91: Tom Marvolo Riddle

(Beatris POV)

"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....." I screamed as loud as I could while falling down the seemingly endless pit. Well not exactly falling but rather sliding down the seemingly endless pit. And after falling... ahem... sliding for about five minutes my feet finally hit the floor.

"Ugh." I fell with a thump on the floor that was ridden with stones.

"Ouch...… That was long..... I wonder how deep I really am?" I spoke to no one. And then I got up." It was all dark. I could not even see my hands. I searched for my wand inside my cloak. I found it soon. I always kept it in the same place so I did not need to see it to find it.

"Lumos." I chanted the spell and a whisp of light appeared on the tip of my wand. It was small but it immediately lit up all my surroundings.

"AAAHHH." And what I saw with the light..... I could not hold in the scream.

The floor...….. it was not littered with rocks and stones. No no no..... I mean why did I not think about it? There were no stones...…. But bones. Yes..... The floor on which I fell was riddled with bones. I could see all kinds of bones. Skulls, ribs, both human and animal.

(of course, the basilisk had to eat. And these were the remains of its food)

I moved away…. Carefully, trying not to step on any bones but there were simply too many of them to avoid. And I ended up stepping on them. It was... probably one of the worst experiences of my life. I was stepping on the remains of living creatures that were probably eaten alive. I moved quickly and exited the hole. There was a corridor connecting the hole to somewhere...…. I was going to find out. Every single hair on my body was tingling. And then I reached the end. Now the tunnel further was blocked by a giant door with a design of two serpents intertwined was made on the door. I knew what was supposed to be done.

"Open," I said without any hesitation in parseltongue. Immediately the door creaked and then the snakes started to move. They crept all over the door and the various locks that were made inside the door. And with a loud creak, the door opened.

Immediately a chilly wind welcomed me from the inside. My hair flew out of my face and back with the wind followed by an eerie silence.

(Ooookay...… now what?)

I was nervous. More than anything else.... I was scared. But I had to do this. Augustine was in there somewhere. And most probably Ana as well. This gave me the courage to move forward. I swallowed my saliva and started to walk. I was in some kind of corridor that was damp and cold. It was layered on both sides with giant statues of serpents. Typical. My steps echoed inside the wide and empty place. Looking towards the statues, it felt as if their empty socket eyes were following my movement. And more than once I even thought that one of them moved.

And then I finally heard a sound.

"was not expecting to see one of you people here." Two people were talking.

(They are talking while standing with their potential deaths..... are these people made of like stone or...…. Aren't they afraid of anything.)

Then, as I drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.

I had to crane his 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 grey feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure. And there were two others as well. One I recognized immediately with the long silvery white hair. And the other person was unknown to me. He was a tall, black-haired boy. Quiet handsome if I had to say so. But strangely enough, he was blurred around the edges, as though I was looking at him through a misted window. And there was no mistaking the figure on the floor. It was Augustine.

"It's so nice of you to join us... Ms. Beatris Potter, I assume?" The boy spoke as soon as he saw me. And upon hearing his words Ana turned as well.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE BEATRIS." She shouted at me in rage.

"I.... I came to...….." I tried to reason with her.

"I told you not to do anything like this again....." She probably wanted to say more but the other guy stopped her.

"Ohh what's the rush? Now that she is here.... All three of us have a chat. After all...…. Who knows if we will be able to do it again or not." He smiled broadly at both of us.

"Sorry, but who are you again?" I asked. There was something suspicious about this boy.

"That's Tom, Beatris..." Ana spoke in his stead. "Tom Riddle."

(Tom Riddle.... Tom Riddle???? Where had I heard this name before?)

"You might be confused as to where you might have heard this name before so let me remind you that you heard it from...…. Little mister Augustine here." And with that, I remembered what he had said. 'I am learning to perform magic. Mr. Tom Riddle is teaching me. Soon I will become stronger than you sister Beatris.'

(TOM RIDDLE? HE IS TOM RIDDLE.)

