Chapter 14: Tom Riddle, Revelations and battle.
Harry stood back from the stone door leading to what he assumed was the Chamber of Secrets.
"Open," he commanded in a hiss and the snakes pulled away from the door, unlocking it before it finally opened. Harry stepped through and saw Ginny near the far end of the room, lying near a large puddle.
Snakeheads were covering the place while water covered a majority of the chamber. Harry snorted - this was the chamber Salazar Slytherin had made? He had expected something a bit more dramatic but was disappointed.
Harry made his way toward Ginny, keeping an eye out to who opened the chamber till he reached the girl and touched her hand. She was cold. He reached out to get his wand only to find out that it was gone.
Startled, Harry looked around for his wand only to see a young boy of sixteen standing in front of him. A very familiar young boy of sixteen.
"Tom?" he asked and Tom Riddle smiled. "How are you here?" Harry asked, curious to how the young wizard was in the Slytherin Chamber, still a sixteen-year-old boy when the last time he was in Hogwarts was 50 years ago.
"From the diary," Tom told him and Harry arched an eyebrow before he looked at Ginny, who had the diary tucked under her arm. He looked at Tom, understanding dawning on him, and Tom smiled as he watched Harry. "Yes, it was Ginny who wrote the message on the walls. She was the one who opened the chamber," Tom boasted and anger flared into Harry's eyes.
"And the one who set the basilisk on everybody?" he demanded and Tom gave a cold smile.
"I told her to set the basilisk, she's the one who picked the victims - the Mudbloods," Tom informed him.
Harry closed his eyes as Draco's words washed over him.
"Shit," he cursed softly under his breath.
"So, how did you manage to get her to do that?" Harry asked and Tom smirked.
"My diary - she's been writing in it all year. Once I got a little stronger, I started feeding my soul into her - thus me getting stronger and she is getting weaker," Tom explained. "But I'm much more fascinated by you. How you managed to defeat the greatest wizard in world."
Harry just looked at him, puzzled.
"What the hell are you on?" Harry demanded, confused about the 'Greatest Wizard in the world' statement.
"Tell me, Harry Potter, how is it that you were able to escape Voldemort as a mere baby?" Riddle hissed and Harry frowned at him.
"Why would you be interested in Voldemort? He was after your time!" Harry exclaimed and Tom sneered.
"Voldemort is my past, present and future," Tom told him as he turned to the air and used Harry's wand and wrote Tom Marvolo Riddle on the air.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
Meanwhile, back in the hospital, Mia's head snapped up with a gasp and Draco looked at her from the other side of Hermione. Mia had been racking her brain about the link between Voldemort and Riddle. Riddle had said that he caught Hagrid, who he believed opened the chamber but she knew it was Voldemort when Tom Riddle's name changed in her mind, forcing her to make the link.
"Mia?" he asked.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle," she started. "I am Lord Voldemort." She looked at Draco with fear shining in her eyes as Draco rocked back in shock from what had been revealed to him.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
"You're Voldemort!" Harry exclaimed when Tom rearranged the wording of his name into I am Lord Voldemort.
"Yes, the greatest sorcerer in the world!" he exclaimed and Harry snorted.
"Not that great if you got killed by a one year old baby," Harry informed him and Tom glared.
"Fine Potter, let see how well you can do against the Salazar Slytherin's heir and the Basilisk!" Tom shouted as he waved the wand. The spell caused the statue of a man's face to open and the basilisk to come out. "Don't bother talking in Parseltongue to it; it'll only obey the heir."
"Oh, that's not a twenty foot basilisk!" Harry exclaimed as he saw the gigantic snake. It was at least 30 feet in length.
"Get him!" Tom hissed in Parseltongue and Harry started running. There was nothing else he could do. A basilisk's stare could kill, no matter what he did.
"What the hell am I going to do now?" Harry muttered under his breath before an idea hit him. He took a deep breath and sent out all his energies into calling out for something when he heard a shrilling tune. He looked up and saw Fawkes coming through the tunnels and into the main area, carrying the sorting hat in his claws before he dropped it down.
Ton laughed. "This is what you have to defeat me?" Tom asked.
Harry looked up and saw the shadow of the basilisk getting closer before it was about to strike. Harry flinched as he threw himself down on the ground and covered his head just as Fawkes flew over.
Fawkes let out a shrill before he swooped down and plunged his claws into one eye of the basilisk before he flew up and plunged down onto the other eye, blinding the snake from seeing or killing anyone with it's stare. Harry let out a sigh of relief.
