Chapter Fifteen: Getting Rid of Riddle
The hospital wing was indeed a very lonely place to be this year. The only people there were people who had been Petrified, and after that Pomfrey Mudblood had given his donor a Dreamless Sleep potion, the only people to keep him company were either passed out or lucky they weren't dead.
But then again, Tom Riddle mused as he rose from the body enclosing him and looked around, Dreamless Sleep didn't really stand in the way when you had a parasitic soul invading your body.
Tom sighed and again entered the body, nearly growling when he realized he couldn't see anything, as the stupid girl's eyes were closed. Oh, well, that would be quite easy to fix.
Taking a deep "breath," he mentally screamed, "WAKE UP!"
The girl (Blaise, he thought her name was?) woke with a jolt, and Tom Riddle gave a feral grin. His plan would be difficult, but he had confidence that he would be able to pull it off.
"Go get the Weasley girl from the dormitory and then go to the scene where the first person was Petrified," ordered Tom, grinning when his orders were thoughtlessly obeyed as the girl rose stiffly from the infirmary bed.
oOoOo
The library was nearly desolate because of the attacks on the students. You weren't allowed to be in there unless during study hall and you had to stay there until Madam Pince could escort you back to your dormitory ten minutes before curfew. In any case, students weren't keen on being in the library if they had to be baby-sat the whole time.
This made it an almost unheard of occurrence to find one Gryffindor and two Slytherins there.
But they were there.
The two Slytherins, Harry Potter and Theodore Nott, where currently having an argument.
"All that time she was there, and we could've asked her!"
"It's not like we knew she'd been killed by Slytherin's monster, Theo."
"But if we had known, we wouldn't have had to go in that damned forest in the first place, which would have meant no spiders!"
Theo silenced near the end at a glare from Madam Pince, and when she turned away he stuck his tongue out at her.
"Well, we wouldn't have known if it hadn't been for the spiders," Harry said in a whisper as they passed the librarian into the heart of the library, and then towards the back where the study desks were.
It had been hard enough sneaking away from their teachers to go searching in the Forbidden Forest, but to sneak into a girls' bathroom right next to the scene of the first attack would be nearly impossible. The key word being 'nearly.'
The library had been ominously quiet, but as they neared the back they heard the rustling of pages turning, and a girl's agitated sighs as she apparently didn't find what she was looking for. And it happened to be a Gryffindor girl with bushy—
"Hey, Hermione," Theo said as he collapsed into the empty seat next to her.
"Hello," the girl distractedly said, flipping through more pages in more books and becoming even more irritated.
"What's wrong?" asked Harry, taking the other empty seat and peering over to see what she was looking for.
"There are no books in this damn library that tell you anything about giant snakes that Petrify people!"
"You just swore. . . ." gaped Theo in awe.
"Actually I think their gaze kills, but there must be some way to counter it, because no one has died," Harry added as he picked up one of the books Hermione hadn't gotten to and began shuffling through it.
Hermione's eyes glazed over. "That's it!"
"What's it?" Harry and Theo asked, completely clueless.
"Reflections! Mr. Filch saw the snake in the reflection of the water he was mopping up, Colin saw it through his camera, McGonagall only saw it through a reflection in the picture Colin took, and Mandy saw it through the Grey Lady! The Lady got it head on, but she couldn't die again!"
"But the question still remains," Theo said carefully, "what exactly is it?"
"Hermione?"
"Hmm?" she asked as she began shifting past the Looked Through stack to the Not Looked Through stack.
"Do you still have that book you had this summer on snakes?"
Hermione looked up slowly to stare at Harry over one of the stacks, her eyes as wide as saucers.
"Why didn't I think of it before?" she said mostly to herself before running out of the library faster than light can travel.
"Reckon she'll be back?"
"Probably."
A few minutes later Hermione was back, carrying the heavy tome called Mythology and Legends of Great Snakes under her arm. She flipped through the index and quickly found something that obviously caught her interest. She read through it before turning to the two boys, obviously happy with the revealed information.
"Here it is:
Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it."
Hermione ended the passage, and looked up with a raised eyebrow at Harry and Theo.
"Spiders flee before it, which explains why Aragog wouldn't speak its name," Theo reasoned.
"And it also explains why Hagrid's roosters were killed," added Harry.
"Who's Aragog?" asked Hermione, confused.
Theo explained the events leading up to Aragog, what Aragog was and what he revealed to them, and how they had discovered how Moaning Myrtle had been killed.
