Miles under Hogwarts, the tunnels were so dark that the children could only see a little distance ahead, their shadows on the wet walls looking monstrous in the wandlight.
Taking turns after turns, as if walking through a labyrinth prepared just for them, they had already left the Basilisk's shed skin hundreds of meters behind.
Then, at last, as they crept around yet another bend, they saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
Draco looked at Harry. "Go, speak your mother tongue."
"Stop it!" Daphne hissed, making the boys shudder. When the quiet ones snapped, it was always time to shut it. "This is it… The Heir of Slytherin is behind this wall. Let's not focus on defeating him. OK?"
Daphne particularly looked at Harry and Draco.
If Black had been here, she would have stared right into his eyes until he had nodded.
Somehow, they all knew what Daphne was trying to say.
They were here to rescue Ginny. Not to defeat a monster.
Unless needed, there was no point in having it out against the enemy.
However, even Daphne knew rescuing Ginny without confronting the Basilisk was an impossibility. Perhaps that's why she had been praying to Gods and Demons alike to let her Summon a Magical Creature that could help them out against that monster.
Harry approached, his throat dry. There was no need to pretend these stone snakes were real; their eyes looked strangely alive.
He cleared his throat, and the emerald eyes seemed to flicker.
-Open- hissed Harry.
The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and the children, taking a deep breath of courage, walked inside.
…
It was a dimly lit, long chamber, grayness overwhelming the surroundings.
Tall pillars, carved with coiling snakes, rose high to support the ceiling. At the end of the long platform they were standing on, there was a massive statue.
They had to crane their necks 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.
Between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.
Even from afar, they recognized her.
"Ginny!" Ron and Daphne cried.
Sprinting, they approached her and fell to their knees.
"Please… don't be dead…" Ron muttered, his eyes wet as he turned her over. Numbers began appearing in his left eye as he used his Spell — Mecha Eye — to get a reading on her status.
Some weight instantly left his shoulders.
"She's alive!" he cried, but then saw her temperature. "But she's getting colder… why?! Wake up, Ginny!"
"She won't wake," a voice came from one side of the statue.
The children's head snapped to that side.
It was a tall boy, probably a sixth-year Slytherin. With his hands behind his back, he walked out of the shadows, wearing a smile.
Daphne and Hermione's hearts gave out. "Tome Riddle!"
Harry, Draco, and Ron didn't know who this Tom Riddle was, but from their girls' voices, they knew this person wasn't any good.
Daphne looked at them. "Hagrid once told Darcie over a tea party… why he was expelled… It was because of Tom Riddle. She then searched the archives, and there she saw a picture of him. He was the Head Boy… fifty years ago!"
The boys' heads snapped toward Tom Riddle.
"You… Are you a ghost?" Harry asked. "Can you tell who's behind Ginny…"
Harry couldn't finish the sentence. Tom Riddle's smile was widening with every step he took towards them.
"No ghost…" he told them, coming out in light. "A memory. Preserved in a diary for fifty years…"
Tom Riddle pointed his chin at the feet of Salazar Slytherin.
Lying open there was the little black diary.
"That's… the diary I found in the bathroom…" Harry mumbled. He had found the diary in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Then, finding it empty and old, he had thrown it back into the toilet.
To see it here, Harry was shocked.
But even more shocked and terrorized by the diary's appearance was Draco. "That's the diary I gave to…"
"… me," another voice came from the side of the statue opposite Tom Riddle's.
It was Gilderoy Lockhart!
Carrying his wide smile, with great pomp, Lockhart walked out of the shadows.
But instantly, the children picked up on an oddity about him.
There was a blurriness about Lockhart's face. It was as if he were wearing an invisible mask, blurring his face's outlines.
Still, what did that matter?!
"Professor!" Harry shouted. "Help Ginny! We need to take her to…"
Draco put a hand over Harry's shoulders, his eyes as wide as saucers. "My father gave a diary to me… to help Darcie in the Triwizard Tournament.
"I knew something was wrong with the diary, so… when I learned that Black had a spat with Lockhart in Diagon Alley, I gave it to him, saying it was a gift from the Malfoys…"
Gilderoy smiled at Draco. "Thanks to that, I met my master, young Draco. Thank you!"
Ron looked at Ginny, Tom Riddle, and Lockhart, the numbers in his eye chilling his spine. "What's going on?!"
Lockhart laughed, throwing his hands, walking around the children. "When I received the diary, I naturally began using it to write my tales of bravery. But, it turned out, the diary was the most precious among all the ones I had ever used.
"It wrote back. It praised me. It believed me.
"It became my greatest audience!"
Tom Riddle walked around in the opposite direction. "Poor block. He was so infatuated with hearing my praises that he opened his heart and soul to me. I learned everything from him, filtering out the truth from the false.
"Soon, I learned another great thing. Mr. Lockhart here has a great mastery over memory charms."
Lockhart took the praise by swelling his chest, the blurriness on his face taking the shape of Tom Riddle's face now and then.
"I began manipulating my memories to serve my audience better… until one day I realized that the audience was none but my master!"
Ron looked at Lockhart as if he hadn't heard anything absurd. "You are mad!"
Tom Riddle scoffed from the other side, his feet kept shuffling on the wet floor. "He was going mad. So, to not get found out, I told him to pass on the diary to someone else. Preferably, to another, lonely and unlikable staff member."
"Umbridge always had a thing for my charms," Lockhart told them. "Fat, pink toad thought I had fallen for her. So, I gave her my personal diary of tales… yet to be published… in which she could also write.
"You must have seen her face. For the entire first term, it was she who kept opening the Chamber of Secrets while I manipulated her memories, making her an even greater headache for others.
"One day, she saw me walking around with Rita Skeeter, and she threw the diary in the girls' bathroom in anger."
Tom had walked to Lockhart's original position now, circling his way around the children. "I knew a staff member wouldn't work a second time. That's where Ginny comes in."
Lockhart smiled from the other side. "It was much easier manipulating her."
"I agree," Tom Riddle laughed. "Without Lockhart's assistance, the girl would have shown signs of trance. But his magic was much… solid than mine.
"Now, it's just a matter of time. Soon, the girl will die, and I will come back."
"You!" Ron fumed.
Harry held him back, staring dead at Tom Riddle. "Why Ginny?"
Tom Riddle stared at the children. "Come on… Would you have come down here for Pansy, then?"
A chill ran down their spines.
Hermione had warned them that this could be a trap for the professors. They would have never thought in their wildest dreams that this was a trap for them.
"You… wanted us?!" Ron asked.
"Humph!" Lockhart snorted, taking out his wand. "Don't think too much of yourself. It's Potter we want."
"Killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore," Tom said, eying Harry. "For many months now, my new target has been — you.
"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 Harry escaped?" said Hermione slowly. "Voldemort was after your time…"
"Mudblood… " Riddle fumed at the girl. "Voldemort is my past, present, and future."
On the other side, Lockhart began to trace the wand 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.
The moment Daphne saw those words, she screamed, "ATTACK!"
*****************
AN: 60 more chapters are available in advance [Use the link available on my Webnovel Profile].
With each Tier, you will get ALL Monthly Uploads of all my works, Side Stories, Backlog Chapters, along with unique Images, enriching your reading experience while simultaneously supporting the work.
100 Power Stones/day: +1 Bonus Chapter