Note:

I'm sorry in advance.

Beta'd by the best, vlaai.

Chapter Five

The Night Unfurls

The Chamber of Secrets was a grave. Bones littered the ground, crunching clamorously as Iris came crashing in. Avalon swooped through the pipe after her, coming down to rest on her shoulder. Iris grimaced as she pulled herself up and shared a look with the phoenix. If the Heir of Slytherin was here, they would surely hear her coming now.

Avalon's eyes glowed bright blue in the gloom, piercing Iris's own green, and as if reading her thoughts, the phoenix tightened her grip and it felt as if a heavy weight had been taken off Iris's shoulders, replaced by a heavenly lightness. The phoenix lifted her as though it was nothing, and carried her over to safer ground without any remnants of death.

"Thanks," said Iris quietly, and she drew her wand. "Lumos."

Now the way was lit. Though she wished she had one of those Hands of Glory to keep her light only to herself. As it was, whatever lurked down here would see her coming. Her and Avalon, for the phoenix remained perched on her shoulder. It was a comfort in this dark, forbidding place.

There was only one way to go, and it was a serpentine tunnel, cavernous and curving. Around a bend she came across an enormous snake skin, its initial appearance startling her so badly she thought she had been Petrified. From its length and girth Iris guessed the basilisk was dozens of feet long, and that it wouldn't even have to chew to swallow her.

She knew she was in way over her head. Her plan for the acromantulas had fallen apart only due to a stupid gap in her memory, but this — buying time for Dumbledore and the Ministry — this was just stupid and she knew it. There wasn't even a plan, really. But she had to try. If there was any chance for Luna's survival and the reopening of Hogwarts, then it had to be done. Trelawney's words carried too heavy of a magic for her to ignore them. Morrígan's advice to collapse the tunnels would be unheeded.

After another bend she at last came to the tunnel's end: a wall with two entwined serpents carved into it. Iris could feel Avalon tense slightly, and she knew the end would be beyond this door, for better or for worse.

"Open," she said in Parseltongue, and the wall split in two, each half sliding smoothly out of sight.

Avalon hopped off her shoulder, taking flight through the door and above to the ceiling so high that she could not see it. But that didn't mean much. She could hardly see a few feet in front of her, even with her wand lit. The light did not waver, but it seemed reluctant in spreading. It was as though the Chamber liked the dark, didn't want anyone to disturb it, and was maybe waiting until she was just far enough into the Chamber to shut the door and snuff out all light, even from her wand, leaving her in total blackness.

These kinds of chilling thoughts kept her rooted at the entrance for a long moment. Eventually, after somewhat deluding herself into believing she wasn't frightened, she took a step forward. And then another. And so on until her light illuminated stone pillars, carved with more serpents, stretching far up into the darkness. She was sure their eyes were following her as she moved along; eyes full of hatred and rage at her nerve to come here.

There was something evil about this place. She could almost feel it in the air, the oppressive nature of something malicious lurking unseen in the dark. It weighed heavily on her mind, urging her thoughts to come up with the most horrible of things that could happen next. She imagined long, withered, rotting fingers reaching out of the shadows to extinguish the tip of her wand.

A strong chill shot up her spine and through her arms, and she couldn't stand it anymore, the unsettling depravity of this place. She slid behind one of the pillars. There, when there were no longer the sounds of her own footsteps or breathing, she noticed just how eerily quiet it was too.

There was no wind, no water dripping, no footsteps, no anything. Not even Avalon could be heard flapping her wings. Iris wondered if the phoenix hadn't just abandoned her; half the reason she had decided to go after Luna was because she thought the phoenix could pull her out if things went bad. She supposed she would have heard the bird's departure. Or maybe the shadows here absorbed all sound and there was really something horrible going on in the dark, a cacophonous chanting alongside a sacrifice to summon something sinister and —

No, she couldn't let the Chamber get to her like this. There was no time for it. She had decided to go after Luna without waiting for the Ministry. It would do no one any good if she stayed here, her fingers trembling. She had to move forward no matter how bad she wished to flee.

As it was, Iris could hear only her own breathing, quiet and slow through great effort; if only she could slow her heart as well, for it was like drums here in the deep. But it couldn't have mattered much seeing as her wand was still lit. She checked her bag, making sure the Dragon's Delight and Awful Eyeful were still in it. Thankfully they were.

Pointing to the other side of the pillars, Iris gave her wand a little flick. The light left her wand, moving slowly across the center pathway of the Chamber, bobbing slightly as though it belonged to a person walking. When it reached the other side, Iris directed it toward the end of the Chamber. At the same time, she left her pillar and moved up one, and then another, and so on so long as she heard or saw nothing else.

