“I’ve got to tell you something.”
Ron looked up at Ginny’s words, coming from the other side of Hailey at breakfast- the only time he saw her anymore, almost like she simply didn’t eat dinner or something. As for Ginny, Ron knew she was still hellishly shy around Hailey- and blushed at the merest mention of her name. Even now, he saw, she was desperately avoiding looking at Hailey.
“What is it?” Hailey asked, in a calm, no-nonsense tone.
Ginny didn’t answer. She rocked strangely back and forth in her seat- and once, she opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Ron was about to ask her what it was, when she saw Hailey stiffen.
“Is it the Diary?” she asked.
Ginny didn’t answer, but the look of surprise on her face told Ron all he needed to know.
Then there was Percy. “If you’re done eating, Ginny, I’ll take that seat,” he began.
“One minute, Percy,” Hailey commanded, causing Percy to flinch backwards in shock.
But the damage was done. With one fleeting, frightened glance at Percy, Ginny ran away at full tilt.
Hailey abandoned her food and bolted after her, her gleaming black hair streaming behind her in a manner that seemed a little strange to Ron, somehow.
Ron looked up at Percy. “Seriously?” he asked.
Percy looked back at where the two girls had vanished so quickly. “What?” He blinked. “Oh. That was our Goddess of Reports, wasn’t it?”
Ron rolled his eyes. He’d shown Hailey the newspaper the day before, and she’d thought it amusing for a second, before returning to her unerring concentration. Her name, of course, hadn’t been mentioned- but it was fairly easy to guess, what with how she seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere, simultaneously, all day, every day. Except only for breakfast.
Tom Riddle sighed to himself as, finally, some footfalls were tracing their way down the Chamber of Secrets. It was the third time the doors had been opened- and he’d heard an explosion on the second time, but hadn’t been able to discern the source.
He braced himself, grinning silently as he stayed out of sight. This… This must be Harry, coming to rescue the love of his life. Or at least, the girl that dearly wished that she was.
It wasn’t. It was a girl, for one- with long, gleaming black hair, and a sureness in her footing that seemed so wrong in one so young.
The girl stopped, even with the final pair of pillars, staring at Ginny… then looked to the sides, and up as well. Finally, she looked at Ginny again… and raised her wand.
Then, Ginny was in her arms.
She didn’t fly there. She didn’t teleport there, or otherwise get there- as near as Riddle could tell, she simply was there, all of the sudden, as if she’d always been, completely bypassing all his traps.
“Ginny?” the girl prompted.
Then Ginny let out a sudden gasp. “What the-!?” she cried.
Riddle blinked. That shouldn’t have been possible! He was draining her too much! Yet… there she was.
“Where is it?” the girl demanded, while lowering Ginny to her feet.
Ginny straightened up, looking around, and finally settled on the statue of Salazar. She raised one hand to point. “There.”
The girl raised her wand so quickly Riddle barely saw it. “Confringo,” she barked.
Riddle was only barely in time, with Ginny’s wand. “Accio!” His diary skittered out of the way mere moments before Salazar’s entire foot paid the price with an echoing boom.
He then ducked, catching his diary and dodging to the side just in time as the girl’s wand slashed to the side. He very narrowly avoided her second spell, whatever it was, that took out an entire pillar with a swirling vortex of darkness. Lightning flashed, once, and it was gone.
“What the hell-!?” he demanded. This must be Hailey Potter, that girl Ginny had told him about that seemed to be completely and totally unstoppable. Unfortunately, according to Ginny, she was unrelated to the Harry Potter he so wanted to talk to.
“Voldemort,” the girl barked, lowering her wand to her side and meeting his gaze. “We meet again.” She had to be Hailey; Ginny loved her so much just because she was so fearless she threw the Dark Lord Voldemort’s name around carelessly, he was pretty sure.
“Again?” he asked, confused.
She smiled. “Yes, you wouldn’t remember, would you? I killed you.”
“What?” Even Ginny was looking confused.
Hailey chuckled darkly. “Call your snake. We’ll test the power of Lord Voldemort against the power of the Potter Family.”
“The Potter family?” Riddle repeated, aghast. “They’re dead.”
“What?” Hailey asked, her grin starting to send spikes of fear down Riddle’s spine for some strange reason. “You think a dead man can’t fight?” she asked.
Ginny was looking even more confused. There was even a ghost next to her, an identical twin except for her aquamarine hair, hugging her and watching in confusion as well.
“Of course he can’t,” Riddle told her, attempting to reassert himself.
Hailey laughed. It was a high, cold laugh, normally reserved for Riddle himself. “Then you still have much to learn, Tommy Boy.”
He snarled, and raised Ginny’s wand to point at Hailey. He was done talking to this girl; her corpse would make a good chair while he waited for Harry. “Avada Kedavra.”
“No!” Ginny cried- but she was behind Hailey… who, for some strange reason, didn’t even try to block or dodge the spell.
It struck her square on the stomach, and… nothing. She didn’t even stumble.
