Marik
The tunnels seemed to turn more and go on endlessly the further he ran through them. Alina's screams had already gone quiet minutes ago and he feared the worst. Every nerve in his body was tingling unpleasantly at the thoughts that already had begun to creep into his mind and no matter how hard he tried to shake them away he found that he couldn't. He wanted the tunnel to end desperately, yet dreaded what he'd find when it did.
With each turn in the tunnels what little light there was seemed to grow dimmer and before long he was forced to pull out his wand to light the way. The tunnel was so dark that he could only see a little distance ahead even with his lumos spell. His shadow on the wet walls looked monstrous in the wandlight. Each one of his footsteps even sounded monstrous as they slapped the wet floor beneath him loudly and echoed through the tunnel. Three more lefts followed by another right and what felt like hours of walking aimlessly.
Maybe the Chamber isn't here. The negative thought came to mind as he turned yet another corner. He was having a lot of thoughts like that one at the moment. It wasn't until after another few minutes of walking when he finally stumbled into a tunnel that at least looked different than the others he had been in so far.
This tunnel was smaller than the others he had walked through, and much darker. The tunnel was quiet as a grave that was until the unexpected sound he heard as he accidently stepped on what turned out to be a rat's skull. After panicking and embarrassingly casting three stunners and a blast spell at the broken skull he continued moving through the tunnel.
His eyes glanced to the floor more often after that and he saw that the it was littered with small animal bones. The monster has been eating these. I'm close. Trying very hard not to imagine what Alina might look like when he found her Marik continued forward.
At last it seemed he had reached the end of the tunnels as he crept around another bend, he saw a solid wall ahead, which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
Was this the entrance to the Chamber? He wondered to himself. He approached the solid wall, his throat very dry. How did he get through?
"Expulso!" He cast the explosion spell on the wall. His spell collided and disappeared instantly without leaving even a scrape on the wall.
"Alohomora!" He tried the open lock spell but still no result.
"So much for that idea. . ." he whispered. He had to find a way through, and quick. Trying in desperation he sent every spell he could think of at the wall. Each spell produced the same result as the first one had though and no matter how much power he put behind them nothing happened.
"Come on! Fucking open you damn door!" he screamed at the wall, pounding it with his fist in anger. All of the sudden the serpents on the wall parted and the wall cracked open.
"All I had to do was say open? What a stupid door…" he said to no one as he quickly walked through the crack inside.
He was standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit Chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost deep into the darkness above him, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.
His heart was beating very fast, he stood listening to the chill eerie silence. Nothing… No screams. . . Where was Alina?
He moved forward between the serpent columns further into the Chamber. Every footstep echoing loudly off the shadowy walls. As he drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue as high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.
He had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the two feet, face down, lay a small, black-robed figure… Alina…
"Alina!" he shouted, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. " Please don't be dead, please don't be dead, please don't be dead," he said through panting breath as he grabbed Alina's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was as white as marble, she looked even paler than she had the night before. Her skin was cold, and her eyes were closed. She looked…
"Alina Please wake up!" he muttered desperately, shaking her slightly in his hands. Her head lolled hopelessly from side to side as he did.
"She won't wake," said a soft voice behind him.
"Stupefy!" He turned quickly and flung the spell at the source of the voice that had broken the silence in the Chamber. As he turned he took note of the source of the voice.
A tall, black-haired boy, who looked like he couldn't be too much older than himself, was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. As his stupefy spell neared the boy, the boy threw up a shield spell and blocked his spell with ease. The boy was strangely blurred around the edges at certain points in his body, as though he were looking at him through a misted window. He was holding a wand in one hand. Marik looked closer, he recognized that wand, there was no doubting it. Just yesterday that wand had been pointed at him at point blank range. It was Alina's wand.
"Who are you?" he asked the boy with Alina's wand. The boy just stared at him and made no attempt to answer his question. "What do you mean she won't wake? Is she dead?" He asked more questions, desperately looking for any answers.
"She's still alive," the boy started saying "but only just."
"Did you kill her? Are you the monster in the Chamber?" he fired off even more questions and tightened his grip around his wand. The boy laughed in response to his questions.
"No I am not the monster in the Chamber, it won't come until it is called," the boy answered him. His questions were getting him nowhere.
