"Will you remember this night twenty years now on" ~ Stay Together For the Kids, Blink 182
Haylee's p.o.v
I've been here for God knows how long...days, weeks, months? Will somebody ever find us?
My head is still throbbing violently from multiple impacts and Asher is still on the ground beside me, not moving.
Except now, Ginny is on the other side of Asher, looking just as ghastly and pale.
I curse loudly, and bring my hand up to my head, to find it stained with blood. It must have cracked open when Riddle stunned me earlier.
"Haylee, how nice of you to join us once again," Tom's smooth voice appears as he walks to my side.
"What have you done to Ginny and Asher?" I ask him. "If you hurt them, I swear to go-"
"They're not dead, not yet anyway," he says, his smooth, calm tone never cracking.
"You bastard," I snap angrily. "You pathetic, twisted son of a bitch."
I know I've gone too far by the look on his face, and I instantly regret my words.
"Crucio!" He yells, pointing his wand at me.
Suddenly, I'm struck by an intense, stabbing pain, that makes me scream loudy. It's unbearable.
"Crucio!"
I scream again as I writher helplessly on the ground, my entire body engulfed in excruciating, never ending pain.
"You will show me respect, girl," he says, his voice dropping with venom.
"I'm sorry," I whimper, breathing heavily and unevenly. "P-please don't do it again,"
He opens his mouth to respond, but he's cut off by the sound of echoing footsteps, meaning that somebody has finally found us.
Without another word, Riddle disappears, leaving me to wait for the new arrival.
Through m slightly blurry vision, I catch sight of a boy with raven black, messy hair and black robes.
Harry. Harry is here, and that means Riddle's plan has worked.
"Haylee!" I hear him mutter, before he sprints to my side. "You're alive! Thank God, you're alive!"
He helps me into a sitting position and I stumble on my words;
"H-harry we have to go," I stutter. "T-t-t -"
"Ginny! Asher!" Harry then mumbles, going to them and attempting to wake them up.
"H-Harry you d-don't understand! We need t-to leave!"
"They can't be dead!" Harry exclaims, ignoring me and flinging his wand aside.
"Harry-"
"They won't wake," a soft voice appears, making me squeal.
Harry jumps and turns around, while I try desperately to move away.
"Tom - Tom Riddle?" Harry asks, looking at Riddle with curious eyes.
"Harry, please - I begin, but he ignores me as Riddle nods.
"What d'you mean they won't wake?" Harry asks. "They're not - they're not -?"
"They're still alive," Riddle says. "But only just."
"Are you a ghost?" Harry then questions uncertainly.
"A memory," Riddle says quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He finishes, pointing to the black diary we found in the bathroom.
"Harry, listen to me!" I shout.
"Haylee, just calm down," he says soothingly, but it does nothing to calm me. "You've got to help me, Tom," Harry begins, trying to get Asher and Ginny up. "We've got to get then our of here. There's a Basilisk...I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment. Please, help me..."
Riddle doesn't say a word, and Harry - who is swearing - manages to hoist Ginny and Asher half up from the ground. He then reaches for his wand, only to find it gone.
"Did you see -?"
Harry stops as we notice Riddle holding his wand - twirling it in his long fingers.
"Thanks," Harry says, reaching for it.
"Harry-"
He ignores me again, and continues watching Riddle, who continues twirling Harry's wand in his fingers, while my wand resides in his pocket.
"Listen," Harry says urgently. "We've got to go! If the Basilisk comes..."
"It won't come until it is called," Riddle says calmly.
"Harry-"
"What d'you mean?" He questions. "Look, me my wand, I might need it. And Haylee, where's your wand?"
"He has it," I whisper shakily, making Riddle's smile broaden.
"You won't be needing them," he says.
"What d'you mean? We won't be-?"
"I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter," Riddle says. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you. But I must say, your sister is much more interesting."
"Look," Harry says impatiently. "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later."
