Still don't own Harry Potter just this story and the charactors that I made up.

This chapter is the result of a dream I had... a very vivid dream that I can still recall even though I had it over three years ago! Hope you enjoy what my unconscious mind came up with!

Chapter Nineteen

Tom Riddle's Passageway

Taylor glanced up and down the empty hall. She wondered briefly if she should go after Harry and let him know about what she had found, but then she reasoned to herself, what had she found? A passageway. She looked down at the map and could see the tiny dot labeled Taylor Porter standing at the mouth of the new passageway. She took a deep breath and entered the dark tunnel. As soon as she was in the tunnel the door folded shut and she was in complete darkness. "Lumos" Taylor whispered and lit her wand tip. The soft glow from the tip of her wand barely pushed the blackness a few feet back. Taylor began walking slowly down the passageway. The floor in the tunnel slopped sharply downward and Taylor had to work at keeping her balance and not go tumbling down, to who knew where.

Forty minutes later, covered in a fine sweat, the floor finally leveled out and Taylor found herself standing on the edge of a huge cavern, high up on the wall. She could see faint light as it glowed from the walls closer to the bottom of the cavern. She took the map back out of her cloak and looked at it but, as she had expected, she had traveled too far down under the castle to still be on the map. She put the map away and studied the edge of the rock. There had to be a way down. She walked closer to the edge, got down on her hands and knees and looked over the side. There, about four and a half feet below, was a narrow ledge. She swung her feet out over the edge and lowered herself down onto the narrow ledge. It was only about four feet across. Again Taylor crawled to the edge and again there was a narrow ledge almost five feet below. Again and again Taylor lowered herself down onto the ledges, until finally she came to the bottom of the great cavern.

The cavern itself was huge and she could just make out the small dark hole she had emerged from, almost a half hour ago. The light seemed to come from the rocks themselves; a weird unnerving greenish glow. The ground that Taylor stood on now was pale fine sand and she could see her footprints in the smooth sand easily. The sand sloped away gently towards a darker area, almost like the shore of a beach. Taylor could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up and she looked all around, trying to locate anything that might indicate some sort of danger. The silence, except for her breathing and the sound like hands running over course material, was complete. She didn't know how long she stood there listening. But the hairs still stood up on the back of her neck and the rubbing sound, if you could call it that, didn't get any louder, nor did it go away.

Taylor looked back the way she had come, then began walking very, very slowly down again toward the darker mass in the center of the cavern. She held her still lit wand up so that she could see as far ahead of her as possible. She was almost to the dark area when she stopped. Out in the middle, she could now make out a rock and laying on the rock was what looked like a cup. Taylor's heart was pounding heavily in her ears as she tried to see what lay before her and the rock. Slowly like a tide crawling up a beach on a calm day, Taylor finally saw what was making the rubbing noise. Snakes! Thousands of them, slithering over one another. Taylor stuck her hand into her mouth to keep from screaming.

"Harry, if you are so worried about where Taylor is, why don't you just go and look for her. She's probably in the library studying. She hasn't exactly been hanging around in the common room lately, you know," Hermione said. She was getting tired of Harry's anger every time Taylor was around; but when she wasn't, like now, he was asking them if they knew where she was. It was driving her mad.

"Hermione, it's past curfew; besides no one has seen her since she left McGonagall's office hours ago," Harry said in an agitated voice. He wasn't going to admit it out loud, but he was angry with himself for walking away and leaving his little sister outnumbered by a bunch of Slytherin's. Sure she had whipped their butts, but that wasn't the point. He ran his hand restlessly through his hair and then tried to flatten it down again.

"I know mate, why don't you just take a look on the map," Ron finished quietly so only Harry could hear.

Harry could have smacked himself in the head. Why hadn't he thought of that? He jumped up and raced up the stairs.

Hermione watched him go and sadly shook her head, "We've got to get those two back talking to one another before they drive me insane!"

"Harry's waiting for Taylor to apologize, I think" Ron said as he looked up the stairway where his best friend had just disappeared.

Ginny rolled her eyes and snorted from the table she was working at right behind the chairs the three others had been sitting in. "If you ask me, Harry just doesn't know how to tell Taylor he forgives her. He's not really mad at her anyway, he never was. He just hates Snape so much that, for him to think that Taylor saved him, was just too much to handle."

