That night, Harry fell into sleep like falling into a river — fast, pulled under, breathless.
And then he was not himself.
He stood in a long corridor lit with green flame, wearing robes stitched in perfect lines. His fingers were longer. Paler. His eyes sharper.
He was Tom Riddle.
But he was watching — not controlling. As if memory had taken form and wrapped around him like skin.
The torches flickered as the boy moved forward.
No fear.
Only purpose.
The Chamber — Decades Earlier
Tom reached the mouth of the serpent chamber.
The statues of the twin serpents turned as he passed — not by spell, but by recognition.
"I am your son," he whispered.
The door parted.
The chamber opened.
But it looked different now — fresher. Less broken. The water was clean. The bones were fewer.
And in the center stood the Mirror.
It pulsed faintly, and in its reflection stood not Tom — but a snake.
Massive. Coiled. Eyes slitted and golden.
The basilisk.
Tom smiled, and stepped closer.
The First Binding
He knelt before the mirror, and spoke words Harry didn't recognize — syllables like broken glass.
Then he cut his palm, and pressed it to the frame.
The mirror rippled.
A tongue of shadow flicked across the glass, tasting the blood.
Then:
"We know your name. We accept your vow."
Riddle's voice grew deeper.
"This place is mine now. I will rise. And you will rise with me."
The basilisk didn't speak.
It didn't need to.
It understood.
The Twist – A Warning from Within
But then—The dream fractured.
The memory fought back.
And Harry found himself alone in the chamber again, now himself, facing the mirror.
But this time—It spoke to him directly.
"He was not the first to claim it."
"And you will not be the last."
Then, in the mirror's surface, he saw Snape.
Not in real-time. In memory.
Snape, as a boy, barely thirteen, bleeding from the lip, kneeling before the same mirror.
And it whispered to him, too.
Awakening
Harry woke with a start — sheets twisted, throat dry, chest aching.
He looked at his hands. No blood.
But beneath his fingernails… something black.
Ink?
No. Not ink.
Ash.
The residue of memory.