HP & The Chamber of Secrets

Harry

They sprinted along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet.

"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw them. "What do you want this time?"

"To ask you how you died," Charles said.

Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.

"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then -" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

"How?" Ron asked.

"No idea," said Myrtle in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away..." She looked dreamily at Charles. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."

"Where exactly did you see the eyes?" Harry asked. 

"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.

Harry, Charles, and Ron hurried over to it. It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Harry saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.

"That tap's never worked," said Myrtle brightly as he tried to turn it.

"Harry," Ron said. "Say something. Something in Parseltongue."

"But -" Harry thought hard. The only time he'd managed to speak Parseltongue was when he'd been faced with a real snake. He stared hard at the tiny engraving, trying to imagine it was real.

"Open up," he said.

He looked at Charles, who shook his head. "English."

Harry looked back at the snake, willing himself to believe it was alive. If he moved his head, the candlelight made it look as though it were moving...

"Open up." 

Except that the words weren't what he heard; a strange hissing had escaped him, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. The next second, the sink began to move. It sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.

Harry heard Charles and Ron gasp and looked up again. He had made up his mind what he was going to do.

"I'm going down there," he said. 

He couldn't not go, not now they had found the entrance to the Chamber, not if there was even the faintest, slimmest, wildest chance that Nott might be alive.

"Me too," Charles said, and Ron nodded in agreement.

Harry shook his head. "No way. You're second years; you won't be any help. You'll be a liability."

Charles scowled fiercely. "I'm not leaving you alone!"

Harry was very frustrated now. "I'll stun you and leave you in here," he warned them.

Charles scoffed through a kind of bravado Harry knew was fake. "You wouldn't. I'm your brother and you'd feel guilty."

Alright, that was true enough. Harry sighed. "Fine. But Ron has to go back; I can't take responsibility for him and I'd rather not face the Weasleys if he's injured or worse."

Ron opened his mouth to argue but Harry cut him off, "Or I'll take neither. You decide."

Charles put a hand on Ron's arm. "Mate, go back and write a letter to Dumbledore. You can use Hedwig. Then go to McGonagall. Take the cloak, too."

"The cloak?" Harry asked, turning a bit angry. "Why would you have my cloak, Charles?"

"You have no right to talk; you stole from me, too."

"To protect you!" Harry half-shouted. "Just... let's go. We'll talk about this later."

As Ron left, Harry took a deep breath. After a last look at Charles, he lowered himself slowly into the pipe, then let go.

It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. He could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and he knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. Behind him, he could hear Charles, thudding slightly at the curves.

And then, just as he had begun to worry about what would happen when he hit the ground, the pipe leveled out, and he shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in. He stood aside as Charles came whizzing out of the pipe, covered in slime and white as a ghost. Harry figured he wasn't any better off.

"We must be miles under the school," Charles mused, his voice echoing in the black tunnel. "Under the lake, probably," 

Both turned to stare into the darkness ahead and lit their wands in unison. Off they went, their footsteps slapping loudly on the wet floor. The tunnel was so dark that they could only see a little distance ahead. Their shadows on the wet walls looked monstrous in the wandlight.

"Remember," Harry said quietly as they walked cautiously forward, "any sign of movement, close your eyes right away."

But the tunnel was quiet as the grave, and the first unexpected sound they heard was a loud crunch as Charles stepped on what turned out to be a rat's skull. Harry lowered his wand to look at the floor and saw that it was littered with small animal bones. Trying very hard not to imagine what Nott might look like if they found him, Harry led the way forward, around a dark bend in the tunnel.

"Harry - there's something up there -" Charles said hoarsely, grabbing Harry's shoulder.

They froze, watching. Harry could just see the outline of something huge and curved, lying right across the tunnel. It wasn't moving.

"Maybe it's asleep," he breathed, glancing back at Charles. Then he turned back to look at the thing, his heart beating so fast it hurt. Very slowly, his eyes as narrow as he could make them and still see, Harry edged forward, his wand held high.

The light slid over a gigantic snake skin, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feet long at least.

"Blimey."

Harry shook his head and breathed deeply. "Can't go back now." And so they set off alone past the giant snake skin.

