Nico POV
As soon as we enter the dimly lit chamber and see Tom Riddle smirking at us I realize what is going on.
"I should have known." I hiss, holding up my sword.
He laughs, his eyes looking between me and Harry.
Harry ignores Tom and runs over to Ginny's body.
"She's alive, though barely." He tells him.
"Harry Potter, I have wanted to speak to you for quite some time." He tells Harry, before looking over to me. "You seem familiar? Who are you?"
Harry pays him no attention, instead sighing with relief.
"Nico Di Angelo, we met seventy years. I must say, you've aged even better than I have." I tell him with a glare.
Tom is clearly no longer the boy he used to be, though very much here he is blurred around the edges, like an old photograph.
He smirks at me. "Ah yes, Bianca Di Angelo's little brother, such a shame she ended up being a little blood traitor."
"W-what's going on?" Harry asks, staring at Tom.
"A piece of his soul was in that journal." I tell him, remembering the sick feeling I felt when I touched it, and how similar it was to meeting Tom.
"Smart boy." Tom smirks, before waving his hand, causing our weapons to shoot out of our hands.
He quickly grasps Harry's wand, ignoring my sword. Such a shame, once again it would have solved our problem so easily.
"What did you do to her?" Harry asks, still hovering over Ginny's body.
"And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."
"What are you talking about?" Harry asks.
"The diary," said Riddle. `My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes - how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with second hand robes and books, how -" Riddle's eyes glints "- how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."
All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Harry's face. There was an almost hungry look in them.
"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket ..."
Riddle laughs before continuing. "If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."
"What d'you mean?" Harry asks again.
"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" Riddle says softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat."
"No," Harry whisper's seeming shocked.
I grit my teeth. "You forced her."
He gives me a small smile before continuing. "Yes." Riddle answers calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... far more interesting, they became... Dear Tom," he recited, watching Harry's horrified face, `I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and 1 don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, l can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me... There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!"
"Can you stop explainging your plan to take over the world and just kill us already?" I sigh, making Riddle grit his teeth.
"It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary." Riddle says, ignoring me "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you came in, Harry. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet..."
"And why did you want to meet me?" Harry asks, sounding as though he is trying to keep his voice steady.
"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry." Riddle tells him. "Your whole fascinating history." His eyes rove over the lightning scar on Harry's forehead, and their expression grew hungrier. "I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust-"
"Hagrid's my friend." Harry hisses, his voice now shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but-"
Riddle laughs again.
"It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student... on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls... but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance... as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power!"
I resist the urge to snort at Hagrid's love of dark creatures. I admit I have also wrestled trolls in the forbidden forest.
"Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippetto keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed... Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did ..."
"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you." Harry hisses, gritting his teeth.
"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled." Riddle says carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."
"Well, you haven't finished it." Harry says triumphantly. "No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again-"
"Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been - you."
Harry stared at him.
"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery - particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue ...
"So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her... She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last... I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter, and even some for you Nico Di Angelo."
"Like what?" Harry spat, looking angry.
"Well, how is it that you - a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent - managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.
"And how did a little boy from the 1940's manage to barely gain two years over seventy?" He asks, giving me a curious look.
"My survival is irrelevant, what does matter is that your soul is dragged straight Erebos."
Riddle and Harry give me confused looks.
"Hell!" I translate.
He sneers at me before turning back to Harry.
"Why do you care how I escaped?" said Harry slowly. "Voldemort was after your time..."
"Voldemort." Riddle says softly, "Is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..."
I freeze… he doesn't mean…
He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
I snort. That's not at all pretentious.
"You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry - I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"
"You're a halfblood? Yet you preach about blood purity? Talk about hypocritical." I tell him
His face sours. "My mother's family valued purity above all else, I will not have this ruined by one small mistake, one that I have already recitifies."He hisses, before turning to Harry.
"To business, Harry. Twice - in your past, in my future - we have met. And twice I failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he added softly, "the longer you and your little friend here stay alive."
I look over to Harry. If he chooses to fight now I can definitely help, we're underground. It would be easy for me to raise a skeleton army or collapse the tunnel and shadow travel us away, but I cannot give up what I am. For now all I can do is hope I get my sword back.
I think to the wand, still heavy in my pocket. Riddle had forgotten about that, I could give it to Harry…
"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you killing me. And I've seen the real you, I saw you last year. You're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, you're foul-"
Riddle's face contorts, before forcing it into a cruel smile. "So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful countercharm. I can see now... there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself We even look something alike... but after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That's all I wanted to know."
