Samuel and Wayne found themselves in a dark, debris-ridden tunnel, a pile of boulders in front of them, Harry Potter bellowing at it, Samuel and Wayne looked on, recovering from their transport.
"RON!"
"HARRY?!"
"Are you alright?!"
"Yeah, got Lockheart with me too, he doesn't remember anything!"
"You try and clear some of this debris"
"Okay, I don't suppose that sword-bloke of yours has come?"
"Hello Weasley" Samuel said "Hopkins, would you awfully mind helping him clear some of this rubble would you? I don't assume there is any other way out, Lord Potter and I shall advance ahead."
"Sure thing Sam, hi Harry!"
Harry and Samuel went further down the tunnel until they hit a very impressive door. Harry hissed at it and it opened. Samuel drew his sword and wand as they entered. The chamber was huge, with massive stone statues of snakes lining the walls, all leading up to an enormous stone face, with a pond in front of it. Before the pond lay an unmoving, redheaded body.
"Ginny!" Harry called, running the length of the chamber at an admirable speed "Please don't be dead, please don't be dead…"
"She won't wake you know"
"Tom? Tom Riddle? What do you mean she won't wake?"
"She's still alive, but only just" said a Slytherin student, walking out of the shadows. He was handsome, looked like a 5th year or above.
"Are you a ghost?"
"A memory, preserved in a diary for 50 years."
"How very odd, how did you come to be in the diary Mr Riddle?" Samuel inquired
"And you are?"
"Lord Armstrong-Mason"
"Impossible, there is no way the Ancient and Noble Houses of Armstrong and Mason would merge. Are you some filthy up-jumped mudblood? Having that undeserving Half-Blood in Salazar's noble chamber is bad enough."
"Oh, this is the Chamber of Secrets? He did really love snakes didn't he." Looking around at all the snake themed architecture. Riddle moved to pick up Harry's wand, but Samuel disarmed him immediately and Harry's wand flew across the chamber, Samuel cast a stunner at riddle, but it passed straight through him.
"Your magic, pureblooded or not, cannot harm me until I drain Ginny of her life force, and the heir of Slytherin, the most powerful sorcerer in the world, shall truly return!" Tom looked very excited and a little smug, before Harry Replied
"Albus Dumbledore is the greatest sorcerer in the world!"
"Dumbledore has been driven out of this castle by the very memory of me!"
"He'll never be gone, not while those that remain are loyal to him"
"Hear, Hear. I suppose, my loyalty is to Lord Potter more." Samuel added. A phoenix call sounded, and the headmaster's familiar dropped the sorting hat in front of Harry
"So this is what Dumbledore sends his great champion, an idiot, a bird, and an old hat. You mentioned the theme Armstrong-Mason, but he also left the king of the serpents here! Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!"
"Greatest? Were they not all equals, was that not the point?"
"How did you understand Salazars noble tongue?"
"You're a parselmouth too Sam?" Harry blinked in surprise then turned to the statue, whose mouth opened, and a violent hissing sounded.
"Kill the hatchlings" Riddle called "Parseltongue won't save either of you, it only obeys me."
"Grab Ginny and get her back to Ron and Wayne, then we'll take these two together?"
"Of course, my Lord" he said, putting his sword away and hoisting Ginny over his shoulder, then began splashing off down the chamber. In the meantime, Fawkes was attacking the Basilisk's head and eyes, and it screamed in pain.
"You there, drop the girl, NO! The Basilisk may not be able to see you, but it can still HEAR you!" Tom shouted at Samuel, then at Harry, who ran into a side tunnel. Samuel exited the chamber and dropped Ginny off with Wayne.
"Weasley! Hopkins, I have Ginevra Weasley, once there is a clearing through the boulders, take her and yourselves out of the chamber, I must go to assist Lord Potter with Lord Slytherin." Before Wayne or Ron could reply, Samuel had run back to the great door, which had closed. Pausing, he clutched his wand and tried to remember what Potter had said.
"Open"
When Samuel got back, he found Potter standing on top of Rock-Slytherin's head, clutching a shiny sword, trying to fend off the Basilisk, to little or no avail.
"Your Lord is doomed, my diary has succeeded, even with little Ginny far off, I can still draw on her power, then, I will kill you myself."
Samuel looked to the diary, and cast a bombardment hex
"You fool, that diary is impervious to all but the most powerful magic."
