AN: Thank you for your patience and for continuing to read and support this story. Year 2 became massive, but we're in the home stretch now! Big hugs! Thanks also to my amazing beta readers — Iforgottocall and dizzysappedweak. They're amazing cheerleaders and grammar checkers!


Whispers in Her Hair

by Indygodusk


Chapter 16 : Second Year - Sinks, Wet Feet, & Screams From the Dark


Now that Harry was on the move, he was trying really hard not to think too far ahead about what he was actually doing. He couldn't risk becoming paralyzed with fear again like in the hallway outside the infirmary, not if he was going to rescue Hermione and the others.

Harry and Valeria burst into Myrtle's bathroom and quickly but quietly shut the door at their backs just in case any Professors had seen them running through the halls and thought to come looking. He was holding Valeria's hand in one of his own and clutching a small mirror in the other, though he hadn't even thought to use the mirror to look ahead in the hallways. Feeling foolish, he lifted it up and used it to look around the bathroom, even though he'd already glanced around once without it and not seen any big snakes.

Though when Myrtle unexpectedly stuck her head through a stall door and shouted, "Who's that?!" Harry jumped and flinched back before realizing who it actually was.

Giggling, Myrtle came the rest of the way out of the stall and flew a circle around his back, reappearing in front of him with a crooked grin. "What are you up to? Did you two come for another game of tag?" she asked eagerly before flopping over to float in midair on her back. Despite the pose, her hair and robes stayed falling towards her feet instead of towards the ground, gravity having no power over a ghost. "It's so boring being dead," she whined, "especially when all of the other ghosts are stuffy grown ups. I'm the only kid here—" she bit her lip and turned to look in the direction of the infirmary "—at least for now." A secretive little smile danced across her lips.

"Oh," Harry felt a bubble of hope rise in his chest, "if you haven't seen any new ghosts, does that mean everyone's still alive?" He glanced over at Valeria, but she just pursed her lips and shrugged.

Straightening up, Myrtle looked between them suspiciously and crossed her arms. "What's going on?"

Harry looked at Valeria again, but she just arched a brow and let go of his hand to fold her arms. Licking his lips, he took a breath and tried to explain quickly before Myrtle got upset and disappeared. "Halle and Hermione have disappeared from the infirmary. A girl named Ginny Weasley is missing too and someone wrote a message on the wall in blood that they've been taken to the Chamber of Secrets. We figured out that the monster attacking everyone—the same monster that killed you—is a Basilisk, the king of snakes. Seeing the reflection of a Basilisk only petrifies people, while a direct look kills. We think it's travelling through the pipes."

"Oh…." Myrtle looked paler than he'd ever seen her, her face almost a transparent white. "Did—did you come here just to tell me that?"

"No, Myrtle, I need your help," Harry said desperately, letting her see his sincerity. "I need your help with Halle, whose grandmother was a Warren...like you," feeling a flash of intuition, Harry added, "though you already know about Halle, don't you?"

Grabbing a pigtail, Myrtle yanked on it and looked away to mumble. "Yeah… she's probably my little sister's grandkid." She lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug.

Feeling a rush of heat at being proved right, Harry stepped closer to the ghost. "Myrtle, I need your help to rescue Halle from the Basilisk. I need help for Hermione and Ginny too. Help us find a way into the pipes and help us stop those girls from being hurt the way you were."

Myrtle started chewing on the end of the ponytail in her hand. Hugging the other arm around her chest, she turned to Valeria. "And you?"

"I'm here to try and protect Harry from himself," Valeria said flatly. "If you can help us, you should help us."

Myrtle looked back and forth between the two of them hesitantly, letting the wet and bedraggled end of her ponytail drop from her mouth. "I—I—I don't know how to help you get into the pipes." She rubbed a hand across her mouth. "They're certainly big enough for people or—or big snakes to move around in, but I usually just float through the walls. I don't know where a door might be." She chewed on the edge of her thumbnail and hunched her shoulders. "Sorry."

"Where was the basilisk when it killed you?" Valeria asked.

"When it killed me!" Myrtle reared back like a cat flicked with water. "Well that's nice!" She shot up into the air and glowered down at them.

Valeria sighed and almost rolled her eyes. "Harry already said the same thing. You're dead, no point pussyfooting around that fact, especially since it's been fifty years."

Harry took a quick step forward to distract Myrtle from Valeria. "Maybe hearing your story of that day would give us a clue. Please, Myrtle."