Hermione bit her lip. "It says they can grow to be massive in size, so how is that thing getting around?"
Harry looked around the library, desperate for anything that would give him an answer. He had heard the voice through the walls. . . .
"Does Hogwarts have pipes?"
"Of course Hogwarts has pipes, how else does the water get everywhere?" Hermione said with a frown of confusion.
"Yes, but Hogwarts is a castle," Theo said slowly, beginning to warm up to the idea. "It doesn't have normal pipes, it would have huge pipes, and Harry's been hearing the voice in the wall, which seemed to have traveled from floor to floor instantly. . . ."
"Okay, so let's say he does travel through the pipes. Where's the entrance?" Hermione piped up. "Wait. . . . What if the entrance is in a bathroom? What if it's in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?"
The moment their discovery was made, Harry suddenly felt a surge of heat burst through his robe pocket and seem to engulf his body. He hastily reached into the pocket and pulled out the dagger.
The emerald on the hilt was pulsing with light and heat.
Blaise was in trouble.
oOoOo
The walk (run, actually) to the deserted staff room took no time at all, and it wasn't long before they were pacing in the large office-like room, Hermione biting on her thumbnail with every step. Harry was mumbling to himself, and Theo was whistling—just to add entertainment, you know.
But the bell to signal break never came.
Instead, Professor Flitwick's squeaky voice echoed through the corridors, magically magnified.
"All students are to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."
The three stopped in their pacing and Hermione shrieked, "Not another attack? Not now?"
"Do we go back to the dormitory?"
"No," said Harry, glancing around. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe on his left, presumably holding teachers' cloaks. "In here. Let's hear what it's all about. Then we can tell them what we've found out."
They hid themselves inside, all three of them barely fitting, listening to the hundreds of feet passing overhead and the staff room door banging open every now and then. The room was silent until Professor Flitwick arrived.
"It has happened. Students have been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself," Flitwick squeaked; after his declaration Sprout clapped her hand over her mouth.
Snape squeezed the arm of his chair scarily tight, and asked, "How can you be sure?"
"The Heir of Slytherin," said Flitwick, who was very white, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. 'Their skeletons will lie in the Chamber forever.'"
Professor Flitwick burst into tears at this part, and Snape was now an even more sickly shade of yellow.
"Who? Which students?"
"Blaise Zabini and Ginny Weasley. Miss Zabini disappeared from the hospital wing before dinner, around the same time we think Miss Weasley disappeared."
The three students hidden in the wardrobe stifled gasps, and Harry felt tears prickle at his eyes.
"We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow," Professor Sprout cried, distraught. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said. . . ."
The staffroom door banged open with a dramatic flair, but it was only Lockhart, and he was beaming.
"So sorry—dozed off for a moment there—what have I missed?"
He didn't notice that most of the professors were looking at him with what seemed remarkably like hatred. Snape stepped forward.
"Just the man we were hoping for. Two girls have been taken by the monster, Lockhart, into the Chamber itself. Your moment has come at last."
Lockhart blanched and stepped back, hitting his back on the wall.
"That's right, Gilderoy," Sprout chipped in. "Didn't you mention just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"
"Yes, didn't you tell me you were absolutely certain you knew what was inside it?" Flitwick chimed in.
"I—well, I don't—recall—"
"I surely remember you were saying you were sorry you hadn't had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested," said Snape silkily. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the start?"
"I—I really never—you must have misunderstood—" Lockhart stumbled, staring around at his stony-faced colleagues.
"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," Professor Sinistra practically ordered, ice practically oozing from her pores. "Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by yourself—free rein at last." Sinistra added a sinister smile at the end to convey her instructions.
Lockhart gazed desperately at each of his colleagues, but none came to his rescue. "V-very well. I'll—I'll be in my office, getting—getting ready."
He left the room.
"And so the drama queen finally makes his escape," Snape narrated with a sneer.
"Well," Flitwick said with a squeak, "the Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories?"
With nods indicating that they would, the teachers rose and left, not one word said.
"So, do we go back now?" Hermione asked timidly.
"I don't think so," Theo said quickly. "We've got this far and I'm not going back now."
"My sentiments exactly, Theo." Harry made a quick decision and then told his two friends, "Hermione, you go get Professor Lockhart, tell him we know where the entrance is; Theo, you come with me."
"Where are we going?"
"To see Moaning Myrtle! Where else?"
oOoOo
It didn't take long to get to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and they surprisingly met no teachers on their way there. Harry put it down to luck; Theo just thanked God.
Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet.
"Oh, it's you," she said when they entered and she saw Harry. "You're friends with that girl. What do you want?"
"To ask . . . how you died," Harry said bluntly.
Myrtle's whole aspect completely changed with that one question. She looked as though she had never been so flattered.
"Ooh, it was dreadful," she said, obviously relishing the moment. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny—a different language, I think, and then it hit me that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then—" Myrtle swelled importantly, "I died."
"How?"
"No idea," said Myrtle in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away. . . ." She looked dreamily at Harry. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses." The last part was said with a smug grin.
"Where exactly did you see the eyes?" Theo asked in an interview sort of voice.
"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, gesturing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.
Harry and Theo hurried over to examine it, and they examined it quite thoroughly. Nothing was found until Harry felt along the copper taps—scratched on the side of one was a tiny snake.
"That tap's never worked," Myrtle said brightly as Theo tried to turn it.
"Potter, say something to it. Something in Parseltongue," said Theo, still not able to turn the tap.
Harry furrowed his eyebrows, but turned toward the engraving anyway and casually said, "Open up."
He looked at Theo, who shook his head.
"English."
Harry looked back at the snake, trying to envision that it was Sneak, and tried again. "Open up."
A strange hissing escaped him and the tap glowed a brilliant white before it began spinning. In the next second, the sink was moving and out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.
"I'm going down there," Harry said without any hesitation.
"Well, I'm going, too!"
"Yeah, but before we go we have to wait on Hermione."
They didn't have to wait long.
oOoOo
Hermione was astonished that she managed to walk up to the third floor where Lockhart's office was located without seeing a single teacher, when they were supposedly out looking for students out of their dormitories.
Hermione was a determined girl when she wanted to be, and there was absolutely no time to spare (after all, two of her friends were in danger), so she simply entered the office without knocking.
And then stopped in shock.
The office had been almost completely stripped. Two large trunks stood open on the floor, one brimming with robes in all sorts of pastels that had been hastily folded into it, the other overflowing with books in no sort of order. The photographs that had practically been procreating on the walls were crammed into boxes on the desk.
And Lockhart was staring at her like a proverbial deer caught in the headlights.
"And just where the bloody hell could you possibly think that you're going?" Hermione said in a dangerous hiss, nostrils flaring.
"Er, well, yes," Lockhart stuttered, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. "Urgent call—unavoidable—got to go—"
"And what about those two poor girls that are stuck in some dreadful Chamber right now, waiting desperately for someone—anyone—to come get them?" Hermione said this very slowly to make sure the man would understand.
"Well, as to that—it's most unfortunate, and believe me, no one—regrets it more than I."
"You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!" shrieked Hermione. "You can't go now!"
"Well, I must say—when I took the job—there was nothing in the job description—"
"You're running away? After all that stuff you did in your books?"
Lockhart shifted nervously. "Books can be misleading."
"You're the one who bloody well wrote them!"
"My dear girl, do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He'd look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a harelip. I mean, come on—"
"So you've just been taking credit for what a load of other people has done?" Hermione asked incredulously.
"Dear Hermione, isn't not nearly as simple as that." Lockhart shook his head impatiently. "There was work involved. I had to track these people down. I asked them exactly how they had managed to do what they did, and then put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn't remember doing it."
He banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them.
"Let's see," he said, looking around the office. "I think that's everything. Only one thing left."
He pulled out his wand and turned to Hermione.
"Awfully sorry, but I'll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can't have you blabbing my secrets all over the place, can I?"
Hermione was literally shaking with anger. "Oh, don't think you're going anywhere. . . ." Just as Lockhart was preparing to say the charm, Hermione whipped out her wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!"
Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk, and his wand flew in a graceful ark. Hermione caught it easily and turned to glare at the ignoramus.
"Guess what?" she said perkily with a bright smile on her face as Lockhart stood unsteadily to his feet. When he didn't answer, she continued anyway, "I know exactly where the Chamber is, and you're coming with me."
oOoOo
There was instant silence in the stilted conversation taking place between Harry, Theo, and Myrtle when Hermione entered the bathroom holding Lockhart at wand-point.
"Um, 'Mione . . ." Theo began, his eyes riveting from Hermione to Lockhart and back again.
"Why do you have him at wand-point?" Harry asked, everlastingly blunt.