"Who are you? Answer me!" he shouted the question and raised his wand.
"My name Is Tom Riddle, or it used to be in another life," the boy answered. The name didn't ring any bells.
"You said she is alive. What happened to her? What did you do to her?" he shouted more questions trying to get any information that might help him save Alina, and figure out what was going on.
"Yes she is still alive… For the moment. Alina made the choice to pour her soul into me," Tom Riddle answered him. His answer made no sense.
"What do you mean she made the choice to pour her soul into you? I doubt that was a choice she willingly made."
"Oh yes it was. It was a choice she made every day since this summer when we first met. When she found me I was just a memory, a memory preserved in a diary for fifty years." Tom Riddle started saying. He looked over at a small book next to Alina as he spoke. Marik's eyes followed his to the book.
She had that book with her last night… He thought to himself as he looked at it on the ground next to her still body.
"It's quite the long story actually. Alina is like this because she opened her heart and spilled all of her secrets to me. I was patient and listened to her and over time Alina began to pour her soul into me, and a soul happened to be exactly what I needed. I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Black. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Black a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her…"
"What do you mean?" His patience was almost running out.
"Haven't you guessed yet? Alina Black opened the Chamber of Secrets. She daubed the threatening blood messages on the walls. She set the monster loose on the mudblood who died," Tom Riddle said, calmly.
"No…" Was all he could get out. There was no way the sweet sincere girl he had met could be behind this.
"Yes, Of course she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her newer diary entries. . . far more interesting they became. . . . I believe you were even in a few. . . Marik Ose isn't it?" Tom Riddle said, and an eerie sneer crossed his face. How did Tom know his name? Did Alina tell him?
"It took a very long time for stupid little Alina to stop trusting her diary. She tried to dispose of it, she tried to fight it, but I was already too powerful to resist. And that's where we are now. Now in just a few more minutes the transformation of Alina's soul will be complete. Her body will lie in the Chamber forever and I will once again have a body of my own. You should feel honored. You will be the first to witness the return of the most powerful dark lord of all time." The sneer on Riddle's face had grown double in size.
He had heard all he needed to hear. He still didn't understand half of what the Riddle boy was saying but he had told him enough to know that he was the one responsible for Alina's current situation. Riddle said she would be alive for a few more minutes. A few minutes was enough to kick this creep's ass and save her. He readied himself.
"Stupefy, expelliarmus, expulso!" He fired the powerful spell chain at Tom who was still leaning on the pillar across the Chamber.
Tom dodged the first two of the oncoming spells with a quick step to the right and threw up a shield to protect himself from Marik's tracking expulso spell. Tom from his new position without saying a word silently sent a spell that came flying at a high speed towards him. He had no time to dodge and the spell collided with him. His body went flying backwards into one of the nearby snake statues and sent shattered bits of rock flying in all directions.
"You are no match for the great dark lord, Lord Voldemort. I'm going to teach you a lesson. A lesson that the rest of the world will soon learn. Discover what happens when someone goes against the powers of Lord Voldemort! Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four." Tom Riddle shouted, turning to face the large statue at the center of the Chamber.
Lord Voldemort… This was the wizard Harry had told he and Hermione about. This was the wizard that had tried to kill Harry when he was a baby. The dark wizard that had tried and almost succeeded to conquer magical Britain during the Great War they had learned about in class.
His train of thought was broken. The gigantic stone face of the statue was moving. Horrorstruck, he saw the mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole. And something… Something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.
"The monster…" he whispered to himself.
"Yes, witness the power of the mighty beast of Slytherin!" Something hit the stone floor of the Chamber with a loud slap. From under the statue an enormous serpent had landed on the stone floor. He could hear it hissing as it uncoiled itself.
"Kill him!" Tom shouted the command and instantly the snake started towards where he was on the floor.
Fuck. Was the first thought that crossed his mind as he got to his feet and ran away. As Voldemort started laughing he did his best to channel his inner Hermione to think quickly. Giant snake… Giant snake… Giant snake… He thought back to their lessons in class to see if it rang any bells. Think you dumbass! He yelled at himself internally.
"Basilisk!" He said out loud to no one as the lesson came to mind. Basilisks have one of the world's deadliest venom, their hide is somewhat resistant to magic, they can live for an extremely long time, and… He was forgetting something important… but what?
