“Mr. Finnigan if you need to relieve yourself, just go,” said Snape. “It’s too late for your potion, there is no possible way to ruin it further.” Seamus blushed a deep crimson, but stayed in his seat.
Snape swept past Harry then Ron, making no comment about Hermione’s empty seat and cauldron.
“Sir,” said Malfoy loudly. “Sir, why don’t you apply for the headmaster’s job?”
“Now, now, Malfoy,” said Snape, though he couldn’t suppress a thin-lipped smile. “Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he’ll be back with us soon enough.”
“Yeah, right,” said Malfoy smirking. “I expect you’d have Father’s vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job… I’ll tell father you’re the best teacher here, sir….”
Snape smirked as he swept off around the dungeon, fortunately not spotting Seamus who was pretending to vomit into his cauldron.
“I’m quite surprised the Mudbloods haven’t all packed their bags by now,” Malfoy went on. “Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn’t Granger….”
The bell rang at that moment, which was lucky; at Malfoy’s last words, Ron had leapt off his stool, and in the scramble to collect bags and books, his attempts to reach Malfoy went unnoticed.
After class, Seamus nearly jumped on Harry’s back as they walked to the Great Hall for lunch. “Did you hear?” asked Seamus, Dean Thomas coming up beside them, laughing at his best friends antics. “Professor McGonagall said that she had an announcement. Do you think it’s Quidditch?”
“I sure hope so,” said Ron.
“What’s up Ginny?” said Millicent as they took their seats. She looked tense and nervous, and Harry noticed that her hands were twisting in her lap.
“What’s up?” said Ron, helping himself to some porridge.
Ginny didn’t say anything, just glanced up and down the Gryffindor table with a scared look on her face that reminded him startlingly of Dobby.
“Spit it out,” said Ron, watching her. Millicent smacked him up the backside of his head. “What is it, Gin?” asked Millicent in a kinder voice.
Just then, Percy walked up. “If you’re finished eating, I’ll take that seat, Ginny. I’m starving. I’ve only just come off patrol duty.”
Ginny jumped up as though her chair had just been electrified, gave Percy a fleeting, frightened look, and scampered away. Percy sat down and grabbed a mug from the center of the table, his hand shaking slightly. He sure did take his prefect duties seriously.
McGonagall came in and told them all that the Mandrakes were finally ready and that those who had been petrified would be back to normal soon enough. The students were glad at that, Oliver Wood gave a rather large whoop since that meant that Quidditch would be back on shortly.
Millicent stood to go after Ginny, but Harry watched Percy. His hand was still shaking, but he seemed intent on eating as much as he could, it was like he hadn’t eaten in days, he did look thin, his skin paler than normal.
Harry decided that he wanted to go off and see Hermione when Ron decided to tag along, hoping that he would run into Ginny and find out what she had wanted earlier. It wasn’t much use talking to a petrified person, but he figured he could try. Ron had some books he wanted to drop off anyway.
“She’ll freak when she wakes up and learns that we still have exams. She’ll want something to read,” he reasoned and Harry smiled at his friend.
They were at the infirmary doors when they heard Professor McGonagall’s voice: “All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staffroom. Immediately, please.”
Harry turned around to stare at Ron.
“Not another attack? Who?”
Harry knew that they couldn’t go back to the dormitories. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe to his left, full of the teacher’s cloaks. “In here,” he urged Ron. He had to make it to the infirmary. Harry knew that’s where they would be taking the next student anyway.
After a few moments, Harry heard Professor Flitwick’s voice.
“It’s Draco Malfoy, Merlin help us, some one will have to call Lucius.”
“I will handle that role,” Professor Snape’s voice said, though he didn’t sound too pleased with the prospect either.
After Harry heard the voices recede, Harry and Ron got out of the wardrobe. “But why would it attack Malfoy, it only goes for Muggleborns,” said Ron confused.
Harry shook his head. Malfoy had been spending a lot of time in the library lately. Harry had just assumed that he was trying to beat Hermione’s final grades, but what if he had been trying to do something else.
