Hearing Dumbledore's words and following his gaze, Tom Riddle turned to look behind him.
A girl with long golden hair was stepping out from Slytherin's statue — it was Esmeralda Twist, who had just returned from the true Chamber of Secrets.
Eda's robes were smeared with the mud from the pipes, and her delicate little face had a few streaks of dirt on it, making her look like a mischievous kitten. She shook the tattered diary in her hand, as if she were either showing off to Dumbledore or saying to Tom Riddle: Come on, I've got something precious to show you!
Tom Riddle's expression was unreadable — neither anger nor worry could be seen on his face, as if the diary had nothing to do with him at all.
Even at sixteen, the Dark Lord was still the Dark Lord — deep, calculating, and never easily letting others glimpse what he truly thought.
Seeing Voldemort looking at her, Eda smiled and said, "If you kneel down and kiss the hem of my robe, maybe I'll let you die a little easier."
Treat others as they treat you!
I, Esmeralda Twist of Gryffindor, accept your challenge!
Then she added with a shrug, "Actually, never mind. If I let you kiss my robe, it'd be tainted, and I wouldn't be able to wear it again. Besides, I'd probably have nightmares afterward — not worth it. Better to just send you straight to your death."
Hagrid had once said that Eda was a good girl — she just happened to have that kind of mouth.
If someone as honest as Hagrid could think that, one could only imagine just how refined Eda's talent for sarcasm and mockery truly was.
—Respected teacher, Death Eater, Dumbledore's confidant, double agent, master of potions, and the man whose words could kill without consequence: Severus Snape!
At first, when Tom Riddle saw Eda holding his diary and realized she had entered the other Chamber, he managed to keep his emotions in check — after all, everything inside had long since been taken away by him.
But when he saw Eda acting so arrogantly, Tom Riddle's handsome face twisted with rage.
A lowly insect like her dared to behave this way — it was an insult, a blatant mockery of the Dark Lord!
Yet, the Tom Riddle standing here — the Voldemort before them — was merely a memory preserved within the diary, a fragment of a soul. He was weak, so weak that he couldn't even cast the Killing Curse.
Besides, with Dumbledore and two professors present, even if Tom could use the curse, it was unlikely he could erase the humiliation Eda had brought him.
If he weren't so powerless, Tom Riddle would have already gone on a killing spree — no one could have stopped his rise again!
At the very least, he could have escaped with Ginny Weasley and the diary, instead of being cornered like a trapped beast in the Chamber.
Dumbledore looked at Eda with a faint, pleased smile. From the moment they'd entered the Chamber, she had been unusually quiet — far too well-behaved. That wasn't the Esmeralda Twist he knew.
Her seemingly reckless outburst afterward only confirmed what Dumbledore suspected.
Eda, like him, clearly doubted that the Tom Riddle before them was truly real — she likely believed he was some kind of unexplained projection.
When the basilisk appeared, Eda didn't even make a sound — she just grabbed Harry and Ginny and bolted.
For someone as bold and battle-hungry as Eda — a firm hawk — that was practically a disgrace.
Unless… Eda had other plans. Something more important to accomplish.
It was precisely because of Eda's string of strange, uncharacteristic actions that Dumbledore had chosen to stay in the Chamber — to subdue the basilisk and keep Tom Riddle occupied — instead of going after what was truly crucial: the diary.
Dumbledore believed that Eda would give Tom Riddle quite a surprise — and that she would give him, too, a very satisfying answer.
"Well done, Eda," Dumbledore said. "If only you'd been a little faster — we've already wasted too much time."
Easy for him to say. Leaders just move their lips, and the ones below run their legs off. Dumbledore could touch his upper lip to his lower and speak so casually, completely unaware that Eda's head was still pounding from the stench of the pipes and the basilisk's lair.
"Rescuing Ginny is what a good sister should do," Eda said, walking right past Tom Riddle without even glancing at him. "But… can you put my name on the Special Services Award?"
Human obsession truly is a terrifying thing — like Voldemort's for immortality, and Eda's for that Special Services Award.
"Of course," Dumbledore said with a smile. "You've done a great service to the school. You absolutely deserve it."
A Special Services Award was a small thing, after all.
Eda handed the diary to Dumbledore, then walked over to the basilisk's corpse. The Chamber's issue was almost resolved, Ginny was safe, and Eda's mind was already starting to wander again.
Looking at the mangled remains of the basilisk, Eda's heart ached.
That was a basilisk! There hadn't been one sighted across the British Isles in four hundred years! If someone had just plucked out its eyes and put them on tour, how many Galleons could that have earned?
Even if you had to kill it, couldn't you at least have left the body in one piece? The skin was shredded to bits, like a damn jigsaw puzzle — how was she supposed to sell that now?
The professors at Hogwarts were all a bunch of wasteful fools!
They all deserved a good five minutes of Avada Kedavra!
Well-fed bastards who don't know what it's like to be broke! Heh, tui!
On the other side, neither Dumbledore nor Professor Flitwick had any idea what was running through Eda's mind.
While they had been fighting for their lives, Eda was actually complaining that they'd hit too hard — that they hadn't even left the basilisk a whole body.
If the basilisk's spirit in the afterlife ever found out that Eda wanted to sell its corpse for Galleons, it would probably come back to life just to die again out of sheer anger.
Dumbledore flipped through the diary in his hand and said, "I must admit, it's a truly ingenious plan. Fifty years ago, because of my suspicions, you stopped your actions and sealed your own memory within this diary — waiting for someone in the future to continue your unfinished work."
The situation was lost; Tom Riddle knew he had been defeated.
Yet he did not despair, nor did he lose composure. He said, "One day, Dumbledore, we'll meet again. And when that day comes, I'll make sure you can neither live nor die! Every one of you will crawl at my feet, begging for my forgiveness!"
Since the night Voldemort first fell from power, Dumbledore had foreseen that such a day would come — and had been preparing for it ever since.
So Tom Riddle's threats were meaningless, nothing more than empty words.
Now, all that needed to be done was to destroy the diary. Then the dark cloud hanging over Hogwarts would finally disperse, and the Chamber of Secrets would trouble them no more.
Having stared long enough at the corpse — and mourned enough for the lost Galleons — Eda walked back to Dumbledore's side.
Casually, she handed the headmaster one of the basilisk's fangs. It was something she'd pried from the creature's mouth earlier, intending at first to keep as a souvenir.
The fang was thin and long, gleaming like a razor-sharp dagger.
The serpent of Slytherin, destroying the diary of Slytherin's heir — ending the cycle with its own fangs.
Truly poetic. Truly beautiful.
Taking the fang from Eda, Dumbledore drove it straight into the diary.
"There will never be such a day," he said calmly. "No matter how many times you return, it will always be the same. You, who know nothing of the human heart, are destined to fail, Tom."
With a terrible, drawn-out scream that pierced the ears, thick black ink burst violently from the diary, surging through Dumbledore's hands and spilling onto the floor.
Tom Riddle's form twisted and writhed, his arms flailing as he let out one final, agonized cry—then vanished completely, as if he had never existed at all.
With a soft clatter, Harry's wand fell to the ground. Everything was over.
The basilisk venom had burned a hole straight through the diary, and it still hissed and smoked faintly.
Voldemort's plan for resurrection had once again been destroyed, and the legend of the Chamber of Secrets would now fade into history.
Yet, despite their victory, Dumbledore's face showed no sign of relief.
On the road to immortality, Voldemort had gone farther than anyone else.
That wasn't just talk — he had truly done it.
Staring at the ruined diary in his hands, Dumbledore fell silent for a long, long time.
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