TW: tom is an entire warning in of himself, he says the m-word a lot :/
//
Harry walks slowly, eyes clamped shut and his wand held tightly in his hand.
After he doesn't hear anything for at least a minute or two, he whisper-shouts, "Ginny? Ginny, can you hear me?"
No response. He quickens his pace slightly.
"Ginny!" he raises his voice, throwing caution to the wind. "Please tell me you can hear me!"
"She can't," a soft voice says, echoing only slightly.
Harry freezes.
"Tom?"
"It's good to see you, Harry."
"W-What d'you mean she can't? What's wrong with her? Is she — she's not —"
"She's still alive," Tom tells him. "But only just."
Harry feels his lip begin to quiver. He swallows, "What have you done to her?"
Tom chuckles, "Smart boy. And here I was, hoping for you to beg me for help..."
"What have you done to her?" Harry repeats through clenched teeth.
"Well, that's an interesting question," Tom says, his voice cheery and pleasant. "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."
"The diary," Harry mumbles.
"My diary," Tom says. "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, how — how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."
Harry clenches his fist, beginning to inch around and perhaps find where Ginny's body is.
"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," Tom continues, either not seeing Harry moving and choosing to ignore it. "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..."
Tom laughs. It's high and cold and such a contrast from his voice that it makes the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stand up.
"If I say it myself, Harry, 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..."
Harry freezes. Slowly, he says, "What are you talking about, Tom?"
"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" Tom says 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."
Harry inhales sharply, "No."
"Yes," Tom says. "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 begins to recite, "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!"
Harry begins moving again, doing his very best to remain calm.
"It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," Tom goes on, apparently still content ignoring Harry moving. "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?" Harry asks, beginning to poke his leg out in hopes of it touching Ginny.
"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," Tom says. "Your whole 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 my friend," Harry interrupts. "And you framed him, didn't you?"
Tom laughs his high and cold laugh again. Harry shivers.
"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..."
"Dumbledore's smart," Harry says. "I bet he saw right through you. As he should've."
"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," Tom says. "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," Harry tells him 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," Tom says quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been — you."
Harry's foot bumps into something and he drops his wand in surprise.
"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'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter."
Harry bends down to pick up his wand and his heart jumps to his throat when he can't find it.
"Don't worry about your wand, Harry," Tom says gently. "You won't be needing it."
Harry clenches his fists again.
"So," Tom's voice gets closer and Harry falls back in shock, scooting away quickly. "Don't be so jumpy, Harry," his voice gets closer again and Harry stays where he's at this time. "Tell me — 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?"
Harry swallows, "Why do you care how I escaped? Voldemort was after your time."
"Voldemort," Tom says softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..."
Harry remains silent as Tom does... something. He's slowly regaining his courage now that Tom is most likely trying to show him something when he can't see.
His theory is proven correct over seconds later.
"You see?" he whispers. Harry cracks a smile. "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!"
There's a moment of tense silence, in which Harry pushes himself off the ground and stands up.
Even the knowledge that this isn't just Tom Riddle in front of him, that it's Voldemort as a sixteen-year-old, doesn't stop Harry from being stupid.
"It's hilarious what lengths you'll go to just to ignore my blindness," he says quietly.
"What?" Tom says sharply. "What are you talking about?"
"Whatever you did — whatever affect you wanted it to have on me — didn't work because I can't see."
Tom is silent for a long moment. Harry stands his ground.
"Of course," he finally says. "How could I forget? Famous Harry Potter — blind. Well, my job just got so much easier."
"Did it? Or are you just underestimating me because of my disability?" Harry grins, most likely looking completely mad. "You'll soon find, Tom Riddle, that you really, really shouldn't underestimate me."
But before either of them can do anything to the other, a strange music suddenly echoes through the Chamber. It gets progressively louder and louder until there's a woosh and the song quiets down. Whatever it is begins moving and Harry hears and feels something drop onto the floor in front of him before the creature lands on his shoulder. It stops singing, its presence next to Harry warm and calming.
"That's a phoenix..." Tom mumbles.
It clicks.
"Fawkes?" Harry breathes. The bird squeezes his shoulder with its claw gently.
"And that —" Tom says, not realizing that he's abling Harry by telling him what exactly just happened, "that's the old school Sorting Hat —"
Harry furrows his eyebrows. Fawkes obviously came to help him but how will the Sorting Hat help him?
Tom begins to laugh, cutting off Harry's thought process. He laughs so hard that it rings throughout the Chamber, making it sound as though there's more than one Tom in front of Harry.
"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?"
Harry decides not to mention how he felt brave before Fawkes showed up. Tom is a murderer, the very same that killed his parents, and he really shouldn't push his luck.
Tom finally stops laughing.
"To business, Harry," he says. "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 adds, "the longer you stay alive."
Harry weighs the outcomes of this fight. Tom has his wand, that much is clear, and Harry has a bird and an old hat. But — but — he had won the fight with Quirrell with only his bare hands. And Quirrell had been there — really, physically there — while Tom is merely just a memory of Voldemort's sixteen-year-old self. Even without a wand, Harry's chances of winning are quite high.
