AN: So begins the cannon divergence and the general darkness of the fic. Last chance. Beware ye who enter.

A ginormous thank you to WithPatienceComesPeace for supporting me with the structure and a significant thing in this chapter. Without her, it wouldn't be was cannon divergent and I love it! Another big thank you to JujuGentle and M for beta-ing this as well. There were many a thing that came up :).


Chapter 1: Just Close Your Eyes


This is stupid. She shouldn't have come here. This wasn't a job for her - it was for the adults to deal with. And yet here she was in the bloody chamber, moving slowly and her heart near beating out of her chest. Where was Weasley?

Halley's heart was beating hard, so hard that she could feel the pulse at the base of her neck. It was an unsettling feeling, but it paled in comparison to standing in the tunnel, at the mouth of the large chamber.

She could see a large statue from where she was and she froze. Why was she here? There were teachers, adults, who should have been down here doing what they were supposed to.

She was a kid. She shouldn't be standing ankle-deep in sewer water and - was that blood?

Halley felt her breath quicken in time with her heartbeat and everything was dizzy and she couldn't -

Stop!

She needed to stop! This wasn't going to help anything right now and she couldn't afford to have a panic attack again. Not right now.

Halley steadied herself against a wall. It was slimy and cold with water trailing down it but categorising the sensations - no matter how much they made her want to shiver - was helping some.

Slippery. Wet. Tough. Crumbling rock. Fuzzy moss. Smooth wall.

Finally, her breath fell to a manageable pace and she looked up from the floor.

She pulled out her wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns so very aware of the click-clack her Mary Janes made on the stone floor. Halley cursed her choice of footwear. Slowly, oh so slowly, Halley levelled with the last pair of pillars; she came face to face with the Chamber itself.

It was larger than she expected - and the giant monkey face statue was more off-putting than she wanted it to be - but that could have been because the dim green lights made the shadows and crevices of the statue look like it was about to come alive.

As her eyes swept down the statue she saw a small black-robed figure lying on the floor and Halley's heart plummeted into her stomach. "Weasley?" she whispered. Even as soft as the whisper had been, it seemed to thunder through the Chamber's silence.

Halley glanced around her quickly to see if anyone was there, or if anyone had heard her, before levelling her wand and pointing it at the redhead.

She approached and cautiously kneeled next to her. "Weasley? Are you ok?" Halley placed her wand down beside her so that she could use both hands to turn the girl over. Weasley's face was white as marble and when Halley moved to check her pulse, she felt how cold she was.

She wasn't petrified, obviously, but her pulse was weak and if she was that cold, would she even be able to wake up?

"She won't wake," a soft voice said behind her.

Halley spun around. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. Halley froze. There was no one in the chamber when she'd looked. She hadn't heard any footsteps either. Where did he come from?

"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" Halley asked. There wasn't very much time. The girl was going to die if she didn't get her out of there, but Halley had a bad feeling about something. And if there was one thing she had decided to trust, it was the pit that formed in her gut and made it heavy.

"You don't recognise me?"

Halley took a moment to properly look at him. He was strangely blurred around the edges like she was seeing him through fog, or a misted window, but as she looked closer, she recognised him.

"Riddle?"

He smiled in response. But that memory was from half a decade ago and he still looked sixteen. "What are you?"

"A memory," said Riddle too quietly for Halley to clearly identify the bitterness, but she was sure that was what it was. She'd heard that tone coming from her own mouth more than enough times to be sure. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."

"What did you do to her?" she asked, slightly above a whisper.

He laughed. The sound reverberated around the room and Halley was struck by how pretty it sounded - how unconstrained. "Why do you think I did something to her?"

Halley looked at Weasley. Her face was pale and her eyes shut tight. Halley could vaguely see her chest moving up and down, so she was still alive, but it was a barely-there motion which made her wonder how long it would last.

And she couldn't answer Riddle's question. For some reason, she was sure that the two were linked.

So how was she going to get her away from Riddle?

"You didn't answer my question," Riddle said, his head tilted to one side.

Halley swallowed and held onto all the training the last two years as a Slytherin had given her as firmly as she could. "Woman's intuition," she replied calmly.

"I see."

Halley tried to look behind her but she didn't want to turn her back to Riddle. Instead, she slowly moved her hand out to where her wand was lying only to find that it wasn't there anymore .

But it was, somehow, in Riddle's hand.

He was twirling her wand between his long slender fingers. The black of the wood made them even paler than she thought they were.

Halley swallowed. "Can I have my wand back please?"

"You asked so nicely, I could almost hand it over." Riddle looked at the wand closely, inspecting it, and Halley had a sudden fear that he would try and claim it as his own. "Except that I don't think I would see you again Miss Potter."

"Do you want your own wand?" she asked. "Is that what you want? I could help you get one."

Riddle smiled and shook his head. "A kind offer but no. I have a proposition for you."

He took a step closer and it made it all the more noticeable to Halley that she was crouched on the floor over Ginevra Weasley, trying to listen for any change in Weasley's breathing, and somehow keep them safe. But she was utterly defenceless. Her breath hitched.

"It may not be the best time. The Basilisk could come at any moment."

"She won't come until she's called," he said calmly.

"How do you know that?" Halley asked. She was still very aware that it was becoming harder to hear Weasley's breaths.

Riddle looked at her intently. "Intuition."

Halley shuddered at the mocking lilt in his voice.

"I have a proposition for you, Miss Potter."

"What is it?"

"Have you ever been trapped somewhere Halley?" he asked, as he walked around the girl. He knew her eyes were on him and it made Tom feel powerful, like he hadn't felt in a long while. "And no matter what you do, you can't be free."

"Yes," she said.

"It's torturous, isn't it?" he asked.

Halley didn't know what to say. This was a new kind of behaviour, one that she didn't know how to deal with. The closest she'd come to seeing it was with Dumbledore; placing himself above the conversation by stating all these questions that she was never going to get an answer to.

"I've waited an incredibly long time to escape."

"Is that why you made her open the Chamber?" Halley asked. Was it a bad idea that she kept drawing the attention back to Weasley? She had a sinking feeling that it was, but she just didn't know what else to do.

Why was she there?

"No. Not at first. When Ginny found the diary, I wanted to fulfil Slytherin's great work." Riddle glanced down at her green and black tie. "You would know."

"What would I know?" she asked unhappily. This was not the time to play games and he kept talking, and Weasley was - she wasn't breathing now.

"You know that there's an imbalance at Hogwarts." Halley hadn't expected those words to come out of his mouth. "Muggleborns treated like low-lives, disposable. Expectations are placed on them and when they fail to meet them because they have not learnt things quickly enough - because things are too different, too difficult, they are cast aside. But Purebloods are losing their ways. The Old Tradition is dying out because it is too Dark for the students to learn."

Halley grit her teeth. "What has that got to do with Slytherin?" she asked.

"Slytherin was not against Muggleborns learning. What he was against was the customs they brought with them. Year by year, our traditions dulled until they became shadows of themselves. So if the Muggleborns were unwilling to learn, and the Purebloods were unwilling to teach, what other way is there than to stifle the flow of Muggleborns."

But - but -

Her brain was jammed. All that was going around in her head were the thoughts that had echoed there over the last two years. What he was saying rang too true to her; she had seen it.

But that didn't mean he had to kill people. He didn't need to eradicate Muggleborns. And he certainly hadn't needed to bring Weasley down there to die.

But she couldn't panic. She needed to stay calm and deal with what was right in front of her.

"Why did you need her then?" She watched his eyes slide over the two of them and it made her want to protect Weasley but she didn't dare move.

He was still circling. They were his prey. And right now, he still had Halley's wand.

"I don't think you'd like the answer," he chuckled.

Halley bit down on her lip as she saw the smirk on his mouth. His mouth that seemed to be fuller and less translucent than it had been when she first saw him.

In fact, all of him seemed more solid.

With a start, Halley reached for Weasley's pulse point. It was still icy. But there was nothing there.

Her heart raced again and Halley forced back tears.

Ginny was dead.

There was nothing she could do about that now. Nothing. But she needed to figure out a way to get herself out before something else happened.

"What did you do to her?" she asked coldly.

"Ginny wrote in the diary. All of her hopes, her fears, her dreams, her tears. She poured out her soul into the book and I took what was offered." All the while he spoke, he watched the girl's pale face get paler. And Halley's hands started shaking.

"You took her soul?" Halley asked. It sounded hollow to her ears and she wondered if she was in shock. This didn't feel like the shock she was used to. No. There was more confusion to it. "Why?"

"A soul is raw energy."

"So you...you used Ginny's? To make yourself a body?" she asked.

Riddle laughed. "Very close. It seems like you're a clever one, Miss Potter."

