind the attacks from fifty years ago," Lawson shouted. Her calm, concise voice projected as far as the sundial garden where Harry and the others hid. Fudge yelled something too mangled by his anger for any of them to make out. Hagrid only stood by looking quite scared and confused.
"They're suspending the headmaster too, you know," Ron said, whimpering slightly. Beside him, Neville made a similar noise and bounced frustratedly.
"The headmaster's the only person around here who could take on a basilisk," he said, "and if he's not around, the attacks are only going to get worse."
"Father says the board is talking about shutting down the school for inspection," Draco said, frowning deeply.
"I don't like it," Pansy said, bundling herself up tighter against the wind, "and I'm scared. Let's go back to Myrtle's bathroom."
"No, we shouldn't," Harry said too quickly. The others pinned him with a strange look.
"Don't you see? The pipes. Hermione tried to warn us about the pipes. Myrtle died in that bathroom because she saw the basilisk as it came out through the bathroom pipes."
"Now that you mention it," Draco interjected, "I haven't seen Myrtle lately. She hasn't made an appearance in a long time."
"She's scared, Draco," Harry said. "After Nearly Headless Nick was attacked, she probably hid so she wouldn't get caught next." The group huddled closer together, all of them feeling Hermione's loss just then.
"Wake up, Harry. Wake up!" Tom's voice echoed deafeningly in his head. Harry sat bolt upright and he gulped, trying to keep the sick down. His head ached and his scar prickled menacingly. Tom knelt before him and cast lumos, creating a floating orb of light in his hand. Harry brought a hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden bright light. Tom raised his free hand to cast privacy charms on the bed hangings in order to stifle the light and the sound of Harry's laboured breathing. Harry's eyes adjusted and he could see the look on Tom's face.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Harry drew up his knees and buried the heels of his palms into his eyes in an attempt to banish his uncle's face from his mind. He shook himself to rid the ghost of Vernon's meaty hands. Tom blinked and sank a little bit, unsure of what he should do or say.
"Harry, look at me," he coaxed. "Come on, meditate with me like we always do."
"I don't think I can, Tom," Harry rasped.
"Trust me." Harry unfolded himself and met Tom's eyes. Tom dove into Harry's mind and helped Harry reach a meditative state and they sat together, postures mirroring each other until Harry was calm again. Harry woke the next morning, unsure of when he'd fallen asleep or how he ended up lying down under the covers. It was still early and Tom was dormant in his diary. He heard someone yelp outside and poked his head out to investigate. Ron was on the floor, glaring menacingly at his wand.
"Ron, are you alright?" Harry climbed out of his bed to help Ron to his feet.
"Yeah, this bloody wand broke again. I've tried everything."
"What were you trying to cast?"
"Lumos. You know we have a quiz today in Charms. If I can't do the spell, Flitwick'll flunk me. I even got up early to do it." Harry grimaced and took Ron's wand from him, its pieces barely holding themselves together. Ron borrowed his wand for some of his school work, but his wand didn't work as well for Ron and his marks were lower than usual as a result.
"Let me try fixing it again, Ron. I feel really bad about breaking it." Harry closed his eyes and tried again to fix it, only this time, he concentrated on pulling all the pieces and the core back together down to the individual strands of magic. It wasn't all that different than piecing together grains of sand into a glass ball.
"Blimey, I reckon that worked," Ron said, taking the wand from Harry's hand. Even Harry was astonished. Ron cast the spell and whooped when its tip glowed triumphantly, shining through the gray morning sunlight. Later on in the day, Harry was allowed to leave Charms earlier than the rest of the class when he completed the quiz within the first ten minutes. He made a determined detour towards the Room of Requirement.
"Finally," Tom said, appearing again before Harry.
"You only nagged at me to bring you here the whole time I was trying to take a test," Harry groused.
"Oh sod it, you know you could have passed that pathetic excuse for a test with your eyes closed. I need to talk to you, Harry."
"What about?"
"That dream you had," he began. Harry's face flushed with embarrassment and Tom halted. "Harry, that's not- what I'm trying to say is that I think it might be my fault that you're having these dreams." Harry looked up, confused.
"No, there's no way you could be causing any of those dreams, Tom. I've always slept badly. You just caught me on a bad night."
"Harry, listen to me. I know how much energy you're spending supporting me, allowing me to possess part of you. It's starting to affect you."
