Stormseeker: Borrowed Destiny

The day after we return to Hogwarts following winter holidays, I sneak out after curfew under my invisibility cloak. I make my way down to the dungeons and wait outside of the entrance to the Slytherin common room.

"Stormseeker, are you there?" Draco whispers.

"I'm here," I say quietly. "Here, get under here." I slip the invisibility cloak over him.

"This is a little uncomfortable with both of us under here," Draco complains.

"Would you rather we get caught?" I ask.

"Bah, Filch is dead," Draco says. "Who else would be crazy enough to stay up all night just in case some student is out of bed?"

"I'm paranoid," I say. "But if you really want, you can walk around visible and I'll stay under the cloak."

"Fine," Draco says, pulling out from under the invisibility cloak. "Are you sure we'll even be able to get past the spells blocking the corridor?"

"They never stopped me," I say.

"They might have made an exception for you," Draco says.

"Well, one way to find out," I say. "Let's go."

"I'd say 'lead the way', but seeing as I can't see you, I'll just head there myself," Draco says. "Try not to bump into me or get in my way."

I snicker softly, and the two of us head for the Forbidden Restroom. Sure enough, whatever spells were used to keep anyone from wandering into this part of the school don't keep out either of us now. The restroom is flooded at the moment as we step inside.

"Myrtle?" I say, pulling off the invisibility cloak. "Are you in here?"

"Harry!" Myrtle says, popping gleefully out of the toilet. "It's been so awfully boring and lonely here in Hogwarts without any of you around."

"Do you have to remain in Hogwarts?" I ask.

Myrtle looks a little dejected. "Well, no... I'm not bound to the place of my death or anything. But I haven't left in a long time and I've kind of forgotten how. Ever since Olive Hornby died. And I wasn't sure if I'd be welcome wherever you were, anyway..."

"So long as you don't start flooding the place, you're welcome at Malfoy Manor," Draco says dryly.

"Really?" Myrtle says, practically squealing in glee.

"Alright, let's see if we can get this open," I say. I try hissing out the Parseltongue word to open the way into the Chamber of Secrets. Nothing happens.

"Let me try," Draco says, and tries to repeat it himself.

Myrtle watches us curiously as we take turns hissing at the sink. After several tries, we finally get the pronunciation correct, and the sink moves aside and the wall opens up to allow us passage.

"We did it!" Draco says.

The two of us slide down into the bowels of the castle, followed momentarily by Myrtle. We approach the large door to the Chamber of Secrets, and after a few more tries, get that one open as well. With the way open, we step inside and look around.

"Wow," Myrtle says. "All these years I've been haunting that toilet, and I never even realized all of this was down here."

"I can't believe I'm actually in the Chamber of Secrets," Draco says. "But aren't you afraid the basilisk might come out and attack us?"

I shake my head. "I wish it would."

"Are you insane?" Draco says, looking at me incredulously.

"If it did, then I could kill it," I say.

"You seriously think you could kill a thousand year old basilisk?" Draco says.

I chuckle softly. "Lumos," I say, and I put my glowing wand tip to the face of my rooster watch, which crows promptly.

Draco looks at me in puzzlement for a moment. "Wait, you said something about a rooster before..."

I nod. "The crow of a rooster is instantly fatal to the basilisk," I explain.

Draco's eyes widen, and he laughs. "You planned this all out from the start," he says. "Cunning as a Slytherin."

"Clever as a Ravenclaw," Myrtle adds, smirking.

"Obviously I wasn't cunning or clever enough," I say, sighing.

"Stormseeker, where's that library?" Draco asks.

I lead the way over to Slytherin's private library. "Just, be careful, will you?" I say. "I don't want to have to explain to your father how you got blasted by a cursed book or something."

"Right, right," Draco says. "I'll just look, alright? Merlin, this place is amazing."

"You've already seen it in my memories," I remind him.

"Yeah, but to actually be down here myself..." Draco says. "Memories just aren't the same."

I look around thoughtfully. "Hmm," I say. "Now that we can get in here whenever we want, this might be a nice, private place to come and study, or hide out if need be, and whatnot."

