A diary, a sword and a Huge A** snake
They wandered around the subterranean maze that was under the school for what felt like hours. Harry’s wand lit a small portion of what was ahead of them. They turned a corner to find a giant snake! They all ducked behind the pillar before Harry got the courage to look around and saw it was only the Basilisk’s shed skin.
“ Come on, it’s just a shedding “ as he walked past.
“ Whatever shed it must be over fifty feet or more,” said Ron as he looked to Lockhart, who suddenly went into a dead faint.
Shocked for a moment as Ron let his wand go slack in his hand waiting for the professor to make his move. And as if on cue Lockhart took the wand and reversed cyclone up pointing the wand at the boys. “ Now here’s what’s going to happen, boys, the whole world will know that it was I who found the chamber only to be too late to save the girl and that the both of you gone mad, seeing the sight of her horribly mangled body…say goodbye to your memories. Obliviate!” a shot of blue-green light shouted through the wand hitting Lockhart but also causing blowback due to the wand still being broken.
The boom echoed throughout the chasm, causing a cave-in! Harry leaped to safety as the ceiling crashed down around them.
Once the dust settled he springs to his feet, “Ron! Ron! Are you okay?” he shouts in panic.
On the other side Ron groans and slowly gets up, he dusts himself off. Why did I become friends with that bastard? is beyond me, was the first thought he came up with as he shouts, “Yeah, I’m okay. What are we going to do, Harry?”. “ I’m going to go ahead to find Ginny, you stay here with the professor and try to move some of this rock” Harry answers.
Ron sighs as he looks at the Professor who was looking at him with a confused expression,“ Who? Who are you?” Ron shakes his head as he bends over picking up the professor’s wand, “ No one”. The ex-professor just nods and Ron got started moving the rock.
Harry walked a corridor to what appeared to be an old iron door like what banks would have. He looked at the snakes and said "open "in Parseltongue. The snakes acted as tumblers slithered back unlocking with loud clicks. He walked up through the door and he saw Ginny Weasley sprawled on the floor, he ran and skidded on his knees beside her body.
“Ginny! Ginny” he shakes her, “ Please don’t be dead”. He looks around the chamber seeing grotesque stone heads surrounding the walls. A pool was ahead of them and eerie green light emanated from what appeared to be crystals. “ She won’t wake” a voice called from the darkness. Harry whips his head around looking for the source of the disembodied voice. “ Whose there?” he shouts. A moment later a teenager stepped out from the shadows. Harry squints, and with wide eyes recognized the wizard.
“Tom? Tom Riddle? What do you mean she won't wake?” He questions looking at the boy then at Ginny. “ She’s going cold, we need to get out of here before the Basilisk comes,” he says almost panicked.
“She won’t come until she’s called.” Riddle says in an eerie calm voice, “ As for the girl, well she invested too much of her magical energy into that accursed object.” He points to the diary.
Harry looks at the diary, then looks back at Tom whose eyes are glowing red. “Tom?”
“Don’t call me by that filthy Muggle name! how is it that a baby destroyed the great Lord Voldemort?” the teen seethed.
Harry got up and had his wand at the ready, “ How should I know? And why is Voldemort important in this situation?”
The teen chuckles, “You don’t really use your brain, do you Potter? Voldemort is my Past, Present, and Future!” he takes what appears to be Ginny’s wand and Writes out: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE and with a wave of the wand the letters began to rearrange themselves. Harry stood shocked as he read: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT. This is the man who killed his parents.
But the anger at meeting his parents’ killer wasn’t there. Something felt off, and Tom Riddle clutches his head moaning in pain and when his eyes reopened they were back to being brown. “ What’s going on?” Harry asks.
Tom looks at him solemnly, “ I don’t know, the last thing I remember was talking to Professor Dumbledore about the school closing, and the next thing I knew I found that dairy in my trunk. With a note “Keep this safe, it is precious to you.” Then nothing until this girl started to write in it and I “woke up”.
