The Sword and the Snake
Saturday, May 29th, 1993
It was the most magnificent structure Draco had ever seen in his life. A long chamber, with towering pillars entwined with serpents that supported a ceiling so high it got lost in darkness. The entire place was dimly lit in a greenish glow, and, as the two of them slowly stepped onward, their footsteps echoing through the air, up ahead of them they could see a massive statue, as high as the Chamber itself, standing against the back wall.
“Salazar Slytherin,” whispered Draco as they got closer and he craned his neck to look up at the giant stone face.
“Ginny!” He looked down. In between the massive gray feet of the statue was a little girl, smaller than Draco ever remembered her being, her flaming red hair laid around her like a halo on the ground.
Draco ran forward after Harry and dropped his wand, falling to his knees beside her with him, staring at the unconscious girl and feeling a horrible twisting in his stomach. But for the first time this year, it wasn’t jealousy. Not even when Harry threw aside his wand and picked her up, turning her over and staring desperately into her cold, still, sleeping face.
All he could feel was guilt for hating her all this time.
“Ginny, please wake up,” Harry muttered, and Draco tensed but couldn’t tear his eyes away from the horrible sight as her head only lolled from side to side, limp and white like a porcelain doll.
“She won’t wake.”
Draco jumped out of his skin and to his feet in surprise, Harry spinning around on his knees.
Leaning against the nearest pillar to them was a tall, handsome, dark haired boy with a pale face, a strange blur around the edges of his figure. He was watching them - no, he was watching Harry - his expression unreadable, and his Slytherin House robes confused Draco.
That is, until Harry spoke, shakily, “Tom - Tom Riddle?”
The boy - Riddle - nodded, and Draco frowned. The boy with the diary? What was he doing here?
“What d’you mean, she won’t wake?” Harry asked desperately. Draco looked around. None of this made sense, but a part of him said certainly if the owner of the diary was here, looking as young as he had when he wrote it, then maybe it was too? “She’s not - she’s not -?”
“She’s still alive,” said Riddle, as Draco’s eyes cast wildly around the chamber. “But only just.”
Then he spotted it; the black book, lying open with its strangely blank pages. But what was it doing here? Ginny -
“Are you a ghost?” Harry asked as Draco looked down at the redheaded girl, thoughts moving fast. She’d seen him write in the diary, hadn’t she? And she was a Gryffindor, she’d be able to get into his dorms…
“A memory,” said Riddle quietly. “Preserved in a diary for fifty years.”
Draco recalled his father’s trip to Gringotts, and the small parcel he’d thought was for his mother.
“Why shouldn’t we go back?”
A memory…
Gnawing on his bottom lip, Draco looked up at Riddle, who was slowly walking forwards, still staring at Harry, who was pleading for help while trying to lift Ginny by himself, then at the diary.
What had Ginny wanted to tell them at breakfast?
He thought of the bookstore, and his father picking up one of Ginny’s textbooks.
“...because it’s certainly not just Arthur Weasley.”
“We smuggle it in, we can even plant it all on the same man.”
Smuggle what in? The diary.
“We’ve got to go!” Draco was broken out of his thoughts by the urgency in Harry’s voice and he looked around. Riddle was standing close to them now, twirling Harry’s wand in his long fingers. “If the basilisk comes -”
“It won’t come until it is called,” said Riddle calmly. Calmly because he could call it because the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago, when Riddle went to school and ‘caught’ Hagrid. Except Hagrid didn’t do it, and his father said he was blamed. He was framed, by the man who caught him, the real culprit because -
“You’re the Heir of Slytherin!” Draco gasped.
Harry spun around to look up at him in awe, and slowly Riddle turned his gaze to him, his expression still unreadable.
“Draco Malfoy,” he said slowly, “Am I correct?”
“Yeah,” Draco nodded, and Riddle scowled down at his robes.