"Well, I suppose," Myrtle grumbled and then gave a loud huff. "On my last day of life I was crying all alone in a bathroom stall over there," she gestured to the middle toilet, "after being bullied again. I wasn't going to come out until someone actually came looking for me, but then I heard a boy's voice mumbling and hissing over by the sinks. I got mad because boys aren't supposed to be in the girls bathroom, so I unlocked the door and went out to yell at him. That's when I saw big yellow eyes above the sink and then… I woke up… dead." She held out her arms and shrugged. "Dead as a ghost," she said with careful enunciation, as if that fact wasn't completely obvious.

"Right, sorry about that." Harry sent her a sympathetic grimace. "Were the eyes actually there or just a reflection in the mirror?" He glanced at the mirrors above the sinks and then over to the opposite side of the room. Moving to the wall, he started searching for hinges or some sort of latch or door knob to open a passageway.

"If it was just a reflection of the Basilisk's eyes, she'd be petrified, not dead," Valeria said scornfully. "It's obviously over here behind the mirror."

Flushing, Harry joined her by the sinks. He carefully ran his hands and eyes over the slightly grimy walls, mirrors, and sinks, looking for clues. Valeria used her wand to cast diagnostic spells instead, keeping her fingers clean.

"There's a spell here, but I can't figure out what," Valeira grumbled after a few minutes.

"Hmm?" Kneeling in front of one of the sinks, Harry was distracted by the snake engraving under his fingertips. There was something about it that made it seem very lifelike, head cocked as if it was just waiting for him to say something. Hadn't Myrtle heard a boy hissing just before she died? Maybe hissing like a snake? "I wonder…" biting his lip, he took a deep breath and stood, grabbing Valeria's sleeve.

"Step back for a second." He tugged. Valeria arched one brow but stepped back as directed.

"Did you find the door?" Myrtle asked eagerly, flying forward to hover in between them, not caring that her arms and shoulders were overlapping and sharing the same space as their bodies. Harry tried to ignore the strange chill and not be creeped out.

Focusing all of his attention on the snake engraving, Harry focused and spoke directly to it, trying to consciously speak in Parseltongue, "➿Open➿."

Valeria's arm shot in front of his chest protectively and shoved him back as the sink and mirror sank out of sight, revealing a dark hole that released a musty and sour stench into the bathroom that reminded him unpleasantly of roadkill.

When nothing else happened, Valeria dropped her arm and let him step forward to look down into the opening. He didn't see anything.

A second later she slapped the back of his head hard. "Use your mirror!"

There wasn't any sign of the Basilisk reflected in his mirror either. Just a dark tunnel with a slide angling downward, curving away into the dark. A lumos charm on the tip of his wand didn't illuminate anything useful, just more of the same.

"Well, let's go I guess," Harry said with a gulp, trying and failing to sound brave.

"This is so stupid." Valeria sounded a bit breathless as her fingers clenched and unclenched on her wand. She looked back at Myrtle and cleared her throat with a commanding frown. "You coming or what?"

Rearing back, the ghost's eyes went wide as she grabbed a pigtail in a white-knuckled fist. "Are you crazy!" she squeaked. "Go down there? After the thing that killed me?"

Lips twisting, Valeria tilted her head challengingly. "You're already dead, it can't kill you again. The worst it can do is petrify you like Nearly Headless Nick and he's due to get fixed along with the rest of them once the Mandrake Potion is ready. Don't you want to confront your past and prove that you're stronger than it is? That it didn't defeat you the first time? That you don't have to be afraid anymore?"

Myrtle stuck the end of the pigtail in her mouth and chewed on it again, staring at the floor. "Well… maybe?"

"You can also scout ahead and help protect us by going in front to make sure we don't look at the Basilisk directly and die."

"But if you die, you can join me as a ghost and then I won't be lonely anymore," Myrtle said softly, biting the corner of her lip and giving them a trembling little smile.

Valeria frowned sternly and looked the ghost up and down dismissively. "If you're lonely and unhappy here, then stop hanging around Hogwarts as a ghost and move on to wherever dead people normally go. No one's keeping you here. If for some reason my spirit decides to linger here after I die, you can bet it won't be to make someone else feel warm and fuzzy. If I have to suffer, everyone's going to suffer. I'm not the answer to your problem, Myrtle, so stop it with the self-pity. Take control of your own destiny. Stand up for yourself and help us. Help Halle Harper, blood of your blood."

Myrtle's eyes filled with tears and she looked longingly over her shoulder at the toilets, but she didn't run and hide. Maybe she just needed one more push.

"Myrtle, please help us. I'm afraid too, you know. I don't want to die," Harry said softly.

"You're not allowed to die," Valeria snapped over her shoulder at him.

Sending Valeria a quick, crooked smile, Harry turned back to Myrtle and squared his shoulders, moving so he could look directly into Myrtle's eyes like Blaise at his most soulful. "I have to do this to save Hermione. And Halle and Ginny too, of course." He cleared his throat, fighting against the emotion trying to squeeze it tight. "They deserve better than to be abandoned. When you're hurt or missing, whether it's because of a bully or a monster, people should notice. People should care."

