T/W: Character death, mild gore
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Eye of the Snake
Ron heard Crouch shout out in pain, holding his now bloody stump of an arm. It had been chopped off when Ron severed the connection between their worlds. James slumped forward; his bloodshot eyes fixed in hatred on the Death Eater. James hit Crouch clean across the face, he grabbed the collar of Crouch's uniform.
"Where is my son?" James asked in a dangerous whisper, and Ron saw Crouch spit out one of his front teeth, his face split open in a demented grin.
"Which part?"
James punched Crouch a second time, hauling him back up so that they were mere inches from each other.
"Tell me," James breathed, and for the first time Ron saw a spark of fear on Crouch's face.
"Stupid blood traitor," Crouch spat back, his eyes slightly unfocused. He was white as a sheet from the blood loss. "The chamber won't open for you."
"Chamber? You mean the Chamber of Secrets?" Ron asked, and Crouch froze. That was all James needed to confirm. He let go of the front of Crouch's uniform, and waived his wand. Immediately tight black cords snaked around Crouch's torso and legs. The Death Eater groaned, growing steadily paler as his arm bled out onto his robes.
"Keep an eye on him," James said quietly to Sirius before turning his attention back to Ron. There were bags under James's eyes and he had a pinched complexion, as if he hadn't eaten in a while. Lily came up and placed her head on James's arm, leaning into him. "Can you show me?" James asked.
Ron looked back towards Snape and Lupin, who were doing their best to move Bill's body along with the others who had fallen. Along the opposite wall sat several captured Death Eaters. For a moment, before Snape covered the body, Ron could see Bill's eyes. They were a deeper blue, closer to their father's.
He was the same person that first told Ron how to ride a broom, the only one of his eldest siblings who remembered to write Ron his own Christmas card. How could the world keep spinning if Bill was dead? Then Ron remembered with a jolt that he might as well be dead himself, he'd destroyed his only way home. And then there was Crouch, his killer, curled up on the floor. Ron wanted to tear at the man's throat, to scream and make him feel some semblance of the agony Ron himself felt boiling in his lungs.
"Yes," Ron breathed, he felt something misty in his eyes. He wasn't going to lose a second brother too. James nodded, gripping tightly to Lily's hand like it was his lifeline.
The wind rushed through the castle, howling and pushing Ron to go back. Ron had no idea if it was bravery or anger compelling him further through the halls. He gripped the sorting hat tightly in his hands, and shoved it down over his ears. Behind him, Ron heard Lily stop her incantations for a brief moment in surprise when she saw the hat. She was trying to heal James, but he refused to stop for even a moment on their way to the Chamber of Secrets.
"Ahhh I never thought I would have chance to sort you, Ronald Weasley," the Sorting Hat whispered in his head. "Mother and Father, and your two elder brothers in Gryffindor. But there's loyalty there, a fierce devotion to others—"
"You already tried that, I said no to Hufflepuff," Ron shot back. He remembered his own sorting well, and refused to tell anyone about what the hat said. He'd been mortified when the hat suggested Hufflepuff, and Harry was alone at Gryffindor table—
"No to Hufflepuff? Suit yourself, but you'd have done well. Perhaps saved yourself some pain."
"You have the sword of Gryffindor," Ron said desperately. "You give it to people, right? Well, I need it right now, or my best friend is going to die, please …"
The hat paused, as if for a moment in thought. Ron heard a voice chuckle inside his head.
"Asking for something you can only earn … that's Slytherin ambition there too, a very curious combination …"
"You won't help me, then?" Ron snapped. Why did Harry even bother sending him the hat? The Sorting Hat paused again; Ron wondered why a hat needed time to think.
"There is only one house at Hogwarts that students need to ask me to be placed in." The Sorting Hat. "Bravery is the only of the four that demands choice."
Ron felt his connection to the hat break, like it had hung up on the other side of a muggle telephone call. Ron curled the hat up into a ball in his hands to stop himself from shaking. He felt a hand lightly touch his arm; it was Lily.
"I didn't much like my own sorting," she said in a quiet voice. "Where did it try to put you first, James?"
"Hufflepuff, I told it right where it could shove that recommendation." James hissed, his eyes scanning each empty room that they passed. Ron didn't know if it was a good or bad sign that they hadn't run into any Death Eaters.
