Tom's expression shifted, though not to anger; to him, there was no point in being angry at a child who wasn't even a proper wizard. He stepped forward, his form flickering—insubstantial, yet far from harmless—and the faint glow around him only deepened the darkness of the chamber.
"Very few people," he said softly, "would recognize that name… especially not in this form."
"And even fewer would dare to speak it so freely."
Victor didn't look impressed.
A faint smile appeared, but there was no warmth in it, only quiet disdain.
"Why?" he asked, his tone steady but edged with contempt. "Do you think you're some kind of god of death, someone everyone should fear? You're just a normal person… someone who can die."
Tom's smile froze, the words striking a raw spot he never allowed anyone near; he had never wanted to be seen as ordinary, because in his own eyes he was meant to be something far beyond even the wizarding world.
"You guys take Ginny and get her out of here," Victor said, not turning.
Harry and Ron didn't argue. Together, they lifted Ginny carefully and began backing away, as they kept their eyes on Riddle.
Hermione didn't follow.
Instead, she stepped closer to Victor, stopping just behind him, her gaze fixed on Riddle despite the fear in her eyes.
Tom watched them with faint amusement, as if their resolve entertained him.
"You're from Slytherin house," he said smoothly, "yet you show the courage of foolish Gryffindors."
"It won't change anything. You can't save poor Ginny. She's being drained—her life, her magic, everything she is… it's all being transferred to me."
"In a short while," he added, and now there was unmistakable pride in his voice, "she will die."
The air grew heavier as Ron looked at his sister, fear in his eyes.
Victor's head lowered as he looked down at the diary in his hands, his posture slackening just enough to suggest defeat. For a moment, he didn't move, and from a distance it could almost be mistaken for grief.
Tom's expression sharpened slightly, a hint of satisfaction crossing his face as he watched, certain the boy had reached his limit.
"Crying will not—"
He stopped.
Victor's shoulders began to shake. At first it looked like quiet sobbing, but then a sound slipped through.
A low laugh.
"Hah…"
It grew, no longer contained.
"Hahaha…"
The laughter echoed across the chamber, wrong in a place like this, completely out of place beside Ginny's cold body and the ancient stone surrounding them.
Victor lifted his head slowly, and there were no tears in his eyes—if anything, there was a hint of madness in them—as he looked straight at Tom, the laughter fading into a thin smile that carried nothing but open disgust.
"Do you think you're the only genius, Tom?" Victor said, his voice steady, carrying neither urgency nor fear. "Do you really believe I can't stop this? All it takes is destroying that diary, and Ginny will be saved."
Tom's expression shifted, the calm certainty cracking for the first time. He stared at Victor more closely now, as if reassessing him entirely. There was something unsettling in the way Victor spoke, something far too controlled for someone standing in front of him.
For a brief moment, it reminded him of himself.
"That is not possible," Tom said, but the confidence behind the words had weakened. "You understand nothing about what you are interfering with—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Victor's hand moved.
From within his robes, he drew out a long, curved fang, dark with dried venom, unmistakable in origin. The moment it caught the dim light of the chamber, the atmosphere shifted.
Tom's composure shattered.
"Why do you have that…?" he demanded, his voice no longer smooth, no longer distant, but sharp with real alarm.
He moved forward instantly, reaching for the diary in Victor's hand, but the motion came too late.
Victor released the diary deliberately, letting it fall toward the stone floor, and in the same movement drove the basilisk fang down into it with decisive force.
The impact echoed.
For a fraction of a second, everything seemed to freeze.
Then the reaction began.
A tear of light split across Tom's chest, as if something inside him had been pierced through. His form flickered violently, the illusion breaking apart under the force of what had just been done. The diary beneath the fang convulsed, dark ink spilling out like blood, spreading rapidly across the floor.
"No—!"
The word tore out of him, no longer composed.
Cracks of blinding light spread through his body, each one widening as his form destabilized.
His face twisted, not only with anger, but with something far deeper—panic, the realization that everything he had built in that moment was collapsing beyond recovery.
"You wretched boy… you've ruined my revival!" Tom shouted, his voice no longer controlled, breaking apart as his form flickered violently.
The cracks of light spreading across him grew sharper, tearing through his chest and shoulders, but even as he came apart, his eyes burned with hatred.
"If I fall…" he said, forcing the words through the breaking form, "I will drag you with me into death—"
His voice shifted.
The sound that followed was no longer English.
It was a low, chilling hiss, ancient and deliberate, spilling from his mouth in Parseltongue. The words coiled through the chamber like something alive, sharp and commanding.
"Sss… sssslither… ssseek… kill…"
The chamber reacted, the air shifting as something unseen stirred through the stone, and then Tom smiled—a twisted, satisfied expression, as if even in destruction he had found a way to strike back.
"This," he said, his voice breaking as his face began to dissolve into light, "will be your grave."
His form shattered completely, fragments of light tearing away into nothingness as the diary beneath the fang bled its last, the presence of Tom Riddle collapsing with it.
The silence that followed lasted only a heartbeat.
Then came the sound.
A slow, heavy slithering.
It echoed from the far end of the chamber, deep within the statue of Salazar Slytherin, as something massive shifted inside the stone.
The mouth of the statue began to open.
Darkness moved within it.
"Victor…" Hermione said, her voice tight as she instinctively grabbed his arm.
The sound grew louder.
Closer.
The basilisk was coming.
*****
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