He had to cut his train of thought momentarily as the snake lunged forward towards him. He dove out of the way and behind the nearest statue.
"Come on Marik think Dammit!" he yelled at himself. Deadly venom, live long, thick skin… "Deadly Eyes!" he remembered the last bit of their lesson. That was it. Basilisk's eyes could kill you if you made eye contact with them. He stood up and charged from behind the statue.
"Obscuro!" He aimed the spell at the large basilisk as he ran to the next statue across the Chamber. Just as he hoped a large blindfold conjured itself and wrapped around the large head of the snake covering its deadly eyes.
"Professor Binns I swear to the magic gods I will never slack in your class again and will buy you a gift of thanks if I survive this. And Flitwick thank you for being such a crafty bastard!" He thanked his history of magic professor who had given him the lesson on basilisks back in his first year and his charm's professor who had used that blindfold spell on him countless times during their dueling sessions.
Now with the snake blindfolded the threat of it's death gaze was gone. However the basilisk still had overwhelming size, huge fangs, and not to mention deadly poison still working in it's favor. So basically the basilisk had a lot of shit left that could kill him.
"Okay Marik, you can do this," he told himself. "Incarcerous!" He cast the spell as he again made his way out from behind the statue he was hiding behind.
Huge ropes shot out from his wand and starting wrapping themselves around the basilisk's enormous body. Once a large portion of the snake's head was wrapped in his ropes he aimed the remainder of the ropes around a few of the nearby statues to hopefully keep the snake held down. He aimed his next spells carefully at the basilisk's neck.
"Diffindo, expulso!" The first seam splitting spell hit right where he had aimed on the snake's neck. The result was two of the thick scales being split apart revealing a softer portion of skin. His next spell hit dead-on in the weaker part of skin. The snake thrashed around as far as it could in the ropes it was bound in as part of its neck exploded.
In the wake of the explosion a much larger portion of the monster's neck was left open for attacks. Unfortunately, the explosion combined with the thrashing also snapped a few of his ropes, allowing the basilisk to once again move freely. Even though it was blindfolded, it knew right where he was and charged furiously at him again.
"Impedimenta!" He slowed the advancing basilisk as much as he could and rolled to his left dodging the charge. He readied himself again for another round of spells.
"Expulso, confringo!" He fired off a second volley of spells at the basilisk's neck again. His first spell exploded with the beast's neck again sending off a flurry of scales on its impact. His second spell lit the now open wound ablaze in a hot flurry of flames.
The basilisk again thrashed around in anger at the pain. The quick thrashes and movements made by the basilisk unfortunately put out his flames. It seemed he had done some damage but the fight was far from over. This time the snake charged at him much quicker than it had before. Unfortunately, he had moved away from any nearby cover which meant he was wide open and defenseless.
"Protego!" He threw up a quick shield spell in front of the oncoming snake. The basilisk's attack burst right through his shield and the snake hit him head on sending him flying through the air a good twenty feet back. Thankfully, as he checked his body for wounds it appeared that he had not been bit. He grabbed his wand from the ground and got back up to his feet.
"Umbrosio!" He cast his shadow magic spell and focused on harnessing its power.
He needed to get the Basilisk held down again now that it was freed from the ropes. So with that in mind he focused on the shadows in the Chamber as much as he could. Since the Chamber was barely lit up it gave him access to shadows in literally all directions. Channeling energy into the shadows of two of the large snake statues on either side of the again charging basilisk, he summoned an equally as large shadowy snake head from both of the statue's shadows.
His two shadow snake heads lunged wide mouthed at the basilisk and grabbed it at two separate parts along its body holding it in place at its spot in the Chamber. This was his chance, he was not sure how long his shadows would hold.
"Expulso, expulso, umbrosio!" He fired off another spell chain hopeful that the spells would be enough. His first two spells exploded on the basilisk's neck sending another flurry of scales along with blood into the Chamber. His offensive umbrosio spell drew in all the darkness in the Chamber to the tip of his wand before firing off towards the beast.
The shadow spell collided with the bleeding, weaker-skinned portion of the snake's neck an exploded in a fury of energy. The enormous basilisk gave off one more loud hiss before it landed with a thud on the Chamber floor unmoving, and unbreathing. He did it!
