Draco Malfoy was in hell. Wizards and Witches had fled the Muggle World and their ridiculous church with its morality of weakness founded on the supreme sadism of its eternal promised flames back when the Statute of Secrecy divided their worlds.

Wizards remembered the truth. Hell is something you make for yourself, and it had another name. Hell was called awareness.

Draco remembered who he was. Here at the last, when he didn't even own his body anymore, when he was simply a well of life energy and magical power being drained dry so a ghost could bind enough of itself to Draco's body and walk out pretending to be him, Draco remembered who he was.

Draco Malfoy had grown up the son of Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eater. Not simply a blood purist like his mother Narcissa, Lucius had been a key follower of Voldemort, and an active part of his rise to power. Lucius had shown Draco his Dark Mark, and told him of the power and majesty of the Dark Lord, of the great honour it took to bear this mark, and the hidden powers that came with it.

Draco had got to Hogwarts and learned in Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks that to bear the Dark Mark the Death Eater had to torture and murder someone. The text mentioned this was usually muggles, but not always. Draco had sneered, let the lesser beings cower, as they should. A truly powerful wizard did not shy from such things as murder or torture!

Draco had said that. Draco had believed that.

Draco could not cry. He no longer owned his eyes. He had no choice, he could not choose not to see. It turned out Draco had read the Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts without any real understanding of what the words meant.

"Dear Merlin forgive me." Draco begged. I didn't know.

Tom Riddle was Lord Voldemort. The Dark Lord his father crawled on his belly to kiss the hem of his robe was the Half Blood Tom Marvolo Riddle. Lucius knew, and did not care. He crawled on his belly like a House Elf begging for mercy before a Half Blood inside Malfoy Manor before the Hearth of his ancestors and under their very seal while the Dark Lord branded him like a slave.

Trapped in Tom Riddle's memories as they slowly wrote themselves onto the brain of a terrified Draco Malfoy who fled before their coming; all his occulemency forgotten in the face of this cold terrible thing he had invited into his mind and soul. Draco had no choice but to see, and hear, to taste, and to feel what Tom Riddle had felt when he had walked the path Draco Malfoy so often boasted about following.

He remembered taking those children from the orphanage to his secret cave to play. Some had bullied him, some he had bullied, one he found himself caring about and had decided to burn that weakness from him through the act of sacrifice.

Tom was a strong and natural Legimens, he was also a sadist. When he tortured, he let his mind experience the pain, despair and hopelessness of his victims. When they could no longer feel enough, he killed them and lapped up the moment of their soul's dissolution, feasted on the annihilation of their very being. He was the first Eater of Death, and the greatest of them.

Draco was dragged screaming through the memories of Tom Riddle as he decided to become Voldemort, and while Draco broke and fled into the farthest corners of his mind to whimper and prey for the end, the most terrifying sight was simply Tom Marvolo Riddle looking calmly upon the ruin of human lives, bodies, and souls with a face that might well have been carved from stone, it was so unmoved.

Draco now knew what torture meant, and what murder was. He felt the power of the killing curse pour through him, the hatred and denial of all life, the urge not simply to kill, but to sweep all that lived into nothingness, to dance and dance in blood until the world drowned.

For the first time, Draco Malfoy thought of the Boy Who Lived and gave thanks. The thing that once stared out from Tom Riddle's eyes could never be satisfied. When all the world bowed and groveled before him in supplication, still would he walk among them wand in hand to chose who lived and who died, today, because tomorrow he would choose again.

Voldemort was the true Death Eater, for only that could feed him, and no matter how much he ate, still he would hunger for more. He did not crave the Deathly Hallows like Grindelwald to banish death from wizardkind. Voldemort was death for wizardkind. His own would simply die last.