Swallowing, he thumped his fist on his chest. "I care... and I'm going after them. Please come with me. Help us. Please, Myrtle."

After several silent seconds Myrtle gave a quivery little sigh and nodded hesitantly. "Okay." A small, crooked smile slowly grew on her face. "You know, I haven't cared about anything but myself in a long time. No one's needed me in even longer." She shrugged one shoulder and nodded again, this time a little more confidently. "Okay, I'll come with you. I'll help." .

Myrtle looked down and her smile became pained. "Besides, Halle looks a lot like my little sister used to. She died a long time ago doing something reckless without ever giving me a chance to yell at her or even say goodbye. Even though the thought of going down there is scary and dangerous," she rubbed her chest, "my sister would want me to help Halle... or at least I'd like to think so. I couldn't protect my little sister... but maybe—" her voice hitched and her eyes went glassy "—maybe I can make up for it a little by protecting her granddaughter, you know?"

From the corner of his eye Harry noticed Valeria uncharacteristically fumble her wand as she slid it into the wand holster inside her sleeve. Concerned, Harry turned to examine her, trying to make the movement seem casual.

Staring at the ground intently, Valeria's throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. For a second she was completely still and the air felt heavy. Then she spoke quietly but firmly, "Yes...I do know how that feels." Lifting her eyes, Valeria looked at Harry with so much devotion and fierce protectiveness that it was almost overwhelming.

Harry stared back, chest going tight at the implications of her statement. Was Valeria seeing him right now or the younger sister she'd lost? And did it even matter?

No, he decided. Harry was the only one here right now, no one else. He was the one Valeria was following to face down a Basilisk. He was the one she was looking at like that. To be the recipient of such a look made his eyes sting and his breath quiver in his throat. No one had ever looked at him like that, as if he really mattered, as if they would fight for him and grieve if he were lost. He couldn't lose that. He had to protect that devotion.

"Valeria," Harry blurted, too many emotions bubbling through his chest to find one safe enough to pull out and extend in his hand as an equivalent gift. She looked back at him with a challenge in her eyes, as if daring him to confront her with the proof of her caring. His mind scrambled for the right thing to say. "I—you—look. There's no one I'd rather have by my side, but… don't get hurt helping me," he begged. "Just—don't. If I fall, leave me and save yourself. You're more important."

Reaching out, Valeria cupped his chin and shook him, her touch gentle in contrast to the sharp irritation on her face. "You're being idiotic again. I'm not leaving you, so if you want to keep me safe, you better not let yourself fall or I'll make you wish for the tender touch of a Basilisk's bite by the time I'm through with you." She tapped his cheek sharply and bared her teeth. "Capisce?"

Harry involuntarily smiled at hearing Italian used for threats instead of seduction. He hoped that Blaise and the rest of his friends were already outside of the castle, safe and searching for roosters. He hoped his trust in them wouldn't prove to be a mistake. "Yes, Valeria."

Smiling crookedly, she nodded and dropped her hand.

"Guys? Let's go before I change my mind about helping you," Myrtle said, breaking the mood as she danced back and forth nervously. "I checked and the slide just leads down to an empty room with a single hallway. It looked safe."

"Right." Valeria turned and went down the slide first before Harry could get there and insist on going first.

Silently vowing to make sure Valeria got out of this unharmed, Harry followed her. He slid down a curved tunnel and landed on the floor with a sickening crunch. The smell was worse down here. "Myrtle, when you said empty room you didn't mention that the floor was covered in animal bones and mysterious mounds of decaying fur." He grimaced and held the sleeve of his robe over his nose, walked to the exit as gingerly as possible, cringing at the sound and feel of the skeletons snapping beneath his feet.

"What a wretched place to die." Valeria was breathing through her mouth shallowly, but hadn't followed Harry's lead by using her robe to filter out the smell, probably because she refused to be seen as weak. "Let's move on."

She pulled out her mirror to check the hallway and then led the way forward. The short hallway ended in a metal door covered in a series of complex locks decorated with metal snakes. Valeria tried several locking spells to no effect.

"Maybe I should try telling it to open up in Parseltongue, like at the sink?" Harry suggested.

Lips pressed thin, Valeria curtly gestured at him to take her place.

Harry focused on the snake carvings. "➿Open➿." The jaws of the snakes opened wide, their metal bodies coming to life as they circled the door and slithered into a new configuration before freezing into carvings again, leaving the door hopefully unlocked. Harry reached out and pushed, releasing a quiet breath when the door swung open.