"Pity," he heard Tom Riddle say from the other side of the Chamber next to Alina's body, interrupting his momentarily mental celebrations. He started walking in the direction they were in.
"One giant-ass snake down, one Harry-and-Alina-attempting-killing-dark-lord to go," he told himself as he walked towards the boy who had claimed himself to be Lord Voldemort.
"Well done Mr. Ose. I am impressed. What Alina told me about your abilities I see were not exaggerated," Tom Riddle said, still with a creepy grin on his face.
"Shut up! Don't you talk about her anymore. I beat your monster now release Alina from whatever spell you cast on her. This is over!" he ordered.
"Hahaha!" Tom laughed at his order. "Oh I'm afraid for you this is far from over Mr. Ose. You can already see from my body that the spell is almost complete. You are too late." Sure enough the cloudiness around his body was now only visible in a few small spots.
"You may have beaten Slytherin's beast but even the mighty strength of a basilisk is no match compared to the power of Lord Voldemort. It's time for you to say goodbye to Miss Alina, and I'm afraid, it's time for you to say goodbye to this world. Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort cast the spell he had never heard of in his direction. A bright green light headed directly at him. Even from a distance he could sense extreme power radiating from the spell.
"Protego!" He shouted the shield spell and readied himself. However the spell never hit his shield. Just as he finished casting the shield spell he heard a loud clicking sound from behind him. Out of nowhere a large spider jumped in front of him and took the full impact of the spell. The spider's legs upon impact immediately tensed and the stopped moving as the eight eyes on its head went wide and blank. It was dead…
"Strange Wizard!" A voice clicked from down the Chamber. He turned to look at its source. The voice belonged to the large spider, Aragog, from the forest. "That spell is a killing spell! You cannot block it with normal spells! We will help distract him for you, you finish him!" The spider clicked an order and at once hundreds of other spiders emerged from the shadows towards Voldemort.
"You came…" he whispered as he watched what was now unfolding before him. They had said in the forest that they would not help him, but yet here they were. They had come to help. One of the spiders had even sacrificed himself to save his life.
"Stop standing around! Do something!" the large spider clicked angrily at him.
"Right!" he said nodding his head and turning his attention back to his opponent. Voldemort was sending green wave after green wave towards the spiders. One by one he saw each spider it connected with immediately tense up and die. It was a terrifying and powerful spell to behold.
"Stupefy, deprimo, expulso, expelliarmus!" He sent four more spells towards Voldemort over the heads of the countless number of spiders that were charging Voldemort. Voldemort deflected each one of his spells along with the fangs of the spiders with ease and just continued to grin.
"Flipendo, incendio, locomotor mortis!" Another wave of spells left his wand and flew at high speeds towards Voldemort. Again he avoided them and sent another wave of green at the spiders.
"You weak fools! You think you could even compete with a dark lord as powerful as me. Look at me Marik! The spell is complete. You're friend is dead!" In disbelief he looked over to Alina's body. It remained unmoving as it had before. He looked back to Voldemort. It seemed like the cloudiness around him was completely gone.
Did that mean what he said was true… Alina was really dead. . . His heart sank in his chest and he was filled with a flood of sadness and despair.
"No I won't believe you! She is still alive! Stupefy, reducto, stupefy! " He turned back to Voldemort and sent off another wave of spells not allowing himself to believe that Alina was dead. Again Voldemort cast his spells aside.
"You don't believe me. Well here then, I will prove it to you. Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort cast the green spell again, this time towards Alina.
"NOOOOOO!" he screamed in an agony of fear as he reached out his arm towards the small girl lying on the ground. The spell closed in on her. Tears streamed from his eyes as all he could do was reach out and watch. He was too far away from her. He felt his magic pulling at him begging him to do something as the spell closed in, but what could he do. He felt so weak and helpless that he just let it pull at him, it was hopeless anyways. The green light made its way over to Alina's spot on the ground.
However, just as the green light was about to collide with Alina's body a figure emerged from the ground in front of Alina. The figure looked like a shade formed out of shadows itself as it stood the size of a tall man whose body was built out of chaotic swarming cloud of blackness. The green spell collided with the figure instead of Alina and a huge release of magical energy filled the Chamber blinding him. When the light disappeared Alina was still on the floor in the exact spot and position she had been in before.
