Harry Potter and Ron Weasley stood at the far end of a long, narrow chamber lit by a dim glow.
Numerous stone pillars carved with entwined serpents towered around them, and beyond the last pillar stood a statue so tall it seemed to reach all the way up to the ceiling above.
With the face of an aged monkey and a long, narrow beard, it was the statue of Salazar Slytherin.
"Ginny!"
At the foot of the statue lay a girl in black robes, her fiery red hair spread out as she lay face down.
"Ginny! Don't die! Wake up!!"
Ron rushed to his sister's side. He dropped to his knees and shook her while shouting her name, but there was no sign at all that she would wake up.
Her face was white and cold like marble, and no matter how much Ron shook her while crying, her body only rocked limply in response.
Watching the scene from a short distance away were two witches. Yes, Saya and I.
"Let's split up."
What I proposed was dividing the four of us into two pairs to stay alert for the basilisk. Moving alone was simply too risky, but sticking together also carried the danger of being wiped out all at once.
Since there was only one basilisk (if there were several, we would be completely helpless, but if that were the case, Hogwarts would have been attacked long ago), splitting into two groups might allow us to distract and outmaneuver it by dividing its attention.
"Elaina, we should also…"
As Saya urged me in an impatient voice, I shook my head.
"The basilisk may still be hiding somewhere. Stay on guard."
I was not so lacking in empathy as to blame Harry and Ron for their carelessness. Anyone would lose their composure upon finding themselves, or their best friend's sister, on the brink of death. And Harry and Ron were, after all, still only thirteen-year-old boys.
"She won't be waking up."
Suddenly, a calm voice spoke from near Harry and Ron. Before they realized it, a tall, black-haired boy was leaning against a pillar beside them, gazing in their direction.
However, as if he were standing behind frosted glass, his outline was strangely blurred. Without thinking, I rubbed my eyes with my sleeve and even tugged at my own silky-smooth cheek.
"…Is it my age? I feel like I'm seeing some kind of hazy human hallucination."
"Huh? Elaina, you can see him too?!"
Apparently, Saya could see him as well.
"Tom… Tom Riddle?!"
When Harry cried out in surprise, the boy called Riddle nodded. Seeing that, Ron shouted with an incredulous expression.
"Tom Riddle?! But that's someone from fifty years ago!"
Yet Riddle remained standing there with a chilling smile on his face. Perhaps intimidated by the eerie, mist-like glow surrounding his indistinct form, Ron cautiously opened his mouth.
"You said she won't wake up. What do you mean…?"
"She is still alive. But only just."
"Don't tell me, Ginny is…"
"If she is left alone, she will die very soon."
At Riddle's words, Ron was so shocked that he lost the ability to speak and slumped forward.
"Are you a ghost?"
"A memory. A memory preserved in that diary for fifty years."
At Harry's words, Riddle quietly pointed to the floor near the massive statue of Slytherin. There lay a small black diary, left open where it had been dropped.
"Tom, can't you help us? We have to get Ginny out of here. There's a basilisk. It could appear at any moment…"
"It won't come until it's summoned."
"What do you mean?"
Riddle answered calmly. Harry, already on the verge of panic, still seemed unable to grasp the meaning of his words, but at this point it was not difficult to guess who the culprit was, and who stood behind this entire chain of events.
"What do I mean? Simply that that diary is my diary. By listening to foolish Ginny's complaints and getting her to bare her heart to me, I grew stronger by feeding on her soul. And then, in turn, by pouring my soul into her, I made her open this Chamber of Secrets."
In a gentle tone, Riddle confessed that the strangling of the roosters, the basilisk's natural enemies, throughout the school, the threatening words written on the walls, and the unleashing of the basilisk upon the four victims were all deeds carried out by Ginny while she was being controlled.
"Well, none of that matters anymore."
Riddle said quietly.
"My new target is you, Harry."
Fixing Harry with a ravenous gaze, Riddle toyed with Harry's wand and slowly opened his mouth.
"How did a baby with no particularly special magical power manage to shatter the strength of Lord Voldemort…?"
"Why do you care about something like that?" Harry asked cautiously.
Riddle gave a thin smile and used the wand to write letters in the air.
"TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE"
With another flick, the letters rearranged themselves, forming an entirely different sentence.
"I AM LORD VOLDEMORT."
"…"
My mouth hung open, completely unable to close.
Surely, during his school days, Riddle must have agonized endlessly over how to create a stylish anagram out of his own name.
People call that affliction "chuunibyou," and apparently it tends to manifest around the age of fourteen on average.
"Do you understand now? I was already using this name while I was a student at Hogwarts. Of course, I revealed it only to close friends."
I am certain he was seen as a painfully embarrassing kid.
"Lord Voldemort is my past, my present, and my future. Did you really think I would keep using the filthy surname of my Muggle father? Of course not. I named myself. One day, I would become the greatest wizard in the world, and my name would be one that the entire magical world would fear to utter!"
Tom Riddle spoke gleefully about his own dark history. Honestly, it was already too cringe-inducing to listen to.
"Saya, let's do this together."
Saya, who had been looking at Riddle with the same expression one reserves for a truly unfortunate person, nodded. While Riddle and Harry were locked in heated argument, we quickly formed a simple plan and fired our spells at Riddle simultaneously.
"Locomotor Mortis, leg-binding!"
"Expelliarmus, disarm!"
A white beam shot forth from Saya's wand, and a red flash burst from mine. Taken by surprise, Riddle was momentarily caught off guard, but he immediately deflected Saya's spell.
However, perhaps because his attention had been focused on Harry and the others, or perhaps because he had merely picked up Harry's fallen wand and failed to gain its loyalty, Riddle could not completely block my disarming charm. Harry's wand was flung into the air, and Harry swiftly caught it.
"So there were still rats hiding!"
Riddle's face flushed crimson with rage, and his mouth split open like a serpent's as he hissed in a low voice.
I could not understand what he was saying, but as if responding to Riddle's voice, the mouth of Slytherin's enormous stone statue slowly began to open. Something could be seen writhing within, crawling out sluggishly from deep inside.
It was probably the rumored king of venomous serpents, the basilisk.
"Run!"
I shouted in a panic, and I saw Harry and Ron turn pale as they fled from the spot.
"E-Elaina, what should we do?!"
"Please stay calm, Saya. I prepared for something like this."
I grabbed a piece of rubble lying nearby at random and told Saya to hold on tightly. Then I raised my wand and shouted a spell I had desperately memorized for my Transfiguration exams.
"Galliforce, become a rooster!"
In truth, conjuring living creatures is extremely difficult. Even Draco's "Serpensortia," which summoned a snake during the Dueling Club, actually requires considerable skill to perform successfully as a second-year.
However, while creating a creature from nothing is one thing, transforming something into a living creature is a level of Transfiguration we study properly in Professor McGonagall's class. Turning something into a rooster is something I can manage fairly normally.
"Elaina, that's…"
"I've decided to name it Cockatrice. Just now."
"The name really doesn't matter!"
As Harry and the others fled in a panic, Tom Riddle hurled abuse at them.
"There's no point in running! Your beloved Dumbledore is gone now!"
"Dumbledore isn't as far away as you think!"
Answering Harry's desperate shout of hope was not the impossibly beautiful song of a phoenix, but rather the piercing crow of a rooster.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!!"
From the beak of the rooster Saya was holding, the ear-splitting cry echoed throughout the Chamber of Secrets.
(End of chapter)
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