“Let’s go,” said Harry, but when Ron started to walk off toward the Great Hall, Harry grabbed his arm.
“No, this way,” said Harry. “We have to go to the infirmary, try to see what Malfoy was up too.”
Harry and a reluctant Ron sneaked to the infirmary. Thankfully, Madame Pomfrey was busy dealing with a few errant teachers to notice that they snuck into the infirmary.
Malfoy laid there, paler than normal, and face frozen. He was one bed away from Hermione. Ron went to her first, like he had forgotten what they were supposed to be doing there when he saw her.
Harry approached Malfoy and for once Malfoy didn’t look so different. He always looked so old, like he was so much more mature than the rest of them, but in that moment, he looked as young as he really was.
But there was something in his hand.
What? Harry thought, when Ron yelled, “Harry, come here!”
Rushing to Hermione’s side, Ron was pulling something out of her closed fist. It was a piece of paper, a page from a very old library book. Harry smoothed it out eagerly and Ron leaned close to read it, too:
“Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents….”
Harry read on silently as Ron continued looking over his shoulder at the parchment.
And beneath the last sentence, a single word had been written: Pipes.
“Ron,” he breathed. “This is it. This is the answer. The monster in the Chamber of Secrets is a basilisk…..a giant serpent. That’s why I’ve been hearing that voice all over the place, and nobody else has heard it. Its because I understand Parseltongue.”
It all made sense. The Basilisk kills by looking at someone directly, but in each case there had been something blocking the view. A camera, Nearly Headless Nick, mirrors or water.
“Pipes….pipes,” said Ron, like he was working something out. Ron snapped his fingers.
“The bathroom!” he exclaimed. “Moaning Myrtles bathroom.”
“Ron!” Harry exclaimed. “You’re a genius!”
Leaving the infirmary they had to get to the tower. There was no way that Harry could take this information to Snape and since Professor McGonagall was acting headmistress, she had to hear this.
“Can you believe it?” asked Ron. “Just wait until I tell my family we figured it out. And Her….”
“Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter, what on Earth are you doing out? Didn’t you hear the message?” barked a very frustrated Professor McGonagall.
“Professor, we have to tell you….”
“Oh, dear,” said Professor McGonagall, “you’ve seen him?”
Harry’s eye widened. Surely she couldn’t think they were that beat up about Malfoy. He’d be fine soon after all with what the mandrakes being mature.
“Well, don’t worry, Mr. Weasley, we have already called your parents and they will be here shortly.”
Ron gave Harry a confused look.
“But you really should go and see the other Mr. Weasley, he was the one to find Fred and is very shaken up not to mention Percy. Oh, I really should’ve known, he was my prefect…..”
Then, Professor Flitwick came down the hallway not seeming to notice them until it was too late. “Percy Weasley, the heir of Slytherin, and he went after his own brother no less. The beast has taken Percy and no one has found a clue.”
And Percy. In the Chamber.
And no one but Harry and Ron had a clue.
Ron was promptly walked off to the tower. And to Harry’s chagrin, a Professor Lockhart had been roped into walking him back to the dungeon.
But first, Lockhart had insisted that they stop by his office. “Just need to dig something out, just in case we need it, dear boy,” he said. But it didn’t look like he was trying to find something at all, it looked like he was packing.
Two large trunks stood open on the floor. Robes, jade-green, lilac, midnight blue, had been hastily folded into one of them, books were jumbled untidily into the other. The photographs that had covered the walls were now crammed into boxes on the desk.
Harry always knew he was a fake.
“Books sure can be misleading, huh?” Harry asked. “So, what, you’ve just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done, and are what running away when you’ve been caught out to be nothing but a fake?”
“Harry, Harry,” said Lockhart shaking his head impatiently. “it’s not nearly as simple as that. There’s work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn’t remember doing it. If there’s one thing I pride myself on, it’s my Memory Charms…..”
Lockhart prattled on, and for once Harry listened so when Lockhart raised his wand, Harry was quicker.
Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk, his wand flew high into the air, but Harry didn’t catch it.
“Blimey, Harry,” said George Weasley. “and here I thought you never listened to a word Snape said.”
“George, what are you doing here?” asked Harry.
“Ron told me what the two of you found out, and while Professor McGonagall was forcing Ron up the stairs in the tower, I snuck out behind her to find you.”
“You want to go find Percy. But what about Fred?”
George shook his head. “Fred will be fine, but Percy needs me. We aren’t, they aren’t getting along right now, but we’re still family. Percy’s a know it all and Fred can’t take anything seriously and he’s too stubborn for his own good, but they need a chance to mend that, and if we don’t find Percy and now, there might not be anything of Percy left to do that. I need to save him, Harry, and I need your help to do it. Please,” George stopped. “Help me save my brother.”
Harry nodded. How could he say no? If they waited, it might be too late for Percy. “Alright, but we take him, too,” Harry ticked his head toward Lockhart. “He might come in handy.”
He was 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 stood listening to the silence, the only sound his pounding heart. He looked over his shoulder cautious that the basilisk could be anywhere. And where was Percy? George had kept his wand trained on Lockhart the entire time. They had made their way to Myrtle’s bathroom and learned from the source that she had been the Basilisk’s first victim. Harry had opened the secret passageway under the bathroom sinks with one word, “Open”, but it had been spoken in Parseltongue. It was only when Lockhart tried to run, grabbing George’s wand that the Memory spell he tried to fire rebounded, and a load of rock had fallen and separated them. Then, he was on his own, but with assurances from George that he would start digging him out, Harry had continued on down the darkened tunnel alone.
He pulled out his wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns. He kept his eyes narrowed, ready to close them shut at the smallest sign of movement. If he was going to help anyone he couldn’t wind up like Draco or George. Then as he drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself looked into view standing against the back wall. . Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face. Ancient and sure even though the face was monkeyish. Harry was staring up at a large carved statue of Salazar Slytherin. The crazy egomaniac.
Below the statue’s feet, facedown, lay a black robbed figure with flaming red hair.
“Percy!” Harry shouted as loud as he dared. Harry approached him slowly.
“Don’t be dead! Don’t be dead!”
He laid his wand down, grabbed Percy’s shoulder and turned him over. His face was white as marble, his face and hands cold. Good, at least he hadn’t been petrified.
“Wake up! Wake up, Percy!” Harry urged, desperately shaking Percy’s shoulders, but his head merely rolled from side to side uselessly.
“He 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 him. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though he was only just out of focus. There, but not there.
The boy nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry’s face.
“What have you don’t to him? Is he..”
“No,” said Riddle. “He’s alive, but only just, I like to think.”
Riddle looked sickly satisfied at that. Tom Riddle had been a Hogwart’s student nearly fifty years ago, but where Hagrid had aged beyond the scared young boy he had been, Tom Riddle didn’t look at a day older then he had when Harry had seen him in the diaries vison, no more than sixteen.
“What are you?” asked Harry. “A memory,” answered Riddle. “Preserved in a diary for fifty years.”
Harry shifted, his foot nudging something slightly.
“You’ve got to help me, Tom, you were a prefect, right? And he needs help, please.”
But Riddle didn’t move. Harry, sweating, knew he needed to drag Percy closer to the exit, picking up and pocketing his wand before he did, but….”Where is it?”
He looked up. Riddle was twirling his wand between his long fingers.
“Listen, Tom, we’ve got to go. We’re all in danger. There’s a basilisk, Tom, it can kill if you look at it directly.”
“Relax, it won’t come until it’s called.”
Harry let Percy fall to the floor gently. “Give me my wand, Tom.”
Harry felt lost without it.
“I don’t think so.” Tom dismissed.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this Harry Potter,” said Riddle. “For the chance to see you. To speak to you.”
Something was wrong. Harry knew this was the same prefect, head boy, who had served the school, but he also knew this was the boy who had purposefully or not gotten Hagrid expelled.
“Why is Percy like this?” Harry asked slowly.