“I must say I expected a Slytherin from Abraxas’s blood, but it doesn’t matter. You won’t be needing this,” with that he bent down and picked up the wand Draco had dropped and he, frozen with shock from the sudden realization of who the Heir was, didn’t even move to stop him.
“Tom,” Harry said slowly, “Why won’t we need our wands? And why didn’t you deny -”
Riddle smiled broadly. “I’ve waited a long time for this, Harry Potter. For the chance to see you. To speak to you.”
“Look,” said Harry, shaking his head as Draco remembered Dobby saying Harry would be in danger this year. He must’ve known Riddle was the Heir that his father was working with, and why he’d want to kill Harry. But Draco needed to know why. “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, pocketing both wands.
“Then let’s talk,” said Draco, his voice shaking, “Tell us about that diary. What’s it got to do with Ginny?”
“That’s an interesting question,” said Riddle, turning his smile on Draco, “And quite a long story. Her diary. My journal. Little Ginny’s been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes - opening her heart and spilling all her secrets to an invisible stranger. I’ve heard it all; how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how” - Riddle’s eyes, dark as the Chamber, glinted, and he turned to smile down at Harry - “how she didn’t think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her…”
That glint in his eyes… there was a certain hunger to his gaze.
“It’s very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven year old girl,” he continued, now staring solely into Harry with that look in his eyes. Harry, who looked nothing short of betrayed to be hearing all this from ‘Tom,’ whom he’d seemed to trust if how often Draco saw him with that book was telling. “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 threw his head back and laughed, a high, cold laugh that made Draco’s insides twist and turn uncomfortably. For a brief moment, while laughing, all of his handsomeness fled from his face.
“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…”
“What d’you mean?” Poor Harry hadn’t connected the dots yet, as betrayed as he was, but Draco scowled at Riddle, already steps ahead.
“You controlled her,” he whispered, and Riddle nodded slowly as he spoke, “You made her open the Chamber of Secrets.” It made sense; if she was caught in the act, and he was sure he fully intended her to be, his father would be scott free. Ginny Weasley would look like the Heir, a perfect little pureblood Heir, and the family would be disgraced, Hogwarts wiped clear of Muggle-borns in the process.
“Of course she did,” Riddle said. “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.
“No,” Harry whispered, and Riddle’s grin got wider.
“Yes,” he said. “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, clearly relishing in the horror on Harry’s features. Draco’s scowl deepened, his fists tight at his sides. “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!”
Draco gritted his teeth together. He was a monster, plain and simple.
“It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary,” Riddle continued. “But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that’s where you two came in. You found it, Harry, 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?” asked Harry, and Draco was pleased to hear how strong he sounded with how angry he was.
“Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry. 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 was innocent!” Draco exclaimed at the same time Harry said, his voice shaking, damn it, “Hagrid’s my friend, and you framed him, didn’t you? We thought you made a mistake, but -”
Riddle laughed again, high and cruel, and a shiver raced down Draco’s spine.
“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 Harry, and the corner of Draco’s mouth curled up.
There’s his Harry.
“Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled. 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.”
And then his dad was given the diary to do just that. But by who? His mother knew someone had given him it, was it Riddle?
Who was Riddle, then? Why had Draco never heard of him before?
“Well, you haven’t finished it,” Harry proclaimed, grinning, though Draco felt like anything but celebrating. Couldn’t he see that Ginny was doomed? “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 interrupted quietly, “that killing Mudbloods doesn’t matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been - you.”
“Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was he who was writing to me,” he pointed one of his long fingers casually at Draco, “not you. Very, and it was worrisome. You already suspected me, Draco, but you said Harry lent it to you. I thought you’d still soon be in my grasp… But then it was opened again, and Ginny Weasley was back. She saw Draco with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if he found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to him? What if, even worse, I told him who’d been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until the Gryffindor dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that clever little Draco was on the trail of Slytherin’s heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, Harry, I knew if he told you anything 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.”
