Chapter 20: Break me down

Even though his Birthday had long passed Kiba was still hoping for a card or a letter from Faye but to no avail. Barely anyone had remembered just Hermione and Lupin. And unlike usual he wasn't looking forward to the near celebration of Christmas, to be honest he didn't want to go back to Leverton's, he wanted to stay and fulfill the promise to his father. He sat in the dark common room that same night scribbling along the parchment.

'you have to kill him, as soon as you can'

'but won't that just raise suspicion on Harry?'

'Harry? Harry who?'

'Harry Potter, Father' Kiba wrote back 'He spoke Parseltongue during my duel with Draco.. that's why we can't frame Draco anymore'

'then frame Harry,' Tom answered quickly 'better him then my own blood' as Kiba went to write once more the diary slammed itself shut and wouldn't open anymore. But Kiba knew what to do, what he had to do. Slytherins duty.

"what's got you up this late, Kiba?" asked Harry as he descended the spiral staircase.

"my thoughts," Kiba replied looking at the black haired wizard. Harry smiled and saw something odd that stopped him for a second or two, were Kiba's irises… red?

"you write them down in that diary?" He asked carefully

"yeah, it's kinda weird but.. well the diary belonged to my father" Kiba said, her blinked and his irises returned to normal "when i write in this diary i feel like I'm talking to him, telling him how i feel" Harry watched closely, studying Kiba as he stared at the black book. "it's all i have that ever belonged to my Father" Kiba said "what's got you walking?"

"my thoughts" Harry replied "you're going to think I've gone mad…"

"i think we're beyond madness anyways. So what is it?" Kiba had time to spare and wasn't in a rush to go to bed. He and Harry walked over and sat on the sofa, in front of the fireplace that burned brightly. Harry rubbed his eyes until they were fully open and stared into the fire that licked the everlasting wood gently. The young heir could see trouble and fear in his green eyes but did not say anything.

"i don't know, maybe it's because of the attacks but i've been hearing these... voices recently. I don't know who, what or where they are, but they all sound so real, so similar. Like, the first time I heard it, was upstairs in the dorm room. It sounded familiar but I couldn't... And on Nick's Deathday party at Halloween, we left to go back to the Great Hall when I heard it again, in the halls. Right before we found Filch and Mrs. Norris on the second floor. Not only that, but when I was in the hospital wing after the match, I heard them again. It was different from the last one though. It sounded almost... human. And that was when Colin was found as well."

"and you think?"

"what if it's me?"

"if it was you then you'd know right?" Kiba asked "and how would you have attacked Colin from the hospital bed?"

"it sounds crazy, but think about it" Harry said "during he sorting, the hats first choice for me was Slytherin, and now i know I'm a Parselmouth, what if just the presence of 'the heir' opens the chamber"

"i don't think so," Kiba replied

"i think I'm going insane," Harry said "do you remember, last year at the end of term you told me that –"

"i killed Quirrell.. yes, i remember" Kiba answered darkly

"well, before i fainted i felt something, like a spirit or a soul push through me" Harry said, "and i think it was Voldemort, leaving Quirrell's body to survive in mine until he could use me"

"use you?" Kiba asked "He wanted to kill you, if he was inside your body he'd have killed you a year ago"

"maybe he wanted to destroy my reputation by overtaking my body when it sleeps to open the chamber?"

"Harry, you need to calm down." Kiba said. Once again Harry saw the red shimmer in his irises, was it the fires reflection? "you're overthinking this, you're stressed and worried. Those things pile up and get to your head" Kiba said as his eyes returned to their usual hazel once again "just relax, take a long nap. And don't blame yourself, you're not possessed and i wouldn't believe you if you said you were the heir" he placed his hand on Harry's shoulder and told him goodnight before he headed up the stairs with the diary under his arm leaving Harry to stare at fire.

"he's right, i can't think straight.. but what if i am somehow behind all of this.. should i turn myself in?"