“Well, that’s an interesting question,” said Riddle pleasantly. “And quite a long story, I suppose though we should start at the beginning, when a distraught and outcast boy opened his mind to someone he thought was an equal.”
“What are you talking about?” interrupted Harry, his senses on alert.
“The diary is mine, but for months it has been in possession of young Percy here. Oh, how he bewailed his family who didn’t understand him. The brothers who teased him and who took his one true friend in his house. Oh, how he moaned on and on about Oliver Wood.”
All the time he spoke, Riddle’s eyes never left Harry’s face. He wanted to know how much he was effecting Harry. “His brothers took his friends and a boy named Harry Potter took his place among his brothers. I assure you it was very, very boring. He’s quite dull, isn’t he? But I soldiered on. I wrote back. I was sympathetic. I was nothing more than a mirror of Percy’s psyche, assuring him that he deserved what he always believed he did. No one understands, he said, no one gets how I feel, he whined. This one thinks he’ll be minister one day, can you believe it?”
Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that made the hair on Harry’s neck stand up.
“So, Percy poured his soul out to me and his soul was exactly what I needed. I grew stronger and stronger and far more powerful than Mr. Weasley. The more distraught, the more he felt exiled from his family the easier it was to pour my soul into him.”
“What’d you mean?” asked Harry.
“Haven’t you guessed yet, Harry Potter?” said Riddle softly. “Percy opened the Chamber of Secrets. He strangled the school’s roosters and threatened the Mudbloods with it on Hogwart’s walls. He set the serpent on Mudbloods and traitors, even his own brother.” Harry shook his head. “Of course, he didn’t know what he was doing at first. “I’ve been studying too much I must have crashed last night because I can’t remember anything.” “Tom, Filch is looking at me funny, but I haven’t done anything. I’m a prefect.” “Forget Fred, what does he know? If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be so stressed.” “Tom, I’m starting to forget things. The attacks are quickening, what is going on?”
“That was when he caught on, and when you found the diary. Oh, don’t be jealous, Harry, you were the one I always wanted.” Riddle laughed. “He meant nothing to me, honestly.”
“You framed him, didn’t you?”
“It was too easy, really. It was my word against Hagrid’s really. Who was old Armando Dippet going to trust, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but oh so brave, prefect, model student or Hagrid? In trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed and sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls, I knew he was hiding something else and everyone else was just as easily convinced. Except for the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, he never seemed to like me as much as the others. He thought Hagrid was innocent and convinced Dippet to keep him on as gamekeeper.”
“I bet Dumbledore saw right through you!” said Harry his teeth gritted. “He did keep an eye on me after that, but I still had the brains and the power, and I was smart enough to make sure not to open the Chamber again while I was at school. But I wasn’t going to waste all those long years I spent looking for it so I left this diary and preserved my sixteen year old self in it’s pages so that maybe one day someone would find it and finish Salazar Slytherin’s noble work.”
“You haven’t finished. You haven’t done anything, Tom! Professor Sprout and Madame Pomfrey have been working on the mandrakes all year. Everyone who has been petrified will be healed, and I will get Percy out of here.”
Riddle didn’t look as upset as Harry thought he would.
“Let them,” he replied. “Let them heal the Mudbloods and traitors, it isn’t them that I am after anymore.”
“Haven’t I already told you,” said Riddle quietly. “they don’t interest me. For many months now, my new target has been you. Imagine how angry I was when that dumb block Crabbe stole the diary and Percy just so happened to catch him out with it and confiscated it once again. After Fred there wasn’t much left in Percy here, so we wrote a little farewell message on the wall and he came down here to wait.”
“For you, I have many questions for you Harry Potter.”
“Like what?” Harry spat, fists clenched.
“How is 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?”
“What do you care? Voldemort was before your time.”
“Voldemort?” said Riddle reverently. “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.
