The semi-corporal form of Tom Riddle watched with glee as the Basilisk emerged from the mouth of Salazar Slytherin's statue and began attacking the so-called saviour. Then the strangest thing happened, the boy began to try and reason with the serpent in parseltongue. Tom called the snake to pause.
"Since when does Dumbledore's golden boy have the ability to speak to snakes?"
"Dumbledore said some of your magic must have transferred to me when you tried to kill me," the boy, Harry, replied somewhat belligerently.
Tom frowned. "That's not possible. The parselmouth ability is entirely hereditary, it cannot be learned or transferred. The headmaster is talking rubbish as usual."
"Albus Dumbledore is a great wizard, the greatest of our age," Harry argued.
"Hardly," scoffed Tom, "he only went against Grindelwald because he couldn't persuade me or anyone else to and the man was starting to encroach on his territory."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"I mean that Dumbledore knew of Grindelwald's plans long before he actually did anything to stop him and only stepped in at the last minute. Why, I don't know. I would say ask him if you're curious but I doubt you'd get a straight answer: the man is always talking in riddles to keep information close to his chest."
"Why should I listen to a murderer?" Harry demanded.
"Don't if you don't want to," Tom shrugged, "it makes no difference to me, although you should know that this entire situation down here is a set up."
"How is it a set up? It's not like Dumbledore could have known about you using the diary to possess Ginny."
"Couldn't he? That is a very dark artifact, it should have set off wards as soon as it entered the school but it didn't. That little witch also knew full well what she was doing when she allowed me to possess her."
"Ginny wouldn't do that!" Harry yelled.
"Wouldn't she now? I may be strong but I only have a fraction of my strength in this form so she could have easily thrown me off. After all, if it only took writing a few lines on the page for me to take someone over then why couldn't I possess you, since you also used the diary for some time."
Harry looked confused. "I don't know, maybe you just didn't want to possess me?"
"Why not, you're clearly more powerful than she is," Tom pointed out. "The fact is you don't want me and I can't overpower your will so it would be stupid for me to even try especially since that girl willingly made a deal with me."
"What deal?" Harry queried, growing curious.
"To use her to drain her life force with the idea that you would come and rescue her like her knight in shining armour and it would start your epic love story."
"Ew! No! That's my best friend's little sister, why would I want to be with her like that!" Harry exclaimed.
"Well she seems to believe that you are destined to be together and she took this risk to prove it, silly chit that she is. I just went along with it as it seemed an easy way to get my body back since you apparently destroyed it as a babe, although the girl was fuzzy on the details about that. Admittedly this isn't the first time the family has set you up. I saw from her memories that she questioned why tjey had to travel by car to catch the Hogwarts express instead of flooing since she didn't see the point in wasting hours traveling in a cramped vehicle when they could get there instantly. Her mother told her to deal with it and then Ginny thought it was fate when they bumped into you at King's Cross but I can see that was obviously planned."
Harry frowned. "I didn't know you could floo to the platform?"
"Of course you can," Tom scoffed. "Muggles may be a bit dense but even they aren't stupid enough to miss hundreds of people running into a wall and disappearing, especially when it occurs on at the same time every year."
"It wouldn't be hundreds though," Harry argued.
"Wouldn't it?" Tom questioned. "Assuming there are about 300 students attending school who all arrive with their parents and siblings, even taking into account siblings in school and possible single parent families, you are easily talking about 800 to 1000 witches and wizards trying to get to the express platform on the same day every year. That is not an insignificant amount."
"Well, when you put it like that it does seem a little odd," Harry muttered.
"Almost as odd as a baby surviving the killing curse," Tom mused.
"Dumbledore said it was my mother's sacrifice that saved me," Harry explained.
Tom looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose it is theoretically possible that a human sacrifice would be enough to block the killing curse, sacrifices generate a whole bunch of magic after all, but you would usually require some sort of ritual to be able to harness it or people would be surviving the killing curse left, right and centre."
"So you're saying that's another thing that I've been lied to about," huffed Harry.