"Thanks Fawkes," he muttered as he stood up.
"NO!" Tom shouted before he pinned Harry with a glare. "Your bird may have blinded the basilisk but it can still hear you."
Harry took a few steps back only to stop, look at his feet then look back up at the basilisk, which looked straight at Harry.
"Oh hell," Harry muttered and he started running to the nearest tunnel that was to the left of him. He started looking for a place to hide from the basilisk and to sort out a plan to get rid of it and Tom. Then he had to get Ginny out of here and back to the Hospital wing where he could look after Hermione till she woke up from her state that she was currently in.
Harry ran about in the tunnels. He didn't have any weapons on him except from his small amulet, and a small knife that wasn't big enough to kill the basilisk. Their skin was too dense to break through and there weren't a lot of spells that can kill one that he knew of.
"Shit. The next time I go into a situation like this, note to self, bring a bag of weapons," he muttered to himself as he ducked into a small tunnel leading off to the side and pressed his back against the bars. He needed to get back out into the main area and figure out a plan.
The basilisk slithered its way through the tunnel only to stop outside the small branch that Harry was in. Harry looked around at his feet before he spotted a rock. He picked it up and threw it further down the tunnel, causing the basilisk to yank his head away from Harry and slither onward to where the rock had rolled.
Harry waited till the Basilisk was out of the way before he hurried out into the main area and felt Ginny's pulse. It was getting weaker.
"Yes, the weaker she gets, the stronger I get," Tom told Harry and Harry growled.
"Sorry Tommy, but you're not coming back to life yet," Harry informed him as he looked around when his eyes caught sight of the sorting hat where a sliver glimmer came from it's interior.
Curiously, Harry hurried over and reached into the hat. His hand rested on a cold metal handle. With a hard tug, he yanked it out and saw it was a sword. Relief ran through his body like a soothing balm. He now had a weapon.
He heard a hissing noise and turned to see that the Basilisk came out of the tunnel and was now sensing him. He racked his brain, frantically, trying to remember how to kill a snake.
"Note to self, ask Uncle Sirius to teach us all 'mythical' creatures and how to kill them because we are sure meeting them," Harry told himself.
Harry closed his eyes tightly as he thought back to all the training and lessons from his Godfather. He swiftly reviewed till his brain locked onto what Sirius had taught them about snakes.
"Okay, what can you tell me about snakes?" Sirius asked, causing Mia and Harry to look at him from where they were sitting at the kitchen table, reading books and taking notes.
"They live in different parts of the world, depending on where they adapt to," Mia told him.
"Most snakes are harmless while others are poisonous," Harry added in.
"Yes, but how do you kill one?" Sirius asked, causing Harry and Mia to look at each other.
"You can chop a snake in half, but you need to be careful when it comes to poisonous snakes because they can still inject venom into you, long after they are dead," Mia told him and Sirius nodded.
"Yes, but like everything else in this world, they have a weakness. What it is?" Sirius asked, causing confused looks. "Okay - if you were faced a basilisk, how you would you kill it? You can't chop it in half because their skin is impenetrable. You can't set it on fire for the same reason, so what do you do?" Sirius asked.
"You would already be dead," Mia pointed out. "Its stare kills, remember?"
"Yes, but say that something happened to make it blind? Remember, while it's blind it can still smell and hear you. So how would you kill it if you have nowhere to hide?" Sirius asked.
"You look for the weakest spot," Harry told him and Sirius nodded.
"Yes, but how do you look for the weakest spot? You can't just tell on first glance," he warned them.
"Go for the most vulnerable yet the most dangerous spot," Mia told them and Harry looked at her.
"But that's the mouth. It's stated that a basilisk can poison you and kill you in a matter of minutes," Harry told them and Sirius nodded.
"You're getting warm," Sirius, told them and Mia flipped through her books toward the snake section. Harry leaned over her shoulder as they read a report.
"The weakest spot is…"
"The base of the head," Harry whispered to himself. He opened his eyes and looked around. He knew that there was no way he could kill the basilisk while still on the ground so that meant he needed to go up onto higher ground, but that meant…
Harry looked at the large statue face of a man and swore to himself before he ran over to the statue.
The snake whipped its head over to the sound and started rushing at him. Harry jumped up onto the ledge before he climbed up higher just as the basilisk slammed its nose into the ledge below him, smashing it.
Harry climbed up higher till he reached the head of the statue. He got the sword into position before he moved closer to the edge, causing the basilisk to straighten up till its face was lined with its victim. The huge snake coiled itself, ready to attack its victim.