He stuck his head through and glanced around, catching a glimpse of a dark, empty hallway, only to be yanked back by his strangling collar a second later. "Idiot, use the mirror to look first!" Valeria said angrily, shaking him. "Do you want to die? Stop forgetting!" She shook him again and then shoved him away.

Wheezing, Harry rubbed at his throat and pulled out his mirror. "Sorry, I'll try to remember, alright?"

"You better!"

"I said I will!" he snapped.

"Maybe we should go back and get some professors to do this instead?" Myrtle said timidly.

Lips thin, Valeria stuck her mirror through the door and rotated it around. It was too dark to see very far down the new tunnel, the mirror only reflecting stone walls. "It looks fine. Let's go." Lighting the tip of her wand with a Lumos, she stepped through the doorway. Harry lit his wand and followed.

They travelled for several minutes, the floor sloping downward and the walls becoming colder and damper as they went deeper below the castle until they came to a T-shaped intersection.

"It's not too late to go back," Myrtle whispered threadily.

"Yes, it is." Harry said firmly, proud his voice didn't break. It was creepy down here, but he didn't dare complain for fear it would lead to a conversation where his sense of self-preservation started outweighing his bravery. "Myrtle, could you fly ahead through each tunnel and help us figure out which way to go?"

Sighing gustily, Myrtle flew off down the left-hand tunnel. Harry paced in circles while they waited. When Myrtle abruptly popped out of the right-hand tunnel instead of the one she'd left through, she startled Valeria so badly that a jet of red light shot through the ghost's chest and splashed against the wall behind her body.

"Excuse you!" Myrtle snapped, drawing herself up in affront.

Shrugging unapologetically, Valeria said, "Well? What did you find?"

Myrtle huffed. "There's light and the sound of lapping water coming from around the next bend on the right. The left just has another locked door with metal snakes."

"Let's follow the light," Harry decided, starting down the right-hand tunnel only to find his left arm grabbed hard and twisted up in front of his body so his mirror was front and center.

"Use. your. mirror!" Valeria growled.

"I was going to," Harry said—probably honestly—though it was a very inconvenient and slow way to travel. He didn't want to die, though, and he didn't want to know what Valeria would do to him if he did, so he made sure to be more vigilant with the mirror. They had to walk almost sideways to get the mirror to angle right to show the tunnel up ahead, which made the muscles in his legs ache in unusual ways.

The tunnel turned and the pathway became brighter. Valeria cancelled her lumos and moved closer to the wall. Harry followed suit and they crept forward silently.

The hallway became larger and the air began to taste thick with water and minerals. Between one second and the next they turned another corner and stumbled out into a huge chamber. Shrinking back and silently cursing himself for not doing it sooner, Harry hastily pulled out his invisibility cloak and tossed it over himself and Valeria, almost dropping his mirror in the process.

The chamber had an underground lake on the right side of the cavern that kept going until it disappeared into the shadows. Against the left side was a man-made structure of dark stone. Two lines of pillars, one along the stone walls and the other along the edge of the lake, were topped with magical lanterns carved to resemble balls of writhing snakes. The water reflected the lanterns, but the flickering magical fires and tall pillars cast strange shadows, making it hard to see the ground clearly or determine where the lake shore actually started and ended, especially when using only a small hand mirror beneath a cloak. The lines of pillars terminated in the back of the room at a gigantic stone head. The sternly carved features looked like Salazar Slytherin from the Founders bookmark Harry had given to Hermione.

This had to be Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, but there was no sign of the Basilisk, nor of the three missing girls. "Do you see them anywhere?" he whispered to Valeria. They couldn't have come so far just to fail now.

"No." He felt her sigh unhappily. "We're going to have to get closer and search."

They crept up the path between the stone pillars, which seemed even taller and more menacing when you were walking between them, almost as if they were bending over Harry's shoulder and staring at the back of his head when he wasn't looking.

Harry was so focused on his mirror that he didn't notice the wet patch of stone under foot until it was too late. He stepped into it and skidded. Valeria tried to grab him and her foot slipped too. The cloak got caught in her windmilling arm and was jerked off Harry's head, sending him to his knees hard and making him gasp loudly.

They both froze, but nothing stirred despite the commotion. Holding their breath, they exchanged a look, resettled the invisibility cloak overhead, lifted their mirrors, and moved forward again. When Harry glanced over his shoulder he winced at seeing a double line of wet footprints.

Turning back to his mirror before Valeria could hit him again, Harry saw a flash of something orangish-red—out of place in this chamber of dark stones and pale yellow flames. In his excitement he moved his hand too fast and lost sight of it. "Stop for a second," he said. Slowly moving his mirror back and forth, he found a head of red hair and followed it to a freckled arm and limp hand. When he moved the mirror around her body, he saw a great stone face and realized that Ginny must be in the open space in front of the statue. "It's Ginny! Up ahead on the ground!"