"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," he says, deciding to play into Tom's monologue. Perhaps make him angry enough so he actually starts attacking Harry. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common muggleborn mother," he adds. "She stopped you killing me. And the real you — the actual you — you're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. Y-You're attaching yourself to helpless souls in hopes of remaining alive. It's pathetic."
Tom is silent for a tense moment.
"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 halfbloods, 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."
Harry blinks. They look alike? But he doesn't get a chance to really think about that.
"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..."
Harry hears Tom walk away and figures that can't be a good thing, the fact that he can hear a memory walking. Tom stops and then begins speaking, but it's little more than a hiss, and Harry understands it completely.
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
Harry almost laughs at how ridiculous that sounds but when he hears the slithering — feels the slithering, thanks to his magic — it suddenly isn't funny anymore. He keeps his eyes tightly shut, just in case.
He begins backing away. His back hits the wall of the Chamber and Fawkes suddenly leaves his shoulder, taking his warmth and calming presence with him.
Harry feels and hears the basilisk hit the ground. The next few seconds are the longest of Harry's life until —
"Kill him."
The basilisk begins moving toward Harry. He starts running in the opposite direction and isn't really surprised when he trips and falls. His chin hits the stone and he bites his tongue so hard he tastes blood but that's really the least of his worries when he can hear the basilisk getting closer and closer.
Suddenly, there's a loud spitting sound from the basilisk and then something heavy hits Harry hard in the side. He's slammed against the wall and he waits with bated breath to feel the sinking of fangs into his body — but it never comes. He hears a lot of mad hissing and something thrashing wildly against the Chamber wall and even though he's established with himself that he doesn't want to be able to see, he would very much like to be able to see right now.
There's a sound of something hitting the floor, something that sounds like water being poured onto stone, and then Harry becomes aware of Tom screaming.
"NO! LEAVE THE BIRD! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU! YOU CAN STILL SMELL HIM! KILL HIM!"
Harry very quickly realizes that Fawkes must've just blinded the basilisk.
Harry resists the urge to call out for help. Maybe Ron might hear him but what good would that do when Ron is stuck behind a wall of rocks. It would just make him panic and the last thing Harry wants to do is make Ron panic, even if Harry is about to die. He briefly thinks about how unfair the situation is to Ron — his best friend and his sister both about to die in the same place — but something soft hitting his face distracts him.
The Sorting Hat.
Harry, desperate for literally anything that might help him, rams it onto his head and thinks frantically Help me, please, help me!
The hat doesn't answer, but it doesn't constrict, almost like a hand squeezing Harry's head. He's about to pull it off his head, scolding himself for thinking that might work, when something hard and heavy falls onto Harry's head. Disoriented and seeing stars, he reaches up to the top of the hat to pull it off and feel something behind the fabric.
He pulls it off and shoves his hand inside, pulling out an entire sword from the depths of the hat.
"KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU! SNIFF — SMELL HIM!"
Laughing a little maniacally, Harry stands and holds the sword out in front of him, hoping that when the basilisk lunges that it lands on the sword. He only dodges it twice. The third time, its aim is true and Harry puts his weight behind the sword as it lunges, feeling it sink into the roof of the basilisk's mouth. He's only triumphant for a split second. A searing pain in his shoulder stops him from feeling like that for too long, though.
Harry lets go of the sword as the basilisk goes limp. He stumbles into the Chamber wall and slides down to the ground. He grips the fang that pierced his arm and wrenches it out but it's too late. The world is slowly getting quieter and pain is spreading through his body. Harry is sure he's never felt something so painful.
Distantly, he hears the soft click of claws against the ground.
"Fawkes," he mumbles. "You were fantastic, Fawkes... you did beautifully..."
He feels the bird lay its head on his arm, right over the wound. He closes his eyes, accepting the fact that he's going to die all alone down here, both him and Ginny. He desperately wishes he could reassure Ron and tell him it'll all be okay but he barely has the strength to keep his head upright, let alone to stand up and walk all the way back to Ron.
Harry vaguely hears echoing footsteps.
"You're dead, Harry Potter," Tom's voice says. It's muffled and distant. "Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing, Potter? He's crying."
Harry doesn't even have the strength to tell Tom that he can't see what Fawkes is doing.
"I'm going to sit here and watch you die, Harry Potter. Take your time. I'm in no hurry."
Harry's head lolls back and hits the wall but between that and the white-hot pain surging through his body, he barely even registers it.
"So ends the famous Harry Potter," Tom continues, apparently unable to stop monologuing even in the face of his enemies death. "Alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by his friends, defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged. You'll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry... She bought you twelve years of borrowed time... but Lord Voldemort got you in the end, as you knew he must..."
Of course, Harry knows that. He can fight all he wants but it has to end somewhere and most likely, that somewhere is with his death.
But... this isn't dying.
The pain is leaving him and his hearing is returning. Harry shakes his head slightly to clear it and furrows his eyebrows. If he thought getting hit in the head with a sword was disorienting, not dying after accepting his death is even more so.
