"Now, Harry, Y/N, I'm going to teach you two a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Slytherin, against Harry Potter and Y/N L/N, two of the most well known names in the modern wizard community, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give them."
Riddle cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away. Y/N watched Riddle stop between the high pillars and look into the stone face of Slytherin, high above him in the half darkness. Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed in Parseltongue, and whatever he said made Harry shiver in fear, and wheel around to look up at the statue, Y/N followed suit.
Slytherin's gigantic face was moving. The mouth opened 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.
"Shut your eyes, idiot!" yelled Y/N at Harry, who stood, frozen in fear.
Fawkes took flight from Y/N's shoulder. Both the boys backed into the dark Chamber wall, eyes shut tight.
Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber, Y/N felt it shudder. He knew what was happening, he could sense it. He then heard Riddle speak in Parseltongue again.
Y/N didn't know it, but as the Basilisk began to slither towards them, Harry slipped and fell to the floor, the sounds of Riddle's cackling laughter was like poison to his ears.
Y/N had stayed exactly where he was, thinking rapidly, his brain whirring at incredible speeds. What can I do? Riddle has both of our wands, we have no form of defense, and if we open our eyes, we're dead. What the hell can we do? Logically, there's no way we can -
You know what?
Screw logic.
No longer thinking straight, and practically feeling the sanity drain from his brain, his eyes snapped open.
Come at me, you damn snake.
Oddly enough, opening his eyes didn't kill him there and then, but instead, the serpent collided into both he and Harry so hard they smashed against the wall.
But Y/N still wasn't dead.
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. His logical thinking suddenly returning to him, he was ready to shut his eyes again, and then he saw what had distracted the snake.
Fawkes was soaring around its head, and the Basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabres.
Fawkes dived. His long beak sank out of sight and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor. The snake's tail thrashed, narrowly missing Y/N and Harry, and before Y/N could shut his eyes, it turned. Y/N looked straight into its face, and saw that its eyes, both its great bulbous yellow eyes, had been punctured by the phoenix; blood was steaming to the floor and the snake was spitting in agony.
Riddle was now furiously screaming in Parseltongue.
Harry, who had also opened his eyes, gazed upon the Sorting Hat, and he seized it. The snake's tail whipped across the floor again.
"What the hell are you doing?" Y/N shouted desperately as Harry jammed the hat on his head, muttering under his breath.
Damnit, has he lost his mind? He thought.
His eyes completely fixed on the serpent, he didn't notice Harry collapse slightly, pull off the hat, and fall to his knees, dizzy as something had hit him on the head.
Y/N ran over, concerned for his friend, and checked on him. He seemed fine, so Y/N turned his attention on the Hat, which had something gleaming inside it.
Before he even thought about it, he reached in and grabbed the gleaming silver sword, it's handle glittering with rubies.
He stared at the blade, remembering his stick fighting lessons back in the muggle world. It had been a while since he had practiced, but that wasn't what he was thinking about.
All that mattered, was that he was no longer defenseless.
"Harry, I need you to find cover. Try and sneak up on Riddle. If you can get your hands on one the wands, you can duel him." he said. "Or better yet, go to Ginny, she should still have her wand on her. You can disarm him from behind while he's not looking. Just try not to get killed."
Harry nodded. "What'll you do?"
"I'm gonna kill the snake."
With a determined look on his face, Harry took cover behind some of the pillars, and attempted to reach Ginny's unconscious body. It wasn't too hard, as the Basilisk's current focus was Y/N.
While Y/N dodged, evaded, and stabbed the snake whenever he could, Harry had successfully made it to Ginny, praying she had her wand on her.
She did.
Riddle was so focused and on the snake that he hadn't even noticed Harry was missing.
The snake lunged multiple times, and Y/N was just about quick enough to dodge most of them, but every so often it managed to nick him a little.
The great serpent threw its head back, ready to lung forward and snap at Y/N's head, however, Y/N dodged right on time, and the Basilisk collided head-first into the wall of the great Chamber. There was a sickening crack, as a few of the Basilisk's teeth came flying out, scattering all along the Chamber floor.
"Kill him, fool!" screeched Riddle in Parsletongue. "He is just one boy!"
Wait... just one boy? Where's the other? Thought Riddle.
He whirled around, just as Harry shouted, "Expelliarmus!"
