I own nothing relating to any series, including Harry Potter and DC Comics.

Kryptonian Mage

Chapter 1

"KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. SNIFF, SMELL HIM." The memory of Voldemort roared, trying to get the basilisk to ignore the phoenix that blinded it.

Harry was ready. The basilisk's head was falling, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face him. He could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous… It lunged blindly.

Harry dodged and it hit the Chamber wall. It lunged again, and its forked tongue lashed Harry's side. He raised the sword in both his hands. The basilisk lunged again, and this time its aim was true.

Harry threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth. But as warm blood drenched Harry's arms, he felt a searing pain just above his elbow. One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into his arm and it splintered as the basilisk keeled over sideways and fell, twitching, to the floor.

He winced as his hand moved down, grabbing the fang in his arm and pulling it out. The searing pain in his arm was already starting to spread. It felt more like his arm was on fire than just having had a gigantic tooth in it. And it was spreading, fast.

His vision went red as the pain increased tenfold. He lost track of what was happening as it felt like his body fought against itself. He knew the venom of a basilisk was deadly, fatal even, but he hadn't expected it to feel like this.

He vaguely saw the memory of Voldemort cover his ears, his face scrunched up in pain. That was how he discovered he was yelling. Apparently loud enough to hurt the echo. He stifled his scream as he looked over to Ginny and saw her ears bleeding, biting hard enough on his lip to taste blood.

Fawkes, he noted, just sat there next to him, watching him. He briefly considered harming the bird before he pushed it away. It was just a bird, if magical. There was nothing it could do to help him.

Just as suddenly as the burning started, it stopped. Much to his relief. He still hurt, but hardly felt like anything if he compared it to the fire that was his blood. Fawkes even fluttered over, tipping his head over and dropping tears onto his open wound. While strange, Harry had almost nothing but strange occurrences in his life, the wizarding world included.

He openly gaped as the tears splashed against the large wound. Other than a mild stinging, which barely felt like anything, he was surprised as the mild burning sensation disappeared and the wound healed up before his eyes. Rather than feeling good, he felt… weird. Like he had released a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"What…" Young Voldemort hissed, "Was that? I felt no magic emanate from your scream… no. It makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter… you and me…" He raised the stolen wand.

Then, in a rush of wings, Fawkes had soared back overhead and something fell into Harry's lap. The diary. For a split second, both Harry and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book, plowing it down so hard the stone under it cracked and parts of it shattered off, bouncing into the air.

There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then… He had gone. Harry's wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Silence except for the steady drip drip of ink still oozing from the diary. The basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it.

Harry felt like he had to stand, to check on Ginny, but he was so tired. Like his body had been starved, but of energy rather than food. Not that he was unfamiliar with either, but he could hardly move now. He barely saw Ginny shoot up before his eyes fell closed and he knew no more.

~Z~

When Harry woke, he was in the hospital wing. Not an unusual occurrence in his school life, especially over the past couple years, but he had never felt so good after waking up. No aches, no pains. He even felt like he was breathing easier.

Madam Pomfrey somehow got over to him as soon as he woke up, her wand moving over him back and forth. He felt her spells touch him, which was a whole other kind of weird considering he had never noticed spells impacting him before.

He smiled up at the matron, "Back so soon? You know if you keep hovering over me like this, people are going to ask questions."

He saw her lip quiver as she forced herself not to smile, "Hush, Mister Potter. I'm nothing if not professional. I ask that you stop teasing me and allowing me to work."

Harry fell silent, leaning back and doing his best to relax as the medi-witch worked her magic, quite literally.

He had barely felt better a day in his life, but he knew enough not to move when under the attention of a doctor or nurse, magical or muggle alike. And Pomfrey was scary when she wanted to be.

After several silent minutes, Pomfrey sighed in relief, "Well, Mister Potter, I can find nothing medically or magically wrong with you. Which is more of a surprise than anything, considering you had an… altercation with a basilisk." She reached up, tucking some of her graying hair behind an ear as she gave him a once over with his eyes, "What I can't explain is how you ended up three inches taller."

Her wand drew close to Harry's face. She didn't even have to speak to tell him what to do, the tip of her wand lighting up and his eyes following it. He, surprisingly, didn't even have to squint as the light hit his eyes. After she stopped casting the spell, she switched to her fingers, having him verbalize how many fingers she held up.

