A/N: AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. (That's the sound I was making in my head the entire time I was very determinedly attempting to write this. Which took me the better part of a day.)

Warnings: Nothing? IDK. I didn't even edit it though.

Chapter Twelve: Feel This (pt. 2)

Ed was waiting for him when he finally shot out of the far end of the slimy pipe, scowling at the walls of the tunnel they were in. He turned when Harry started making disgusted noises about all of the muck coated to his clothes, something almost like a smile on his face.

"You'd might as well get used to it," he said heartlessly as Harry wiped a handful off the back of his head. "It's not going to get any cleaner the deeper we go."

"Are you sure you can't learn Parseltongue?" Harry asked. "If I'd known I was going to be covered in this stuff I don't think I'd have wanted to come."

Ed snorted, but didn't respond. He was peering down the tunnel with his wand held high in the air, the bright light shining from the tip barely making a dent in the darkness. Harry fidgeted with impatience.

"Can't see a fucking thing," Ed eventually muttered, then turned back to Harry with sharp eyes. "I probably should've done this before we jumped down here. Stand still."

Harry did his best not to move as Ed leaned over him casting silent spells, but he was too worried about Ginny to prevent it from leaking through. Ed sighed loudly and smacked him with his wand more than once, not that it helped.

A few long minutes later, they were finally on the move again. Ed cautiously led the way down the tunnel, making no sound at all, while Harry crunched and echoed along behind him. The quiet was more unnerving than any sounds would have been, and Harry jumped at his shadow more than once.

When they reached a bend in the tunnel, Ed stopped walking and gestured for Harry to stay put. Harry nodded his understanding, but once Ed had disappeared into the darkness he peeked cautiously around the bend himself. Something was lying across the tunnel, dark and unmoving. Harry chewed on his bottom lip nervously as Ed approached it, his imagination flashing with images of a great beast rising and killing Ed in one swift blow.

But Ed waved him over, and Harry rushed forward to see what it was for himself.

He almost drew back when he realized it was a shed snake skin, impossibly long and a shade of green he'd never seen before on an animal.

"Basilisk skin," Ed said in a flat voice. "Never heard of one this big."

"That means it's really old, right?" Harry asked, thinking about his text books. "How did it live so long?"

Ed gestured at the animal bones littering the floor of the tunnel and shrugged. Harry guessed that made sense, but the bones were so small he didn't see how something as big as this snake could live off them for long.

Ed didn't give him much time to think about it, striding off into the darkness again. Harry scrambled to keep up. His heart climbed into his throat every time they reached another bend in the tunnel, terrified that they'd stumble on the living snake without warning, but they didn't encounter anything else.

At the end of the tunnel, Ed guided him cautiously forward to stare up at a pair of entwined serpents carved into what looked like a solid wall. Harry licked his lips and cleared his throat, trying to gather his nerve as the emeralds in the snakes eyes twinkled malevolently down at him.

"Open," he finally hissed. He wasn't sure if it was his fear or the Parseltongue language that made his voice so faint.

Once the wall cracked open, Ed shoved Harry behind him again. The chamber on the other side was dimly lit with a weird greenish glow, and Ed silently shook out the light at the tip of his wand as they stepped slowly inside. He didn't put it away, though, and he kept turning his head to look into the unmoving shadows as they passed by towering pillars carved with more serpents.

"This place is creepy," Harry whispered, but Ed gestured him back into silence.

The dull light wasn't enough to let them see very far ahead of them, so they weren't able to see the huge statue until the came to the last pair of pillars. Harry craned his neck back to take in the ancient-looking face, then let his view slide down the long beard that fell nearly down to the ground. And that was when he finally noticed the tiny red-haired figured laying in a heap in between the statue's feet.

"Ginny!" Harry gasped in alarm, jerking forward to run to her side. Ed's arm shot out before he could take more than a step.

"Get behind a pillar and stay there," he said sharply.

