Slytherin Raised by Wolfstar: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter Eighteen: The Heir of Slytherin

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. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Hermione?

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 monkey-like, with a long thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous grey feet stood on the smooth chamber floor. And between the feet, face down, lay a small, black-robed figure with bushy brown hair.

'Hermione!' Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. 'Hermione! don't be dead! please don't be dead!' He stuffed his wand into his pocket, grabbed Hermione's shoulders and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be...

'Hermione, please wake up,' Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Hermione's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.

'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 was 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.'

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 towards 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.

'You've got to help me, Tom,' Harry said, raising Hermione'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 Hermione half off the floor. 'Help me get her out of here Tom...'

A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. He continued to stare at Harry.

'Listen,' said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Hermione'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 Hermione back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer.

'What d'you mean?' he said. 'Can you please stop standing there and just help me.'