In the meantime, in the Chamber of Secrets...

HARRY XIII

"STUPEFY!"

A jet of red light hit Ron straight on the side. Harry's friend fell to the ground, unmoving, but before Harry could react, and as Ginny's feet and legs fell back on the floor, Harry being unable to hold her on his own, another spell hit him.

"Accio wands!"

Harry felt his wand leave his pocket. He stared in shock as it landed into the left hand of a tall boy with black hair ten feet away. Instinctively, Harry let the rest of Ginny's body fall on the floor and placed himself between her and the person who just attacked him and Ron. He realized quickly though where he saw this boy who now held two wands before.

"Tom... Tom Riddle."

He recognized him from the memory the diary showed him, when Harry witnessed how Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts. Hary looked worriedly to Ron, who laid on the floor, unmoving, his eyes closed.

"What have you done to Ron?" Harry asked angrily.

"Oh, don't worry. I only stupefied him. He's unconscious, nothing more. I don't have enough strength yet to kill someone," Riddle said.

Harry stared in shock at this image from the past. Did he just talk about killing someone as casually as if he had been talking about the weather? Tom Marvolo Riddle was a student at Hogwarts fifty years ago, and yet here he was. However, this Tom Riddle had a foggy light around him. His outline was blurry.

"What are you?" Harry asked.

"A memory," Riddle answered neutrally. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."

He pointed towards the feet of the giant statue. Harry then noticed for the first time the small little black diary he found in Moaning Myrtle's toilets months ago and that was stolen from him the day of his match against Hufflepuff.

Harry was confused. What did all this mean? What was Tom Riddle doing here? How did he get there? What was he exactly? Why did he stupefy Ron? Why did he take away Harry's wand, which was in his pocket like Ron's? And... Ginny?

"What have you done to Ginny?"

Riddle smiled, in a way that was anything but comforting. "A very interesting question, isn't it, Harry Potter?" The way he said it sounded familiar to Harry, as if someone once called him on that tone. "I've been waiting for this moment a very long time."

"What do you mean? What are you doing here?" Harry asked angrily. Riddle's smile only widened.

"I wanted to see you. To speak to you. And now I've got my chance, and all the time in the world."

"Give me back my wand," Harry ordered. He didn't know why he did this. He felt that there was no chance Riddle would give it back to him, but he was losing his patience.

"You won't be needing it," Tom replied on even tone.

"You don't seem to understand! There's a Basilisk around..."

"It won't come until it is called. Anyway, you're not in a position to demand anything, Harry Potter."

"What have you done to Ginny?" Harry repeated the question he previously asked, and for which he didn't get any answer.

Riddle smiled even broadly than before. "You want to know that, don't you? Well, perhaps Ginny's hopes are not that desperate. Maybe she could have had her chance with you, if only she had tried. Too bad it's too late."

"What have you done to her?" Harry detached his words very carefully. Anger kept building inside him.

"Nothing that she didn't do to herself. You see, Harry Potter, for many months, Ginny opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to me. To my diary. She's been writing in it for a very long time, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes. How her brothers teased her. How she had come to school with second-hand robes and books. And how she didn't think that the famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her. It was very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl. But I was patient. I wrote back to Ginny, showed her sympathy, kindness. Ginny simply loved me. You should have seen what she wrote in my diary. How no one ever understood her like I did, which wasn't very difficult since she told me absolutely everything about her. How she was glad to have the diary to confide in, which is not surprising since she didn't have any friends. She said, it's like having a friend I can carry round my pocket."

Tom Riddle laughed in a way that was so cold, it made Harry's hair stand up.

"I've always been able to charm the people I needed," Tom continued. "Ginny was not that hard to impress. It wasn't difficult to gain her trust. She poured her soul into me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted. I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her."

"What do you mean?" But Harry felt he already knew, and he feared that Tom would just confirm it.

"Haven't you guessed it yet, Potter?" No, that couldn't be true. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets."

