The American Pure-Blood: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [Book 2]

Chapter XVII: The Heir of Slytherin Vs Harry and Zach

Zach's POV

                   I was following behind Harry as we inched towards the very dim lighting at the end of the tunnel. My heart was racing as I walked and I was really worried about everything, especially about the Basilisk. Harry pulled out his wand and i followed suit pulling mine out as we walked closer. We reach the dimly lit greenish chamber. Stone pillars everywhere 'Green obsessed much?' Zach thought as he walked with Harry. The whole place had an eerie silence, there was no sight of the basilisk not Ginny which was worrying. I noticed that Harry pulled his wand out and I did the same. We took careful steps in the chamber, I looked around with my scarf around my neck ready to pull it up to cover my eyes at sign of any movement. The floor was went and the sound of footstep touching the floor flooded the eerie silence. We kept walking as we were reaching the last pillars, and there laying on the floor was a girl. Harry instantly moved running towards her. 
                                                    "GINNY?!?!" He yelled kneeled to his knees  "Ginny - don't be dead - please don't be dead -" He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. 

                 I looked at her my eyes widen at the sight of her, I also dropped my wand as i sprinted to her side.  Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be... My mi
                                                  "Harry, She is not..." I said softly.
                                                  "Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.
                                                   "She won't wake," said a soft voice that I haven't heard before. I turned to looked for the owner of the voice, as Harry jumped and spun around from his knees. A male Slytherin was visible, he had black hair, dark eyes, he was considerably tall and i had to admit he was also Handsome, though he was strangely blurred around the edges. But what I really found interesting was  how did the male get here in the Chamber. 
                                                 "Tom - Tom Riddle?" Harry said as the male now I know is named Tom nodded.  Tom was staring at Ginny I just stared at him with suspicion.  My mind began racing as i stared at Tom, like if I'm trying to find out how and why he was down here on the chamber and why did his name sounded familiar to me. I wasn't really paying attention to his and Harry's  conversation until something Harry had said. 
                                                     "Are you a ghost?" Harry said uncertainly.
                                                   "A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years." Tom then pointed to a black diary. A diary that seemed familiar, it reminded me of the dairy Harry had been obssessed with. The dairy that one day was taken away from Harry by someone. 
                                                 "You've got to help me, Tom," Harry said, raising Ginny's head again. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment... Please, help me." Riddle didn't move. Harry, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and bent to pick up his wand again. But his wand had gone and so was mine. 
                                                      "Did you see -?" He looked up. Riddle was still watching him - twirling Harry's and My wand between his long fingers. I felt something odd, Harry stretched his hand to get his wand but Tom's lips curled into a weird smile as he kept twirling our wands. 
                                              "Listen," said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny's dead weight. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes--"
                                                        "It won't come until it is called," said Riddle calmly. Harry lowered Ginny back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer. I was staring unable to speak nor move i was still trying to find out what was going on but i wasn't loving what my mind was making up.
                                                    "What d'you mean?" he said. "Look, give me my wand, I might need it--" Riddle's smile broadened.
                                                  "You won't be needing it," he said. "Neither of you" Harry stared at him. "What d'you mean, I won't be -?"
                                                 "I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter," said Riddle. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."
                                                 "Look," said Harry, losing patience, "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later--"
                                                  "We're going to talk now," said Riddle, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed Harry's wand. Harry stared at him. There was something very funny going on here ...
                                               "How did Ginny get like this?" he asked slowly.
                                                 "Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."
                                                 "What are you talking about?" said Harry.
                                                  "The diary," said Riddle. 'My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes - how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how -" Riddle's eyes glinted "- how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..." All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Harry's face. There was an almost hungry look in them. I was not liking this one bit i felt odd 
                                                      "It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket ..." Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harry's neck.
                                                      "If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."
                                                   "What d'you mean?" said Harry, whose mouth had gone very dry.
                                                    "Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" said Riddle softly.
                                                    "Harry... He is saying that Ginny opened the Chamber of Secrets and..." I said with my eyes widen.
                                                     "The boy speaks and he is cleaver too. Yes she did. She  Also strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat." Said Tom
                                                      "No," Harry whispered.
                                                      "Yes," said Riddle, calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... far more interesting, they became... Dear Tom," he recited, watching Harry's horrified face, 'I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and 1 don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, l can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me... There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!" Harry's fists were clenched, the nails digging deep into his palms. "It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," said Riddle. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you came in, Harry. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet..."
                                                   "And why did you want to meet me?" said Harry. Anger was coursing through him, and it was an effort to keep his voice steady.
                                                    "Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," said Riddle. "Your whole fascinating history." His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Harry's forehead, and their expression grew hungrier. "I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust--"
                                                 "Hagrid's my friend," said Harry, his voice now shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but--" Riddle laughed his high laugh again.
                                            "It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student... on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls... but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance... as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power! Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippetto keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed... Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did ..."
                                                 "I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," said Harry, his teeth gritted.
                                                     "Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," said Riddle  carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work." I rolled my eyes 'Salazar Slytherin's work was anything but noble' I thought.
                                                "Well, you haven't finished it," said Harry triumphantly. "No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again--"
                                                     "Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been - you." Harry stared at him. "Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery - particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue ... So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her... She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last... I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter." 
                                               "Like what?" Harry spat, fists still clenched.
                                               "Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "how is it that you - a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent - managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?" There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.
                                               "Why do you care how I escaped?" said Harry slowly. "Voldemort was after your time..."
                                                "Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..." He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: