“You can’t be serious,” Harry said, aghast, finally breaking the suffocating silence that had fallen over them. “Are you serious? Do you actually expect us to believe any of that?”

Riddle sighed quietly. “No, I do not expect you to, but I hope you will.”

“It’s insane. You want me to believe that Dumbledore did everything, all the things I’ve gone through? That it was him that killed everyone, killed my parents?” Harry said, angry at the horrible accusations. “Why? Why would he do it? If my parents were loyal to him, why would he kill them?”

“Despite what he portrays to the world, Dumbledore does not care about anyone. He only cares about how they fit into and play the game,” Riddle said. “Your parents were a sacrifice he was willing to make in order to continue the game and create you, his hero.”

Harry scrunched up his face in confusion. “But, it still doesn’t make sense. You gave me the scar. What about our connection? The visions, the pain in the graveyard, the possession at the Ministry? What about your resurrection? You can’t tell me those things didn’t happen. I saw them, I felt them!”

“I can explain all of that,” Riddle said almost gently, as though hoping to keep Harry calm. “You’re right. They did happen, just not how you know.”

Harry glared, but stayed quiet, waiting for the explanation.

“I was in Godric’s Hollow the night your parents died. I went to protect you, but Dumbledore got there first. He gave you that scar and infused it with his magic. It is a link, but between you and Dumbledore, and it is only one-sided. Through it, he can control your thoughts, tamper with memories, implant dreams, and cause pain. Any visions you’ve had were created and implanted by him. He used it at the Ministry to simulate possession. I was at the Ministry, again, to try and protect you. He used one of my horcruxes that day. He temporarily melded it with your magic and it caused you to feel possessed. However, you broke the connection and, in doing so, destroyed the horcrux,” Riddle explained.

“But the graveyard,” Harry argued.

“He used your scar to cause the pain you felt. As for my resurrection, it did not happen. I was never without form. He severely injured me that Halloween, made worse by the fact that he stole all my horcruxes. Without them and with my injuries, it took me years to recover. What you saw in the graveyard was Pettigrew, working for Dumbledore, casting an extremely dark spell on a horcrux, allowing it to take a physical form. Through it, he fought you, but it appeared to be me.”

“But all the Death Eaters…” Harry said, frowning as he remembered the graveyard.

“Projections created by Dumbledore,” Riddle said. “Death Eaters have never existed.”

Harry shot a look at Snape who was also frowning. Snape touched his arm where, under the sleeve, Harry knew the Dark Mark lay.

“Your mark is not mine, Severus,” Riddle said, knowing exactly what they were thinking about. “It is Dumbledore’s brand on you and it works similar to Harry’s scar. Any meetings we’ve had did happen, but you were not serving me, I was not torturing you, and no one else was there. They were us working together to stop Dumbledore as we broke the magic over us. Unfortunately, Dumbledore is adept at knowing when his players are breaking the rules, and he used your mark and the Mind Magic to give you the memories you have.” 

“What about Quirrell?” Harry asked, remembering the terrifying image of the face on the back of the man’s head.

“Dumbledore cursed him,” Riddle said simply. “I was still recovering and in hiding at that time.”

Harry blanched. “So…I killed an actual person?”

Riddle shook his head. “No, Dumbledore killed him, but made it look like you did.”

“And Cedric?”

“Killed by Pettigrew on Dumbledore’s orders.”

“Sirius?” Harry whispered.

Riddle gave him a heartbroken gaze. “I’m so sorry, Harry.”

Harry dropped his head into his hands, his fingers threading through his hair and clenching tightly. His eyes burned with tears, his heart pounded painfully in his chest, and his ears started ringing. It couldn’t be true. Dumbledore couldn’t have done all those things, couldn’t have taken his only family from him. He wouldn’t do that! The pain in his head was excruciating.

“I understand how difficult this is but, unfortunately, we are running out of time,” Riddle said. “Whether you believe it is Dumbledore or not, it does not dispute the one thing we all do know: Hogwarts is dying and she’s chosen us to save her.”

