The Heir of Slytherin
Harry wasn’t sure whether or not to be grateful that Ron’s wand had backfired the way it did. Though he was now alone, standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit corridor, he wouldn’t have to worry about Lockhart in this coming fight, as not only had Ron’s wand blasted Lockhart with a Memory Charm so powerful that the professor was blasted backward, but it also caused a part of the ceiling to collapse, separating him from the others. Still, his heart thundered as he looked around. 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 space. Harry stood listening to the chill silence. Could the Basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Ginny?
He pulled out his wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. He kept his eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following him. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, he thought he saw one stir.
Then, as he 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 flaming-red hair.
“Ginny!” Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. “Ginny—don’t be dead—please don’t be dead—” He flung his wand aside, grabbing Ginny’s shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn’t Petrified. But then she must be…
“Ginny, please wake up,” Harry said desperately, shaking her. Ginny’s head lolled hopelessly from side to side.
“She won’t wake,” said a soft voice.
Harry jumped and spun around on his knees.
A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him—this was who Harry had seen in the diary.
“Tom—Tom Riddle?”
Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry’s face.
“What d’you mean, she won’t wake?” Harry said. “She’s not—she’s not—?”
“She’s still alive,” said Riddle. “But only just.”
Harry stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining around him, not a day older than sixteen.
“Are you a ghost?” Harry said uncertainly.
“A memory,” Riddle replied 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 Harry had found in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. For a second, Harry wondered how it got there—but there were more pressing matters to deal with.
Riddle was staring thoughtfully at the diary. “It was supposed to be empty when I finally left,” Riddle said, and Harry stared at him. “But there’s something else in there… It’s all coming together, I think—unfolding for us to finish this game.”
Harry shook off his confusion. “You’ve got to help me, Tom,” he said, raising Ginny’s head again. “We’ve got to get her out of here. There’s a Basilisk… I don’t know where it is, but it could be along any moment… Please, help me.”
Riddle didn’t move. Harry, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and bent down to pick up his wand again.
But it was gone.
“Did you see—?”
He looked up. Riddle was watching him, now—and twirling Harry’s wand between his long fingers.
“Thanks,” said Harry, stretching his hand out for it.
A smile curved the corners of Riddle’s mouth. He continued to stare at Harry, twirling the wand idly.
“Listen,” said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny’s dead weight. “We’ve got to go! If the Basilisk comes—”
“It won’t come until it is called.”
Riddle spoke calmly, and Harry lowered Ginny back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer.
“What d’you mean?” he said. “Look, give me my wand, I might need it—”
Riddle’s smile broadened. “You won’t be needing it,” he said.
Harry stared at him.
“What d’you mean, I won’t be—?”
“I’ve waited a long time for this, Harry Potter,” said Riddle. “For the chance to see you. To speak to you.”
“Look,” said Harry, losing patience, “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, still smiling broadly. He pocketed Harry’s wand.
Harry stared at him. There was something funny going on here… and what did Riddle mean by “finish this game”?
“How did Ginny get like this?” he asked slowly.
“Well, that’s an interesting question,” said Riddle pleasantly. “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.”
“What are you talking about?” said Harry incredulously.
“The diary,” said Riddle. “My diary. 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—” Riddle’s eyes glinted “—how she didn’t think the famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her…”
All the time he spoke, Riddle’s eyes never left Harry’s face. There was an almost hungry look in them.
“It’s very boring, having to listen to the silly troubles of an eleven-year-old girl,” he went on. “But we were patient, my companion and I. I even wrote back. I was sympathetic; I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. She didn’t know about my friend—how could she? He never wrote to her—but what she said to 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 laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn’t suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harry’s neck.
“If I say so 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. My companion grew stronger, too, but I became 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?” asked Harry, whose mouth had gone very dry.
“Haven’t you guessed yet, Harry Potter?” said Riddle 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.”
“No,” Harry whispered.
“Yes,” Riddle said calmly. “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, watching Harry’s horrified face, “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’s fists were clenched, the nails digging deep into his palms. He should have waited for his friends, shouldn’t have rushed in to the Chamber of Secrets with Ron and Lockhart.
“It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary,” said Riddle. “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?” said Harry. Anger and adrenaline were coursing through him, and it was an effort to keep his voice steady.
“Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry,” said Riddle. “Your whole fascinating history.” His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead, and Riddle’s 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,” said Harry lowly, 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, 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,” Harry said through his gritted teeth.
“Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled,” said Riddle carelessly. “I knew it wouldn’t be safe to open the Chamber of Secrets 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 Slytehrin’s noble work.”
