Chapter Thirty-Seven: A True Hero
Severus took a deep breath and then jumped in after his son and after they both landed on the ground, he turned over to face him. "Remember, any sign of movement close your eyes straight away!" He exclaimed.
"I know Dad." Harry replied as they both started walking down the tunnel together side by side guided by the light of their wands.
"I swear that James Potter is probably rolling in his grave right now." Severus said as he started wondering to himself if Harry was this brave and adventurous at age twelve, what would he be like when he was older?" Eventually they both found the opening to The Chamber of Secrets and once again Harry told it to open itself in parseltongue as they went inside that's when Harry spotted Ginny's lifeless body on the ground and started to run to her.
"Ginny!" He cried as he started having flashabacks of them when they were little kids and his heart began to sink as he collapsed onto his knees by her side. "Ginny, please don't be dead wake up." He pleaded setting his wand down beside her.
"She won't wake." He heard a familiar voice say and looked up to see the boy he had seen in the diary. "Tom Riddle?" He questioned him with uncertainty. "What do you mean she won't wake? She's not dead is she?" He inquired with a shake of his head.
"She's still alive but only just." Tom replied as Harry placed his hand on top of Ginny's.
"She's as cold as ice." He said as he continued trying to wake her up before he realized that Tom was now picking up his wand and narrowed his eyebrows and glared at him. "Give me my wand Tom." He told him.
"You won't be needing it." Tom said.
"What do you mean I won't be needing it? There's a basilisk in here!" Harry exclaimed.
"It won't come until it's called." Tom told him.
"Wait so that means_" Harry began.
"Yes Harry, it was Ginny Weasley who wrote the frightening messages on the wall, Ginny Weasley who was behind all the attacks." Tom told him but Harry just shook his head again.
"No, she wouldn't! She couldn't!" He cried out. "I don't believe you you're lying!" He exclaimed.
"Well, it's not like she knew what she was doing of course, she was underneath sort of a hypnotic trance since I was the one telling her to do all of those things. I sort of became like her trusted friend as she told me everything about what she was doing in school, the friends she was making,.. and how she didn't believe how the famous Harry Snape would ever like her the way she liked him." He explained as Harry raised a questioning eyebrow at this since he didn't know that Ginny had had a crush on him.
"However, the power of the diary began to scare her, and she tried to dispose of it in the girl's bathroom when luckily for me you found it. The one I had been most anxious to meet." Tom told him.
"Why did you want to meet me?" Harry wondered.
"Because I wanted to understand something." Tom began. "How is it that a baby with no extraordinary magical talent was able to defeat the darkest sorcerer of all time?" He questioned while Harry scrunched up his face in confusion as Tom used Harry's wand to gently pull back his bangs and reveal his scar. "How did you escape with nothing but a scar while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed!?" He cried out.
"How do you care how I escaped? Voldemort was after your time." Harry replied but Tom simply just sneered at him.
"Voldemort is my past, present, and future." He told him and with Harry's wand he wrote out his full name; "TOM MORVOLO RIDDLE" and with a gesture of his arms they magically rearranged to form the phrase; "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT." As Tom slowly turned back to look at Harry his eyes widened at the sudden realization.
"You. You're the heir of Slytherin. You're Voldemort." He whispered.
"Surely you didn't expect me to keep my filthy muggle father's name. So I therefore fashioned myself a new name, a name that I knew that wizards and witches everywhere would be afraid to speak. So now let's see how heir of Salazar Slytherin will do in a match against the famous Harry Snape." He said before he started speaking parseltongue and Severus continued watching in horror from a distance as the stone statue of Salazar Slytherin's mouth opened and a hissing gigantic basilisk started slithering after Harry.
"Harry run! Now!" He hollered as he suddenly felt his heart starting to pound frantically against his chest. As Harry started to run Tom quickly turned his head over to look at his father before Harry slipped and fell and knocked his glasses off his face. Without thinking Severus ran to his son to go shield and protect him from harm's way his back turned towards the basilisk. "Harry, are you alright?" He questioned as he knelt in front of him, but before Harry had had a chance to answer him Fawkes let out a gigantic screech and started soaring towards the gigantic creature.
"Fawkes?" Harry questioned as the beautiful bird suddenly started tearing at the basilisk's eyes.
"No!" Tom hollered. "Your bird might have blinded the basilisk but don't forget, it can still hear you." He reminded him as Harry quickly got to his feet.
"Harry run! Take Ginny and go and I'll hold him off!" Severus shouted as he stood up and spread out his arms in front of him and that's when Harry remembered his mother telling him that his father's final words were take him with her and go while he held off Voldemort before he was killed by him.
"No!" Harry cried out. "I'm not going to let you!" He exclaimed as Severus turned back to look at him.
"I'm your father and you do what I say!" He shouted back.
"No you don't understand! That's exactly what my father said to my mother before Voldemort killed him and I'm not about to lose another father." He told him as tears were now silently rolling down his cheeks. Before Severus could say or do anything to comfort him that's when Fawkes returned and dropped the sorting hat beside them and something was slowly growing out of it. Harry glanced down to see a shimmering silver sword emerging and quickly grabbed it by the handle and ran.
"Harry!" Severus cried out but it was already too late. Harry was now climbing up the stone head of Salazar Slytherin and the basilisk was slithering after him. After a few stumbles and dodges from the humongous serpent's strikes he managed to get onto the very top of it and Severus widened his eyes as he watched his soon to be teenaged son waving the sword around at it and that's when suddenly when he least expected it, the creature found the sword being pierced through its mouth and head.
Harry also managed to pull out one of his fangs as it collapsed onto the ground dead leaving his father completely stunned as he started hobbling his way back to Ginny. He touched her hand again and glared up at Tom Riddle. "Funny, the damage a silly old book can do." He began. "Especially in the hands of a silly little girl." He told him and that's when suddenly Harry got an idea and grabbed the diary out of Ginny's hands. "What are you doing?" He wondered as Harry opened it and started stabbing it with the basilisks fang ignoring Tom's continuous protest for him to stop before he eventually disappeared into a glowing golden light.
