꧁☬⋆ᴺᴼ ᴼᴺᴱ'ˢ ᴾᴼᵛ⋆☬꧂

She looked up at them with red eyes as her hair is slowly turning white a little bit.

She cracked her neck a bit and tilted her head from the back. Then face them, staring at them deep in their soul.

The tension in the chamber got heavier.

Her eyes were glowing ruby red eyes as her hair had turned pure white as if she is returning to her actual appearance.

She groans and glared at them; Harry and Tom felt pressured by tension being hit at them. They felt how Draco Malfoy felt when Y/N was mad at him, making him not breathe by just pressing strain on him.

"You dare to wake me up?" Her voice was deep and dark, as if she has matured and hit puberty. She was already 10 centimetres shorter than Tom Riddle.

"Wha-what is going on." Harry stuttered as he got scared, not knowing what to do. Seeing the girl he likes, change into a scary person.

"I thought you would know, Potter. Isn't this Y/N of yours is your friend?" Tom swallowed his saliva, fearing the girl in front of him.

"I've never seen her like this, sure I have seen her getting mad before, and it is scary. But the last time I saw her like this was with you when I went back to the past, and I wasn't even sure if it was her or not."

"My moonlight is not that scary, unlike this, this girl." Tom pointed at her; Tom cast a spell to keep her in a barrier.

"Back to our topic", Harry didn't answer. He might not see what use Fawkes, or the Sorting Hat were, but he was no longer alone, and he waited for Riddle to stop laughing with his courage mounting.

"To business, Harry," said Riddle, still smiling broadly. "Twice - in your past, in my future - we have met. And twice I failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he added softly, "the longer you stay alive."

Harry was thinking fast, weighing his chances. Riddle had the wand. Harry had Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, neither of which would be much good in a duel. It didn't look good, all right... but the longer Riddle stood there, the more life was dwindling out of Ginny... and in the meantime, Harry noticed suddenly, Riddle's outline was becoming more explicit, more solid... If it had to be a fight between him and Riddle, better sooner than later.

"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you killing me. And I've seen the real you, and I saw you last year. You're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, and you're foul--"

Riddle's face contorted. Then he forced it into an awful smile. "So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful countercharm. I can see now... there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed—Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike... but after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That's all I wanted to know."

Harry stood, tense, waiting for Riddle to raise his wand. But Riddle's twisted smile was widening again.

"Now, Harry, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him..."

He cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away. Harry, fear spreading up his numb legs, watched Riddle stop between the high pillars and look up into the stone face of Slytherin, tall above him in the half-darkness. Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed - but Harry understood what he was saying ...

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."

Harry wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes swaying on his shoulder.

Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, Harry saw his mouth opening, broader, to make a massive black hole.

And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.

Harry backed away until he hit the dark Chamber wall, and as he shut his eyes tight, he felt Fawkes'wing sweep his cheek as he took flight. Harry wanted to shout, "Don't leave me!" but what chance did a phoenix have against the king of serpents?

Something huge hit the stone floor of the chamber. Harry felt it shudder - he knew what was happening, he could sense it, could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth. Then he heard Riddle's hissing voice:

"Kill him."

The basilisk moved toward Harry; he could hear its heavy body slithering heavily across the dusty floor. Eyes still tightly shut, Harry began to run blindly sideways, his hands outstretched, feeling his way - Voldemort was laughing.

Harry tripped. He fell hard onto the stone and tasted blood; the serpent was barely feet from him. He could hear it coming.

"You two are boring me right now." Both Harry and Tom looked behind them and discovered the other Y/N floating in the air, lazing while eating a grape.

The barrier was gone, "Consume both of them." Y/N watched with a murderous urge look on her face with a smug smile, and the snake suddenly went towards Tom.

"No- what is going on?!" Tom yelled.

There was a loud, explosive spitting sound right above him, and then something heavy hit Harry so hard that he was smashed into the wall. Waiting for fangs to sink through his body, he heard more mad hissing, something thrashing wildly off the pillars.

He couldn't help it - he opened his eyes wide enough to squint at what was going on. He saw that the serpent was going for Tom Riddle.

'Is-is she saving me?' Harry thought.

"Oh darling, I am not," Y/N smirked. "I'm getting the three of you to get eaten", she giggles maniacally.

Fawkes was soaring around its head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabres Fawkes dived. His long golden beak sank out of sight, and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor.

The snake's tail thrashed, narrowly missing Harry, and before Harry could shut his eyes, it turned. Harry looked straight into its face and saw that its eyes, both its great, bulbous yellow eyes, had been punctured by the phoenix; blood was streaming to the floor, and the snake was spitting in agony.

"Leave the damn bird alone, or I'm chopping you into pieces." Y/N frowned at the serpent as it changed its target once again.

The blinded serpent swayed, confused, still deadly. Fawkes was circling its head, piping his eerie song, jabbing here and there at its scaly nose as the blood poured from its ruined eyes.

"Help me, help me," Harry muttered wildly, "someone - anyone..."

The basilisk had swept the Sorting Hat into Harry's arms. Harry seized it. It was all he had left, his only chance - he rammed it onto his head and threw himself flat onto the floor as the basilisk's tail swung over him again.

Help me - help me - Harry thought, his eyes screwed tight under the hat. Would you please help me?