"I can handle it, Tom. You said yourself my stamina was getting better."
"Yes, but that's not all. I'm hurting you just be being here. Your scar hurts you, right? It's because I'm-"
"Voldemort, yes," Harry interrupted. Tom straightened, looking for the first time completely thrown off and confused. "I've known, Tom. I'm not stupid. Who else could have gone to Hogwarts in the 40's, been a parselmouth, and also happen to be incredibly powerful?" Harry laughed at Tom's expression.
"Why haven't you tried to kill me? I've done horrible things to you."
"Correction, your older, crazier self did."
"Harry, I killed your parents. I saw in the others' minds what I did to you, what I did to so many other people." Harry held up a finger to stop Tom's next words.
"Like I said, it wasn't you, not this you, anyway."
"I'm a-"
"A piece of a soul, yeah, I know. I'm a necromancer, remember?" Harry could tell that both he and Tom were getting annoyed, so he looked into Tom's eyes and gave him all the knowledge he had on his soul pieces and Dumbledore's treachery.
"I ran into the older you last year," Harry said as he conveyed the memories. He fished out the toy soldier from the pouch that still hung around his neck. Tom's gaze shifted fearfully to the tiny aluminum figure.
"I don't know what would happen if I tried to join you to this piece," Harry said, eyes darkening with thought, "and I can't guarantee that you wouldn't try to kill me even if I got rid of the madness corrupting it. Your soul is a hell of a lot bigger than the piece I put in here, but I don't know how much you would change. I only know that you would be powerful. Very powerful."
Tom stared hungrily at the toy and he could sense part of himself beating in it, but shook his head.
"I don't want to do it. Not yet, anyway." Harry tucked the toy away, slightly relieved that he wouldn't have to test out his theories right then.
"The madness I took away was unnatural," Harry said, "as if something insanely powerful broke your mind. It probably happened when you were just starting out with the Death Eaters."
Tom shook his head and fixed his gaze on Harry. "No, some of those things were part of my plans, Harry. I planned on killing a lot of people to split my soul. I'm not sure how many I made, but there were quite a few judging from how small you say my soul is. The Death Eaters were always part of the plan because I needed a force of radicals to scare the wizarding public into realizing the current system wasn't working. I just don't understand how it ended up being as senseless as the war ended up being. My Death Eaters, the ones that I trained, were not crazy, bigoted murderers. Well, they might have been murderers, but they were principled ones."
"That's why I'm telling you that something went wrong, like with the basilisk," Harry insisted. "I don't know what happened yet, but something really powerful, more powerful than me or you broke your mind and ruined your plans."
"You think it was Dumbledore?"
"I don't know, maybe, but he did a lot to me to make me distrust him."
"Where does that leave us?"
"We shouldn't be fighting. You wouldn't have killed my parents if you'd been sane."
"You don't know that."
"No, but I'd like to believe it. I know you. You've been living in my head. You wouldn't have done those things." Harry neglected to make any mention of the prophecy.
A few weeks later, Ginny and Daphne went missing and the bloody message promising their deaths in the Chamber appeared on the wall.
"I thought you were the one possessing them," Harry hissed under his breath. He was hiding behind a corner with Draco as the teachers notified the Weasleys of their sister's disappearance.
"I was, but the basilisk can take advantage of the psychic link I established with them. You've heard this hissing lately. She's insane."
"Oh good Lord they're going to trust Lockhart to save Ginny and Daphne?" Draco said from behind him. "Wait until I tell father. The ministry and a team of aurors should be handling a possible kidnapping in a school, not an incompetent teacher."
"He's going to run for it, I just know it," Harry said, watching Lockhart retreat for his classroom. "Go send an owl to your father. I'll follow Lockhart and make sure he doesn't try anything stupid. Meet me in Myrtle's bathroom." He bolted after Lockhart.
"Professor, are you really going to-" Harry stopped in his tracks just inside the defense classroom when he found himself face to face with the tip of Lockhart's wand.
"You, Potter," Lockhart spat, all of his charm gone and replaced by an ugly grimace, "are the reason why I'm stuck in this mess. You have humiliated me for the last time. I know you and your little group have been snooping around looking for the Chamber. You must have found it. Where is it?"
Harry only smirked and shut the door behind him, locking it with a wave of his hand. He took a few confident steps forward, not at all intimidated by Lockhart's trembling wand.
"I do know where the Chamber is, professor," Harry said, getting ever closer to Lockhart. "If I showed you, what would you do to me?"