The tunnel turned and turned again. Every nerve in Harry's body was tingling unpleasantly. He wanted the tunnel to end, yet dreaded what he'd find when it did. And then, at last, as he crept around yet another bend, he saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

Harry and Charles approached it, throats very dry. There was no need to pretend these stone snakes were real; their eyes looked strangely alive. He could guess what he had to do. He cleared his throat, and the emerald eyes seemed to flicker.

"Open."

The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry, shaking from head to foot, walked inside, with Charles just behind him.

They were standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.

Harry moved forward between the serpentine columns, wand in hand. Charles mimicked him. Every careful footstep of theirs echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following them. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, he thought he saw one stir.

Then, as they drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.

Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with wiry brown hair.

Charles

Charles sprinted to Nott and dropped to his knees. "C'mon - don't be dead - please don't be dead -" He flung his wand aside, grabbed Nott's shoulders, and turned him over. His face was white as marble and as cold, yet his eyes were closed, so he wasn't Petrified. But then he must be...

"Man, please wake up," Charles muttered desperately, shaking him. Nott's head lolled hopelessly from side to side. Charles was starting to freak; while he didn't really know the boy, Nott was a friend of Lyra's. 

"He won't wake," said a soft voice.

Charles jumped and Harry, standing beside him, spun around on his heels.

A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Charles were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.

"Tom - Tom Riddle?"

Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Charles' face. From the corner of his eye, Charles could see Harry look at him quite sharply.

"What d'you mean, he won't wake?" Charles asked desperately. "He's not - he's not -?"

"He's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."

Charles stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen.

"Are you a ghost?" Charles said uncertainly.

"A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."

He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary Charles had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, Charles wondered how it had got there - but there were more pressing matters to deal with.

"You've got to help me, Tom," Charles said, raising Nott's head again. "We've got to get him out of here. There's a basilisk ... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment .... Please, help me."

"Of course, he won't." Harry snapped. "He's the one benefiting from it all, isn't he?"

Riddle didn't move. Charles stared at them in confusion. Harry had said that the diary was cursed... that it was possessing Nott... but then...

Pieces started slowly assembling in his mind. A slow smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth as he watched them.

"The basilisk won't come until it is called," Riddle told him calmly. "I've waited a long time for this, you see. For the chance to see you. To speak to you."

"How did Nott get like this?" Charles asked slowly.

"Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Theo Nott's like this is because he opened his heart and spilled all his secrets to an invisible stranger."

"What are you talking about?" Charles asked, dreading the expected answer.

"The diary," said Riddle. "My diary. Little Theo's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all his pitiful worries and woes - how he misses his mother - how his father is such a strict and brutal man - how he hates Lyra Black for stealing his best friend. How he's alone."

There was an almost hungry look in Riddle's eyes now.

"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of a twelve-year-old boy," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Theo 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 when I don't have any human ones..." 

Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Charles' neck.

"If I say it myself, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Theo poured out his soul to me, and his 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 Mr. Nott himself. Powerful enough to start feeding Theo a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into him..."

"What d'you mean?" Charles asked, whose mouth had gone very dry.

"Haven't you guessed yet, Charles Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Ask your brother here. I dare say he's much quicker on the uptake."

Harry was staring at Riddle in disgust and fascination. "Nott opened the Chamber of Secrets. He strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. He set the Serpent of Slytherin on three Muggleborns, a Pure-blood, and Mrs. Norris."

"Yes," Riddle smiled. "Wonderful, Harry. And I dare say that I know you've known the secret of the diary for a while now. Since when Charles got it, in fact. You're quite astute, I have to admit. Theo didn't know what he was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen his newer diary entries... far more interesting, they became... 'Dear Tom,'" he recited, watching Charles' horrified and Harry's furious faces, '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, l 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, Blaise keeps telling me I'm pale and that 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!'"

Charles' fists were clenched by now, the nails digging deep into his palms.

"It took a very long time for stupid little Nott to stop trusting his diary," Riddle stated. "But he finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you came in, Charles. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you, one of the very people I was most anxious to meet..."