“ You! you’re behind the attacks and framed Hagrid and it was because of you Headmaster Dumbledore was forced from the school,” Harry spoke, and he starts backing away. Tom stood there a vacant expression on his face, “ Not unless I was possessing the girl to open the chamber; and Medusa won’t kill anyone unless she needs to, or is ordered to. Miss. Warren was truly a mistake. And they made Dumbledore Headmaster!? That man is the absolute worst.”
“ That’s not true! He’s the greatest wizard of all time” Harry says loyally. And a trill came from the grate above them and Fawkes plunged in with the sorting hat and dropped it into Harry’s hands and soared around the room landing on a head farther away.
Harry looked at the tattered hat and felt an odd weight, he reaches in and pulls out the Sword of Gryffindor. Riddle stood there scowling, “ So that’s his game, having a child try to take down a level fifty creature. He has gone insane.”
“ I don’t understand, then why has the Basilisk been attacking the school?” he says pointing the sword at the teen.
“ I’ve been trying to relocate her, with Dumbledore in charge she’s not safe; but some of the tunnels have collapsed or purposely sealed off.” Riddle answers.
“But the Muggleborn, it is stated in the legend that Slytherin’s monster was to purge the school so only purebloods are left” Harry retorted.
“ I’m assuming that it was Dumbledore that told you and the world that?” says the boy in disbelief, when Harry didn’t answer he sighs.
“Let me be quick in telling you that Albus Dumbledore cannot be trusted. He is the one who left me to rot in that abusive muggle orphanage year after year instead of placing me with a wizarding family for the summer. Do you know he was the one who gave me my Hogwarts letter? Even back then as a child, I knew something was off about that man. But, I don’t have any memory beyond my sixth year, but I do know that that thing the girl is holding is the foulest of magics. Even if I had gone Dark I would never have created one.” Said Tom pacing trying to come up with some plan.
“ What is it exactly?” questions Harry still not lowering the sword.
“It is a Horcrux, a container used to imprison a part of someone’s soul. There is a dark ritual involving human sacrifice and a sentimental object to contain the fractured soul piece. If someone is around it for long enough the soul piece attaches itself to the new host in an attempt to escape. It is so dark that even Lady Magic forbids it.” The teen continues trying to be vague as possible.
“So, you’re a prisoner then if you reside in the diary?” Harry says and Tom nods. “ How do we free you?”
Tom was taken aback. Here a boy who according to the Weasley girl, was made an orphan because of him, was offering to ‘help’ him. “From what I read briefly, there are a few ways of destroying the container but it also destroys the soul inside. In the theory of course. But there’s Fiend Fire, commonly known as Greek fire or Hell’s Fire, a number of acids, and Basilisk venom”.
A realization came upon the teen, and he turns to the head at the front of the chamber. He began to hiss, Harry of course could understand “Medusa, come the heir of Slytherin is in need of your aid” the maw of the statue opens up, and a low hiss reverberated inside, “ I’m coming, heir.” And Medusa slide out, Harry quickly turns to shield his eyes as the serpent slithered closer.
No one notices a strange object attached behind the head “ Who is this? Why are there two of you and one is near death? What is happening Marvolo?” the serpent asks. Harry with a shaky voice (and very stupidly) answered, “ I’m Harry Potter” then at Tom, “Is there a way to look at her without dying?” both the snake and then looked at the younger in shock. “ Another speaker! Yes, young one there is, I have two sets of lids that I can see out of. Otherwise, Salazar and his heirs wouldn’t be able to talk to me, and I get so lonely.” And with that Harry looked around, and saw that Medusa did indeed have a set of eyelids to obscure her deadly gaze.
“Medusa, I am in need of your help. I…” Tom started to explain, but suddenly Medusa shrieks and shakes her head and lunges at the boys.
“Make it stop!… Make it stop!…” she shrieks, as she lunges at Harry who dives out of the way. Fawkes gives a trill and swoops in to try to get the thing off Medusa’s neck.
“ What’s wrong Medusa?” calls out Tom trying not to panic. “ It hurts!!!! Kill…Kill….” the Basilisk shrieks. Tom quickly casts a spell to spell some sort of paste that covers Medusas eyes so they don’t die from her gaze. Fawkes swoops in behind trilling and clawing at the object getting Harry’s attention he grabs the sword and runs to the serpent.