Harry braced himself as the basilisk opened its mouth and lunged on down him, determined to kill its prey when Harry thrust the sword upward into the mouth, slamming it through the base of the skull with such force that the blade of the sword came out on the other side. Harry grimaced when he felt a searing pain in his arm before he yanked the sword out of the snake and saw that one of the basilisk's fangs had lodged itself in Harry's arm. The basilisk screeched, arched its back, and slumped down onto the ground, dead.
"NO!" Tom screamed.
Harry climbed his way back down to the ground and hurried over to Ginny. He felt her pulse and found it had gone weaker. "You are too late Potter. Soon I'll be back to my full strength" the young Voldemort sneered.
Harry just glared at Tom. He knew that Voldemort wasn't supposed to come back now, that the world wasn't ready yet, but he couldn't see a way out of it when Tom spoke again. "Amazing, isn't it? How can something be so simple yet so dangerous in the wrong hands of a still little girl," Tom informed him. Understanding lit up in Harry's eyes as he looked at Tom, amazed that the arrogant wizard just gave away a vital clue into destroying him.
"Screw. You," Harry told him before he grabbed the diary, flipped it open and slammed the fang into the middle the book. Dark green ink started pouring out, covering the fang and the pages. Tom let out a yell as a bright light shot out from his body. Harry plunged the fang onto each side of the pages before he closed the dripping book.
He looked up and saw that Tom was screaming in agony as he tried to reach Harry and stop him before anything else could happen to the journal, but he was too late. Harry slammed fang centre into the book and Tom let out a final scream before he exploded into bright lights.
Harry sat back, breathing heavily as he fought the desire to roll his eyes up into the back of his head and fall unconscious, when he saw Ginny stirring.
Ginny sat up, looking around with fear before her eyes landed on Harry and she burst into tears.
"Oh Harry, he made me!" Ginny cried. "I never wanted to do any of those things but he made me do it." Harry just nodded. He wanted to wait till he told Mia, Hermione and Draco to get their view on it and find out what's really going on.
"Yeah, I know. But it's over now. We have to get out of here," Harry told her, only to wince when he felt the pain searing even harder. Ginny's eyes latched onto the wound.
"Oh Harry, you're hurt," she told him. Fawkes let out a shrill before he landed down beside Harry and the boy smiled.
"Hey buddy, do you think you could heal me?" he asked. Fawkes let out an indigent shrill of insult before he moved in closer and let tears of healing powers slip out from his eyes and onto Harry's wound. "You remind me of Hedwig," Harry told the phoenix as the wound closed up and the poison disappeared from his body.
"He healed you," Ginny uttered, eyes wide and Harry nodded.
"It's one of the main powers of Fawkes," he told her before shaking his head. "Come on, we have to get out of here," Harry told her before he picked up the book. They made their way out of the chamber and toward the rocks. Harry was relieved to see that Ron had made a big enough hole for them both to get through.
"Ginny!" Ron shouted as they both slipped through the hole. He grabbed his little sister and hugged her as hard as he could while Harry tucked the diary into the waistband of his trousers before he looked around.
"We gotta get out of here," Harry told them and Ron nodded before he caught sight of the sword and arched an eyebrow.
"Mate, you do realise you have a sword, right?" Ron asked and Harry laughed.
"Long story," Harry, told him before he tucked the sorting hat into robes. "Ron, hold onto Ginny's hand and hold onto Lockhart's robes. Lockhart, you hold onto my hand and Fawks will lift us out of here," Harry ordered and Ron nodded.
"Who is this Lockhart?" Lockhart asked as he looked around and Harry rolled his eyes.
"That would be you," Harry informed as Lockhart looked at him with wide eyes.
"Oh…rather strange name isn't it?" he asked and Harry bit back his snickers before he grabbed Lockhart's hand. Ron grabbed onto Lockhart's robes while holding onto Ginny.
Harry reached up and let Fawkes grab his cloaked covered arm and lifted them all up into the air, effortlessly, and flew back up the drainpipe that they call came down in the first place.
Soon, they arrived back in the girls' bathroom. Fawkes let them all down while the chamber of secret sealed itself back up behind them.
Moaning Myrtle just watched the scene with a disappointed look. She truly wished for Harry to die and haunt her bathroom with her, and it hadn't come true.
"Come on, we have to go and tell the teachers!" Harry told them all and he lead the way to the hospital wing where he knew that everyone would be waiting to hear what happened.
TBC
One more chapter to go!
Sorry it was short.