A/N: This is the story that I had teased at the end of my last Harry Potter story. This might be the shortest chapter in the story to be honest, just because it is more set up than anything else. I hope you enjoy, let's get into it.

The snake's tail whipped across the floor again. Harry ducked. Something soft hit his face. The basilisk had swept the Sorting Hat into Harry's arms. Harry seized it. It was all he had left, his only chance, he rammed it onto his head and threw himself flat onto the floor as the basilisk's tail swung over him again.

'Help me… help me' Harry thought, his eyes screwed tight under the hat Please help me.

There was no answering voice. Instead, the hat contracted, as though an invisible hand.

was squeezing it very tightly. Something very hard and heavy thudded onto the top of Harry's head, almost knocking him out. Stars winking in front of his eyes, he grabbed the top of the hat to pull it off

and felt something long and hard beneath it; a gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the hat, its handle glittering with rubies

the size of eggs.

"KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. SNIFF — SMELL HIM."

Harry was on his feet, 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 and using his skills honed by being a seeker, Harry dodged to the side 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.

I have to do something, I have a bloody sword.

The basilisk lunged again, and in a moment of below average intelligence, Harry threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth.

Take that you dusty arse overgrown tape worm

However, as Harry was mid thought, he felt warm blood start to dribble his arm, followed by him feeling a searing pain just above his elbow. A quick glance allowed Harry to see that 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. Harry slid down the wall. He gripped the fang that was spreading poison through his body and wrenched it out of his arm.

But he knew it was too late. White-hot pain was spreading slowly and steadily from the wound. Even as he dropped the fang and watched his own blood soaking his robes, his vision went foggy. The Chamber was dissolving in a whirl of dull color.

I absolutely fucking hate this shite hole of a school

A patch of scarlet swam past, and Harry heard a soft clatter of claws beside him.

"Fawkes," said Harry sarcastically, happy to have a witness to his death. "You were fantastic, Fawkes…"

He felt the bird lay its beautiful head on the spot where the serpent's fang had pierced him, he could hear also hear the echoing footsteps and then a dark shadow moved in front of him.

"You're dead, Harry Potter," said Riddle's voice above him. "Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing, Potter? He's crying."

Harry blinked, his vision was almost completely gone, but he could barely make out Fawke's head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the glossy feathers.

Something something phoenix tears heal things to quote Hermione.

"I'm going to sit here and watch you die, Harry Potter. Take your time. I'm in no hurry."

Harry felt drowsy. Everything around him seemed to be spinning. But he also knew that he would be find as long as Tom Riddle made no real move against him.

"So ends the famous Harry Potter," said Riddle's distant voice. "Alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by his friends, defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged."

"Is that how you died? Alone?" asked Harry with the best Snape impersonation that he could.

If his words had any impact on Tom, the teenager didn't show it, "You'll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry. She bought you twelve years of borrowed time… but Lord Voldemort got you in the end, as you knew he must…"

If this is dying, thought Harry, it's not so bad, could do without the commentary track in the back but arseholes gotta arsehole.

Even the pain was leaving him, which meant that his stalling had worked. He was certain of it because instead of going black, the Chamber seemed to be coming back into focus. Harry gave his head a little shake and there was Fawkes, still resting his head on Harry's arm. A pearly patch of tears was shining all around the wound, except that there was no wound. The only sign of the once upon a time stabbing of the fang through his arm was the thin little white scar.

"Get away, bird," said Riddle's voice suddenly. "Get away from him, I said, get away."

Harry raised his head. Riddle was pointing Harry's wand at Fawkes; there was a bang like a gun, and Fawkes took flight again in a whirl of gold and scarlet.

"Phoenix tears…" said Riddle quietly, staring at Harry's arm. "Of course… healing

powers… I forgot…"

He looked into Harry's face. "But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter… you and me…"

He raised the 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.

There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor.

"YOU FOOL!" screamed Riddle "THEY'RE GOING TO DO TO YOU WHAT THEY DID TO ME!"

Harry looked at Riddle with a frown.

"You think I wanted to go back to the orphanage?" asked Riddle as his form shivered.

No realized Harry

"I begged Dumbledore to let me stay here, to not send me back" said Riddle softly, caught up in the memory of rejection, "But he never listened to me. I was always forced to go back to the muggles who abused me."

Harry felt his stomach tighten upon hearing that line

"What do you mean?" questioned Harry

"Dumbledore is never going to tell you the truth, he's always going to tell you some vague answer and send you back there" said Riddle as his form dropped to the ground in pain, "Never trust him"

"Why not?" questioned Harry

Riddle opened his mouth and black ink leaked from the corners instead of blood, "Because even though I am from before Lord Voldemort's time, I can still feel my own magic inside the castle. The potions' master, Severus Snape, he bears the mark of my magic on him very soul"

"Snape was your follower?" Harry half asked, half realized

Riddle dropped to the ground, his body landing on all fours. Despite whatever pain he was going through, he still managed to nod.

Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then he was gone.

The words sat heavy on Harry's mind, that he was barely paying attention as Ginny awoke, Ron managed to clear out enough rocks to rejoin them, Lockhart who was mentally an infant also joined then, It honestly felt like he blinked and he was sitting in Dumbledore's office.

Dumbledore crossed to one of the chairs by the fire.

"Sit down, Harry," he said, and Harry sat, feeling unaccountably nervous.

"First of all, Harry, I want to thank you," said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. "You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you."

But why should I be loyal to you? Are you actually trying to help me or are you just as Tom Riddle warned me of.

He stroked the phoenix, which had fluttered down onto his knee. Harry forced an awkward grin as Dumbledore watched him.

"And so you met Tom Riddle," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "I imagine he was most interested in you…"

This had been true, Tom had been interested in him. Or rather the myth The Boy Who Lived version of him. But this was also Harry's chance to ask some questions about what was said down there.

"Professor Dumbledore… Riddle said I'm like him. Strange likenesses, he said…"

"Did he, now?" said Dumbledore, looking thoughtfully at Harry from under his thick silver eyebrows. "And what do you think, Harry?"

"I don't think I am" said Harry, "I hope I'm nothing like him"

But he fell silent, a lurking doubt resurfacing in his mind.

Was Tom Riddle really correct? Did Dumbledore care about him?

"Professor," he started again after a moment. "The Sorting Hat told me I'd … that I'd have done well in Slytherin. Everyone thought I was Slytherin's heir for a while… because I can speak Parseltongue"

"You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly, "because Lord Voldemort who is the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure…"

"Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry said as his mind raced, Parseltongue was a bloodline ability from what he remembered from the research. His years at primary when he was yout had taught him that things like genetics could only be passed from family member to family member.

He's lying to me, right to my face. Tom Riddle might be my family and he would rather make up a story about transferring power than tell me the truth.

Harry did his best to hide the horror he felt at realizing that he could not in fact trust this man across from him. The most powerful magical, political, and knowledgeable man in the wizarding world was not to be trusted. Also the anger he felt at being lied to so openly but someone he had felt that he could trust.

"Is it true that you didn't let Tom stay here over the summers? He said you always told him no and forced him to return to the muggle world" questioned Harry

"He told you that?' mused Dumbledore with a soft twitch of his lips, he was quick to hide the frown that had threatened to appear on his face, "Harry, it would have been unfair to Tom not to return him every year"

"Why?" asked Harry

This time Dumbledore could not hide the frown from his face, "Because it was for the greater good of everyone. Tom came from the orphanage, he belonged there"

"Even if they abused him?" asked Harry

Dumbledore winced, "There is more to the story Harry. One day you will understand that I do everything for a reason. I sent Tom back because it was the best option available at the time"

"Even if they abused him?" repeated Harry

"Again, my dear child, one day you will understand that certain things need to be done for the greater good" replied Dumbledore

"And what if I was the one being abused?" asked Harry

"You're not" said Dumbledore sternly

"What do you call being physically hit, starved, forced to live in a cupboard?" asked Harry

This question Dumbledore did not answer, causing ever ounce of good will between the two of them to slowly crumble with each passing second of silence.

"Do you have any other questions, Harry?" asked Dumbledore

"Tom said that Snape was a follower of his, that his very soul was stained with his magic," said Harry

Dumbledore flinched as he visibly paled and seemed to age far beyond even his ancient age, but he let out a sigh.

"People are allowed to make mistakes, Snape made his fair share in his youth. But when he realized that his mistakes could put people in danger, he deflected and assisted us in helping overthrow Voldemort" replied Dumbledore

"How do you mistakenly join a bad guy?" asked Harry

"Arrogance, pain, heart break" answered Dumbledore

"Can I ask you what was the mistake that made him turn into a good guy?" asked Harry

Dumbledore looked annoyed at the seemingly never ending questions, but answered nevertheless, "He provided information that he thought was harmless but got someone he cared about killed"

Harry felt Dumbledore's settle on his scar and he felt his blood freeze.

It was my mum, the long nosed greasy hair barmy tosser got my mum killed. He probably got both my parents killed.

HE GOT MY PARENTS KILLED AND HAS THE NERVE TO TREAT ME LIKE SHITE!

Harry was so angry inside, he missed the slight glow that his eyes took on before he stood up and left, ignoring Dumbledore asking for him to return to the room.

Tom was right, I can't trust a single adult in the entire bloody castle.

A/N: Like I mentioned at the top of the chapter, this is going to be an shorter chapter because this is simply the first chapter and we will dive deeper into Harry's distrust of Dumbledore and others starting next chapter as he enter the third year where I alwasy believed that there was a lot of reasons to not trust any of the adults.

I would appreciate if you joined my discord using invite code: KHfkcsfc

That's all I got you today, until next time.