Jon - I agree the chapter felt rushed, but I wrote the whole thing out slower and hated it, when I rewrote it it seemed to flow better so I went with that, but I do agree it jumped a little. As for the rest of the review, it was hilarious. I can't stop picturing Vlad on a stool doing biting practice, or Ingrid getting caught by cops when she's out hunting. Also, there is some logic to my having them work out about the Basilisk earlier in the year than canon.

So, we have reached the Basilisk being identified! Wherever shall we end up next?

If my info on the Basilisk is off, I apologise. I cannot find my copy of COS anywhere.

-YDHP-

Snape kept watch, and Vlad sat on the floor with Bertrand, Harry and the book on the Basilisk. "If looks could kill. This is why Aurelius and Mrs Norris were petrified, there was water to reflect the ultimate death stare. Ingrid and Hermione were looking in mirrors, same thing." Vlad nodded at Harry's interpretation, then his mind clicked. "This is the voice you have been hearing. Parseltongue, it's a snake!" Bertrand leant over his shoulder, taking in the information quietly. "This thing can grow upwards of sixty feet long, how has nobody noticed a mammoth serpent slithering about the place?" Vlad shrugged, reading the in depth information. "Incurable venom. Eyes that kill. Almost completely magic resistant and can live for centuries. Hey, there may be something at Hogwarts older than you Bertrand."

His tutor glared for a second, then went back to the book. "Hatching a chicken egg beneath a toad? Well it's not as disgusting as your emeraldspire blood and dead eggs." Harry offered Vlad a brief glare - there was a surplus of glaring right now - before scanning the next page. "Spiders flee before it. That explains Aragog. And it hates the sound of chickens, that'll be why Hagrid's chickens keep getting killed, and why it was chicken blood painted on the walls. Still not sure about how it gets around." Vlad was only half listening, then digging through his backpack. "Thank you Gred and Forge." "Excuse me?" Bertrand was looking at Vlad like he was slightly insane, though Vlad was holding up a bag of sweets so he probably did look a little daft.

"The Weasley twins gave me these trick sweets from Hogsmeade. Taste awful, but they make you imitate animal sounds - including chickens. Might be good to have to hand?" Popping a red one in his mouth, Vlad opened his mouth and the three around him jumped when all that came out was a lions roar. "Bats they taste terrible. Here, these are chicken sounds." Harry took the handful of sweets from him, grimacing slightly at the sticky feeling on his palm. "Sixty foot, centuries old murdering serpent. We have a book, some candy and a very very terrified parselmouth. Sounds about right. Now what? We don't even know where the chamber is." Harry had a valid point, but they didn't get further in conversation before Snape was hissing "hide!"

Vlad and Harry grabbed their things and scrambled through the nearest door, it barely closing behind them before they heard more teachers. "Anything you two have surmised?" "Professor Lockhart thinks I'm scared of religious symbols and wants to stake me. Relating to this message, unless we have a clue to the chamber of secrets location, no." Only Bertrand could be dead serious, with sarcastic humour laced through it but still conveying the seriousness of the situation. They had to stand very still not to splash about on the floor, there was water everywhere. "Vlad" Harry pulled him away from the door, uncaring of the noise they made as Vlad stumbled and tried not to alert teachers to their presence.

"Careful, we could be heard in here." Wherever here was. Looking around, Vlad realised they were in Myrtle's bathroom. "Didn't Hagrid say she was the one who got killed by the attacks before? Maybe she knows something!" Eyes widening in understanding, Vlad helped Harry look for the teenage girl ghost. "Myrtle? Are you here?" They scanned the small, dirty and damp bathroom for a few minutes, taking the time to magically lock the door so nobody would find them breaking curfew and hunting a ghost. "What do you want? This is a girls bathroom!" They both turned round to see Myrtle floating above the cubicles, and Vlad stepped back - the ghost was clearly checking Harry out. He could ignore the jealousy for now, Harry was hardly going to date the ghost.

"Oh, hello Harry." Bats alive, Vlad was watching a ghost simper. "Uh. Hi Myrtle. We wanted to ask... To ask how you died." Forcibly reminded of his father, Vlad watched as she visibly perked up, like there was never a better conversation topic. "It was dreadful! I was hiding because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses." Vlad didn't think they were too bad, and he had seen worse. "I was crying, and then I heard someone come in. I couldn't see from the cubicle, but I realised it was a boy talking. A kind of made up language, all strange hissing and choking" He shared a look with Harry - that's what he sounded like speaking Parselmouth. Resuming their riveted stares at Myrtle, they waited for the rest of the story.

