Everlasting (H.P x fem.reader) YEARS 1-4

Year Two: Chapter Seventeen

one more year two chapter after this! Thank god. The start of year three leads to more reader involvement, more drama plotline, little feelings between Harry and Y/n, and more...

3rd person POV 

 They 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 the darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. 

 Y/n's heart was beating very fast, She and Harry stood listening to the chilling silence. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Ginny?

 "Remember to close your eyes if you hear anything," Harry whispered to Y/n. 

"You too," she murmured back. 

 They pulled out their wands and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful step echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. Harry kept his eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. Y/n held out a hand for Harry to take, and it provided a great comfort to him. The hollow eye sockets seemed to be following them. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, Harry thought he saw one stir. 

 Then, as they drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue as high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall. Y/n had to crane her neck to look up at 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 wizard floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair. 

 "Ginny!" the two yelped. 

 And Y/n hurriedly broke their hands apart and sprinted to where Ginny was and dropped to her knees. 

"Ginny — don't be dead — please don't be dead—" she flung her wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. 

Her face was as white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be— 

 "Ginny!" Harry muttered once he got there, and he too threw his wand aside.

 "Ginny, please wake up." Y/n began to shake her. 

Ginny's head lolled helplessly from side to side. 

 "She won't wake," said a soft voice.

 Y/n and Harry jumped and spun around on their knees. A very attractive tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though the two were looking at him through a misted window. 

But there was no mistaking him for Harry— 

 "Tom — Tom Riddle?" 

 Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off the pair. Y/n's eyes widened in shock, why would the person who caught Hagrid be down here? 

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

 "She's not dead is she?" Y/n said in an accusing tone. 

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

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

 "Are you a ghost?" said Harry uncertainly. 

 "A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."