Draco cringed as Harry spat, “Like what?” at Riddle. None of this felt right at all… All… bad. He had a very bad feeling about it all.
“Well,” said Riddle, still unbelievably calm, “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?” Something red gleamed in his dark eyes.
Draco thought of the red gleam under the hood in the Forbidden Forest but - surely -
“Why do you care how I escaped?” Harry asked. “Voldemort was after your time…”
Except he wasn’t, because -
“Voldemort,” said Riddle, quieter than ever, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter…”
He pulled Harry’s wand out from his pocket and raised it, writing three words in the air in shimmering gold letters.
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
Draco watched with his jaw dropped in horror as the letters rearranged themselves with a wave of Harry’s wand:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
Draco gasped, feeling quite weak in the knees, as Riddle turned away to grin evilly at the both of them. He… he couldn’t be… how could… no…
“You see?” Riddle - Voldemort, whispered to them. “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!”
“You’re not,” said Harry after a long moment of the pair of small boys staring, horrified, at the teen version of the monster he’d one day grow up to be. It seemed so impossible… Then again, everything Draco had just realized was enough to throw him off his feet.
“Not what?” Riddle snapped back.
“Not the greatest sorcerer in the world,” said Harry, and Draco turned to look at him, wide eyed but still filled with something like pride to see the boy he fancied showing him just why he fancied him so much; he was so brave, in a foolhardy way he couldn’t help liking. “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 -”
At last, Riddle’s smile dropped, and he didn’t look so handsome anymore.
“Dumbledore’s been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!” he said.
“He’s not as gone as you might think!” Harry yelled back and Draco turned to grin at Riddle triumphantly, then startled.
Music. A song was coming from somewhere, in such a dark and terrible place. A beautiful song, getting louder and louder, filling up Draco’s very soul so that it made his heart swell, and just when it became so loud it seemed to fill him up and be vibrating inside him, flames erupted at the top of the pillar Riddle had leaned against.
A bird appeared, crimson with a golden tail and talon that were gripping a patched up bundle.
“Is that a phoenix?” Draco exclaimed above the music, as it vaulted down towards the boys and dropped the ragged thing on the floor, then landed upon Harry’s shoulder, gazing at Riddle.
“It is a phoenix,” said Riddle, staring at it shrewdly.
“Fawkes?” Harry breathed, and Draco blinked dumbly at the phoenix, confused.
“And that -” Riddle eyed the ragged thing on the floor, “that’s the old school Sorting Hat -”
It was, and Draco felt the cold high laugh run through his veins like ice as Riddle laughed once more, harder than ever. It surrounded him, the hopelessness of their situation. What were they meant to do with a sad old hat?
“This is what Dumbledore sends his defender!” Riddle mocked, “A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?”
Harry stayed quiet. Draco could see a fire blazing in his eyes, and he realized why; they couldn’t stop now. Even with nothing to fight with, they’d still be fighting. Draco took one look at the bird, and felt a rush of courage flood in veins, instead of cold. They were going to fight, because Riddle was bad, but they were good, and good will never stop fighting.
“To business, Harry,” said Riddle, smiling broadly again, “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 the last part with a mocking tone of voice, “the longer you stay alive.”
Harry was clearly doing some serious thinking in his head. Draco bent down to pick up the hat. He didn’t know what could possibly be done with it, but if he searched every crevice…
“No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me,” said Harry rather abruptly. “I don’t know myself. But I know why you couldn’t kill me. Because my mother died to save me.” Draco looked at Harry with a frown - he didn’t know this. “My common Muggle-born mother. She stopped you from 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 grimaced then forced his smile into something ugly.
“So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that’s a powerful counter charm. 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…” Draco raised an eyebrow, and Harry looked confused briefly as well, looking from the white teen to the indian boy. “But after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That’s all I wanted to know.”
Draco looked down at the wand in his hand. Surely that meant then that it was time to die. He was going to kill them. But Riddle was smiling, the twisted thing widening by the second.
