Annabeth could hear the boys' footsteps growing fainter, but she wasn't paying attention. Half of her was reeling back into memories of the Pit and freaking out, the other half was trying to calm that half.

"Ow!" There was another thud. Annabeth sighed. "Ron, stop kicking Lockhart and try shifting around some of these to support the sides," she said, stepping back. Her eyes skimmed the wall of rubble— it was extremely structurally unstable. There was a high chance of it all collapsing and crushing them all, but if you just pushed it the right way—

Annabeth sighed and stabbed one of the smaller pieces. It crumbled to dust but the wall didn't give in. All the pressure was on the one larger boulder smack in the middle. If she could just avoid it, they'd have a path cleared out in no time.

"Don't touch this one," she warned Ron and Lockhart, pointing to the main rock as she chipped away some more.

>>>•Jason POV•<<<

Jason walked next to Harry, his wand tip lit up in front of him. Harry was fidgeting with his wand, looking around cautiously.

"We'll be fine. Let's just find Ginny and get out of here," Jason said in an attempt to be soothing. Harry nodded jerkily and they kept walking in silence.

They turned the corner and stopped at a blocked wall with two intertwined serpents carved in the wall, glistening emeralds for eyes.

Jason subconsciously thought of George and Martha, the two snakes on the staff of Mercury— no, Hermes that Percy had introduced him to.

Harry stepped up and hissed again. The serpents split and the wall opened, revealing a dark chamber. A cold feeling around them, Jason and Harry walked into the Chamber of Secrets.

The first thing that caught Jason's eye wasn't the snakes lining the pathway up to a massive stone head, or the small, red haired figure lying beneath it, but the dark, hollowed entrance in the statue's mouth.

"Ginny!" Before Jason could warn Harry that the walkway might be trapped, or alert the Basilisk of their presence, Harry had run over to the statue's head and crouched below the figure that was lying beneath it. "Ginny— don't be dead— please don't be dead—"

Jason's neck tingled and he crouched behind one of the pillars, his hand gripping his gladius.

A blurred, shadowy figure stepped out from behind one of the many hairs that fell from the statue's head. "She won't wake," he said softly.

Harry's head jerked up. "What do you mean, she won't wake? Tom, she's not dead, is she?" his tone was desperate.

"She's still alive, but only just," he replied quietly.

Harry stared. "Are you a ghost?" He asked uncertainly.

"A memory," Tom replied in the same quiet tone. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He pointed to a little black book by the statue's mouth. Only then did Jason notice the small diary that he'd seen with Harry so many times.

"You've got to help me, Tom," Harry said, struggling to lift Ginny. "We've got to get out of here. There's a Basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment... Please, help me—"

Tom just watched unblinkingly. As Harry turned to pick up Ginny again, he swooped down and snatched up Harry's wand in one fluid motion. Only then did Jason understand.

This guy, Tom, wasn't on their side. He was killing Ginny, and Harry didn't know that. He thought Tom was there to help.

Tom was going to kill Harry.

Harry straightened up, giving up on lifting the eleven year old girl. He reached for his wand, but it was in between Tom's fingers.

"Did you see—" Harry caught sight of his wand and reached out for it.

Tom didn't move, just continued to lazily twirl the wand between his fingers, not unlike Percy with Riptide. "You won't be needing it."

"What do you mean, I won't be—"

"I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter." There it was. The full name. Jason involuntarily shivered, the voice recalling many memories of whenever a monster found them. The full name. Jason Grace. Perseus Jackson. Leonidas Valdez— well, actually, no monster called Leo Leonidas. That would totally break the whole threatening mood. Even Jason couldn't say it out loud without bursting into laughter.

But at the moment, laughter was the last thing on his mind. Jason wanted to run out and shove Harry away from Tom, but he couldn't. At least not yet.

"Look, I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later. Right now, we need to get out of here." Harry was loosing his patience.

"We can talk now," Tom said, smiling sinisterly.

Harry stared at Tom. Jason could see it slowly clicking.

"How did Ginny get like this?"