Kiba entered the dungeon that had become so familiar to him the next day and released the Basilisk, ordering it to use the pipes to stay undetected. He climbed out of the central pipe which proved difficult. The slime made it hard to find a grip and there were few ledges to hang onto, but after a while he reached the top. As he cleaned himself off after closing the entrance the door swung open and in stepped a bushy haired girl "Kiba," she said "what are you doing here?"

"i was going to check on the potion but, uhm" Kiba replied "Myrtle dove into the toilet and sprayed me" he lied quickly. "but seeing as you're here," he added heading for the door "I'll leave you to it, I'll be in the common room"

"wait," but Hermione was to late, he had walked off in search for his victim. Justin Finch-Fletchley. He reached the fifth floor and there he saw him, paranoid and scared… and alone.

"Justin!" Kiba called out. The boy looked up and froze in fear. Kiba walked over to him holding his hands behind his back with his wand behind his right ear as usual.

"S… Stay..y Aw..away!" he stuttered in return. "I'm onto you, and Harry as well!" he suddenly added without stuttering "you hitting me and Harry sending that snake onto me, it's no coincidence. Where is Harry? hiding around the corner with a larger snake?" Kiba was surprised by the boys sudden courage, and smirked when he unknowingly made a correct assumption.

"Calm down, I've got nothing of the sorts." Kiba said showing him his empty hands "i came to-"

"to kill me?" Justin asked fearfully "i can see it clearly. You aren't normal, and neither is Harry. I remember that you were almost put in Slytherin, yeah, i know everything" Kiba chuckled "funny is it? Kiba neck twitched slightly as he felt a certain hatred creep up his spine.

"be careful what you say next" Kiba replied threatningly

"we're not scared of you," said another Hufflepuff that stepped around the corner with a raised wand. "the others might not see it, but we do. You're a Monster, lurking in the shadows. You're probably the one behind the attacks aswell"

"Ernie, i came here to apologize, formally, for what happened during our duel" Kiba said softly

"Bullshit! You came here to kill him, and that's why we reported you and Potter to McGonagall" Ernie spat

"You did what?!" Kiba asked. His blood was fuming, he wanted to kill the two right there and then, but Ernie wad the first to fire. Kiba narrowly avoided the jinx ave watched as the two ran, he sensed the nearby presence off the Basilisk and hissed.

"Kill them, kill them both!"

Kiba felt the Basilisk hurtle through the stone walls at such dangerous speeds, rattling the hanging photos that were vacant of any inhabitants. Anger still pulsated through his veins as Kiva wanted to see his work complete. He wanted to see the dead Hufflepuffs lie under his feet, correct in life but unheard in death. He wanted to see it so bad but he knew what it would cost him.

Kiba ran back to the second floor bathroom, trying to shake off the rage that he had experienced right there. In that moment, it felt so... wrong. Like it never came from him but from somewhere else. From the past attacks, Kiba never had this sensation sit in his stomach like a painful, indigestible stone. He pushed the bathroom door open and walked over to the central sinks, twisting the taps instantly to wash his face with cold water. Kiba splashed his face thoroughly, cooling himself so that he could think better. Inhale, exhale, he gripped the sides of the sink while breathing heavily. He slowly lifted his chin to look at his reflection. Moving from the scar on his chin over to his nose and up to his Scarlet, Snakelike irises.

He retreated from the mirror quickly and tripped over something and feel to his back with a painfull thud. His eyes, what was wrong with them. The irises itself had been red and what were supposed to be his pupils were inhuman slits. During his fall his leg hag connected with something hard that he soon realized to be Hermione's nose. "Hermione! What the fuck is wrong with me, I'm so stupid!" Hermione didn't respond as she silently held her face in pain. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." The sounds of Hermione's sobs pierced him with regret as he wiped his wet hair to the side to clear his vision.

"Hermione, please get up! Please! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I was... please, say something!" Silence. "Hermione? Hermion I- ARGGHHHHH!" The pain had returned again. It had returned, and it punished the boy for feeling any regret towards harming Hermione. It tore through his mind and soul as it dragged him into the hellish depths of suffering and anguish itself. Every inch of skin, sliced and scorched untill he couldn't take it anymore. 'l didn't kill anyone! I didn't kill anyone! I didnt...'

