Neville, Harley, and Ron kept Tom busy, doing their best to delay him, but the true strength of the group rested with Ted.
All they had to do was bring down the basilisk.
Just as Tom relied on the basilisk as his ultimate weapon, Ted knew it too.
And since Tom was currently unkillable, attacking him was a waste of time. The basilisk, on the other hand, could be killed.
While spells flew back and forth across the chamber, Ted was locked in an intense battle.
Compared to the dueling going on behind him, this was a desperate clash of survival.
The basilisk was in a frenzy now, like a deranged wrecking ball with scales. It charged through the chamber blindly, smashing through everything in its path—even injuring itself in the process.
There was only one thing on its mind: destroy.
Ted had used the card [Gravity Ball (Blue)], holding it for five full seconds, but that was the limit.
For a creature this massive, the gravitational pull was barely more than a nudge—a momentary restraint.
But Ted didn't lose hope.
He kept throwing everything he had at the creature: [Chasing Snowball (Green)], [Travel Spike Frisbee (Green)], [Shaking Tiger (Green)], [Moonstone (Green)]—each item cast out with one purpose: keep the basilisk distracted.
Earlier, Ted had used [Forged Lucky Coin (Green)] on Hermione, boosting her maximum magic capacity by 20% for three minutes. She'd poured all her power into casting a transfiguration spell.
A beam of light shot from her wand and struck a massive snake-shaped stone sculpture.
For a brief moment, it came alive and slithered awkwardly toward the basilisk.
It wasn't much.
If Professor McGonagall had cast it, maybe it would've stood a better chance. But Hermione's animated snake was sluggish and clumsy—its movements stiff, almost unnatural.
Still, it served its purpose.
As soon as the stone snake lunged at the basilisk, the enraged creature unleashed all its fury.
It tore into the statue with a vengeance, reducing it to rubble in under thirty seconds.
Hermione slumped against the wall, pale and exhausted.
She quickly drank a magic-replenishing potion made from the magic spring water summoned by the modified water-making spell Aguamenti Charm.
She had done everything she could.
Ted had already summoned a giant monster and a clay golem—large by most standards, but still dwarfed by the basilisk.
The wild boar, summoned from a cannonball, didn't even register to the blind serpent and vanished on contact.
The Fire Dragon Fireworks, however, caught its attention. The basilisk lunged, mouth agape, only to bite into a crackling explosion of light.
Taking advantage of the distraction, the clay golem dove at the creature's tail. It wrapped its arms around it and held tight—but the cost was brutal.
The basilisk nearly shattered it with one whip of its tail.
Now, the golem had transformed most of its body into liquid clay, anchoring the tail to the ground with sheer will.
Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, yet it refused to let go.
Then, the giant monster charged in, swinging a huge club and landing a direct hit on the basilisk's head.
One of its fangs snapped clean off—but before it could follow up, the snake coiled around it tightly.
Ted's protective charm on the giant monster, a helmet-like curse, shattered instantly.
If the monster hadn't jammed its club into the basilisk's mouth, it might already have been devoured.
Now entangled, its bones audibly strained under the crushing force. It wouldn't last long.
Despite being nearly blind, the basilisk was still a deadly threat.
But Ted had one last trump card: Brother Chicken.
"Kakadoodle doo!"
A towering rooster, over 1.5 meters tall and bursting with brilliant feathers, stood firm.
Its proud crest and intense gaze were full of determination. It reared its head and let out a mighty crow that echoed through the chamber.
The basilisk, blood streaming from its mouth and nostrils, froze mid-crush.
It loosened its coils, ignoring both the troll and the club in its mouth, and began rolling and thrashing in sheer agony.
Its scaled body pulsed and twisted unnaturally.
Swollen lumps rose and fell beneath its skin, like something boiling just below the surface.
Even though this thousand-year-old basilisk had been specially modified by Slytherin, its fear of a rooster's crow was instinctive—and Ted's rooster was no ordinary chicken.