Harry swallowed down his protests with an effort and did as Ed ordered, but he leaned around the pillar to watch as Ed strode forward into the gloom. In the more open space at the end of the chamber, Harry could see him kneel by Ginny's side and carefully turn her over. Harry chewed nervously on his bottom lip as Ed slowly ran his wand over her body.

Nothing else happened for a long minute. Then there was the barest hint of a whisper and Ed spun around with his wand held ready for a fight. A tall, dark-haired boy strolled into view, disturbingly relaxed for being in the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry strained to hear whatever conversation he and Ed were having. Their voices were lost in the depths of the chamber, but he couldn't miss the shaky letters the boy traced into the air. The letters were backwards to him, and it took him a moment to puzzle out the first name, but when "TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE" rearranged itself into "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT" he had no trouble recognizing the name of the man who had murdered his parents.

He let out a gasp that was too loud in the silence of the chamber, but if Tom Riddle noticed he was distracted by Ed attacking him. Harry watched hopefully, but it seemed that the magic had no effect on whatever Riddle was, and the Chamber echoed with chilling laughter. The snarl on Ed's face was terrifying, but worse still were his wide eyes as the statue's mouth dropped slowly open and twenty feet of snake came slithering out of the gaping hole.

Harry knew he should close his eyes, that leaving them open was risking catching the basilisk's gaze and dying instantly, but he couldn't look away as Ed cast hopeless curse after hopeless curse at the serpent. Each spell bounced off its scales, bursting against the walls and pillars surrounding Ed and carving deep gouges into the solid rock. Ed quickly gave up on the spells as the snake struck out at him, rolling out of the way and narrowly avoiding being eaten. The light of his alchemy surrounded him as he stood again, his right arm transforming into the blade Harry had seen only once before.

The fight was mesmerizing. The few times he'd seen Ed fight had been brief and nerve-wracking, and it hadn't even occurred to Harry that the man wasn't even fighting his hardest before. But against the basilisk he was absolutely terrifying, moving faster than Harry could always follow and narrowly avoiding more attacks than he could count. Ed seemed to be aiming to blind it first, but Harry had no idea how he was going to manage that without looking into its eyes. The basilisk, on the other hand, seemed to be getting more frustrated than ever, weaving around pillars and striking wildly while its tail swept over the floor as if it was desperate to knock Ed off his feet.

Harry had to duck behind the pillar as a blurry object came flying toward him unexpectedly, and he spun to look when it landed behind him with a dull thump. It looked like…the diary?

Harry glance back toward the fight to see if anybody would take notice of him, but Riddle seemed to be focused on hissing directions at the basilisk. He darted over to the diary and gathered it up, then ducked behind the closest pillar again in case Riddle or the basilisk looked over and saw him. He flipped through the book hopefully, but the pages looked no different than before. The last time he'd seen Riddle, he'd been nothing but a memory inside the pages of these books. Was it possible that he'd somehow come out of here?

There was a faint clattering sound and a cut-off cry that sounded like Ed, and Harry looked up with a start. Inches from the pillar Harry had been hiding behind a moment ago, Ed and the basilisk were silhouetted against the gloomy light of the open chamber, and Ed had his right arm buried almost to the shoulder in the roof of the snake's mouth. The snake was dead, its eyes nearly gouged out and dripping gore onto Ed, and Harry almost breathed a sigh of relief.

Until he noticed that Ed's left arm was stuck in the creature's mouth too, and that one was impaled by one of the venomous fangs.

Ed jerked back harshly, freeing himself and stumbling backwards as the basilisk keeled over, but his arm was dripping blood and he seemed weak from the bloodloss and the battle. He tripped over something behind him, falling ungracefully to the floor, and a loose fang rolled slowly in Harry's direction. Harry stepped out from his hiding place uncertainly, clutching the diary in numb fingers and hoping that Ed would be okay.

"Harry Potter," Tom Riddle said silkily, looming out of the shadows behind the basilisk's still-twitching body. "I wondered why you weren't here."

Harry had no idea what to say or do. He simply couldn't leave Ed again, not when he was on the floor bleeding out in an attempt to protect him, but what was he supposed to do against an enemy that Ed hadn't been able to touch?