“Now, Harry, I’m going to teach you a little lesson. Let’s match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against the famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him…”
He glanced at Fawkes and the Sorting Hat with an amused glint to his eyes, then walked away towards the statue of Slytherin, craning his neck and opening his mouth wide, hissing and spitting in Parseltongue.
Draco couldn’t understand, but he didn’t need to. As the mouth of Slytherin opened wider and wider, making a huge black hole for something to slither out of. He gripped the hat tightly in his fist, scrambling backwards to cower against the chamber wall, Harry sliding across the slime and muck with him. Draco covered his eyes with his hands, and shivered as, with a slap, the basilisk hit the floor.
Riddle hissed something in Parseltongue, and Draco knew he was commanding it to kill. To kill Harry, who sat beside him, un aided by Dumbledore, just as Riddle had said. He was gonna die, alone in this chamber…
With hardly a hesitation, Draco stood on his shaky knees, one hand still clapped over his eyes, the other gripping the Sorting Hat, and stepped in front of Harry.
Riddle’s high cold laughter bounced off the walls, and Harry, whom Draco could hear moving as his feet slapped against the wet ground, shouted, “Run Draco!”
“No!” Draco shouted back, unmoving as he listened to the slither of the basilisk moving towards him across the stone. “I won’t let you die!”
Riddle hissed something else in Parseltongue around his cruel laughter, and Draco, wincing as he braced for a painful impact, felt the Sorting Hat suddenly become heavy in his hand.
Without really knowing what he was doing or what made him do it, Draco stuffed a hand in the hat, his hand finding and gripping something solid and cold. Gathering up all his strength he dropped the hat and pulled the thing inside it out, swinging it around him wildly.
The basilisk gave a hissing scream of pain following the unmistakable sound of something slashing through flesh. Lowering whatever he was holding down, which felt heavy and long, he opened his eyes while staring down at the ground.
He could see the shadow of the thrashing and hissing basilisk falling upon a long, brilliant silver sword, dripping with red blood, with a rubied handle, and he was gripping it in hands. He, Draco Malfoy, was holding a sword.
The hissing continued, and the shadow of the basilisk thrashed more violently, heavy drops of something wet falling on top of Draco, startling him from his reverie.
“Draco!” he heard Harry shout behind him, “look!”
Draco, squinting, slowly raised his gaze to the basilisk.
Massive and poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, it had raised its head high, and Draco saw the wet stuff coming down on him was blood, coming from the cut his sword had slash through his jaw. He was distracted by something flying around him; Fawkes the phoenix, soaring around his head.
He dived as the basilisk snatched at him furiously, and, his beak sinking out of sight, he stabbed at him. Draco and Harry, ducking from the shower of blood they were receiving, saw Fawkes had stabbed the basilisk in its deadly eyes, causing it to spit and thrash in agony.
Riddle certainly wasn’t laughing now, instead screaming something in Parseltongue, hissing and spitting vehemently.
The serpent swayed and Draco turned to Harry, cowering against the wall, defenseless, and, gripping the sword tightly, turned and held out his hand, helping him to his feet.
“You’re a Slytherin, Harry, and you can speak Parseltongue,” he said, speaking fast and dragging him out of the way as the serpent’s tail slashed at them, swinging the sword at it, just grazing the green skin.
“So?” cried Harry, sounding like he’d lost all hope.
“So command it!” Draco yelled and ran forwards, taking a swing at the great serpent.
Its tail thrashed and he couldn’t run this time; he was knocked off his feet, but he heard a hissing that wasn’t the cruel voice of Riddle. It was Harry.
Draco grinned, knowing he’d listened to him, as the snake froze, confused. Riddle screamed out Parseltongue and it became a hissing and spitting match between him and Harry, and soon the basilisk got angry, stretching its mouth wide and snapping its jaws wildly.
