Chapter 18

"Open" a voice hissed in a bathroom on the second floor. A slide big enough for a person to slide through appear. Percy descended into the slide. He was fuming. How dare Harry suspect he would kill Ginny. But it doesn't matter anymore.

He came to the Entrance of the Chamber. "Open" he hissed in parseltounge. The Chamber opened and he was greeted with a pair of bright, yellow eyes.

"Ssso have you dessided to take up my offer" hissed the basilisk.

Flashback

Percy finally found the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. As he was sliding through the pipes, he was going over the curses he learnt to use against the serpent. It will regret turning Zoe into stone. He crossed the shedded skin and approached the entrance of the Chamber. "Open" he hissed. And he was greeted with a pair of yellow eyes.

But Percy did not die, nor turn to stone. He stared right back. "How isss thisss posssible? How are you not dead?" Percy had a vague idea as to how it was possible. When Polybotes hair touches the ground, basilisk appear from them. Him being the son of the sea, has partial immunity against them. The basilisk in front of him is but a child compared to the basilisk in Greece. "Oh thisss isss great. You are the firssst perssson sssince Sslytherin who could do so. What isss your name child" asked the basilisk. "Percy" he replied with curiosity "what do you mean by that"

"My name isss Ssalazar, king of Ssserpantsss. I wasss the persson who taught Sssslytherin the magic he ussesss. If you want I can teach you too"

"Why are you trying to kill the students up at school"

"Let me give you a lessson in hissstory. Sslytherin found me in Ipssswich, and sssmuggled me into Hogwatsss. He wasss a bit sself- centered, asssss you can seee " Salazar wasn't lying. The chamber was full of statues of himself, which was honestly creepy. " He adopted my name in honor of me. I wassss hisss teacher. He then left Hogwartsss, for he dissagreed with Griffindor. You have to undersstand that at that time wizardsss and witchesss were perssecuted. Sslytherin Wass jussst sscared that they would all die and wasss thusss againsst Muggle-bornsss. He told hisss descendantsss about me."

"Then that wretched Corvinus Gaunt came to Hogwartss. He placed a sspell on me, and if those wordsss are uttered I losse control of mysself. Thussss, the killingsss. But in honor of Sslytherin, I would never kill hiss heir. But a girl from Griffindor orderess me now being possessed by Sslytherin'ss heir. That wasss why I was waiting at the entrance. I wisshed to kill her before sshe could put me under the sspell."

"But you came insstead. None of Sslytherin's descendantsss could look at me sstraight in the eyess. I can bet Sslytherin perssonally claimed you. Thuss I offer you the ssame offer I gave Sslytherin. I can teach you the darkessst artss and the defensse againsst it. Transsfiguration and charmsss will be a child'sss play for you. Arithmancy will be much more easier for you, and you will be able to draw Runess with your bare hands. You will be able to invent new sspellsss or modify them. You will be the greatesst student of Sslytherin ever. Not even hiss descendantsss will come closse to you. What do you ssay"

" Suppose I wanted to make an illusion, what must I do?" Asked Percy, curiously. "allucinatio iss the word. It will take tremendousss consssentration to maintain the illusssion. I will teach the wand movement after you answer this question.. why do you want to know it?"

Percy made a plan to trick the heir of Slytherin when he came by creating an illusion. Lupa had spent months teaching him how to manipulate the mist.

"Allucinatio" Percy hissed in parseltounge.

At that moment, the chamber door opened and in came Ginny Weasley. Percy waited for about 3 hours and then entered the chamber.

"Ginny, please wake up," Percy muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side. "She won't wake," said a soft voice. Percy jumped and spun around on his knees. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Percy were looking at him through a misted window. He was twirling Ginny's wand in his hand.

"Who are you? Come help me please" "My name is Tom Riddle" "What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Percy said desperately. "She's not - she's not -?"

"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just." Percy 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?" Percy 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. For a second, Percy wondered how it had got there - but there were more pressing matters to deal with.