"As it turns out, he hasn't done any of the things he mentions in his books, and has been using Memory Charms to get away with it. He tried to modify my own memory and I thought a fitting punishment would be making him come with us," Hermione answered with a noticeably sadistic smirk.
"I knew he didn't do any of that!" Harry said, glaring at Lockhart in satisfaction.
"Is that it?" Hermione asked, pointing at the large pipe where the sink used to be with the hand that wasn't currently digging Lockhart's wand into his own neck.
"Yep."
"Guess what, Professor Lockhart?" Hermione said with a know-it-all Class Brain grin. "You get to go first."
"I really don't think you'll be needing me—"
Hermione gave him a strong shove, and he stumbled before falling into the pipe. The three students gave no reaction at hearing his startled screams.
When they could no longer hear the man, Harry took the lead and went down first, followed by Theo, who was followed by Hermione.
It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. Minor pipes were branching out in all directions as he flew by, but none was as large as this one, which turned and curved while sloping steeply downward. That was, before the pipe leveled out and he shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough for a very tall man to stand in.
Lockhart was standing a little ways away, covered in slime and very white, which reminded Harry that he should get out of the way.
And just in time, too. Theo slid out and quickly got to his feet before grabbing onto Harry dizzily as Hermione shot out.
oOoOo
At ten o'clock that evening, the teachers met up in the staffroom yet again, Flitwick taking command.
According to Professor Sprout, none were missing from the Hufflepuff dorms and they had all gone to their beds earlier.
According to Professor Flitwick, none were missing from the Ravenclaw tower, but, instead of going to bed, they were researching where the Chamber could be.
Sinistra, who had checked the Gryffindor tower, stood next. "One was missing—Hermione Granger. None reported seeing her after dinner, but Mr. Ronald Weasley did say that she said she was heading for the library. I talked to Madam Pince, and she said that she remembered seeing Miss Granger leaving the library with Mr. Potter and Mr. Nott at around seven thirty this evening."
Sinistra stood down and Snape stood up.
"Aside from the two girls who were taken into the Chamber," he said with a frown, "Mr. Potter and Mr. Nott are both missing, and none know where they went. This information coincides with what Selene just revealed."
"Well," Professor Sprout understated, "that is quite distressing."
oOoOo
"We must be miles under the school," Theo said, looking around as his voice echoed and bounced off the walls.
"Under the lake, probably," said Harry, wiping his hands off on sticky robes. He shuddered slightly before taking them off, leaving the mostly clean uniform on underneath. Theo and Hermione followed his lead and dumped the robes in a pile on the floor.
The three students and one soon-to-be former professor made their way down the tunnel, wands lighted so they could see ahead of them in the faint light. It was a steady formation with Harry in front and Theo behind him; Hermione was in the back keeping a wand on Lockhart at all times, who was behind Theo. Harry led the way forward cautiously, and stopped when they rounded a dark bend in the tunnel.
"There's something up there. . . ." Harry said hoarsely, backing up to stand next to Theo.
The four froze, watching. Harry could just make out the outline of something huge and curved, lying right across the tunnel. It wasn't moving.
Very slowly, Harry began to edge forward, his wand held high.
As it turned out, they needn't have worried, as it was only the confirmation of a snake—a snakeskin. It was a vivid, poisonous green, curled and empty across the tunnel floor. It must have been nearly twenty feet long.
"Damn," Theo murmured shakily.
There was a sudden movement behind them. Lockhart's knees had given way.
"Oh, get up," Hermione said sharply, pointing her wand at Lockhart.
Lockhart got to his feet—then dived at Hermione, knocking the girl to the ground.
Harry and Theo jumped forward, but it was too late. Lockhart was straightening up, panting, having successfully gotten his wand back from Hermione, a gleaming smile on his face.
"The adventure ends here, gentlemen and . . . lady," he said, ending with a slight grimace as he gazed at Hermione, who was slowly getting to her feet. "I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girls, and that you three tragically lost your minds at the sight of their mangled bodies—say goodbye to your memories!"
Harry had a short sickening vision of Blaise's body, twisted at all angles and staring up at him with glassy eyes that lacked the fire she had had while living before Lockhart raised the wand high in the air and yelled, "Obliviate!"
Mere milliseconds later Hermione rushed to Lockhart and tackled him to the ground, the wand knocked out of his grasp and the spell ricocheting throughout the tunnel. Harry flung his arms over his head and ran, out of the way of great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor with the force of the spell. Next moment, he was standing alone, gazing at a solid wall of broken rock.
"Theo! Hermione!" he shouted. "Are you two okay?"