"No, that's impossible," Harry shot back. "She cannot have. I know how to open it. You must speak Parseltongue for that." Harry gripped to that hope, to the fact that Ginny cannot have possibly opened the Chamber of Secrets.

"She spoke Parseltongue," Riddle explained quietly, obviously relishing in his words. "I made her do it. She didn't know what she was doing, not really. At least, not in the beginning. She strangled the school roosters, wrote the threatening messages on the walls, set the Basilisk on four Mudbloods and the Squib's cat."

"No," Harry whispered. It was impossible. Though now everything made sense. This was what Ginny tried to tell them this morning, before Percy interrupted them. This was why she looked so ill during the whole year. And it must be why she panicked when she saw Harry with Tom's diary on Valentine's Day, because she knew what the diary was.

"Yes, Potter. She did it. She did all these things, and more. I must say it was very amusing. You should have seen her new diary entries. They became far more interesting. I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me. There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad. I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom! Tom! Tom!"

The boy found that funny, and Harry wanted nothing more but to smash him to the ground and ruin his smile, but without a wand and against someone who held two, he knew he had no chance.

"I comforted Ginny," Tom went on. "I told her not to worry. That she was probably exhausted, ill because of the cold, just confused by her new surroundings, missing her home and her parents. I reassured her. The stupid little Ginny believed me, for a very long time. It took a lot before she got suspicious of the diary. When finally she did, she tried to dispose of it. This is where you came in, Harry. You found it. I had tried to get Ginny closer to you over the year, but if there was one kind of advice Ginny could not follow, it was anything that pertained to you. She was far too shy around you. I wanted to meet you. I was hoping that maybe she would show you the diary, and I would get to speak with you. Instead, you found it on your own. I couldn't have been more delighted."

"Why did you want to meet me?" Harry shot angrily.

"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry. But not only about you. She also told me about your mother." Harry's fist clamped further. "Did I forget to tell you how much she wrote about Mrs Lily? Because she did write about her too. The woman she so wanted to be like when she would grow up. The powerful witch who survived the Dark Lord, who raised the great Harry Potter, who's about to become an Auror. It wasn't just you that she worshipped. She worshipped your mom too. Do you realize how disgusted I was when I found out that the model of a pure-blood witch, as stupid as Ginny Weasley could be, was a Mudblood?"

Harry reacted immediately. He could take everything, but not this. He tried to smash Tom Riddle in the face, but an instant later, a burst of lighting hit him in the chest and made him fly a few feet away. He landed hard on the stone floor. His back hurt. Riddle laughed more loudly than ever.

"I was expecting that, Potter," he said. "Ginny told me about what you did for your friend Hermione at the beginning of the year. She really thought you might be in love with that Mudblood at this moment. I can't tell you how many times I had to reassure her, to tell her that this girl was certainly only a friend. Ginny was very hard to convince. She was so afraid that you might love another."

Harry, in the meantime, had gotten on his feet again. He wanted to kill Riddle, but he knew it would be futile without a wand. Even with one, he was afraid that he would be no match against him.

"But I digress," Tom continued. "As interesting as your mother's story was, yours was way better. I knew I must find out more about you, and there was just so much that Ginny could tell me about you. I had to meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my famous capture od that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust."

"Hagrid's my friend! And you framed him, didn't you?"

"It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school Prefect, model student. On the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls. But I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance… As though Hagrid had the brains or the power! Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed. Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did."

"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you."

"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled. I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."

Noble work? Harry couldn't believe he was fooled by Riddle. He should have guessed. This was why Hermione was Petrified the very day the diary disappeared from his stuff. Ginny must have recovered it, and Riddle took control of her again. And he attacked Hermione. Harry may not be able to hurt Riddle physically. Perhaps his fists couldn't reach him, even if he could avoid any cruse or spell the sixteen-years-old boy would cast, since his figure was blurry and not completely real. But he could make Riddle know that all his plans had failed.