Hermione came to his side and tried to console him while attempting to fight off her own pain which resulted in a bloodied nose, but all of that had been for nothing. The Parselmouth's screams were silenced as he slumped to the ground like a dead man, unresponsive to Hermione's screams of horror... she looked at his eyes before they closed and saw the terror and bloodlust that his usual hazel would hide. Kiba's eyes shut and he lay still for a few minutes. "Kiba please, wake up… please!" she saw something beside him then, a black leather book that he carried around everywhere. She grabbed it and examined it finding the golden name on its back "Tom Marvolo Riddle…" she muttered. Kiba suddenly groaned and shifted slightly, she dripped the book and leaned back over him "Kiba are you awake? You're scaring me, please wake up"

Kiba's eyes opened and they had returned to his usual hazel irises "Hermione… I'm.. so.. sorry" he said softly. He saw the diary that lay beside Hermione and looked at it with unease. He knew what had happened. Somehow his father had punished him, thorough the diary somehow, when he realized who Hermione was… what she is. The diary had caused him to scream out in pain. Hermione followed his eyes and stared at the diary like it was the foulest object on the earth, it gave her a unnatural feeling.

"what is that diary doing to you?" she asked

"the diary? It can't do anything, it's a normal diary" the boy said sitting upright

"i see you with that thing everywhere, obsessing over it" Hermione said "i know who you are, it's consuming you"

Kiba visibly frowned "i told you…" he said "it's a regular old diary"

"Then you won't mind if i take look" Hermione reached for the diary, but somehow Kiba was faster, grabbing the diary as he stood up. "Kiba, give me the diary"

"no.."

"i said give me.." she said reaching for the diary

"and i said, No." Kiba replied pulling it away

"GIVE ME-"

"NO!"

Kiba was in deep trouble, the girl could see it when she looked at his face. His unusually pale face, his checks that had sunk into his skull and his extremely skinny body. Kiba usually looked healthy though slightly pale but none of that was left, and the hazel in his eyes didn't have it's usual sting and warmth.. no this wasn't Kiba, this was someone else entirely. The Muggle-born stepped towards the frail boy and he backed away to the central sinks fearing she was still after the diary. "Kiba please, I'm your friend. Please just tell me what to do, let me help you"

"help me?" Kiba asked with a sudden hint of anger "Help me? What the-. What? Do i have a fucking sign on my back that says 'save me'?" Kiba shouted as he raised his voice loudly

"No-" Hermione replied softly

"does it look like i need that? Do you think i want that?"

"No, i just want to –" she said softly once more, his voice was somehow frightening her, the tone in which he yelled

"STOP BULLSHITTING ME!"

"i- "

"STOP. BULSHITTING ME‼"

"I LOVE YOU!" she blurted out and suddenly, there was silence. Kiba stood before her panting heavily as the argument had suddenly drained most of his energy. Hermione looked at the boy as tears rolled down her checks, she once again saw his eyes had turned scarlet leaving only slits as pupils and it all began to make sense to her. The attacks, the diary, Kiba's restlessness and the transformation his body had been going through 'No.. no! not him, not Kiba.. it can't be.. he'd nev-' she closed her eyes and sobbed quietly. She rubbed her misty eyes and felt a hand suddenly lift her face, she opened her eyes and saw Kiba's usual hazel had returned.

"what's wrong? Is it your nose? It's still bleeding.." Kiba pulled out a handkerchief and tried to clean some of the blood but Hermione stopped him.

'did he seriously not remember what just happened, or is he toying with me?' Hermione asked herself as she eyed the boy carefully. "don't try to change the subject, Kiba"

"what subject?" he asked with sincere confusion "i just offered to help, your dripping blood all over your shirt"

"tell me why you always have that diary with you, please"

"Hermione… I-"

"please just tell me and I'll drop it, i won't ask anymore. Just please, tell me." Hermione's eyes were still watery as she and Kiba looked at the diary. He felt conflicted, part of him wanted to tell her the truth and another told him to tell her a sob-story while a third part of him wanted to keep her in the dark completely. He felt something from the diary spread into his body from his arm which once again heated his blood, and increased his heartbeat significantly. He couldn't tell her that his father was actually inside the diary.. He couldn't.

