The Battle with the Basilisk

The Battle with the Basilisk is the decisive confrontation of Harry Potter's second year at Hogwarts, the moment when the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets reaches its violent resolution. Deep beneath the school, in a vast, dimly lit chamber lined with towering stone pillars entwined with carved serpents, Harry faces not one but two enemies: the ancient Basilisk of Salazar Slytherin, a giant serpent whose gaze kills instantly, and the sixteen-year-old memory of Tom Riddle, who reveals himself to be Lord Voldemort. The battle tests Harry's courage, resourcefulness, and identity, and its outcome determines the fate of Ginny Weasley, whose life is draining away at the feet of a colossal stone statue of Slytherin himself.

The Chamber and the Revelation

Harry enters the Chamber through a pipe hidden beneath a sink in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, sliding down a long, dark slide that deposits him in a stone tunnel littered with small animal bones. The tunnel leads to a solid wall carved with two entwined serpents set with emerald eyes; speaking Parseltongue — "Open" — causes the serpents to part and the wall to slide open. Beyond lies a long, dimly lit chamber whose ceiling is lost in darkness, supported by towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents. At the far end, a statue as high as the Chamber itself looms against the back wall: an ancient, monkeyish face with a long, thin beard, wearing sweeping stone robes, its two enormous gray feet standing on the smooth floor. Between those feet, facedown, lies a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair — Ginny Weasley. Harry sprints to her, drops to his knees, and turns her over; her face is white as marble and as cold, but her eyes are closed, so she is not Petrified. As Harry desperately shakes her, a soft voice speaks: "She won't wake." Harry spins around to find a tall, black-haired boy leaning against the nearest pillar, watching him. It is Tom Riddle, preserved as a memory in his diary for fifty years, now grown powerful enough to manifest as a solid-seeming figure, strangely blurred around the edges as though seen through a misted window. Riddle twirls Harry's wand between his long fingers, having taken it while Harry was distracted. He reveals that Ginny has been writing in the diary for months, pouring out her soul to him, and that he grew strong on her fears and secrets, eventually pouring his own soul back into her, possessing her to open the Chamber, strangle the roosters, daub the threatening messages on the walls, and set the Basilisk on four Muggle-borns and the Squib's cat. "She didn't know what she was doing at first," Riddle says calmly, reciting her panicked diary entries. He also confesses that he framed Hagrid fifty years ago, using his position as a model student and prefect to blame the gamekeeper for the attacks he himself had orchestrated. Riddle then rearranges the letters of his name — Tom Marvolo Riddle — into "I am Lord Voldemort," revealing that he is the Dark Lord who killed Harry's parents. He demands to know how Harry survived the killing curse as a baby, insisting that there must be something special about the boy.

The Summoning of the Basilisk

Harry, though terrified, refuses to be intimidated. He tells Riddle that his mother died to save him, that Dumbledore is the greatest wizard in the world, and that Riddle never dared to take over Hogwarts even at the height of his power. Riddle's smile vanishes, replaced by an ugly look. He walks away between the high pillars and looks up into the stone face of Slytherin, opening his mouth wide and hissing in Parseltongue: "Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four." The gigantic stone face begins to move; its mouth opens wider and wider, forming a huge black hole. Something stirs inside the statue's mouth, something slithering up from its depths. A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs emerge — but this is not the Basilisk; the Basilisk itself is a serpent. What emerges is the snake's head: bright, poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, with great, bulbous yellow eyes and fangs long and thin as sabers. Riddle hisses the command: "Kill him." The Basilisk moves toward Harry, its heavy body slithering across the dusty floor. Harry, knowing that looking directly into its eyes means instant death, keeps his own eyes tightly shut and begins to run blindly sideways, his hands outstretched, feeling his way. He trips and falls hard onto the stone, tasting blood; the serpent is barely feet from him, and he can hear it coming.