"You haven't finished it. You failed," he shot at the boy. "No one is dead this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again."

And someone would certainly tell about the huge serpent he saw before he was Petrified. Even if everyone only recalled yellow eyes like Myrtle, Hermione could tell the professors what she discovered. Certainly all the professors of Hogwarts together could find a way to stop the Basilisk.

Riddle didn't seem impressed by Harry's words. "Haven't I already told you that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been... you."

Harry was caught off guard. What did he mean? Why was he Riddle's target?

"Imagine how angry I was," Riddle resumed, "when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters."

He seemed to be mocking Ginny while talking this way. Harry looked at her unmoving body on the floor. So this was really Ginny who ransacked their dormitory, to find Riddle's diary. She must have done it during the Quidditch match, when everyone was attending the game and the common room was almost empty.

"The foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery. Particularly if one of your best friends, and perhaps a girl you loved, was attacked." So this was why Hermione was Petrified. It was only because Harry was close to her. "And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue. So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her. She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last. I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter."

The outline of Riddle's body had become clearer and less foggy while they talked. Harry was worried. If Ginny didn't have much life left in her, was it a sign that Riddle was siphoning what was left? How would she feel if Harry touched her hand now? But there wasn't anything he could do. Riddle still had two wands, and Harry had none. Ron remained on the floor as well, unmoving just like Ginny. There was nothing Harry could do, except talk, perhaps get Riddle's attention somewhere, and getting an opportunity to act somewhere down the line.

"Like what?" Harry asked.

"Well..." The heir of Slytherin walked a little to his left, then stared at Harry again, with an expression of pure hatred this time. "How is it that a baby with no extraordinary magical talent managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"

Riddle's eyes almost flashed red for an instant.

"Why do you care how I escaped?" Harry asked in return. He felt quite uneasy about all this. Why these questions on Voldemort? Somehow, he felt that he wouldn't like the answer. "Voldemort was long after your time."

Very long after his time. Why this interest in Voldemort? Riddle had gone to Hogwarts fifty years ago, long before Voldemort became active in the 1970s.

"Voldemort is my past, present and future, Harry Potter..."

Again, the way he said Harry's name was familiar. Far too familiar now. As he took Harry's wand and proceeded to create symbols in the air, Harry felt again something sending shivers down his spine. The symbols took the shape of three golden shining words.

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Riddle then waved Harry's wand, and his name started to disassemble. The letters reorganized themselves into four different words, four words Harry wished never existed.

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

"You see," Riddle whispered.

Now Harry saw all the resemblance as the golden letters disappeared. The cold laugh, the soft voice, the way he said his name. No doubt. He had a younger version of Voldemort in front of him. Voldemort before he was called this way, when he was an adolescent. Already a monster back then.

"It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry. I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

Harry stared at the orphaned boy who eventually became the monster who murdered Harry's father, who almost killed his mother twice. Who almost killed him. It was Voldemort, no doubt. Harry could see it now. He was younger, but he was already the monster who would destroy Harry's family and countless others.

"You're not," Harry said.

"Not what?" Riddle snapped.

"You're not the greatest sorcerer in the world!" Harry shouted. Fear and anger mingled within him, and he spoke words he never thought he would tell to Voldemort. "You are an assassin. A murderer. You are nothing but mere shadow and vapour. You can only have form when you share someone else's body. These are your words, not mine. This is what you told me last year when I met you. You're a wreck, barely alive. You can't even steal a rock. That's where all your powers got you! You're hiding. You're ugly, you're foul!"

Riddle's face contorted in rage. But he smiled even more evilly than ever. "Well, this is about to change. Because I'm coming back. Your little Ginny will soon be dead, and thanks to her death, I will revive. And there will be nothing to stop me."