"it belonged to my father, when he was at Hogwarts.." Kiba said hoping she would not ask how he got it "i was kind of overwhelmed, you know.. i don't have much to remember my parents by. This is the only thing i have that lets me feel close to my father, and as for my mother.. i have an old picture –"

"and a letter" Hermione said, "you told me about it on the train" curious.. Kiba had all but forgotten about the letter he was supposed to have received a year ago.

"Yes," Kiba replied "this… is the only thing i have left of my father" Hermione remained silent as did Kiba, hoping that the story would draw the Muggle-borns attention away from him.

Hermione hesitated to speak, she forced herself not to tell him that he was lying to her, she knew he was. He was lying with a straight face, and she didn't say anything. He was almost certainly the heir of Slytherin, and she didn't say anything. She could stop all the horror right there and now, but she didn't say anything. She stood there with her emotionless gaze knowing that he might take her as his next victim, but she didn't say a damn thing. But why was she holding back? She could save all the Muggle-borns in the castle and herself and she would be praised for it, where had her desire to do good gone? Every rational decision would be to report him to the headmaster, right? Why then did she not move? Why did she not speak?

"Kiba, I ha-" Hermione began but a deafening scream stopped her, immediately her feet moved to the door as the noise echoed through ther halls and the bathroom wrenching Kiba's stomach because of what he had done. The two made their way up the stairs to the third floor where the scream had come from and pushed their way through the crowd that had formed at the scene. But neither were prepared for the horrendous sight, not even Kiba had expected this. Not just one body lay on the floor, and not just two like Kiba had intended. No, there were four. Ernie, Justin, nearly headless Nick and a Silver haired girl. Justin and Ernie weren't hard to recognize, mirrored from their bodies, robes and fear ridden faces. Kiba rubbed his temple as he wondered how they had survived. Nick was a little harder to recognize because of his darkened shade, he hung in mid-air slowly rotating like a dead body hanging by its neck. It took Kiba a little longer to sort the name to the third face that lay stiff on the floor. However unlike the other three there was no fear on her face, it was more a look off confusion, somehow she seemed so oddly out of place.

"Luna.." Kiba sighed quietly before everything turned to chaos. The crowd began to panic as everyone frantically darted their heads around to see if the monster was lurking in the shadows, ready to devour the swarm of children, and some tried to run for their life's as they knocked over who ever was in their way. McGonagall arrived to the scene promptly, quieting the entire crowd with a swift swipe of a wand and ordered everyone to return to their dorms. As Kiba walked back to the common room with guilt stabbing at his heart and his very existence, Kiba hung his head low in fear of what his father would say to him. Tom had delivered pain beyond horror from just a mere diary. What else was he capable of? The young Heir started to feel dizzy, trying to keep his balance to avoid crashing into floor for everyone else to see. Justin's and Ernie's mangled bodies painted horrific images in his mind tormenting his soul and snapping his sanity, piece by piece...

"Jesus, Kiba! your zoning out again, I've been calling you for so long!" The Parselmouth bent over as Hermione came to his aid with Ginny by her side. He held his chest as it became harder to breath again, his lungs unable to absorb the sufficient oxygen needed to stay conscious. Kiba wheezed loudly, unable to keep focused for so long. Everything was spiralling, blurred and disfigured. He felt the diary that had been holding so tightly slip from his grasp and he felt like…

THUD!

"Kiba!" both girls screamed

"my diary…" Kiba said in a mere whisper as his eyes slowly opened. "where's my diary?" he asked

"hush now Mister Scamander," replied Madam Pomfrey as she tended to the petrified Hufflepuffs "stay in bed, you need to rest"

"but my diary" Kiba was sure he had it when he fainted, no he dropped it just before he did. Someone must've taken it, someone who knew it existed. "Hermione has it.. she has my diary and i need it" Kiba sat upright and got out of the hospital bed immediately breaking down to his knees and hands as he tried to stand.