"And why did you want to meet me?" Charles snarled. Anger was coursing through him, and it was an effort to keep his voice steady.

"Well, you see, Theo told me all about the famous Potters," said Riddle. "Your whole fascinating history." His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Charles' forehead, and their expression grew hungrier. "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," Charles said, his voice now shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but -"

Riddle laughed his high laugh again.

"It was my word against Hagrid's, Charles. 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 at 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!"

Tom's eyes flickered. "Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as a gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed .... he never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did..."

"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," Charles gritted his teeth.

"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," Riddle admitted carelessly. "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 said. "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. What I don't understand is why you petrified Lyra Black, a pureblood of very high status?"

"She just got in the way." Riddle shrugged. "It was accidental; she shouldn't have been roaming around. And haven't I already told you that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been - you two."

Harry and Charles stared at him. "Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Theo who was writing to me, not you. He saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. 'What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all his secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters? Then the foolish little brat accidentally spotted Harry Potter and Josephine Yarrow, a fellow Slytherin, with the diary at the Quidditch pitch, and followed the girl, who had the diary. He waited until her dormitory was deserted before paying Calypso Rosier to get it for him. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you, Harry Potter, were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Theo had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery. And Theo had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue..."

Riddle paused. "So I made Theo write his own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. He struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in him... He put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last... I have been waiting for you - either or both - to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you both."

"Like what?" Charles spat, fists still clenched.

"Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "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? And how is his brother, Harry Potter, the daring and more talented one but yet the less famed in the outside world, always attached to some sort of mystery?"

There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.

"Why do you care how I escaped?" Charles asked slowly. "Voldemort was after your time..."

"Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Charles Potter . . . ."

He pulled Theo'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, Charles - 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!"

Charles' brain seemed to have jammed. He stared numbly at Riddle, at the orphaned boy who had grown up to murder so many people...

"Of course," Riddle grinned. "Your brother already knew all this."

Charles whirled around to face Harry, betrayal on his face. Harry didn't even look at him as he kept his attention solely on Riddle. "Yeah, I did. That is how I knew the diary was cursed, actually. The name, I recognized it."

"How long-?" Charles said.

"Years." Harry shrugged. "Overheard a conversation between our parents, Sirius, and Remus."

Charles frowned. Then, he also looked at Riddle. "You're not," he said, his quiet voice full of hatred.

"Not what?" snapped Riddle.

"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world. Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. 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 -"

The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.

"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" he hissed.

"He's not as gone as you might think!" Charles retorted. He was speaking at random, wanting to scare Riddle, wishing rather than believing it to be true. Riddle opened his mouth but then froze.

Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle whirled around to stare down the empty Chamber. The music was growing louder. It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Charles' scalp and made his heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size. Then, as the music reached such a pitch that Charles felt it vibrating inside his ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar.

A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle.

A second later, the bird was flying straight at Charles and Harry. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying at his feet, then landed heavily on Harry's shoulder. As it folded its great wings, Charles looked up at it and saw it had a long, sharp golden beak and a beady black eye.

The bird stopped singing. It sat still, gazing steadily at Riddle.

"That's a phoenix," said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it.

"Fawkes?" Harry and Charles breathed simultaneously.

"And that -" said Riddle, now eyeing the ragged thing that Fawkes had dropped, "that's the old school Sorting Hat -"

So it was. Patched, frayed, and dirty, the hat lay motionless at Charles' feet.

Riddle began to laugh again. He laughed so hard that the dark chamber rang with it, as though ten Riddles were laughing at once. "This is what Dumbledore sends his defenders! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Potters? Do you feel safe now?"

Neither of them answered. They might not see what use Fawkes or the Sorting Hat were, but they were no longer alone, and Charles waited for Riddle to stop laughing with his courage mounting.

"To business, Harry, Charles," Riddle smiled broadly. "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 softly, "the longer you stay alive."