"What about Storm Army?" Draco asks. "Do you think we should tell them about it?"

I shake my head. "Absolutely not," I say. "Let's make this our little secret."

Draco grins a bit, and nods. "Alright."

I return to the main room and take Tom Riddle's diary out of my bag, and place it on the floor. "Hmm, let's see," I say. "What might be able to destroy this?"

"I doubt there's any light magic that would be capable of it," Draco says. "Try curses."

I pull out my wand and start throwing every curse I know at the book, even the most destructive ones that I've never directed at an actual human being before. None of them even seem to have the slightest bit of effect upon the diary, however. Draco joins in as well, but doesn't have any more success than me. Myrtle watches us intently, but stays quiet.

"Fulgoris!" I cast for the ninth time, but the Lightning Curse still fails to make a mark upon the book.

"I don't think this is working, Stormseeker," Draco says, shaking his head.

I sigh, bend over to pick up the diary, and peer at it some more. "Alright, spells are out for the moment, then," I say. "That pretty much exhausts our repertoire. Do you know of anything else that's really destructive? Any spells we don't know, or substances, or something?"

"Did you try the Blasting Curse?" Myrtle suggests.

"No, but I doubt it would work, either," Draco says. "Nothing I can think of offhand that would be at all practical."

"Then suggest some impractical things," I say.

"Fiendfyre," Draco says. "Dragon's fire. Basilisk venom. If it's somehow actually alive, the Killing Curse or a Dementor's Kiss might work..."

"Or maybe some magical item," Myrtle says. "Some legendary swords are said to be able to cut through anything. Or a potion! Like dissolving it in strong acid."

"Hmm," I say thoughtfully. And then, thinking about how to destroy the diary for good, I suddenly feel a crawling sensation. My vision blurs...

I blink. I'm laying on the floor in the Chamber of Secrets. I raise my head. Draco is lying in front of me, badly wounded, impaled with many needles. That accursed diary is on the ground several feet away from me.

"Are you yourself again, Harry?" Myrtle says.

"Shit," I mutter. "Yeah." I grab my wand and rush over to Draco's side. "Myrtle, go get Snape! Hurry!"

"Right!" Myrtle says, zipping up into the ceiling.

Episkey," I murmur over Draco, to little effect, however.

It won't do if Draco dies before Snape manages to get down here to help him. I'll never forgive myself if that happens. This was all my own damned fault. What in the Abyss did Tom cast? I pull out one of the needles impaling Draco's body and look at the glistening tip. Poison? Ah, shit. I reach into my bag of holding and pull out a bezoar, and shove it into his mouth. Immediately he starts looking a little less pale.

"Do you really think you can save him?" says a voice. I jerk up and look around, and see, standing on top of the diary, the translucent form of a handsome young man. For all that he seems to be little more than a ghost, there's color in him, and he's holding Draco's wand.

"Tom?" I say, raising an eyebrow. "How?"

"You have given me quite a bit of your energy over these past months," Tom says. "Enough that I am capable of manifesting on my own now. Expelliarmus!"

My wand goes flying out of my hand before I can react. "Damn it," I mutter. "Tom, why did you do this?"

"The two of you were plotting to destroy me," Tom says. "I spent all those months, listening to you patiently, helping you, I even let you into the Chamber of Secrets! And you would seek to destroy me?"

"You used me!" I spit. "You lied to me! You forced me to unleash the basilisk upon innocent students against my will!"

"I held to my promise," Tom says. "Your friends were not harmed."

"You said you'd only control me for as long as necessary," I say. "You had a hold of me for hours!"

"As long as necessary to do what I was going to do," Tom says. "Tell me, 'Stormseeker', if you had known exactly the price that I would ask of you to do this, would you have still done it?"

"That depends," I say. "To kill Lockhart? Yes. Filch? Maybe. Random children? No. I'd be less upset about this all if you had at least killed Lockhart at some point, for fuck's sake!"

Tom laughs softly. "Well, I suppose you'll just have to murder him yourself," Tom says. "Now, do you want to walk out of here alive? Draco's life for your own. Sacrifice him for me, let me take his power for my own, and I will let you walk away free."