Then he waved the wand once more and the letters rearranged themselves to:
“My mother gave me the blood of Salazar Slytherin and while I had my dirty Muggle father’s name, I used this title during school. Only to my close friends, you see. How could I keep the name of the foul, common Muggle who abandoned my mother because he found out she was a witch? No, Harry…so, I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest wizard in the world!”
“Far from it, Tom,” Harry said, his voice full of hatred.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Tom, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn’t dare try to take Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw right through you when you were at school and he still frightens you today.”
The smile vanished from Riddle’s face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.
“Dumbledore’s been driven out of this castle by the mere mention of me!” he hissed.
“So, what?” barked Harry. “Dumbledore is not Hogwarts, and at Hogwarts help will always be given to those that ask for it. And I’m asking right now, for Percy and for me.”
“See, Harry, you don’t play by the rules, Slytherins don’t ask for help.”
Riddle opened his mouth to say something else, but froze.
Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle spun around to stare down the empty chamber where eerie, unearthly music was radiating. Then as the music reached a pitch, flames erupted at the top of one of the pillars and a crimson bird the size of a swan appeared and flew down toward Harry and Percy.
“That’s a phoenix,” said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it.
“Fawkes?” Harry breathed, as the bird landed on his shoulder. The bird dropped something on the floor.
“And that,” Riddle eyed the object Fawkes had dropped. “…is the old school sorting hat.”
And 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 Riddle’s were laughing at once….
“This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Perhaps he assumed the great Harry Potter needed no more help than this? So, tell me Harry before I meet my demise by this ragged hat? How did you best me, not once but twice? How did you survive? Tell me everything you know, the longer you talk, the longer you get to live.”
The longer Harry stood there weighing his options he realized that Riddle was becoming clearer and clearer as the life drained from Percy. So, if it were to be a duel or a fight, it was better to be sooner rather than later.
“You couldn’t kill me, Tom, because you were too weak. My mother, my Muggle-born mother died to save me. She stopped you killing me. And I’ve seen the real you. I saw you last year. You’re a wreck. You’re barely alive. That’s where all your power got you. You’re in hiding. You’re ugly. You’re foul….”
Riddle’s face contorted before he controlled it into an awful smile.
“So, your mother died to save you. Yes, that’s a powerful counter charm. I can see now….there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. Because there are strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles, Slytherins. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since Salazar 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 own wand at him, but instead his smile only widened.
“Now, Harry, I’m going to teach you a little lesson. Finally, let’s match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter and the pathetic weapons Dumbledore has lent you.”
“Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.”
Harry wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes leaving his shoulder to stand by Percy so he could get a better look.
Slytherin’s gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, Harry saw his mouth opening wider and wider, and something was stirring inside, slithering from it’s depths. Harry backed until he hit the dark Chamber wall.
Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. Harry felt it shudder, Riddle had called the snake.
The basilisk was moving towards Harry, it’s heavy slithering body moving heavily against the stone floor. Eyes still tightly shut, Harry began to run, his hands outstretched because he couldn’t stand to look at him.
Voldemort was laughing at him. And only laughed more when Harry tripped. He fell hard onto the stone and tasted blood, the serpent was barely feet from him.
There was a loud, explosive spitting sound right above him, and then something heavy hit Harry so hard that the he was smashed into the wall. He couldn’t help it, he opened his eyes wide enough to squint at what was going on.
Fawkes was soring around the serpent’s head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabers.
Fawkes 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. Harry turned away, but before he could, Harry looked straight into his 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! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU! YOU CAN STILL SMELL HIM! KILL HIM!”
The blinded serpent swayed, confused, but 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.
“Harry?” a voice muttered. It was Percy.
“Use the hat!” Harry called out to Percy, though he didn’t know why.
“But you’re not,” Harry encouraged him. “Your brothers love you, Percy. Fred and George, and Ron, they are all worried sick about you. Oliver is worried sick about you, your his best friend. No matter how much of an outcast you feel, Percy, you’re a Gryffindor, you belong here!” Harry shouted at him.
The basilisk thrashed wildly at Harry. When something hard and heavy thudded at Harry’s feet. It was a sword. Harry glanced at Percy who was staring at him in wide eyed shock.
“KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU! SNIFF! SMELL HIM!”
Harry was on his feet, ready. The basilisk’s head was falling, it body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face him, ready to strike.
“DOWN!” a voice in Parseltongue shouted, but it wasn’t Riddle it was him. And the snake listened. It’s head bowed down slightly. The snake was listening to him, but it was confused.
Harry picked up the sword and stabbed it into the snakes snapping mouth before Riddle could gain control once again. But as warm blood drenched Harry 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, spotting Percy who was too weak to move any more than he had.
“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.
“Your dead, Harry Potter,” said Riddle’s voice above him. “Dead. Even Dumbledore’s bird knows it. Do you see what he’s doing, Potter! He’s crying.”
Harry blinked, as Fawke’s head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were flickering down his feathers until they landed on Harry’s arm.
“I’m going to sit here and watch you die, Harry Potter. Take your time, I have all the time in the world.”
Going to sleep suddenly felt like a brilliant idea.
“So ends the famous Harry Potter,” said Riddle’s now distant voice. “Alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by his friends, defeated at last by the Dark Lord he thought he could win against. You’ll be back with your dear Mudblood mummy soon enough, Harry… She bought you twelve years of borrowed time, but Lord Voldemort got you in the end, as you know he must…..”
If this is dying, Harry thought, then it wasn’t so bad. Even some of the pain was leaving.
But 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.
“Get away, bird,” said Riddle’s voice suddenly. “Get away from him, I said, get away….”
Harry raised his head. Riddle was pointing Harry’s wand, but Fawkes had already flown away.
“Phoenix tears….” Said Riddle quietly, staring at Harry’s arm. “Of course…healing powers…I forgot…In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter, you and me….”
Then, in a rush of wings, Fawkes had soared back overhead and something fell into Harry’s lap, the diary. 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 dairy in torrents, like blood, streaming over Harry’s hands, flooding the floor. Riddle was screaming, twisting and flailing then….
He had gone. Harry’s wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Shaking all over, Harry pulled the sword from the basilisk’s mouth and moved toward Percy. He was up, seeming to have gotten most of his strength back after Riddle had been vanquished.
Percy offered up no exclamation, somehow he knew that Riddle had told Harry everything.
“He’s gone,” Harry said, reassuringly. “And so is the basilisk.”
“No small comfort,” said Percy. “I’m going to be expelled, my family is going to kick me out.”
Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber’s entrance. Harry and Percy headed into the tunnel, Harry put a hand on Percy’s shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting manner.
“George,” Harry yelled into the tunnel. “I’ve got him, we’re okay.”
He heard George give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizeable gap he had managed to make in the rockfall.
“Percy!” George thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull his brother threw. George wrapped Percy up in a big hug, and Harry could see the relief roll off of him. “You’re alive. Thank Merlin! Oh, Percy.”
“Um, Harry?” George said, still holding onto his brother tightly. “How come you’ve got a sword?”
“I’ll explain when we get out of here,” then Fawkes swooped over their heads and out of the Chamber. “I’ll explain that, too,” he said as George stared after the bird.
“Where’s Lockhart?” Harry asked.
“Back there,” said George, still looking puzzled, but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. “He’s in a bad way. Come and see.”
Lockhart’s memory was gone. The Memory Charm he had fired backfired on him. He no longer had a clue who he was, or where he was, of who any of them were.
“I told him to come and wait here. He’s a danger to himself.”
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 George. “Let’s go, huh?” George offered Lockhart his hand and Fawkes flew above them.
“You don’t think,” Percy said. But Harry already knew.
An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through his whole body and the next second, in a rush of wings, they all were flying upward through the pipe. Harry could hear Lockhart dangling below him, saying, “Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!”
They flew upward and before they knew it were back in the bathroom, and the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place.
“You’re alive,” she said blankly to Harry.
“There’s no need to sound so 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.
“And what about me, Myrtle?” George asked with a wink.
The ghost blushed even further.
“Now, we go save our friends.”