"I opened the door to tell him to go away! And then... I died." Harry looked confused, terrified but Vlad could see that adventurous exhilaration they both shared and shouldn't have building. "Just like that?" Myrtle nodded, fluttering transparent eyelashes at Harry and giggling in a sickly sweet manner. "And you don't remember anything else?" A ghostly hand came up to tap her ghostly chin, clearly deep in thought. "I just remember a great big pair of yellow eyes. Over there, by the sinks." She pointed at the circular sink unit, the one she frequently flooded the entire bathroom with - he had to find out how a ghost did that some time.

He and Harry slowly stepped over to the sinks, wondering how long before someone made it through Vlad's lock - Ingrid would have been their best chance to do it quickly as she shared his unique command of magic, he didn't technically use a spell. Lost in thought, he heard Harry toss a piece of broken pipe into the sink in front of him to get his attention. "Check this out. This is the sink that didn't work remember?" Nodding, Vlad peered at where Harry was pointing. "Is that... A snake? Those are real emeralds. You think... You think this is it?" Realising he was rambling a little, Vlad ran his finger over the tiny snake carved into the base of the tap.

"I think it is. How do we get in?" Stepping back and gesturing, Vlad answered with "you're the snake whisperer, try asking it to open." Harry squinted at the snake carving, tilting his head this way and that. "What are you doing? An interpretive dance?" "It isn't something I can just switch on, it has to be a real snake. This isn't." Watching Harry struggle for another moment, Vlad pulled the snake book back out of his bag. "Stand back a second." "I don't think you'll be able to blow it open." "I am aware. Trust me?" Harry seemed to waver for a second, then stepped back. "Serpensortia!" Half expecting the spell not to work, they both jumped when a real, live snake appeared in the sink. "You wanted a real snake. How about now?" "Next time just tell me to picture Lily! Open! Stop! Don't bite me!" Harry panicked for a moment, but then his speech melted into hisses and the snake slithered away, hissing in return and the floor started to shake.

"Think they feel it out there?" Vlad didn't have to answer - the door was rattling angrily now to match the floor. The sinks were moving, sliding out and away from each other like a choreographed dance. "So, what's in your backpack?" "Leftover food and pumpkin juice, we could probably survive a couple of days if there's no water down there. Some school work, replenisher, couple of general antidotes and healing potions from training with Snape. Oh, and Ingrid's mirror. Better not lose that, she will absolutely get out of that hospital bed to kill me. Ready?" Harry asked him that randomly - his expanded space meant there could be almost anything in there, and all the boys knew to ask Vlad if they were hungry between meals. "Ready." The sinks moving had revealed a cavernous hole in the floor, easily seven or eight feet across. "I'll go first." Vlad stepped forwards, but Harry reached out a hand. "Together, or not at all." Desperate affection for his mate blazed, and Vlad actually struggled not to say something full of feelings. "Come on then, before they catch us and we get so many detentions we can't leave for summer." Harry squeezed his arm, looking down into the hole. "Down the trapdoor?" "Down the trapdoor."

Vlad kept hold of his wrist as they both closed their eyes and jumped. Harry didn't know what had made him stop Vlad going first, but he didn't regret it when Vlad smiled and nodded. Nor had he known why he asked what Vlad had in his bag, but it was something of a running joke and good to know he had healing potions on him, Harry mused. "My grandmother is going to kill me. Assuming the Basilisk doesn't do it first." The pipe was filthy, freezing and smelly and the little cave-like space they landed in was no different. Vlad's high quality robes were indeed covered in muck - and that was with him always using the spells to protect them.

Harry lit his wand (and Vlad showed off by floating a ball of light next to him), looking around where they were. "We came down quite a way, assuming we survive it should be fun working out how to get back. See the walls? I think we must be somewhere down under the lake." Vlad pointed out the walls were running damp, covered in greenish foam and there was a smell of what Harry could only call wet. The floor beneath them was a little strange, crunching as he stepped around and they both lowered their light to see the 'floor' was in fact hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny animal skeletons. "Snakes gotta eat. Bats, how many rats does it take to feed a basilisk?" Vlad looked far too not-disgusted for Harry's liking, and then had the audacity to laugh when Harry pointed that out.

"My father is Count Dracula. This is practically pleasant. Come on, we better go find Ginny, try not to get petrified. Or eaten. And figure out who was doing this, because it was not her alone. If you see anything move, close your eyes." Nodding at his friend, Harry watched in disbelief as Vlad stopped for a drink. "There aren't likely to be picnic stop times! Here." Bemused, Harry took and finished the bottle of water. "Are you planning on a sandwich? Three course meal?" Rolling his eyes, Vlad pointed forwards. "Imagine not getting a spell out because your mouth was dry! Now stop complaining, lets get going." Grumbling, Harry turned himself and his wand forwards, staying side by side with Vlad.