His eyes fell on the basilisk fang. If he was right, if Riddle really had emerged from the diary somehow…

Hardly aware of what he was doing, Harry covered his hand with the edge of his sleeve and dove for the fang. His knuckles scraped painfully on the stone floor and the venom coating the fang started burning through the flimsy cloth almost instantly, but he didn't let go. Riddle moved toward him, one hand reaching out and a furious snarl on his face. Harry ignored him. He looked down at the diary instead, raised the fang high, and struck the cover with as much force as he could.

The scream Riddle released was unearthly. Ink poured from the diary, staining Harry's hands and clothes and pooling on the floor around him while the scream echoed through the chamber and Riddle writhed as if he'd been hit with an Unforgiveable.

"Huh," Ed said faintly once the boy had disappeared completely. "Nice work."

Harry tried to smile at the compliment, but he was too worried to feel accomplished. Ed looked like he was having trouble moving, even his automail barely functional as he pawed futilely at his suit jacket. Harry rushed forward to help, feeling awkward as they pushed his jacket open together, but the inside of it was lined with little pockets and an assortment of bottles. Not many of the pockets were full. Ed managed to tug out a tiny red bottle with a faint growl, but Harry had to pull the cork out for him.

A faint moan from the other side of the chamber distracted Harry from wondering what was in the bottle. Ginny was awake. He left Ed to drink the contents, since he seemed capable of doing that on his own, and darted over to her as she slowly sat up. When Harry fell to his knees beside her, she took one look at him and burst into tears.

Harry wasn't used to girls crying on him and didn't really know what to say, so he just pulled her into a hug and hoped the comfort would help. Eventually, very slowly, Ed came over to them, frowning as he knelt beside them as well. Harry noticed that he'd wrapped his hurt arm with something, but blood had already soaked through the fabric and he was still looking a lot paler than normal.

"Didn't remember any healing potions," Ed explained to Harry's worried frown. "We need to get out of here before I can't get us back into the castle. Are you okay, Ginny? Can you stand?"

Ginny pulled away from Harry and, though tears were still pouring down her face, she nodded jerkily to Ed. "I'm sorry," she added in a trembling voice. "I-I tried to tell you, but then Harry was— Riddle m-made me—"

"It's fine, Ginny," Ed said, getting back to his feet and offering her his automail hand. "You can tell us about it later, okay? Let's get you up to Poppy and your parents first."

Ginny accepted his hand and stood up slowly, looking even paler than Ed even though she wasn't obviously injured. Harry hopped to his feet too and hovered in between them as they made their way back down the long corridor to the pipe to Myrtle's bathroom.

Ed cast some sort of spell that made Harry feel strangely weightless, and he and Ginny grinned at each other as all three of them linked hands. Another spell had them zooming up the pipe as quickly as if they were each on a Nimbus, but when they popped out and landed on solid ground again, Ed's leg gave out under him.

"Oh!" Myrtle gasped, jerking back from them all. "You're alive."

"Unfortunately," Ed grumbled.

Harry and Ginny had to help him back to his feet, and it was painfully obvious that he was trying not to lean on them as they trekked through the corridors to the Headmaster's office. Harry was grateful for the moving staircase that brought them to the door, and he knocked and pushed it open in a rush.

"Ginny!" "Brother!"

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley reached them first, pulling their daughter away from their haphazard huddle and not seeming to notice when Ed tilted off-balance at the lack of support. Thankfully, Al was right behind them, catching Ed around the middle and practically dragging him over to a couch that hadn't been in the room the last time Harry had been there.

"'m fine," Ed slurred even as he slumped into the couch with Roy's arms around him and Al hovering over him. "Jus' a little bite."

"You ridiculous idiot," Roy snapped. He didn't even seem to notice the muck covering Ed from head to toe as he turned Ed's face to look him in the eye. He frowned at whatever he saw. "I'm going to kill you once Al's finished fixing you."

"Counterproductive," Ed muttered.