Nothing attacked her or her light. The anticipation was so heavy in her stomach that she almost felt sick with the anxiety. It felt like the pillars would never end.

In a fit of desperation, she flicked her wand hard, channeling as much magic as she could, and her light shot from its spot into the darkness, illuminating a horror as it shone brightly.

An icy terror gripped Iris's heart, its biting cold dripping down her spine and her arms and her legs until she could no longer move from her shock and fear.

Twenty feet off the ground, suspended in the air, her legs and arms spread, her eyes flung open and her mouth stretching into a silent scream of suffering, was Luna Lovegood. Her hair floated about her as if she were suspended in water.

And then her ball of light disappeared and Luna faded from view, only to come back when an unnatural and sickly sort of green shadow came to hang over the place, coming out of nowhere. Something was coming. Luna looked downright demonic now, something beyond the most terrifying of all the horror movies Iris had snuck into.

She rushed forward, intent on pulling Luna down and dragging her out of here, but as she got closer she made out a figure against the darkness beneath Luna. Iris stopped, her heart pounding so hard it might've been at risk of bursting through her chest. And she stared at it, unsure of what to do, until it spoke at last.

"Well, well, well... Iris Potter... come to die..."

Then the figure took a step forward, the darkness clinging to it like a cloak. It reached a pale hand out to her, as if to caress her, but Iris stumbled away.

"Do not be afraid," the shadow said, its menace pulsating with a kind of dark magic. It was as if she was back to her first day at Hogwarts, being assaulted with ambient magic, unable to even think correctly from the foreign sensation she could not explain creeping along her mind.

"Stop," she gasped, clutching her head. Lifting her wand to the shadow, she cried, "Lumos!"

Her light shone again, bright and powerful, but it did not reveal anything beyond their already existing circle of sight.

The shadow laughed, a deep and terrible thing. "This is no battle of good and evil, where you can snuff out the dark with light. No, Iris, there is no good or evil at all. There is no light against my power."

And the last word echoed, around and around, ringing in her head and clouding her thoughts until fear forced her to her knees.

There is no good and evil... there is only power... and those too weak to seek it...

"No..." Iris refused to believe he was here. But the words were so similar and her scar began to burn for the first time in a year. Or was it? She couldn't even tell. The blackness of the figure ebbed away to the edges, revealing a blurry but familiar face.

Tom Riddle smiled. "Are you surprised?"

Iris looked around, sure this was a distraction, that Voldemort was standing right behind her, but she did not see anyone besides him and Luna. She had a sudden maddening thought that she was still in Ginny's malignant diary, and had been this whole time, these past few months being nothing but an illusion.

"Where is he?" she said, pointing her wand all over the place in her panic.

"Where is who?" said Riddle, tilting his head like a curious child.

"Voldemort."

"Ah." Riddle's smile grew. "He's here. Frightfully close."

Iris stopped and eyed him warily from her spot on the ground. "What's he done to you? How are you here?"

"Don't you understand?" said Riddle, his smile growing from plain amusement to something crueler. "Not so clever it seems. I was doing so well with her, you know. Poor little Ginny. She told me everything you had told her, of how it was your mother, not you, who had stopped Lord Voldemort. I was so eager to meet you... And you came. You just couldn't resist, could you? But neither could I... A taste of you at last... After all the wonderful and sweet things Ginny had told me of you, how could I say no?"

Iris looked at him in disgust. She couldn't believe that stupid diary was a part of all this. Ginny had come to her about it, pale and anxious, and Iris didn't need Ginny to tell her that the thing was an abomination to the natural world.

"But you didn't like what you saw, did you?" said Riddle, scowling. "You saw my diary for what it was. Perhaps not the complete truth, but you could taste the magic seeped into it. And you didn't like it. You threw the diary into the river by Ginny Weasley's home. After so long, after the years and years in Lucius' home, I had thought I was to spend years more at the bottom of a river."

"Lucius Malfoy?" said Iris, then she scoffed and muttered, "Of course."

"Oh, he was the one to hold the diary for many years," said Riddle dismissively. "And the one, I presume, to have given it to Ginny." He frowned. "Though his timing was wrong. I meant to have the basilisk once more unleashed when Lord Voldemort was already waging war, as a way to destabilize Hogwarts, you see."

Iris didn't really care. She was too busy fuming with the fact that Draco Malfoy's father was the one behind all this. She couldn't believe that little bastard of his was actually somewhat connected to this.

