𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 - Harry Potter x Fem!Reader¹

15.. THE HEIR OF SLYTHERIN

She 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. Her 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?

She pulled out her wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. She kept her 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 her. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, she thought she saw one stir.

Then, as she 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 her 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 between the feet, facedown, lay a familiar, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.

"Ginny!" Y/N yelled, sprinting to her and dropping to her knees. "Oh, no, no no — don't be dead — please don't be dead —"

She shoved her wand in her pocket, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble and cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be...

"Ginny, please wake up," Y/N muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.

"She won't wake," said a soft voice.

Y/N jumped and spun around on her 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. But there was no mistaking him.

"Tom Riddle?"

Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Y/N's face.

"What do you mean, she won't wake?" Y/N said desperately. "She's not — she can't be —"

"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.

"Are you a ghost?" Y/N 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 Y/N had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, she wondered how it had got there — but there were more pressing matters to deal with.

"You have got to help her, Tom," Y/N said, raising Ginny's head again. "We need 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 her."

Riddle didn't move. Y/N, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and fished her hand into her pockets for her wand.

But her wand wasn't there.

She looked up. Riddle was still watching her — twirling Y/N's wand between his long fingers. A smile curled the corners of his mouth as he continued to stare at her, twirling the wand idly. Something told Y/N that she wouldn't be getting her wand back without a fight.

"I've waited a long time for this, Y/N L/N," said Riddle. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."

"Look," said Y/N, her knees sagging with Ginny's dead weight, "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later —"