Fawkes and the Sword

At the moment of greatest peril, music fills the Chamber — eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly — and a crimson bird the size of a swan appears, its glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's. It is Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, carrying a ragged bundle: the old school Sorting Hat. Fawkes drops the hat at Harry's feet and lands on his shoulder. Riddle laughs, mocking Dumbledore for sending "a songbird and an old hat" as a defender. But Fawkes proves far more than a songbird. As the Basilisk lunges, Fawkes soars around its head, distracting it; the snake snaps furiously at him, and Fawkes dives, his long golden beak sinking into the Basilisk's eyes. A sudden shower of dark blood spatters the floor; the serpent's eyes, both its great, bulbous yellow eyes, are punctured. The Basilisk rears in agony, its tail thrashing wildly, narrowly missing Harry. Riddle screams in fury, ordering the snake to ignore the bird and kill the boy, but the blinded serpent sways, confused. Fawkes continues to circle its head, piping his eerie song, jabbing at its scaly nose. The Basilisk's tail whips across the floor again, sweeping the Sorting Hat into Harry's arms. Desperate, Harry rams the hat onto his head and thinks, "Help me — help me." The hat contracts as though squeezed by an invisible hand, and something very hard and heavy thuds onto Harry's head. He grabs the hat and pulls it off, revealing a gleaming silver sword with a handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs — the Sword of Godric Gryffindor.

The Killing Stroke

Riddle's voice rings out again, commanding the Basilisk to smell Harry and kill him. The serpent's head falls, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twists to face Harry. He can see the vast, bloody eye sockets, the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous. The Basilisk lunges blindly; Harry dodges, and it hits the Chamber wall. It lunges again, and its forked tongue lashes Harry's side. He raises the sword in both hands. The Basilisk lunges a third time, and this time its aim is true. Harry throws his whole weight behind the sword and drives it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth. Warm blood drenches Harry's arms, but at the same moment he feels a searing pain just above his elbow: one long, poisonous fang sinks deeper and deeper into his arm and splinters as the Basilisk keels over sideways and falls, twitching, to the floor. Harry slides down the wall, grips the fang that is spreading poison through his body, and wrenches it out. But he knows it is too late. White-hot pain spreads slowly and steadily from the wound; his vision goes foggy, and the Chamber dissolves in a whirl of dull color. Fawkes lands beside him and lays his beautiful head on the spot where the fang pierced Harry's arm. Thick, pearly tears trickle down the phoenix's glossy feathers — tears with healing powers. Riddle watches, gloating, telling Harry he is dying, that he will soon be with his "dear Mudblood mother." But instead of going black, the Chamber comes back into focus. The wound is gone. Fawkes's tears have healed Harry completely.

The Destruction of the Diary

Riddle, enraged, points Harry's wand at Fawkes and fires a spell; the phoenix takes flight again. "But it makes no difference," Riddle says. "Just you and me, Harry Potter." He raises the wand for the killing blow. But Fawkes soars back overhead and drops something into Harry's lap: the diary. For a split second, both Harry and Riddle stare at it. Without thinking, Harry seizes the Basilisk fang lying on the floor next to him and plunges it straight into the heart of the book. A long, dreadful, piercing scream fills the Chamber. Ink spurts from the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor. Riddle writhes and twists, screaming and flailing — and then he is gone. Harry's wand falls to the floor with a clatter. Silence descends, broken only by the steady drip of ink oozing from the diary, which the Basilisk venom has burned a sizzling hole straight through. Harry, shaking all over, pulls himself up, gathers his wand and the Sorting Hat, and retrieves the glittering sword from the roof of the Basilisk's mouth. Ginny stirs at the far end of the Chamber; she sits up, her bemused eyes traveling from the huge form of the dead Basilisk to Harry in his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in his hand. She bursts into tears, confessing that Riddle made her do everything. Harry assures her it is over. Fawkes leads them back through the tunnel, where Ron has been struggling to shift the rockfall that trapped Lockhart after his Memory Charm backfired. The phoenix carries them all up the pipe to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and the sink slides back into place, sealing the Chamber once more. The battle is won: the Basilisk is dead, Riddle's memory is destroyed, Ginny is saved, and the attacks on Hogwarts have ended forever.