Valeria used her mirror to find Ginny too. "She doesn't look petrified, just unconscious… that or dead," Valeria said quietly.

"We should check," Harry said unsteadily, the thought of touching a dead body making him feel lightheaded and queasy. He swallowed hard and started to move forward, but Valeria held him back with a firm grip on his robes.

"Wait! She's lying in the middle of a circle of freshly drawn runes. Snakes can't write. Where is whoever attacked her and wrote the runes?"

Before Harry could respond, Myrtle's panicked voice rang through the chamber. "Oh no, oh no! Help! Harry! Valeria! In the water, help! Hurry!"

Forgetting to use his mirror, Harry looked and saw Myrtle floating about two or three meters out in the lake. She was straining over a pair of small stone feet sticking out of the water. The rest of the body from head to calves was under the water. Myrtle was trying to grab the legs and pull, but she didn't have enough power as a ghost. Even Peeves the Poltergeist could only lift as much as a bucket of paint or a full waste paper basket, and Myrtle wasn't as strong or as practiced as Peeves. Water splashed around the pale ankles because of Myrtle's efforts, but the statue didn't budge.

Was it Hermione or Halle? His stomach twisted with horror. Could someone petrified still drown? Were they all already dead? Was he too late?

No, he refused to believe that. Just—just no.

Harry dropped his mirror and threw off the invisibility cloak, unintentionally leaving Valeria to fight her way out of the tangle. Jumping into the water, which came up to his chest, he swam forward. Glasses and face splattered, almost blind, he spit out the water splashing into his mouth and surged forward until he ran into something hard. Wrapping his arms around stone legs, he started pulling, trying to flip the body upright and get the head out of the water. However, the petrified body was too heavy and slippery in the water. Harry wasn't strong enough. He realized with a spurt of despair that he was going to have to get her to shore before he could get her head out of the water, much less identify who she was.

"Hurry, Harry, hurry!" Myrtle wailed, wringing her hands.

Locking his arms around the stone legs, Harry lifted it up a bit and started dragging it backwards towards the shore. He'd only gone a few steps when his foot slipped in between two rocks and he tripped backwards. Before he realized what was happening, his head had slipped under the water. Only seconds later, the stone legs landed on his stomach and knocked the air from his lungs in a flurry of bubbles that left him blinded and in pain. Harry fought the instinct to inhale. He wiggled frantically, trying to push the legs off, but he couldn't get any leverage on the slimy rocks. His vision tunneled.

Just as he was about to lose the battle against instinct and try to inhale, a pair of familiar hands clamped under his arms and yanked him out from under the petrified body, dragging him up to the surface. Gasping and coughing, Harry found himself pressed against Valeria's side while she pounded on his back.

"Breathe, Harry, breathe!"

He pulled in several lungfuls of air, but the pounding hand didn't stop. His back started aching worse than his lungs. She was going to leave bruises. "Stop hitting me," he croaked, coughing into Valeria's shoulder as he tried to catch his breath.

"Are you okay?"

Nodding, he sucked in air and forced himself to try to breathe normally, sending Valeria a reassuring smile that hopefully looked real instead of faked. "I'm fine. Thanks, but forget about me. C'mon, we've gotta get her out of here."

"If I'd forgot about you, you'd have drowned," Valeria muttered, but nevertheless released him.

Together they dived under the water, got ahold of the body's head and feet, and dragged her to the shore, heaving her up onto the rocks with a lot of grunting. Pulling themselves out along with what felt like half of the lake water, they shared a bracing look and then turned the body over together. The sight that greeted them was a girl with sleek pigtails instead of curls—Halle.

"Is she dead?" Myrtle sobbed, hands pressed to her lips. "There's no ghost so I can't tell."

Harry had mixed feelings about the body's identity. Sure, Hermione hadn't spent the last however many minutes with her petrified head under water—which was good—but that also meant that Hermione was still missing and could be anywhere—which was bad.

Valeria wiped her eyes and sluiced a hand over her shaved head, shaking her hand afterwards in a spray of water droplets. Brows beetling, she leaned over Halle's face and stared intently at the frozen features, only to sit back with a disgruntled look on her face after a few seconds, "She doesn't look dead, but she doesn't necessarily look alive either."

"What does that even mean?" Myrtle shrieked, throwing out her hands.

"It means I don't know! She just looks petrified. Petrified people don't seem to breathe, so she's probably fine." Valeria glared at Myrtle and stood up to start wringing water out of her robe.

"Probably isn't good enough!" Myrtle shouted, zipping around through the air in a circle. "We need to get her back up to my bathroom. We need to get her help!"

