"So, uh… Tom, you said we were missing one last ingredient. What is it?"
Lockhart's nervous question echoed through the Chamber of Secrets.
Tom just gave a slow shake of his head, completely ignoring the question.
"'Tom.' I really don't like that name." He glanced at the hand Lockhart had started to slip into his pocket. "And stop fumbling for your wand. Your spellwork is embarrassingly bad."
Lockhart froze, face stiffening at the brutal honesty from his so-called "friend."
Tom carried on as if he hadn't just drop-kicked the man's ego. He strolled over to the cauldron, leaned in to sniff the potion, and looked far too solid for a soul fragment.
"Actually, Gilderoy, these past few months have been… tolerable. I even felt a little lucky that a rich idiot like you picked up my diary. Someone who could afford all the fancy life-force ingredients I needed."
He waved a hand; the flames under the cauldron flared higher.
"And I'm especially lucky you're such a talentless fame-chaser who only wants glory that isn't yours. It gave me the perfect hook to reel you in." He smiled sweetly. "Aren't you curious why you trusted a clearly cursed diary so completely?"
Lockhart went chalk-white.
Tom snapped his fingers. The subtle Confundus-like charm he'd been keeping on Lockhart for months dissolved.
The man stumbled back, trembling. "Y-you…"
Tom turned his back on him—deliberately showing a huge opening—and kept talking in that calm, lazy drawl.
"Most kids couldn't get me the stuff I needed. Grown wizards would've noticed the mind magic. But you? Gilderoy Lockhart? The perfect combination of useful and gullible."
He started walking toward Lockhart, slow and elegant.
"Feeling clearer now? Noticed anything odd yet? Like why you believed a talking diary so easily? Or whether you were ever actually controlling the Basilisk? Or why I told you to save Harry Potter for the grand finale?"
Every word hit Lockhart like a hammer.
He wheezed, the diary slipping from his suddenly slack fingers and thumping to the stone floor.
Tom appeared beside him in a flicker, ice-cold hand clamping onto his shoulder.
"Still not running?"
Lockhart bolted. Dignity, poise—gone. He sprinted for his life.
Halfway across the chamber he spun and fired an Obliviate under his arm, fast as any duelist.
Whoosh!
Tom dissolved into black smoke, letting the spell sail harmlessly through.
A cold, amused voice drifted after him.
"Not bad speed on that Memory Charm. Shame you never practiced anything except stealing credit."
Lockhart staggered to a halt, wand clattering away. He clutched his chest and started coughing like he was trying to turn himself inside out.
Tom re-formed, crouched beside him, and patted his back like a concerned buddy.
"Didn't your own books warn that dark artifacts always have a price? I had you collect dragon blood and all those life-rich ingredients… guess what the diary wants in exchange?"
Lockhart looked at his hand. Wrinkles were spreading across it like spilled ink.
Tom stood, pocketing Lockhart's wand and the little vial of dragon blood.
"The world will remember you forever, Gilderoy. In the winter of 1992, Gilderoy Lockhart opened the Chamber, unleashed the Basilisk, murdered students…"
"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, tragically killed."
"Albus Dumbledore, greatest wizard of the age, forced to resign in disgrace and thrown into Azkaban."
"How's that for an ending, friend?"
Tears rolled down Lockhart's now-aged face, dripping onto hands that looked seventy years older than they had ten minutes ago.
Tom turned back to the cauldron, unscrewing the vial.
"Oh, right—you asked about the last ingredient. Dragon blood. Once it's added, the 'energy booster' potion becomes…"
Tap, tap, tap.
Steady footsteps echoed through the chamber.
A mild, almost professorial voice finished the sentence for him.
"…a full flesh-reconstruction potion. Sixteen milliliters exactly, by the way. Any more or less and the reaction goes unstable."
Tom spun around.
A young man—barely more than a boy, really—stood there, hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like he'd just strolled in to give a homework reminder.
