(Word Count: 3,088)
Hannah Abbot stood in front of the wall with blood covering her hands, a bucket of chicken blood in one hand, the other smearing blood onto the stone wall, writing out the message "The chamber of secrets…" in thick crimson strokes.
The sight was entirely incongruous with who Hannah was as a person. She was sweet, shy, kind, and otherwise completely wholesome. To see such a girl so bloodied from the chickens she had killed seemed wrong. For Riddle to force her to do something like this…
The others turned the corner and gasped in horror. Neville made a strangled choking sound behind him. Ginny stood there, pale and shaking, a hand pressed to her mouth in shock. In her mind, she recalled what Harry had told her about the diary, and thought, 'This would have been me.'
Hannah's hand froze midstroke and she turned around to look at them. Unlike her normally very expressive face, her face was empty of any emotion. Her eyes were unfocused and glassy, with nothing behind them.
Harry's stomach churned with guilt. He should have seen this coming. He should have noticed and helped her sooner. Looking back now, he had seen the signs, but had dismissed them as normal.
Hannah showing up late on the first day of classes, saying she was abnormally tired. Neville had come to him concerned about her always missing things and never seeing her anymore. Harry had dismissed the concerns as normal, simply because they only shared one class together.
When Harry had searched all of the students' minds on the train for the diary, he hadn't bothered to search his friends. He had just assumed they would be safe.
'I've been such an idiot.' It was no wonder he couldn't find it anywhere. He had blinded himself to his friends. The diary was right there under his nose, and he couldn't see it.
"Hannah? What are you doing?" Neville asked shakily. He took a step forward to approach her, but Harry held an arm out to stop him, never taking his eyes off of her.
"That's not Hannah, Neville." Harry pointed his wand at her. "Hello, Tom Riddle."
Riddle faltered momentarily, but quickly smiled with Hannah's lips. It was a faint, crooked smile that looked utterly wrong on her face.
"And you must be Harry Potter. So you know do of me," he said through her mouth. "I had wondered about that. Though I suppose it makes sense."
Neville's breath hitched. "Hannah?" He repeated weakly, as if saying her name enough times might make her answer instead of this stranger in her skin.
Hannah's eyes slid past Neville without a flicker of emotion. They moved over Hermione and Ginny in the same detached way, then settled back on Harry. Riddle remarked, "I've heard quite a lot about all four of you. Harry, Neville, Hermione, Ginny. Where is her friend, Susan? Did she not care enough to come herself?"
Ginny's gaze darted to the bucket dangling from Hannah's hand, then to the blood dripping from her fingers, and Harry heard her swallow hard. Hermione's wand hand trembled for a moment before she steadied it, drawing her own wand but keeping it angled down for now.
"I wouldn't want her to see Hannah like this," Harry said coldly. "Release her."
Riddle tilted Hannah's head, giving him an amused look. "Why would I do that? She invited me in, you know," he said mildly. "She was lonely. Everyone was so important, so capable, and so much smarter than she was. She had no one to speak to who truly listened. You all left her alone, didn't you? Replaced her with a new first year that was so much more outgoing than she was," Tom glanced meaningfully towards Ginny. "She poured out everything to me. She told me all of her frustrations, her doubts, her little crush. I was the only friend she had left."
Harry didn't let his expression change, but each word dug into him like a knife. He really hadn't been a good friend to her these past few months. "Don't pretend as if you were her friend. You took all of her insecurities and twisted them, causing them to fester, and used them against her to isolate her. You're nothing but a disgusting parasite trapped with a diary."
Riddle sneered angrily. "Ah yes. The diary. You've been looking for it for some time, haven't you? You really should have checked more carefully. Under your nose is one of the first places a Slytherin learns to hide things."
"Last warning," Harry said, voice taking on a dangerous edge, "Leave her, or I will rip your mind to shreds.
Riddle laughed softly. "No, I don't think so." Hannah's wand dropped into her bloody hand from inside her sleeve with a practiced motion that did not belong to a second-year Hufflepuff. "You may know me as Tom Riddle, but do you know who I've become? You've met me before, haven't you? I went on to become the greatest wizard who has ever lived! I am Lord Voldemort!" He seemed to luxuriate in that fact, as if all of his efforts were worth it, before he frowned. "I refuse to believe that a mere baby was able to defeat me! So how is it that you escaped from me, with nothing but a scar? I am going to see what you can really do."
Harry didn't wait for him to make the first move. He stepped forward, so he was in front of his friends and snapped his wand forward, and began casting one spell after another. This may be just a fragment of a soul when Tom was only 16, but even back then, he was not a wizard to take lightly. He used a non-lethal spellchain, focused more on binding and containment: Expelliarmus, Stupefy, Incarcerous, Levioso.
Tom Riddle threw the bucket of blood to the side, cast a Protego to block the first two spells, but each spell slammed into it causing it to fail. "Diffindo!" He cut apart the ropes conjured with Incarcerous, and he had to dodge to the side of Levioso. As he dodged, he threw a "Nervuscorro!" at Harry.