Harry ran over, still hissing, And stood beside Draco. He realized he was trying to call it towards him, and readied the sword in his hand, staring at the cut still gushing blood below his jaw.
With one final hiss from Harry the basilisk’s blinded eyes were on them and it stretched its mouth wide right in front of Draco. Lunging forwards, he raised the sword high and skewered it straight through the spot in his jaw.
It reeled back, shaking its head, tail thrashing wildly, then dived forwards again. Draco, used to the sword by now, lunged again and drove it through the roof of the Basilisk's mouth so that it poked out of its head, right between its bloody eyes.
Draco howled in pain along with the basilisk, unable to celebrate his victory, as he felt a pain shoot through his entire body, originating above his elbow.
As he ripped out the sword and watched the king of serpents keel over sideways and fall to the floor, body twitching briefly before lying still, dead, he looked down and saw one of its poisonous fangs had lodged into his arm.
“Draco?” called Harry’s worried voice behind him, and he felt the alarming urge to cry. Slowly, he turned to face him, his emerald eyes instantly flashing to the fang, and gave him a weak smile, before dropping the sword and collapsing on the ground.
Harry ran forwards and caught him halfway, slowly lowering him to lie on the wet ground, and wrenching the fang out. But he knew it was too late, Draco could see it in his eyes as he gasped for breath around the pain of the poison slowly spreading through every vein in his body.
And a few feet away, Ginny still lay dying on the floor. They’d lost, slayed basilisk or not.
“Fawkes,” said Harry as Draco felt something land and brush beside him. He could barely see anything, his vision turning white and blurry. “You were fantastic, Fawkes…”
Draco tried to weakly lift his hand to brush the bird, and Harry grabbed his wrist to guide him. Then he groaned and dropped his hand, leaning his head back. It was all too much…
But not for Riddle.
His footsteps echoed off the walls as he walked towards him, slowly clapping, the mocking sound surrounding them as much as his laughter.
A dark shadow fell over his white hot vision, and Draco did his best to glare at it.
“Well done, clever little Draco, I didn’t know Potter could speak to snakes, but it doesn’t matter. He’s dead, Harry Potter, and once little Ginny joins him, you soon will be too. Even Dumbledore’s bird knows it. Do you see what he’s doing, Potter? He’s crying.”
Sure enough, Draco could numbly feel something wet sliding down his arm, and he turned to a scarlet blur on the edge of his vision to see Fawkes coming slowly in and out of focus, crying onto him.
“I’m going to sit here and watch you die, Draco Malfoy. Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”
Draco’s eyes drooped and Harry gripped him tightly, lifting him halfway off the ground and into his arms.
“Don’t die,” he whispered, “Please don’t die…”
“Harry,” gasped Draco, he could feel himself slipping away. He was going to die here, he knew it. There was nothing to be done anymore. “Harry…”
“Stay with me, Draco, please stay with me…” his voice sounded so far, far away…
He unexpectedly thought of his mother and father, and felt his eyes sting. He’d never get to say goodbye, or thank you, for all they’d done for him. He thought of Hermione, frozen and petrified, and how he’d never see her buck toothed smile again. He thought of Weasley, and how they’d just been getting closer through all of this, and now he’d never get to see him and tell him he’d like to start calling him ‘Ron’, properly.
But mostly he thought of Harry, who was holding him tight to his chest, rocking back and forth slightly, tears falling down on him, not just from Fawkes.
Draco blinked, his closing eyelids fluttering. In fact, he could see Fawkes now, a defined scarlet bird, and Harry too, above him, they were both clear as day. The entire Chamber of Secrets was coming back into focus around him and the pain was trickling away, vanishing.
“Harry?” Harry looked up in surprise, eyes bloodshot, and down at the arm where Draco’s eyes were as well. Somehow, someway, the wound was gone, leaving only drops of fresh tears.
“Get away, bird,” Riddle barked, “Get away from him - I said, get away!”