"It wanted me in Slytherin, but Sev and I overheard a compartment of fifth years. The way they spoke about people—I couldn't bear it—" Lily went pale, they'd arrived at the second-floor girls' bathroom. She gripped tightly to James's hand.
"You're sure?" James gave Ron a puzzled look, but pushed open the door to the girls' bathroom.
"Positive," Ron said.
In the center of the room, Ron saw a stone staircase leading down where one of the sinks had been. He mentally cursed himself that he and Harry didn't discover that there were stairs the first time they went into the Chamber.
"Lumos," James lit his wand, and shone the light down into the open stairwell. He looked like a skeleton to Ron, the light from the wand made them all look much paler.
"Right," James nodded, shaking head to toe. "Right, Ron there's no way I'm letting you down there—"
"I've got every much as right to go!" Ron spat back, anger rippling through him once more. "I've got nothing, I'm never going to be able to get home." James looked at him, exhausted.
"I can't lose you both." James said quietly.
Ron opened his mouth to argue, but words failed him. He felt something hit him square in the chest, his arms and legs snapped together. Everything felt prickly, like his limbs had fallen asleep. He'd been hit with a full body bind curse. Ron toppled to the floor, but he felt his fall cushioned by an invisible pillow.
"He's right, I won't let anyone else pay for my mistakes." Lily lowered her wand. "You've got your whole life ahead of you."
Ron looked up paralyzed, at James and Lily, pleading with them with only his eyes.
"I'm sorry Ron," James said, taking the first step on the staircase. "I can't let you walk into a trap, we've put you in enough danger as is. If we're not back—" James squeezed tightly to Lily's hand. "I'll tear the whole bloody chamber to the ground before I let him take my son away from me again. I'm not letting him take you too."
Ron mentally cursed himself for thinking they'd let him come without a fight. He strained against the curse, but he couldn't so much as move his pinky finger. He saw James and Lily step down into the Chamber stairwell. Ron gave a muffled shout, but he couldn't form the words for the counter curse. His wand was just out of reach, he could still feel it near his left hand …
Ron took a deep breath, counting second by the trickle of water from one of the sinks. Far beyond he could hear Myrtle's muted wails from her stall, he tried to relax the muscles in his wand hand. He began to repeat the words to the counterspell in his head.
Finite Incantatem.
He felt the wand inch closer to his hand.
Finite Incantatem!
Feeling rushed back through Ron's body as the spell broke. He grabbed his wand off the floor, and stepped down for the second time in his life into the Chamber of Secrets.
It had been a long time since James found a new hidden room in the castle. At the bottom of the stairs, there were winding corridors that seemed to connect to the castle's sewers. The walls were coated in a slimy green algae, and all around he could smell mold.
James tried to focus on the path in front of him, and not picture the boggart he'd seen in Regulus's office of Lily and Harry's corpses. He's alive, James repeated in his head. Riddle needs him alive or else the prophecy's fulfilled and he'll have no more protection. But that seemed less and less likely with each passing second.
James gripped tightly to Lily's hand, as he rounded another corner, he saw something pale on the ground. James bolted towards it, realizing a second later that he was staring at the tail end of an enormous snake skin. The creature must've been over 20 feet long, James didn't like the idea that this was just its shed.
"That's a basilisk skin," Lily frowned, holding her wand aloft to get a better look at the serpent. James inwardly cursed himself, it was bad enough that they were dealing with a madman, but a basilisk could kill with its gaze alone. And James could never forget what one puncture wound from the fang did to Neville.
"Maybe—its—a-asleep," James felt his heart bobbing in his throat. Further down the corridor, he could finally see a light. James took off again, ignoring the crunch of rodent bones under his feet. At the end of the corridor was a massive circular door, engraved with metal intertwined serpents. Their emerald eyes glinted at James through the dark, he could have sworn he saw the statues blink. It was open just a crack, James hated how obvious of a trap it was.
James took Lily's hand in his again.
"Are you with me?" He asked, feeling as though her warmth was the only thing tethering him to the earth.
"Always." She looked to him, determination etched in every line of her face. "Its always been you."
Several floors above their heads, Ron raced down the chamber steps.