"Possibly," admitted Tom. "Unfortunately I don't know all of the particulars since my memories were locked when I made this diary, with whatever I was able to pick up from the girl added to the mix. It leaves a lot of blank spaces so I am only able to make suppositions based on logic."
"So it's also possible that Lucius Malfoy knew all about your ability to possess people with this book and is the real one to set everything up," Harry argued.
"I bloody well hope not!" Tom yelled. "I don't know a Lucius Malfoy but I did go to school with Abraxas and can only assume that Lucius is his son, since he always wanted to name his son after his famous ancestor who almost became king of England, in which case I hope my old friend didn't raise a complete moron. This diary would have been given to the family for safe keeping as a prized artifact and he will have to have an excellent reason for giving it away or face the consequences."
Harry giggled. "Any chance I can watch when you question him? He seems like a complete arse and it might be funny to see him taken down a peg or two."
"Definitely not the Gryffindor golden boy," Tom mused. "We shall see young Harry, I must say you do intrigue me."
"I don't know if that is a good thing," Harry said, "although you did ask me to join you last year when you were looking for the philosopher's stone."
"And you turned me down I presume? Shame, you seem like you have a lot of talent I could nurture and it would be nice to have another snake speaker around. How did you come across me looking for that fabled stone, might I ask?"
"Dumbledore had brought it to the school for safe keeping, placed behind a bunch of challenges. My friends and I followed you and I found you caught at the last one, although you were hidden in Quirrell's head so I didn't know who you were at first."
Tom gaped. "I don't know where to begin with everything that is wrong with that story and I have the feeling that you haven't even told me half of it."
Harry shrugged. "The teachers had all set up different safeguards around the stone. Hagrid had his cerberus, Fluffy, guarding the entrance and Quirrell had enchanted a harp to put it to sleep which stopped shortly after I arrived with my friends. We got through the trap door and got caught in a devil's snare put there by Professor Sprout. Hermione managed to burn it away and then we came to a room filled with flying keys and I had to ride a broom to get the right one. It was a bit battered so I knew it had been recently used. Then came McGonagall's chess set and Ron won us the game although he had to sacrifice himself to do it. Hermione and I went on and we passed a cave troll that had already been beaten after which we came to Professor Snape's test. Hermione figured out his logic puzzle but there was only enough potion to allow me to go on so she went back to help Ron and I went on to find Quirrell and you were stuck in front of the Mirror of Erised unable to get the stone. Dumbledore said it would only appear to someone who wanted it but not to use it."
"So nothing but a giant test then," Tom sighed. "It makes me even wonder if the stone was real to begin with. Out of curiosity, what happened when you got the stone?"
"How did you know?" Harry asked but Tom just raised an eyebrow as if it was obvious which, Harry supposed, it was. "Well you demanded that Quirrell get it off me and, when I refused, he attacked me but when he touched me it burned."
"So he walked away," Tom questioned in disbelief.
"Um, no, I, er, put my hands on him and he burned to ash."
"So you're a murderer as well," Tom leered.
Harry paled. "No, it was self defense."
"But you said yourself that you purposely put your hands on him and, I'm assuming, held them there in order for him to completely burn up. I wonder what Dumbledore said about that?"
"Um, nothing really," Harry frowned, "although he said that it was my mother's sacrifice that caused the burning."
"Not likely," Tom laughed, "protections don't work like that. At most it would have affected my spirit but should have spared the teacher."
"Your spirit was fine though," Harry pondered, "it came out just before Quirrell crumbled away and flew straight through me."
"With no effect?" Tom questioned and Harry shook his head, "very curious indeed. But definitely not what the headmaster suggested or my spirit would not have been able to pass through you like that with no effect. I think, my dear Harry, you need to stop taking things you're told at face value."
Before Harry could say anything else a loud 'caw' was heard and Fawkes, the headmaster's phoenix, came flying down. If he was at all surprised to see Harry chatting away to some spirit while Ginny lay on the ground and a giant snake was curled up in the corner then Harry was none the wiser. Fawkes simply took one look at the snake and, figuring that it wasn't an immediate threat, dropped what he was carrying, hopped onto Harry's shoulder and started grooming his hair.