Halley waited for him to continue but he didn't. Somehow it felt like there was a divide in her mind. A half of it was focused exclusively on Riddle and her wand still in his hand. He'd stopped fiddling with it now, but every so often she saw his fingers stroke down the wood. It was disconcerting to watch but she didn't know why.

The other half of her mind belatedly realised that she still had her hand on Ginny's cold body - only it wasn't so cold anymore and it wasn't because she was miraculously coming back to life.

No.

The body was soaking up the heat of Halley's own hand.

The nauseous feeling that slithered into her body was sluggish as well, and for a moment it was all she could do to jerk her hand away from Ginny's body.

As soon as she did, she remembered that Riddle was still paying very close attention to her and his - her - wand was now raised towards her.

Was she going to die by her own wand?

A bitter laugh forced itself out her mouth and with her brain still too fuzzy to really pay attention to anything else but the fact that she was amid a threat and death, and no one was going to come and get her.

Was this worse than Uncle Vernon's beatings? she wondered as she stood up shakily, a hand on her knee to steady her. Her Mary-Jane's clicked delicately as she stood up. She wasn't sure. It was certainly more convoluted than how she'd expected to die.

But what could she do? Nothing had trained her for this. Standing at the end of her own wand and watching a memory-come-to-life look at her with bemusement.

No-one would come - no-one would come for her - till she's called.

Tom watched her stand with interest. This girl, this child who had somehow beaten his grown self, did not seem so neatly under Dumbledore's thumb. The disregard of the Weasley chit's body was not the response she should have shown. And the girl was in Slytherin. Maybe he could use her.

"Are you ready to listen to my proposition now, Miss Po-"

Halley rushed him.

With enough momentum she pushed him back and down. She heard a dull thud and a hiss of pain. " Come out - come eat!" she hissed.

She used that moment to scramble up and try and grab her wand but Riddle was too quick.

He grappled her and rolled them around, pinning her wrists above her head in one of his own and pointed the wand at her throat, smacking her head against the stone floor in the process.

" That hurt, " he hissed out.

The sound of stone moving against stone echoed out and made the both of them turn towards the origin. The gigantic stone face was moving - its mouth opening wider by the second and even in its darkness Halley could see something stirring and slithering in its depth.

Riddle's eyes cut to the girls. "How did you do that?" he yelled.

She didn't answer.

The Basilisk's body hit the stone floor and Halley felt it shudder. Behind her closed eyes, she could almost imagine the Basilisk uncoiling and rearing its large head.

"Stop," she heard. "You are not needed."

"I am hungry," it hissed back angrily.

Halley felt something come near her. It was more the presence of something large, but she swore she could almost feel it brush against her fingertips. She didn't dare struggle against Riddle now.

"Take the dead one," he said.

Halley's heart sunk. " No! "

"Quiet!" Riddle shouted. The word bounced off the walls, repeating the order again and again and again. "Your food is there."

"Food!"

Halley heard the sound of scales slithering along the stone floor, further away from them but closer to Weasley. It wouldn't! He wouldn't let it!

She felt Riddle's body shift and suddenly she was yanked into a sitting position. He'd moved behind her and as the cool air rushed onto her face, she felt his lips against the shell of her ear.

"Won't you watch, Potter?" he asked. "This was your idea, after all." There was steel lacing his voice, undercut by anger and Halley shuddered.

She wouldn't. She wouldn't watch.

"Do you know how snakes feed?" he asked, his lips the shell of her ear. "They wrap their bodies around their prey, generating a bone-crushing pressure. Right now, Ginny's ribs, her skull, her arms and legs, they're all cracking. Can you hear it?"

She could. Crack after crack, almost pulsing in time, vibrating around her, burrowing its way into her skull. " Please," she whispered. Riddle laughed and she covered her ears trying to block out the sound but she could still hear his laugh and the cracks in her brain.

Halley couldn't help it. She opened her eyes just a fraction. And just in time to see the Basilisk swallow Weasley whole - head first - before she shut them again.

A moment later she heard the Basilisk again. "More!" it demanded.

"Return to your nest," Riddle said.

"More!"

"You will listen to your heir," she heard through her hand-covered ears.

She removed her hands and heard the Basilisk hiss, but she couldn't understand it. It took her a moment to realise that it was the sound of pure animalistic fury rather than a legible word and it struck her with terror.