James held his wand level, as he stepped through the circular opening to the Chamber of Secrets. It was larger than a cathedral, with a massive stone statue of a man James presumed to be Salazar Slytherin. Several other snake statues served as water fountains into the large pool of water adorning the walkway up to the center of the chamber. Despite its grandeur, everything in the chamber was coated in that same slime as the rest of the sewers.
None of that mattered to James, however, his focus was solely locked on the two figures at the base of the statue. Tom Riddle stood with his hands folded behind him, as if bored by the proceedings. James kept his wand level with the man's back—just behind where his heart should have been. Just beyond Riddle, hovering about four feet off of the ground like a marionette, was Harry. James could only see the whites of his eyes; Harry held his arms aloft and was chanting something under his breath in a language James recognized as parseltongue.
On the ground, James could see a large red circle with runes he presumed to be drawn in blood. At the center was a gleaming crescent shaped dagger, that made James feel as if he were standing atop a very tall cliff when he looked at it. Each step felt like James was on a ship in the middle of a maelstrom. Something was deeply wrong.
"That's close enough, Potter." Riddle did not turn around to face James. "You've done enough damage already."
"Your men are up there dying," James hissed. "And you're cowering down here. For what? So you can tear off what little you have left of a soul?"
"No, James Potter." Riddle turned to face them; his eyes were a deep scarlet red. There was a faint trickle of blood leading down from his nose. "I am not the one creating a horcrux."
Ron clambered through the open door of the chamber. James and Lily were about twenty feet in front of him, Lily immediately snapped around with her wand pointed straight at Ron. She loosened her grip once she realized it was him. But James did not move a muscle, his wand still level with the creature that had ripped his family apart. Despite the fact that they were miles underground, Ron smelt the snap of ozone, as if he were flying as high as his broom could take him. He tried to focus on the four people in front of him, but Ron's head spun when he tried to look directly at a gleaming silver dagger in front of Harry. Ron felt the same creep up his hand that he felt when he held the diadem. He heard the low warble of Fawkes's call, as the phoenix soared past him.
Riddle's eyes flickered towards Ron and the phoenix, his pupils contracted into slits for a brief moment.
"This is what you bring for your cortege? A songbird and a schoolboy." Riddle sneered, taking his own wand out. "You will forgive me, of course, it is—" James sent a curse hurdling towards Riddle, but he deflected it. "Difficult, to hold a civilized conversation when I am of a completely split mind like this. But you've exhausted all other options, still I appreciate you showing up, regrettably to truly tear the soul in two requires a fresh sacrifice."
"But you will have plenty of time together, that's what you want, isn't it?" He continued. "The blood traitor and mudblood, intertwined in rot. And—" Riddle looked back at Harry. "The Chosen One … withering of hunger and thirst but never able to die. All sealed beneath the earth in the tomb of Salazar Slytherin himself."
"You're pathetic," Ron felt the words burst from his mouth. Riddle's eyes blazed in fury.
"Is that so?" He asked quietly. "Why don't we see for ourselves, how the last senile wishes of Albus Dumbledore fair against Lord Voldemort." He flicked his wand, and Ron felt his knees buckle, like the entire chamber went through an earthquake.
James began throwing curses towards Riddle, who screamed a command in parseltongue. There was a beat, and then Ron saw a massive green serpent arise from the far end of the pool. Ron ducked, praying that Lily and James covered their eyes as well. Ron heard James shout in pain.
"No where to go now, blood traitor!" Ron heard Riddle cackle, his laugh echoing throughout the chamber. Ron jammed the Sorting Hat down over his head again, making sure to cover his eyes.
"Help me, help me please …" Ron repeated over and over, terrified to lift his head.
Far above he heard the call of the phoenix again, and the screech of an enormous creature. Ron lifted his head to see Fawkes gouge out the basilisk's left eye. Riddle aimed a killing curse at the phoenix, and in a flash of green light Fawkes was reduced to a pile of ashes. James was lying on the stone floor, bleeding profusely. Lily had taken over his duel with Voldemort.
The basilisk roared again, and Ron covered his face. Fawkes hadn't had a chance to get both of its eyes. Fumbling blindly, Ron made his way to the wall of the chamber and into one of the pools. The water felt like ice, and he sunk up to his waist.
"LEAVE THE BIRD," Riddle screamed at the top of his lungs. "KILL THE BOY!"