"Now, Harry, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him..."
Riddle opened his mouth wide and hisses. I have no idea what he is saying, but a look of horror appears on Harry'
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
Harry wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes swaying on his shoulder.
Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving, making a large hole. I notice something slithering from the depths, the Baskillas.
"CLOSE YOU EYES!" I shout, closing my eyes and taking hold of Harry's arm.
Riddle hisses again.
I think back to that muggle show Kat had forced me to watch… Avatar benders or something. That character, she was completely blind but saw using the earth, she had abilities over underground just like me.
I focus on the earth and shadows around me. I feel a large long figure slithering towards us.
I pull Harry by his arm and pull him away. "FOLLOW ME!"
"WE CAN'T SEE!" Harry yells. Thankfully he had also closed his eyes.
I pull him along with me, running through the tunnel the baskillas had come from.
I feel the baskillas slithering towards us. I shadow travel us to it's other side, confusing the creature.
It moves to attack us, before I teleport us again.
"WHAT IS HAPPENING?" Harry yells.
I hold harder on Harry's arm, shadow travelling him once again, but this time to on top of the beast. "HOLD ON!" I yell to him. "You can open your eyes!"
We both open our eyes at once. Harry lets out a horrified noise when he realizes what we're on.
"How did you-"
"How dare you." Riddle hiss, before regaining composure. "It does not matter, you shall die. And I Lord Voldemort the greatest sorcerer in the world shall rise again." He tells us with a self-satisfied smirk.
"You're not!" Harry yells, his voice full of hatred.
We attempt to hold o tight as the Baskillas tries to throw us off.
"Not what?" Riddle snaps.
"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world." Harry says, breathing fast. "Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore . Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days-"
The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.
"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" he hisses.
"He's not as gone as you might think!" Harry retorts.
What is he talking about?
Riddle opened his mouth, but froze.
Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle whirled around to stare down the empty Chamber. The music was growing louder until it was almost unbearable.
A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle.
A second later, the bird was flying straight at us. Along with the ragged thing In it's claws it lands on Harry's shoulder, gazing at Riddle.
"That's a phoenix, and the sorting hat." Riddle says with a confused expression before bursting into a cruel laugh.
"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?"
Before any of us could argue the Baskillas moves again, throwing Harry and I onto the ground.
I close my eyes again, knowing I am once again at risk from the Baskillas.
I hear a loud squawking noise and pained yelps. I can feel the Baskillas struggling.
"NO!" Riddle screams. "LEAVE THE BIRD! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. YOU CAN STILL SMELL HIM. KILL HIM!"
Smell? I smirk. Fawkes blinded the Baskillas.
I open my eyes with a start. My good mood quickly disappears when I see the large serpent heading towards us.
I once again take hold of Harry, shadow travelling him across the room, confusing the creature.
I continue shadow travelling around the snake with Harry In tow, confusing the snake.
"KILL THEM BOTH!" Riddle yells again.
How am I going to kill the beast? I look over to see my forgotten sword lying on the ground.
I once again dissolve into the shadows reappearing next to the sword.
I then realize that I had forgotten Harry, leaving him to the beast.
I notice Harry who had previously been I the corner now had a sword in his hand, the sorting hat lying next to him.
The Baskillas launches at him, attempting to swallow him whole, when Harry pulls out his sword and shoves it inside the roof of the Baskillas's mouth.
I shadow travel over to him, grabbing him and pulling him away before the snake's body could collapse on top of him.
"Fawkes." He breathes as the bird lands on his bloody arm. "You were fantastic…"
I realize that Harry is deathly pale and covered in blood. He's dying.
"You're dead, Harry Potter." Riddles voice tells him softly, once again hovering over us. "Even Dumbledore's bird realizes it, he's crying."
I give him an angry glare. "Even if Harry is." I grunt. "I am still very much alive." I tell him, pulling myself to my feet.
Harry's can't die. I won't let him.
I hold up my sword to Riddle, making him laugh.
"Oh your death will be easy enough, you're not even important like your friend here." He tells me, pulling out Harry's wand.
Riddle ignores me again, turning back to Harry.
"So ends the famous Harry Potter." Riddle tells him in a distant voice. "Abandoned by his friend to fight the beast alone, while the others have forsaken him, defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged. You'll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry... She bought you twelve years of borrowed time... but Lord Voldemort got you in the end, as you knew he must..."
I grit my teeth at his mention of my mistake, I should have brought Harry with me.