"Mister Scamander!" Pomfrey cried out as she rushed over to put the boy back into the bed "you stay in this bed now and sleep" she said in a demanding tone.

"please.. i need… my… dia-" she watched as the Gryffindor fell into slumber once more remaining entirely still. She examined his body once more and couldn't believe it still. He looked deathly ill, like he had neglected food for weeks. His skeleton was starting to show underneath his skin and the gash he had on his check from his fall when he fainted wasn't healing as it should. She felt uneasy as she looked upon the boy.. something had done this to him, something inside the castle… something near. She could feel it. She returned to the petrified students but kept a watchful eye on the Parselmouth as his chest ever so slightly lifted itself as he drew slow and silent breaths.

Meanwhile in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione sat in one of the red arm chairs and dug her nails in to the fabric of its armrest as she stared silently into the dancing flames of the fireplace. Usually she'd be asleep at this time but she was entranced by the unusual coldness of the flames and the common room itself, in her mind she played the scene in the bathroom again and again, everytime hoping that she could change her suspicion, that she'd find a scenario where Kiba wasn't guilty. It had to be true. She didn't want it to be, she never did. But it had to. She wanted to be proven wrong, but it was no use. She knew.

The diary had remained unfound ever since Kiba had passed out, not that Hermione necessarily needed or wanted it, but it would've benefited her. All she remembered was Kiba coughing blood over Snape's robes as he carried him away, by that time the diary had vanished. Something was missing however… something crucial… something.

"Hermione, he'll be okay" said Harry as he sat down beside her. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, by his expression one could tell that he too was distressed by his friends condition. "Madam Pomfrey will have him fixed in no time"

"but will she?" Hermione asked brushing her hair out of her face "don't you see? Kiba is not okay, he hasn't been for a while. He's not the Kiba i know anymore, and it's been on my mind for so long. I tried to keep it buried deep but it's crawling out now"

"what is it Hermione?" Hermione thought for a moment. Wondering if it was wise to tell Harry what she knew, would it ruin them? Their friendship? "Hermione?"

"it was something in his eyes," Hermione began "i thought it was my mind, but he wad really angry with me and i could've sworn that… his eyes –"

"-were red?" Hermione whipped her head towards Harry and looked at him. He knew? How, when? "i saw it too, after we had discovered that I'm a Parsel," Harry explained "i saw him writing in his diary, and at the time i thought it might have been the fires reflection"

"yes… he's gotten thinner.. and his face was so… pale" Hermione said "it looked like he was dying, Harry. And it's all because of that diary!" she turned back to the fire and pulled her knees up to her head.

"I've noticed that too.." Harry said as comforting as he could "He told me that it made him feel close to his dad but the way he looked at it was.. it wasn't right. Her really meant it Aswell, he… Hermione?"

The Muggle-born had her head leaned against her knees, tears streamed from her closed eyes. She remained still and didn't answer Harry, she didn't even bother to wipe her tears away. "Hermione? Why are you crying? Hermione?! What's wrong?" Hermione sat hypnotized by the dancing flames and Harry had to move in front of her to revive her attention "is it about Kiba?" he asked softly "it is isn't it..?"

"yes…" she whispered

"tell me what it is…"

"I-"

"Hermione… please…"

"I think –"

"yes..?"

"i think Kiba… is the Heir of Slytherin…"

AN: Holy macaroni. 20 Chapters. 70164 words. and were halfway through book 2... it's been tough. I've actually been planning allot about GoF and OotP, so much in fact that i forgot about PoA but alas. the story will change drastically from the original from here on out. GoF is gonna have a bigger tournament with more schools and OotP will be an absolute joy to write. lookin' forward to getting there after i figured out how i want PoA to go down.

Remember PM me Characters and review the story and tell me what you think about it. all criticism is welcome!