"I've waited a long time for this, Beatris Potter," said Riddle. "For the chance to see you.

To speak to you." He smiled.

"I would appreciate it if you don't do that." And Ana came in front of me as if trying to protect me from something.

"Oh, but where's the fun in that Morningstar." He replied.

"Yeah, not a really big fan of..... fun," She remarked.

"Oh what to do? What to do? It's all such a dilemma. I want her to know the truth. You can't protect her forever you know. You can't. She will have to know. It is either today or tomorrow. She will have to know about it eventually. This is her destiny after all." Tom barked. Both of them were talking about me as if I was not there and I was not able to understand a single thing they were saying. But I did not care right now for what they were talking about. I slipped past Ana and kneeled in front of Aug. I touched his hand to shake him up. To wake him so that we might go back. The monster would be around here somewhere. It could attack us anytime now. His face was white as marble and as cold, yet his eyes were closed, so he wasn't Petrified at least. But then he must be…

"He won't wake up." Riddle spoke.

"What you mean he won't wake up?" I asked. "Both of you help me get him out of here. Why are you standing here like this." I pleaded to them.

"It's useless Beatris. She won't wake up until the cause is not removed." Ana spoke.

"Then we should take her to the hospital. I will just levitate her. I searched my cloak for my wand but it was not there.

"Where is my wand?" I asked myself.

"Are you looking for this?" I looked up only to see Tom holding my wand.

(How did he get it.)

"How did you get that." It was Ana who asked him. Now things were getting weird. I looked up... something was going on between the two. I looked toward Ana and then toward Tom. He was playing with, my wand. Now that I looked at him. He seemed ethereal. Incomplete. Some of his parts were see-through as if he were a painting drawn on a glass plane and left incomplete.

"Are you a ghost?" I asked him.

"No...… not a ghost...…. More like a memory. That was stored inside the diary for more than fifty years."

"Diary? What diary?" I looked around and surely there was a diary laying on the floor near Augs body.

"Come on both of you. Please help me. The Basilisk might come any...….." I tried to plead again.

"it won't come until it's called," Tom replied.

"What?" Now I was taken aback.

(What does he mean by that...…)

Wait...….. now it all started to make sense. The diary, Tom Riddle...… Augustine...… I lowered his body back onto the floor.

"How did Augustine become like this?" I asked. Ana remained quiet. Maybe she was hoping that Tom would explain everything or maybe she had some other reason but she did not speak.

"Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I

suppose the real reason Augustine is like this is that he opened his heart and spilled all his secrets to an invisible stranger."

"What are you talking about?" I shouted at him. My senses were screaming that something was really wrong here. But I had to listen. Something told me that what he was going to say next, I had to listen or else I might never get the chance again.

"The diary," said Riddle. "My diary. Little Aug's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes how the other students bully him and his sister, how

he had to come to school with his sister and on a loan, how...…." Riddle's eyes

glinted "how he thought that his new friend he cherished so much will also eventually leave him .…"

All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left my face. There was an almost hungry look in them. Ana was simply listening to him talk now. I could not even feel her presence.

"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old boy," he

went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. He 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…'" He laughed. A high and cold laugh. It did not suit him at all. But for some reason hearing this gave me goosebumps.

"If I say it myself, Beatris, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So, when the little kid poured his soul to me I accepted it heartfeltly, and his soul happened to be exactly what I wanted… I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of his deepest fears, his darkest secrets. I grew

powerful, far more powerful than little Mr. Augustine. Powerful enough to start feeding

him a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into him…"

"wait... what do you mean by that." I understood where this conversation was going but I did not want to believe it

"He took control over Aug's body and consciousness. Aug was the one who opened the chamber. He was the one who did...….." maybe she had enough of it or maybe she just wanted to end the conversation but Ana spoke and clarified everything.