Stumbling to his feet as the girls continued to bicker, Harry decided to go and check on Ginny Weasley before something else went wrong. Thankfully there was no sign of the Basilisk yet, despite how much noise they'd just made yelling and splashing around in the water. Hopefully that meant that the Basilisk was far away from here doing something innocent like taking a nap in a warm spot, anything except killing or petrifying more people.

Most of the thick runes written on the floor in blue ink around Ginny's sprawled body didn't look very familiar, though in his defense Harry had only had two years of schooling (much of it subpar according to Valeria). He tried to smudge one of the runes with his wet foot, but it didn't work. Going down onto his knees, Harry only hesitated for a second before reaching out and rolling Ginny onto her back. Her soft body flopped over easily. She'd been curled on her side with her hands touching Tom Riddle's diary of all things, but they fell off the book as he moved her.

There was a silver pot of ink on the floor next to the diary but no quill, though Ginny's fingertips were stained the same blue as the ink. Had she drawn the runes? But why? As a first year she had to know even fewer runes than he did. It made no sense.

Harry told himself to stop delaying and, holding his breath, lifted his hand and pressed his fingers against the clammy skin of Ginny's neck. There was nothing. Pressing his lips tight on an unexpected sob as his eyes and nose started stinging, he shifted his fingers higher up under her jaw and pressed harder.

Then something fluttered against his touch, something rhythmic—a heartbeat. Ginny was alive! Scrubbing away the tear that had escaped from his left eye, he turned his head to put his cheek over her mouth. Warm air moved across his damp skin and he could see her chest rise and fall with each breath.

Harry shook Ginny and called her name, but she didn't wake up. Her skin looked too pale. He tried tapping her cheeks, but it just made her head loll limply on her neck.

"Well?" Valeria called.

Harry looked back over his shoulder. "She's alive, but I can't wake her up."

He cast his eyes around the chamber, hoping to see Hermione lying safely nearby in the shadow of one of the pillars, but he couldn't find her anywhere. Skimming over the surface of the lake, he didn't see signs of her there either—no feet or curls sticking out of the water. Where was Hermione? Anxiety and dark imaginings made his stomach start to twist and slosh.

"Try a reviving spell," Valeria called, breaking him loose from his dark thoughts and reminding him to focus on the girl in front of him for now.

Valeria took a quick step back to get away from Myrtle's arms waving hysterically in her face and tripped on the invisibility cloak they'd left on the floor. Scowling, she bent over, snatched it up, and stuffed it into her pocket. "I heard you the first time. Back off!" she snapped at Myrtle.

Looking over her shoulder at him, Valeria grimaced. "Look Harry, Myrtle carrying on like this is going to bring the Basilisk down on our heads soon. I'm going to put Halle back into the hall where we came from so Myrtle will calm down. Get Ginny up and follow me. If I don't see you at my heels, I'll come running back." Her features went sharp as she frowned at him. "Don't linger here and don't make me run." Levitating Halle with an unhappy flick of her wand, Valeria towed the petrified girl away.

"We need to take her to my bathroom, not just the hallway!" Myrtle's voice became fainter as they got farther away. "You know I'm right!"

Pulling out his wand, Harry pointed it at Ginny. "Enervate." Nothing happened. Frowning, he tried again with the same result. Deciding to follow Valeria's example, he cast a levitation spell on Ginny's body. She floated up into the air just fine, but when Harry tried to move her sideways through the air she wouldn't go. He didn't know what he was doing wrong, but he must've screwed up the spell somehow.

Pursing his lips with frustration, Harry cancelled his spell and decided to just drag her out the old fashioned Muggle way. Harry moved behind her, crouched down, and slid his hands under her arms. Lifting her upper body with a grunt, he started dragging Ginny across the floor, her heels trailing along the ground.

However, as soon as her head reached the ring of runes inked on the floor, her body stopped abruptly as if running into a brick wall and became heavier than a giant. Not expecting it, Harry's hands slid out from under her arms and he fell back onto his tailbone with a hard jolt, biting his tongue painfully.

"That won't work."

At the unexpected male voice, his mouth tasting of blood and heart jumping from a surge of adrenalin, Harry reacted as he'd been trained to do after months of ambushes during Viper school. He rolled to the side, pulled out his wand, and attacked before he even got a good look at his attacker.

The spell shot from the tip of Harry's wand and directly through the chest of Tom Riddle with no resistance, hitting the pillar at Tom's back and dissipating harmlessly.

Arching one brow, Tom looked over his shoulder and then down at Harry, curling his lip. "Not very impressive, are you?"

