Notes: Okay, so here's the second last chapter for you guys!
My first chapter of book three will be posted on the 18th of July, and I will try to update every Tuesday after that. If I have no ready-made chapters of book 3, I will be posting a chapter of my Harry/twins fic, called 'When One Door Closes', and I have no idea how it will turn out.
Have fun with this chapter, I hope I made it worth your while to read how everything is really starting to become much more AU now.
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The trio walked cautiously through the twists and turns of the dank antechamber until they came to a large, solid-looking wall, where they saw two carved serpents entwined around each other. The eyes of each serpent were set with emeralds the size of Harry's two fists together, and they glittered in Neville and Harry's dim Lumos spells like an ethereal green fire burned within each of them.
Neville swallowed. "I guess you need to speak to them again."
Harry nodded and approached, throat dry. The jewel eyes made the snakes look strangely alive. He cleared his throat, and it seemed like the emerald eyes flickered for a moment. :Open.:
The serpents parted smoothly, and the wall cracked open. Shaking, Harry grabbed one of Draco's and Neville's hands, and led them inside. They found themselves at the end of a very long, dimly-lit chamber. Every so often, there was a towering stone pillar with carved serpents which supported a ceiling, which they couldn't see, either because it was so high, or because there was such little light aside from the unnatural, green gloom permeating the area which seemed to emanate from nowhere and everywhere at once.
"I can't really see Salazar Slytherin wanting this for his precious pet Basilisk. As a snake, it would be really uncomfortable being in such a cold, damp environment," whispered Draco, rubbing his forehead to stave off a forming headache.
:Lights?: asked Harry tentatively, and immediately the pillars all lit up in a dim glow. The combined light was about as bright as a normal summer's day, which caused the three boys to curse and close their eyes. When their sight had adjusted, they were better able to see the surrounding area, and saw that the colours of the Chamber had transformed from the eerie green to a pleasant forest green, and the ceiling had been revealed to be enchanted similarly to the Great Hall's.
"Well," started Neville, "This is certainly more pleasant. Can we try to save Blaise now?"
Harry and Neville Nox-ed their wands and held them out in front of them. Draco, feeling distinctly uncomfortable without his wand, just stuck closely to Harry's side, darting his eyes every which way to see if something (mainly the Basilisk) would come out of nowhere and attack them. As they passed between the pillars, they saw a huge statue of Salazar Slytherin himself, his face ancient and almost monkey-like. At his feet lay Blaise. Draco's headache got stronger.
"Oh no!" muttered Draco and rushed to his oldest friend's side and dropping to his knees. "Blaise! Please don't be dead!"
Harry and Neville knelt next to Draco and helped him turn their unconscious friend over onto his back. Harry remembered Sirius telling him about how to check if someone was alive or not, and quickly put his fingers over the pulse point on Blaise's wrist. "He's alive," he said, relieved. Draco and Neville just looked at him like he was crazy, so he just said, "You can feel his heartbeat. Here, try it."
Draco tried it, then, surprised, nodded his assent to Neville, who tried it as well.
"He won't be alive for much longer," said a soft voice.
They all jumped and spun around, although Harry stood protectively in front of the other two, trying to offer some form of protection from whatever it was. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching them with some amusement. He obviously wasn't solid, since he was quite blurred around the edges. There was no mistaking him. Harry had seen him before; had drawn him before the school year had even started. This young man, who was clearly a Prefect, with his silver and green badge shining on his lapel, was cold and cruel. His chocolate brown eyes, which should have been warm and comforting, were cold and calculating. Harry knew that if he waited long enough, they would flash red like they had in his dream.
"Who are you? What are you?" asked Neville bravely.
The boy smirked. "I am Tom Riddle. Or, rather, a memory of Tom Riddle, preserved in a diary for fifty years. Who are you?"
At this moment, Draco found the source of his headache; the little black diary he'd last seen in his father's office. Bollocks. He needed to distract Memory-Riddle, which he now knew was the Horcrux's defences trying to gain a human form, from realising he was trying to remember how to destroy Horcruxes.
"What does it matter?" broke in Draco. What have you done to Blaise?"
"Oh, well that is a rather fascinating story, if I do say so myself," Memory-Riddle said, turning to face away from them as if beginning a lecture. Draco quickly showed his friends the Diary, who realised what was going on. "I suppose the real reason Blaise Zabini is like this is because he wasn't feeling very happy with the way his little friends were treating him, so he spilled his sorrowful tale to an invisible stranger."
"What are you talking about?" asked Harry.
"The diary in Draco's hand," said Riddle casually. "My diary. Blaise has been writing in it for months and months, telling me all his pitiful worries and woes: How his best friend ignored him for the company of the famous Harry Potter-Black, how he felt so isolated from the rest of the school, how he was afraid he might never find his mate..."
The whole time he was speaking, he didn't look away from Harry's face. There was a macabre, hungry look in his eyes.
"It's so very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of a disgusting, half-breed twelve-year-old," he went on, and all three of the trio's jaws clenched on behalf of their unconscious friend. "But I was patient, sympathetic. I wrote back, blabbering kind words, Blaise simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got you 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, and the hairs stood up on the backs of their necks. "Charming people has always been somewhat of a specialty of mine, and since him pouring out his soul to me was exactly what I wanted, I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of his deepest fears, his darkest secrets. When I became more powerful than little Blaise was, I started feeding him some of my secrets, some of my soul."
They gasped. "Yes," he said calmly. "Blaise opened the Chamber of Secrets for me. He strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. He sent the serpent of Slytherin on those filthy mudbloods and the squib's cat. I wasn't very pleased when he told me about how someone had cured that cat."
"No," Draco whispered, clutching Blaise's body closer to him. It felt colder than it had before. They needed to hurry this monologue up.