"Yes, there will!" Harry said. He had to make Voldemort lose his temper. If this younger version of him let his emotions dictate his actions, perhaps he had a chance. "You were never the greatest sorcerer in the world, and you will never be. Albus Dumbledore is. You never dared to attack Hogwarts, even at the peak of your power. You are afraid of him! You have always been afraid of him!"

He touched a sensible point on that, judging from the pure hatred that showed on Riddle's face. "Dumbledore was driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!"

"He's not as gone as you might think!"

Harry said the words without thinking. He would say anything just to scare Riddle at this point. But Riddle still held Harry's wand tightly, and he didn't see how he could grab it. Even if he did, would he be able to defeat Riddle? He doubted it, seeing how he dealt with both Harry and Ron so quickly.

Right when Riddle was about to say something, music resonated inside the huge room. It was high-pitched, piercing, shrill, and it was growing. When Harry finally located the origin of that sound, he saw a huge crimson bird with a golden tail heading towards them. The bird dropped something at Harry's feet, then went to sit on one of the statue's hands.

"That's a phoenix," Riddle noticed, looking at the bird. Harry didn't remember seeing it before, though he recognized it as a phoenix. Then Riddle looked at his feet. "And that... that's the old school Sorting Hat."

Riddle burst into laughs. They were almost as deafening as the bird's screams because of echoes. Indeed, the old and holed hat was at Harry's feet. What was this phoenix doing here? And what did it want Harry to do with the Hat?

"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender!" Riddle mocked. "A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?"

Harry wasn't sure. He was trying to understand. Why did a phoenix bring him the Sorting Hat now?

"To business, Harry," Riddle resumed. "Twice, in your past, in my future, we have met. And twice I failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk, the longer you stay alive."

Harry had gotten nowhere by talking to Riddle. In the meantime, his outline kept becoming clearer. Ginny couldn't have much time to live. If he still wanted to save her, there was no time to lose. But he could still try to trouble the mind of his opponent.

"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me. I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. My parents... They were ready to die to save me. My mother..." He thought about her. She arrived just at the right moment last year, but Harry couldn't hope for her to save him this time. He didn't write to her. He didn't warn her about his intentions this time because he knew she would come and try to save him. And he couldn't let her endanger her life for him once again. "My mother defeated you. My common Muggle-born mother. She stopped you from killing me, twice. She defeated you last year in duel. You couldn't beat her." That wasn't entirely true, but Harry was glad to just tell a younger Voldemort how he was defeated by the very people who he despised and deemed inferior. And judging from the look on his face, Harry could tell that the heir of Slytherin was boiling with rage. "The greatest sorcerer in the world? You couldn't even kill a Muggle-born witch! You couldn't even kill Hermione or anybody this year! You're pathetic! You're a failure!"

Riddle raised Harry's wand and pointed it at him. His face was truly contorted by rage. Harry waited for the spell. If what Dumbledore told him was true, if what his mother told him was true, then Voldemort could not kill him because he was protected. But would it also work for a memory of Voldemort? For something that maybe wasn't completely alive? Riddle forced an evil smile upon his face.

"So. I see now. A powerful counter-charm it is, to die to save someone. So here is the truth, plain and simple. There is absolutely nothing special about you after all, Potter." He moved around Harry, his wand still pointed on him. "I wondered, you see... Because there are strange likenesses between us. You must have noticed. Half-bloods, whose one of their parents died when he was a baby, raised among Muggles in the ignorance of their powers, Parselmouths. We even have some... physical similitudes. But after all, it was merely luck that saved you from me, both times we faced. You never defeated me. You let other people fight in your place."

Riddle was still boiling in anger, but he controlled it. That didn't reassure Harry.

"Now, Harry Potter, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him."

Riddle looked amusingly at the Sorting Hat at Harry's feet. He then walked towards the statue, who now Harry understood was a gigantic representation of Salazar Slytherin. Harry looked at Ron and Ginny, both still unmoving.

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."