Ron stared at Ginny dumbfounded and Hermione had to fight to hide her smile.

"It's not up there. None of you guys have it do you?" Harry asked when he reached the bottom of the stairs again, looking from one to the other. They all shook their heads.

Hermione asked, "When did you have it last?"

Harry sat down again and ran a troubled hand through his hair. Something was up, he knew it, and because his scar wasn't bothering him, he knew it had to do with his sister. Horrible thoughts began invading his mind. He could see her laying in a deserted hallway, having been ambushed by a bunch of Slytherin's, or…

Taylor had been so thankful that the Fat Lady had been in her portrait, that she didn't immediately take in the people who were sitting in the almost empty common room. She had actually turned to go up to her dorm room when a demanding voice brought her out of her thoughts.

"Just where the HELL have you been?" Harry demanded, coming up out of the chair he had been sitting in.

Taylor swung her eyes up into those angry green eyes and a shudder ran down her back. She wiped at the sweat that was running down into her eyes and tried to think of what she was going to tell Harry. Encountering him in the common room hadn't even crossed her mind.

Hermione noticed the dirt that covered Taylor and the whiteness of her face. Concerned she asked, "Taylor, where have you been? What's happened?"

Taylor looked at Hermione and relief flooded her face. She wasn't going to have to face Harry alone. Although after what she had just seen in that cavern, telling Harry should be easy.

"Taylor you look like you've run a mile. Where have you been?" Ginny asked, as she joined Harry and Hermione who were standing by a dirty, sweating Taylor.

Taylor said, in a not too steady voice, "I think I might have found what we've been looking for, but I think I'd better sit down before my knees give out." She attempted a little laugh to try to break the tension, but failed miserably.

Harry's eyes narrowed and he felt some of the blood draining from his face, as he realized what Taylor was hinting at. He watched as Hermione and Ginny guided her over to the chairs where the three of them had been sitting and got Taylor a glass of water, once she had sat down. Just where, in Merlin's name, had his sister been anyway? He was thinking as he walked over and stood in front of the fireplace, turning to look at Taylor.

Taylor drank the water that Hermione gave her and thought it was the sweetest water she had ever drunk. Taylor's hand still shook slightly as she lowered the glass and set it on the floor in front of her, then she looked up at Harry and could plainly see the worry etched in his face. She took a deep breath and heard Ginny say "Muffliato". She nodded thankfully at Ginny and began to tell her tale, starting with taking Harry's map and ending with when she came through the portal just a short while ago. There was silence when she finished talking. Taylor didn't take her eyes off of Harry. She could see the emotions as they crossed his face anger, fear, and determination.

"So you say that the entrance to this passageway is about halfway along the blank wall on the fourth floor? Why haven't we ever seen it before?" Ron asked.

Taylor chewed on her lip for a second before she answered, "I was kind of thinking it might have had something to do with the charm I used on the map to show me where Harry was."

Hermione's eyes were narrowed and she was quickly going over things in her mind, then she looked at Taylor her eyes widening. She said "It was Dark Magic you used, wasn't it?"

Harry's question was swift on Hermione's last, "Taylor, you have been warned about using Dark Magic. How could you just go and do it again?"

Taylor cut him off mid sentence, "Harry don't start. Look...what I think is important right now is that I know where one of Voldemort's Horcruxes is." Again this was met with silence.

"I need to go get it." Harry said, as if to himself.

"What! Not right now. We need to plan this thing through. How are you supposed to get past all those snakes?" Hermione said trying to sound reasonable as usual.

Ron stood up and nodded his head, "I'm with you mate."

Harry looked at his friend and nodded his head. "We'll need the invisibility cloak, and the map. Taylor you still have my invisibility cloak, don't you?"

Taylor nodded and got up to go get the cloak from her trunk.

She could see that a heated argument was going on between Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny when she came back down into the common room, but because of the silencing charm she couldn't hear what was being said.

With an angry swish of her wand, Hermione lifted the silencing charm and continued to say, "This is ridiculous Harry. We need to sit down and plan this out, and not go charging off without thinking this through!"

"Hermione, I've made up my mind. Ron and I are going to take a look and see what we are up against, tonight." Harry said with a look that made it useless to try and talk him out of it.

"Right and I'm coming too," Taylor said as she swung the invisibility cloak over her head.

