Chapter 9
Neville walked with Potter, who seemed relaxed, to a door.
Potter walked to the door and tried to open it.
"Should I say open? I mean in parselmouth" I said.
"So what are you waiting for? Try it" Potter said.
I walked to the door and tried to think of a snake image ~opened~ I said and the door opened.
We entered a large room with columns that have snakes and in the middle a large statue that was suppose to be Salazar Slytherin and there in the floor was Ginny.
"Ginny" Neville whispered and ran to her "please do not be dead."
"He will not wake up," said a voice.
He look back and for a moment I thought Potter was talking but then he realized it was someone else "Riddle? Tom Riddle?"
Riddle nodded in agreement.
"What do you mean you will not wake up?" Neville asked desperately "No ..... it's not...."
"No, she's still alive" Riddle said. "In a little while, though .... "
Take a good look at Riddle again, Riddle was a student at Hogwarts 50 years ago and yet he did not look older than 16 years old.
"Are you a ghost?" Neville asked.
"A Memory .... kept in the diary for 50 years" he said and pointed to the black diary that Neville had found in the toilets of Myrtle.
"A memory in a diary? This is impossible, you can not put ...... a piece of your s....you didn't do it" Potter spoke for the first time and he looked terrified.
A wild smile entered Riddle's face "Harry Potter you are a smart boy aren't you?"
"You're a scum" Potter said in disgust.
"You know nothing, Potter" Riddle said, and anger flashed in his eyes.
"I know a lot more than I would like to know and what I do know is that there is no going back after that" Potter said angrily.
"I do not care what you say Potter but the more you talk Ginny dies" he said and pointed to Ginny.
"What did you do to her?" Neville asked angrily.
"Ginny wrote in the diary ..... she adored me, 'you're the only one who understands me Tom ...... how glad I am to have this diary' she wrote."
"What did you do to her?" Neville repeated.
"Haven't you guessed Neville Longbottom yet?" Riddle said softly." It was Ginny Weasley who opened the champer of secrets. She killed the roosters and wrote the messages on the wall. She unleashed Slytherin snake in the mudbloods and thet cat of the squib."
"I do not believe you" Neville said.
"Longbottom, he is telling the truth, Weasley did it all but not of her own free will" Potter said.
"You're right Potter, at first of course he did not know what he was doing. It was a lot of fun. "My dear Tom I have empty memories, I do not know where I was Halloween but someone attacked a cat, my dear Tom my cloak is full of paint, Percy says I'm pale and I've changed, today there was another attack and I do not remember where I was ...... I think I'm behind the attacks Tom'."
"It took a long time for Ginny to stop trusting her diary, she got rid of it and to my great joy you find it Neville, in so many people you find it, the man I wanted to meet ......"
"Why did you want to meet me?" Neville said, trying to keep his voice steable.
"Because Ginny had told me everything about you, Neville, what a fascinating story," he said, looking at the scar. "I wanted to meet you and trust you, that's why I showed you how he caught this giant Hagrit."
"Hagrit is my friend," Neville said, "and you trapped him."
"It was natural for them to believe me and not him. On the one hand I was Tom Riddle poor but genius orphan but so brave, a perfect and in the other hand was that fool Hagrit which was constantly creating problems. I confess that I was also surprised that i succeeded. I expected that people would understand that there was no way Hagrit could be Slytherin's heir. Only Dumbledore seemed to suspect me, yes I think he knew. He never liked me like the other teachers. Dumbledore began to watch me closely after that. So I decided to make the diary and lead someone else to complete the noble work of Salazar Slytherin."
"You did not succeed" Neville said.
"But I did not tell you? My new target for a long timwe has been....you!" Riddle said "I put Ginny writing the message on the wall and brought her here. I knew you would come, I have a lot of questions to ask you Neville Longbottom."
"Such as?" Neville asked with clenched fists.
"How do you become a baby with such amazing talents as to defeat the greatest magician of all time? How do you escape with a mark while Lord Voldemort has lost his powers?"
"And what do you care how I escaped? Voldemort was before your time," Neville said.
He turned to Potter, who was looking at them with interest. "Are you a smart boy Harry. Tell me, did you understand it?"
Neville saw Potter confused but then the realization passed in his eyes.
"Well done Harry, tell Neville here too," Riddle said, smiling wildly.
Potter turned to me in fear in his eyes "Tom Riddle is Voldemort."