Harry’s head snapped up and he glared at Riddle again. “Why would she choose you?” he growled.

“Because the four of us were forced into the same situation as children by Dumbledore and were his biggest pawns. Hogwarts was meant to save us, be our haven, but he took that from us. She’s chosen us to be the ones to fight back, to take back what we lost, what he took,” Riddle said.

“Do you know where the swords are?” Snape asked.

Riddle shook his head. “I do not, but Dumbledore will have hidden them in places significant to him.”

“What are you proposing?” Snape asked.

“We work together,” Riddle said. “We must find and return the swords. However, we can assume they will not be so easy to retrieve even if we find where they have been hidden. We will each have to retrieve a sword, but we need to know which sword belongs to each of us and what protections are on the swords.”

“We’ve been looking for information in the library, but there’s nothing,” Harry said.

“And there wouldn’t be. This kind of information will only be found in the Founders’ Library in the Chamber of Secrets,” Riddle said. “I cannot enter Hogwarts, of course, so I must rely on you. I am asking you to contact and meet with me as information is discovered. We have to do this together or it will not work and Dumbledore will win.”

Harry stared at him, considering the request.

“I must also ask you to learn where Dumbledore has put my horcruxes. I am very weakened without them and will be of no help in a fight,” Riddle added.

Snape suddenly stood. “We must go. We have been absent for too long. Potter.”

Harry nodded and got to his feet as well, pulling out his invisibility cloak.

“Please, consider my request,” Riddle said. “If you agree, write me using this.” He held out a plain, dark grey journal.

Harry hesitated, remembering the diary from second year.

“It is a communication journal,” Riddle said. “We can write back and forth using this. It would be too suspicious to use letters. Please, take it.”

Harry did so slowly.

“Come, Potter,” Snape said and, receiving a nod from Riddle, they hurried from the Bronze Dragon. They rushed back to Hogwarts, hoping their absence wasn’t noticed and their minds spinning out of control.

“We’re supposed to believe that Dumbledore’s behind this?” Ron whispered. “That he’s set up everything?”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in a study hall. It was the next day and Harry had just finished retelling Riddle’s story. Once they returned to the school, Harry and Snape had immediately parted ways with Harry scurrying up to Gryffindor Tower with the communication journal and Snape heading to the headmaster’s office to feed Dumbledore the lie about what type of meeting he’d had. It had been far too late and he had been too overwhelmed to get into it all with Ron and Hermione, so he’d promised they’d talk the next day and went to bed. Not that he’d slept much at all. He spent some time examining the communication journal though there wasn’t much to find; it looked like a normal, blank journal with lined pages. After that, he’d spent a long time just staring at Dumbledore’s name on the Marauder’s Map while his brain repeated Riddle’s story over and over. He eventually passed out with the map still open on his lap, but he still only slept for a couple of hours.

After breakfast, they decided to sit in a study hall and pretend to do homework so no one looked at them too strangely for having a whispered conversation. As he’d repeated the story, he still found it completely unbelievable, but he couldn’t ignore the tug he kept feeling in his mind. Some part of the story was pulling at the parts of his mind still hidden away.

“I honestly don’t know what to believe,” Harry said. “It seems impossible that it could all be Dumbledore, but…I saw Voldemort last night and he did not look the same. He was…human. My scar didn’t hurt. He didn’t kill us. That means something. Something we think we know isn’t right.”

“But…Dumbledore?” Ron repeated.

“It could make sense,” Hermione said, gaining surprised looks from both of them. “Everything that’s happened here, that Harry’s had to go through, was brought here by Dumbledore. There’s a lot of coincidences, but maybe they’re not. Maybe he caused all of it.”

“But murder? Turning wizards dark?” Ron said, frowning. “Because, what, he’s bored?”

Hermione shrugged, obviously at the end of her limited understanding and theories.