Both wands in Riddle's hands came hurtling from his grasp, and he fell backwards, Harry caught his own, but missed Y/N's, and it clattered to the floor. Riddle scrambled to pick it up again, but Harry manged to kick him away. Riddle slumped into the floor wheezing a little.
"Going to kill me, Harry?" he whispered. "You'll find that a little hard. Not only do you not know many offensive spells, but I am a being beyond destroying."
Meanwhile, the Basilisk was swaying around drunkenly, dizzy from its collision with the wall, it swept across the chamber floor, blind, dizzy, and extremely confused, and reached the side of the Chamber were Riddle and Harry resided, it tail managing to skim past Harry's head, who ducked just in time. However, this caused him to lose focus on Riddle, who scrambled to his feet, picked up Y/N's wand an yell, "Stupefy!"
A jet of red light burst from the wand and the impact from the spell was so strong it sent Harry flying across the chamber, and landing a few feet away from Ginny, who was still unconscious on the floor.
During all of this chaos, Y/N had retreated into a pipe nearby, the Basilisk giving chase, he managed to emerge from the other side and back into the chamber unharmed, and the Basilisk was nowhere to be found. He caught sight of Harry lying, nearly unconscious, next to Ginny. Around him, were several Basilisk teeth.
"Harry!" Y/N shouted. "The diary!"
Harry, who had heard this, despite his weakened state, understood. He looked at the diary in Ginny's grasp and crawled towards her, grabbing it, he then picked up a Basilisk tooth and lifted high over the pages.
"What are you doing!" shrieked Riddle.
Without a second thought, Harry plunged the tooth into the pages of the diary.
There was a dreadful, piecing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then...
He had gone.
Y/N ran over, still gripping the sword tightly, Harry was feeling a little woozy, but otherwise fine.
"Did you kill the snake?" he asked, handing Y/N his wand.
Y/N shook his head. "No. It chased me into those pipes and backed me into a corner. I managed to distract it by throwing a rock in another direction and it followed after it. I don't know where it's gone."
There came a faint moan. Y/N looked down to see Ginny beginning to wake up.
"Harry?" she mumbled.
"Yes. It's me." said Harry quickly. "How are you feeling?"
"There's no time for this." Y/N snapped. Ginny's eyes fell upon him and that familiar look of fear overcame her face. But Y/N didn't really care. "We need to get her out of here. The snake could come back at any -"
There was suddenly the sound of something bursting out of the water next to the statue. Y/N turned to see the Basilisk, angrier than ever, its blind eyes staring at them.
Ginny squeaked in fear and gripped onto Harry's arm, and they both stumbled to the ground, shaking. Y/N still stood, and he held up the silver sword protectively over them.
"Shit. Come on then," Y/N said under his breath. "Come at me."
Ginny started screaming as the Baslisk lunged blindly. This time it's aim was true. Y/N threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth. The blade erupted out of the top of the snake's head, peircing it's brain.
"Die," Y/N spat. But as warm blood drenched his arms, he falt a searing pain just above his elbow. One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into his arm and it splintered as the Basilisk keeled over sideways and fell, twitching, to the floor.
Ginny and Harry stared, white as a sheet as Y/N fell to the floor too, on all fours. Trembling, he pulled out the fang from his arm. White-hot pain was spreading slowly and steadily from the wound. Even as he dropped the fang and watched his own blood soaking his robes, his vision went foggy. The Chamber was dissolving in a whirl of colour.
"Damnit." Harry cursed under his breath, letting go of Ginny and rushing to his friend's side. "Y/N, don't you die on me. Don't. I swear, please don't."
Y/N couldn't respond. He was in too much pain.
Tears bagan to fall across Harry's face as he desperately shook his friend, "Y/N!"
A patch of scarlet swam past and Y/N heard a soft clatter of claws beside him.
"Fawkes." said Harry through his tears. "You were brilliant, Fawkes."
The moment Y/N saw the phoenix, he smiled. He knew he'd be alright. But neither Harry or Ginny were aware of this, and Harry covered his face with his hands, trying to hide his sobs. Ginny just stared, ashen-faced at the sight of Y/N's dying body.
Fawkes lay his beautiful head on the spot where the serpent's fang had peirced him. Y/N could already feel the warm tears of the phoenix flooding the wound.