The shadowy figure blocked the spell . . . But how . . . Was that his shadow magic . . . Did he somehow do that . . .
He turned his gaze back over to Voldemort, who for a second had a shocked look on his face before it returned back to his normal one.
"Ava…" Once again Voldemort had his wand pointed at Alina and was casting another one of the deadly green spells. He had to do something. He couldn't rely on whatever just had happened to happen again. Who knows if it even would or could happen again. He thought frantically for a solution to end this. Nothing came though. He looked around even more frantically in a panic, desperate for anything. But nothing except anger, sadness, despair, and hate came.
All around him spiders were dying, and now Alina was about to die. Because he couldn't save her. . . Because he was too weak. His heart again dropped into the empty pit of his chest, his skin went cold, and his eyes already ached from the tears streaming out of them. He fell to his knees, hopeless.
"Please…" he begged. "ALINAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" he screamed out as two green spells left Voldemort's wand. One headed for him, and one headed right at Alina's defenseless body.
At once he felt light headed. A surge of magic went through him as he screamed Alina's name. All of the tears on his face starting burning. All of the anger he felt inside seemed to spring to the surface of his cold skin like a raging fire and at once his skin started to feel like it was burning deep inside a hot flame.
Inside his chest where he had felt the agony and sadness just seconds early it now felt like needles were stabbing endlessly at every inch of insides. He was in such an indescribable pain it felt like he was going to die alongside Alina right there, just a few feet away from each other in the Chamber. Their bodies would lie in the Chamber forever. All he could see in front of him with his blurred vision was Alina's body, motionless on the floor, and the man who had killed her. The man he hated.
He felt the hate for the man swirling inside him. The rest of his emotions seemed to join in on the hurricane storm of pain, agony, sadness, and hate raging inside his chest. After who knows how long all the pain and emotions swirling through him seemed to disappear. All that was left in the absence was a calm silence.
All of the light and darkness in the world around him seemed to have vanished. He felt blind. There was no longer the chaos of the Chamber in his vision but just an endless sea of grey. No light, no darkness . . . just . . . silence . . . and . . . nothingness.
In the distance of the endless grey a bright blue light appeared. It was beautiful cast against the endless grey. It stood out like a beautiful blue orchid in a field of bland-grey flowers. The beautiful shade of blue reminded him of . . . Alina's eyes . . . The pain, and the world around him returned at the thought of her.
At once as the Chamber replaced the endless grey in his vision again as all of the previous emotions and pain returned to his chest. Only this time, a hundreds time worse. He screamed out in agony as every muscle in his body tensed uncontrollably in reaction to the pain. The torture his body was in seemed to be an endless torment of suffering and jagged knives.
He opened his eyes to see if it was Voldemort who was causing him this pain with a spell. He never saw the boy named Tom Riddle though. As soon as he opened his eyes all of the light and darkness in the room seemed to flow into them and his vision was again changed. This time it was filled with a sea of perfect black. The entirety of the darkness in the Chamber seemed to have entered into his eyes and he could almost feel it swirling through his head and body just as the pain and emotions were doing.
After what felt like another eternity another color appeared in his vision. This time a speck of white at the center of his vision appeared, just as the bright blue had before..
"Marik!" He thought he heard someone call his name out from somewhere in the distance. All he could see though was the white dot cast in a sea of endless black in his vision. The white dot started to grow larger. Faster and faster the small speck of white light grew and grew engulfing the darkness in his vision as it did so, the pain inside him growing along with it.
This was the end . . .
I'm Dying . . . was the only thing that came to mind as the suffering grew worse.
In an instant the white speck had engulfed the entirety of the darkness in his vision. As the last few traces of darkness drifted away he felt all the pain, emotion, and magic inside of his body shoot through every pore of his skin. The pain was unimaginable. . . and unbearable. . .
As the white engulfed the last speck of black an image of his friends flashed briefly into his mind. Hermione. . . Harry. . . Alina. . . It was replaced quickly though, by even more darkness, and even more pain. Pain. . . The indescribable pain was the only thing he felt as he drifted away into the black behind his eyes, and got lost, deep inside the darkness. . .
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