Rating:
PG-13
House:
The Dark Arts
Characters:
Gilderoy Lockhart Tom Riddle
Genres:
Drama Horror
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets
Stats:
Published: 03/08/2004
Updated: 03/08/2004
Words: 1,267
Chapters: 1
Hits: 1,258

In Memory

Daphne23

Story Summary:
\'The adventure ends here, boys! Say goodbye to your memories!\' Lockhart\'s spell works correctly, leading him into the Chamber of Secrets. AU.

Posted:
03/08/2004
Hits:
1,258
Author's Note:
Thanks to Miss Mosh for her brilliant job of beta-reading!


memorable adj. unforgettable, remarkable, outstanding, extraordinary, historic, significant, momentous, great, famous, illustrious, celebrated. OPPOSITE: insignificant.

He grasped the wand. It had been broken and badly mended, but he could have done this spell in his sleep, and he smiled in self-satisfaction. Call him a near-Squib his colleagues might, but his Memory Charms were stronger than ten of theirs put together. And with good Memory Charms, what other magic could compare? He lifted the wand over his head and then down in the sharp, stabbing movement he'd used so often, yelling "Obliviate!" And it exploded in his fingers. He had time for a shot of triumph as the two boys' eyes went blank in front of him, and then the roof fell in.

The marble crumbled before his eyes, and as he stumbled away, chunks of rock began coming down around him. He managed to run from the heaviest pieces of stonework, but still found himself half-buried and choking in the dust. It was decidedly bad for the hair, and his pale robes were ruined; grit in the fibres. There was a moment of calm as he felt his image reassert itself. For a whole year, a large portion of the staff and students at Hogwarts had mocked him, but now... He had no need to do anything more than memory modifications, the spell he'd perfected while neglecting everything else. Already, he knew, he'd destroyed those boys' memories, wiped the tracks of their lives away and sent them reeling into a blank world. "... and you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body." Yes, yes, it had all come true.

Lockhart picked among the rubble and retrieved a wand. Not broken; this must be Harry's. Ah, Harry. He'd wanted attention, hadn't he, but he hadn't had it in him to be a hero. Lockhart did. With his Memory Charms he'd built himself up to fame, making himself a part of people's lives. They adored him, they really did. Why, there were three letters from Gladys he hadn't answered yet, and a pile of a hundred others... Lockhart was a hero in the eyes of the world, and the eyes of the world were all that mattered. What you might be, what you'd done, did not. Whatever I say about myself is the truth, he thought, because I can make it so. And he felt his brilliant smile rise onto his face again.

Until he saw the empty skin, violent green, lying in a torn heap beside him.

Lockhart felt his muscles lock as the shock of what lay at his feet slammed into him. As he tried to move, his frozen position dissolved into a violent shaking. He turned - where was the entrance? He'd gone too far - what was behind him? Then he saw that he was facing the tunnel again, and the rubble from the ceiling had sealed him inside. He stood, quivering with the fear of it. Then, echoing through the passageway, came a drawn-out hiss, as if of air escaping from a long-sealed chamber.

* * *

Tom loved the moment when she died. He sat by her as she faded and he strengthened, his eyes flaring every time a little more life went from her. His reputation at Hogwarts, at least among the Slytherins, had been black, but to be truthful, he had seen little death as yet. Little human death, anyway. Myrtle had died in front of him, but the way she'd fallen into a broken heap hadn't given him anywhere near this much exhilaration, the sense of power that rushed into his heart as Ginny stopped breathing.

But then Myrtle hadn't been part of his rebirth, and Ginny was. She'd given him so much during this year, and now she'd died for him. And she'd told him the best things he'd ever heard; that his name was still spoken, fifty years later, or rather, unspoken. They feared him so much they dared not speak his name, and yet they knew it, it was a part of their very existence. That was worth everything he'd ever done. And who would have thought, at Hogwarts, that they'd remember Tom Riddle? Back then, his only link to a future that didn't care about him had been a name on a shield, twenty or so engraved lines spelling out a name that would grow dull with age. They hadn't cared about him then, but they cared now. Tom took his wand and painted in the air.

I am Lord Voldemort.

The letters formed in a glowing smear across the room, hovering in the space behind him. I am Lord Voldemort, he thought. I am his past, and now, his present and his future. And with a snatch of Parseltongue, he ordered the Chamber doors to open.

* * *

Lockhart had run gibbering from the remains of the snake's old skin. He didn't know that he was running the wrong way. He might have turned and run in circles. His feet floundered and fell on cracking - oh, not bones, not bones - cracking white sticks under his boots, and he held the wand like a javelin in front of him. Lost your minds... Lost your minds... When he ran into a stone wall he felt his mind had quite gone, too. He did not see the twisting undulations on the stone, or hear the second hiss that followed the first. He screamed aloud at one point, in the middle of the tunnel, but his voice only melted away. When thoughts came to him, he only remembered that nobody knew where he was, and nobody would come after him, and the horror... So he let even his thoughts go, and ran mindless into two stone doors. Something green glowed in front of him, but his eyes had blurred into mad tears before he heard the third hiss, or saw the serpents parting.

So he ran, with no senses left, into the Chamber of Secrets.

Lockhart gasped. He saw only space, clean lovely space, oddly greenish, for sure, but empty. His sanity came back to him briefly, and he felt himself stop at the entrance. It was a huge, cold chamber that stretched in front of him, carved out of the stone by a giant's chisel.

Then, with slow, measured steps, a boy in Hogwarts uniform came walking towards him.

"Who - " Lockhart stammered. As the boy came closer, he saw the strange appearance of him, a solidity that looked surprising because he seemed so transparent. But no, it must be a trick of the light. He was solid, surely. And then Lockhart saw the girl on the floor, her red hair spilling into the stones.

"Are you a g-ghost?" he said, his teeth chattering. The boy didn't look like the ghosts of the castle, he was in colour, not in shades of silver, but what else could he be? Not a student -

Then he saw the golden letters that ran the length of the Chamber, in bold, victorious strokes; I am Lord Voldemort. And he knew.

"Not a ghost," said Tom Riddle. "A memory. Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He smiled as he turned to see his own blazon across the Chamber. A fluke chance had defeated him the first time - or should he call it the second time, now? Time was a strange thing. But it didn't matter any more, for now he could... rule the world...

Lockhart raised his wand in shaking fingers, to cast the only spell he truly knew.

"Obliviate!"


Author notes: Please review; concrit is particularly welcome.