Samuel cast more spells, flame conjuring, lesser bombardment, stunning, he slashed and stabbed at it with his darksteel sword, to no avail. He tried channeling fire onto his sword, then stabbing the diary, still nothing. He thought through his knowledge of spells, thinking of the most destructive spell he knew, and could cast. The killing curse was too powerful, and fiendfyre was too uncontrollable, unless… Samuel put away his wand while Riddle/Slytherin jibed and insulted him, he poured magic into his sword, and muttered the incantation
"Fiendfyre"
His sword lit up with dark flames, channelled along the blade, the magic was limited to the sword, but it did not stop the sword try to get away from him. He could feel the immense heat coupled with the immense draw on his magic, and he thrust the sword into the diary, and blacked out.
Samuel woke up, 4 heads looking down at him, Lord Potter, Hopkins, two redheads, Susan? No, Weasleys, darker ginger, Mr and Miss.
"Are you alright?" all four asked at once
"I am fine, Riddle, the Basilisk?
"Both screamed when you stabbed the diary with your flaming sword, Riddle faded away and the Basilisk just, fainted, I suppose the word is."
"Blimey, a real life Basilisk, we should put it out of its misery." Ron suggested
"It's too dangerous to be kept alive" Harry added
"It has no killing gaze anymore, and it is not being controlled by a madman either." Wayne countered, looking to Samuel for support.
"I told you I am ambivalent about snakes Hopkins, and there is no way I can use something that big as a familiar"
"What if we shrunk it? And bound its will to yours?"
"I have no magic left"
"Harry, Ron?"
"We're gonna let it live Harry?"
"I… I don't believe it can be responsible for its actions"
"It petrified Hermoine"
"But it didn't kill her"
"I think it should live" Ginny stated, "I'll help bind it if you want, I'm so sorry"
"It wasn't your fault Ginny" they all said together (well, Samuel said Ginevra, but the point stands)
"Ron, use Lockhearts wand, on three, the shrinking charm, one, two, THREE" They all cast the charm, and the Basilisk shrank down, and down, until it was a metre long.
"Not that I don't want a magically resistant, deadly poison strewing, albeit blind familiar, does anyone else want to bind it to them?" Samuel asked
"You killed its last master, and I don't think anyone other than you or Harry has the willpower to control it." Ginny pointed out "Thanks for that, I formally acknowledge the life debt I owe to you, Lord Harry Potter"
"A life debt? I don't want you in my debt Ginny"
"Clear it, by ordering her to help bind the basilisk then" Wayne suggested, and both Weasley and Potter visibly deflated in relief "We'd better do this before Sam blacks out again"
Samuel groaned, and they bound the mini-Basilisk to Samuel.
"Ooh, warm" Sam giggled uncharacteristically and fainted away, leaving the snake and master both unconscious and bound together.
Samuel woke up a few days later
"Mr Armstrong-Mason, I am glad to see you up, you have been out for days with magical exhaustion, I don't know what you boys did down there in the chamber, but you were all exhausted, Mr Weasley and your Mr Hopkins were in for the night, Mr Potter for 2 whole days, and Miss Weasley is still bed bound over there."
"Is he up? Is the boy who helped Harry awake?" a plump, curly-haired lady, assumedly Mrs Weasley charged over and smothered Samuel with a huge hug "I must thank Harry again too"
"Wasn't anything Maam, I must get back to my business, I have been unconscious for days"
"Professor Dumbledore would like to see you in his office this evening Lord Armstrong-Mason, and he'd like you to bring Mr's Hopkins, Potter and Weasley along as well."
"As you wish Madam"
"SAM, SAM!" Wayne came in shouting "Susan found out!"
"If you'll excuse me Madam Pomfrey, Mrs Weasley" Samuel said "Do you think the Rock will be safe enough?" Samuel referred to the Mason family fortress.
"What about me?" Wayne Panted "I'm not a Mason by blood OR marriage"
"I apologise that I seek to only marry women, Hopkins"
"You could blood adopt me"
"I could I suppose, but I have enough issues as it is without attending school with my son."
"Oh, I nearly forgot, I was looking after her for you" Wayne handed Samuel the long blanket he had under his arm. "I've gotta run and hide, see you later" Wayne ran off.
Samuel looked at the blanket in an alcove, he felt a warmth, not a heat, but a magical warmth, almost a tug on his soul, and the blanket fell, scarred, blind eyes stared into his own, somehow still seeing him, surrounded by dark grey scales.
His familiar hissed.