"We're going to talk now," Riddle says, pocketing Harry's wand.
I can tell that Harry is slowly getting the points.
"How did Ginny and Asher get like this? And how did Haylee get so injured?" He asks slowly.
"Well, that's an interesting question," Riddle says pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley and Asher Saunters are like this is because she opened her heart and spilled her secrets to an invisible stranger, and dragged her best friend down with her."
"What are you talking about?" Harry asks.
"Harry, he's mental!" I whisper.
"The diary," Riddle explains. "My diary. Little Ginny has been writing in it for months and months, telling me her pitiful worries and woes: how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with second-hand robes and books, how she didn't even think famous, good, great Haylee and Harry Potter would ever like her..."
I try to warn Harry again, but he tells me to be quiet.
"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly troubles of an eleven-year-old-girl," Riddle continues. "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 for this diary to confide in...it's like having a friend I can carry in my pocket...I think Asher would love to meet you too'."
Riddle laughs a malicious laugh,.
"If I say it myself, Harry and Haylee, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured her soul out to me, and then Asher followed in her suit. And together, their souls were exactly what I wanted. I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of their deepest fears, their deepest secrets. I grew enough to start feeding them a few of my own secrets, to start pouring little bits of my soul back into them..."
"What so you mean?" Harry questions.
"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" Riddle says softly. "It took your sister no time at all to figure it all out. Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets, and she dragged Asher Saunters into it all. They daubed threatening messages on the walls. They set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat. And Asher was the one who knocked Haylee out, and brought her here."
"No," Harry whispers.
"Yes," Riddle says 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 recites, "I think I'm losing my memory, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a car was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling Asher and I that we're pale and we're not ourselves. I think he suspects us...There was another attack today and I don't know where I was Tom, and neither does Asher, what are we going to do? I think we're going mad...I think we're the one's who are attacking everyone, Tom!'"
"I tried to tell you, Harry," I say, wiping dripping blood from my forehead.
"I took a very long time for stupid little Ginny and Asher to stop trusting their dairy," Riddle continues. "But they finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you two came in. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you two, the very people I was most anxious to meet..."
"And why did you want to meet us?" Harry says angrily.
"Well, you see, Ginny and Asher told me about you, Harry and Haylee," Riddle says. "Your while fascinating history. 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," Harry says, his voice shaking now. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but -"
"It was my word against Hagrid's," Riddle laughs. "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 realise 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 power!
Only the Transfiguration, 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 the other teachers did..."
"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," I say through gritted teeth.
"Well. He certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," Riddle says carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still in school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a dairy, 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," Harry says 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 alright again."
"Haven't I already told you," Riddle says quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been - you two."
"I tried to tell you," I exclaim tirelessly.
"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you two. 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? 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 and Asher 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 if one of you went missing. And they 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 too wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her, or Asher: they put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave it's pages at last. I have been waiting for you to appear since Haylee arrived here, I knew you'd come. I have many questions questions for you both, Harry and Haylee Potter."
"Like what?" Harry spits.
"Well," Riddle smiles pleasantly, "how is it that two babies with no extraordinary magical talent managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you two escape with nothing but identical scars, while Lord Voldemort's power was destroyed?"
There is an odd red gleam in his eyes now, and I know what's coming next.
"Why do you care how we escaped?" Harry asks slowly. "Voldemort was after your time."
"Harry! It's because he's -" I begin, but Riddle cuts me off.
"Voldemort," he says softly, "is my past, present and future, Harry and Haylee Potter."
He pulls my wand from his pocket and begins tracing is through the air, writing three shimmering words:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
He then waves my wand once, and the letters re-arrange themselves:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
______________________________________________________________
So there's probably so many mistakes in this 😁 sorry. But I'm almost done! I think this book should be finished by the end of next week!!
Opinions on this chapter guys?
Please remember to vote/comment/follow if you enjoyed, it will make my day :)
See you guys soon, you're all amazing :)