"Well, that's an interesting question," Riddle said pleasantly, as if they were discussing their favorite foods. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked.

"The diary," Tom said, his eyes gleaming an unusual red color. "My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes— how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how she didn't think the famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her...

"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly troubles of an eleven year old girl," Riddle continued. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. 'No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a little friend I can carry around in my pocket...'"

Tom let out a high, cold, cruel laugh that didn't suit him. "If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I needed... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."

"What d'you mean?" Harry asked, his voice quavering.

Then it all fell into place right as Tom explained it.

"Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on those pathetic, muggleborns that call themselves magic."

"No," Harry whispered.

"Yes," Tom replied calmly. "Of course..."

>>>•Ginny POV•<<<

15:23

15:22

Ginny was panicking inside. She couldn't move, she couldn't see, she couldn't hear. She was paralyzed.

I have to tell them, she thought desperately. I have to warn them.

But even as she struggled, she knew it was hopeless. The very life was being sucked out of her.

15:09

15:08

15:07

15:06

>>>•Jason POV•<<<

"I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter." Tom's evil red gleam didn't go away.

"Like what?" Harry spat.

"Well, how is it that you— a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent— managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemore's powers were destroyed?"

"Why do you care how I escaped?" Harry asked slowly. "Voldemore was after your time."

"Voldemore," Tom said softly. "Is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter."

Jason watched as Tom pulled out Harry's wand and began to trace it though the air. Three shimmering words appeared.

Tom Marvolo Riddle

Then, with a wave of Harry's wand, the letters rearranged themselves:

I am Lord Voldemort

Oooh, Jason thought. It's spelled with a T at the end. That doesn't make sense at all.

"You see?" Tom Marvolo Riddle whispered. "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 before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, 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 was staring numbly at Riddle. His mouth was tensed in a rigid line like Professor McGonagall's before it finally opened. "You're not."

Even Jason had to shiver at the deep hatred in Harry's voice.

"Not what?" Riddle snapped.

"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," Harry said, his breath coming in quick paces. "Sorry to disappoint you and all, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw right through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days—"

The smile was gone from Riddle's face, only to be replaced by a very ugly look.

"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" He hissed.

"He's not gone as you might think!" Harry retorted, sounding brave.

Riddle opened his mouth, but then music drifted through the chamber. It grew louder and louder, filling Jason with a warm feeling, as if he'd just drunk a cup of nectar and not exploded!

Suddenly, a flame pillar exploded at the top of one of the snakes. A bird was flying down straight at Harry, dropping a ragged brown thing at his feet. Then it landed on Harry's shoulder, staring down at Riddle.

"That's a phoenix," Riddle said, staring back at the bird.

"Fawkes?" Harry breathed.

"And that—" Riddle glanced down contemptuously at the ragged thing. "Is the old school Sorting Hat."

And so it was.

Riddle began to laugh again. He laughed so hard the dark chamber rang with him, as if ten Riddles were laughing at once.

"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? That you're not alone?"

He was never alone, Jason thought, still crouching behind the pillar.

"To business, Harry Potter. Twice now, we have met. Twice, I failed to kill you. How did you survive? The more you talk." Riddle's smile twisted. "The longer you stay alive."

"No one knows how, or why, you lost your powers when you attacked. I don't know myself. But, I know why you couldn't kill me. Because," Harry was glaring at Riddle, each word filled with venom. "My mother died to save me. My common, muggle-born mother. She stopped you. And I've seen the real you, I saw you last year. You're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're hiding. You're ugly, you're foul—"

"So." Riddle's face was twisting again. "Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful counter-charm. I can see now, there's nothing special about you after all. I wondered, you see. Because there are strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. Even you must've noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike... But after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That's all I wanted to know." Riddle spread his arms. "Now, Harry, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him..."

He walked over to the statue, stepping over Ginny's limp form. He opened his mouth and hissed, a spine-chilling noise that echoed through the chamber. Then suddenly, it stopped. There was a rustling noise as cold as Riddle's voice from inside the statue. Something moved within the mouth. There was a shadowy movement within the statue as the Basilisk awoke.