Riddle just talked in Parseltongue. Harry recognized the language, but he also understood it. The statue started to move. Its mouth opened, wider and wider, until it was larger than the pipe by which Harry and Ron entered the Chamber of Secrets. And there was something stirring inside this mouth. Something was coming out.

Harry reflexively closed his eyes. He heard something splash in the water. He turned around and ran.

"Kill him!" Riddle hissed, clearly to the attention of the huge serpent. Harry heard it slither on the hard cold and damp stone of the floor. Harry knew it was the Basilisk, even though he couldn't risk to look at it.

Right after Riddle said the words though, a piercing shriek followed. It was coming from the bird. Then there was a loud, explosive spitting sound right behind Harry. His back turned, he couldn't hear the serpent slithering anymore. And other, different screams joined those of the phoenix.

Harry found refuge behind one of the pillars. He wanted to know what was going on behind. Why had the Basilisk stopped pursuing him? Slowly, Harry peered from the corner of the pillar. He saw the end of the Basilisk's tail. It was green, bright, and enormous, maybe the size of a small barrel at its maximum width. If this was the tail, then the serpent himself had to be much larger.

Then its head came into his field of view. He saw the serpent's right eye. Harry closed his own right away. But he opened them right away, without thinking. The phoenix was after the serpent, attacking its face. Then Harry realized that the eye was red. It was red with blood.

"No! Leave the bird! Leave the bird!" Riddle was screaming in Parseltongue. "The boy is there, behind a pillar. He's right in front of you! You can still smell him! Kill him!"

The huge serpent was swinging in all directions, confused. It tried to get the phoenix with its fangs. They were enormous. Harry remembered what Hermione had found, that the fangs of the Basilisk were just as deadly as his eyes. The phoenix kept puncturing the serpent's head. Whoever that bird was, wherever it came from, Harry couldn't deny that it was helpful. If the bird came from Dumbledore, like Riddle seemed to think, and it brought the Sorting Hat... Harry tried to locate the Hat. He might just run away, try to reach back the surface, but he couldn't leave Ron and Ginny there. He had to find a way to defeat the serpent. If he could defeat it, he might be able to defeat Riddle. But how? Was the answer in the Hat? And how to get it?

He just barely thought about it when the Basilisk just whipped the floor where the Sorting Hat was and threw it in Harry's direction, only a few feet away from him. Quick as the lighting, Harry took the Hat and went back behind the pillar. Then he placed the Hat on his head.

"Help me! Help me! Please help me!" he thought very strongly.

No little voice answered his call this time. But the Hat contracted over his head, and something very hard and heavy fell onto his head. Harry fell to the ground under the shock. It almost knocked him out. Plunging his right hand into the Hat while still wearing it, then removing the Hat, Harry seized the handle, and drew something very long from the Hat. It was a silvery sword. The handle was made of rubies the size of golf balls.

"Kill the boy! Leave the bird! The boy is behind you! Sniff! Smell him!"

He heard again the slithering sound against the ground, then a shock happened right over his head. Harry plunged forward just at the right moment. The pillar shattered in a million shards, some of them flew into his face. Harry had to protect himself with his arm holding the sword.

When he removed it, he could see the Basilisk towering him. Straightened in this way, he had to be six metres tall. The serpent plunged. Harry moved back, still on the ground. The snout of the serpent hit the floor right at Harry's feet. He tried to slash its head, but his two swings completely missed the target. Harry got back on his feet, holding the sword high. The Basilisk was preparing for another attack. It lunged again. Harry stepped aside and swung the sword once more. The Basilisk roared and moved his head to the left, pushing Harry to the ground. Harry may not be strong, but years of training in both football and Quidditch made him particularly quick. He got back on his feet in no time and took refuge behind another pillar. Then he peered from behind it. The Basilisk lunged at this moment, hitting the side of the pillar, causing the structure to sway. Harry tried to swing at the Basilisk again, but the beast had retreated. It then lunged again and made Harry stumble. This time, the Basilisk did not retreat back. It just turned its head, mouth wide open. Before Harry could think about it, he threw the sword right through the roof of the Basilisk. The serpent screamed, and closed its mouth.

