He could feel the floor vibrating beneath him as more and more of a heavy weight landed in the corridor behind him. It sounded massive, and the breath on his back was fetid.
The urge to look behind him was almost overwhelming, but to look backwards would be to die.
Steven lunged forward, passing through the specter of Riddle or Voldemort, or whoever he was. He plowed into Ginny, and as he did, he brought up his bubble.
Riddle hissed something, and a moment later Steven felt a sudden lurch as his bubble was shoved violently forward down the hall.
Ginny screamed, waking up confused and spinning wildly inside the bubble.
He closed his eyes and held on to her tightly as they spun. He was starting to feel sick, but he didn't dare open his eyes.
It was possible that seeing the basilisk through his bubble would mean that he was only petrified, but it might also be no help at all.
"Steven!"
He heard Amethyst's voice and he felt a moment of relief. Involuntarily he opened his eyes and he saw her look upward.
"Oh poop," she said. A moment later she poofed, her gem dropping to the ground.
In his shock and horror, Steven let his bubble drop and he and Ginny went flying. He managed to grab her and put himself between her and the wall, which he slammed into heavily.
The basilisk, weighing much more and unable to stop went flying past.
Ginny screamed again.
Steven grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him as he ran forward. Amethyst was already reforming, although she was distorted. Reforming so quickly wasn't healthy, but she knew this was an emergency.
"The eyes," he said as he ran past her.
"Right," she said.
A moment later he heard the slithering sound of the monster as it came back down the corridor, having somehow found a place to turn around. There was the explosive sound of her whips, and a roar of pain, which almost concealed the sound of her gem dropping to the ground again.
The moving staircase wasn't where it was supposed to be; there was just a drop off to Steven's left. It was too far to jump even for him; by this time he knew his limits. He might have risked it if it had been him alone, but with Ginny...
They had to something about this quickly; if they didn't it was only a matter of time before students of teachers started showing up. People were going to be killed.
He lunged for a door to the side; maybe they could hide in a classroom.
The door slammed open and his heart sank as he saw a full class; Harry and Ron looked up at him. Hermione was still safe in the infirmary.
"What's the meaning of this?" Professor Flitwick squeaked.
Steven pulled Ginny through and slammed the door behind him. He closed his eyes and a moment later his shield appeared, solid and impenetrable.
The entire wall shuddered as something slammed into the door on the other side.
Steven leaned against the door.
"It's the basilisk," he said. "You need to get everybody out of here."
There weren't a lot of options, he thought as the wall shuddered again. There wasn't a fireplace here to floo anyone away, and no one could apparate...
"Professor," he said. "Can you help me?"
The diminutive professor nodded grimly and moved quickly through the classroom.
He said...something as he pulled out his wand. The door in front of Steven shimmered and changed, becoming thick and metal.
"It won't hold a basilisk for long," he said.
Steven heard some of his classmates screaming behind him.
He let his shield drop, then he turned and held out his hand to Ginny.
"Trust me," he said.
She stared at him for a moment, then nodded.
He bubbled her, and a moment later she was gone.
It was good that Amethyst had set up a room in the temple where they could bubble things, even if there was nothing in this universe that could go poof.
"Come on!" he shouted, gesturing toward his classmates.
There was a sound of explosions from outside; Amethyst was fighting again.
One by one the students moved forward, letting him bubble them. It was a close thing; a couple of years older and they'd have been too large for him to manage. Some of the larger ones strained his ability to its limit.
Harry insisted on staying, as did Professor Flitwick, who kept transfiguring the wall as it crumbled.
A moment later the wall exploded, and Steven placed a bubble around himself and his friends.
They exploded out the window.
For a moment he saw all of Hogwarts as they flew out the third floor window. A moment was all it took as they hit the ground and the bubble popped.
He looked up, and he saw the basilisk hissing.
Blood streamed from its eyes where Amethyst had used her whip. It lashed back and forth and Amethyst was nowhere to be seen.
Riddle's specter appeared beside Steven, reminding him that he still had the book shoved in his pocket. It pointed at him and hissed something in snake tongue.
The monster slithered down the side of the building. Its tongue lashed out, and Steven remembered from Ronaldo's blog that Snake people...and presumably snakes, didn't need eyes to detect their prey.
Flitwick was pulling himself to his feet beside Steven and he said, "Get out of here. I'll stop him."
Basilisks were known to be resistant to magic; they were wizard killers.
Steven shook his head and he summoned his shield.
"If we're going to fight, we'll do it together."
To his right, Harry was getting to his feet. Somehow, he was pulling a sword from the Sorting hat. Steven stared; he hadn't remembered Harry even having the hat and couldn't imagine why he would have, much less why he would keep a sword in the hat.
Maybe the hat was like Lion; maybe it showed up when you needed it and carried useful things inside.
"I hope you know how to use that," he said to Harry, who stared at him and shrugged helplessly.
A moment later the monster was upon them.
The teachers hadn't been able to keep the students from the windows, the sounds of explosions from right outside drawing everyone.
Amethyst had reappeared, and her whips explosively pulled chunks from the monster even as Professor Flitwick proved his skill as a duellist as he cast spell after spell on the creature.
Steven tried mostly to keep everyone safe; he lunged in between the creature and his friends time after time with his shield as it tried to get around him.
His training with Connie and Pearl had taught him how to be the shield.
Harry swung the sword again and again; it was obvious that he didn't know what he was doing and a couple of times Steven had to lunge to the side himself to keep from being hit.
However, he forced the snake to back off a couple of times as well.
It wasn't enough; Steven was getting tired.
The snake was dying, but it wasn't dying fast enough. Worse, it's venom was deadly. He suspected that it could burn right through Amethyst's gem if it ever got a hold of her, and that would be the end of her.
Apparently she thought the same thing; her whips lashed out and a moment later one of the creatures fangs went flying through the air.
It screamed and lunged toward her. She was out of position and she wasn't going to be able to dodge.
Steven ran forward with his shield and shoved.
It was massive, but it whipped its head back in his direction and he knew suddenly that he wasn't going to be able to dodge this time.
It lunged, and Steven closed his eyes.
There was no pain.
He looked and saw Harry lying beside him, sword shoved into the roof of the creature's mouth.
The creature shuddered and a moment later the ground shook as all of its parts went suddenly limp.
"Are you all right?" Steven asked.
Harry nodded. Gingerly he pulled his arm from the basilisk's mouth. He stared at his arm for a moment then hissed and began pulling his robes over his head.
Drops of venom were dripping from the remains of the creatures fang, and they were quickly burning their way through Harry's shirt.
Professor Flitwick cast a spell, and the venom floated into the air in tiny bubbles.
"Don't get any of that on your skin," he said grimly.
A voice from behind them said, "It doesn't matter what you do; you're all dead."
Riddle was standing behind them over his book. It had apparently fallen out of Steven's pocket during the fight.
The ghostly figure grinned. "I'm immortal. Sooner or later I'm going to kill you all, and there is nothing you can do..."
It stopped speaking, pale.
Ginny Weasley was behind him, looking as though she'd run all the way from Amethyst's place. In her hand she held the basilisk's fang that Amethyst had knocked off.
She stared at the ghostly figure of the older boy and her face twisted into a grimace as she drove the fang deep into the book.
Tom screamed, flailing and whipping back and forth and a moment later he was gone.