Y/n and Harry were 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, Y/n stood listening to the chill silence. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Ginny?
He and Harry pulled out their wands 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.
Then, as they drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.
Y/n 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 gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black robed figure with flaming red hair.
"Ginny!" Harry muttered getting Y/n's attention again and the two began sprinting to her and dropping to their knees. "Ginny...don't be dead...please don't be dead..." Y/n heard Harry plead.
Harry flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny'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...
"Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.
Y/n crouched down to try help but nothing they did garnered a response from Ginny.
"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 Y/n were looking at him through a misted window.
"Tom? Tom Riddle?" Harry called out surprising Y/n, This was the boy who owned the diary from 50 years ago?
The boy just 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."
Y/n 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.
"What are you?" Y/n asked cautiously now getting back to his feet.
"A memory." said Riddle quietly as his eyes flickered to look at Y/n with interest now. "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, Y/n wondered how it had got there but there were more pressing matters to deal with.
"You've got to help us, Tom." Harry said, raising Ginny's head again. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk... We 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.
"Did you see..."
He looked up. Riddle was still watching him...twirling Harry's wand between his long fingers.
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Grindelwald's Burden (Books 1-7)
FanfictionY/n Grindelwald is boy born into a powerful but feared wizarding family. At the age of 11 he has received his invitation to learn magic at the famous Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. What awaits this boy in his seven school years? Uncerem...
