The Adventure That Lies Ahead | PJO x HP

CHAPTER 58

The Potters 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.

Isa's heart beating very fast, she stood listening to the chill silence.

'Is the basilisk hiding behind a pillar? And where was Ginny?' Isa wondered.

They pulled out their wands and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. Isa kept her 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. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, she thought she saw one stir.

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.

Harry and Isa had to crane their 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 gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.

"Ginny!" Isa and Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to their knees.

"Ginny, don't be dead. Please don't be dead," Harry pleaded. He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified.

"Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.

"She won't wake," said a soft voice.

Harry and Isa jumped and spun around on their knees.

A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry and Isa were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.

"Tom⎼Tom Riddle?" Harry asked.

Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face.

"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Isa said desperately.

"She's not-she's not⎼?" Harry stuttered.

"She's still alive," Riddle said. "But only just."

Harry and Isa stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen.

"You're not a ghost," Isa said. "But you're not alive either."

"A memory," Riddle said quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."

He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary they had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, Isa wondered how it had got there⎼but there were more pressing matters to deal with.

"You've got to help me, Tom," Harry said, raising Ginny's head again. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment... Please, help me⎼"

Isa didn't trust this Riddle dude. There was something off about him.

Riddle didn't move. Harry, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor and bent to pick up his wand again.

"Isa, help me," Harry said, but Isa and Riddle had a staring contest then the latter turned to face Harry with Harry's wand in his hand, twirling it around.