“Look, whether we believe him or not, there’s one thing we do know: he’s the last hero,” Harry said. “If we want to know anything, we have to fix the school which means we have to find the swords and we have to start Legilimency with Snape.”

“But where? The Room of Requirement isn’t working anymore,” Ron said. They had tried to get into the Room of Requirement the other day. The door had begun to appear, but stopped and disappeared after the castle groaned and the wall cracked dramatically. Clearly Hogwarts’ magic was too weak to sustain the room.

“I’ve got an idea,” Harry said. “There’s one place that no one can get to.”

Ron and Hermione looked at him curiously.

“The Chamber of Secrets,” Harry said. “We’ll be safe there, there’s plenty of space, and no one can watch us. There’s a different magic down there. I don’t think Dumbledore or whoever can get the Mind Magic down there.”

“Well, let’s go check it out,” Ron said.

Glancing around, Harry nodded. They gathered their work into their bags and left the study hall. Harry led them to the second floor and into the girls’ lavatory that housed the concealed entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

“Are you sure about this?” Hermione asked, sounding nervous.

“This is the only place that’s actually safe,” Harry said, staring at the sink with the signature snake on its faucet.

“Won’t it look strange if people start coming to and from here consistently?” Ron said, raising an eyebrow when Harry turned to look at him.

“I think there might be another entrance,” Harry said. “The place is massive and, whether he was Voldemort or not, Riddle wouldn’t have wanted to be seen either, and I doubt he wanted to slide down every time.”

“Slide?” Hermione repeated, startled, and Harry nodded absently.

“That’ll be one of the first things to do before we start bringing others,” Harry said. “We have to find the other entrance.”

“If there is one,” Ron said pointedly.

Harry sighed and nodded again. “If there is one,” he echoed.

“You said that’s one of the first things to do,” Hermione said. “What else is there?”

“A cave-in and a Basilisk corpse,” Harry said and watched Hermione’s eyes grow wide. He grinned sardonically before turning back to the sink. ‘Open,’ he hissed.

He took a step back, Ron jumped, and Hermione squeaked as the sinks began to move, stone scraping loudly. They watched as the inscribed sink sunk into the floor and stared at the huge, newly revealed tunnel entrance. He stepped up to the edge and gazed down, unable to see anything. Hermione had come to look as well and gasped.

“You want us to jump down there?” she said.

“We did it,” Harry said, shrugging a shoulder. “Just be careful of all the animal bones.”

Grinning at her horrified look again, he jumped into the opening. He kept his arms tucked against his chest and prepared for the landing. He flew out of the tunnel, stumbling across the still bone-covered floor. He just barely managed to stay on his feet. He moved out of the way and turned to watch when he heard screams growing louder, and Hermione and Ron fell out of the tunnel. Hermione shrieked and jumped to her feet when she realized Harry hadn’t been lying and they were standing on a floor of bones.

“Come on,” Harry said, climbing up into the next tunnel. It was just as he remembered with the cold, wet stone, grime-covered floor, and dim lighting. After just a few minutes, they arrived at the part of the tunnel where Lockhart had caused a ceiling collapse. There was a small opening, the one Ron had made that allowed Harry and Ginny to get back through all those years ago. It was far too small for them now, however.

“Ron, help me make the opening bigger,” Harry said.

Ron nodded and they moved to the pile-up. They each started to carefully pull at the jammed rocks, steadily making the opening large enough for all of them to fit through.

“We’ll deal with the rest another time,” Harry said and they continued on, passing the huge snake skin that was still there. They moved fairly quickly through the tunnel until they came to the huge, circular, iron door that sealed the Chamber.

‘Open,’ Harry said again and watched the stone snake slither around the outside of the door, forcing the inner snakes to pull in. The door clicked and swung open ominously. He glanced at Ron and Hermione, and stepped through, his friends behind him. They climbed down the ladder and, for a moment, just stared, Harry remembering and his friends seeing for the first time.