Lockhart laughed manically and said, "I'd leave your body down there to rot while I sealed the Chamber and blamed the attacks on you, of course. You speak snake. That's enough to convince most people it was you." Harry laughed again and shook his head. He lifted an arm and cast a modified body bind curse.
"What are you doing?" Lockhart panicked, barely able to move his mouth. His eyes bugged out in fear and all the veins in his neck stood out with strain as he tried to free himself. Harry didn't bother explaining anything to him. He looked into Lockhart's soul and ripped it from his body, leaving his body an empty shell. He anchored the soul to a stray bit of chalk he found lying on Lockhart's desk.
"You wanted a body, Tom?" Tom appeared at his side and eyed Harry with an impressed smirk.
"You didn't kill him."
"No, I did something far worse. I took his soul away. Go make yourself at home." Harry launched Tom's soul into Lockhart's body and released his curse.
"Hello, Tom," Harry said as Tom examined his new vessel. Tom smiled back and somehow, he liked the expression on Lockhart's face better knowing it was Tom. They sprinted to the girls' restroom and found Ron and Malfoy waiting apprehensively.
"My father went to the ministry. He'll be back soon with all of the aurors he can muster," Malfoy said, voice quivering in time with his shoulders.
"Professor Lockhart, are you sure you can take this thing on?" Harry turned to Tom and gave him a meaningful look. Harry hissed suddenly and fell to his knees, hand clutching his scar.
"Harry! What's wrong, mate," Ron stammered. Tom took a handful of Harry's cloak and wrenched him to his feet before leveling his wand at Ron and Malfoy.
"Lockhart isn't here, boy," Tom spat convincingly. "Bow before your lord, the heir of Slytherin." Before either of them could react, Tom knocked them out with stunners. He released Harry and shrugged, ignoring Harry's raised eyebrows.
"Bow before your lord?"
"What else was I supposed to say? Muahaha I'm Voldemort?" Harry rolled his eyes,
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Tom and Harry stood together in front of the chamber door.
"I am. I'm ready." Tom nodded and hissed. The locks groaned as the long unused bolts slid back and the door swung open.
"Keep your eyes to the ground. I'll try to talk to her. If it doesn't work, you need to take the girls and run." Harry didn't like the tone of Tom's voice.
"You have to promise me you'll follow the plan," Harry said, fisting a hand in Tom's robes. "You get close enough to land a killing blow and you get out of Lockhart's body before her fangs get you."
"Trust me." Harry's fingers lost their grip and Tom stepped resolutely through the portal. Harry followed, regretting every step he took. They walked briskly through the enormous chamber, flanked by sculptures of snakes, in a grim procession.
"I found this place in my second year," Tom said over his shoulder, "and it was like my very own private sanctuary. The basilisk was my friend and she knew me."
"I'm sorry we have to kill her." Tom looked back at him with sad eyes.
"I'm sorry you had to be here." They came to a stop in front of Daphne and Ginny. Both lay petrified in front of a giant statue of Salazar Slytherin. They held each other as they never imagined they would, expressions frozen in fear.
"I'm here. Please come out," Tom hissed. Slytherin's mouth opened and the snake slid out with its eyes closed.
"My child. You return at last." The basilisk's raspy voice echoed around the chamber. "Your wear a different skin, but I know my child."
"I found a body, Lady," Tom said softly as a child would speak to his mother. "These girls need to go home." The basilisk's head wavered back and forth.
"They cannot. I brought them for you, child. Take their flesh and be whole again."
"Stop this," Tom pleaded. "This does nothing. I found a body. We don't have to do this." The basilisk continued to writhe.
"They must die. The killing must continue. Take their blood, their flesh, their souls. Take them apart."
"I will not. You will obey. Please."
"If you will not take them, then I will make you take them." She lunged.
"Harry, go!" Tom cast a powerful stunner that pushed the basilisk back a few feet. Harry levitated the girls and ran for the entrance. Outside of the portal, he set them down and ran back against his own instincts for Tom. What he saw dismayed him. The basilisk had Tom pinned to his back on the floor and his wand lay covered in blood just beyond his reach. Tom had managed to gore the basilisk's eyes.