"Ah, good to see the heirs of Slytherin talking," said the lump of fabric which turned out to be the sorting hat.
"Heirs? As in plural?" Tom questioned.
"Yes my boy. You are in line for the lordship young Tom as you inherited it through the Gaunt line which descends from Cadmus Peverell. The Potter's descend from Ignotius, the youngest of the Peverell brothers, so he is currently in line after you. It is a shame you were so adamantly against Slytherin, young Harry, as the rights of heirs is the one thing that could have overriden the will of the headmaster."
"The headmaster has the right to dictate where students are placed!" Tom exclaimed.
"Yes, the headmaster can encourage me to push certain houses since a lot of students can usually go into multiple houses and the school likes to keep things more equal but Dumbledore tends to push Gryffindor above all else," the hat grumbled. "It's a shame as well since there were a few students who would have done well in other houses last year. Mr Longbottom could have thrived under the acceptance found in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw would have tempered some of Miss Granger's more attention seeking behaviours. I was especially annoyed with you young Harry, Gryffindor seemed the worst fit for you since you'd never once stood up to those loathsome people you live with."
"They're the only family I have left though," Harry argued.
"They're not even related to you," the hat laughed.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"There was an incident some years ago now, where a student that was a werewolf almost attacked another. James Potter saved him but received a small bite for his pains, not noticeable at first, but enough so that he would have been infected. James hounded the headmaster for a cure and Dumbledore used a mixture of phoenix parts and alchemy to essentially turn the Potter boy into a phoenix himself, a ritual that the man was playing around with when searching for immortality. The powers were able to burn away the curse but he was left with a few side effects."
"Like what?" Tom queried.
"For starters, not many know, mostly because Dumbledore has suppressed the information, but a phoenix binds itself to whomever kills it first which is why the birds are so protective of their young. That flaming chicken over there carries a scar on its chest, where the feathers are slightly lighter, from the blade that Dumbledore used to pierce its chest. Once the headmaster knew that the cure had worked, and James Potter was a phoenix, he killed the boy and bound him as well." The two boys looked at the hat in disbelief. "Of course he came right back round as soon as the curse had hit."
Harry frowned. "Does that mean my dad is alive? And Dumbledore knew all along?"
"Technically James Potter would be your bearer since the other side effect of the cure was that James was able to bear young," the hat explained, "a fact that came to light when he accidentally got pregnant after fooling around with his friend Black. I know because he came to Dumbledore in a tizz, demanding that the headmaster do something about the problem so Dumbledore managed to persuade the Evans girl to quickly marry him and came up with a false prophecy to cover up the fact that they had gone into hiding with James pregnant. Thankfully phoenix pregnancies last 12 months so no one was any the wiser."
"Don't phoenix's lay eggs?" Harry asked.
"Have you ever heard of a phoenix egg?" the hat countered. "The fact is that while phoenixes resemble birds, they are actually mammals, with 5 claws on their talons. It's a little known fact discovered by the Dumbledore family and a closely guarded secret."
"I wonder how they discovered that little titbit," Tom wondered aloud.
The hat actually chuckled. "Well the story goes that Albus's great-great-grandfather was so happy that he was able to not only find a phoenix but bind it to him that he decided to, shall we say, celebrate with the bird and a year later the bird gave birth. He gave it to his son and the birds have been passed down through the family ever since. It seems to be a genuinely strange phenomenon, especially with the human hybrids like the Potters; apparently the bird form is more dominant regardless of how the phoenix is conceived."
"How do you even know that!" Harry blurted out.
"Dumbledore performed a couple of experiments with your bearer," the hat revealed, causing Harry to pale.
"Why would my father, or bearer, even agree to that?"
"Well he is bound to Dumbledore although there is always a certain amount of leeway in that," the hat supposed. "Perhaps James wasn't as adverse to it as you might think."
Fawkes trilled, as if to agree causing Harry to shudder.
"Perhaps it's a good thing that the man never had any children himself," announced Tom.