"We're fine!" Hermione's voice echoed from the other side. "We're both okay, not a scrape on us—but I think this egomaniac hit his head on something—"
There was a dull thud and a loud "Ow! What'd you do that for?" It sounded as if Hermione had just kicked Lockhart in the shins.
"Hermione? Did you just hit the poor guy?" Harry yelled through the rock.
There was a pause and than a much-too-innocent, "No, of course not!"
"What now, Potter?" he heard Theo shout desperately. "We can't get through, and even if we did it would take ages. . . ."
There was a thud and another "Ow!" from behind the rocks.
"We're wasting time," he called to Theo and Hermione. "Wait with Lockhart. I'll go on, but if I'm not back in an hour. . . ."
There was a very pregnant pause before Hermione answered. "We're going to try and shift some of this rock so you can get back through, okay?"
"Yeah, alright. See you in a bit." Harry tried to inject confidence into his voice, but it didn't work—he was still shaking.
He set off past the giant snakeskin alone, and soon the distant noise of Theo struggling to move some of the rock and Hermione blathering on about how she knew absolutely no spells that would move the rock without collapsing the entire tunnel had faded. The tunnel turned and turned again, and all Harry wanted was for it to end, yet he was dreading what he would find when (and if) it finally did. And then, after what seemed to him like hours, he saw a solid wall on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting, malicious-looking emeralds.
Harry approached, his throat very dry. There was something very real about these snakes, as the eyes seemed to be taking him in and assessing him.
In a faint, low hiss Harry said, "Open."
The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry was left staring at huge hall done in black marble, from what he could tell, yet it was pitch-black.
This was it.
He was shaking from head to foot, but a deep breath seemed to slowly melt away a bit of his fear. He stepped inside, and as he did, light seemed to appear from towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents whose eyes were also glinting with emeralds. Harry couldn't see the ceiling, but imagined it must go on forever, as he never saw the pillars end.
Where were Ginny and Blaise?
He pulled out his wand and moved forward, deeper into the chamber. Every light step cast an echoing thud through the dead quiet. Then, as he drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.
Harry had to crane his neck to see the giant face towering above him. It was ancient and monkey-ish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous stone grey feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor.
"Must've been quite fond of himself," Harry muttered before looking down farther, where two small, black-robed figures lay facedown.
"Oh, my God!" Harry half-yelled, half-whispered, sprinting to them and dropping to his knees. "Don't be dead, please don't be dead—"
He flung his wand aside before grabbing Blaise's shoulders and turning her over, paling at seeing her white face and feeling her cold skin, yet her eyes were closed in an imitation of peace.
"Blaise, please wake up," Harry whispered desperately before turning Ginny over as well to see her in the same shape.
"They won't wake," a soft voice said from behind him.
Harry jumped and spun around on his knees to see a tall, black-haired boy leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though someone had taken him from a photo and frayed the ends.
"Who are you?" Harry asked, not taking his eyes from the boy as he moved slightly closer.
"Tom Riddle."
"What d'you mean, they won't wake?" asked Harry, desperate.
"They're still alive, but only just."
Harry stared at him, frowning, wondering what right that strange boy had to be here. He was barely sixteen, wearing Slytherin robes, and had on a Head Boy badge. Yet he wasn't Head Boy, because the Head Boy had just been Petrified, and Harry would have seen him in the common room in the two years he'd been at Hogwarts. . . .
"Are you some sort of ghost?" Harry said uncertainly.
"Not precisely," Riddle said in the same soft voice he had used earlier. "I'm a memory—preserved in a diary for fifty years."
He pointed toward the floor near where Blaise and Ginny were laying, unconscious. Lying open was a little black book, like the sort Blaise had said she had found in Moaning Myrtle's stall. . . . Someone had thrown it at her. . . .
He looked up to see Riddle was still watching him, while twirling Harry's forgotten wand between his fingers.
Harry stared at him, sizing him up. Harry wasn't as naïve as many people thought he was, and he didn't think for a moment that Riddle had nothing to do with this. There was something very peculiar going on here. . . .
"Oh, this?" Riddle asked, seeing where Harry was looking. Harry's gaze shot up to Riddle's face, where he could see a vicious smile forming. "You won't be needing it."
Harry frowned, but Riddle's smile only broadened.
"You see, I've been waiting a long time for this, Harry Potter. For the chance to see you. To speak to you. And have no doubts about it, we will speak now."
"How do you know my name?"