"It took such a long time for stupid, little Blaise to stop trusting his diary," said Riddle, "but by that time, I'd all but taken over him completely. I grew tired of attacking mudbloods and turned my sight on a new target. You."
"Me?" asked Harry, feigning a confused expression. He knew that somehow this Tom Riddle person was Voldemort, since the diary was his Horcrux. He just had to provoke him enough to get him to call the Basilisk, since they were too far away, and in too much danger, to get the diary to the goblins. The only three things that could destroy it were the killing curse, which Harry was not going to even attempt to cast, Fiendfyre, which was even more ridiculous to attempt, and Basilisk venom.
"Yes. From everything Blaise had told me about you, I knew you were trying to solve the mystery, that you had even solved a life-or-death mystery the year before. I knew that if one of your best friends was attacked, you'd put even more effort in, and so when you had discovered what the legendary 'Monster of Slytherin' was, as if it could have been anything else, I knew it was time to end things. I had him write his own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait for you. He struggled and cried and became very boring, but he put too much into the diary, into me, that there isn't much life left in him. I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have so many questions for you, Harry Potter-Black."
"You do realise he's not here by himself, don't you?" asked Neville deprecatingly. "I mean, you look like you're in, what, fifth or sixth year, and yet you can't even count?"
Riddle twitched, but ignored him and continued to stare at Harry, who then spat out, "Which questions?"
"Well, how is it that a baby 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. Harry shivered.
"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."
He pulled Blaise'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!"
This was it. "So you're a half-blood?" Draco asked innocently. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Harry's a half-blood too, and I know quite a few muggleborns who are brilliant witches and wizards. I don't know why you thought you had to kill those of 'lesser' blood, when you were one yourself."
Riddle's jaw clenched but he managed to ignore him. Then Harry spoke, "And you're not the greatest sorcerer in the world. Very, very many people, in fact I dare say the majority of the wizarding world associates that title with Dumbledore. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try to take over Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you then, and wherever you're hiding these days, you're still scared of him."
Riddle had an ugly look on his face. "He's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!"
"Oh, no," interrupted Neville. "It's just temporary, and even then he's not as gone as you might think."
Out of nowhere, Fawkes flamed into the room and began singing an unearthly music. He held a ragged bundle of leather in his claws, which he dropped on Draco. It unfolded in mid-air, and the Sorting Hat landed on Draco's head. He quickly lifted up the brim and watched as the phoenix continued his flight around the room, singing all the while.
Riddle smirked. "That's what your precious Dumbledore sent you? His most deadly weapons? A songbird and an old hat? I suppose I have no choice but to unleash my most deadly weapon: The powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin."
With an aggravated sigh, he turned to the statue of Slytherin. :Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.: he hissed.
Harry wheeled around to face the statue, and watched, horrified, as its mouth opened, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole. He could see something stirring inside, something was slithering up from its depths.
"You've made a little mistake, Riddle. You see, with the whole Heir of Slytherin thing, well when I defeated you as a baby, I conquered your House." he said, pushing back his fear and smirking at the much more solid Riddle. Then, he hissed, :I am the true Heir of Slytherin by Conquest.:
Now it was Riddle's turn to gasp, but Harry was too focused on the emerging Basilisk.
:Oh, good. I was wondering when you would show up,: said the vaguely amused voice of the Basilisk. :What is your command, Master?:
"This cannot be happening!" exclaimed Riddle. :I am your master, Basilisk! You are to kill that impostor and his friends right this moment!:
:And why should I do that?: it asked. :If you had gone further into the Chamber, you would have discovered that I am bonded to the whole of Slytherin's line as a familiar, but only its current Heir and Lord can command me. I know when someone gains one of these statuses. This boy speaks the truth.:
Riddle just stood there, mouth agape.
Harry, who had been surreptitiously translating the conversation for his friends, was given the diary by Draco, who was now also holding a huge sword that had come out of the hat. He held it out to the huge serpent and said, :This is Black magic, I request that you destroy it by biting through it. Also, please make sure not to kill or Petrify anyone with your gaze.:
:No!: came Riddle's last attempt, but the Basilisk simply ignored him.
:As you wish, Master.: The Basilisk bent down and gently took the small black book from Harry's hands, then bit down hard.
There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over the edge of the Basilisk's mouth. Harry hoped none got in its mouth, it looked disgusting. Riddle was writhing and twisting, creaming and flailing, and then... he was gone. Blaise's wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. :Thank you. Might I know your name?: he asked.
:My name is Selena, Master.: she said after she had placed the diary on the ground where it continued to spurt the occasional bit of ink like blood out of an artery.
:Please, call me Harry. I'd rather not be called a Master by anyone. The blond-haired boy is named Draco, the dirty-blond one is Neville, and the unconscious one is Blaise.:
:Of course, Harry.:
At that moment, a faint moan came from Blaise, and he stirred. All three boys were now kneeling next to their awakening friend, and helped him sit up. His eyes travelled from each of his friends' faces to the huge form of the Basilisk. His eyes widened. "She's safe," Harry hastened to say. "Her name's Selena."
Blaise drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down his face as he flung himself into his friends' arms. "Oh Draco-Harry, Neville-I'm so s-sorry-I tried to tell you so many times-he just wouldn't let me! It was me-but I-I swear I didn't mean to-R-Riddle made me, he-he possessed me-and-what's going on? Where's Riddle? The last thing I remember is him coming out of the diary-"
"Riddle's gone. Harry had Selena bite the diary, and he's been finished off." explained Neville.
Harry held up the diary. "See? Gone, kaput."
Blaise took another shuddering breath and nodded. Draco then said, "C'mon, Blaise, let's get you out of here."