“Well, you haven’t finished it,” said Harry 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,” said Riddle quietly, “that killing Mudbloods doesn’t matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been—you.”
Harry stared at him.
“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 and my friend. Enough to let us leave its pages at last. My friend hasn’t yet, but me… 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.”
“Like what?” Harry 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?”
There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.
“Why do you care how I escaped?” Harry said slowly. “Voldemort was after your time—”
“Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter.”
He pulled Harry’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, even as Harry stared at the letters in shock. “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!”
Harry’s brain seemed to have jammed. He stared numbly at Riddle, at the orphaned boy who had grown up to murder Harry’s own parents, and so many others.
At last, he forced himself to speak.
“You’re not,” he said, his quiet voice full of hatred.
“Not what?” snapped Riddle.
“Not the greatest sorcerer in the world,” said Harry. His breath came out in quick, short pants. “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 Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you’re hiding these days—”
The smile that had once been on Riddle’s face was now replaced by a very ugly, very hateful 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!” Harry retorted. He was speaking at random, wanting to scare Riddle, wishing rather than believing it to be true.
Riddle opened his mouth, but froze.
Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle whirled around to stare at the empty Chamber. The music grew louder. It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair and Harry’s 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 Harry felt it vibrating inside his own 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 Harry. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying at his feet, then soared back up toward the ceiling—but somehow, Harry knew it was not abandoning him.
“That was a phoenix,” said Riddle, staring shrewdly at where the bird had gone.
“Fawkes?” Harry breathed.
“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 Harry’s 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 defender! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe, now that all you have is an old hat and a cowardly bird?”
“He’s got us!” came a voice from somewhere, and Harry’s gaze shot up to where Fawkes was soaring back into the Chamber. His eyes widened—for at the bird’s talons, dropping to the Chamber floor and glaring daggers at Riddle, were Raph, Leo, Donnie, and Mikey.
Raph and Donnie shoved Harry behind them as Leo unsheathed his katanas and Mikey drew his nunchucks. Fawkes landed on Harry’s shoulder, the bird’s talons digging lightly into Harry’s skin.
Riddle’s eyes narrowed, taking in the four of them, and something like ire flashed in his eyes as he said, “This changes nothing.”
Leo snarled, the sound surprisingly ruthless for someone so calm. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said softly, his voice promising death. “You’re going to give Harry back his wand, and then we’re all going to go to Dumbledore’s office, where you’ll be destroyed.”
Riddle laughed. “Just a moment,” he said. A dismissal, Harry realized. Leo and his brothers realized it too, for they all stiffened a fraction before sinking back down into their defensive positions. Riddle only turned to Harry. “All I want to know is this: Twice now—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.”
“Don’t tell him anything,” Raph said.
But Harry’s mind was racing as he weighed his chances. The longer they stayed here, the more life would dwindle from Ginny, and then it might be too late by the time the fight was over. Best to get it done sooner rather than later.
“No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me,” said Harry abruptly. Donnie glanced over his shoulder at him, his eyes wide. But Harry continued, shaking with suppressed rage, “I don’t know myself. But I know why you couldn’t kill me. Because my mother died to save me. 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—”
“Get him, dude,” Mikey said viciously.
But Riddle’s face contorted. Then he forced it into an awful smile. “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 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… but after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That’s all I wanted to know.”
Harry stood, tense, waiting for Riddle to raise his wand. In front of him, the Hamatos readied their wands, their weapons, on-edge and ready to pounce at the slightest hint of danger.
“Now, Harry,” Riddle said, still ignoring the Hamatos, “I’m going to teach you a little lesson. Let’s match the power of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against the famous Harry Potter, and the closest thing he can call protection.”
He sneered at Leo and his brothers, but they only growled in return. There was nothing human in their expressions, Harry realized. Riddle smirked at them, then cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat before walking away. Harry didn’t take his eyes off Riddle as he stopped between the high pillars and looked 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.”
Leo’s gaze shot to his, and Harry relayed what Riddle was saying in a murmur, almost shaking with fear. He 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.
“Go,” Raph said. “Now.”
Harry didn’t need to be told twice. He backed away until he hit the dark Chamber wall, and as he shut his eyes tight he felt Fawkes’ wing sweep his cheek as the bird took flight.
Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber, and Harry hoped his friends had their eyes shut as tight as he did. Harry felt the thing shudder—he knew what was happening, he could sense it, could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin’s mouth. Harry fumbled at the ground around him, picking up the only thing he could reach—the Sorting Hat. Harry shoved it onto his head as his heart thundered in his chest.
