Tom Riddle was, without a doubt, a genius.
Even at a young age, he had already begun exploring the boundaries of advanced dark magic. Though he couldn't see a thing in the shrouded darkness, he quietly cast a sensory spell to feel his surroundings.
He didn't find his opponents, but he did sense the basilisk's unnatural movements.
Suddenly, fury bubbled up inside him.
'What is going on?! This isn't how it was supposed to be!'
'Why is there a flute affecting the basilisk?! I thought Parseltongue was the only way to control it!'
Tom focused instantly, tracing the source of the sound.
But the enemy was clever. The sound either wasn't coming from the actual caster or it was being cloaked with magic.
Thankfully, the basilisk had somewhat recovered, awakened by Tom's Parseltongue.
It writhed in confusion, unsure what had just overtaken its body.
"Think hiding in the dark is enough to stop me?!" Senior Tom shouted, no longer worried about draining his magical energy.
He cast a spell without hesitation.
Through enchanted goggles, Ted watched as a glowing orb of magic shot from Tom's wand, transforming mid-air into dozens of palm-sized bats that scattered in all directions at blinding speed.
Quick reaction!
Even the teenage version of Voldemort had an arsenal of spells at the ready. He didn't hesitate to summon a swarm to map out the space and expose his opponents.
"Swarms of bees!"
"Avis!"
Hermione responded instantly with summoning spells of her own.
Summoning spells fell under the broader category of Transfiguration. Spells like the Summoning Charm or transfiguring magical energy into various creatures or objects were all connected.
Hermione had been studying diligently all semester.
Her progress in Transfiguration had been so impressive that Professor McGonagall considered her the most promising student of the year.
A horde of buzzing wasps materialized from her wand, while a flock of magical birds took flight near the ceiling, fluttering chaotically to disrupt both vision and sound.
At the same time, Ron and Jerry raised their wands in unison. "Stone Bullets!"
Dozens—no, hundreds—of small stones shot out, pelting the incoming bats in mid-air.
In seconds, the space turned into magical chaos: buzzing wasps, screeching bats, fluttering birds, and flying stones collided in an all-out aerial skirmish.
Beasts and spells vanished one by one, the enchantments only lasting twenty or thirty seconds before fading away.
"Hahaha! I should have known you'd all move together! So you're really all here... even Ted?"
Having suffered a couple of embarrassing losses to Ron and Neville before, Senior Tom knew more than a little about their group.
Especially Ted, who was praised by Ron and deeply trusted by Neville—a fact that Tom looked down on with open disdain.
Realizing he had been tricked and surrounded by six young wizards, Senior Tom laughed bitterly.
"Perfect. I get to wipe you all out in one go," he sneered, his smile turning menacing.
"Attack! Kill them all!" he ordered in Parseltongue.
Although the basilisk still couldn't pinpoint Ted's location, it surged forward anyway, head raised, tail sweeping wildly.
Its tail—as thick as a water tank and just as heavy—swung like a massive roller. With a deafening crash, it obliterated a stone serpent statue in the corridor. Chunks of stone exploded outward like cannon fire.
Blinded by the enchanted darkness, the basilisk rampaged in every direction, destroying everything around it.
Jerry and Hermione ducked behind one of the towering support pillars, their hearts pounding as chunks of shattered stone clattered to the ground around them.
Even without its infamous deadly stare, the basilisk's sheer brute force was terrifying.
If a dragon crashed to the ground in this confined space, it might still struggle to match this creature's raw destructive power.
But Ted had already formulated a plan.
Through their telepathic link, he gave the signal: Let's begin.
Ted silently cast an enhanced version of the Silencing Charm—a soundproofing enchantment that muted everything within a specific range.
Inside that protective silence, his friends began casting Freezing Charms in unison.
Beneath Ted's feet, a chilling mist began to spread—his own version of Frost Nova.
He opened a box roughly the size of a textbook, but far larger on the inside thanks to the Untraceable Extension Charm.
The box, worth 32 Galleons, had been carefully prepared.
Inside were massive stacks of ice—taken freely from the kitchen's ice cellar with help from the house-elves.
He had stuffed the box with enough ice to fill seven or eight freezers, and now it spilled out silently across the floor.
In just thirty or forty seconds, the temperature in the underground chamber dropped rapidly.
Because Anzu's dark field still cloaked the space in magical blackness, visibility was near zero. Senior Tom, relying mostly on his senses, had no way to perceive the creeping cold.
Unaware, he remained focused elsewhere.
The basilisk, meanwhile, continued its wild rampage, its massive tail smashing pillars, statues, and walls. Only the enormous Slytherin statue at the back of the chamber remained untouched.
But after more than a minute, the basilisk sensed something was wrong—it let out a soft hiss. Why did it suddenly feel... cold?
This was unusual for the creature.
Despite Hogwarts being tucked away in the frigid Scottish Highlands, the basilisk had rarely felt the brunt of winter.
Since Slytherin created it, the snake had spent most of its life deep in the warm, hidden chambers beneath the castle.
Especially after Slytherin altered its biology to slow its metabolism, it rarely stirred during the colder seasons—eating less, sleeping more, and barely moving at all in winter.
The only exception had been last winter, when Senior Tom controlled Ron and opened the Chamber of Secrets.
The basilisk had slithered out a few times then, mainly to stir fear through the castle.
But this... this unfamiliar chill made it feel uneasy.
Instead of rampaging through the chamber, it began to coil up and lay low, waiting cautiously.
However, the longer it stayed still, the colder it got. A creeping numbness spread across its massive body, and even a touch of drowsiness began to weigh on it.
Though the basilisk had impressive magical resistance—so much so that even Hogwarts professors would have a hard time subduing it—it was still a snake. A cold-blooded creature.
Ted's cold storage spell had done its work well. The temperature in the Chamber of Secrets had dropped drastically.
Everyone's breath steamed in the air, and exposed skin was now prickled with goosebumps.
Inside a sound-absorbing barrier, Hermione quickly cast warming charms over the group. It helped a little—enough to keep their teeth from chattering—but it was clear the temperature was nearing freezing.
The basilisk, for all its might, was now beginning to collect beads of moisture along its scales. It let out a low hiss, uncomfortable and sluggish.
Neville, with the translator charm still active, whispered urgently, "It says it's freezing... it wants to go back to sleep!"
Tom Riddle's face twisted in fury. "Merlin's beard! These little brats are playing me!"
He turned to the basilisk and barked in Parseltongue, "Don't just sit there! Move! There's not much space here—crush everything in sight!"
Parseltongue carried a powerful weight.
Even though the basilisk was reluctant in the numbing cold, it still obeyed the command.
It uncoiled slowly and began to slither across the frozen stone floor. But its movements were sluggish, and its body temperature continued to plummet.
Still, Tom's tactic was effective.
The Chamber of Secrets might have been half the size of a Quidditch pitch, but with a basilisk over twenty meters long crawling across the ground, Ted and the others were rapidly running out of safe space to hide.
Then, in the shadows, Anzu—who had done nothing since summoning the cloak of darkness—finally moved.
It glided soundlessly across the floor toward the massive serpent.
At the same time, Ted reached into his robes and activated a card he'd prepared long before: [Promotion (Red)].