"Doesn't everyone?" Riddle said sarcastically.
Harry stared at him, then thought of something else, something more important, than asking Riddle how he knew his name.
"How did they get to be like this?" he asked slowly.
"An interesting question," Riddle said pleasantly. "And quite a long story, though I suppose I should start at the beginning. The real reason why Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."
"What do you mean?"
"The diary. My diary. Little Ginny wrote 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 secondhand robes and books, how she never thought she would be friends with Harry Potter. . . ."
Riddle's eyes never left Harry's as he spoke; there was an almost hungry look in them.
"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back—sympathetic, 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 laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him in the least, and it made the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stand up in warning.
"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul was exactly what I needed. I grew stronger on her deepest fears and darkest secrets. I grew powerful, more powerful than little Miss Weasley could ever hope to be. . . . Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her. . . ."
Harry's mouth had gone very dry, yet Riddle went on.
"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 three Mudbloods, a half-blood, and a Squib."
"No," Harry whispered; he couldn't believe it, yet it was impossible not to.
"Yes," said Riddle, strangely calm. "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 I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but our caretaker was attacked and I've got paint 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 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!"
Harry's fists were clenched as he glared at the mocking boy in front of him.
"It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," Riddle continued. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's about where you come in, Harry. Your best friend found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. This was a person who knew all your secrets, all your fears, and all your deepest desires." Riddle stopped abruptly and pursed his lips. "Unfortunately we never got that far. I knew it would work far less quickly on young Miss Zabini, so I took a shortcut. It wasn't easy, I assure you, to invade her mind, to perish her thoughts, to possess her entirely. . . . She has a very strong, unwavering mind, but when I was able to get her make Morgyanna Petrify the Head Boy and Girl, I knew she was ready. There was no time to waste, after all. . . ."
Harry's eyes were now wide and glaring scathingly at Riddle, who seemed unaffected.
"Why did you want to meet me?" said Harry. Anger was coursing through his body, yet he managed to keep his voice neutral.
"Well, you see, Harry, Ginny told me all about your fascinating history." His eyes roved over the lightning bolt scar on Harry's forehead, and for a moment Harry was sure he could see red in Riddle's jade green eyes. "I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. It is really quite fortunate for me that you showed up here tonight.
"You see, many months ago I realized that killing Mudbloods didn't matter to me anymore. After all, what was a Mudblood compared to my new, more fascinating prey? From then on, my new target has been—you."
Harry gazed at the other boy, whose hungry gaze hadn't faltered the slightest bit.
"I was quite surprised when I found it was your best friend who opened the diary's pages in search for something to confide in, but I quickly realized that if I managed to take Miss Zabini, then I would have an amazing bit of bait in getting you down here.
"So I made Blaise get Ginny—Blaise was, by then, fully under my control, and it wasn't hard to get Ginny under it at the same time, as she was much more broken in than my new toy. I made Blaise write their farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. Of course, by then, they were both teary-eyed, struggling, and screaming, and very boring. There isn't much life left in either of them, I'm afraid. But anyway, I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter."
"What is it you want to know first?" Harry spat sarcastically, fists still clenched and nails digging half-moons into his palms.
"Well," said Riddle with a smile that would be pleasant if Harry hadn't just heard what he'd just heard, "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?"
Okay, this guy was really creeping him out now if he hadn't before.
"Why do you care how I escaped?" asked Harry slowly.
"Voldemort is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter. . . ."
He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began quickly tracing three words in the air:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
He waved the wand once and suddenly the letters were rearranging themselves:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
"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!"
Harry's brain seemed to have jammed, and for some odd reason, the brave, serious side had left the building in order to give reign to his blunter, humorous self.
"Excuse me?" Harry retorted, giving Riddle an incredulous look. "You actually think that by giving yourself a name 'wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak,' you could be the greatest sorcerer in the world?"
Riddle glared at him, the red in his eyes now more prominent.
"Well, let me tell you something: As long as you're going out of your way to kill people, just because they have non-magical blood flowing through their veins, you will never be the greatest sorcerer in the world. Why? Because that honor goes to Albus Dumbledore, who, might I add by the look on your face, scares the living daylights out of you. Now, unless you've got something else to say, crawl back into your hidey-hole and die!"
Riddle's smile had been replaced by an ugly look, and he pointed Harry's wand at the other boy. "Alright then, to business. Twice—in your past, in my future—we have met. And twice I have failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk, the longer I might let you live."