The first sign Vlad was as terrified inwardly as Harry was, was the boy vampire shrieking and leaping away from something with his eyes tight shut. Squinting past him, Harry spotted what had scared him so. "Relax, its a snake skin." He recognised the slight see-through style of it from Lily shedding her skin, that and the endless looking shed wasn't moving. Vlad eventually peeked over at it, relaxing a little when he realised and the pale cheeks flushed. "Sorry for freaking." "Don't worry, I'm scared witless too. But this is a snake skin, let's go find what shed it." Vlad gripped his hand loosely for a second, apparently drawing strength from his friend before straightening up. "Ok. Let's go."

Vlad was powerful, logical and protective, and not unnerved by the same things as most - he was the son of a vampire, a vampire-to-be himself. But Harry knew underneath it, he was a twelve year old boy worried for his family and friends, and they needed each other to do this without freaking out. Teamwork, friendship, support. And some Gryffindor idiot luck. That's what would get them through this. "Don't panic Vlad, we can do anything as long as we have each other, yeah?" Vlad smiled, seemingly unaware he was doing it and Harry wondered just how insecure Vlad was in their friendship even now. "Of course. We beat Voldemort, this overgrown string with a death stare won't beat us." Harry still wondered about that day, things he didn't yet understand but now was not the time to dwell.

"I'll be sure to pass on to Lily that you called the 'king of serpents' an overgrown string." "You have to get out of here alive first." They kept walking slowly as they back and forthed, coming to a huge stone door with snakes carved into it. "I can't read that, is it Parselmouth?" Vlad pointed out etchings on the door frame, and Harry had no idea what they looked like to Vlad - Harry could read it like plain English. "Must be. It's basically a warning not to go further if you aren't the heir of slytherin and you value your life." Vlad shrugged, looking around for a way through the door. "Picture Lily, ask it to open?" Not wanting Vlad conjuring more snakes, Harry gave it a good shot. He didn't know the difference when he spoke, but Vlad eventually nodded and the door started sliding open.

The smell was quite something, damp and decay and death everywhere. Swallowing back bile in his throat, even Vlad looked a little nauseated as they stepped into what Harry supposed was a main chamber in the... chamber. Stone snake heads, intricately carved and tall enough to dwarf even Hagrid by several feet, lined the walls and there were a few dim, almost tired flickering torches of flames dotted around. Added to the wand light, it was just enough to show there were others here. One prone body on a damp floor (Harry really hoped it was water, not blood) that even at this distance, flaming red hair was evident. "We found Ginny." Vlad whispered next to him, and he felt cool fingers squeeze his for a second, unsure if that was supposed to comfort one or both of them.

The other person was standing, pacing and there was something very off about them. "Stay alert. Onwards!" Vlad was still whispering, but the words filled Harry with warmth and strength as they squared their shoulders and started walking. Vlad cancelled his floating light ball before they got down there, whispering he didn't want to look like he was showing off as they got closer. Harry took in the person hovering over Ginny, messy dark hair, high cheekbones and - this gave him pause - bright green eyes. If he didn't know better, this could be Harry's brother. He couldn't work out why, but it was like looking through frosted glass around the edges. The strange boy was focused almost entirely on Harry, and Vlad was knelt down next to Ginny, feeling for a pulse by the look of things.

"Are you a ghost?" The thing shook its head, looking down at the ground for a minute. Following his eyes, Harry spotted a soggy, bedraggled diary. "A memory, preserved in a diary for fifty years." "Tom Riddle? Tom Marvolo Riddle?" Vlad quizzed, and Harry remembered them looking for that name in the library a while back. "She won't wake up. No matter what you do." Vlad looked up from the unconscious Ginny, confused. "She's alive. Pulse and breathing and everything. So she can wake up." "You don't understand. As she grows weaker, I grow stronger." Harry had noticed, the fuzzy edges were starting to sharpen, slowly but surely.

"If you do manage to get a solid body, I will be first in line to rip its throat out." Riddle eyed Vlad almost dismissively. "You think you can challenge the greatest sorcerer in the world?" Vlad didn't waver, glaring angrily at the almost-corporeal teen. "No. But I can whip you from here to Halloween." Sometimes he forgot his best friend was a vampire, then Vlad came out with threats based on necks and references to Halloween dripped off his tongue with ease. "You're the one controlling the basilisk, you petrified my sister, my friend! You killed that boy." Riddle backed away from Vlad a little, but Harry spied the twisted length of wood in his hands. "You won't be needing this. However, you are correct. I am the heir of Slytherin, but once I deal with you I won't care about killing mudbloods anymore."