"Not a chance in the Abyss," I spit. "I won't let anyone else die for me."

"He isn't going to make it anyway," Tom says. "He's getting worse by the minute. I know what I cast on him, and I can still save him, but for that... I want your life, instead, then. A life for a life. You care about your friend more than yourself, don't you?"

"What?" I say, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Sacrifice your life to me, bleed out your very life blood into these pages, and I will save Draco," Tom says. "It's not much of a price, is it? After all, you won't really stay dead, from your perspective. But that hardly matters to me. From mine, I'll be able to live again. It doesn't matter what happens to you afterward. But Draco will live."

"No," I retort. "You will not take even a single one of my lives, deceiver!"

"Oh?" Tom says. "You would allow Draco to die merely on principle? Tsk, foolish Gryffindors. Then you both shall die."

Tom hisses out several words in Parseltongue, and the statue at the far end begins to move and open its mouth. Shit, it's the basilisk! No, now's my chance to kill it! Where the fuck is my wand? As I cast about trying to find it, Tom points Draco's wand at me, and I'm held firmly in place by ropes.

"Stay there and die, foolish boy," Tom says. "Don't think that I didn't know about your clever plan. You aren't nearly so smart as you think you are."

Whatever else happens, I must not look into the basilisk's eyes. Let me die by poison if I must die. But I'm not about to lay down and die without a fight.

The giant snake slithers toward me. I can't move enough to reach my wand, but I manage to slip my left hand over to my right wrist, where my watch is. But how can I make it crow without a wand? I can't adjust the time. It's a spell that tells it what time it is, and it will be hours before dawn.

This would be a really good time to be able to cast spells wandlessly. "Accio wand!" I say, but nothing happens.

"You're not nearly good enough for that yet, little boy," Tom says.

"Lumos!" I say, but my fingers don't light up. The basilisk is bearing down on me. No, there is exactly one spell which I know I can always cast, wand or not, but I have no idea whether it will be enough. It's worth a shot, however. And I damned well have the anger for it at the moment. "Fulgoris!" Lightning bursts from my fingertips, not nearly as powerful as with a wand, but enough. I shock myself in the process, and I might have damned the watch, but...

"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" And the basilisk slumps to the ground and is still.

"No!" Tom exclaims.

I'm twitching a little at having electrocuted myself. That hurt. But I'm alive, and the basilisk is dead, so all is well, right?

"Don't think that was the only thing I could do to you," Tom says, and then looks over my shoulder. From the entrance to the Chamber, there's the sound of the doors rumbling open. "Imperio."

The ropes fall away. Go pick up your wand. Yes, I need my wand in order to defend my master. I scramble over and snatch it up, and point it in the direction of the intruder. Snape is here, along with Myrtle floating along behind him.

"What's going on here?" Snape demands, peering at the scene.

Kill him. The voice in my head demands the death of this interloper. "Fulgoris!" I exclaim.

Lightning shoots from the end of my wand, but Snape has a shield up in an instant, and my spell splashes against it with no effect. I don't think I'm nearly good enough to beat Snape in a stand-up fight like this.

"Put down your wand at once, or I will have him kill Draco," Tom says.

I don't want to do that. I'd rather die than harm Draco. But if my master demands it of me, how can I refuse?

"Who are you?" Snape demands.

"I believe you are more familiar with me than you realize," Tom says. With Draco's wand, he writes words in the air: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE. With a flick of the wand, the letters rearrange themselves: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

"You are the Dark Lord?" Snape says incredulously.

"I am a memory of the man who would become the Dark Lord," Tom says. "Now, surrender at once, or face the consequences."

Myrtle darts through the air toward the apparition. The two collide, and Myrtle, more solid than I thought a ghost could be, manages to knock Draco's wand out of his hand.

"Foolish ghost," Tom says. "To think it was your death that enabled the creation of this diary! But merely not having my wand in hand is not enough to stop my control over him. Kill Draco!"

Kill Draco. The voice in my head orders me to slay my friend. Kill him now. I turn toward Draco and raise my wand. No. No, no, no, no, no. I don't want to do this. I'm not going to do this!

"No!" I snap.

"No?" Tom says.

"You will not order me around any more," I growl.