Harry was thinking fast, weighing his chances against his stolen wand and the dagger he had in his pocket. Even if he did attack him with it, Riddle wasn't fully corporeal, and who's to say it wouldn't go right through him? Besides, for some reason Harry knew Riddle would be faster with a quick curse that would end everything. In the meantime, he noticed that Riddle's outline already seemed slightly clearer as life trickled out of Ginny and Blaise. This bastard was stalling him!
"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," Harry said abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I do know why you couldn't kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common, Mudblood mother. She stopped you killing me. And I've seen the real you, I saw you last year. You're a wreck—barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, and foul—"
Riddle's face contorted before forcing it into an awful smile.
"So your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful counter-charm. I can see now . . . there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. There are strange likenesses between us—even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised in dreadful Muggle orphanages—you're even in Slytherin, like me. 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."
Harry stood, tense, but Riddle's smile was widening yet again.
"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. . . ."
Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed, but Harry could understand what he was saying. . . .
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
Harry gazed up at the statue, where Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, Harry saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole.
And something was stirring inside—something was slithering up from its depths.
Harry desperately screwed his eyes shut as something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. Harry felt it shudder—he knew what was happening, could sense it, could almost see the giant serpent uncoiled itself from Slytherin's mouth. Then he heard Riddle hiss:
"Kill him."
The basilisk was moving toward Harry, its heavy body slithering heavily across the dusty floor. He fell on his back and tasted blood, and knew that any minute now he'd be basilisk brunch.
But it never happened.
Instead, there was a surge of power that welled inside him, and before Harry could react it had hurtled from his body. Harry couldn't resist it, he had to know—he opened his eyes. And there was the basilisk, thrashing from side to side as some invisible force knocked into it again and again. Its skin was a bright, poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, and its blunt head was weaving drunkenly between the pillars. Before Harry had any time to respond, the basilisk had looked down at him, and Harry could see its eyes had been gauged out.
"Thank you, magic," Harry murmured before he heard Riddle scream.
"NO! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU! YOU CAN STILL SMELL HIM! KILL HIM!"
The blinded serpent swayed—still confused, but still deadly. The snake was shakily getting closer to him, his tail whipping across the floor in a desperate attempt to keep himself steady.
Oh, damn! He was going to die! It was time to resort to drastic measures; he didn't know if it would work or not. . . .
"Stop! Don't come one more step near me or I'll rip out your fangs next!" Harry hissed.
Um, that didn't work—the basilisk was still coming toward him. . . . Oh, well, he still had Plan B! It was quite ingenious if he did say so himself. . . .
"HELP!" he screamed in English at the top of his lungs, shutting his eyes and putting his hands over his ears in a desperate attempt to get away.
It probably helped that he covered his ears, because in the next moment there was an extremely loud BANG and the entire Chamber began to smell like smoke.
Harry opened his eyes and looked up, his eyes then going wide.
The basilisk had caught on fire, and it was screaming raggedly as the flames ravaged his body. And before Harry had time to blink, the basilisk had completely disappeared, the only thing left of its body being ashes.
Harry glanced up at Riddle, who had turned away from the two unconscious girls, choosing instead to send hateful glares at Harry.
And that was when he noticed it—Riddle, sometime during Harry's fight with the basilisk, had become fully corporeal. He didn't know if Riddle had noticed or not, but Harry gazed at Ginny, who was still unconscious, and then at Blaise—who was staring right back at him.
Riddle noticed moments after Harry as he felt along his body, looking quite pleased with himself. He sent a victorious smirk at Harry, who was having a silent conversation with Blaise.
"You see, Potter. I will always win, and your friends are dead."
Harry was desperate for something—anything—that would get rid of this monster. Blaise didn't have a clue what was going on, but she did take a moment to feel for Ginny's pulse. There wasn't one.
When she shook her head at Harry in answer, he bit on his bottom lip, choosing instead to ignore Riddle, who was going on and on about ruling the world. His hand strayed to his pocket, where the dagger Blaise had gotten him for his birthday was kept. Harry didn't know how he was going to do it, but somehow he had to get the dagger to Blaise.
He tightened his hold on the handle, making sure Riddle was still blathering about his victory, and in the next moment, the dagger had disappeared from his pocket.
Harry's eyes widened as he looked back up at Blaise, who had picked up the dagger that had appeared on the stone floor in front of her. A determined look crossed her features as she gripped the handle before saying, "Oh, shut up, already."