Harry

Harry was thinking fast, weighing his chances. Riddle had a wand, and was more than proficient. While Harry wasn't a weak duelist himself and could hold his own, this was teenage Voldemort they were talking about, and he wasn't going to make the mistake of underestimating him. He had Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, neither of which would be much to his advantage. And Charles... his little brother was more of a liability than an asset, being too young. Harry doubted he could do much more than use Expelliarmus. It looked bad, all right... the odds weren't at all in Harry's favor. And the longer Riddle stood there, the more life was dwindling out of Nott... and in the meantime, Harry noticed suddenly, that Riddle's outline was becoming clearer, more solid... If it had to be a fight between him and Riddle, better sooner than later.

"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," Charles said abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because my aunt Melanie died to save me. My blood-traitor aunt," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "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 -"

Harry stared at his brother, wondering how someone could be so foolishly brave. He shouldn't be antagonizing Riddle! However, Harry had to admit to himself that it gave him a small pleasure seeing Riddle's face contort. Then he forced it into an awful smile. "So. Your aunt 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..."

Then he turned to Harry. "You are the real gem, I think, Harry. The star of your peers and family. Your brother's survival was a fluke, and he is useless. You, however, Harry, are very talented, from what Theo told me. And, you see, there are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both are half-bloods. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. You are extremely skilled and clever beyond your years, too... We even look something alike. Join me, Harry."

Harry stood, tense, not responding at all. The disappointment was clear on Riddle's face. But then his twisted smile was widening again.

"As expected, you defy me. 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 Potters, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him..."

He cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away. Harry, fear spreading up his numb legs, watched Ridthe stop between the high pillars and look up into the stone face of Slytherin, high above him in the half-darkness. Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed - but Harry understood what he was saying...

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."

Harry wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes swaying on his shoulder.

Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, Harry saw his mouth opening, 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.

Harry backed away until he hit the dark Chamber wall, and as he shut his eyes tight he felt Fawkes' wing sweep his cheek as he took flight. Harry shouted, "Close your eyes, Charles!" 

Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. Harry felt it shudder - he knew what was happening, he could sense it, could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth. Then he heard Riddle's hissing voice: "Kill them!"

The basilisk was moving toward Harry and Charles; he could hear its heavy body slithering heavily across the dusty floor. Harry cautiously peeled his open, looking down. And then he made sure to carefully look over where he had last seen Charles. His heartbeat increased as he saw Charles running blindly sideways, eyes still tightly shut, his hands outstretched, feeling his way - Riddle was laughing.

Charles tripped. He fell hard onto the stone and Harry was foolishly about to run towards him as he the serpent was barely feet from Charles, his back turned to Harry. 

There was a loud, explosive spitting sound right above them, and then the basilisk's tail hit Harry so hard that he was smashed into the wall. Waiting for fangs to sink through his body he heard more mad hissing, something thrashing wildly off the pillars.

He opened his eyes wide enough to squint at what was going on, knowing it wasn't safe to open them completely as he didn't know what direction the basilisk was facing.

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. As Harry got ready to close his eyes if it turned, 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 sabers the phoenix dived. His long golden beak sank out of sight and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor. The snake's tail thrashed, narrowly missing Harry, and before Harry could shut his eyes, it turned - Harry looked straight into its face and saw that its eyes, both its great, bulbous yellow eyes, had been punctured by the phoenix; blood was streaming to the floor, and the snake was spitting in agony.

"NO!" Harry heard Riddle screaming. "LEAVE THE BIRD! LEAVE THE BIRD! YOU CAN STILL SMELL THE BOYS. KILL HIM!"

The blinded serpent swayed, confused, still deadly. Fawkes was circling its head, piping his eerie song, jabbing here and there at its scaly nose as the blood poured from its ruined eyes. The snake's tail whipped across the floor again. Harry ducked. Something soft hit his face.

The basilisk had swept the Sorting Hat into Harry's arms. He seized it. It was his only chance - he rammed it onto his head and threw himself flat onto the floor as the basilisk's tail swung over him again.

Suddenly, the hat contracted, as though an invisible hand was squeezing it very tightly.

Something very hard and heavy thudded onto the top of Harry's head, almost knocking him out. Stars winking in front of his eyes, he grabbed the top of the hat to pull it off and felt something long and hard beneath it.

A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the hat, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs.

