Athena Dumbledore (A Harry Potter Love Story)

Rescue Mission

ATHENA POV:

We all wait until we hear Professor Lockheart land and yell that he's okay, then we all jump in after him. I land painfully on something sharp and see we're in a pile of bones. Lockheart was being a total chicken and explained to us that his whole career was a fake and that he never did any of those things that he wrote about.  

"Why are you telling us all this?" I ask and Lockheart swiftly grabs Ron's wand and points it at me. I can't reach for my wand because then he'll fire.  

"Because I needed to admit it to someone. Plus I'm very handy with memory erasing spells." He gives a sweet but evil smile. "Obliviate!" He yells, but it was a mistake. Ron's wand is totally deflective. The spell backfires on him and sends him flying backwards into the wall. The chamber starts to shake and stones are starting to drop. I see a stone about to hit Harry and quickly pull him out of the way. We stand there for a second as all the dust settles. There's a big pile of stones in front of us, blocking the way we came.  

"Ron!" Harry yells. "Are you okay?!"  

"I'm fine, but I'm not sure about Lockheart! He doesn't know who he is!" Ron's voice comes from the other side. "Go and save Ginny! We'll be fine!" Harry and I shrug and make our way. We stumble upon a giant snake skin and I suddenly remember my huge fear of snakes. What. An. Idiot.  

"If you hear anything moving, close your eyes right away," Harry reminds me and I nod, shaking. "You're afraid of snakes aren't you?" He asks, breaking the silence. I nod my head, ashamed. "We can do this, Athena. Don't be afraid." I nod again.  

"Thanks, Harry." He smiles despite the tension and I feel a burst of courage. We come to an odd metal door with inscriptions of snakes on the handle. Harry tries to open it but it won't budge.  

"Say something in parseltongue," I suggest and he does. It sounds like a random slur of letters all said too fast. The gate slowly opens to reveal a grand looking tunnel. Pillars decorated the area and had little stone snakes creeping up them. I gasped as my eyes fell upon a heap of fiery red hair and black robes. "Ginny," I breathed and ran over to her, my feet slashing through the water, Harry close behind me. I checked Ginny's pulse, but it was beating very slow and her skin was ice cold. "What's happened to her? She's so..." But I'm interrupted by an evil sounding cackle coming from behind me. Harry and I whirl around, our wands at the ready. A young man steps out of the shadows, he looks about sixteen. He has dark brown hair and eyes and gives us a toothy grin. Adrenaline is pumping through my veins as I hold my stance there, wand still raised.  

"What's this? A Potter and a Dumbledore? A powerful combination that is!" He exclaims and smiles. Talk about déjà vu. Harry suddenly stands straighter.  

"You're Tom. Tom Riddle. You're the heir of Slytherin." I wonder how he knew that. They then have this whole conversation that I don't understand. There was something about a diary? Then Tom uses his wand to spell out his name (Tom Marvolo Riddle). The letters rearrange themselves and spell: I am Lord Voldemort. I suck in a breath and slowly back away, but Harry doesn't seem afraid of him. "Now I shall unleash the basilisk!" Voldemort (young version) uses parseltongue to summon the massive creature. Harry and I break into a sprint towards the pipes, far away from him. "You can run but you can't hide!!" He calls and my breathes are shallow. I can hear the basilisk behind us gaining speed.  

"Harry, what do we do?!" I call as it becomes a dead end. Then he does something I never thought the famous Harry Potter would ever do: he wrapped his arms around me with his eyes shut tight and gives up. I then truly noticed the situation and decided he was right; there was no hope for us at all. This was the end. I accepted his sort of hug and wrap my arms around his lower back. "Goodbye, Harry." I whisper as I feel the basilisk's breath on me. Keeping my eyes shut tight, I hear a mysterious caw and the roar of the basilisk. I take a peek and see its Uncle Albus's Phoenix Fawkes. He's scratched out the eyes and nose of the basilisk! Now it can only hear. "Harry! The basilisk has no eyes or nose! It can only hear us!" We're not gonna die! Yes! I force Harry to open his eyes and we run down the tunnel, unfortunately, making a lot of splashing noises. The basilisk is gaining on us. Harry and I run through the dark, damp pipes and turn a corner to find a dead end. I curse under my breath and am about to move again when the basilisk rounds the corner and I freeze, backing away noiselessly until my back hits the wall. I look over at Harry and see he's having the same issue. I look down and the most life saving and genius idea comes to me. I slowly bend down and pick up a rock. I carefully throw it down one of the other tunnels, causing the basilisk to go that way. Once it's gone we both let out a sign of relief.  

"Nice one, Athena. Lets go," Harry says and I follow him out of the tunnels, careful of the basilisk. Once we get out I see Voldemort standing there, his back turned away from us. When he hears us coming, he turns back around with a surprised look on his face.  

"How did you escape?!" He demands and Harry smiles at him. Voldemort starts speaking in parseltongue again and it's not long before the basilisk returns, more mad than ever. Harry and I rush to a big statue carved into the rock, but sticking out. Suddenly, Fawkes comes in with the sorting hat. How is that going to help us? But then I see it. The sword of Gryffindor wedged into it. I grab it just as the basilisk advances on me. I slash it wildly at the creature, making him roar. I run back to Harry and hand him the sword while he helps me onto the statue. It's a really big statue, so we've got a lot of ground to cover. Harry has the sword now, but the basilisk is apparently still mad at me. He swings his tail towards me, but I duck letting out a loud scream and throw myself onto another platform. I don't know how his aim is so accurate when he can't see or smell me, but he does it again, this time his scales grazing my leg and causing me to hit my head. Hard. It's all pretty blurry after that, but I could see Harry fighting off the basilisk with the sword of Gryffindor. He manages to stab it and it falls to the ground; dead. I rush over to Harry just as he pulls that basilisk tooth out of his arm. We then walk down off of the statue, both injured. I can tell the venom is seeping through Harry and he doesn't have much time left. We needed to leave, Ginny or no Ginny. Voldemort is saying something to Harry, but it's all muffled by the sound of my brain screaming in pain. I grasp my hair to keep myself from crying out. I must have hit my head pretty hard because I see Harry stabbing a small journal on the ground and Voldemort disappearing little by little. Ginny wakes up and takes a look at the two of us.  

"I'm so sorry, guys, he made me do it-I didn't mean to!" She pleads and we both nod, too injured to even know what she's talking about. I fall on my back, the world spinning before me. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Fawkes go over to Harry and cry into his wound, causing it to heal, and then he comes over to me, and I feel something wet on my head and the pain fades away until its gone. I sit up and see the others watching me.  

"We did it!" I say finally and Harry smiles and nods while Ginny gives me a hug and thanks me. We defeated the basilisk and we saved Ginny. "What a day!" I say and flop back down causing the others to laugh.