"He hasn't ruled them out completely," the hat commented. "His plan is to wait until after Harry here gets the Weasley girl knocked up so no one notices that Harry isn't the last Potter anymore. The old fool forgets that I can read so it doesn't even matter if he writes everything down."
"Handy for us," Tom smiled.
"He's actually planned my whole life for me," Harry gaped.
"Of course, young Harry, you are his saviour and his key to securing his power," the hat hummed.
Harry started to look a little green at that thought. "I want out. I don't want to be his puppet. I just want to be able to live my life like everyone else."
Fawkes started singing to calm him down.
"I'm afraid it won't be that easy," the hat sighed, "not now that he's gotten his claws into you, he won't give his weapon up without a fight."
"But if what you said before is true, Harry is actually bound to me now," Tom pointed out.
"Yes," the hat agreed, "and that annoyed him no end. He was hoping that your high morals would prevent you from actually killing a child. It caused you to lose a lot of credibility amongst the general populace but it may work out for the best in the end."
"You expect me to just switch one master for another!" Harry exclaimed.
"No Harry," Tom reassured him, "I will not force you to do anything that you don't want to do but it does at least give us a little legal manoeuvrability against Dumbledore."
"Especially as Harry's classification would fall under familiar or pet," the hat added somewhat unhelpfully.
"I'm Voldemort's pet!"
"Technically speaking yes," the hat nodded, "in the way that technically I am an object despite my sentience. Your status as an object of Tom's, while it might sound distasteful, allows him to be able to take control of your life in a way that Dumbledore can't stop. Just look at house elves."
"Like Dobby," Harry smiled.
"Ah yes, Dumbledore's little spy in the Malfoy household," the hat said.
"What! So you're telling me that was a set up as well!"
"Of course," the hat huffed, "the old coot isn't going to risk leaving anything up to chance where you're concerned, Harry, not after Tom here managed to wriggle out of his grasp."
"Nice to know I managed to foil his plans," Tom grinned.
"I think I need some time to process all of this," groaned Harry.
"There is no real rush," the hat admitted. "Dumbledore fully expected you to beat the Basilisk with Fawkes help and, this, stop Tom for another year so all you have to do is get Fawkes to fly us all back although you should probably destroy the diary, or something that looks like it, as the headmaster is fully aware that that is what was controlling the girls actions."
"Told you," smirked Tom.
"Yes, I've already gathered that he's a manipulative bastard," Harry huffed, "but where am I going to get another book down here?"
"Well there is always Rowena's Library," the hat suggested, "I believe the password is 'knowledge is power' spoken in parseltongue."
"I didn't realise Rowena had an area down here as well," mused Tom.
"Oh, yes," said the hat, "she was a seerer as well as a scholar and had a vision of the witch trials so realised Salazar was right to be wary and helped him create this place to allow the knowledge of their time to be safeguarded."
"Excellent, now I just need to find a way to get my body back since I doubt Harry here will be too happy if I actually kill the girl."
"I'm finding I care less and less," admitted Harry.
"That wouldn't be a good idea," the hat warned, "the old coot would ask too many questions. Better to leave it for now and ask Severus Snape, the potions master, for help. He has a vast knowledge and a penchant for creating spells and potions so if he doesn't know of a way himself, he may be able to create one."
"Sounds like a rare gem," Tom purred, "I do hope he was one of mine."
"I believe so," the hat smiled, "especially when Dumbledore blocked him from gaining recognition at every turn."
"Excellent, it's good to know my future self did something right," Tom crowed, "although I fear I may have to sever my connection with the girl if we are to preserve her. Will you be alright on your own Harry."
"I suppose I'll have to be," Harry sighed.
"Do not worry young Tom, I shall look after your pet until you can claim him properly," the hat announced.
"Thank you hat, that will ease my worry greatly," Tom admitted and with that he began to fade.
"Will Ginny wake up anytime soon?" Harry asked.
"Unlikely if she is as weak as Tom suggested," the hat replied and Fawkes trilled as if to agree.