"KILL THE BOYS! LEAVE THE BIRD! BEHIND YOU. SMELL HIM."

Harry was on his feet, ready. The basilisk's head was falling, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face him. He could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous -

It lunged blindly - Harry dodged and it hit the Chamber wall. It lunged again, and its forked tongue lashed Harry's side. He raised the sword in his right hand -

The basilisk lunged again, and this time its aim was true - Harry threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth -

But as warm blood drenched Harry's arm, he felt 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.

Harry slid down the wall. He gripped the fang that was spreading poison through his body and wrenched it out of his arm. But he knew it was too late. 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 dull color.

"NO!" he heard Charles' anguished scream as his little brother knelt by his side.

Charles

Charles was absolutely frantic. The scene, as it unfolded, was one of fairytales. Harry, a warrior, slaying a mighty serpent... But all the awe melted away as he watched his brother collapse, a fang protruding out of his arm.

Charles ran to Harry's side as he wrenched the fang out and wasn't ashamed to say that he cried. "Hold on, hold on, Harry..."

But he couldn't see how Harry could survive. His eyes were closing already, his breathing becoming more difficult. The poison was spreading through him, and Charles could see the life leaving him slowly...

Suddenly Fawkes was there, sitting on Harry and laying its beautiful head on the spot where the serpent's fang had pierced him.

Charles heard echoing footsteps and then a dark shadow moved in front of him. Charles looked up, his gaze burning with loathing. 

"You're dead, Harry Potter," Riddle said. "Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing, Potter? He's crying."

Charles blinked and looked back at Harry. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down Fawkes' glossy feathers.

"I'm going to sit here and watch you die, Harry Potter. Take your time. I'm in no hurry."

But then, Harry gave his head a little shake and raised his head. A pearly patch of tears was shining all around the wound... except that there was no wound.

"Get away, bird," Riddle suddenly said. "Get away from him - I said, get away -"

Riddle pointed Theo's wand at Fawkes; there was a bang like a gun, and Fawkes took flight again in a whirl of gold and scarlet.

"Phoenix tears," said Riddle quietly, staring at Harry's arm. "Of course... healing powers... I forgot..."

Relief like he'd never known coursed through Charles as he helped Harry sit up a little. Harry, however, stopped him and weakly muttered, "The diary, Charles-" He shakily pointed at it and then the fang near his elbow. Understanding his brother's wish - though not knowing why - Charles complied quickly, trusting Harry completely. 

On mark, Fawkes flew and dropped the diary in Charles' lap. Without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Charles seized the basilisk fang on the floor and plunged it straight into the heart of the book.

There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Charles' hands, and flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing... and then he was gone. Theo's wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Silence except for the steady drip drip of ink still oozing from the diary. The basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it.

Shaking all over, Charles pulled himself up. His head was spinning as though he'd just traveled miles by Floo powder. Slowly, he gathered together Theo's wand and the Sorting Hat, and, with a huge tug, retrieved the glittering sword from the roof of the basilisk's mouth.

Then came a faint moan from the end of the Chamber. Theo was stirring. As Charles hurried toward him, he sat up. His bemused eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead basilisk, over Harry, in his blood-soaked robes, and to Charles, and then to the sword and diary in his hand. He drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down his face.

"Oh my - Merlin, I - I tried to tell Blaise so many times, but I just c-couldn't - and he was always with someone else - 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," Charles said, handing Theo his wand and then holding up the diary, showing him the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. The basilisk, too. C'mon, mate, let's get out of here -"

"I'm going to be expelled!" Theo fretted and wept as Charles helped him awkwardly to his feet. "W-what'll Dad say?"

Charles supported Harry all the way back, and Theo held the ruined diary and the hat. Strangely, the sword burned Theo, and so Charles had to carry it. Harry was exhausted, and Charles was worried for his brother, though their first priority was getting out.

It was easy enough. The three of them were flown out by Fawkes, who seemed to just love Harry and he liked Charles too. He clearly didn't like Theo, but that was the least of their problems. They exited the bathroom and hurried over to McGonagall's office, with Fawkes glowing in the lead. 

Charles hesitated before knocking on the door.