For four excruciating seconds it seemed like Riddle was not going to be able to control the snake and Halley felt herself tremble in fear, eyes still closed and nowhere to run.

But the four seconds passed and she heard the same grinding slither move away from her. The sound of stone grinding and one last snarl. Then it was like nothing had happened.

"You're a Parstlemouth," Riddle said tightly, but it was muffled by the sound of her heart beating too quickly in her ears.

Halley opened her eyes. There was a flash of bright light and double vision. She felt dizzy. And then it passed.

Ginny was dead.

Ginny had been - she was dead.

And it was Halley's fault.

She blinked. Her eyes were very wet and there was a salty-metallic flavour in her mouth.

She was breathing very hard. Too hard. It was happening again. She could feel it.

But just like all the other times, she couldn't stop it.

"What are you doing?" Riddle yelled.

What was she doing? Halley wasn't sure. She just knew that she was still lying on the floor and wasn't able to breathe properly.

Her mouth was wet but her throat was dry and when she tried to swallow there was just more metallic sliding down her throat. She was swallowing her own blood.

She looked up. His face was contorted into sharp edges and shadows that were tinted a pale, sickly green that made him look menacing and she felt her heart race too much again.

Tom sneered. He needed to make her comply and having a panic attack was not going to do that. He all but wished he could just dispose of her now, but he couldn't know what it would do to his new form. And she was a Parselmouth. He had little idea what that connoted or meant but he was sure it was important.

Besides, if the Girl Who Lived died then who knew what Dumbledore would do and he needed to be as far ahead of the fool as possible.

He opened his mouth to cast a spell but froze.

Music was coming distantly from somewhere in the Chamber. Tom remembered all too clearly what the song of the Phoenix sounded like. It was eerie as it echoed off the walls. And it made the hair on the back of his neck stand to attention.

Dumbledore was near.

He heaved the girl up by her robes and planted her on her feet. It took too much to get her to stand by herself and every second she refused to cooperate was time wasted.

"Listen to me! Listen!" Tom jostled her but she was still crying. It was too much to deal with - Dumbledore was near if that stupid bird was anything to go by.

Though it was interesting to Tom that it had taken this long for the man to get to them; it would be something to file away for another time. He could not be seen as he was.

The girl was still crying though - large angry wracking sobs were making her shudder in his grasp. On reflex, Tom's hand struck her smartly across the face. There was enough force that it split her lip open. The blood was bright against her pale face and a few strands of her hair caught in the tacky substance. "Will you cooperate?"

Halley swallowed and blinked back the tears. The slap recalled memories of danger and on instinct, she shut up quickly. But it was something she also knew how to deal with - this response was one she was familiar with. Be silent and keep your wits about you or you could end up in a very bad way.

What was she going to do? Dumbledore was coming but she didn't know how long it would take. And Riddle could kill her in a fraction of a second!

She didn't want to die. She didn't want to rot in this miserable place or be buried somewhere next to her parents. She didn't want the pity associated with her name.

Halley Potter was not something to be pitied or manipulated. She wouldn't be!

"Yes," she said firmly.

Tom let her go and began conjuring everything he needed. Halley watched and despite herself was amazed at the magic on display.

In the blink of an eye, a Basilisk was laying on the floor. The enormous serpent would have been a bright poisonous green, except it was charred and most of its scaled skin was black as tar. The sound of stone cracking made her yelp and she whipped her head around to see that Riddle was the cause of it.

The diary was there too. It was just on the far side of the Basilisk and it was lying in a pool of ink in a manner that looked disturbingly like blood. The diary was also scorched into a near-unrecognisable heap of paper and leather.

The picture was clear enough that Halley could figure it out, but then Riddle turned his - her - wand on her and she felt herself choke. "What are you doing?"

"Imperio."

Everything felt hazy, but not the hazy that Halley was used to. This one was calm and after all the chaos and fear, she just wanted to stay there.

She heard a voice - it was soothing and lulling. She could listen to it, for hours if she were allowed. She wanted to do what the voice said. It knew what it was doing.

You want to stay calm. You will stay calm. You will tell everyone that you don't remember what happened. You won't look Dumbledore in the eye. You will say nothing about what really took place here.

She heard a caw, and she turned from Riddle's constructed images to look up at where the sound had come from. And then things went black.


AN: Told you it was cannon divergent. Do you still wanna read? I'd love to hear your thoughts in a review if you're so inclined. Enjoy your week, the next chapter will be up on Friday.