𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐒 || Harry J. Potter [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter 16 ✎

"Harry- J-just hang on...please.."
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Third 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 darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.

Their hearts beating very fast, Harry and Jilly stood listening to the chill silence. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner?? Behind a pillar? Where was Ginny?

They both pulled out their wands and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls.

They both kept their 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 them.

More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, Harry thought he saw one stir. Jilly was slightly behind Harry, only because he kept pushing her back and wouldn't let her lead.

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.

Harry and Jilly had to crane their necks 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 small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.

"Ginny!" Jilly yelled, sprinting to her and dropping to her knees.

"Ginny- don't be dead- please don't be dead- I promised Ron-" she flung her 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...

Harry had run over as well. "Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side. Tears brimmed Jilly's eyes.

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

Harry and Jilly both jumped up and spun around.

"Why is there a random really hot guy down here..?"

Harry looked at Jilly with a little bit of annoyance. He then looked at the boy, in somewhat jealousy, but it was not long-lasting, for he to was wondering why there was a boy down here.

The boy turned to Jilly and sent a small smile towards her, but instantly went back to staring at Harry.

The tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window.

"Tom- Tom Riddle?"

Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face.

"This is Tom??" Jilly blinked in confusion. "You're still skipping the fact that he's down here..."

"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately, ignoring Jilly. "She's not- she's not-?"

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

Jilly let out a sigh of relief. Harry 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.