He pulled out Neville's wand and wrote in the air
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
he made another move with his stick and the letters changed order
I A'M LORD VOLDEMORT
"You see? I used the name myself in Hogwarts but of course only with my close friends. Do you think I would keep my father's muggle name? Why since the blood of the great Salazar Slytherin flows in my blood from my mother's side? No, I created a new name for myself, a name that when they became the greatest magician in the world, everyone would be afraid to pronounce it!"
You are not the greatest wizard "said Neville with hate "Albus Dumbledore is."
"Albus Dumbledore left the castle only of my memory."
"It's not as far away as you think" Neville said.
Suddenly a sound was heard and Dumbledore's palm tree appeared and threw an old cloth on the floor.
"A phoenix" said Voldemort "and this is the old sorting hat."
Voldemort laughed "Is that what Dumbledore is sending? An old hat and his bird?"
Neville didn't say anything.
"Tell me Neville how you escaped, tell me everything because the more you talk the more you will stay alive" said Riddle.
"Nobody knows why you lost your power but Dumbledore thinks it's because my parents, because my parents died to save me."
"Your parents died to save you. Now I understand. After all you are nothing special. I wondered because we have similarity between us Neville we were both parselmouth. But that means nothing." Riddle turned and looked at Potter "Unlike you, we look a lot like Harry, it's like I'm looking in a mirror, we are both halfbloods, both orphans, both grown with Muggle, we both sort in Slytherin, both parselmouth, yes Harry I know that you can talk to snakes I heard you talk to a snake a few months ago and lastly we look like Harry in the appearance as I said before it is like i looking in a mirror and seeing myself even how you walk and how you talk reminds me of myself" said Riddle, looking curiously at Potter.
"We may look like Riddle but I'm not a psychopathic killer, I would never do what you did," Potter said coldly, and the temperature dropped even more.
"Do you think that you are better? Let's see how two little boys do against the forces of Lord Voldemort, Slytherin's heir." then he turned to the statue of Slytherin and said ~Speak to me, Slytherin, the greatest of the Hogwarts Four.~
Slytherin's mouth began to open.
I felt his hand never pull me "Do not look, if you look in his eyes you will die." he said, pulling us behind a column.
"What are we doing?" Neville asked in panic.
"Shut up Longbottom, we do not want to make any more noise," he said.
The basilisk suddenly let out a hiss.
"Look" Potter said, pointing to the wall where Fox had attacked in the eyes of the basilisk.
The snake whistled in pain and his tail hit his side with Neville going back to avoid.
He looked at the basilisk and saw that Fox had tear his eyes.
"We have to go to Potter" Neville said and turned to Potter. Potter was leaning against the wall with one hand and holding his belly with the other and blood was dripping from his hand. He realized that the tail must have hit him "Potter are you okay? Can you move on?" he asked and took a nod.
"No" shouted Voldemort ~Leave the bird! Chase the boy! You can smell him!~
The basilisk turned to them and Neville felt something soft hitting him. He saw that it was the sorting hat, the basilisk must have thrown it at him with his tail. Neville put the hat on his head 'help, please help' and he felt something heavy and hard hitting his head. He put his hand inside and pulled out a sword.
~Kill the boy, leave the bird~ Voldemort said.
The basilisk started running towards him but instead of looking at Neville he was looking at Harry smelling the blood.
"Longbottom he is chasing me, run" Potter said and started running.
Neville started running and saw Potter, terrified, trying to escape from the basilsk but he was very hurt and couldn't do much.
Potter stumbled and fell, the basilisk was in front of him and ready to attack when Potter got up he closed his eyes and when he opened his eyes it was a scary cold green, the temperature started to drop making Neville start tremble. The room froze more and more and snow fell from the roof. The basilisk had stopped and was looking. Potter came to me and his hand "The Sword" said in a cold voice making me shudder.
I gave it to him, he took it from my hand and then he went to the basilisk.
Voldemort must have been shocked because he had not spoken at all until now but Potter came to his senses and took the sword and went to the basilisk ~Kill him now~ he whistled.
The basilisk got up and went to Potter. He opened his mouth and Potter picked up the sword and nailed it to his mouth. Basilisk started screaming and spinning in pain and then fell dead.
Potter also seemed to be in pain and when he turned to face him he had a fang nailed in his hand. He took a deep breath and pulled it, biting his lips.
"He may not have killed Longbottom but Harry Potter will be dead in minutes, you know Harry you are a much bigger threat than Neville, you will be great if you were by my side" Voldemort said.
"I have a question" Potter said, coughing.
"What would you like to know Harry? What is your last question before you die?" said Riddle with a stern smile.
"H-how ..... How many of them ...... did you make?" Potter said between long breaths.
"Smart boy, I do not know what my future self did but my initial goal was seven," Riddle said with a manic smile.