"Taylor, I'm not taking you!" Harry growled.

"You're right, you are not taking me. I'm taking you, now let's go." And Taylor started out through the portal so the other two had to follow.

Taylor could hear the snakes as they crawled over one another, her hair once again standing on end. They hadn't met anyone as they made their way through the castle with the help of the map. Harry and Ron had been a little surprised by the password to enter the passageway but neither of them had uttered a word since.

Harry was walking back and forth on the sand looking out at the rock in the middle. "How am I to get out there?" he asked.

"I don't know but there has to be a way, maybe we could fly out on a broom?" Ron said, but as if the cavern had heard him the air was suddenly filled with millions of flying things that looked like razor blades and the three of them had to dive onto the sand to keep from being cut to ribbons.

"I don't think we had better mention the 'f ' word again, okay?" Harry said as he crawled up to where Ron and Taylor where lying on the sand. The flying razor blades slowly receded up into the blackness that was above them.

The three of them stood up again, and started to walk down towards the black mass of snakes, but they didn't get very far because the snakes started to move up the sand towards them and they were forced back up onto the first ledge on the cliff.

"They didn't do that the last time I was here. I walked right up to the edge of them, before I realized what they were and they never moved toward me," Taylor said her voice tight, she could almost feel the snake crawling over her skin.

Harry was silent for a moment then he nodded his head, "When Professor Dumbledore and I went after the last Horcrux, he said that he didn't think the magic that protected it could pick up underage magic." Harry looked at Taylor, she was still underage.

Taylor nodded her head that made sense. "I could go out and get the cup. They probably wouldn't bother me." She said barely above a whisper.

"No, if there is some kind of magic keeping the cup there, then you won't be able to do it alone, just like Dumbledore couldn't do it without me. We'll have to go together." Harry said determinedly. He was quite sure that Taylor had thought of that all ready. "Ron you stay here, in case we need you."

Ron nodded his head. He wasn't sure if he could have spoken just then anyway. The sight of all those snakes coming up the sand after them! It had affected him almost as much as if they had been spiders.

Harry looked at Taylor but her face was full of determination too. "Let's do this," he said and jumped lightly down off the ledge where they had been standing. The sea of snakes had ebbed away once more. Taylor landed lightly beside him and they started for the middle of the sea of snakes. When they came to the edge of the snakes they paused for a moment, then Harry spoke in Parseltongue to move the snakes out of the way and Taylor followed closely behind. It was slow going, the mass of snakes that were all around them was staggering. If only a tenth of them were poisonous they wouldn't make it two steps before they would be dead. The hissing and slithering sound was almost a roar now as they neared the rock. The wall of snakes on either side was almost up to their shoulders.

When at last they stepped up onto the rock, Taylor was surprised to see it had taken them almost twenty minutes to reach the rock. She could barely see Ron standing on the ledge, where they had left him.

Harry was looking closely at the cup sitting on top of the rock. There didn't seem to be anything stopping him from just picking it up. He reached out to touch it but his hand couldn't seem to get any closer then a foot, from the cup. There was something shielding it somehow. Harry turned to look at Taylor and she shrugged her shoulders. He squatted down to stare at the cup. He was positive that Taylor had been right with her assumption. It was Helga Hufflepuff's cup, that Dumbledore had shown him in the pensive last year. He didn't know how long he stared at it but soon he could make out the domed shape of the shielding charm around the cup. He knew that shielding charms when performed by a wizard to protect one's self was very draining but this had to be different. He placed his hand on the shield and ran his hand all over it. It didn't push his hand away but just wouldn't let it get any closer to the cup. He took his wand and prodded it, and suddenly the snakes began slithering up on to the rock. He quickly put his wand away, and the snakes slipped back off of the rock. He looked over at Taylor again, and she was shaking her head. He understood. Don't try that again. An idea slowly began to take shape in his mind, and he pulled his belt off of his pants. Taylor's eyes opened wide, then she caught on to what he was going to try. Harry bent the tongue on the belt and lowering it down to the shield and through it, he hooked the cup by the handle and withdrew it from its resting place.

Taylor understood. It was a muggle belt. There wasn't anything magical about it. It was one of Dudley's hand me downs. Taylor smiled at Harry, but the celebration was cut short when a big snake suddenly appeared out of nowhere and sunk its fangs into Harry's leg. Taylor's wand was in her hand and she blasted the snake off of the rock. Harry fell forward on to his knees, the cup held tightly in his hand.