The Chamber itself also looked just as he remembered; the water along the outside, the snake statues lining the path, the extremely high ceiling with its dripping stalactites, and the warm glow of the torches that he knew circled the larger opening with the massive stone head of Salazar Slytherin.

Once they had taken it in, they walked down the path to the large center. Harry glanced at the several paths branching off into more tunnels, remembering running through some to escape the Basilisk. They came to the center and Ron and Hermione gasped loudly. As he expected, the Basilisk was right where it had fallen dead except it was nothing but bone now, having decomposed over the years. His eyes were pulled to a dark spot on the stone, his brain automatically projecting his bleeding and dying twelve-year-old self into the spot. He felt a familiar sharp pull in his head and knew there was something locked away inside his mind about this place and memory. He pushed it aside for now and let his gaze roam around.

“You killed this thing by yourself?” Ron said, gaping at the giant skeleton.

Harry nodded, still just looking around. “Yeah, with Gryffindor’s sword. Got one of its fangs in my arm though.”

Hermione gasped again. “Harry…”

“It’s fine, I lived, obviously. It doesn’t matter,” Harry said, brushing off her concern. “We need to split up, look for another entrance and the Founders' Library. Pick a tunnel and follow it,” he instructed.

Shaking themselves from their horror at what a twelve-year-old Harry went through, Ron and Hermione nodded and they all split up. Harry headed down a tunnel to the left of Slytherin’s statue. There was nothing different about the tunnel compared to the others he had been in before. It was dark and damp, a rat here and there, and some short branches that ended in bars. He continued for a little over five minutes and was about to assume he wouldn’t find anything when the tunnel turned and he saw an odd flickering on the wall up ahead.

He turned the corner and was shocked to see a small, circular room with torches on the walls and a rickety-looking iron spiral staircase. He walked up to the staircase and gazed up. It was a long staircase and he couldn’t see what was at the top so he started climbing. Narrow and steep, he kept a tight hold on the railing and stepped carefully as he went round and round.

He had never been on such a long set of stairs. It took another five or so minutes to ascend and he finally stepped off. Leaving the staircase, he was immediately behind what was obviously a painting or tapestry or something of the like. He pushed the door and peeked around, finding himself in a normal corridor in the school. He stepped out into the corridor, keeping hold of the painting so he could return to the Chamber. He examined the painting and found it to be a huge map. He did his best to memorize it so they could find it from the other side before stepping back into the room behind the map. Thrilled to have actually found another entrance, he retraced his steps and returned to the Chamber. Ron was already there, but Hermione was apparently still searching.

“Anything?” Harry asked.

Ron shook his head. “You?”

“Yeah, actually. There’s an entrance down there, it leads to a huge map painting,” Harry said.

“Brilliant.”

Harry stared up at the face of Slytherin, the large mouth still open. His eyebrows came together slightly as he considered the statue.

“Harry?” Ron said.

“What if there’s something in there?” Harry said, gesturing at the gaping stone.

Ron looked at it as well, frowning. “Isn’t that where the Basilisk came out of?”

Harry nodded. “Which means it must be huge in there. That thing couldn’t have just been living in the pipes.”

“I guess so,” Ron said, unsure.

“I found something!”

They turned to Hermione who was jogging towards them.

“That tunnel has a cave-in, so there could be something on the other side,” she told them.

“Good, we’ll take a look,” Harry said, turning back to Slytherin.

“Is everything alright?” Hermione asked.

“I think we’re about to go inside the mouth,” Ron said.

Hermione’s eyebrows jumped. “Excuse me?”

“I think there’s something in there,” Harry said. “What better place to hide something? No one’s going to think of going into the place a great snake sleeps.”

“Exactly!” Ron said.

Harry rolled his eyes. “There’s no snake now. Come on.”