"You are crazy Riddle ...... a ..... scum ...... a abomination....." said Potter disgusted.
"I do not care what you say Potter, in a few seconds you will be dead."
Harry fell to his knees exhausted. "If I am to die then I will take you with me," he said and take the diary.
"What do you think you are doing?" Riddle asked with a little fear in his voice.
"I'm taking you with me," Harry said and nailed the fang to the diary again and again.
"Noooooo......" Riddle scream before disappearing.
Neville ran to Harry "Harry, Harry are you okay?"
"Yes..... fine....I'm just dying...nothing great" said Harry and started coughing again.
Fox came up to us and sat on Harry's feet and began to cry, shedding tears at the wound. The wound began to close. "Of course" Harry murmured, he grabbed Fox and kissed him on the head making Fox scream "Thank you Fox, I will not forget it and I will never tell you ugly again" he said with a smile.
Neville stared in shock.
"Yeah right, phoenix have healing tears, they can cure everything" he get up. "I think you should check on Weasley" he said, pointing to Ginny, who began to wake up.
Neville recovered quickly, he had completely forgotten Ginny "Ginny are you okay?" He said running to her.
Ginny woke up and saw Neville "I was behind her Neville attacks, I tried to tell her but I could not, sorry" she said near to tears.
"It doesn't matter Ginny, Riddle left like the basilisk," Neville said calm.
"How?" Ginny asked, looking at the basilisk.
"Harry killed him and then destroyed the diary," he said, pointing to Harry, who was exploring the champer.
"Better to go, Longbottom" he said and began to leave.
They found Ron and Lockhart who looked completely stupid and came out of the hole with the help of Fox.
They went up to Dumbledore's office where Mrs. and Mr. Weasley hugged Ginny, Ron, and me but they look weird at Potter.
Well Potter looked a little scary, he was covered in blood, his black hair fell on his face and his eyes were a cold green not to mention the sword in his hand.
I noticed that Snape was looking at him with woryy something that was strange for him, McGonagall looking him with fear and Dumbledore with worry and a little fear.
"Harry did nothing, he was the one who killed the basilisk and destroyed the diary" I said quickly.
"Basilisk?" McGonagall asked in terror.
"What diary?" Dumbledore asked.
"This diary, sir," Potter said, putting the black diary in Dumbledore's office. "Tom Riddle has become a monster, there is no turning back for him professor, there is only one way and we both know well what is it" Potter said looking at Dumbledore who looked pale.
"I understand, Mr. Potter, and I'm sorry to hear that," Dumbledore said sadly.
"I will destroy him, headmaster, and let it be the last thing I will do" he whispered coldly before leaving the sword in Dumbledore's office and leaving the room.
Dumbledore sighed and put his head in his hands. After a while he raised his head tiredly "I think you better tell us what happened Neville."
After telling the story, leaving many of the discussions between Potter and Riddle and what Potter did that froze the room, Mrs. Weasley started arguing with Ginny not to write to this things.
"Many are lost in Voldemort's charm, Ginny is lucky to have survived, it was not her fault, now you better go to the hospital, Neville, I would like to talk to you a little bit," Dumbledore said.
After everyone left Neville asked "What would you like to talk to me sir?"
"You met Tom Riddle before became Voldemort, what did you notice about him?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
Neville hesitated but then began to speak "Sir.... he reminded me of Harry Potter, they look like and not only in appearance because they are almost identical in the appearance, but they also look like to other things, Voldemort himself said it."
Dumbledore seemed curious "What did Voldemort say?"
"Well, he said it was like looking in a mirror that apart from appearing, they have a lot in common. They're both halfblood, they both grown up by muggle, they're both sort in Slytherin, he also said that Potter could talk to snakes" Nevvile said.
"Yes Neville is true Tom and Harry look more like each other than I want to admit and know that Harry can talk to snakes he said that when I went to give him the letter about Hogwarts" Dumbledore sighed "Neville, you have to understand that they are not in what they look like but in what they are different because where Tom Riddle tried to kill you without a second thought Harry sacrificed himself to save you a second thought, they look so much alike but at the same time they are so different."
"I understand, sir" Neville said.
"I'm glad, there's something else bothering you, Neville?" Dumbledore asked.
"Harry seemed to know what this diary was. He looked disgusted with Voldemort and called to him scum and abomination."
"Thanks Neville, I'm going to talk to Harry. Now I think Neville that you should go to the infirmary" Dumbledore said with a smile.
"Yes, sir," Neville said, leaving the office, leaving a thoughtful Dumbledore.