After she finished, she had a peculiar look on her face, "Another thing I can't explain is how your vision fixed itself. It's… not unheard of, but you're a little old for accidental magic, not to mention your magical exhaustion."

Harry's lip quivered, more from him trying not to smile than anything, "Well lets just mark those as more strange occurrences in my life." He glanced around the room, his eyes pausing on the redhead a few beds down. His eyes widened as he finally remembered the Chamber of Secrets. His head jolted over to Poppy, speaking with a whisper, "Is Ginny okay?"

Pomfrey smiled at him, patting his leg before she glanced over at the younger girl, "She's been better, but she's recovering nicely. Headmaster Dumbledore is making sure she gets care after the school year ends. A year partially possessed by that… memory. I shudder to think of what it's done to her."

"But she's okay?" He asked, eyes flicking between the two females. "She's not possessed anymore?"

"Miss Weasley is fine, Mister Potter. Rather than her, I'm worried about you…" She gave a short pause before her usually soft eyes turned hard as she seemed to stare into his soul, "I have several questions for you. First and foremost…" She raised her wand and flicked it around the two of them before she spoke again, "WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING BY GOING AFTER A BASILISK?! WHY DIDN'T YOU GET A TEACHER THAT ACTUALLY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING?!"

Harry winced. He knew she put up a silencing ward, this wasn't the first time she had yelled at him for his stupidity, "Uhh… well, Lockhart…" He really couldn't put up a reasonable defense besides the truth, so he gulped and stared at Poppy with his best puppy-dog eyes, "I thought that, if he was going down there anyway, Ron and I could use him to distract the basilisk while we grabbed Ginny."

He grumbled, "I didn't think it would be that big though. And I thought I was going down there to grab Ginny and get out. I didn't want to have to fight something that could kill me by looking it in the eyes, and I certainly didn't think I'd end up killing it."

Poppy stared at him for a moment before reaching down and grabbing his right wrist and gently turned his arm, exposing the wide, oval scar on his forearm, "You might've killed it, but it certainly nearly did you as well. If I've tried to teach you anything, it's to not get yourself hurt." She ran her fingers over the outside of the scar, tracing it.

"Not many survivors of a basilisk bite… not many that get bitten by a basilisk either." She sounded pleased on the first part but not nearly pleased on the second. Another short pause, her voice taking on a gentle, almost scared tone, "Satisfy an old woman's curiosity, Mister Potter. What did it feel like?"

Harry stared down at the scar, watching the matron's fingers trace around it. It took him a second to recognize what she meant by her question, but took no time to answer it, "Fire… Like my blood was on fire and I was being burned inside out. And then it got worse. I couldn't see, couldn't think. I didn't even know I was screaming until…" He glanced towards Ginny. He didn't want to be held responsible for her ears being damaged, so he lied, "Until it stopped. Before Fawkes cried on my arm. I still hurt, before he did, but it was more like a mild ache than burning."

Then he remembered something, his head snapping up to look at the medi-witch, "How long have I been here? Is Hermione awake yet?" Had he not known he'd be admonished by the witch again, he'd have tore away from the bed to look for his best friend.

Poppy let go of his arm, allowing it to drop before she gently patted it, "You've only been out for a couple hours. I'm surprised you're already awake, you were both physically and magically drained. As for Miss Granger, it'll be a few hours yet before the potions are finished brewing."

Harry sighed in relief. He was fine, Ginny was fine, Ron was off somewhere with Lockhart - he really hoped those two were alright but knew they weren't in danger when he was separated from them - Hermione would be cured soon and the Chamber of Secrets was closed, the threat within defeated.

"The Headmaster would like to talk to you, Mister Potter." She pat his leg gently and Harry nodded. "I told him I'd let him see you when you were no less than completely recovered. I had expected a few days, at the least." She raised her wand again, flicking it over him once more. After a huff, she spoke again, "You're remarkably uninjured, not including the scar on your forearm. The basilisk venom in your blood has been neutralized and should… expel itself within the next few days, the phoenix tears should last a couple weeks - don't tempt fate, it was severely weakened after fighting off that venom and is barely enough to fight off a cold - before being expelled in the same manner."

