Goddess

Inside the Chamber

Persephone wasn't exactly awake but she could hear most of the things going on. She was in the legendary Chamber of Secrets. 

Harry was panicking. As soon as they'd gotten the news that Persephone and Ginny had been taken into the chamber, Harry'd tried his very hard to find the Chamber. They'd found it, with the help of his sister. 

But Aries, Ron and Rosella were stuck with Lockhart in the tunnels. 

He entered the Chamber slowly. He looked around.

He was standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. 

His heart beating very fast, Harry stood listening to the chill silence. He pulled out his wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. 

He kept his eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following him. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, he thought he saw one stir. 

Then, as he drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall. Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. 

And  just in front were two, still figures. One with dark hair and the other with red. 

"Persephone." Harry breathed, running towards her still body and dropping to his knees.

He grabbed Persephone's wrist and checked her pulse. It was steady. Ginny's however wasn't. "Please don't be dead, Ginny." He murmured to himself, trying to wake her up.

"She won't wake," said a soft voice. Harry jumped and spun around on his knees. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him —"Tom — Tom Riddle?" Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face.

 "What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately. 

"She's not —she's not — ?" 

"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just." 

"Persephone? What about her?" Harry asked.

"Oh, she'll wake. She just doesn't want to at the moment. "

Harry stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen. 

"Are you a ghost?" Harry said uncertainly. "A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary Harry had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, Harry wondered how it had got there — but there were more pressing matters to deal with.

"Tom, the basilisk. I thought there was a basilisk." Harry said.

"There is. But it won't come until it's called." Tom said calmly.

He looked for his wand but couldn't find it. "Did you see -" He looked up to see Tom twirling his wand between his fingers.

"Thanks." Harry said,  reaching for his wand. Tom just stared twirling the wand idly in his hand his lips curling up in a smile.