And then something very hard and very heavy thudded onto the top of his skull, almost knocking him out. Stars winking in front of his eyes, Harry 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.
Harry had just grabbed the hilt of the sword when he heard Riddle’s hissing voice:
“Kill them all.”
Raph and his brothers had sunk into the shadows of the chamber, keeping track of the serpent from the four different walls but not looking directly at its head. Harry was still pressed against the chamber wall, his eyes shut.
Raph caught Leo’s gaze.
What’s our plan, Fearless? he signed from across the chamber.
Distraction, Leo signed back. Stealth.
Raph nodded, and he glanced over at Mikey to see him and Donnie nodding as well.
And then he was gone, lost to the shadows as the snake uncoiled itself from the chamber floor.
Riddle’s hiss filled the room, and though Raph couldn’t tell what it was, he knew it wasn’t good. Keeping his gaze fixed solely on the snake’s tail, he watched as it made its way across the chamber—directly to where Harry was standing.
Donnie leapt out of the shadows, digging his bo staff’s blade into the serpent’s tail before rushing away. The serpent reared its head around, hissing in pain, but Leo was already moving, drawing his katanas and slashing once, twice, in accurate precision at the thing’s back.
Before it could turn again, though, Raph and Mikey rushed forward. Mikey was wielding his nunchucks, using the blades to distract the snake. Raph sheathed his sais, palming some shurikens.
A loud screech filled the air, and Fawkes dove from the ceiling, aiming right at one of the snake’s eyes.
“Stole my idea right out of my head,” Raph muttered. He didn’t dare look at the snake’s head, but chucked his shurikens in the general direction of its other eye.
The snake’s tail thrashed as they found their target, and Fawkes soared away from the Basilisk as it turned—right toward Harry.
But blood was streaming to the floor from its great, bulbous yellow eyes, and the snake was spitting in agony.
“NO!” Riddle screamed. “LEAVE THE BIRD! KILL THE BOYS! YOU CAN STILL SMELL THEM—KILL THEM!”
The blinded serpent swayed, confused, still deadly.
“Now!” Leo bellowed, and the four of them made to attack once again, made to finish the snake and be done with it.
But then a laughter filled the chamber—a deep, sinister chuckle that had the four of them stopping dead in their tracks.
“Finally.”
The journal shifted, then.
The binding twitched.
And a monster, far worse than any snake or ghost, clawed its way out from between the pages.
Harry watched, wide-eyed, as a man emerged from the diary. Like Riddle, he was blurred around the edges, but there was something different about him—as though he was more than a memory, but not quite a ghost.
He was adorned in some kind of armor, Harry realized—armor that came with blades, sharp and deadly and ready to kill. Hatred was written on every line of his face, was evident in every inch of his scowl, was clear in every gleam of his eye as he took in the chamber around him.
So this was Riddle’s friend.
The man’s eyes landed on Mikey, and Harry could have sworn that they dipped down to the scar on his friend’s neck for a fraction of a second before he grinned. His eyes then shifted to Donnie—Donnie, who was gripping his staff in one hand and his wand in another as he beheld the man. Those hateful eyes went to Raph, and there was nothing human in the snarl that came out of Harry’s friend as the man finally turned on Leo.
The Slytherin was pale.
“You,” he breathed.
The man chuckled again, and Harry shuddered at the sound.
“Me.”
There was a tense moment of silence, and then—
“KILL POTTER!” Riddle roared.
The Basilisk shook his head, and more blood poured onto the chamber. Behind the snake, the man lunged at Leo and his brothers.
That was the last Harry saw of his friends before the snake struck.
But Harry was ready. He dodged out of the way, and as the snake reared back, he could see the vast, bloody eyes sockets, and the mouth—lined with fangs as long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous—opening wide enough to swallow Harry whole.
The Basilisk lunged blindly. Harry dodged, and it hit the Chamber wall. A second later it lunged again, and its forked tongue lashed Harry’s side. He raised the sword in both hands—
The snake 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 arms, 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, hardly registering his friends still fighting. 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 soak his robes, his vision went foggy. The Chamber was dissolving into a whirl of dull color.
A patch of scarlet swam past, and Harry heard a soft clatter of claws beside him.
“Fawkes,” said Harry thickly. “You were fantastic, Fawkes…”
He felt the bird lay its beautiful head on the spot where the serpent’s fang had pierced him.
He could hear echoing footsteps, and then a dark shadow moved in front of him.
“You’re dead, Harry Potter,” said Riddle’s voice above him. “Dead, just like your friends will soon be. Even Dumbledore’s bird knows it. Do you see what it’s doing, Potter? He’s crying.”
Harry blinked. Fawkes’ head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the glossy feathers.
“I’m going to sit here and watch you die, Harry Potter. Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”
Harry felt drowsy. Everything around him seemed to be spinning.
“So ends the famous Harry Potter,” said Riddle’s distant voice. “Defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged. Even your own warrior friends can’t help you now. 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.”
If this is dying, thought Harry, it’s not so bad.
Shredder.
Shredder was back.
Somehow, some way, the monster who had destroyed their lives was back, and he didn’t seem to have changed.
He lunged at Leo, but Leo was ready. Side-stepping his deadly blades—could this memory, this ghost of him really even fight?—Leo blindly swung his sword. Shredder deflected it easily, laughing once again.
“You’ve grown weak,” he said. “While I have only grown stronger.”
Shredder struck, but before he found his mark, Leo’s brothers were there, tackling him to the side. Shredder managed to throw Donnie away, and he hit the wall with a hard thud. But Mikey and Raph held firm, even as their instincts screamed at them to help him, and they wrenched the Shredder away from Leo long enough for Leo to recover.
Leo’s katanas rang as they came down on the Shredder’s armor. One hit, Leo thought. One hit, and then it’ll be done with.
But he couldn’t get that hit in.
Raph and Mikey were trying their hardest to pin the Shredder down, but he wouldn’t stay still.
Mikey grunted, his knuckles white as hung onto Shredder’s shoulder.
“Your new forms are smaller, weaker,” Shredder said, and he lurched hard enough for Mikey’s grip to loosen. “I have been preparing for this meeting for a long, long time.”
Over at the wall, Donnie groaned, holding his head in his hand. Why do I always get thrown around the most during these fights? he thought, annoyed. But then his brain snagged back on the Shredder, on his brothers, who were fighting with every fiber of their being to hold the Shredder down.
Donnie leapt up, brandishing his wand and aiming it at the Shredder.
“Stupefy!” he bellowed. But Shredder was already moving, enough so that the spell bounced off of his armor and onto the wall next to Harry. Harry, who was—
“Harry!” Raph roared. The boy was lying, bloodied and broken, on the Chamber floor, Riddle standing over him. Raph still held Shredder in a death grip, not letting him get anywhere near Leo, who was standing, frozen, staring at Shredder with a pale face.
Never again, Raph thought fiercely. Never again would Shredder or Voldemort or anyone else take someone he loved away from him.
Unleashing a battle cry to rival that of a god’s, Raph swung himself around the Shredder, kicking him square in the chest. Shredder staggered backward, and Mikey leapt away from him as Shredder swung at Raph’s youngest brother.
“How are you back?” Raph demanded. Leo had snapped himself out of it by now, and he, Donnie, and Mikey all took up a stance on either side of Raph.
The Shredder laughed lowly.
“The universe binds us in mysterious ways,” he said. “You four should know that by now.”
And before any of them could say anything more, he struck again.
Harry was dying.
At least, he was supposed to be.
The pain was leaving him, but was this really dying? Instead of going black, the Chamber seemed to be coming back into focus. Harry gave his head a little shake, and there was Fawkes, still resting his head on Harry’s arm. A pearly patch of tears was shining all around the wound—except that there was no wound.
“Get away, bird,” said Riddle’s voice suddenly, over the sound of Harry’s friends fighting the mysterious other man who was in the journal. “Get away from him—I said, get away—”
Harry raised his head. Riddle was pointing Harry’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. “Of course—healing powers—I forgot…”
He looked into Harry’s face. “But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. You will be felled by my own hand, Harry Potter… my own hand…”
He raised the wand—
But then, in a rush of wings, Fawkes had soared back overhead, and something fell into Harry’s lap.
The diary.
For a split second, both Harry and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the Basilisk fang on the floor next to him 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 Harry’s hand, flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing, and there, beyond him, so too was that man—
And then, in a moment, they were gone. Harry’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—silence except for his friends’ shallow breaths.
Shaking all over, Harry pulled himself up. His head was spinning as though he’d just traveled miles by Floo powder. A quick glance at his friends told him they were no better off. The four of them were staring at the spot where the man had disappeared, their faces pale, as though they had seen a ghost (which, Harry thought, they technically had).
Slowly, Harry gathered together his wand and the Sorting Hat and, with a huge tug, retrieved the glittering sword from the roof of the Basilisk’s mouth.
Harry made to walk over to his friends—who were as frozen as statues—when a faint moan came from the end of the Chamber. Ginny was stirring. That seemed to snap them all out of their stunned states, for the four of them hurried over to her, Harry following close behind. She sat up as they approached. Her bemused eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead Basilisk, over the Hamatos, who were trying—and failing—to look as though nothing had happened, over Harry, in his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in Harry’s hand. She grew a great, shuddering gasp, and tears began to pour down her face.