Riddle spun around and cast his glare at Blaise, who was smirking at him. "You're alive?" he whispered incredulously.
"What does it look like?" answered Blaise sarcastically.
Riddle turned back toward Harry, who was watching him with a smug grin. Riddle's face turned into an ugly mask, and he began stalking towards Harry, raising the stolen wand furiously. He was nearly five feet away when Blaise pounced—literally, pounced—on top of him.
To Blaise the goal was simple: Get rid of Riddle. She jumped onto his back as if he was about to give her a piggy-back ride, and in the next moment Harry's dagger was buried into his chest.
Riddle coughed and sputtered, words failing him as he choked on what must have been blood. Blaise got off his back just before he fell to the ground and pulled the dagger from his chest.
It was a horrible sight to watch—to see someone die—even if that person had just killed one of your friends and was only a memory of what would one day be the most terrifying Dark Lord in years. One moment he was taking yet another shuddering breath as blood pooled on his robes, and in the next his chest was still.
Blaise collapsed to the ground beside him, great sobs racking her body as she rocked back and forth. Harry had never seen his friend looking so vulnerable, but he did the only thing he could: He knelt down and held her.
Blaise's hands came to fist in his shirt as she attempted to wash the fabric with her tears. In a few moments the sobs had resided, but she was clinging to him worse than ever.
"It's alright," Harry said, rocking his friend gently. "It's gonna be alright."
Blaise released her hold on him to wipe at her eyes before saying, "I think—I think Ginny would like it if—if we take her body back."
"I think she'd like that, too," whispered Harry, standing up before helping Blaise up and letting her lean against him. He couldn't possibly support both girls, but a simple Wingardium Leviosa was levitating Ginny gently ahead of them.
After a few minutes' progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry's ears. They turned the next bend to see Theo and Hermione staring out eagerly through a sizeable gap they had managed to make in the rock fall.
At seeing Ginny their faces fell.
"Oh, no," Hermione whimpered, covering her mouth.
"Is she—" stuttered Theo, not able to finish the sentence.
Harry nodded, and it was a dreary reunion as they hoisted Ginny through the gap, followed by Blaise and Harry. They slowly began walking back to the pipe that had led them down here.
"I'll explain when we get out of here," Harry said at seeing the inquisitive looks on Hermione's and Theo's faces, casting a sideways glance at Blaise, who was now staring confusedly at Lockhart.
"What happened to him?" she asked quietly.
Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself as he twiddled his thumbs.
"His memory's gone," answered Theo. "The Memory Charm ricocheted around the tunnel before finally hitting him, with enough force to knock him back. He hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here."
Harry bent down and looked up the long, dark pipe.
"Have you thought about how we're going to get back up this?" he said to Theo and Hermione.
Hermione shook her head, but Blaise handed him his dagger, which had been wiped free of blood. Harry gazed up at her, confused.
"If you will it, it will happen. Nothing is impossible."
He took the dagger and took command. "Everyone, form a line and take a hold of the person in front of you. I'll hold on to Ginny, but someone else is going to have to hold onto her, too."
Harry grabbed onto Ginny's wrist, and Theo took hold of her leg, leaving Blaise to hold onto Theo and Hermione to hold onto her. Lockhart came at the end.
Harry took a deep breath and, deciding to conduct a little experiment, said in Parseltongue, 'Please take us back up to the castle.'
An extraordinary light seemed to spread through his whole body, and then they were flying upward through the pipe. Chill air was whipping through Harry's hair, and before he'd stopped enjoying the ride, it was over. All six of them fell to 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 goggled at them.
"You're alive," she said blankly to Harry.
"There's no need to sound so disappointed, Myrtle," he said with a grimace, whipping muck from his glasses.
"Oh, well . . . I'd just been thinking . . . if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet," said Myrtle, blushing quicksilver.
Myrtle's words brought a bit of a smile to Blaise's face as Theo nudged her and said, "You've got competition, Blaise!"
A quiet walk through the castle brought them to the Headmaster's office, where Harry quickly guessed the password.
Theo knocked and pushed the door open.
It was time to face the symphony.
oOoOo
Authoress's Note: I'm guessing (correctly) that the reason why I got so few reviews for the last chapter was because Deathly Hallows came out? I admit that this was finished before it came out, but it's only coming out now because of rain and temporary loss of my Internet connection.
I hope to see some reviews when everyone's finished their fair share of reading and crying. (Because, even though the ending is quite happy, it was also quite sad for a few chapters.)
Happy reading!