'Well yeah..... but not all of them. At first, it was a girl. I tried to charm her. She was the one who opened the chamber for the first time. She attacked the cat and the first mud blood but then she discarded the diary. And this kid here found it. Oh man was I glad that he did? He was unique. The moment he held the diary... I knew that he had to be the one. He was the one who would make my dream a reality. He was the one who would bring me back from death."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT...…." I screamed. I wanted to attack him and strangle him to death but And grabbed me by the shoulders.

"Don't you get it....." He smirked. "I mean how dumb can one get? IT WAS YOU I WANTED ALL ALONG." He laughed. "Why I attacked that Granger brat. It was because you would come here. I knew you would not be able to resist the temptation of the mystery and come crawling to me." He looked straight into my eyes, his pupils gleaming.

"why? Why did you....."

"Of I simply wanted to ask that how is it that you ...…. a skinny little girl with no extraordinary magical talent...… managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?" He said in a grim tone.

(wait... what? It's about that.)

And my frustration hit the roof. So everything that was happening in the school right now was all my fault. If it were not for me...…

(If I was not Hermione's friend, she would not have been attacked. If Augustine had not known me he would not have been controlled. If I did not come to the school, none of this would have happened. I am the root cause of all this. Dobby was right. It was not I who was in danger. I was the danger. Maybe I should not have come to the school. Even better if I had not been born at all. Maybe I should just kill...….)

"Stop thinking Beatris." I felt a hand on my shoulder. "I know what you are thinking. And believe me that it is not your fault. If anyone is to blame it's that guy in front of us." She spoke while her eyes glued on the ethereal figure in front of us. "So why don't you stop the games and tell us what you really want." She said to her sternly. "I know that you are buying time so that you can revive. Isn't that right?" She asked him.

"Well can't hide anything from you can I?" He laughed again. "Okay, then I will tell you who I really am." And with that, he turned and using my wand started to write something. The words appeared in the air as if they were written from fire.

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, Beatris.... 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!"

My brain seemed to have jammed. I stared numbly at Riddle… At last, I forced myself to speak.

"You're not," I said, my voice full of so much hatred that even I was surprised. Thinking back on it now the hatred made sense. After all, the murder of my parents was in front of me right now trying to destroy my life once again.

"Not what?" snapped Riddle.

"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," I said, breathing fast. "Sorry to disappoint

you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days....."

"I AM NOT HIDING AND DUMBLEDOR IS NOT STRONGER THAN ME." I had hit a nerve. "I will show you what I am capable of." And with that, he turned and faced the great stone face.

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four." He was speaking in parseltongue. But I understood what he said.

Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, I saw its 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.

"RUN BEATRIS..... AND NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, DO NOT LOOK INTO ITS EYES." I heard Ana scream. But my body had gone numb. Whether it was fear or some kind of magic, I could not tell. I was not able to move my eyes from the two creatures that came slithering out of the mouth.

(Wait??? TWO???)

Two creatures poked their heads out from the mouth.

(THERE were two basilisks????)

"DON'T LOOK BEATRIS.... DON'T LOOK INTO ITS EYES." I heard Ana shout. She was probably running towards me to push me. But I knew that it was already too late. I would not be able to look away in time.

(I am going to die)

Was my last thought.

*SWISH*

Faster than anything in the chamber, something flew in the air. And it hit the basilisk straight in the eye.

*SCREEEECHHH*

The basilisk shouted. Hysterically. And right then a few others flew as well. One of them hit the other eye of the same basilisk making it go blind. While the other two objects..... probably meant for the eyes of the other snake, did not hit the targets. One of them hit the snake near its neck while one simply missed.

*SCREEEECHHH*

Both the snakes shouted and moved in abnormal matters. One of them hit the statue and broke the face.

"Knives? But Who?" I was astounded when another figure appeared from behind a pillar. He was floating in midair holding similar-looking knives in his hands.

"Shit... I missed. But seems like the training with Jacob paid off...." And then he looked at us. "Did you two miss me." He smiled with an evil grin. I never thought that I would be this happy to see Nathaniel Morningstar.