"Harry! Are you okay?" Taylor asked, her voice echoing the panic that was beginning to take over her, as she watched the snakes slither back up on to the rock.

"Help me up, we've got to get out of here." Harry said through clenched teeth, reaching for Taylor.

Taylor sent a jet of water at the snakes, washing them off of the rock. Then she slipped under Harry's arm to help him stand and got a look at the blood on his leg, where the snake had bitten him. "Harry, can you stand for a second? I know of a muggle trick to maybe keep that poison from spreading to quickly." Taylor said as she knelt and grabbed the belt from where Harry had dropped it. She wrapped the belt around Harry's leg just above the bite and cinched it tight. Then she stood up again and took some of Harry's weight on her shoulders. Harry hissed through clenched teeth, in Parseltongue and they slowly made their way back through the sea of snakes. The snake language that Harry was speaking seemed to work less and less as they neared the middle of the mass of snakes.

"Taylor, we're not going to make it, leave me and run for it," Harry said his face white and soaked with sweat.

Taylor looked up at him and shook her head, "No! I will not leave you, I've got an idea, but it might not work…"

"Taylor, you'd better try now!" Harry said as several huge snakes made their way from the writhing mass, towards them.

Taylor closed her eyes and forced herself to be calm. Another breath and she opened her eyes, lifted her wand and spoke so softly that if Harry hadn't been standing right beside her, he would never have heard her. Suddenly there erupted from her wand a massive reflective shield that covered the both of them. The pathway that Harry had been making by telling the snakes to move aside and not attack collapsed on top of them but the shield held. Slowly, very slowly, they pushed their way through the sea of snakes. Time stood still as step by step they crept closer to the wall that would save them, if they could just reach it.

Harry leaned more heavily on Taylor as time went on but Taylor didn't dare stop concentrating on her shield to perform a levitating charm. She knew as they approached the wall and Ron came into clear view that she wasn't going to be able to keep her shield up much longer. She could already see small snakes slipping in through the holes that began to appear in her shield. They were within twenty feet of Ron when the first small set of fangs sunk into her leg.

"Come on Harry, just a little closer! Taylor, watch out! They are getting in behind you!" Ron called as he reached towards them, but they were still too far away.

"Ron, I'm going to drop my shield, be ready to magic Harry over to you," Taylor said her legs shaking from the effort to keep the shield in place.

Ron looked at Taylor but he understood what she meant, get Harry to safety. He pointed his wand at Harry and nodded his head.

Taylor let her shaking arm drop as Ron yelled "Accio Harry!"

Harry flew off of Taylor's shoulders and up onto the ledge where Ron was standing. Taylor felt at least two more sets of fangs sink into her trembling legs, before Ron's "Accio Taylor!"

Ron stood looking down at the sea of writhing snakes. He had just been able to get Taylor out of there before they had attacked in mass. "We've got to get out of here! Are you okay, Taylor?"

Taylor nodded her head, "Yeah, you climb up to the next level and then lift Harry up, I'll crawl up behind. Maybe we won't activate those razor blades by just lifting." She looked down at Harry. His eyes were starting to roll into the back of his head and his face was soaked with sweat.

So Ron swung himself up to the next ledge and then pointing his wand at Harry levitated him up there with him. "Taylor, you want me to bring you up too?" Ron asked as he knelt and looked down over the ledge again.

Taylor shook her head but took his hand and pulled herself up onto the second ledge. "Look Ron, you can't take both of us with you. It will take too long." Taylor stopped to get her breathe, then went on "You've got to get Harry to Madame Pomfrey. Tell her that he was bitten by a full size cobra. She'll know what to do, then you can come back and get me. You've got the map?"

"But Taylor, there has to be another way," Ron began but Taylor held up her hand to stop him.

"Ron, he doesn't have much time left. Go! I'll follow along behind," Taylor said and Ron nodded.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," he said and turned and lifted himself up onto the next ledge, then levitated Harry up behind him.

"Ron, look after that cup!" Taylor called as she watched Ron disappear over another ledge. Within several minutes Ron had reached the mouth of the tunnel and disappeared with Harry. Taylor forced herself to stand up and crawl up onto the next ledge. She wasn't sure how many more she was going to be able to climb. She could feel the effects of the poison from the bites already making her movements sluggish. She pulled a rope from her robes and wrapped it around first one leg then the other. She wasn't sure if it would help but that was the only thing she could think of to try.