"But maybe I should thank you," said Riddle. "Days after you tossed me I was picked up by Luna Lovegood. Her mind was already so fragile, and she was so lonely. No friends, a dead mother, a failure of a father — really, I thought you would sympathize." Riddle laughed, but this time his laughter was high and cold, unlike what it was before, not quite as menacing but far more cruel. "For weeks I listened to every sad, incoherent ramble, to every imagined problem. In the end, the mad girl was even easier to break than Ginny."

Iris looked at Luna again, guilt crashing down on her until she felt sick with it. The diary lay below her, wide open. Her refusal to talk with the girl had a much more terrible meaning now.

"So my plan resumed," said Riddle. "I would ensnare you, and test your strength against the might of Lord Voldemort."

"So is that what this is about?" said Iris, trying to keep her voice even through her fear and anger. "Some creepy obsession with me and Voldemort?"

"Vengeance," snapped Riddle. "Vengeance, not obsession."

"Vengeance?" laughed Iris bitterly. "For what? You seem to have gotten what you wanted in the end."

"By fortune, yes. But I did not expect you, Iris. I thought you would only come if I killed a friend or two of yours. I picked Ginny, you see."

"Also vengeance?" snarled Iris.

Riddle shrugged. "Imagine my surprise, though, when the Hogwarts Luck struck again and Ginny was only Petrified. I always thought Dumbledore was lying when he said Hogwarts held a special magic made to protect its students, but maybe he was telling the truth."

"It wasn't just Ginny who was Petrified that night, Riddle."

"No, it wasn't," he said. "Your other two friends — Ginny's brother and the mudblood — they just happened to be near Ginny, didn't they? Probably to warn her. I didn't expect them. I had meant to kill Ginny. My anger at failing was abated, however, as I had Petrified not one, but three of your friends. I thought that surely Iris Potter would come to me now, seeking revenge."

"And when I didn't?" she said. "Then what?"

"Well, then I would come back, of course. Regain a body, kill you later, and do what I was already planning back when I was young and incarnate."

"Get yourself killed by a child?" said Iris, glaring at the boy who she now realized would have grown up to become Lord Voldemort.

"Figured it out at last, have you?" said Riddle. "But no, Iris, I think we both know Lord Voldemort was not killed. He still lives. For I still live. But I think our fun and games end here. You've stalled long enough. Kill her," hissed Riddle suddenly. "Slowly."

Then Iris noticed a slithering sound from behind her...

She leapt from her spot and dove for the diary, but before she could reach it something slammed into her side hard — a great force of weight throwing her twenty feet to the right, her right arm falling into some pool of water — and she gasped for breath, the acromantula bite on her back flaring up again.

But there was no time to waste — the thing was drawing itself back to strike again — Riddle was laughing — and Iris knew what it had to be. The basilisk lunged for her again and Iris threw herself into the water, using the ground to push herself further down, deep, deep, deep into the black waters of the Chamber of Secrets.

Something came into the water with her, its great weight pushing her away and then the water pulling her back toward it. Iris tried to swim against the sudden current, but she lost all sense of direction.

Then the basilisk's great scales slithered against her as it tried to find her, but it was so dark in the Chamber and nothing could be seen in the water. Iris grabbed ahold of the serpent, hoping it needed to breathe as much as she did.

They struggled and writhed under the surface, and Iris was beginning to run out of air. Then her hand brushed suddenly against something slimy — the basilisk's eye — she clamped down to scratch it out and remove its killing gaze and give her a fighting chance — and then a fang pierced her calf.

Iris screamed, most of her remaining air gurgling out in bubbles. Then she was being dragged through the water, pulled along by her leg and knocking against the wall as she screamed and screamed and plunged further into this nightmare.

Just as she was beginning to feel as though she would pass out from either lack of oxygen or the pain, she burst out of the water, her leg coming off the fang. She crashed down onto the floor, gasping desperately for breath as her wand clattered across the ground. The sound of glass breaking hit her ears before the excruciating pain clouded her thoughts.

Her lungs burned for air... her legs burned from the wound... and then her eyes began to burn too. A sort of mist was in the air, tinted green by the unnatural glow still hanging over the place, and the longer she kept her eyes open the more it began to feel as though a hundred needles were piercing each of them.

She shut them tight. Beyond all the agony, she heard the basilisk cry out, a mixture between a lion's roar and an eagle's screech. Riddle was yelling something, but her eyes were watering from the pain and the mist and she couldn't focus.

