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The figure that stepped from the shadows was Hermione. Her face was a mask of cold, unreadable indifference. The tip of her wand, still smoking from the spell that had taken down Ron, was pointed casually at the floor.
Tom Riddle's ghostly form looked down at the unconscious bodies of Harry and Ron, a slow, triumphant smile spreading across his handsome face. "Do you think he believed it?" he asked, his tone now light and conversational, the earlier theatrical menace gone.
"Why wouldn't he?" Hermione replied, her voice a soft, chilling murmur. "It was the truth, after all. Mostly." She reached into her robes and pulled out a delicate, silver diadem, inlaid with a massive, brilliant sapphire that seemed to drink the dim, green light of the Chamber.
Tom's eyes widened, his translucent form flickering for a moment. He could feel it. A familiar, cold, and terrible echo of his own soul, radiating from the crown in her hands.
"Ravenclaw's Diadem," she said calmly, tossing the priceless artifact from hand to hand as if it were a common trinket. "One of your future little pet projects. It contains a rather lovely fragment of your soul. I'm sure you can feel the connection."
A complex, hungry, and deeply impressed look flashed across Tom's face. He understood. His future self would not be content with just one anchor to immortality. Of course he wouldn't.
"And what do you intend to do with it?" he asked, his voice a low, intrigued hiss.
"A simple transfer," Hermione said. She pulled out a second item: a plain, black, and completely empty notebook, identical to the diary he had emerged from. She placed the Diadem and the blank diary side by side on the cold, stone floor.
She knelt, placing her hands lightly over the two objects. A dark, shadowy mist, screaming with a silent, spectral agony, began to pour from the Diadem. It was a soul, torn from its vessel, and it writhed in the air between the two objects. With a final, commanding push of her will, she forced the screaming mist into the blank diary.
The new diary shuddered, and the light on the Diadem's sapphire flickered and died, its dark, magical aura gone, leaving only a beautiful, empty piece of jewelry. Runes, identical to the ones on Tom's own diary, began to burn themselves onto the cover of the new one. In a moment, two identical Horcruxes lay on the floor.
"This…" Tom breathed, his voice full of a new, profound awe as he picked up the duplicate. He could feel it. It was him. A perfect, stable, and completely separate container for his soul. "How… how is this possible? The art of transferring a soul fragment…"
"Let's just say I've been studying," Hermione replied with an enigmatic smile. "Now, I believe we have a schedule to keep."
Tom just nodded, his mind reeling. He had thought he was the master of soul magic, the heir to Slytherin's darkest secrets. But this girl… this girl was something else entirely. He turned to the massive, stone-carved face of Salazar Slytherin and, with a series of long, sibilant hisses, commanded the Chamber to reveal its final guardian.
With a low, grinding groan of ancient stone, the statue's mouth opened, revealing a dark, circular tunnel. A deep, wet, slithering sound echoed from the darkness within. Then, it emerged. A serpent. A serpent so vast, so impossibly large, that its head alone was the size of a small car. It was the color of poison, its yellow, lamp-like eyes burning with a malevolent, ancient intelligence. The Basilisk.
"Behold, the King of Serpents," Tom said, his voice full of a proprietary, ancestral pride. "Anyone who meets its gaze dies instantly. A mere reflection, and you are petrified." He turned to her. "But that shouldn't be a problem for you."
The great snake, however, did not seem to share its master's enthusiasm for his new guest. It turned its massive head toward Hermione, a low, threatening hiss rumbling deep in its chest. It could smell her. The Muggle blood. The impurity.
"It seems," Tom chuckled, "that my ancestor's pet has some… prejudices."
"Understandable," Hermione said, her tone flat. She looked at the Basilisk, not with fear, but with the cold, appraising eye of a butcher looking at a prize hog. "In that case," she said slowly, "for the sake of the realism of our little performance for Harry, we'll have to make this look convincing." A slow, predatory smile spread across her face. "Which means, I'm afraid, your pet has to die."
Tom was about to protest, but then he looked at the cold, absolute certainty in her eyes and thought better of it. It was just a snake, after all.
The Basilisk, sensing the shift in her intent, hissed again, its great body coiling, ready to strike. Hermione, in response, waved a hand, and with a soft pop, a small, fluffy, orange creature appeared on her shoulder.
"A cat?" Tom Riddle asked, his voice a mixture of confusion and pure, unadulterated contempt. "You are going to fight the King of Serpents… with a housecat?"
"Goose," Hermione said simply, placing the Flerken on the floor. With a gentle tap of her finger, she placed a temporary, shimmering charm over its eyes, shielding it from the Basilisk's death-stare. "Playtime."
The Basilisk looked down at the tiny, insignificant creature that was now trotting cheerfully toward it. Its massive snake pupils were filled with a reptilian confusion. This wasn't even a snack.
It lunged. Its mouth, filled with dagger-sized fangs, opened wide, ready to swallow the cat whole.
And at that exact moment, Goose opened his.
An unbelievable, sanity-shattering thing happened. The cat's mouth unhinged, its jaw stretching to an impossible degree. And from that maw, a writhing, wriggling, and utterly alien forest of slimy, pink tentacles and razor-sharp teeth erupted into existence. With a single, wet, slurping sound, the tentacles shot out, wrapped around the Basilisk's massive head, and violently yanked the entire, sixty-foot-long serpent into the void of its pocket-dimension stomach.
The whole, horrifying process took less than three seconds. The King of Serpents was gone. All that was left was the small, orange cat, sitting on the floor, licking its paws with a look of mild, unsatisfied boredom.
Tom Marvolo Riddle, the Heir of Slytherin, the future Lord Voldemort, just stood there, his ghostly form flickering, his handsome face a mask of pure, mind-broken, gibbering shock. He had just witnessed his ancient, legendary, and supposedly invincible monster… be eaten. By a cat.
"A cat's reaction speed," Hermione stated calmly, as if explaining a simple scientific principle, "is seven times faster than a snake's." She walked over to Goose and scratched him under the chin. "Alright, big guy. Spit it out. Just the head."
Goose, with a slight, reluctant shudder, regurgitated the Basilisk's massive, still-living head onto the stone floor. It hissed and writhed, trying to escape.
Hermione just raised her new wand. "Glacius Tria."
The snake's head was instantly encased in a thick, solid block of magical ice.
"Bombarda Maxima!"
The ice sculpture exploded into a million glittering, frozen fragments.
She looked over at the still-stunned Tom Riddle, a cool, satisfied smile on her face. "Now," she said. "Let's wake up our hero, shall we?"