"So, you shook off my control, did you," Tom says. "But you still cannot destroy me. I am immortal!"

Myrtle punches him in the face. "You're a damned ghost with an overinflated ego, nothing more."

Tom tries to move to retrieve Draco's wand, but Myrtle holds him in place, wrestling him to the ground. I have to destroy the diary. But how? Wait, Draco suggested something about basilisk venom. There's a basilisk laying on the ground not twenty feet away from me. I can't afford to touch it, however, or Tom might be able to control me again.

"Snape!" I say. "Can you try destroying that book with basilisk venom?"

"No!" Tom cries out. "You will do no such thing!"

"You are threatening my students and have admitted to killing another," Snape says. "I think it's time for you to be gone."

With a flick of Snape's wand, the diary lifts into the air and sails over toward the maw of the basilisk. Tom's screaming turns into wailing as Snape impales the diary upon a fang, and venom seeps into it. The apparition vanishes in a swirl of smoke. I collapse to my knees, panting and twitching.

"Potter, are you injured," Snape says, approaching.

"Don't worry about me," I say. "Check on Draco."

Snape goes over to Draco and bends down next to him, running a few diagnostic spells. "Poison Needles Curse," Snape says. "But I detect no sign of poison in his system."

"I gave him a bezoar," I say.

"So you do pay attention in class after all," Snape says dryly. "Your abysmal Potions scores notwithstanding." As he works on Draco, he asks, "So tell me, what exactly happened here, anyway?"

"The diary was controlling me," I say. "But I don't know what happened while I was under its power."

"You suddenly attacked Draco," Myrtle says. "I didn't recognize most of the spells you cast. But I managed to knock the diary out of your hand."

"I thought ghosts couldn't really affect the world," I say.

"Well... I've had a lot of practice with making my toilet overflow," Myrtle says, shrugging.

"Myrtle, you're amazing," I say. "We'd be dead if it weren't for you."

"I finally got revenge on the one who killed me, though," Myrtle says brightly. "I'm sorry it took so long to get back inside. The way closed behind you, and I had to figure out how to make the sound the two of you were making to tell it to open up again."

Snape straightens, and says, "Malfoy will recover. But for now, we should get the two of you to the hospital wing. We can discuss what the two of you were doing down here after curfew at another time."

"Yes, sir," I say.

"Mobilicorpus," Snape casts, and Draco's unconscious body hovers into the air. "Can you walk, Potter?"

"Yes, sir," I reply. I straighten with some effort, and go over to retrieve my wand. I feel weak and sore all over. But I'm alive, and Draco is alive, and the basilisk and Tom Riddle have been destroyed, and that's the important thing.

I don't think, in my current state, that I'd even be able to make it out of the Chamber of Secrets without Snape's help. Myrtle drifts along behind us as Snape guides us to the hospital wing. Snape lays Draco down on one of the beds, and I crawl onto the one beside him and collapse with a soft groan.

Snape brings in Madam Pomfrey, who comes over to examine us. As she's examining Draco, Snape comes over to take a look at me.

"Hmm," Snape says. "It looks like Potter was hit with a powerful Lightning Curse. Did he cast that on you?"

"Self-inflicted," I reply. "Probably just as well that I cast it without my wand."

"You managed a wandless curse of that magnitude?" Snape says, raising an eyebrow.

"I have a particular talent for lightning," I say. "That's the only spell I can cast wandlessly."

"I am certain that you must have had good reason to electrocute yourself," Snape says dryly.

"Here, drink this," Pomfrey says, offering me a potion. "Now, move along, Severus. You can interrogate my patients in the morning."

That must have been a sleeping potion of some sort that she gave me. My eyelids suddenly feel very heavy, and I drift off into slumber in moments.

I wake to what sounds like a sick rooster crowing weakly. I open my eyes and see that I'm in the hospital wing. Lucius Malfoy is sitting between my bed and Draco's. Myrtle is floating quietly at the end of my bed, as if watching over me in a silent vigil.

Lucius looks over at me and says, "Hardly a day back at school and my son is already in the hospital wing."

"I'm sorry," I say quietly.