Surprisingly, Ginny was crying now. She also covered her eyes and desperately tried to stop her tears.
"Cheer up, you two." said Y/N, his voice clearer than it had ever been.
Both Harry and Ginny looked up in shock. Y/N sat, cross-legged on the floor, smiling at both of them.
"It'll take a lot more than a serpent on steroids to kill me." he said softly.
"Wha - how -" Harry stammered, wiping his eyes furiously. "You're not -"
"Dead?" suggested Y/N, with a slight grin. "Deceased? Inanimate? Departed? Whichever adjective you prefer. Phoenix tears have healing powers."
Ginny had a look on her face that was full of the most regret Y/N had ever seen, and she suddenly burst into tears.
"Harry, Y/N - oh - I tried to tell you at breakfast, but I couldn't say it in front of Percy, it was me, Harry - but I - I swear I d-didn't mean to - R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over - and - w-where's Riddle? The last thing I remember is cursing Y/N."
Harry wiped away the last of his tears. "It's alright." he said, holding up the diary, and showing her the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. And you just saw what happened to the Basilisk. C'mon, Ginny, let's get out of here."
"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny wept, as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. "I've been looking forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and - w-what will mum and dad say?"
"Listen, Weasley-girl." said Y/N sternly. "A lot of people more powerful than yourself have been hoodwinked by Voldemort. You'll be fine. Dumbledore will protect you, you can be sure if that."
Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber entrance. Harry urged Ginny forward; they stepped over the motionless coils of the dead Basilisk, through the echoing gloom and into the tunnel. Neither Ginny nor Y/N knew their way around, so Harry had to lead them. They head the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss.
After a few minutes' progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Y/N's ears.
"Who else is here?" Y/N asked. "Ron?"
Harry nodded. "Ron! Ginny's okay! I've got her! Y/N's with me too!"
Y/N heard Ron give a strangled cheer and they turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make in an apparent rock fall.
"Ginny!" Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened?"
He tried to hug her but Ginny held him off, sobbing.
"But you're okay, Ginny," said Ron, beaming at her. "It's over now, it's - where did that bird come from?"
Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.
"He's Dumbledore's," said Y/N, squeezing through himself.
"How come you've got a sword?" said Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Y/N's hand.
"I'll explain when we get out of here," said Harry, squeezing through the gap, with a sideways glance at Ginny.
"But -"
"Later," said Y/N sternly.
"Where's Lockhart?" asked Harry.
"That twit's here too?" said Y/N.
"Yeah. You were right about him being a fraud, by the way." said Harry.
"Was there really any doubt?"
"He's back there." said Ron, grinning and jerking his head up the tunnel towards the pipe. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."
Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, they walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.
"His memory's gone," said Ron. "The memory charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself."
"Wait, he tried to hit you with a memory charm?" Y/N demanded furiously.
Harry quickly explained what had happened, as well as the details of Lockhart's confession.
Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at them all.
"Hello," he said. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"
The familiar look of dangerously calm had filled Y/N's eyes. Both Harry and Ron backed away a little as Y/N approached Lockhart, then kicked him in the gut so hard he began coughing.
"Anyway," said Harry. "Have you thought how we're going to get back up this?" he said to Ron, gesturing towards the pipe.
It turned out they didn't need to, Fawkes the phoenix came to their aid. They all grabbed on to each others arms and Y/N held Fawkes's tail.
An extraordinary lightness flooded their bodies as next second, with a whoosh, they were flying upwards through the pipe, and before they knew it, it was all over - all five of them were hitting the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat ("amazing, that was just like magic!"), the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back onto place.
Myrtle goggled at them.
"You're alive," she said blankly to Harry.
"There's no need to sound so disappointed." Harry said grimly, wiping flecks of blood and slime off his glasses.
"Oh, well... I'd just been thinking. If you had died, you'd be welcome to share my toilet," said Myrtle, blushing silver.
There was a silence.
"Now that," said Y/N. "That's just disturbing."
"You've got competition, Ginny." smirked Ron.
But tears were flowing silently down Ginny's face.
"Where now?" said Ron, with an anxious look at Ginny. Y/N pointed.
Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor. They strode after him, and moments later, they found themselves outside Professor McGonagall's office.
Y/N knocked and pushed the door open.