"Hey ugly!" Harry hissed, flinging a cutting curse at her belly. She hissed in pain and released Tom from her considerable weight, whipping her tail in the direction of Harry's voice. The end of her tail made contact and her scales cut into Harry's side as he turned to run. Harry spun in the air and landed hard, face first onto the ground. He scrambled to his feet and shuffled backwards as the basilisk advanced on him. The moisture on the chamber floor made the marble slick and Harry could find no purchase. He fell with his wand pointed defensively in front of him. He could hear Tom screaming frantically for Harry to run as he assaulted the basilisk from behind.
Harry gave up on his wand after several cutting curses failed to make more than superficial cuts to the basilisk's face and instead started shooting incendiary curses with his bare hands. The fire sizzled as it met the basilisk's flesh and the sickening stench of burned flesh filled Harry's nostrils. He fired dozens of curses, but the basilisk continued her slow advance towards him. She reached him and reared up to strike when suddenly, a warm and heavy body blocked her from view and a sickening wetness dripped onto his face. He looked up to find Tom's body shielding him protectively from the basilisk's fangs, which protruded from his shoulder. Tom grunted and cast a point blank blasting curse at the basilisk's snout, dislodging its fangs from his shoulder.
Harry's breath came in short huffs. His body couldn't decide whether it wanted to cry or scream. Tom slumped to the ground with a thud and Harry realized Tom wouldn't be able to get out of Lockhart's body in time. He scrambled to Tom's side and searched desperately for Tom's soul, grasping for it before it could leave him. Harry couldn't tell how long he sat holding Lockhart's prone form, keeping him alive, keeping Tom tethered. His efforts were rewarded with the shredded remains of Tom, which he held delicately in his hands. The soul was all there, but weak and structurally compromised. From his robes, Harry produced the tiny soldier. He merged the two horcruxes together hastily and glued the pieces back together. Tom screamed and his soul surged from Lockhart's body, a mass of confusion and anger. Harry couldn't hold him long enough to anchor him to anything and Tom's soul flew away in a blur. Harry was alone.
"My child," the basilisk keened. Harry started, whipping his head around to find that the thing was still alive, if only just. Harry stood on wobbly legs and clutched at the gash on his side. He limped to the basilisk in a rage and fired any curse he could think of at it. The basilisk grew more incensed with every curse and charged at him. She knocked Harry off of his feet again a few feet away and started advancing on him again. Harry struck his arms out trying to get up again when his fingers found something soft and leathery. It was the sorting hat with the hilt of a sword glinting in the dim light of the chamber. The sword he saw in Dumbledore's office. Above him, Fawkes the phoenix trilled his song and ignited a pool of burning rage in Harry's stomach. Dumbledore's bird, Dumbledore's sword. He knew where Harry was, knew what he was confronting, and sent a bird and a sword.
Harry grasped the sword in his too-small hand, his blood settling into the grooves of its hilt, and flung it away from him. He stood and stalked towards the basilisk, his blood roaring in his ears. The basilisk struck out and embedded her fangs in Harry's shoulder. He stuck the length of his arm down her throat and sent a destructive cyclone of magic down the length of her body, eviscerating her internal organs as it went. He kept rigorous control over his magic as it went and took apart everything. The basilisk writhed and shrieked once before it stilled and flopped unmoving to the floor, taking Harry with it. The fangs slid away and Harry cried out for the first time, all of the pain hitting him at once. Above him, Fawkes glided to his side and looked at him disapprovingly, as if to say, "You should have taken the sword."
"You must feel like this all the time," Harry said, clenching his teeth against the burn of the venom. "You've died so many times. This must be a cakewalk for you." He could feel the blood pooling in his lungs.
Fawkes bent his head and cried, leaking warm tears into the wounds. Fawkes's magic cut away the venom like mighty warriors, but could only do so much. His wounds stayed open and bled, but he would live. Harry laughed weakly and rolled onto his knees. He crawled slowly to Lockhart's body and fished the chalk from his pockets.
Tie his soul to his body. To put a soul back into its body long after it has gone is to create a soldier. He will be strong and he will be ruthless. He will obey.
Harry forced Lockhart's soul back into his dead body and it lurched, convulsing as its skin blackened and shrunk against its bones. Lockhart's face turned sallow and his eyes snapped open in fear.
"What have you done to me?" His voice rasped as if from another world.
"Go find Voldemort and help him. Obey him and protect him." Lockhart went rigid and stood with more strength than he ever had in life. He left the chamber and Harry slumped to the floor, awake long enough to watch his retreating footsteps.