"They assured me he will recover," Lucius says. "But I want to know why. What happened to bring about these circumstances?"

"It was the Dark Lord," I say.

"What?" Lucius says incredulously.

"Potter is correct," Snape says, entering the room and showing Lucius the impaled, charred remains of the diary.

"What happened?" Lucius says, half in panic.

Draco groans and wakes. "If the dying rooster didn't wake me up, the sounds of my father yelling in disbelief would," he comments.

"Draco, how do you feel?" Lucius asks.

"I've been better," Draco says. "But I'll live. So... somebody care to fill me in on what exactly happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Lucius says.

Snape puts up a privacy spell. Myrtle, Snape, and I proceed to give a recap of what happened down in the Chamber of Secrets. This is well past the point of attempting to keep secrets from anyone, especially about this. Lucius listens quiet to our tale, frowning deeply as we conclude.

Draco says, "So, in other words, Harry saved my life."

"Don't be ridiculous," I say. "It was my fault that your life was even in danger in the first place."

"Nonsense," Draco says. "You couldn't have known that would happen, and besides, I chose to go down there with you, knowing that it might be risky."

"And even still, it's only because of Myrtle and Snape that either of us are still alive," I add.

Snape puts his forehead in his palm and sighs. "If one would listen to you, we would all bear a life debt to everyone else," Snape comments dryly. "Fortunately for you, they do not work that way."

"Besides," Myrtle says. "I finally got the chance to get revenge upon the one who murdered me, and you killed his pet giant snake, too."

"Does that mean you're going to be moving on at last, Myrtle?" Snape says dryly.

"Certainly not," Myrtle says. "I have friends here, and I'm quite content with my situation. In fact, I couldn't be happier."

"You seem entirely too merry of late to be called Moaning Myrtle," Snape comments.

"Merry Myrtle?" I say.

"Merry Myrtle!" Myrtle repeats gleefully.

"So," I say. "Can I donate the basilisk corpse to the Hogwarts Potions Master?"

"While I appreciate the gesture, I doubt the creature belonged to you in the first place," Snape says.

"Well, it belonged to Salazar Slytherin, right?" I say. "And you're the head of Slytherin House? And besides, I killed it, so I can claim it as a trophy, right?"

Snape smirks. "Although all things considered, the only one who is likely to object to such a thing is the Dark Lord, regardless. And since the thing is already dead anyway, it would be a shame to let valuable potions ingredients go to waste."

I grin broadly at Snape.

Snape clears his throat. "Regardless, the two of you are excused from classes for the day. Madam Pomfrey would keep you in here for a week if she had her way, but I do not believe that should be necessary. You should be able to return to classes tomorrow. So rest up while you can." He turns and leaves the room.

Lucius casts his own privacy spell over those of us remaining in the room. "Am I to understand that you not only saved Draco from poisoning with a bezoar, but you also managed to fight the Imperius Curse in order to refuse an order to kill him?"

"Yes, sir," I reply quietly.

"In that case, regardless of what Severus says, I believe the claim of a life debt applies," Lucius says.

"I can't accept that, sir," I murmur. "There are many things I haven't told you. I still have some pretty big secrets."

"I know," Lucius says. "That doesn't matter, though."

"My future knowledge is spent," I say. "From here on out, I'm flying blind." I sigh and rub my eyes. "I went back in time during my second year. I'm not some powerful adult wizard in a child's body."

"I know," Lucius says. "I figured that out already."

I stare at him. "You... did?"

Lucius chuckles softly. "And, normally, I might be more upset about destroying an object that the Dark Lord himself gave me to keep safe for him," Lucius says. "However, given that it was attempting to kill my son and heir, I'll gladly overlook that."

I let out a long, ragged breath. All my concerns had been for nothing. It's like a weight lifted from my shoulders, and I have to let out a laugh as I realize how worked up I'd been about it. How much I'd feared losing the Malfoys' favor.

"Why, Lucius?" I ask. "You know I'm not really going to be the next Dark Lord."

"Because, better someone who would defend his friends with his life without a second thought, than someone who would destroy my entire family on a whim," Lucius says. "On behalf of the Malfoy family, we are in your debt."