It felt as though Harry's arm was pierced by a burning rod, but worse. The Basilisk opened its maw and retreated, squirming, while he left a fang into Harry's arm. He pulled the fang out, with great effort. A horrible pain was spreading from the place where the fang sank though. Harry looked at the Basilisk, wriggling all around, screaming in an inhuman way. Harry forced himself to move forward. He had to finish it. He had to finish the Basilisk, make sure it would die.

But as he advanced slowly, his vision beginning to blur, the serpent fell in the water in a great splash. He looked where he last saw Ron and Ginny. By miracle, they didn't seem to have been hit or moved by the Basilisk during the fight. Tom Marvolo Riddle still stood at their side. He was looking at the Basilisk.

Harry could feel his forces were diminishing. But he forced himself to go forward. If he was about to die, then he wanted to bring Riddle with him. He wanted to run, but it was too difficult. He had the Basilisk's fang, the one that spread the poison in his body, in his left hand, the sword in the right one. He had to use the sword as a support to keep advancing. He wanted to cut Riddle's head. He didn't mind if he killed him. Riddle waited patiently for Harry. He looked at him, not looking at all intimidated. The moment Harry tried to lift the sword, when he was only a few feet from Riddle, his legs gave away. He fell next to Ginny, panting. His vision was blackening by the second now.

"You're dead, Harry Potter," Riddle declared, glee in his voice. "I think you'll find it remarkable, the speed at which the venom of the Basilisk penetrates your body. I guess you only have a few minutes to live. But take your time. I'm in no hurry."

Harry tried to lift himself, but to no avail. He couldn't raise the sword. He was powerless. He didn't have enough force left in him, and what was left was disappearing by the second. He could feel it. Soon, he would be with his father. Another grave would be placed next to his in Godric's Hollow. Another grave that his mother would visit once every year. Only, Harry wouldn't be there to support her the next time.

He looked at Ginny. He summoned enough force to touch her hand. It was so cold. She didn't have much time left either. Harry's eyes wandered over her head, where the diary was lying on the floor, wet.

"I guess your Mudblood mother will have to live without a son, finally," Riddle said. Harry gripped Ginny's hand with what was left of his strength. "Perhaps this is why I didn't kill her. Only so that she may know what it is to live without a family. Without everyone who she cares for. To see the day when she realized that her sacrifice was for nothing." Anger boiled inside Harry. "And so ends the famous Harry Potter, alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by his friends, defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged."

Anger gave him enough force and will. Harry let go of Ginny's hand and grabbed the diary with his right hand. He didn't have the sword of Gryffindor anymore. His vision was getting all blurry. But he still had the Basilisk's fang in his left hand. Riddle wouldn't see him dying. He would die before. Harry raised the fang with the last forces he had.

"Stop! No!"

Just as Riddle screamed, the fang fell onto the little black book and pierced it. Harry fell a thick liquid shoot from the diary as Riddle's screams turned from despair to pain. Harry kept the fang deep into the diary. His neck no longer supported his head. It fell on the floor, forehead first. Harry barely saw anything now. He barely distinguished the green glow of the ground. Giving his last forces, Harry took out the fang from the diary, and without looking, stabbed it again. Riddle's screams grew higher, more desperate, more high-pitched. It was the last thing Harry heard as darkness wrapped up around him.

But it wasn't the last thing he saw or he thought about though. As Harry felt life leaving him, he saw an image of his mother, when they were at Godric's Hollow during the last Halloween, in front of his father's grave and he held her hand.

"I'm sorry, Mom," he whispered as darkness fully covered him.

Hereby ends the fight with the Basilisk. Small divergences from canon.

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Next chapter: someone who could have died