"Tom?" Disgruntled, Harry clambered to his feet and pressed a hand to his chest, trying to slow his racing heart. "Oh, it's just you. Do you know how to get Ginny out of this circle? Or where Hermione is? I need to find Hermione and get them both to safety before whomever took them comes back with the Basilisk." Remembering suddenly his mirror, the only thing protecting him from death by Basilisk stare, Harry turned from Tom and started searching the floor, trying to find where he'd dropped it. That or another small item to transfigure into a new mirror.

"There is no 'just you' when it comes to me, Harry Potter," Tom said as Harry paced back and forth along the path with his head down. "You're already too late because the person who took your friends... was me."

Harry froze. Thinking he'd misheard, he turned back to look at Tom. "What? No. You took Hermione? But the Heir of Slytherin—"

"Is me, Tom Marvolo Riddle." Tom smirked cruelly and stalked around Harry in a circle, forcing Harry to turn with him to keep the older boy in his sights.

"But you're—you're just a memory in a diary," Harry said weakly. He felt so confused. It felt like his thoughts were tied with heavy weights. He swallowed and lifted his chin, baring his teeth. "You're just a stupid memory!"

Tom twitched his robe with irritation and then sighed, shaking his head condescendingly. "You know nothing, boy. A memory couldn't do all of this. I'm much more powerful than that."

Harry scoffed loudly and rolled his eyes at the older boy's annoying bragging.

Tom scowled. "That book holds a fragment of my soul, not that someone as worthless as you could ever comprehend the genius behind that working. In fact, how someone as dim as you has survived this long against such magnificent foes is entirely incomprehensible."

"At least I am still alive—and completely whole—not just some fragmented projection from a pitiful diary," Harry said, fisting his hands.

Muscle twitching in his jaw, Tom circled Harry again. "You really have no idea." With that, Tom laid out how he'd brilliantly manipulated everyone that year. How he'd tricked and bespelled Ginny into helping him write on the walls, kill the school roosters, and select victims for his Basilisk. How he'd attacked muggleborns and sent the wizarding world scrambling. How he'd tricked Harry when Ginny had gotten scared and tried to throw his diary away, and how he'd made his way back to Ginny and forced her to keep doing his will. How they were all stupid sheep who'd sent away Albus Dumbledore, their most famous shepherd.

"And what about Hermione?" Harry demanded, unable to listen even a minute longer. "What did you do to her? Where is she?!"

Tom gave a cruel smile. "Lost to you forever, though I'll make sure to remind her regularly that her suffering is your fault."

Snarling, Harry attacked Tom again, but just like his first spell, it went through Tom's body and did nothing. Tom smirked and continued bragging about all that he'd gotten away with, like opening the Chamber fifty years ago and killing Myrtle, though Tom didn't seem to even know her name. Enraged, Harry rifled through every spell he'd ever learned, casting spell after spell, casting anything that might be even remotely useful.

Nothing hurt Tom.

Harry was forced to accept that nothing he had could hurt a soul fragment like Tom. Maybe the Basilisk could petrify Tom like he'd done to Nearly Headless Nick, but considering that Tom had been controlling the Basilisk all year, he wasn't likely to make a mistake like getting caught in its gaze now. Harry was running out of ideas. He could run, but that meant leaving Ginny and his search of the Chamber for Hermione.

Harry couldn't abandon Hermiione, he just couldn't. Not to Tom and the Basilisk. Yet nothing he did to Tom worked. Harry felt paralyzed with indecision. Maybe if he stalled Tom long enough, Flint and his friends would bring in the roosters to kill the Basilisk (he didn't want to believe they'd just abandon him, though experience suggested that most people would). Stalling would also give Valeria a chance to return and figure out how to help him with Tom (Valeria would not abandon him, he did believe in that).

Tom circled closer. "And now I'm going to transfer Ginny's lifeforce into myself and rebuild my body. Once I'm alive again,ll make sure you die like you should have as a baby." Stopping to glare down his nose at Harry, Tom leaned forward, a feverish glint in his eyes. "Tell me, boy, just how did you survive a killing curse from the most powerful wizard to ever live? Tell me!" His voice thundered through the room and echoed from the walls.

Harry swallowed to wet his throat. He refused to cower. "I don't know who you've been listening to, but Voldemort isn't the most powerful wizard to ever live, especially considering how he died," he said with as much scorn as he could muster.

He was tempted to say that the title of most powerful wizard belonged to Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, but cynicism and bitterness stayed his tongue long enough for him to lose the impulse. If Dumbledore had really been all powerful, he would've stayed at Hogwarts to protect his students—at the very least the Gryffindors, whom he unabashedly favored over everyone else, especially students in Slytherin. Instead, he'd allowed politics to drive him from his job and the castle, leaving them all at the mercy of a Basilisk and a crazy guy in a diary.