Somewhere around her lay her wand, and she threw her hands over the ground looking for it. In her search her fingers were cut on glass and she guessed it was the Awful Eyeful vial that must've broken when she fell, blinding the basilisk and soon her if she didn't get away swiftly.

"Kill her!" screamed Riddle just as one hand of hers found the wand and the other the Dragon's Delight. "Use your nose, you beast!"

Iris turned on her back, breathing hard, and pressed the tip of her wand against the Dragon's Delight — waiting for the basilisk to swallow her whole — not even thinking anymore —

Then the basilisk spoke, its genderless voice echoing around the Chamber with a dark edge.

"A beast..." it said, its voice barely carrying itself to Iris. "He calls me a beast... What would he know? I never asked for this... this wretched abnormality of a destiny, forever cursed to watch those I set my eyes upon fall... an unnatural birth... an atrocity born from the most vile of magic..."

"Then disobey!" whispered Iris. Riddle had stopped his commands and was coming upon them now, perhaps to hear what was being said, perhaps to kill her himself.

"Disobey..." said the basilisk, and a moment of terrible tension hung in the air. "To disobey is to court death."

Iris screamed in anger, opened her eyes to the searing mist, and threw the Dragon's Delight toward the opening maw of the basilisk. "Incendio!"

It went off in the basilisk's throat, causing it to falter and only slam against Iris's raised legs. The explosion was so great that flames erupted from its mouth as if it were a dragon, the fire burning away bits of her robes and scorching her skin as she slid with the basilisk to a halt. Iris cried out again in agony.

The stench of burnt skin filled the air. All became silent again except for Iris's heavy breathing. Riddle was not saying anything, and she didn't want to risk opening her eyes any longer. She supposed he'd kill her now anyway, even if her wounds didn't.

Sure enough, footsteps sounded, echoing quietly around her. But they weren't the footsteps of a teenage boy or some dark twisted version of him; they were soft and light, as if belonging to —

"Luna?" said Iris, her voice coming out strangled.

A girlish laughter rang out.

"Yes, I suppose that's me," said Luna, far too casually for the situation.

Iris swallowed hard. Had Luna lost her mind?

"Are you okay?" she said. "Where's Riddle?"

"Oh, I'm wonderful," said Luna. "You aren't, though. You're dying, Iris."

"Can you get help?" whispered Iris. "The Gryffindor Tower — the password's Medusa — in my trunk in the girls' dormitory — second years' — there's an envelope with vials of a red elixir inside."

"What is it?"

"It'll help me. Please, quickly — it's the Elixir of Life — I'll even give you one."

Luna laughed again. "The Elixir of Life? You managed to get your hands on Flamel's Elixir? You are quite intriguing, Iris. But no, I don't think I will get it. Not yet, at least. Not until you're dead, then I'll take them all for myself."

Luna's her voice was more sadistic than Iris could believe. Had she really wronged Luna so deeply? What she had done was rude, but she didn't deserve this horrible fate for it, this cruel and painful death, did she?

"It's probably too late anyway," continued Luna, sounding almost bored. "The basilisk's venom is too deadly. Only your magic keeps you alive now, Iris, and its struggle is becoming ever more feeble. Your mother bought you twelve years, but I got you in the end, as you knew I must... And now so ends the famous Iris Potter. Alone, forsaken, defeated by the Dark Lord she so unwisely challenged."

It was not Luna, Iris realized, but Riddle speaking. She opened her eyes and saw Luna crouching in front of her. There was an unholy glee in her eyes. In Riddle's eyes. Riddle was in Luna.

He held Luna's wand, and Iris's wand had somehow found its way from her fingers to Riddle's other hand. Iris could do nothing but stare, uncomprehending. Despair began to sweep over her in great waves. This was a nightmare... this had to be a nightmare... Voldemort could not be back... She could not be about to die...

"Yes..." said Riddle, pocketing Iris's wand. "I considered coming back in my old body, but Dumbledore would recognize me in an instant. This serves me better. The Lovegood girl still lives inside me, but I'll find a way to get rid of her later. First I'll leave this Chamber and tell everybody of your unfortunate demise. Then I'll be allowed to roam free as I see fit. And I will have the Elixir of Life as well. See the way fate favors Lord Voldemort, Iris." He stood up and raised Luna's wand. "But first, you must die. The venom is taking too long. Avada —"

Iris scrambled backward. "No!"

At the same time Riddle shouted "Kedavra!" there was a trill from above. Avalon swooped down in front of Iris, opened her beak, and swallowed the jet of green light whole. There was a bright flash, a crackle of electricity, a shattering of something wooden, and a dark cloud was left behind, thundering softly.