The nerve-decaying curse tore down the corridor, aimed straight at Harry's chest. "Murum," Harry cast sharply. The flagstones in front of him surged upward into a thick slab of stone. The curse struck it with a vicious crack, gouging a deep groove and sending chips of rock flying. Once the curse hit, Harry changed the wall into a waist-high wall stretching across the entire corridor to give cover to his friends.
"Stay behind the wall," Harry ordered without looking back, even while throwing up another Protego to block more of Tom's curses. "I'll keep his attention on me, cast some binding spells when you can."
They obeyed instantly, crouching low and spreading out behind the wall. Harry stepped out in front of the wall.
"You really are talented," Riddle said, sounding almost pleased. "You and I aren't like the common wizards, Harry! Why bother wasting your time protecting them, following their laws? They're limiting you! Why not join me? We can reach the heights of magic itself! We can become more powerful than ever before!"
"Reach the heights of magic?," Harry sneered. "You end up as nothing more than a wraith. A parasite living off of the meager lifeforce of animals to live for the past 10 years. You aren't any better, possessing little girls to cling to life. What a miserable, lowly, disgusting existence. If you are the example of "the heights of magic," then I don't want any part of it."
Riddle's, or rather, Hannah's face twisted in rage, a sight that was wholly unnatural for the kind girl, and he spat out, "Crucio!"
A bolt of scarlet red lightning sprang from Hannah's wand and arced toward Harry. However, Harry still had his foresight spell running. Before Tom had even finished the incantation, he had already transfigured a silver shield in front of him. The Cruciatus hit it dead-on, causing a resounding gong to ring through the hallways.
Neville made a strangled sound, his face had gone completely pale. Harry didn't need Legilimency to know why. Neville's parents had been broken under that curse. Hearing it, seeing it so close, while it was aimed at his friends, would hit every old bruise he had.
Riddle snarled, "Avada Kedavra!" Green light burst from the tip of Hannah's wand. However, this time it was not pointed at Harry. Riddle had turned his wand to Hermione, who had popped her head up and tried to cast a petrificus totalus at him.
Harry simply moved his silver shield to intercept, causing another resounding gong.
"Confringo Trio!" Seeing that his spells were simply going to be blocked by Harry, Riddle had moved to a more AoE spell. Three Confringo spells left his wand simultaneously, spreading out across the entire hallway.
Knowing what was coming, Harry had already gathered his power and cast a powerful Protego Maxima, throwing up a barrier to shield everyone. The spells exploded, blowing apart the walls and leaving craters in the floor, flaming rubble flying everywhere. Harry lunged forward, into the smoke and dust, coming out the other side to see Riddle trying to escape.
"Murum!" Harry transfigured the walls around him, creating a new wall to close off his escape. Riddle halted, turning around with a snarl. Before he could say anything more, Harry cast "Legilimens."
It was high time to get Riddle out of Hannah's mind. To do that, he had to enter himself and pry him out.
The corridor vanished and the strained threads of Hannah's mind rushed in to fill the void. Her thoughts were worn into deep paths from writing into the diary night after night, pouring out worries and frustrations and small joys. Tom lay in those grooves like black tar, binding himself to her fears, her doubts, her loneliness, creating a sick web across all her thoughts.
He ignored Tom's first sharp probe toward his own mind. It slid off the smooth emptiness of his Occlumency with no purchase. All of his focus went to Hannah.
He found one of the main hooks where Tom had anchored himself—a poisonous suggestion about how no one would ever understand her like the diary did, about how she should not inconvenience her friends with her problems—and began to pry it loose. It felt like peeling burrs off cloth, each little barb catching and pulling at Hannah's mind. Hannah's mind flinched around the motion.
Tom struck at him along any open path, hurling images like knives. Harry saw her almost ask Susan to walk with her to breakfast and stop because Susan was already talking to someone else. Her watching Ginny so easily enter into their friend group while she felt more and more left behind. Flashes of her doubts and struggles in her classes. Hannah crying at her desk, all of her other friends were at the study group. She had been too self-conscious to show up.
Harry let the memories slide past.
"You will tear her apart," Tom taunted. "She will be left a mindless shell."
It was like trying to pry the claws of a cat out of his clothes, angling them so they released without cutting the cloth. He had to go slowly, prying Riddle out one hook at a time to cause as little damage as possible. At the same time, he had to exert force on all of Riddle's other hooks to prevent him from tearing her mind apart in spite, or from creating new hooks. It took all of his focus to make sure nothing went wrong. Hannah's mind was at stake.
Luckily, this wasn't Voldemort at his peak, who was a master in the mind arts. If it was, Harry would have had no hope in removing him from possessing someone without leaving the host intact. The 16 year old Riddle wasn't nearly as skilled. Slowly but surely, hook by hook, Riddle was pried away.
The moment the last hook was freed, Harry used all of his might to force Riddle out. Harry followed after, and entered into Riddle's mind.
