***
THEY 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.
Grace grabbed Harry's hand in hers tightly, her heart was beating very fast.
They pulled out their wands and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. Grace kept her eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following them.
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.
Grace had to crane her neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, 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!" Grace immediately dropped Harry's hands and sprinted towards her sister. Harry seemed to follow her. "Don't be dead--"
Kneeling on the ground, she grabbed her shoulders and and turned her around in her lap. Her face was white as marble and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't petrified.
Grace's hands were shaking violently; she couldn't get a hold on Ginny.
"Ginny, please wake up," Harry was shaking Ginny, her head lolled hopelessly from side to side.
"She won't wake," said a soft voice.
Grace and Harry spun around on their knees.
A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Grace were looking at him through a misted window.
"What do you mean 'she won't wake up'?" Grace said sharply.
"Tom - Tom Riddle?" Harry said and Grace understood.
Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face.
"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Grace repeated sharply.
"She's not - she's not -?"said Harry desperately.
"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."
Grace stared at him.
"Are you a ghost?" Harry 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 Harry had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
"Wake her up." said Grace staring directly at Riddle.
He just stared at her.
"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 me."
Riddle didn't move. Something was off about about him, Grace could feel it, but couldn't tell what.
"He has your wand Harry." She said noticing Riddle 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," said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny's dead weight. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes -"
"It won't come until it is called," said Riddle calmly.
Grace lowered Ginny on the floor and stared at Riddle.
"You're not here to help." She said narrowing her eyes at him.
Riddle's smile broadened.
"Who are you?" Grace demanded.
"You'll know it soon." He said simply.
"Look, give me my wand," Harry repeated from beside Grace.
"You won't be needing it," Riddle said.
"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. Both of you actually."
"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.
Grace and Harry stared at him.
"How did Ginny get like this?" Grace 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 Grace.
"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 even though her sister got new ones, how -" Riddle's eyes glinted "- how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."
All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Harry's face. 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. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Grace's neck.
"If I say it myself, 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 Grace, whose mouth had gone very dry.
"Haven't you guessed yet, Grace?" 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."
"You're lying." said Grace.
"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's and Grace's horrified face, "'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!'"
Grace's fists were clenched, the nails digging deep into her palms.
"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 came in, Harry. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet..."
"And why did you want to meet me?" said Harry.
"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," said Riddle. "Your whole fascinating history." 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 my 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 Grace, 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." He glanced at Grace. "Well both of you, if I'm being honest."
Grace just stared at him.
"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, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you 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, 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 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 to appear since we arrived here. I knew you both would come. I have many questions for both of you, Harry Potter and Graciana Weasley, if that's what you're known by."
"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, Harry - 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!"
Both Grace and Harry stared at him, their eyes full of hatred.
"You're not," Harry said, his quiet voice full of hatred.
"Not what?" snapped Riddle.
"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," said Grace, breathing fast.
Harry continued, "Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days -"
The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.
"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" he hissed.
"He's not as gone as you might think!" Grace retorted.
Riddle opened his mouth, but froze.
Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle whirled around to stare down the empty Chamber. The music was growing louder. It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly. Then, as the music reached such a pitch that Grace felt it vibrating inside her own ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar.
A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle.
A second later, the bird was flying straight at Harry and Grace. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying at Harry's feet, then landed heavily on Grace's shoulder. As it folded its great wings, Grace looked up and saw it had a long, sharp golden beak and a beady black eye.
The bird stopped singing. It sat still and warm next to Grace's cheek, gazing steadily at Riddle.
"That's a phoenix." said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it.
"Fawkes?" Harry breathed, and Grace felt the bird's golden claws squeeze her shoulder gently.
"And that -" said Riddle, now eyeing the ragged thing that Fawkes had dropped, "that's the old school Sorting Hat -"
So it was. Patched, frayed, and dirty, the hat lay motionless at Harry's feet.
Riddle began to laugh again. He laughed so hard that the dark chamber rang with it, as though ten Riddles were laughing at once.
"This is what Dumbledore sends his defenders! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter and Grace Weasley? Do you feel safe now?"
Even Grace couldn't see the meaning behind this.
"To business, Harry," said Riddle, still smiling broadly. "Twice - in your past, in my future - we have met. And twice I failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he added softly, "the longer you stay alive."
"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you killing me. And I've seen the real you, I saw you last year. You're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, you're foul -"
Riddle's face contorted. Then he forced it into an awful smile. "So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful countercharm. I can see now. . .there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike. . .but after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That's all I wanted to know."
Riddle's twisted smile was widening again.
"Now, Harry, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him..."
He cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away. Grace, fear spreading up her numb legs, watched Riddle stop between the high pillars and look up into the stone face of Slytherin, high above him in the half-darkness. Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed - he was speaking parseltongue.
Grace wheeled around to look up at the statue, Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, Grace saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole.
And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.
Grace and Harry backed away until they hit the dark Chamber wall, and as they shut their eyes tight Grace felt Fawkes' wing sweep her cheek as he took flight.
Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. Grace felt it shudder - she knew what was happening, she could sense it, could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth. Then she heard Riddle's hissing voice.
The basilisk was moving toward them; she could hear its heavy body slithering heavily across the dusty floor. Eyes still tightly shut, Grace began to run but was pulled back in her place. She tried to move again, but it felt like something was holding her from moving.
But shockingly she felt the Basilisk move away from her. There was a loud, explosive spitting sound a few feet away from her.
She couldn't help it - she opened her eyes wide enough to squint at what was going on.
Harry was laying near a wall, hurt. The enormous serpent, bright, poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, had raised itself high in the air and its great blunt head was weaving drunkenly between the pillars.
Fawkes was soaring around its head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabers Fawkes dived. His long golden beak sank out of sight and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor. The snake's tail thrashed, narrowly missing Harry, and before Harry could shut his eyes, it turned - Harry looked straight into its face. Grace saw that its eyes, both its great, bulbous yellow eyes, had been punctured by the phoenix; blood was streaming to the floor, and the snake was spitting in agony.
Riddle began screaming in parseltongue from behind her.
The blinded serpent swayed, confused, still deadly. Fawkes was circling its head, piping his eerie song, jabbing here and there at its scaly nose as the blood poured from its ruined eyes.
"Run, Harry!" Grace screamed at him. "run!"
But Harry had closed his eyes and was wearing the sorting hat on his head. For a moment Grace stared. And much to her surprise, Harry drew out a gleaming silver sword from inside the hat, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs.
Riddle screamed again.
"Harry, run!" Grace screamed again.
And this time he listened. As he vanished from her sight, so did the serpent.
Breathing heavily, Grace turned to look at Riddle.
"What do you want from me?" Grace gritted through her teeth.
Riddle turned toward her, a malicious smile appeared on his lips.
"Many things." He said. "You know, Grace, I was surprised when I heard you were so ignorant of everything, of yourself. But then again, Dumbledore made sure of it."
"What are you talking about?" asked Grace.
"You would be very useful to me." He continued ignoring her question. "Very useful. You have two choices Grace, either you can keep hating me and die, or you could come on my side and live."
"I'd rather die than serve someone as pathetic as you." She spat out.
Rage flashed in his eyes, but his voice was very controlled. "You know nothing, do you?"
"What do I not know?" Grace said, trying to keep her anger at bay.