The world had not been kind to Tom Marvolo Riddled back when he had the capacity to care, so he created Voldemort to make it pay. Serving him was no protection, submitting to him was no defense, and enduring him was no safety. When those cold flat eyes settled on you, and his wand flicked, you would die. Those who bore his mark, his Death Eaters were his tools. Tools to be used until broken, and then discarded. Tools that may sometimes be simply taken up to play with until broken, for that too was service.

Lucius Malfoy had promised Draco that if he studied hard, became powerful, and amassed followers, he too would have the honour of becoming a marked Death Eater when the Dark Lord returned again. Draco had lived for that day, had dreamed of it.

Now, Merlin help him, he was living it.

Malfoy/Riddle put the diary down upon the feet of the statue of Salazar Slytherin and stepped away. He knelt cross legged before the bound and weeping Hermione Granger and smiled one last time.

"You are right Miss Granger. For a muggle born, you are not without strength. I do not think you can be made to beg for death, and the one your serpent named 'Yellow Haired Prey' is incapable of commanding the companion of Salazar Slytherin to obey and kill you. That is why I have to finish killing him, so I may kill you." The voice that should have been Draco Malfoy offered softly.

"Who are you, really?" Hermione said, her voice raw from screaming, no longer ashamed that she had wet herself beneath the ropes binding her. She had broken again and again, blasted beyond consciousness by pain and yet inside her mind whenever she was ordered to beg for death, the voice of Noodle hissed forth from her lips "$ no $"

The figure of a blond aristocratic boy looked back at her, and began to hiss.

"$ I am Tom Marvolo Riddle, last heir of the Gaunt family, decendant and Heir of Slytherin. I am master of the Chamber of Secrets. I am Lord Voldemort $!" Riddle/Malfoy hissed, then began to meditate.

Hermione looked with shock as a new ghost began to form. A terrified crying boy who looked far younger than his twelve years, dressed in the finest tailored Slytherin robes and upon his hand gleamed the image of the Heir's Ring he was not old enough to actually be vested with, but which was already a part of his self image.

Draco whispered, and Hermione could barely hear it.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Not really. It wasn't supposed to be like this." Draco begged and Hermione closed her eyes, knowing that the end was near. Draco never stopped begging for Hermione's forgiveness, knowing that the end was near.

A rumble sounded through the floor, and Tom Riddle opened his eyes in cold fury. The Chamber of Secrets was being opened.

"$ Who dares disturb the Heir of Slytherin in his place of power! $" Tom Riddle demanded proudly.

Harry, Milicent and Neville charged down the passage after Noodle. It was Harry who answered for them.

"$ Hufflepuff debt collection agency. Salazar Slytherin is demanding back rent for his house and has hired us to repossess it, and to soundly spank the intruder. Best relax, we are all beater trained, so this might hurt a little. $" Harry quipped charging forward.

Tom Riddle recognized the challenger who had stilled his Fiendfire. The Boy Who Lived that had somehow destroyed his adult self. He would kil the others, but he had one weapon to use to eliminate this most dangerous threat. He did not yet have control of this body totally, if he used his own magic now to exhaustion, he might not be able to hold it, and be forced to retreat back to the diary again.

"$ Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Founding Four, open in the name of your Heir. Come, slave of Slytherin and kill for your master. $"

The great statue's mouth irised open until you could drive a small car through it, but what came out was instead a basilisk the size of a small dragon. This time it was not Draco Malfoy who spoke the command, this time it was Tom Marvolo Riddle, the acknowledged Heir of Slytherin and master of his Chamber of Secrets. Harry knew this time, the basilisk would kill.

Harry shut his eyes, and opened himself to the wind. He was a beater, he had drilled and trained for more hours than he had studied any subject in school to feel the passage of the bludger, the quaffle, the riders, and the snitch. he could feel how the air was disturbed by anything that moved it. He reached out to feel it with his magic.

Something else stirred in Harry. That part of his spirit that he could never fill, that missing piece that kept him from completing his Animagus transformation, the missing note in the song of his power was there. Harry could feel it.

