The Chamber Of Secrets//Draco X Reader

17 - Basilisk

"W-who am I?" He asks, as if he's just been reborn. You blink rapidly, staring down at the man child.

"His memory charm backfired, he has no memory!"

"Do you live here? Its an odd place?" You swallow hard, not exactly knowing what to do in this situation.

"Alright, alright. Ron, you stay here. Harry and I will go find Ginny." Ron nods, looking at Lockhart. You and Harry walk down the corridors of the cave, water dripping from the roof. As you go further into the cave, you come across a long gray brick pathway, water on both sides. Statues of snake heads protrude from the wall, hovering over the shallow waters.

At the end of the path, the cave opens into an incredibly large dome of rock, the floor made of the same gray brick but the water slightly overflowing onto it. A carving of a mans head is at the center of the far wall, and lying in front of its open mouth is a motionless body covered in a red and black cloak. 

"Ginny!" Harry shouts as he runs to her. You don't run, feeling something off in the cold, moist room. Your black boots stomp through the water, your night sky cape hovering an inch above the liquid. You place a hand on your wand as Harry shakes Ginny violently.

"Ginny… Ginny! Oh, Ginny, please don’t be dead. Wake up. Wake up! Please, wake up!"

"She won't."

You turn your (h/c) head to the voice, seeing a boy a few years older than you with a Slytherins cloak standing over the lifeless girl. His curly pitch black hair is a dead give away to his name.

"Riddle." You greet, to which he nods. You feel the anger in your chest, and you glare at the man. "What did you do to her? Is she dead?" You demand the answers, tears brimming in your eyes.

"Not yet, but nearly."

"What are you?" Harry asks, standing. "A ghost?" Tom shakes his head, his expression blank.

"A memory, preserved in a diary for fifty years." He deadpans, looking to the still ginger girl in the water.

"She’s cold as ice. Ginny, please don’t be dead. Wake up! You’ve got to help me, Tom. There’s a basilisk!" Harry says, looking at the man. Still, you have a terrible feeling. Tom....he isnt the good guy, is he?

"It wont come until its called." Tom takes Harry's wand, twirling it in his hands.

"Tom, give me my wand!"

"You wont be needing it."

"Tom, we have to get her out of here!" Harry screams, still trusting Riddle for some odd reason.

"I’m afraid I can’t do that, Harry. You see, as poor Ginny grows weaker, I grow stronger. Yes Harry, it was Ginny Weasley who opened the Chamber of Secrets." You shake your head, looking to the innocent girl.

"No, she wouldnt do that. Not Ginny." You say, lowering your wand. Riddle continues, staring you down. 

"It was Ginny who set the basilisk on the Mudbloods and Filch’s cat, Ginny who wrote the threatening messages on the walls."

"Why?" You query, raising an eyebrow.

"Because I told her to. You’ll find that I can be very persuasive. Not that she knew what she was doing. She was, shall we say, in a kind of trance. Still, the power of the diary began to scare her. And she tried to dispose of it in the girl’s bathroom. And then, who should find it, but you? The very person I was most anxious to meet." He grins at you, growing uncomfortably close.

"Why would you want to meet me?" You ask, glancing over at Harry as he tries to wake Ginny.

"I knew I had to talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my capture of that brainless oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust."

"You will not insult my friend!" You growl, your eyes turning to slit yellow orbs. You feel the horns spiral from your temple, and see Tom staring at your scar. Your black wings bud from your back, your hands turning to ebony claws. "You framed him, didnt you?"

"It was my word against Hagrid’s. Only Dumbledore seemed to think he was innocent"

"I'll bet Dumbledore saw straight through you." Once more, you growl the words. The only problem is, you quite literally growl. The animalistic sound suprises even you, sounding unlike any muggle creature. It was the snarl of a dragon.

"He certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after that. I knew it wouldn’t be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school, so I decided to leave behind a diary preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day I would be able to lead another to finish Salazar Slytherin’s noble work."

"Well, you haven’t finished it this time. In a few hours, the Mandrake Draught will be ready, and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again." You smile victoriously, your fangs digging into your bottom lip.

"Haven’t I told you? Killing Mudbloods doesn’t matter to me anymore. For many months now, my new target… has been you. How is it that babies, with no extraordinary magical talent, were able to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you and your brother escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort’s powers were destroyed?"

"Why do you care how we escaped?" Harry says, leaving Ginny and walking over to you. "Voldemort was after your time."

Riddle smirks, turning to the open air and swishing a brown wand up and down. He writes his name out 'Tom Marvolo Riddle'. You watch as the letters move through the air, revealing their new spelling.

"I AM LORD VOLDEMORT."

"You." You say, turning to Tom. "Youre the heir of Slytherin. Youre Voldemort."

"Surely, you didn’t think I was going to keep my filthy Muggle father’s name? No. I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I became the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

"Albus Dumbledore is the greatest wizard in the world!" You shout, staring him down.

"Dumbledore’s been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!"

"He’ll never be gone! Not as long as those who remain are loyal to him! Fawkes?" Harry shouts, slowly loosing his temper as he asks the name in question.

You look towards the entrance, seeing a Pheonix blazing towards you in the air. Fawkes drops a hat on the ground, and you go to grab your wand, finding it no where on your person. You look over at Tom, seeing him fiddling with your white wand. He grins at you then looks back to the large statue of a head.

"So, this is what Dumbledore sends his great defenders, a songbird and an old hat. Shearhas- Samnathas- Sélithaeine."

As Tom speaks Parseltongue, the water ripples. You stumble backwards as the enormous head of a snake emrges from the depths, followed by the rest of its sixty foot body. You look up in awe at the beady eyed serpent, its brown-green body coiling.

"Okay...." You sigh, realizing this was going to be one Hell of a fight.