Vlad managed to act genuinely disarmed by the lack of wand, not letting on to Riddle that he didn't need it. Harry cocked his head, trying to look fearful but he trusted in Vlad that they could probably get out alive. Maybe. "And why's that?" Riddle paced around, glaring hotly at Harry as though he had done him great personal injustice in the last few minutes. "My new target for a while has been you." "Me? What did I do?" Starting to worry Vlad would work out Ingrid may have been petrified to get to Harry, he wasn't faking fear anymore. Riddle's still sharpening body stepped closer, brushing Harry's fringe aside with Vlad's wand. "How did you defeat Lord Voldemort? Escape with nothing more than a scar while his powers were destroyed?" Shrugging, Harry forced his eyes back to Riddle. "Why do you care? Voldemort was after your time." Harry's parents had died only eleven years ago, but Riddle was a teen fifty years ago - they were generations apart.

"Voldemort is my past, present and future." Vlad's wand was raised, tracing letters in the air that spelled out 'Tom Marvolo Riddle', and Riddle said simply "observe". The letters started rearranging themselves, and Harry's eyes widened as the anagram was revealed.

"I am Lord Voldemort."

"You're... You're him. Voldemort." He had been glaring before, but now Riddles face turned stony, terrifying. "You didn't think I was going to keep my filthy muggle fathers name? I am a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin!" Harry didn't think now was the time for a family reunion, telling this fuzzy angry teenager would grow up to be his grandfather apparently. "How did you control Ginny? Clearly you aren't physically capable of leaving the chamber to paint chicken blood on the walls." "Ginny Weasley found my diary, and suddenly she had such an understanding" his tone belied the word, Riddle had no tolerance for such things clearly "friend she could talk to. All I had to do was wait for her to form an emotional bond to me in the book. Oh Tom, my brothers are so popular and I'm just the awkward baby sister, only you understand me."

Vlad was starting to look a little worried now, struggling to find the steady thrum of life in Ginny's wrist - they didn't have long to work out how Riddle was draining her energy. "Once I had control, I could... not quite possess her, but exert complete control over her actions. She could even manage parseltongue when I was in control of her. Ginny killed the chickens and painted the threatening messages on the walls, even the one about her here. She made sure the basilisk attacked, watched as they died or became frozen. How is your sister Vladimir? I warned you not to get in my way." Vlad growled angrily at the mention of Ingrid, but Harry didn't know what the second part was about.

"Vlad? What does he mean?" "Oh, did your friend not tell you he found my diary?" Vlad dropped his eyes, guilt written across his face. "Remember when our dorm was ransacked? I only used the diary once or twice, but I didn't trust it and then it was taken. By Ginny, and then... And then Ingrid got hurt." Now Harry wasn't sure who that message had been for when Ingrid got petrified, and assuming they got out alive, he and Vlad were having a serious, honest talk. "For Vlad to have gotten the diary, Ginny would have had to throw it away. She tried to get rid of you, didn't she?" "And failed! She needed me, without me she would be nothing. And now, she's about to die with nothing more to show than her part in attacking the students."

The green eyes were icy shards of emerald, and Harry could feel his skin crawling at the idea this man was in his genes. Riddle growled angrily when Vlad held out his hand, summoning his wand back. "Did I not mention? I don't need a wand. But you're a powerful sorcerer, you don't need this right?" If Harry found his voice any time soon, he was going to tell Vlad to not antagonize Lord Voldemort. He didn't get chance to think further on that, as Tom Riddle turned around and more torches lit, revealing another huge stone thing, features like hollow eyes and long, scraggly hair. Even without being told, Harry knew who that was. Salazar Slytherin.

"Let's match the Heir of Salazar Slytherin and his great creature against little Harry Potter and his vampire pet." If Harry didn't know Vlad didn't get his fangs until sixteen, he would have expected to see Vlad about to tear the throat out of Riddle. Vlad levitated Ginny further along the room, then stood up and placed himself next to Harry. "Please tell me you know we are about to face a bloody huge snake?" "I am aware of that Vlad, yes. He's speaking parseltongue to summon said huge snake." Vlad shook his head, leaning closer and hissing "You're missing the point. Where did you get that from?" Harry wasn't about to say it out loud - they might be overheard. "Good garlic, think about it. If he's the heir, and you're his grandson?"

Choking on the realisation, Harry stared at Vlad and things started to make sense. The basilisk wanted him to get here - the true heir, that's what all those messages and voices he heard were for. Now Harry just had to survive the realisation, the basilisk and somehow save Ginny. The mouth of the Salazar Slytherin opened up, creaking and groaning stone lowering and if he looked, Harry could see something shifting. "Parseltongue won't save you now Potter, it only obeys the heir!" Funnily enough, that's what Harry was hoping for.

-YDHP-

I actually started this with the intention of finishing it a day early but then I was so bloody exhausted I slept for about twelve hours - my longest sleep in years I think. So its on time. I think. I hope. Enjoy!