Chapter 54

Harry's Point of View

We spent the next week avoiding Charles at all costs, really not wanted to be blackmailed into going after Alyssa with him.

The measures we took to ensure that we didn't see Charles or Ron at any time might possibly have been a little extreme, but hey they worked. Even if we did have to get at some ridiculous time in the morning to ensure we would be gone by the time our brother entered the hall. We took lunch and dinner in the kitchen as well, to be on the safe side.

We explained things to Draco, who looked completely bemused as to how on earth we could possibly have allowed Charles to know so much blackmail material on us. Blaise and Theo were constantly asking if we were ok, as they never saw us outside the common room after class had finished. And while we were technically supposed to stay in the common room, we'd always managed to sneak out before.

I think Blaise must have talked to Severus, because our godfather pulled us aside after lessons one day.

"Are you two up to something? Because I have it from good sources that you have been actively obeying the new curfew. Is there anything wrong?"

"Hm?" I shook my head, prodding Percy for help. Percy however was no use, planning our next chance to either go for a swim to see Nerissa or to visit the unicorn herd again. "We're just following the rules. It is in our best interests, after all."

"Nothing to do with the fact that I hear your brother has been looking for you?" Severus asked, and I cursed.

"Maybe?" I sighed. "Charles thinks he might have found the entrance to the chamber, and wants us to help. We just... well. It just isn't something that kids should be involved in, is it? But, I suppose he would have had to actually found the chamber first. It's probably just rumours."

Severus didn't look convinced. "Just don't do anything stupid or ridiculously reckless, ok? And yes, I do mean you Percy. I will put you in detention for the remainder of the year if you do."

I nodded, but I had a sinking feeling that - one way or another - we would be ending up with those detentions. We just hoped our Godfather would leave us enough time to do all our homework so we wouldn't start next year with detentions already stacked up. All the same, I did promise our godfather, "I will do my best, sir."

We managed to evade Charles but then Saturday arrive, and pretty much everything fell to Hades from there as almost everything that we had desperately hoped wouldn't happen did.

We were visiting Annabeth and Luna, talking to them about how Professor Sprout said that the mandrakes would be ready soon so that Professor Snape and Madam Pomfrey could brew the mandrake draught to put everyone else back to normal. I sighed and sat down in the seat beside them.

"The attacks have stepped up this week. I was lucky to persuade Severus to take us to see you. Students are all but confined to the common rooms around classes. Charles has found the chamber, and knows that Alyssa is a basilisk. We swear she never meant to do this to you. Alyssa never wanted any of this. We can't... we can't just betray her and bring Charles to kill her." We told them. Percy summoned fresh flowers to replace the dead daisies by her side table. "But he's threatening to tell mum about our various less than safe activities we do. Or, still do, more to the point. But we don't actually know if he's serious. Draco thinks we're just letting him get to us but... I'm not so sure. Percy trusts Charles as our brother but I think he really would put the school before our brotherhood, so to speak. That's what they raised him to do anyway."

We sighed. "Oh wise girl. Where are you when we really need your advice?"

Suddenly the speakers on the wall crackled into life, projecting Professor McGonagall's voice around the entire school.

"All students are to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."

We stood, glancing round the room. Severus had left, saying he'd be back to pick us up in an hour. And that had been ten minutes ago. Madam Pomfrey was hurrying out the door. Looked like she'd forgotten about us too. Sighing, we decided to see what all this mess was. If Alyssa was on the move, we'd hear her coming. I tapped our head with my wand, wincing as the horrible feeling of an egg being cracked over our hair spread down our head, and through our body. Glancing at our now camouflaged body that was showing the grey stone and white bedding colours of Annabeth and Luna's bed behind us we quickly but quietly followed Madam Pomfrey, and pressed an ear to the staff room door.

"...been taken by the monster." Professor McGonagall was telling the otherwise silent staffroom. "Right into the chamber itself."

There was a harsh inclination of breath as the teacher's expressed their shock. Then our godfather spoke up. "How can you be sure?"

"The heir of Slytherin," Professor McGonagall replied, sounding very shaken up, "left another message, right underneath the first. Her skeleton will lie in the chamber for ever."

There was the noise of someone bursting into tears while numerous people sat down heavily.