Harry wanted to believe in the greatness of Albus Dumbledore, but he didn't have the luxury of being that naive. Not when Hermione's life was on the line, not to mention his own and so many others. Fairytales were for other children. Not for people like Harry. He liked Dumbledore, who was intelligent, magically and politically powerful, and most certainly dangerous, but at the end of the day, there was no getting away from the fact that his fame had never come from protecting or saving someone. It had come from dueling, publishing papers, and knowing how to ingratiate himself with the press and people in power.

What good was all of Dumbledore's magic when the students of Hogwarts needed his protection and he wasn't here? Dumbledore hadn't done enough to earn Harry's loyalty. No adult ever had—at least none living.

Just like always, Harry had been left to fix things on his own. At least he was used to it.

Glaring at Tom, Harry knew he had to buy more time to think of a plan. "Why do you even care? Voldemort couldn't even defeat a baby. He's pitiful."

"You fool! Still haven't figured it out?" Tom sneered before turning and writing his name in the air with his wand: Tom Marvolo Riddle. He flicked his wand and the letters turned to fire and rearranged themselves to spell out: I am Lord Voldemort.

Harry's knees went weak. "You're Voldemort?"

"That's Lord Voldemort to you. Soon I will finish off what my older self wasn't able to and see you dead."

A sharp pain shot from Harry's scar and across his skull, making his head pound. A strange pressure entered his thoughts, telling him that he was nothing, ordering him to fall to his knees and bow.

He shook it off like the weight of an unwelcome hand and bared his teeth, pushing away the pain in his head like an annoying gnat. "Not if I kill you first, Tom. Again," he emphasized. "I think you'll agree that history is on my side in this fight."

"Let's test that, shall we? I think my Basilisk has waited long enough to meet you." He bared his teeth in a mirthless smile. "Sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say—to eat you."

"It won't be that easy. I can talk to him in Parseltongue too," Harry told Tom triumphantly.

Tom scoffed. "You may be able to talk to him, but he only obeys the Heir of Slytherin. That's me, not you."

Harry leaned back on his heels and bared his teeth in a smile. "I'm a Slytherin too, Tom, and I'm still alive while you're very much dead. I think between the two of us he'll see that I'm much more worthy of Slytherin's mantle. If you call him out, I'll steal his loyalty from you." Harry prayed desperately that Tom wouldn't call his bluff. He'd really rather never meet the Basilisk at all.

Eyes narrowing, Tom looked over his shoulder at the statue of Slytherin before turning back with a smug, crooked smile. "Impossible. His loyalty is forever mine because I'm the one who gave him his deepest desire, a desire you seem to share with the King of Snakes."

Seeing Harry's confusion, Tom laughed. "Perhaps before he kills you he'll tell you about his long term plans for your dear Hermione."

"Plans? What does that even mean?" Harry demanded, but Tom was done with listening to him and had turned away.

"➿Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four➿," Tom called. The mouth of Slytherin's statue opened wide and deep inside, the shadows moved.

Spinning on his heels, Harry caught a flash reflected in the water of a massive jaw full of narrow, pointed teeth sliding out of the shadows. Scared of catching sight of the basilisk's eyes, of being petrified or killed before he'd managed to do anything useful, he closed his eyes to slits and ran.

He'd only gotten halfway down the row of pillars when a scream-shredded voice burst out of the dark mouth housing the Basilisk and echoed out into the Chamber. Like a Bludger to the head, it stopped Harry in his tracks and sent him careening over to hide behind a pillar. Pressing his forehead hard against the ice-cold stone, feeling like he was going to be sick, he tried to focus on the gritty texture of the stone instead of the heart-wrenching wailing piercing his ears.

Then the screams evolved into hoarsely shouted words. "Help me, please! Let me out! Someone—anyone—please just—just get me away from him! Please, please, I'll do anything—anything—please! Let me go-o-o!" she sobbed hysterically.

And suddenly everything clicked. Recognition slammed into Harry like a wrecking ball, shattering his heart into a million jagged pieces.

Hermione was sobbing hysterically.

Knees going weak, he turned to prop his back against the pillar, hoping it would keep him upright until he figured out what to do. That tormented voice inside the tunnel with the Basilisk belonged to his Hermione. Harry's breath sawed agonizingly in and out of his lungs as he panted like some wild beast chased and hemmed in by hunting dogs across the moor. What was he going to do? Dizzy, he dug the heels of his hands into his burning eyes and fought to keep from passing out. His stomach felt like it was twisting tighter than a circus balloon. He didn't know what to do. Right now, he wasn't even sure he could save himself. What could he possibly do to save Hermione?

Tom's voice hissed and echoed across the chamber and over the dark water. "➿Come out, King of Serpents. Come out with your Queen and kill. The Heir of Slytherin commands you.➿"