Harry started towards the head, dropping down into the water that was about mid-shin in depth. He missed the looks his friends shot each other before reluctantly following him. There was a small platform directly under and around the statue, allowing them to get out of the water and to the open mouth. Standing next to each other, the three of them gazed into the mouth. It was nearly pitch black so Harry pulled his wand.

“Lumos,” he muttered and the area lit up, revealing a massive room where he knew the Basilisk used to curl up. There was a huge tunnel off to the right and Harry knew this was one of the ways the Chamber’s tunnels connected to the school’s plumbing.

Harry climbed into the mouth, hoisting himself up and dropping down the couple meters to the floor. He held up his wand to light up the area, spotting more rat bones around the room. He was spinning slowly, but stopped suddenly when a tiny glint at the back of the room caught his eye. He approached where he thought he saw the light and was shocked to see a trapdoor in the floor.

He looked up at his friends who were also surprised, and they instantly pulled it open. They gazed down to see a ladder and a soft, blue glow at the bottom. Without thinking, Harry instantly started down the ladder. He hopped off at the bottom and gaped at the smaller, but still large chamber he was in.

“Oh my!” Hermione gasped.

“Bloody hell,” Ron mumbled.

The room was circular and domed. It was stone, like everything else, but there were thin veins of colour streaking through the walls, almost like a spider web. The red, green, yellow, and blue veins glittered as they crisscrossed and threaded around the room. The domed ceiling looked like stained glass, made of the four colours with gold and silver creating the borders and separating each coloured pane. On the walls were four giant portraits, equally spaced around the room, framed in intricate gold and silver frames. They each depicted a single person in regal attire and a distinctive creature with them. They had all turned their heads to gaze at Harry, Ron, and Hermione curiously.

It was the center of the room that was the most astonishing. In front of each portrait to create a sort of circle in the center of the room were daises. Each was stone carved into a detailed creature that was holding or wrapped around a platform, clearly meant to hold something. In the very center of the room was a statue of a woman, her head facing the ceiling and her hands cupped in front of her. She had been given ringlets pinned behind her head to fall down her back. She wore a saree-like dress and around her neck as a familiar pendant. In her hands was a glowing orb, the source of the soft, blue light. It seemed to have a mist swirling in it. Like the walls, thin veins of colour wrapped around her, up to her necklace, with each ending at a corresponding coloured gem meant to be a part of her pendant. Following the threads down showed them to be connected to deep grooves in the floor that led to each dais, creating a colour circle around each base.

“I think this is it,” Harry said quietly, staring around in awe.

“What?” Hermione asked.

“Hogwarts,” Harry said. “This is her core.”

They all gaped, continuing to gaze around dumbly, the portraits of the Founders staring back.

“What’s that?” Ron asked, pointing at the orb the statue held.

“It’s a prophecy,” Harry said, recognizing it as being similar to the prophecies they saw—and subsequently shattered—at the Ministry. He stepped slowly towards the statue and orb.

“Child of Hogwarts, beware,” the portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw said suddenly, making them all jump.

“Only one of four may touch the Prophecy of Hogwarts,” Godric Gryffindor added.

“Only a hero may hear the fate,” Helga Hufflepuff said.

“Step forward if you be a chosen Hero of Hogwarts,” Salazar Slytherin finished and all four stared at Harry more intently.

Despite knowing he was a hero, he still hesitated and swallowed thickly. Taking a deep breath, he looked into the upturned, stone face of Hogwarts, silently asking her not to smite him, and placed a hand on the prophecy.

A power rushed through him and throughout the room, making them all gasp. A mix of voice echoed from the orb and Harry realized it was the four Founders.

‘One to defeat fear…One to discover truth…One to feel love…One to accept life…Each will bear a sword and embody the essence of Hogwarts…Together as one, the Four Heroes of Hogwarts will unite the world against the true Dark Lord…Together as one, the Heroes will defeat the binding darkness and restore Hogwarts to the wonder her creators intended her to be…Together, the Heroes will restore the love and friendship of the Founders lost in time…’