Tom's eyes narrowed. That tone… it reminded him way too much of Dumbledore lecturing him back in the day.
He noticed the glasses first.
"Harry Potter," he said slowly, "finding the Chamber this quickly… impressive. You might actually be a worthy opponent."
Crickets.
The most awkward silence in Chamber of Secrets history settled over the room.
"L-Lucien…?" croaked an ancient-sounding Lockhart from the floor. He lifted his head with obvious effort. "I was… wrong… run… tell the Headmaster…"
Tom had never bothered asking what Harry looked like beyond "messy black hair," so the mix-up was honestly understandable.
Lucien didn't even glance at Lockhart.
He just looked at Tom and raised an eyebrow.
"Aren't you going to finish brewing?"
Tom recovered fast, flashing a charming smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"No rush. Meeting a talent like you, Lucien, is far more interesting." He tilted his head. "I'm dying to know how you dodged the Basilisk and found this place so quickly."
While he spoke, he reached for the mental link to his snake.
Nothing.
Tom frowned—maybe the castle walls were blocking it.
THUD.
Something heavy hit the stone and rolled to a stop at Tom's feet.
A charred, still-smoking Basilisk head. Yellow eyes dull, scarlet plume drooping.
Lucien casually flicked basilisk blood off his left hand.
"Looking for this?"
Tom stared.
Then stared some more.
Shock → rage → the tiniest flicker of actual fear.
Lucien had killed the Basilisk.
A kid who looked younger than Tom himself had been in fifth year had walked in here with the monster's head like it was a Quaffle he'd borrowed.
The death gaze, the scales that could shrug off most curses, the venom that melted stone—none of it had mattered.
And he'd done it in minutes.
Tom's soul-body flickered, black smoke leaking out like steam from a broken engine.
Lucien took a few relaxed steps forward.
"Go on, keep brewing. Unless… you're worried I turned into my Animagus form, snuck into Lockhart's office, and tampered with the dragon blood?"
Tom's eyes darted to the vial, then to the cauldron.
He forced a laugh. "Please. I checked every ingredient myself."
Lucien shrugged and took another step.
"Cool. Then finish it."
Tom didn't move.
He was thinking fast now. Even if the potion was fine, the resurrection process was delicate—one interruption and the whole thing could blow up in his face. Literally.
New plan: kill the kid first.
Magic surged toward the stolen wand in Tom's hand.
Lucien's right hand tightened on his own wand; his left produced something long and silver that caught the torchlight.
"AAAAAAGH!!
Tom screamed without opening his mouth. Black smoke billowed violently around him.
Lucien had strolled over to the fallen diary and was letting drops of basilisk venom roll off Gryffindor's sword onto the cover.
Every drop burned like acid straight into Tom's soul.
"W-wait—we can work together—"
Lucien flicked the sword. More venom hissed onto the diary. More smoke, more screaming.
"Can't touch the diary yourself right now, can you?" Lucien observed mildly.
Tom clutched at one fading eye, handsome face twisted in agony.
He'd been so focused on the pain he hadn't noticed Lucien getting closer to the Horcrux.
Tom tried again, voice ragged. "I have… Salazar Slytherin's own knowledge… I could share it—"
Lucien actually looked tempted for half a second.
Tom leaned forward eagerly—
"AAAAAARRRGH!!!"
Lucien carved a slow, deliberate slice across the diary's leather cover.
A matching gash opened across Tom's face, splitting the smoky silhouette.
Tom dropped to one knee, black smoke pouring off him in sheets.
"You filthy little mudblood—!"
Tom exploded with icy magic, burning decades of stolen life-force in one desperate burst.
Thunder-pattern runes flared around Lucien as the chamber shook with raw power.
Both wands rose.
Any second now the killing curses would fly—
"You have come… heir of Slytherin…"
An ancient, timeless voice rolled through the Chamber like a tide from a thousand years away.
The giant stone face of Salazar Slytherin had opened its eyes.