"However," She continued, "It's now past breakfast and I feel that, since you've not eaten since Merlin knows when, he can wait until you're fed."

Harry smiled at the matron, knowing better than to try to argue. He had won a single argument against the woman, almost forcing her to let him into the hospital wing so he could visit Hermione. Since the matter wasn't about his own wellbeing and Hermione was otherwise comatose, she had relented, and only barely.

He wasn't exactly hungry but he was still feeling odd, so he sat back in silence as the matron left and food appeared in front of him, a raised tray included so he wouldn't make a mess by moving.

He intended to eat slowly, he did, but the eggs and toast tasted so much better than they usually did. Before he knew it, the elves - he wasn't entirely stupid about the events inside Hogwarts and house elves were an everyday facet of the wizarding world, not just Hogwarts - had replaced his plate with one full of food and he started scarfing it down all the same. He stopped keeping track of the number of plates he cleaned off after he hit double digits.

It took him a few minutes of nearly endlessly scarfing down what he was given - they had changed to pancakes and bacon a couple minutes through and they went down just as fast as the eggs and toast - before he felt full.

He waited for the elves to take away the tray before pushing his blankets off. Not wearing a hospital gown, he grabbed his socks out of the bedside table before reaching for his glasses. His hand paused halfway to them, taking a quick look around. His vision was fine, perfect even. But he didn't want to be bothered with questions asking why he wasn't wearing his glasses, so he grabbed them and popped the lenses out and set them on the table before getting out of the bed.

Poppy was by his side in the instant he stood, words spilling from her mouth before he even noticed her, "If anything feels off or strange in the slightest, I want you back here immediately. Call a house elf if you must, they will bring you here if they're alerted."

Harry opened his mouth, preparing to ask a question before he realized the medi-witch had already answered it. The elves had to be alerted in order to get someone to the hospital wing, not to mention the elves that had been petrified while out and about in the castle. He nodded to the matron, giving her a smile before he left the room.

He stopped at Hermione, looking at his bushy-haired friend with no small amount of worry. She hadn't been petrified the longest, but she was the one of the group he cared about the most. It hurt seeing her like this, so unlike herself.

While Hermione was never an outgoing person, she was vibrant in her own way and pushed him to improve himself. Not that he was stupid, much of his ignorance was faked.

His relatives, the Dursleys, always punished him if he ever did better than Dudley, so he had taken to randomly guessing on his test until the results came back and showed he was still getting a better score. He had learned, courtesy of a rough grab and being thrown into the cupboard under the stairs, it was better to learn the material and intentionally fail rather than leave it to chance.

A part of him wanted to show Hermione just what he could do, that he could do all the work she could and that he knew almost everything she did about magic but another part of him was afraid that, if he did, both she and Ron would shun him. Ron for 'being like Hermione', as if that were a bad thing, and Hermione for the fact he had lied to her.

He pulled himself out of his thoughts, blinking as he realized he had to go see Dumbledore. He had already been pushing it off for a while and, while Hermione was a good reason, Dumbledore was old enough to keel over at a moment's notice.

Contrary to popular opinion, Harry wasn't the biggest fan of Dumbledore. He had no idea how the rumors got started that he and Dumbledore were close allies. In fact, he was a little creeped out by the attention he was given by the old man.

Just from the most believable rumors he had heard about Dumbledore, he should've known better than to keep a philosopher's stone in the castle, just like he should've known someone was bound to try to steal it, protected or not. He also knew that the so-called protections should've been more than enough to stop a dozen seriously dedicated seven-years, let alone three seriously dedicated first-years. Or, better yet, ignorance through obscurity. If someone didn't know something was there, no one would try to steal it.

That wasn't to say he thought Dumbledore was a bad person. He had been nice each time they had met. He had returned his fathers cloak despite not having to, Harry wouldn't have known he had it if it hadn't been returned with the note. And, with the Mirror of Erised, he helped Harry learn that he shouldn't wait for his desires to magically come true, that he should work for the future he wanted without letting the past keep him idle.

Taking a deep sigh to steel himself for the inevitable, Harry climbed the stairs up to the office. Surprisingly, the gargoyle - he didn't know if it was an enchanted statue or a real one - that guarded the stairs was absent, allowing him passage to the office without a password.