"$ I am sorry Speaker. The Heir commands and you must die. $" The basilisk of Slytherin said, and for the first time Harry understood what the parselmagic had been trying to tell him since that day in potions class. He drew out a potion vial and hurled it into the mouth of the striking basilisk queen.

"$ Shall we dance, my Queen?$" Harry hissed.

The mouth of the basilisk snapped shut and the potion hit the basilisk bloodstream, and the most powerful love potion ever brewed, Amortentia empowered by ritual magic of a full elemental circle, woven with parselmagic and anchored by the magical venom of Harry Potter's own familiar serpent hit the Queen of Basilisks, the companion of Salazar Slytherin and the courtship began.

Courtship among basilisk was simple, a mating Queen would call, and those males who felt they were strong enough would answer. They would die until one who was strong enough would succeed. If the Queen was not also strong enough, the mating would kill her as well. Basilisk were rare for this reason, and the stronger lines of basilisk of course were rarer still, and Salazar Slytherin's chosen companion was the strongest female basilisk in wizarding history.

Pointing his wand where the motion of the air argued the base of the coiled serpent was, Harry launched a lightningbolt from his wand, all the raw power of his both his wind rune Ansuz and the sun/power rune of Soweilo from his curse scar came together to set a blazing bolt of lightning powerful enough to shock the basilisk into slamming its own eyes shut for protection as Harry screamed "Fulmen!" and unleashed his lightning.

Neville transformed into a badger, and he felt the slide and slither of the basilisk upon the earth. He needed no eyes to feel the presence of that cold bitter magic upon the living earth of the chamber. Earth was his, and all that grew upon and within it. His eyes closed he charged, and the claws of Hufflepuff's own tore into the ancient and spell worked hide of the Queen of Basilisks and for the first time in uncounted centuries, the Queen felt fear.

Hermione felt the ground beneath her freeze as Milicent chanted softly, creating runic arrays from the ice she summoned to work the stone of the floor into a slab of ice. Basilisks may be the King o Serpents, or queen if Harry was right, but they were still cold blooded, and trapped upon cold stone, would slow more than warm blooded mammals, the greater the legth of the serpent, the more it would affect her.

She felt Noodle slide onto her, to avoid the cold, and Hermione let her fire free for the first time. She had no wand, she had little magical energy left or strength. She had been tortured to within an inch of her life, but she had two things left. She had friends who came for her, and an enchanted Walther PPK. It wasn't a wand, but the average basilisk didn't wear enchanted bullet proof robes. Or sunglasses.

Hermione let the fire flow over her and Noodle, commanding it not to burn Noodle, but leaving it to eat the ropes binding her. Noodle climbed Slytherin's statue, bringing it to head height of the angry basilisk queen.

"$ You will not harm my Speaker! $" Hissed Noodle defiantly.

The basilisk turned her head, the potion running wild within her body. This was not the male, this was a lesser serpent. She hissed in rage at this lesser serpent interrupting her mating.

"$ You dare? I am the Queen of Serpents! $" The basilisk said, and withdrew the outer lid from her eye, freeing the paralysis effect at her challenger.

Noodle was already lunging. "$ Vive la revolution! $" he hissed as his fangs bit into her eye, the magically empowered Rock Viper venom causing her eye to collapse as the necrosis from the bite warred with the enchantments Helga Hufflepuff had woven into Salazar's companion many centuries ago that Hogwarts secret guardian would never die.

Noodle fell to the ground, petrified, but one bright yellow orb was now dark. The Queen of Serpents was not to be mocked, and in rage she turned her good eye upon the little snake that dared to hurt it, she flexed to strike only for a pillar of fire to cause her to turn reflexively.

For an instant, an impossible tableau froze. A clash of worlds, of realities. Only for an instant, but in that perfect instant a single sound paused the battle.

Crack!