Somebody cleared their throat, and Harry looked away from the scene to see that Professor Dumbledore had returned to the castle while they'd been underground. He was looking at the Amestrians with a strange half-smile, but when he spoke he turned his gaze on Harry instead.

"Perhaps an explanation of the afternoon's events is in order," he said calmly.

Harry glanced at Ginny, who was sitting between her parents and still wiping away tears, and then towards Ed still being fussed over by his husband and brother. Neither of them were in any shape to tell the story, so he took a deep breath and began.

He talked until his voice was hoarse, and still wished he had more information to give the Headmaster. The old man looked faintly disappointed by something, though Harry had no way of telling what, and he didn't bother to explain himself. Instead, as Harry's story wound to a halting close, he simply pulled out some ink and parchment, and said something about recalling Hagrid from Azkaban.

As he started writing, the door to the office burst open so hard it bounced off the wall, and Lucius Malfoy strode into the room like he owned the castle. Scurrying after him, looking utterly terrified and still trying to polish his master's shoes, was none other than the houself that had been bothering Harry all year.

Harry barely held back a gasp, wondering what this could possibly mean. Why would his best friend's dad send a house elf to him in secret in a failed attempt to protect him, when Lucius could just have told Roy about his suspicions? Harry listened to the conversation between Lucius and the Headmaster, hoping that it would answer his questions, and by the end of it he was nearly as pale as the man himself.

He'd known the Malfoys weren't fond of Muggleborns, but that he would actively attempt to kill them surprised him. It probably shouldn't have. He was being naïve to think Lucius would have turned over a new leaf, obviously, because it was clear now that he was still firmly on Lord Voldemort's side. No matter how hard he pretended not to be.

When Lucius finally swept out of the room, calling Dobby to come after him, Harry got a brilliant idea.

"Can I have this, Professor?" Harry asked eagerly, one hand already on the diary that was sitting innocently on the corner of the Headmaster's desk. Dumbledore smiled at him, looking like he already knew what Harry was up to.

"Certainly, Harry," he said cheerfully.

Harry thanked him quickly and rushed from the room despite hearing his dad call after him. Just outside the door, he hurriedly yanked off his shoe and one of his disgusting socks, shoved the diary in it, and took off after Lucius.

The confrontation went about as well as Harry imagined, but in the end Dobby was freed and he'd made a new unlikely friend. It was even worth Al coming up behind him and nearly twisting his ear off.

xxxxx

With Harry's heroic attempt to save Ginny Weasley netting him another ridiculous amount of points, Slytherin House ended up winning the House Cup yet again. Harry and his friends left for the train in high spirits, promising to do even better next year, and Harry wasn't grounded this time because Ed had dragged him into the Chamber himself. That meant Harry could invite his friends out to Amestris over the summer, and even though only Draco and Blaise seemed certain that they'd be able to come, he was pleased that this summer was looking better than the previous.

When they train pulled into King's Cross station, they all went their separate ways. It was only when Harry was alone with Ed that Ron Weasley approached him, looking awkward and nervous separated from his usual gaggle of Gryffindors.

"Uh, hey," Ron said, his hands in his pockets. He scuffed the ground with a dingy sneaker and frowned at Harry with uncertainty.

"…Hi," Harry said, crossing his arms.

Ron looked away from him, scanning the crowd as if he was trying to find someone, but the rest of his family wasn't exactly easy to miss. At one point he even looked right at them and grimaced, waving them away frantically before he turned back to Harry again with clear reluctance.

"Look," he finally muttered. "I'm not saying I like you. But you didn't really know Ginny and you tried to save her anyway, and I figure anyone who does that can't be all bad. So…truce?"

Ron held out a hand, which was shaking slightly. Harry frowned at the other boy, trying to gauge his sincerity. Ron had been an absolute jerk to him for two years straight, and the dislike was mutual…but there was no point in having enemies in the school if he didn't have to. He smiled slightly and took the offered hand, which was clammy and gross with nerves.

"Truce," Harry agreed, his chest warm with happiness even though Ron didn't smile back.