"Ron, you need to seal the chamber!" Lily shouted over him. That would never work, Ron thought, he was too far away from the entrance. The basilisk lunged, and Ron ducked under the water to avoid it. He opened his stinging eyes, and was thankful that the water in the chamber was at least somewhat cleaner.
Ron fumbled along the wall towards the murky dark shape of the chamber center. His lungs stung, but he didn't dare come up for air. Ron waited until the basilisk struck into the water again. He didn't know if it was nerve or stupidity, but he clung to the neck of the serpent, digging his hand into the open wound on the snake's left eye. The basilisk let out an ear-piercing cry, pulling both itself and Ron out of the water.
Ron gasped for air, blinking the water out of his vision.
Riddle had Lily by the throat, she clawed desperately at his hand. Ron was thankful to see James still moving. James shouted out in pain as Riddle put his foot on his back. There was a massive gash covering most of the left side of James's face.
"Now," Riddle said, and Harry numbly raised his wand. "Finish it …"
"NO," Ron launched himself off the basilisk, he tackled Harry in midair. Ron smacked into the base of the statue, the force of the fall knocked the Sorting Hat off his head. Dazed, Ron raised his head, to see a faint glimmer of silver in the brim of the hat—
Harry groaned in pain; he'd broken out of the trance. Far above their heads, Ron saw the basilisk lunge again to strike. He pulled a ruby-hilted sword out of the hat, and slashed at the creature. Riddle screamed in anger, aiming his wand directly at Ron's head. Ron could see nothing but a blinding green light.
At the very same moment, Ron saw a jet of white light emanate from Harry's wand. The two spells collided in midair, connecting like lighting stuck inside a coil. Riddle had released Lily, and was focusing all his energy on the spell.
"On the count of three, close your eyes!" Ron bellowed over the force of the spell; Harry nodded. Ron watched the shape of the basilisk, terrified that he might meet its gaze before his victim.
"One …" The snake bobbed its head back and forth, deciding where it wanted to strike, "two," it reared backwards, "THREE!"
Ron hooked his arm around Harry's, yanking the second boy to the floor before the basilisk struck again. Ron shut his own eyes. He stabbed the sword into the bottom of the snake's jaw, holding the snake in place, its remaining eye pointed directly at Riddle. Blood gushed over Ron's arms, he pushed the sword in deeper, praying that he'd hit the basilisk's brain. Ron heard Harry scream in pain, and the basilisk went limp over top of them.
Ron could feel the smooth scales of the basilisk, he tried to move, but his legs were pinned. The chamber seemed to fade in and out of focus, he could see a tall figure with black hair kneeling over him. Suddenly, the pressure lifted, and he was face to face with James Potter.
"You're alive," James said hoarsely, setting Ron back on his feet. Ron swayed slightly, but he could see better. James's left eye was swelled shut; he'd lost it in the fight with Riddle. A few paces away, Harry was staring blankly at Lily and an unmoving body. Ron saw Lily standing with her wand pointed at Riddle.
"Is he … dead?" Ron asked, and Lily shook her head.
"He collapsed when he looked at the basilisk." Lily hesitated for a moment, before bending down to shine a light in Riddle's eye. "It's more like catatonia, I don't think he can move. But I don't want to push it—"
"It's what he deserves," Harry said, looking down at the man in hatred. "I'll seal the chamber after us, no one else should be able to get in … or out for that matter."
"Are you okay—" James reached out to comfort him, Harry shrugged away from him.
"I'm fine—I just—I don't recognize these—" Harry looked down at the crescent shaped dagger in the center of the runes and understood. It was supposed to be his horcrux. He collapsed to his knees, Lily and James on either side of him as the family embraced for the first time. James looked up for a moment, and mouthed the words, "thank you" to Ron.
Ron smiled for the first time in days, as he bent down to pick up a small phoenix chick from the ashes where Fawkes had fallen.
A/N: *beats you over the head with eye symbolism* oh man, different plans for this AU kept changing who lost one, but I think it fits James, Ron's already got enough mental and physical trauma from this adventure. Also omg thank you so much for the reviews, I'm so glad you've enjoyed. This has been a blast to work on and really gotten me back into writing, I'm dreading that its almost over.