“ There’s something on her head! I’m going to try to get it off.” He yells at Tom, leaps onto the statue ledge, and climbs while Fawkes and Tom try to get Medusa back under control.
Harry gets to the edge of the head when Tom lassos the snake to hold her in place. He leaps onto the serpent's back clinging onto one of the spines that jutted out from the back and climbs up closer to the strange stone-like object that was embedded into the Basilisk. “ I’m sorry but this may hurt.” He screams as he swings the sword and plunges it in behind the stone. Medusa screams and Harry quickly pries off the cursed object, which fell onto the stone floor with a heavy thud.
With a final shake of her head, Harry was thrown forward. The sword clangs a few yards away, and in an attempt to catch himself his arm grazed one of the fangs on the lower jaw. And he lands with a thud. “Potter!” came a yell. Harry looks up seeing the Basilisk now completely calm “Marvolo, He’s hurt! He scrapped his arm on one of my fangs!”
Tom rushes to the boy, knowing there is nothing he could do. The boy only seconds to live, a minute at most. The boy was clutching his arm veins running black. The phoenix landed next to the boy, and the boy was apologizing to it. Then the bird started to cry over the wound, and it started to heal. When the boy was healed he shakenly gets up and goes over to grab the sword.
Tom went over to see the object that fell from Medusa’s neck. It had a foul aura of magic; he had a feeling it was Albus Dumbledore. He then kicks it into the pool where it sank into the depths. He then goes over to grab the boy, the diary, and the sword. “ Come, we need to hurry.” He takes a look at Medusa. “ Medusa, I’m going away for a while, I entrust you to his care and for you to protect the school. This,” he holds up the diary “ is a dark object, that is keeping me trapped it needs to be destroyed to free me.”
Harry was shocked, why was the future Dark Lord giving him control of the most dangerous snake of all time. Medusa gave a sad hiss, “ Alright Heir if it must be done. I will obey this speaker.” Tom gives the diary and sword to Harry and goes over to Ginny; picks her up bridal style and motions to Harry “ Come, there is one passage that I haven’t tried” and walks into the winding tunnels with Harry and Medusa following him. Fawkes flew and was gone in a flash.
As it turns out, they headed out to where Harry left Ron. Only to find that the caved-in wall was gone but Ron and Lockhart were nowhere to be found. They went to the right and continued upwards. The air became easier to breathe, and they were met with cool air and a starry sky. Tom places Ginny down as gently as he could.
He looks to Harry. Sword and diary hanging loose at his sides. “ Come Potter. You need to destroy the diary. Your friend doesn’t have much time left. After all, it’s for-told that you are to be my downfall after all.” And Medusa slithers past opening her mouth as Tom casts a summoning charm on a loose fang. And tosses it to Harry, who caught it. Puzzled at that statement. What did Tom mean “It was for-told?” He looks at the fang then sighs. As he lays down the diary and opens it. He looks at Tom, “ Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure from the little time I had it was fun. But from what she wrote it made me sound like I went ‘off the deep end and became a raving murderous lunatic. It’s best this way” Tom says calmly his eyes again glowing red. Harry grabs the fang tighter and brings it down onto the pages. The sixteen-year-old soul piece screamed in agony and even made a last-ditch attempt to stop Harry from stabbing the book a second time before he bursts into light and zoomed off into the far-off distance beyond Hogwarts.
Harry slumped against a boulder near Ginny as Medusa said her goodbyes, telling him she’s going to hibernate in the caves above the Forbidden Forest and that if he needs her she’ll come. Harry nods as he watches her slither away from sight.
What must have been an hour later Ginny gasped and sat up screaming. She looks around franticly seeing that she was no longer in the chamber. She saw Harry, who then got closer to her. He saved me; my love saved me from Tom. “ Harry, it was me.” she whispers, “ But, Riddle made me do it”. Harry shushes her, and then they hear voices on the grounds.
“Over Here!” Harry shouted, “We’re over here” he limps to the entrance and sends up sparks from his wand. Several of the teachers flew up others ran, as Harry and Ginny collapsed and were placed on conjured stretchers and were brought up to the castle where they spent the next several days in the hospital wing.