"Who is it? Which student?"

I can tell you know, we have never heard Madam Hooch sound as weak as she did then, asking which student had been handed a death sentence. It scared us.

"Ginny Weasley." McGonagall's voice was quiet, and we almost missed the name. We froze, hearing the name. We weren't so much surprised as angry. Angry at Tom for possessing her, and Ginny for refusing to let anyone help her.

Before we could react, however, the sound of hurried footstep came from further up the corridor, and we moved quickly out the way of the door, only moment before Lockhart reached it and through it open with a loud dramatic bang.

"So sorry - dozed off - what have I missed?"

The unapologetic tone was met with visible glares of dislike from many of the teachers, we noticed before the door shut.

"Ah, just the man." Severus' voice was cold and dead serious. There was an underlying mocking tone, but we doubted Lockhart had the brain cells to comprehend it, let alone notice it was there. "The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last."

"That's right, Gilderoy," Professor Sprout chipped in, sounding rather delighted. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the Chamber of Secrets is?"

"I - well, I -" Lockhart spluttered, much to our amusement.

"Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it?" Flitwick joined in.

Deciding that as amusing as hearing our Professors taking Lockhart down a few pegs was it wasn't helping more Ginny any we decided to move on.

'This is a really bad idea.' I muttered.

'Well, yes.' Percy grinned. 'And you did promise Severus not to do anything stupid like, oh, I don't know, running off into the chamber, didn't you?'

'Percy, not helping!' I gritted our teeth.

We reached the bathroom, and we could see Myrtle waiting for us, and quickly removed my disillusionment charm.

"She went down hours ago, Harry, Percy." Myrtle sounded worried, unfazed by our sudden appearance. "And her fingers on her left hand were stained with something that looked like blood!"

"We know." Percy nodded. "We're going to bring Ginny back. We won't let anyone die like you did."

The pale ghost smiled thankfully at us, then ushered us on towards the sink. $Open.$

As usual, the fake sink shifted forward, and then sunk into the floor to reveal the slimy pipe. We offered Myrtle one last smile, the climbed into the pipe and slid down to the bottom. Thinking quickly, I cast a silencing charm on our shoes to allow us to keep the element of surprise if there was anyone else down here. We moved quickly through the dark tunnels, ignoring everything other than the familiar path to the main chamber.

We paused the entrance to the main chamber, taking in the small form splayed out on the cold, wet stone floor. A blurry apparition of a boy stood over her, wearing Hogwarts uniform. Even though we couldn't see the crest on his uniform we would bet anything that it was a Slytherin one.

We moved slowly and carefully to prevent the spectre from noticing us until we wanted him to. Drawing closer, Percy pointed out that yep, that was the snake crest on his robes, and a prefect badge on his chest.

"Tom?" Our voice was loud in the silent cave, and echoed back at us a few times. The boy's head shot up, surprised.

"Charles?" He looked confused. I sniggered, realising that - with Percy taking most of the decisions - our robes were adorned with the Gryffindor crest. Clearly he must have talked to our brother at some other point when Ginny misplaced the diary.

"You need to help me, there's a basilisk." Percy played along with it, knowing that if the Slytherin thought we were the Gryffindor Golden Boy he would underestimate us. "If we're not careful, it'll come after us. Help me get Ginny out of here!"

The amount of concentration not to say 'us' was impossible, but Percy managed to pull it off. I sent him a quick smile.

"Oh, it won't come until it's called." Tom replied with a sneer, picking up Percy's wand from where he had dropped in purposely on the floor to check on Ginny.

"What do you mean? Ginny is ice cold, we need to get her help!" Percy then cast a confused look at his wand in Tom's hands. I giggled at how good his acting skills could be when he wanted. "Give me my wand, Tom."

"The basilisk. It really won't come till it's called. Besides, a wand would do you little good. Basilisk skin is, after all, resistant to spells."

Percy stood up, his eyes narrowed, glancing between Ginny and Tom as if the thought of them being behind the attacks had just occurred to him. "Wait, but that means..."

Tom sneered, distorting his otherwise handsome face. I hadn't noticed before, but he had strong features, and his dark hair seemed to make his pale skin glow slightly. Then I frowned, noticing he was less transparent than when we had first seen him.