Riddle tried to force him out, lashing out desperately, but Harry suppressed him. Now he saw flashes of Riddle's own memories. Hogwarts in the 1940s with Headmaster Dippet. Slughorn's office, Slughorn cheerfully telling the young Riddle about some advanced potions theory. A handsome boy with dark hair and prefect's badge, smiling at teachers who adored him, save for Dumbledore. Younger students coming to him for help. Slytherins fearing him after their first attempts to bully him into his "proper place" had been met with vicious incidents they couldn't prove came from Riddle. How he knew Myrtle was alone in the bathroom crying, and intentionally luring the basilisk there to kill her to create his first horcrux.
Using a memory-destroying curse, Harry began ripping apart Riddle's consciousness, as promised, until there was nothing coherent left within this piece of Voldemort's soul.
Only once he was satisfied did he leave.
The corridor rushed back. Harry stumbled a step and caught himself on the wall. He looked to Hannah and found that she had collapsed. Neville was there holding her. In Neville's arms, Hannah stiffened in an awful, full-body spasm. Her back arched, limbs jerking wildly.
"Neville!" Hermione shouted. "Put her on her side!"
Neville rolled her onto her side as gently as he could, fighting against Hannah's convulsions. Ginny shoved her outer robe under Hannah's head to keep it from cracking against the stone. A low, strangled sound forced its way out between Hannah's clenched teeth. Her hands, still tacky with drying blood, clutched at Neville's sleeves, smearing red across his arms.
Neville held on. His arms trembled, but he did not let go. "Hannah, it's okay," he whispered. "You're okay. Please be okay…"
The seizure felt like it lasted forever, though it was only moments. Then, all at once, Hannah's body went limp. Her breathing came fast and shallow. Her eyes stayed closed, though you could see the eyes moving rapidly underneath.
Hermione pressed two fingers to Hannah's neck, then let out a breath. "Her pulse is there," she said, her voice thick, fighting back tears, "And she's breathing, but we need to get her to Madam Pomfrey immediately."
"One moment," Harry said. He walked over, kneeling beside them. Harry opened her outer robe and found the Diary tucked into the inner pocket. He pulled it out and showed it to everyone. "The diary that possessed her."
Neville nodded, swallowing hard. He looked down at Hannah's face for a second, then up at Harry. His eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I should have done something earlier," he said quietly. "I should have tried to talk to her more. Maybe, if I had done that, then we could have saved her."
"It's not your fault, Neville. I was the one that dismissed your worry about everything. This is my fault. I should have taken your concern more seriously. I'm sorry, Neville," Harry said. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking out the dust that had settled over him. "We can feel guilty all we like later. Right now, she needs the infirmary. Can you carry her?"
Neville tightened his grip around Hannah automatically. "Yeah," he said. "Yes, I can carry her."
"Then I'll leave it to you," Harry said. He glanced at Hermione and Ginny. "Go with him. Tell Pomfrey everything she needs to know. Tell her there was possession involved, and that it fought when I pulled it out. I'll clean this up and then go straight to Dumbledore."
Hermione got to her feet, nodding once. "Don't take too long," she said.
Ginny pushed herself up as well, then moved to Neville's side. "We've got you," she told him.
Neville gathered Hannah against his chest and stood. Surprisingly, Neville didn't seem to struggle very much. Hannah and Neville were roughly the same size and yet, in this moment, she seemed to be too small. The diary had taken a lot out of her. Together, the three of them hurried away down the corridor, their footsteps echoing and then fading around the far corner.
Harry breathed out slowly and turned toward the wall. The partially written message loomed huge and red and ugly. Hannah's handprints streaked the stone beneath it. The overturned bucket lay on its side, a pool of blood spreading out in a dark, sticky halo.
"Scourgify," Harry said. The blood on the wall hissed and quickly vanished under the charm. Again, for the lower streaks. Again, for the expanding puddle on the floor, the splatter on the opposite wall, the drips where stone had cracked. The metallic tang of blood in the air faded with each casting.
"Reparo." Chips of stone and rubble flew back into place. A warped bracket straightened and fixed itself. Slowly, the corridor returned to its usual, clean state, with no evidence of the fight that had taken place.
Harry let his gaze rest for a moment on the blank stretch of wall where Hannah's bloody hands had been. He clenched his fist angrily. He had failed to protect one of his friends.
He turned to Mrs. Norris, who was still petrified and hanging by her tail from a torch sconce. He gently took her down and pulled out a restorative draught from his trunk. As he poured the drought down her throat, the cat slowly came back to life. Warmth flooded back into the cat's body, and she jerked out of his arms with a startled yowl. She hissed at him and ran off.
He stood up, adjusted his robes, patted the dust out of them, and pulled out a lead-lined box from his trunk. He placed the diary, now fully inert, into the box and set it next to the other horcruxes he obtained. Now, he had the diadem, the locket, and the diary. He only had to collect the ring and cup.
In just a few moments, basically the entire school would be dismissed from the great hall and make their way here, where they would split to head to their own houses. He left, and headed in the direction of the Headmaster's office. He had a lot to discuss with Dumbledore. Later, when Hannah was awake, there would be apologies and all the guilt he was deliberately holding off would have its chance. For now, there was still work to do.