Capítulo 34: The Chamber
"Ron, stay here. I'm going. You coming Harry?" Chris said.
"Yes. Let's go." Harry nodded.
"But..." Ron tried to protest.
"Wait here," Harry gave Ron's shoulder a squeeze. "Wait here... We'll go on.... If we're not back in an hour ...."
There was a pause.
"Then inform the teachers...." said Chris and both boys looked at her. "Yeah. If we're not back in an hour then call the Professors."
Ron nodded.
"I'll go first.." Harry said and he lowered himself slowly into the pipe, then let go. Chris quickly followed and direct jumped in to the pipe. It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. She could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and he knew that she was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. And then, just as she had begun to worry about what would happen when she hit the ground, the pipe leveled out, and she shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in. Harry was getting to his feet a little ways away, covered in slime.
"We must be miles under the school," said Harry, his voice echoing in the black tunnel.
"We're under the lake," said Chris, squinting around at the dark, slimy walls. There was darkness ahead.
Chris pulled out her wand and whispered, "Lumos!" and to her wand lit up.
Harry did the same. As they started to walk, their footsteps was slapping loudly on the wet floor. The tunnel was so dark that they could only see a little distance ahead. Their shadows on the wet walls looked monstrous in the wandlight. The tunnel was quiet as the grave, and the first unexpected sound they heard was a loud crunch as Harry stepped on what turned out to be a rat's skull. Chris lowered her wand to look at the floor and saw that it was littered with small animal bones. Trying very hard not to imagine what Ginny might look like if they found her, Chris led the way forward, around a dark bend in the tunnel.
"Chris .... there's something up there ..." said Harry hoarsely.
They froze, watching. Chris could just see the outline of something huge and curved, lying right across the tunnel. It wasn't moving.
"Do you think, it's asleep?" Harry breathed, glancing at Chris.
Chris didn't answer, she edged forward, her wand held high. The light slid over a gigantic snake skin, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feet long at least. Harry' jaw dropped, he hold a hand out and was about to touch.
"Don't touch it. It's poisonous." Chris said with a annoyed tone.
Harry immediately withdrew his hand.
"Sorry."
They set off past the giant snake skin. The tunnel turned and turned again. Then, at last, as they crept around yet another bend, they saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
"Well. I think, it's good you came with me." Chris said and pointed towards the wall.
Harry nodded, then approached.
"Wait." Chris stopped him. "Before we enter, you're a Parseltongue, so, if you feel any kind of feeling, that, the Basilisk is near us, alert me and close your eyes."
"Ok." Harry said then looked at the wall, his throat very dry. There was no need to pretend these stone snakes were real; their eyes looked strangely alive. He cleared his throat, and the emerald eyes seemed to flicker. Harry said something, in a low, faint hiss. The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, then they walked inside. They were standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.
"Of course, Salazar Slytherin and cold dark rooms." Chris sighed. "Someone should've told him that it's really very creepy."
Harry was looking around. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. They kept their eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following them. Then, as they drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall. Its a 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 gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor.
"Salazar Slytherin." Chris remembered her dreams. The Salazar Slytherin was same. She was thinking about how was it possible when she saw between the gray feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.
"Ginny!" Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. "Ginny ... don't be dead ... please don't be dead ...."
He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified.
Chris slowly came beside them, picked up Harry's wand and then looked around; when she saw a tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Chris were looking at him through a misted window.
"So, You must be Tom Riddle." Chris said looking at him. Harry jumped and spun around on his knees.
"And You must be Christina Norton." Riddle smiled.
"Tom ... Tom Riddle?" Harry blurted out. "But he was ... you're... a memory... how.. can you?"
"A memory. Yes. Preserved in a diary for fifty years. And you're?" Riddle asked looking at Harry. Then he noticed his forehead, his scar, "Of course, You're Harry Potter. Ginny told me everything about you. How you .... a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent ... managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time. How you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed."
There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now. Harry said slowly, "But Voldemort was after your time..."
"Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter... Because I'm Lord Vodemort.... 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, Harry .... 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!"
Harry stared numbly at Riddle.
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