Mon Cher (Severus Snape Daughter FF)

Ch. 14 // COS

Harry and Clara were standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. Her heart beating very fast, Clara stood listening to the chill silence. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Ginny? Harry pulled out his wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns, Clara following close behind. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. Harry kept his eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement, but Clara kept hers wide open. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following them. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, Harry thought he saw one stir. Each time, he made Clara jump as well. She hit him on the arm. "Stop that!" she whispered harshly.
"I can't help it," Harry whispered back.

Then, as they drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall. It was ancient and monkey like, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black robed figure with flaming red hair.
“Ginny!” Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees, Clara following behind. “Ginny — don't be dead — please don't be dead — ” He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be — “Ginny, please wake up,” Harry muttered desperately, shaking her as Clara put her hands on Harry's shoulders in an effort to comfort him. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.
“She won't wake,” said a soft voice. Clara and Harry jumped and spun around on his knees. A tall, black haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though they were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him — “Tom — Tom Riddle?” Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's and Clara's faces.
“What d'you mean, she won't wake?” Harry said desperately. “She's not — she's not — ?”
“She's still alive,” said Riddle. “But only just.” Harry and Clara stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen.
“Are you a ghost?” Clara said uncertainly.
“A memory,” said Riddle quietly. “Preserved in a diary for fifty years.” He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary they had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
“You've got to help us, Tom,” Harry said, raising Ginny's head again. “We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk… I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment… Please, help us.”
Riddle didn't move.
Harry and Clara managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and Harry bent to pick up his wand again. But his wand had gone.
“Did you see — ?” He looked up. Riddle was still watching him — twirling Harry's wand between his long fingers.
“Thanks,” said Harry, stretching out his hand for it.
A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. He continued to stare at Harry, twirling the wand idly.
"Listen, you git," Clara snarled, "give Harry back his wand now! We've got to go! If the basilisk comes — ”
“It won't come until it is called,” said Riddle calmly.
Harry lowered Ginny back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer. “What d'you mean?” he said. “Look, give me my wand, I might need it — ”
Riddle's smile broadened. “You won't be needing it,” he said.
Clara started to reach for her wand, but it wasn't in her pocket. She mentally cursed herself when she remembered her wand fell out of her hand when the rocks fell.
Harry stared at him. “What d'you mean, I won't be — ?”
“I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter,” said Riddle. “For the chance to see you. To speak to you...and you too, Clara Snape.”
“Look,” said Harry, losing patience, “I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later —”
“We're going to talk now,” said Riddle, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed Harry's wand. Harry and Clara stared at him. There was something very funny going on here.
“How did Ginny get like this?” Clara asked slowly.
“Well, that's an interesting question,” said Riddle pleasantly. “And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger.”
“What are you talking about?” said Harry.
“The diary,” said Riddle. “My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes — how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books…” All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes kept going back and forth from Harry to Clara. There was an almost hungry look in them. “It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven year old girl,” he went on. “But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom… I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in… It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket…” Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. “If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted… I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her…”
“What d'you mean?” said Harry, whose mouth had gone very dry.
“Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?” said Riddle softly. “Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat." “No,” Harry whispered.
“Yes,” said Riddle, calmly. “Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries… far more interesting, they became… Dear Tom,” he recited, watching Harry and Clara's horrified faces, “I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me… There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad… I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!”
Clara choked back a sob. She felt sorry for Ginny. She wasn't angry or sad...just sorry. She hated that feeling. It was guilt multiplied by one-hundred. She felt useless as she stared down at Ginny's unconscious face.
“It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary,” said Riddle. “But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you two came in. You two found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up - the two siblings I was most anxious to meet…”
“And why did you want to meet us?” said Harry, completely ignoring that Riddle had refered to him as Clara's sibling. But Clara didn't miss it.
"What do you mean siblings?" she asked quickly.
"Oh do you not know?" Riddle shook his head and sucked his teeth. "It's a shame to see a father and daughter keep secrets from each other... You see, Ginny told me all about you two” said Riddle. “Your whole fascinating history, Harry, and how you two are rarely ever seen apart.” His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Harry's forehead, and their expression grew hungrier. “I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust — ”
“Hagrid's our friend,” said Harry, his voice now shaking. “And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but — ”
Riddle laughed his high laugh again. “It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student… on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls… but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance… as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power! Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed… Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did…”
“I bet Dumbledore saw right through you,” said Clara, her teeth gritted.
“Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled,” said Riddle carelessly. “I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen year old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work.”
“Well, you haven't finished it,” said Harry triumphantly. “No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again — ”
“Haven't I already told you,” said Riddle quietly, “that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been — you and Clara. Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary and panicked. What if you two found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets? What if, even worse, I told who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you two, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery — particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you, Harry, could speak Parseltongue...So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her… She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last… I have been waiting for you two to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter and Clara Smape.”
“Like what?” Harry spat, fists still clenched.
“Well,” said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, “how is it that you a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent — managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?” There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.
“Why do you care how I escaped?” said Harry slowly. “Voldemort was after your time…”
“Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter…” He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
“You see?” he whispered. “It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No — I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!”