The sight of a snake's head poking up onto the ledge she sat on was the only thing that gave Taylor enough strength to get up over the next ledge.

By the time she crawled up onto the last ledge, Taylor wasn't even certain where she was. Her eyes were swollen shut and it was only the cold air coming from the tunnel that guided her into it.

Ron had run up the tunnel pulling Harry's weightless body behind him. When he reached the door and it had folded back to let him through, he hadn't even paused to check the map to see if the coast was clear. No one was there. So he ran as fast as he could towards the Hospital wing and help. Somehow he didn't come upon any of the people that were patrolling the school at nights. When he reached the Hospital doors they were shut and locked.

"Madame Pomfrey! Please open up! Madame Pomfrey!" He bellowed as he beat on the doors with his fist and tried to catch his breath. The first person he saw was Lupin, followed closely by Tonks and Professor Shacklebolt.

"Ron! What's happened," Lupin asked as he looked down at Harry's still floating body.

"What is going on out here? It is still very early in the morning!" Madame Pomfrey asked, as she unlocked the hospital doors and looked out at Ron. Then she caught sight of Harry and opened the doors wider. "Bring him right in, Mr. Weasley. What has happened to him?"

Ron followed Madam Pomfrey in and put Harry onto the bed that she pointed at, then he quickly told her what Taylor had said about the snake.

"Mr. Weasley will you please tell me how Mr. Potter has ended up with a snake bite in the middle of the night, when the both of you should be asleep in your beds!" A very angry Professor McGonagall demanded as she came hurrying up to them, tying up her dressing gown. Tonks was right behind her.

Ron looked at Professor McGonagall and shook his head "Please Professor, we've got to go get Taylor. I couldn't bring them both and she told me to get Harry some help and go back after her!"

"Taylor, you mean she's hurt too?" Lupin asked his voice full of concern.

"Miss Porter is where, Mr. Weasley?" Professor McGonagall demanded.

"I can't tell you, I'll have to show you. I'm not sure if she was bitten to or not, but she was too tired to keep up, so she told me to come back after her," Ron said in a rush hoping that they would just let him go get Taylor.

Professor Shacklebolt spoke up, "Maybe these questions are best left until after we have returned with Miss Porter, Headmistress."

McGonagall nodded her head and said, "Yes, I agree. Please Professor Shacklebolt, and Lupin, will you go with Mr. Weasley here and bring Miss Porter back here?"

Shacklebolt gave a nod of his head and said to Ron. "Mr. Weasley please lead the way."

Ron glanced at Harry who hadn't moved or uttered a sound since he had started up the tunnel with him. His chest tightened up and he wondered if he had gotten his friend to help in time. Taylor still needed help. He looked up at Lupin and Shacklebolt then set off out of the hospital and through the castle at a run.

When he came to the empty hallway he pulled out the map and looked at it. He could see the passageway on the other side of the stone wall. "I am Lord Voldemort," he said and both of the men jumped. However, the wall folding back to reveal a tunnel stopped any questions that they might have been going to ask.

Ron pulled his wand out and led them into the dark tunnel. Downward he hurried as fast as he could. How long had Taylor been down here alone? How far could she have come? What if…? And Ron shook his head refusing to think along those lines.

The three wizards had made a lot better time then Taylor had the first time she had come down the passageway only hours ago. Still it was almost a half hour before they could see a shape lying on the floor of the tunnel ahead of them.

A/N Well there you have it. The dream I had put into writting! I wasn't even thinking of having a hidden new passage way until I had that dream! My poor husband thought I had lost my mind when I stayed up most of the night trying to finish this chapter! The errie green cave and the snakes... they were so vivid! I could even hear Harry and Ron's voices! It was one of the strangest dreams I have ever had! So what did you think? I would really love to hear your oppinion! This chapter was written before the seventh book ever came out... though we are quickly getting to the point in the story where it will be after the book was released... but I will let you know when that happens.

All reviews are greatly apperciated! As well as those of you who have added this story to their favorites! I also would like to say thank you if you have read this far! Even that means a whole lot to me! A speacial thanks to my bata barbc! Well until next time, cytpotter.