"Yes. It was Ginny who opened the chamber. I can be very convincing when I wish. Not that she knew about any of it. I put her in a kind of trance you see, so she wouldn't freak out. She spilled her soul into my diary. I grew strength from it, from her, stealing her energy for my own. So, you see, as she grows weaker, I grow stronger." Tom looked down at us with such a snobbish, prideful look I wanted to slap the expression off his face.

"You... but... you saved the school last time!" Percy protested, thinking of the trophy Tom had won for 'special services to the school', we'd seen in the trophy room while investigating him after Draco had mentioned he had be awarded some crest or something.

"You really thought the oath Hagrid was capable of opening the Chamber of Secrets?" Tom laughed. "He was just a good scapegoat I used."

I was burning with a slow anger now, and it was taking all my control to reign in my magic that was starting to blow around us, tugging at our hair slightly.

"But why kill off muggleborns?"

"They don't deserve to come here and sully our society with their dirty blood." Tom sneered. "But you mustn't have been paying much attention, they haven't been my target for a while now. No, I've been trying to track down you, Charles. After all, how can it be that a stupid baby with no inkling of magical talent could destroy the most powerful wizard of all time?"

Percy laughed. "The most powerful wizard of all time? Do you mean Voldemort? You must be joking. Dumbledore has always been, and will always be, the most powerful wizard of all time."

"Voldemort is my past, present and future." Riddle sneered. He wrote out his full name - Tom Marvolo Riddle - in glowing letters, before rearranging them to spell out 'I am Lord Voldemort'. We sniggered slightly, trying to imagine how long that must have taken him to work out, then we got serious. Teenage Voldemort was trying to return. This was bad. Very bad.

But before Percy and Tom's conversation could progress further we heard footsteps, and turned to see Charles watching us, his face pale white with disbelief.

"Harry? Percy? What the hell are you doing here? You can't... You wouldn't... And Tom? I... I don't understand."

Tom looked at us in surprise. I grinned wickedly at him, moving forward to allow our crest to flash green. "Sorry for the deception, Tom, but we didn't actually agree that we were Charles. You just assumed. But please, don't stop, I want to hear all you evil plans. After all, you're planning on sending Alyssa to kill us anyway, so we might as well have some entertainment while we wait."

"Huh?" Charles looked between us, confused.

"Oh, keep up Charles." Tom sneered. "Your brother has been visiting the Chamber all year. Made friends with the Basilisk to set on the school."

I drew my wand now, sending a red stunner at the ghost. It passed through his apparition, as his body wasn't complete yet, but from his face it must have still hurt.

"No, Charles, we swear on our magic, we didn't use Alyssa to attack the school. Tom has been possessing Ginny through the diary. We discovered the Chamber ages back, during your polyjuice incident, and yes, we befriended Alyssa, but we wouldn't attack muggleborns. We swear!" I pleaded with our brother.

"That's why you didn't want to come." Charles reasoned. "You didn't want to kill your friend. Must you befriend deadly snakes, Harry, Percy?"

"Well, it wasn't our sole intention!" I protested. "We meant to discover what was petrifying students and discover if the Chamber was real, as well... Alyssa was very nice really."

"Enough chat!" Tom snarled, realising he couldn't set Charles on us. "If you really think you're stronger than me then let's test the might of the Great Potter twins against the truly powerful Salazar Slytherin!"

Tom turned to the statue of Salazar behind him. $Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four, speak to me!$

The mouth opened, and we saw Alyssa slither out, glaring at Tom.

$Alyssa, don't listen to him! We don't want to hurt you!$ We begged. Tom laughed, and spat out a command to attack. Alyssa swayed, fighting the command. Taking advantage of her hesitation I sent a simple shrinking charm at her, reducing her to the size of a normal adder. See, it was true that Basilisk skin was spell resistant, but only against life threatening spells, which is why we could shrink Alyssa.

$Sorry, we'll return you to normal asap!$ I promised as she hissed in complaint.

"Charles, keep your eyes forward. Take our hand, and run! We have reduced Alyssa to a smaller size, but that isn't going to help for long."

Charles nodded, taking our right hand. Percy managed to work Riptide out of his other pocket.