This was Brother Chicken, trained for over two years in magical combat. He was raised for one reason: to terrify magical serpents.
He let out another defiant crow, and the basilisk writhed harder, completely out of control. Its screams were deafening.
The giant monster used the opportunity to break free and pummel the snake with two massive fists, each the size of a cauldron.
The clay golem, its task complete, crumbled without a sound, fading into the dirt like a true hero.
…
Tom, standing arrogantly, had just mocked Neville for being good at nothing but growing vegetables.
With a flick of his wand, he wiped out nearly half of the magical plants Neville had summoned.
But before he could boast further, a sharp rooster's crow echoed through the chamber.
At that exact moment, Tom's heart dropped with a hard "click."
He should've seen this coming.
Even though he had ordered Malfoy to kill all of Hagrid's chickens, he hadn't considered that they might bring their own.
The black goggles worn by Neville and the others suddenly made sense—they had come prepared.
They had figured it out. They knew the monster hidden in the Chamber was a basilisk.
And they brought a rooster.
Tom immediately turned, abandoning his fight with Neville and Harley. He had to protect the basilisk. If it died, his resurrection plan would crumble.
But Neville and Harley weren't about to let that happen.
Harley, already on the move, conjured a strong tailwind behind her. The wind launched her forward with enough force to blur her outline, her boots skimming the ground like she was Disapparating.
Neville was even faster.
He cast an Enlarging Charm on himself, swelling into a massive version of himself—a true Gryffindor lion charging into battle. With a fierce roar, he hurled something straight at Tom's face.
Despite his youthful appearance, Tom's combat instincts were razor-sharp. He hadn't ignored the two behind him. As soon as Neville threw the object, Tom twisted his body to avoid it.
But that was exactly what they wanted.
A blinding white flash exploded mid-air.
For a moment, the entire world went white.
Neville had thrown one of Ted's specially enchanted flash-burst tooth dagger.
Magic, like everything else, evolves.
Tom, trapped in his 16-year-old self from five decades ago, never imagined such a thing.
The searing light stunned him. His mind went completely blank.
While he staggered, Harley—goggles shielding her eyes—didn't go for Tom.
Instead, she dove, scooping up the unconscious, deathly pale Malfoy. With practiced precision, she rolled behind a collapsed pile of stone.
As she took cover, she pulled out a scroll inked in shimmering deep-sea cuttlefish ink and slapped it onto Malfoy's forehead.
A "Scroll of Magic Suppression."
The Horcrux diary had created a terrible tether between Tom and Malfoy, siphoning life and magic from the boy to anchor Tom's soul and give him form.
As long as that link remained strong, any attack against Tom could backfire—harming Malfoy instead.
But the scroll slowly dampened the connection.
Weakened, but not yet broken.
While Tom flailed in the aftershock of the blinding flash, a black-robed figure darted from the shadows behind him.
Thin, fast, and grinning madly, Jerry burst from hiding.
He caught the very dagger that had just blinded Tom, reversed his grip, and drove it straight into Tom's back.
Jerry cackled, "Ahaha—it's me!"
He had been waiting for this moment all along.
If Tom had been a normal height, Jerry would've nailed his spine, but even hitting the waist was good enough.
Of course, a regular dagger wouldn't do anything to someone like Tom, whose form was sustained by dark magic.
But Ted's dagger wasn't ordinary.
It was enchanted with a Protection Against Evill spell, plus it was a from a dragon, a formidable magical creature.
It wasn't enough to destroy Tom outright. But it worked.
The flawless solid illusion that was Tom's body shimmered, faltered, and became see-through. His image rippled as though it were underwater.
Tom screamed.
Not just in pain—but in horror.
In all his 16 years of life before death, he had never felt anything like this.
His voice echoed through the chamber, twisted and chilling.
Jerry didn't wait to enjoy the aftermath. He dropped the dagger and bolted.
"Slip!" Jerry shouted as he vanished behind a pillar.
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Word count: 1439
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