“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—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, holding up the diary and showing Ginny the fang hole, “Riddle’s finished. And so’s his friend! Look! Them and the Basilisk. C’mon, Ginny, let’s get out of here—”
“I’m going to be expelled!” Ginny wept as Mikey gently helped her to her feet. “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?”
“They’ll be relieved you’re all right,” Leo said.
“That’s the most important thing,” Raph said, patting her lightly on the shoulder.
“And we’ll make sure you don’t get expelled,” Donnie added. “I’m sure McGonagall—or even Dumbledore, if he’s back—will understand.”
But Ginny didn’t stop weeping, even as they walked over to Fawkes, who was hovering in the Chamber entrance. Harry led the way, stepping over the motionless coils of the dead Basilisk, through the echoing gloom, and back into the tunnel from which Harry had come. Harry heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss.
After a few minutes’ progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry’s ears.
“Ron!” Harry yelled, speeding up. “Ginny’s okay! I’ve got her!”
“Ron’s over there?” Leo asked, alarmed, as Ron gave a strangled cheer. They turned the next bend to see Ron’s eager face staring through a sizable gap in the wall of stone that Ron had managed to make.
“Ginny!” Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. “You’re alive! I don’t believe it! What happened? How—How are you four here? And where did that bird come from?”
Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.
“He’s Dumbledore’s,” Harry said, squeezing through himself.
“And the bird brought us here,” Mikey added.
“How come you’ve got a sword?” said Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Harry’s hand as the rest of Mikey’s brothers made their way through the gap.
“I’ll explain later,” Harry said. He shot a glance at the Hamatos, whose mouths were drawn into tight lines. “I think—I think we all have some explaining to do.”
“But—”
“Later,” Harry said shortly. He looked around. “Where’s Lockhart?”
“Lockhart’s here?” Donnie said incredulously. “What, did he want to give the Basilisk an autograph?”
Raph snorted.
“Lockhart’s back there,” said Ron, still looking puzzled at the Hamatos’ appearances. “He’s in a bad way. Come and see.”
Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, they walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.
“His memory’s gone,” said Ron. “The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn’t got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He’s a danger to himself.”
“Lockhart tried to use a Memory Charm on you?” Raph said.
“We’ll explain later,” Harry and Ron said in unison.
Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at them all.
“Hello,” he said. “Odd sort of place, this, isn’t it? Do you live here?”
“No,” said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry.
Mikey made to say something, but Raph covered his mouth, and his words came out muffled.
Harry bent down and looked up the long, dark pipe.
“Have you thought how we’re going to get back up this?” he said to Ron.
Ron shook his head.
“Fawkes can help,” Leo said. Indeed, the phoenix had swooped past Harry and was now fluttering in front of him, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers.
“He brought us here,” Leo continued. “Found a different way into the Chamber, somehow. He’s strong enough to hold us.”
Quickly, the eight of them grabbed hold of one another, Harry grabbing Fawkes’s strangely hot tail feathers—Lockhart needed a bit of help, but eventually he understood.
An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through Harry’s whole body, and the next second, in a rush of wings, they were flying upward through the pipe. Dangling below them all, Lockhart was saying, “Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!”
The chill air whipped through Harry’s hair, and before he’d stopped enjoying the ride, it was over—all eight of them were hitting the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat, the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place.
Myrtle goggled at them.
“You’re alive,” she said blankly to Harry.
“There’s no need to sound disappointed,” he said grimly, wiping flecks of blood and slime off his glasses.
“Oh, well… I’d just been thinking—if you had died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet,” said Myrtle, blushing silver. Her blush quickly faded as she turned to Leo, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey. “You four are with them, too,” she said. She still sounded disappointed, but there was no mistaking the fact that she didn’t particularly care whether they lived or died.
The four of them didn’t react—it was though they had flipped a switch once they’d left the Chamber. They were silent, still, their eyes haunted as though reliving memories no one should ever have to experience.
Ron tried to lighten the mood as they left the bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. “Urhg!” he said. “Harry! I think Myrtle’s grown fond of you! You’ve got competition, Ginny!”
But the four of them remained silent, and tears were still flooding rapidly down Ginny’s face.
“Where now?” said Ron, with an anxious look at them all. Harry pointed.
Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor. They strode after him, and moments later found themselves outside Professor McGonagall’s office.
Harry knocked and pushed the door open, leaving the silent corridor behind.