With a BANG Fawkes took flight and Draco turned to see Riddle had pointed Harry’s wand at him. He lowered it and scowled down at Draco’s arm.
“Phoenix tears…” Riddle breathed, “Of course… healing powers… I forgot…”
He looked over at Harry as Draco pushed himself awkwardly out of his arms and into a sitting position to glare at him, still feeling a good bit sore, but nothing compared to the approach of death.
“But it makes no difference. I’ll kill your friend quick and clean, and then it will be just you and me, Harry Potter… you and me…”
He raised the wand and pointed it at Draco’s head, a smirk spreading across his face, and he tensed, wishing he hadn’t dropped the sword, which lay a foot away, but then, he heard a rush of wings.
Fawkes was soaring back to them, dropping the diary onto Harry’s lap. Draco’s mouth worked of its own accord.
“Stab it!” he gasped, picking up the fang and shoving it into Harry’s hand, “Destroy it.” Harry didn’t need to be told twice.
He gripped the fang in one hand and the book in the other, then, with one swing, speared the book in the middle with the fang. Draco wheeled around as a long and high scream pierced the air.
Ink poured out from the book onto Harry’s hands, robes and the floor, and Riddle was standing before them, writhing and screaming, convulsing in pain and then, with an explosion of light from his chest that shattered his entire very dim and blurred body -
He was gone. Harry and Draco’s wands fell to the floor with a clatter, leaving them in silence.
Draco slowly turned to look at the diary, with a hole sizzling at the center from the basilisk venom, and then up at Harry. They were both shivering but, with the comfort of each other, smiled, standing on wobbling legs that could certainly not be fixed with a simple “unjellify.”
Draco bent down to lift the sword and his wand and eyed it, glimmering in the green gloom, as Harry lifted his wand and the hat. Everything felt so calm and quiet, it was unnatural after so much, especially as he gazed into the dead face of the basilisk.
Did he really do that? Did he really kill the king of serpents?
A moan sounded behind them and they spun around. At the feet of Salazar Slytherin, Ginny Weasley stirred, awake, and the boys ran forwards, sliding to their knees on the muck beside her.
She sat up, and looked bemusedly around her at the Chamber, the dead serpent, Draco and Harry, bloody and exhausted, the sword in Draco’s hand, and the diary in Harry’s hand. When her eyes found that, she gasped and began to cry.
“Harry - oh, Harry - Draco, I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy - it was me - but I - I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to - R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over - and - how did you kill that - that thing? W-where’s Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary -”
“It’s all right,” said Harry and held up the diary to show her the hole and green, poisonous ooze smoking around it. “Riddle’s finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C’mon, Ginny, let’s get out of here -”
She cried harder as the two of them stood on either side and gently raised her to her feet by the arms. “I’m going to be expelled! 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?”
Draco glanced at Harry worriedly, who shook his head. They didn’t know what to say.
Together, the three of them walked over to the Chamber entrance where Fawkes hovered, waiting for them, and stepped over all the coils of the dead basilisk, their footsteps echoing. Not one of them glanced back before exiting back into the tunnel, the serpent doors closing behind them with a soft hiss.
They walked for a few minutes, slapping through the water, then could hear the distant sound of rocks shifting, and Draco remembered Ron, (he’d almost died, and he’d rather not have any of this ‘Weasley’ business after that) and they all sped up.
“Ron!” Harry shouted, “Ginny’s okay! I’ve got her!”
Distantly Ron cheered and, turning one final bend, they saw him staring through a sizable gap he’d managed to make while they were gone.
“Ginny!”
Eagerly, he pulled his sister through first and hugged her, then, awkwardly, Draco climbed through with the sword, followed by Harry with the diary and Sorting Hat.
“You’re alive! I don’t believe it! What happened? How - what - where did that bird come from?”
“He’s Dumbledore’s,” said Harry, smiling at the phoenix.
“Why’s Malfoy got a sword?”
