chamber change

chamber shock

Emerald eyes matched with messy black hair and a skinny, malnourished body stared in shock as the gem encrusted sword of Godric Gryffindor fell from the Sorting Hat. Harry really had a bad feeling about this but didn't see another option. Snatching up the sword he grimly faced the Basilisk, careful to keep his eyes from meeting the deadly yellow gaze.

"~Stay still little meal. I will gobble you and your lovely blood and bones up,~" the Basilisk hissed in glee.

"~I didn't want to fight you, either of you. I just wanted to help Ron get his sister back,~" Harry hissed back desperately.

"~Wait!~" Tom Riddle hissed the command and the Basilisk paused in its approach, obeying its master as it automatically closed its inner eyelid as a safety precaution. "~Are you willing to bargain like a Slytherin, Potter?~"

"~Sure, the stupid hat wanted me in Slytherin in the first place. I had to argue to get into Gryffindor,~" Harry admitted. It was a little surreal to be discussing whatever this was completely in parseltongue but at least he wasn't fighting for his life... yet.

Before Harry realized it Riddle was upon him and had knocked the sword out of his grip. A snatch of the smaller boy's arm and quick twist had Harry on his knees with his arm twisted behind his back. Harry's own holly wand trailed down the line of his throat as the emerald-eyed boy swallowed hard. He knew from experience that any attempt to struggle would either get the wand to dig in deep enough to cut off his air, provided no magic was used, or his arm would be broken or dislocated. Harry really didn't want to be that vulnerable so stayed still.

"You will explain what you meant by that," Riddle's clipped voice was only slightly less menacing in English as it had been in Parseltongue.

"The hat said I should go to Slytherin. I had heard bad things about Slytherin and the only boy I met who knew he was going into Slytherin acted like my cousin. I didn't want to share a dorm with someone who would like to set me on fire just because, especially since he didn't see me as anything but a title I didn't even earn. Everyone celebrates the death of my parents as your defeat, no one bothers to see just Harry... and I don't want to be thrown out or sent to an orphanage just because I couldn't keep control of my magic or wouldn't obey," Harry admitted. He knew that showing his weakness to the other boy wasn't the best idea but it was the only thing he could come up with to keep from getting killed within the next five minutes. Right now he was actually half hoping that Riddle decided he could use the situation as blackmail or some sort of control over him because it would keep him alive just that much longer.

"What else?" Riddle asked sharply, sensing that Harry was holding something back.

"Who would expect a serpent in the lion's den? ...And I could copy Ron's behavior... maybe get a family of my own," Harry admitted shamefacedly. Riddle's hand slipped at that admission and for the first time they were skin to skin.

"Wha?! Th..that's impossible! You can't be!" Riddle stammered as he felt the shock of recognition matched only by the familiar magic cohabiting with Harry's own power.

"Whoa! What was that?!" Harry asked a little dizzily.

Distantly Harry heard his holly wand drop to the floor in front of him as the newly freed hand of the memory reached up instinctively to press against his famous curse scar. A jolt of pleasure mixed with astonishment and pain passed through him, leaving him a limp panting heap of quivering muscle that was immediately cradled lovingly by a crooning Tom Riddle. In those moments it seemed that the last of Ginny's life force left her body simultaneously as a drop of blood from a minor cut fell from Harry to land on a nearly invisible rune carved into the stone of the chamber floor. A flash of light, a flare of power and Tom Riddle was not only physically complete in a brand new body but was bound irrevocably to Harry James Potter. Tom could feel the bond from both the new magics and the Horcrux in Harry's scar clearly. The implications were not lost on him.