It was a small sound. A .380 fired from a silenced Walther PPK made less than a cough, as did the piercing of the pupil of a basilisk's eye.

For one second, the head of the Queen of Serpents turned towards the unexpected sun bright flare of fire, the inner membrane sliding over the killing eye to protect it from fire. That inner membrane failed as the magically accelerated and runically enhanced bullet pierced it.

The Queen of Serpents looked upon the maiden wreathed in flames, her eye connected with two eyes of a witch knowing that petrification was taking her even as she pulled the trigger for the only shot she would be able to make. Two women shared a perfect moment of unyielding mutal emnity, then one fell into darkness, petrified and helpless, and one writhed into darkness, blind but very much still fighting.

The badger tore at her, and she flicked her tail to slam it away, its claws somehow potent enough to carve into even her enchanted skin, proof against the swords and arrows of mortals, even as it was proof against the spells of wizards. It held the old wild magic, and it hurt her. She would kill it, but it would not keep her from him.

She felt the potion's magic, the siren song of mating. She felt him,the male, the one. He was near, why could she not see him. Why did he not call to her.

"$ Leave them, my Queen. I am the only one for you. $" Harry swore, as he could feel it, the missing piece of him. The missing bit of his soul, of his magic.

The basilisk struck. Harry felt the fangs punch into him, felt the venom pour into him. Venom that could eat goblin silver, could destroy Horcrux and Deathly Hallow, could shatter ward stones and kill ghosts. Harry felt it flow into his body and he fell.

"Harry!" Milicent screamed as Harry Potter fell from the basilisk's bite.

Tom Riddle laughed and laughed and laughed. "The Boy Who Lived? This is what I was to fear? This?"

Harry fell, his body writhing in pain, his magic, his soul, his mind burning as the venom poured into all the broken places inside him, all the bits of goblin, wizard, of boy who lived, of Voldemort who died, of mother's soul and magic's need. Deep inside him, the image he could never form, his spirit animal, his Animagus form, his truth finally filled in as the venom filled the parts that had never truly been one, and burned down the last barriers between them.

Tom Riddle took up Malfoy's wand and pulled his magic to him. He was not done draining the Malfoy brat now, but the last real threat was done. His basilisk would kill the badger, and he the witch. Voldemort's rise began to day, there was no one left to oppose him.

Tom sent a whip of fire to cut the little witches head off, but Milicent called up a wall of ice to stop it. When the ice shattered, Tom had already flowed into a stream of curses, but Milicent doggedly shot spears of ice, flares of blinding light, banished explosive and poison potions at him, only to see the greatest wizard of his generation demonstrate his easy superiority by batting all of them aside, neutralizing or dispelling them with ease.

Milicent finally fell stunned as Tom felt the slap of her wand in his off hand as he disarmed her with ease. He paused before killing her when he heard his basilisk scream. He turned to see the badger had not yet returned within claw range of his basilisk, so what could make her scream in such pain?

Harry was not dying. He knew that. He had died once before, under the killing curse and it didn't hurt this much. He could not feel his arms and legs. No, wait, that wasn't right. He didn't have his arms and legs. He saw Neville crawling towards the basilisk, one leg broken, and still coming back for more. Eyes shut closed, stumbling, staggering, the Longbottom boy too Hufflepuff to quit, but too broken to win.

Harry's vison went red. He felt his first iris slide back, his vision was red, the paralyzing red. He felt his eyelid slide back, and his eyes burned gold. The killing gold. The killing gold of the King of Serpents. His soul was complete, his Animagus form was found. He was a basilisk.

Harry Potter slithered past the bodies of his Hermione and Noodle, slid his body over the coils of the Queen of Basilisks, and sunk his fangs into her, and poured all of his own venom into her. He poured the venom she had poured into his blood back into her, mixed with his own venom, his blood, his magic, and his soul.