“Because a dead man… can fight,” Hailey said.
“What do you…?” Ginny muttered, looking just as confused as Riddle felt.
Her shimmering twin hugged her from behind. “Let her fight, we can ask her later.”
“Wait what? Ariel?”
But then Riddle was distracted by the appearance of two more ghosts. Both of them were taller than Hailey, but stepping out of her sides. Ginny and Ariel were both staring in disbelief.
“Well, some dead men,” the man of the two shrugged, rolling his shoulders. “Hmm, have you thought how we’re going to beat him?”
“Pretty sure we can’t attack him directly,” the woman scowled. “Just like he can’t attack us directly.”
“Behold,” Hailey said, stepping up between them and holding out her hands. “The Potter Family. Or would you prefer I remind you that Dumbledore is coming?”
“Dumbledore?” he asked incredulously, still trying to believe what he was seeing. “He has been driven from this school by a mere memory of me!”
Hailey snorted- then she and all three ghosts spoke as one.
“Dumbledore is always coming.”
Riddle opened his mouth to retort… then paused. There was… an eerie music, of sorts, coming from… somewhere.
The music eventually revealed itself to be coming from a bird- a phoenix, to be specific. It swooped around, dropping the old Sorting Hat on the chamber floor, and landed on Hailey’s shoulder.
“That’s a phoenix,” Riddle said, blankly.
Hailey chuckled. “Oh, Fawkes isn’t just any ordinary phoenix, Tom. He’s Dumbledore’s familiar.” She grinned. “See what we mean? Dumbledore is coming.”
Tom snorted, then looked up into the statue’s face and summoned the basilisk.
“Oh, this ought to be fun,” the man that had stepped out of Hailey mused.
The woman chuckled. “Any fight is fun for you anymore, James.”
“Oh puh-lease, Lily. Don’t be such a killjoy.”
Then the two Potters laughed joyously.
“Ginny, no.” It was Ginny’s twin, pushing her away from the statue. “Hide behind that pillar. Let me fight.”
Hailey looked. “Ginny, go. Ariel?”
“I can fight,” she announced promptly.
“It is about to land on your head.”
“What-!?”
Then the basilisk landed, exactly as Hailey had predicted, right on Ariel’s head. She vanished from sight.
“Kill the girl,” Riddle snarled, in parseltongue.
“Which one?” the Basilisk answered, looking around. “I smell four.”
“Four?” Riddle asked, confused. “The black-haired one.”
The phoenix took off from Hailey’s shoulder. Riddle laughed.
Hailey turned to the basilisk, walking backwards, away from it. “This way, this way,” she hissed. “You’re hunting for me.”
It lunged at her. For some reason, its gaze didn’t seem to even phase her.
All of the sudden, she jumped in the air, did a flip, landed on its head, and slid all the way down to its tail, where she landed on the floor and bent to lift something up… It was Ariel.
But hadn’t the basilisk crushed her to death?
Then Hailey seized the end of the basilisk’s tail in her left hand and flung it back past her, at Salazar’s statue. “Confringo!”
The entire statue shattered into so many stone bullets, raining down on the basilisk… Which, after regaining its bearings, lunged again.
Ariel stepped in front of Hailey, and caught its jaws with her arms. “Oh My,” she cried facetiously. “A Basilisk has bitten me! And it’s venomous!” She twisted one arm, snapping one of the massive snake’s fangs right off, then seized that fang with her other hand and narrowly missed its eye with her counterattack. “Not that it matters, though- I’m a ghost. I can’t be killed.” She discarded it to the side.
Riddle decided he had to do something to distract them; the Basilisk was being treated as more of a chew toy than a legitimate threat.
“So Dumbledore sent you a useless bird?” Riddle asked.
“Useless?” Hailey asked, looking at him and ignoring the basilisk as James blasted it clear to the top of the rubble pile. “What’s that make the other two?”
“What other two?”
There was a sudden, bright flash of flames off to the side, then the whole chamber seemed to explode into flames, the basilisk vanishing in a funeral pyre. It writhed once, then collapsed in a great big pile of cooked snake.
He looked.
Two girls. One a fourth year, the other a second year. Both had phoenix-like hair, and they were holding hands.
They must be the two phoenix-born Ginny had mentioned.
Speaking of Ginny, after letting out a squeak of surprise, she was peering around her pillar and staring around the Chamber in awe.
Then, Riddle felt the rumble of the Chamber entrance opening once again. He whirled to look.
It looked like there was a small army in the entrance, with Dumbledore at the lead. More importantly, dead center in the Chamber, hardly a hundred feet away from him, were two more girls. One had gleaming silver hair, split neatly into thirds, and was leaning on a sword Riddle recognized instantly as the Sword of Gryffindor.
The other was a third girl with phoenix hair. She had the discarded basilisk fang piece in one hand, and his diary in the other. “You hurt my friends,” she snarled.
Before Riddle could stop her, she brought the two firmly together.
He died, instantly.