After her eyes adjusted to the dark again, Iris saw that Luna's wand was falling apart in Riddle's hand. Incensed, Riddle stepped forward and reached for Iris's wand in his pocket, but Iris had some vigor still. With what must've been the last of her sight and strength she had taken her old switchblade and swung it, the enchanted steel flashing and then the wood splitting into two pieces, the front half falling to the ground.

Iris tried to leap at Riddle too, to cut him, but she hadn't the strength anymore. Riddle stepped back anyway, surprised and still holding the handle part of her wand.

"You are full of surprises," he said. "I knew you had brought a phoenix, but I had thought the magic of Salazar Slytherin, at my command, would have kept it busy. It must have been stronger than I thought to break free so soon. No matter. If you wish to die slowly from your wounds, so be it. I only wished to give you a quick death. I still could. You need only ask me. Lord Voldemort is merciful. Half a wand is still good for one more spell."

"Is it?" said Iris quietly, a deep, burning hatred unlike any she had felt before rising up within her. She wanted to rip Riddle apart, put him back together, and then do it again, over and over, for years and years until he was nothing but a whimpering mess. This all-consuming wrath fueled one last act of defiance: she reached for the half of her wand that had fallen to the ground.

"I suppose there's some dignity in taking your own life," said Riddle, watching her, but then Iris pulled the wand up, pointing it at him, and he laughed. "You don't have it in you to kill me, much less the innocent eleven-year-old girl still residing in here."

That was debatable on a good day. Taking Luna's life to ensure Voldemort did not come back would have been a reasonable consideration with a clear and calm mind. Now Iris was full of rage, and her eyes must've shown it, for Riddle stopped his laughter and stared, as if unsure suddenly.

"Avada," she said, her shaking voice low with fury, and Riddle stepped back, raising what was left of the wand he held, realizing his terrible mistake, but it was too late: "Kedavra."

Her arrogance had been her downfall, but his was his own. The Killing Curse struck him in the chest and Luna's body instantly dropped to the ground, her large silver eyes unseeing.

At the same time, anguish came over Iris. The remainder of the wand disintegrated in her hand, and then her hand withered, blackening in a way that Iris felt deep within her. It was two new pains. Something in her had truly broke. Somewhere beyond the physical world and all its pains, it felt as though her very being had fractured, and was now weeping.

Everything hurt. Even her eyes were stinging worse, and Iris realized she must have scrambled back into the mist, or the mist had drifted to her. She took one great breath of air and held it, feeling as though her lungs were seizing up.

The green glow of the Chamber seemed to be disappearing... dissolving into the shadows... But then even the black was gone and she realized what must've happened.

She had gone utterly blind.

And for one nauseating moment she thought she had gone deaf too — it was so completely silent in the Chamber. But then she let out a sob, the sound echoing as she silently wished to die already. Her strength and hope was robbed of her. Death would take her in this cold, miserable place. She collapsed to the ground, and it was as though the thud had shaken the entire Chamber, the final note to her doom.

Bits of her skin was so burnt from the Dragon's Delight that the mere slap of the stone felt like whips upon her flesh. She was burned; she could not see; the venom coursed through her leg, feeling like acid in her veins as it slowly made its way up her body; her right hand felt numb and none of her fingers would work.

And the worst of it all was what had to be her soul. It felt like a shard of ice had formed inside her chest, so cold it burned; or like she was a glass statue and had cracked right through the center in a way that could never be fixed. She trembled, and again it felt as though the ground trembled with her.

Or was that just the ground? No... it was both... The cold was taking her; the cold of the Chamber or the cold of death's embrace, she didn't know. But the ground itself was also shaking. Slightly, but Iris felt it. And then it really shook, and Iris wondered if the Chamber was going to fall apart and on top of her.

Somewhere beyond the suffering she found some humor in it, and she laughed weakly. Was fate so intent on killing her that it would bring down the ceiling over her head too?

The quakes got closer. She could swear they were from just outside the entrance to the Chamber. Not the bathroom's entrance, but the one with the serpents on it, the one that led straight to —

There was a loud explosion suddenly, shaking the ground and rattling her very bones. The door had been blown wide open — she was sure of it, even if she couldn't see. Pebbles rained down, and a familiar magic washed over her.

Iris knew that magic; once something like a fire beneath a veil of calm that could only be forged by great age and wisdom, but now the veil was gone, and the true might of the very first wizard she could remember meeting was upon her, blazing in the dark Chamber as he rushed to her.

Dumbledore had come.