The Queen of Basilisks looked up in shock, feeling the venom pour into her, the potency, the power. It was him. The male. He had taken her killing strike and returned it. She writhed as the ecstasy of his potency filled her at last. The promise of Salazar Slytherin, that one day she would find the one worthy of her.

"$ Speaker! $" She hissed

"$ My Queen. $ Hissed Harry. "$ You will harm no others until I am done. $" Harry hissed.

The Queen of Basilisks drew into a coil. The ground was cold. She had to heal. She could always kill someone later. Right now, she felt very good, and would just nap and enjoy it.

Tom Riddle turned around at the scream of his snake. He saw a woman standing before him. She was red haired, mid twenties, a face that was too full of character to be strictly speaking beautiful, she was rather compelling. Her eyes were the blazing green of the killing curse, and she was very obviously dead.

"Hello Tom. You won't remember me, but I remember you." She said.

Being dead himself, Tom should have been less surprised, but even for the first Death Eater, seeing a vibrantly coloured ghost standing before you smiling. Ghosts had no colour, they were not real. They were echoes, powerless. They were nothing to fear at all.

She smiled, and Tom felt fear creep into him.

"Who are you, and how do you know me." Tom asked, his wand coming up.

Lilly Potter laughed. "Oh Tom, how the mighty have fallen. Drawing a wand on a ghost. What are you going to do? Kill me? You did that once, and here we are."

Tom Riddle stepped back again, and Lilly looked over Tom's shoulder and saw the huddling ghostly form of Draco Malfoy.

"Hello there Draco. I am Lilly Potter, Harry's mother. Do not worry. In a moment, Tom is going to be dying, and if you are very quick, and very bold, you might get your body back." Lilly said, and reached out to stroke Draco's hair.

Draco could feel it.

Draco could feel it.

His eyes grew wide. He looked at his body, and Tom Riddle looking back through his own eyes at Draco. Was he not dead then? Not yet.

Tom searched through the memories in Draco's head. "Lilly Potter. I killed you. I used the killing curse and severed your soul. How do you still live?"

Lilly smiled at Tom. "I don't live. That is the point. Neither do you. When you came to kill me, I offered my soul to magic so my Harry would have the power to end you."

Tom laughed then. "Your precious Harry is dead already. You will be just another ghost I leave in the Chamber of Secrets, with the rest of these fools."

This time Lilly laughed, and Draco got to see the face of Lord Voldemort show fear for the first time.

"Oh Tom," Laughed Lilly. "My Harry isn't dead. He's just hungry."

Tom whirled, his wand in hand to see a small basilisk, not more than twelve feet long open its mouth wide and bite his precious diary. He felt the fangs sink deep inside his soul and felt the venom pour into him.

Tom looked into the golden killing eyes of the basilisk, into the soul of Harry Potter, the boy who lived, and he watched the muscles of the basilisk mouth and throat work as it struggled to swallow the diary. Tom felt his soul, his memoires, his magic, begin to dissolve. He felt the tug, tug of something pulling his very essence away. Something was consuming him.

Harry Potter.

Tom looked over at Lilly Potter's ghost and with tears in his eyes howled his final spite at her.

"I will see you in hell." Tom Marvolo Riddle swore.

"No." Lilly said sadly. "With the price I paid, neither of us will even know that."

She looked over Draco Malfoys collapsed body, at the broken shivering boy and she drew his hand close, and pushed it into his body.

"While he is still fading, you must push him out. If you let him leave, you die. You have to push him out, or you die here and he wins." Lilly said.

"I am not strong enough" Draco wept.

"Neither was I." Lilly smiled, and her pain was terrible to behold.

Draco pushed into his body. Riddle resisted, growing more and more feeble. In the end, he was moaning piteously. Draco had no eyes for tears, or he would be crying. He felt like he was drowning a baby in a bathtub.

He sunk into his body, feeling no more resistance to push against. Magical exhaustion flooded him, and Draco faded to black. Alive but spent.