I then notice why he had stopped speaking, he was starring horrified at Harry's arm.
"Get away, bird." Riddle says suddenly. "Get away from him - I said, get away-"
I then realize that Harry's wound was almost entirely gone, Harry was starting to regain his colour.
"Phoenix tears..." Riddle whispers, staring at Harry's arm. "Of course... healing powers... I forgot..."
I smile. Harry's going to be okay, all we have to do is destroy Riddle once and for all.
"It is better this way." Riddle whispers. "It is my destiny to kill you after all. " He says, raising Harry's wand.
Before I could act, Harry had already seized the Baskillas fang next to him and plunged it into the diary.
There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then-
I slump to the ground, the adrenaline from the fighting leaving me. Riddle is gone, Harry did it.
"Thank you." He whispers to me.
"I should be the one thanking you." I reply. "You just saved my life."
We then gather what's left of the diary and the baskillas fang before hearing a faint moan from the other end of the chamber.
We rush over to Ginny. I place my finger against her wrist to feel her pulse, she's still alive.
"Harry - oh, Harry - I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn't say it in front of Percy - it was me, Harry - but I - I s-swear I d-didn't mean to - R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over - and - how did you kill that - that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary-" Ginny sobs.
"It's all right." Harry tells her, holding up the diary, and showing Ginny the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C'mon, Ginny, let's get out of here-"
I help Harry support her weight. I hate touching people, It feels so intimate, like they'll soon realize everything, or worse my sheer touch will kill them like it does everything else.
"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny weeps as we pull her to the exit. "I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and - w-what'll Mum and Dad say?"
Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber entrance.
We walk back through the chamber, with nothing but the sound of Ginny's weeping.
After a few minutes' I hear the sound of shifting rock.
"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"
Ron lets out a strangled cheer.
We turn to the next bend to see a decent sized hole made up in through the rubble. I then see Ron and Will's cheerful faces.
"Ginny!" Ron thrusts an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened?" How - what - where did that bird come from?"
Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.
"He's Dumbledore's." Harry explains, squeezing though himself.
"Why do you both have swords?" Will asks, helping Harry through.
"We'll explain later." I tell them.
Ron pulls Ginny into his arms, while Will inspects Harry.
"What happened to you?" Will asks, pulling out his first aid kit and handing Harry a healing potion before giving one to the sobbing Ginny.
"Why do you have a first aid kid?" Ron asks.
"Because I'm friends with this numbskull." Will shrugs, handing me a potion as well.
"Where's Lockhart?" Harry asks, ignoring Will.
"Back there." Ron tells us. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."
We follow after Will and Fawkes, who both seem to glow, towards the blonde man.
His memory's gone." Will explains. "The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself."
Lockhart peers good-naturedly up at them.
"Hello." He greets. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"
"No." Ron answers raising his eyebrows at us.
"I didn't it was possible for him to become any stupider." I mutter, making them let out a small chuckle.
I bend down and look up the long piper. I would shadow travel us up, I wasn't exactly subtle back in the chamber and no doubt Harry will tell Ron everything, but the fight had completely drained me.
"Have you thought how we're going to get back up this?" I ask them.
Ron shook his head, but Fawkes the phoenix had swooped past them and is now fluttering in front of Harry, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers.
"He looks like he wants you to grab hold..." said Ron, looking perplexed. "But you're much too heavy for a bird to pull up there-"
"Fawkes." Harry tells us "isn't an ordinary bird." He turned quickly to the rest of us"We've got to hold on to each other. Will, hold onto Nico, who can hold onto my hand. Professor Lockhart-"
"He means you." Ron says sharply to Lockhart.
"You hold Ginny's other hand-"
We all hold onto each other. When Harry touches the Phoenix an kind of light spreads through me, a very unfamiliar feeling.
in a rush of wings, they were flying upward through the pipe. I can hear Lockhart dangling below me, saying, "Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!"
They all hit the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat, the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place.
Myrtle goggles at them.
"You're alive," she said blankly to us.
"There's no need to sound so disappointed." Harry says grimly, wiping flecks of blood and slime off his glasses.
"Oh, well... I'd just been thinking... if either you or Nico here." She begins, blushing at me. "Had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet."
"Urgh!" Ron grunts as we leave bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. "Harry! I think Myrtle's grown fond of you! You've got competition, Ginny!"
But tears were still flooding silently down Ginny's face.
We follow the phoenix to McGonagall's office. We have a lot of explaining to do.