"You've got to help me, Tom," Percy said, raising Ginny's head again. "We've got 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 me

"Listen," said Percy urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny's dead weight. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes -" "It won't come until it is called," said Riddle calmly.

"I've waited a long time for this, Percy Potter," said Riddle. "For the chance to see your brother. To speak to you both." "Look," said Percy, losing patience, "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later -" "We're going to talk now," said Riddle, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed Ginny's wand. Percy stared at him. There was something very funny going on here ...

"How did Ginny get like this?" he asked slowly. "Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger." "What are you talking about?" said Harry. "The diary," said Riddle. `My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes - how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how she couldn't believe Percy Potter was in Slytherin, how-" Riddle's eyes glinted "how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her . . . ."

"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom ... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in ... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket . . . . Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him.

"If I say it myself, Percy, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted ... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her. . ."

"What d'you mean?" said Percy, whose mouth had gone very dry. " Haven't you guessed yet, Percy Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat and your dog. "No," Percy whispered.

"Yes," said Riddle, calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries ... far more interesting, they became ... Dear Tom," he recited, watching Percy's horrified face, `I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, l can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me-"

Percy's fists were clenched, the nails digging deep into his Palms. "it took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," said Riddle. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where your brother came in, Percy. He found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was Harry, the very person I was most anxious to meet . . . ."

"And why did you want to meet him?" said Percy. "Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you and your brother, Percy," said Riddle. "Your whole fascinating history." "I knew I must find out more about the both of you, talk to either one of you, meet you'll if I could. So I decided to show Harry of my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust -"

"Hagrid's my friend," said Percy, his voice now shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? Riddle laughed his high laugh again. "It was my word against Hagrid's. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student ... on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls ... but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance ... as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power!

"Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed ... Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did ..."

"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," said Riddle carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."

"Well, you haven't finished it," said Percy. "No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again -"

"Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been -your brother."

"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not your brother. She saw him with the diary, you see, and panicked. "What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to Harry? What if, even worse, I told him who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until Harry's dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that Harry was on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about him, I knew he would go to any lengths to solve the mystery - particularly if one of his best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because Harry could speak Parseltongue, but so can you apparently ...

"So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her ... She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last ... I have been waiting for your brother to appear since we arrived here, but you will have to do. I knew one of you'd come. I have many questions for you, Percy Potter."

"Like what?" Percy spat, fists still clenched. "Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "how is it that your brother, a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent - managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did he escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?" There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.

"Why do you care how we escaped?" said Percy slowly. "Voldemort was after your time ... "Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Percy Potter . . . ." He pulled Ginny's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE. Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

"You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Percy - I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

Percy had heard enough "STUPEFY" Percy yelled. "Protego" and they started to duel. They fought for 15 minutes, with Riddle trying powerful curses, but the wand was not his and thus was not working properly for him. He was forced to use mere curses, which was easily blocked by Percy. Suddenly, Riddle placed a kind of shield around him and, turning his back on Percy, hissed

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four. "

Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Percy saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole. And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths. Percy took out his Trident and threw it at the serpent. It went sailing through the air and landed right on target, it's eye.

"NOOOOOO" Riddle yelled and they started to fight again. They heard the chamber door open and from the footsteps Percy understood it was Harry. Knowing how to distract Riddle, Percy hissed " Petrificus Totalus" Riddle was momentarily stunned. Knowing this opportunity would not present itself later, Percy yelled

"Harry, pull Ginny to safety and throw me the diary" Percy felt the diary being thrown towards him and catching it, plunged it on the basilisk's fang. He saw with satisfaction that Riddle was in agony, melting into nothing.

Flashback ends

Percy grinned at Salazar. Dumbledore may think that Harry is the Golden boy and his pawn. Percy will make sure Dumbledore would regret pushing him aside. Percy will not be Dumbledore's pawn.

The sorting hat had told Percy that he will find his true friends in Salazar Slytherin. The hat was partially correct. He found no friends in Slytherin. But he found a friend in Salazar.

"What's the first lesson?"

Salazar gave a bloodthirsty grin.