There was no answering voice. Instead, the hat contracted as though an invisible hand was squeezing it very tightly.

Something challenging and heavy thudded onto the top of Harry's head, almost knocking him out. Stars winking in front of his eyes, he grabbed the top of the hat to pull it off and felt something long and hard beneath it.

A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the hat, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs.

"KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. SNIFF - SMELL HIM." Tom Riddle tries to communicate with the serpent once more.

Harry was on his feet, ready. The basilisk's head was falling, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face him. He could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous--

It lunged blindly - Harry dodged, and it hit the Chamber wall. It lunged again, and its forked tongue lashed Harry's side. He raised the sword in both his hands--

The basilisk lunged again, and this time its aim was true - Harry threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth--

But as warm blood drenched Harry's arms, he felt a searing pain just above his elbow. One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into his arm, and it splintered as the basilisk keeled over sideways and fell, twitching, to the floor.

Harry slid down the wall. He gripped the fang that was spreading poison through his body and wrenched it out of his arm. But he knew it was too late. White-hot pain was spreading slowly and steadily from the wound. Even as he dropped the fang and watched his blood soaking his robes, his vision went foggy. The chamber was dissolving in a whirl of dull colour.

A patch of scarlet swam past, and Harry heard a soft clatter of claws beside him.

"Fawkes," said Harry thickly. "You were fantastic, Fawkes..."

He felt the bird lay its beautiful head on the spot where the serpent's fang had pierced him.

He could hear echoing footsteps, and then a dark shadow moved in front of him.

"You're dead, Harry Potter," said Riddle's voice above him. "Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing, Potter? He's crying."

"Bold you to assume that it will be only him will be dead?" Y/N raise her left eyebrow.

Harry blinked. Fawke's head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the glossy feathers.

"I'm going to sit here and watch you both die. Take your time. I'm in no hurry."Y/N smiled; Harry felt drowsy. Everything around him seemed to be spinning.

'This girl... is not Y/N...'

"How about this, if you two kill each other and if one person dies. The remaining person who is alive will be set free." Y/N grins.

If this is dying, thought Harry, it's not so bad.

Even the pain was leaving him...

But was this dying? Instead of going black, the chamber seemed to be coming back into focus. Harry gave his head a little shake, and there was Fawkes, still resting his head on Harry's arm. A pearly patch of tears was shining all around the wound - except that there was no wound.

"Getaway, bird," exclaimed Riddle's voice. "Get away from him - I said, getaway--"

Harry raised his head. Riddle was pointing Harry's wand at Fawkes; there was a bang like a gun, and Fawkes retook flight in a whirl of gold and scarlet.

"Phoenix tears..." said Riddle quietly, staring at Harry's arm. "Of course... healing powers... I forgot..."

He looked into Harry's face. "But it makes no difference. I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter... you and me..."

He raised the wand ...

Then, in a rush of wings, Fawkes had soared back overhead, and something fell into Harry's lap - the diary.

For a split second, both Harry and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book.

There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then--

He had gone. Harry's wand fell to the floor with a clatter, and there was silence. Silence except for the steady drip-drip of ink still oozing from the diary. The basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it.

Shaking all over, Harry pulled himself up. His head was spinning as though he'd just travelled miles by Floo powder. Slowly, he gathered together his wand and the Sorting Hat and, with a huge tug, retrieved the glittering sword from the roof of the basilisk's mouth.

Then came a faint moan from the end of the chamber. Ginny was stirring. As Harry hurried toward her, she sat up. Her bemused eyes travelled from the colossal form of the dead basilisk, over Harry, in his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in his hand. She drew a great, shuddering gasp, and tears began to pour down her face.

"Interesting..." Y/N placed her finger on her chin as she watches the scene in front of her.

"Harry - oh, Harry - I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn't say it in front of Percy - it was me, Harry - but I - I s-swear I d-didn't mean to - R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over - and - how did you kill that - that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary--"

"It's all right," said Harry, holding up the diary and showing Ginny the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. Come on, Ginny, let's get out of here--"

"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny wept as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. "I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came, and n-now I'll have to leave and - w-what'll Mum and Dad say?"

Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber entrance. Harry urged Ginny forward; they stepped over the motionless coils of the dead basilisk, through the echoing gloom, and back into the tunnel. Harry heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss.

After a few minutes of progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry's ears.

"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"

He heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make in the rockfall.

"Ginny!" Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened?" How - what - where did that bird come from?"

Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.

"He's Dumbledore's," said Harry, squeezing through himself.

"How come you've got a sword?" said Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Harry's hand.

"I'll explain when we get out of here," said Harry with a sideways glance at Ginny, who was crying harder than ever.

"But--"

"Later," Harry said shortly. He didn't think it was a good idea to tell Ron yet who'd been opening the Chamber, not in front of Ginny, anyway. "Where's Lockhart?"

"Back there," said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."

But then they were blocked by a wall, and they turned around. Ron and Ginny finally saw Y/N.

"Harry... who is that," Ron whispered, shaking from fear.

"That's... Y/N."

"Now, now, children. Why don't you entertain me a bit more by killing each other to see who is worthy of getting out of this chamber." Her grin got more expansive, and her face has an intriguing look on.