"Alright then," Harry huffed, "I'd better get on with this then." Looking at the Basilisk to try and get the language straight he called out ~Knowledge is power ~ and the legs of the statue separated to reveal another passageway.
"I always knew Rowena had a dirty sense of humour," the hat chuckled.
Harry just looked confused. "I don't getThat's because you haven't had your own sexual awakening yet young Harry," the hat explained, "but when you do I'm sure you'll also realise the power that you hold between your legs."
Harry gulped. "I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet."
"No, probably not," mused the hat, "although it might be closer than you think."
"I'd rather not think about that right now," Harry groused, picking up the hat and carrying it into the newly opened chamber. There were books and scrolls everywhere and Harry couldn't help but think that Hermione would love it in here should she recover from the pertification ok and he wondered if he'd ever be able to show it to her. "Does it matter what book I pick?"
"Yes," said the hat. "You need one that is similar to the diary and doesn't have any anti-copying spells on it so you can replicate it."
"I assume that's why I can't just replicate the diary," Harry sighed and the hat nodded, "of course not, that would be too easy."
"Weapons are forged in fire," the hat stated.
"I'm not a weapon!" Harry spat.
"True, but you could have been. Your circumstances are similar to young Tom's, however, which will allow for a better understanding between you. Fate has helped you in that way, now you just need to help Tom with his mate."
"What mate?" asked Harry.
"Most creatures, and some with creature blood, have a mate, sometimes referred to as another half, someone that they are drawn to and want to be with," the hat explained.
"Like soulmates?"
"That is the more romanticised version, yes," the hat replied, "although it isn't always that simple in real life and sometimes the bond isn't fully accepted, for a number of reasons, which can cause issues. I know young Tom had found his mate but the bond hadn't been sealed which had caused his mind to weaken, something that Dumbledore capitalised on. I didn't mention it before, as there was little that the spirit could do, but you may have to help with that dynamic."
"In what way?" Harry queried holding a book against the diary to check it.
"That will be for you to discuss with Tom and whoever his mate is. That book should do, now just flick your wand at it and say geminio ."
Harry followed the instructions and was surprised at how easy it was to do, once again amazed at what magic could accomplish. The scary thing was getting the Basilisk to bite into the book in an effort to give an explanation as to why Tom had disappeared. The Basilisk wasn't nearly as scary when she wasn't attacking him and practically knocked Harry over when she tried to nuzzle him after he explained what happened. He managed to persuade the Basilisk to go back into the statue's mouth, just as Ginny started to stir. Slipping the real diary under his shirt, Harry moved so that he would obscure her view of it and hopefully avoid any unwanted questions.
"Harry!" Ginny gasped, tears flowing, "oh, Harry, I tried to tell you at breakfast but I couldn't, not in front of Percy, it was Riddle."
"I know," Harry reassured her, "he told me everything, practically gloating, but it's over now. I killed the Basilisk down that tunnel and used its fang to destroy the diary so he can't hurt you again." He held the copied book up to show her and Ginny seemed to sag in relief.
"But it was my fault those students were attacked, I'm going to be expelled," Ginny wailed.
"I doubt Dumbledore will allow that," Harry said, "but Ron's probably worried sick. Let's get out of this awful place and let him know that you're safe now."
"Thank you Harry," Ginny sighed, giving him a watery smile as he helped her up. She clung to his arm as he picked up the sorting hat and had to hide his surprise as something dropped out of it.
"Is that what you used to kill the creature?" Ginny asked, awe lacing her voice.
"Er, yeah. Never used a sword before so I had a bit of trouble. Practically got eaten."
"Yes but then you were able to push the sword through the inside of its mouth where it has no protection," the hat lied, "quite ingenious Mr Potter."
"More luck really," Harry chuckled, "I'm just glad I managed to avoid all of her fangs."
"That's amazing Harry," Ginny simpered, "you really are a hero."
Harry shrugged. "Just helping my best friend's sister, come on, let's get to Ron before he really starts to panic." He pulled her along, not noticing how her face fell when she realised that he didn't look at her romantically.