"Get away, bird," Tom's voice says suddenly, much clearer than before. "Get away from him — I said, get away —"
There's a bang like a gun and Fawkes' presence leaves Harry's side again.
"Phoenix tears..." Tom says quietly. "Of course... healing powers... I forgot..."
Harry huffs a disbelieving laugh. Magic really is wonderful.
"But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter... you and me..."
But something being dropped into Harry's lap stops Tom.
For a moment, Harry and Tom are quiet, but Harry quickly realizes that it's the diary and, without thinking, he seizes the basilisk fang on the ground next to him and plunges it into the cover of the diary.
There's a long, piercing scream that Harry feels all the way to his core. He can feel ink beginning to stream over his hands and dripping onto the floor. Tom is still screaming, the sound dreadful and making Harry feel sick to his stomach, and Harry wishes it would stop, wishes it would —
Silence.
Harry hears a clatter that he assumes is his wand. And besides the steady drip, drip, drip of ink onto the stone, it's silent.
Harry has always enjoyed silence and right now, he relishes in it. No taunting monologues, no singing birds, no angry spitting from the basilisk. It's peaceful. As peaceful as the aftermath of a battle can be and to Harry, that's very peaceful.
He pushes himself off the floor, shaking from head to toe. Slowly and methodically, he picks up his wand, the Sorting Hat, and then wrenches the sword from the roof of the basilisk's mouth.
The silence is broken by a low moan at the other end of the Chamber. Ginny.
Harry rushes over and drops to his knees beside her, "Ginny, oh god, I'm so — I'm so sorry."
Ginny draws in a great, shuddering breath. Her voice is thick with tears as she begins rambling.
"Harry — oh, Harry — I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c- couldn't say it in front of Percy — it was me, Harry — but I — I s-swear I d-didn't mean to — T-Tom made me, he t-took me over — and — how did you kill that — that thing? W-where's Tom? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary —"
"It's all right," Harry says, showing her the diary. "Tom's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C'mon, Ginny, let's get out of here —"
"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny cries as Harry helps her stand up. "I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and — w-what'll Mum and Dad say?"
Harry doesn't say anything, still kind of in shock to properly comfort Ginny. They leave the Chamber and head down the tunnel and Harry only speaks when he hears the distant shuffle of rocks being shifted around.
"Ron!" he yells, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"
Harry hears Ron give a cheer. They continue walking until —
"Ginny!" Ron's voice cries. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened? How — what — where did that bird come from?"
"He's Dumbledore's," Harry says, letting Ron pull him through the gap he made in the rocks.
"How come you've got a sword?" Ron says.
"I'll explain when we get out of here," Harry says.
"But —"
"Later," Harry says, his voice leaving no room for argument. He really doesn't think it's a good idea to tell Ron about what happened when Ginny is right there.
"Where's Lockhart?" Harry asks, changing the subject.
"Back there," Ron says. "He's in a bad way. Come and see. Er —"
Harry would laugh but the events of before are really starting to catch up with him and the adrenaline is wearing off and he's suddenly very tired. He supposes almost dying is quite draining on one's body.
Fawkes leads them all the back toward the pipe they enter the Chamber from. Harry can hear Lockhart humming to himself when they finally stop.
"His memory's gone," Ron tells him. "The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself."
"Hello," Lockhart says cheerfully. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"
"No," Ron says.
Harry makes a noise in the back of his throat before he changes the subject once more.
"Have you thought how we're going to get back up the pipe?" Harry asks.
"No..."
Something, Fawkes most likely, swoops past Harry.
"He looks like he wants you to grab hold..." Ron says, sounding very confused. "But you're much too heavy for a bird to pull up there —"
"Fawkes," Harry mutters, "isn't an ordinary bird." He forms a plan quickly.
"We've got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron's hand. Professor Lockhart —"
"He means you," Ron says to Lockhart.
"You hold Ginny's other hand —"
Harry tucks the sword and the Sorting Hat into his belt. Ron reaches out and takes hold of the back of Harry's robes and Harry takes hold of Fawkes tailfeathers, which are warm to the touch.
A surge of lightness and energy rushes through Harry and then he feels himself being lifted off the ground and carried up the pipe. Before he can even begin to enjoy it, though, it's over and he finds himself back in Myrtle's bathroom. As soon as he lets go of Fawkes, exhaustion spreads through his body once more and his shoulders slump down.
"You're alive," Myrtle's voice says blankly.
"There's no need to sound so disappointed," Harry mumbles.
"Oh, well... I'd just been thinking... if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet," Myrtle says.
"Harry!" Ron says once they leave the bathroom, sounding a mixture of amused and disgusted. "I think Myrtle's grown fond of you! You've got competition, Ginny!"
But Ginny seems to be too occupied with what she just went through to be embarrassed.
"Where now?" Ron says, now sounding anxious. "Oh — this way."
Ron grabs Harry's wrist and pulls him along.
Only moments later, they stop and Ron mumbles, "Professor McGonagall's office?"
Harry, seeing no other option, reaches up and knocks before pushing the door open.