'Your wand!' I hissed. 'Tom has your wand!'

Percy cursed, turning around. Tom was attempting to resize Alyssa, but it really wasn't working. Clearly he didn't have any affinity at all with Percy's wand, and as Alyssa was constantly moving as she slid after us, Tom's aim was wonky.

"Expelliarmus!" I muttered the spell, picturing Percy's wand soaring through the air to my hand. Luckily, we were still in range to cast such a spell, and Tom was taken on the unawares, so I caught (and sheathed) Percy's wand with ease.

We then turned to run again. Charles us up ahead, but had stopped running. Dumbledore's phoenix was sitting on our brother's shoulder, and he was holding something that looked awfully like the school sorting hat. We frowned.

"Charles, what are you doing? Run!"

While we trusted Alyssa to hurt us normally, and we knew she had some free will, we also didn't know how well she could circumvent orders, and didn't want to risk the chance that she couldn't stop herself from hurting Charles. Or us, but we were more worried about Charles at this point.

Already however my quick shrinking spell was starting to wear off as the true size of Alyssa and my torn attention when I had cast the spell took its toll. The phoenix took off from Charles' shoulder, pecking at Alyssa's eyes, and she screamed in pain.

"No!" Both Tom and we cried out at once. Toms in anger, us in defence of our friend.

"Your bloody bird may have blinded the basilisk, but it can still hear you." Tom hissed, narrowing his eyes at us.

$Alyssa.$ Percy's voice was no more than a whisper. $We're so sorry, we didn't want you to get hurt.$

Alyssa let out a low hiss that we had come to understand as her equivalent of a hum of understanding or acceptance.

This time is was Charles who grabbed our hand and pulled us away down a winding, twisting pipe as Alyssa was still forced to chase us. Our shoes soon became soaked in the puddles, making them squelch horribly. And while ours were still under a silencing charm, Charles' footsteps were unbearably loud, as was our heavy breathing in the dark tunnel.

All too soon we turned off the main pipe only to reach a dead end, and Alyssa slowly moved closer, turning her head into the tunnel. She opened her mouth, her long fangs dripping with venom. Slowly, quietly, we reached down, staring into her bleeding eyes as we fumbled for the rock we kicked with our foot entering the dead end. Percy through it down the pipe, careful to make sure that it didn't hit Alyssa, and she slithered off after it.

We waited with bated breath for a few minutes, hardly daring to breath before Charles moved, following Alyssa out back into the main chamber.

Ginny was very pale now, and Tom looked almost solid. I noticed the diary, still cradled under Ginny's arm and had an idea.

'Percy. It's the diary. Until Tom has absorbed all of Ginny's energy, his life force is still linked to the diary. Destroy the host, and he simply won't be able to exist anymore!'

'Ok.' Percy didn't question it. 'But how?'

Before I could think up an answer, Alyssa slithered back into the hall. Charles drew his wand, but Percy grabbed his arm.

"Spells won't help us now." He uncapped Riptide, revealing our glowing bronze sword. "I'm the best with a sword, I'll keep Alyssa away. Just destroy the diary!"

Percy charged towards our friend. $Alyssa!$

Our friend struck at us, but her movements were halting, as if she didn't have any heart at all behind them. And thus our game began, drawing her from Charles. Percy used the flat of our blade to block Alyssa's swiping tail and to prevent her from managing to bite us. However, after about five minutes Percy's guard slipped for a flickering second, and Alyssa managed to somehow sink a tooth into our right shoulder.

The venom was like liquid fire, spreading through our body. I could hear our heart beating loudly in our ears, driving the venom further into our system. As Alyssa reared back, her fang broke off, still buried in the back of our shoulder.

$Percy, Harry...$ Alyssa sounded grief stricken.

We stumbled back, our vision blurring. Percy grabbed the fang and yanked it free. We stumbled over to Charles.

"Did you... destroy it?" Percy slurred. Charles shook his head in the negative.

"Nothing works!"

The world spun around us. The venom was moving too fast through our system, shutting it down.

Percy fell forward, the fang still clutched in his hand.

By some miracle, Percy managed to stab the diary as we fell. The last thing we saw before the pain grew too much and black swamped our vision was Tom Riddle blowing apart into pieces.