The two of them glanced at each other, then back at Ron, and Ginny beside him, still sobbing.
“We’ll explain later,” said Draco, “Let’s get out of here.”
“But -”
“Later,” said Harry shortly and Ron dropped it.
“Where’s Lockhart?” He asked as they moved back down the tunnel. Draco had completely forgotten the little lying fraud was here too.
“Back there,” said Ron, jerking his head down towards the pipe. “He’s in a bad way. Come and see.”
And he was. At the mouth of the pipe said Gilderpy Lockhart, humming to himself and swaying slightly.
“His memory’s gone,” said Ron. “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.”
Lockhart peered up at them with a dazed smile.
“Hello,” he said, “Odd sort of place, this, isn’t it? Do you live here?”
“No,” said Ron, turning to raise his eyebrows at them. Draco shrugged.
“Serves him right,” he said bluntly, frowning at Lockhart, as Harry bent down to look up the pipe.
“Have you thought how we’re going to get back up this?” he asked Ron who shook his head but Fawkes was already ahead of this. Swooping down to hover in front of Harry he waved his long golden tail, as long as one of the peacocks’ tails at Malfoy Manor.
“He looks like he wants you to grab hold…” Ron looked confused.
“But we’re too heavy,” Draco pointed out, but Harry turned to smile knowingly at him.
“Fawkes isn’t an ordinary bird,” he said and Draco nodded. That was true.
“We’ve got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron’s hand. Professor Lockhart -”
“Am I a Professor?” Lockhart said, pointing at himself. “Oh no, you’re mistaken. You see, I am the Mouse Prince, though I seem to have lost my castle of cheese…”
“Don’t ask,” Ron muttered to Draco who was blinking owlishly at him, bewildered. “He’ll tell you about the ‘wars with the frogs’ for hours.”
“Terrible, terrible,” Lockhart mumbled, shaking his head, as Ron grabbed Ginny’s hand and she, sniffing, took Lockhart’s. Ron then reached out and Draco took his hand, the two of them looking away from each other awkwardly. Stuffing the sword into his belt, Draco turned and took Harry’s hand, and he grabbed the phoenix tail.
Trickling through him and down the chain of people, Draco suddenly felt light, and the next second Fawkes had set off up the pipe and took them all with him. They soared up and up and up the slimy pipe, and distantly Draco could hear Lockhart yelling below them.
“Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!”
Draco was just starting to like the feeling of this strange ride when it was over. All five of them hit the floor of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, and the sink that hid the pipe slid back into the place, the Chamber of Secrets closed for hopefully the last time.
“You’re alive,” Draco turned to see Myrtle was staring wide eyed at Harry.
“There’s no need to sound so disappointed,” Harry said grimly, taking off his glasses to wipe them of blood and slime. Draco turned to look at his reflection in the mirror above the sink to see that they weren’t a pretty sight at all. His perfect hair didn’t look so blonde anymore with sticky blood and slime stuck in places, and his robes were soaked, especially on his arm where the fang pierced him. The scratch on his cheek, which had just started to heel, now looked quite infected.
“Oh, well…” Myrtle said behind him, and he turned back around. “I’d just been thinking… if you had died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet.” Draco scrunched his nose up in disgust and was pleased to see Harry looked very alarmed as well.
“Urgh!” Ron scoffed as they left the bathroom and exited into the deserted corridor outside. Draco checked his watch and winced seeing it was nearing midnight. “Harry! I think Myrtle’s grown fond of you! You’ve got competition, Ginny!”
Draco didn’t even mind, the jealous dragon sleeping soundly as it watched Ginny’s pain and anguish through the tears running down her face. Ron walked closer beside her.
“Where now?” he asked.
Harry pointed to show they were following Fawkes and, moments later, he stopped to hover before the door to McGonagall’s office.
Glancing one final time among each other, the three boys nodded and Harry stepped forward, knocking and pushing open the door.