Chapter 44 - Albus Dumbledore vs Tom Riddle (2/2)

Meanwhile, Another jet of green light flew from Tom Riddle. This time it was the one-armed centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces, but before the fragments had even hit the floor, Dumbledore had drawn back his wand and waved it as though brandishing a whip.

The fragments turned into small pieces of glass and hovered in the air and then followed his wand movement. As Dumbledore pointed it towards Tom Riddle, he conjured a Silver shield that turned all of the glass pieces into powder and fell on the floor.

As Dumbledore managed to take Tom Riddle away from Ginny, Neal rushed towards Ginny. Only after picking her up, Tom Riddle remembered Neal who he forgot for a few moments because of a heated battle against Dumbledore.

Riddle shouted, ”you little swine, Avada Kedavra”. As Riddle sent a killing curse towards him, Neal jumped to the side with Ginny in his hands. The spell missed him and hit elsewhere. He quickly took out his Blackwalnut wand and waved his hand while poting at Riddle, ”Expulso”. A burst of blue light erupted from his wand.

The spell almost hit Riddle but he blocked it with his wand at the last second. But as the spell hasn't been erased yet, it keeps on pushing Riddle back and as Dumbledore sent another spell towards him from the side.

He roared and brandished his wand to deflect the Expulso curse towards Dumbledore's spell and countered it. Neal looked at Tom Riddle who defeated his strongest spell and mumbled, ”I have no choice.

I'll have to wait for a whole 6 months again but I guess it's worth it”. He quickly pulled out two vials from his pocket. One is a dark greenish liquid while the other is brown colored. After drinking the brown-colored potion, he shouted, ”Prof. Dumbledore, disapparate from here now immediately”.

As his words attracted both of them, they turned around to see him throwing a green vial towards Riddle. Riddle smirked and immediately sent a spell to smash the vial. But just as the vial exploded, the dark greenish liquid inside of it dispersed into a moist green smoke and spread around the hall.

Riddle looked at him and raised his wand, ”Avada...”. Before he even completed the sentence, his skin changed into green in color and fell on the floor as the smoke dissipated.

Neal didn't waste even a single second. He rushed through the chamber towards the end and saw not only Dumbledore is in the same state as Riddle, but Ginny's body also turned green from head to toe for breathing that poisonous gas in an unconscious state.

He took out the only vial he had and mumbled, ”damn it. I only one vial. What a fool I am. Why didn't I take Ginny into consideration before performing such an act? Let's just feed them half and a half. But how should I feed them?”.

Just then, he heard a piercing cry from outside, the Phoenix arrived in a flash and landed on Dumbledore who was still conscious despite being paralyzed completely. As it slowly put its head near his Mouth, he opened his mouth with extreme difficulty.

It dropped a few tears from its eyes into his mouth. As the phoenix tears went inside, his skin changed back to normal but was still paralyzed. Neal sighed with relief and looked at the unconscious Ginny. He pointed his wand to the vial as he opened it. With the use of floating charm, he slowly fed her which dissipated the poison from her body.

As the Phoenix took the paralyzed Dumbledore, Neal went towards Tom Riddle's body who also managed to stay conscious but paralyzed. Neal then spoke in parseltongue, ”a mere vial of poison is enough to kill the greatest wizard of all time, eh. Well, since you are about to die, you should know the answer that's been bugging you the entire time. Before you even possessed Ginny, I already opened the chamber and moved the Basilisk into a safe place. Take this little secret with you, okay? Goodbye”.

Then, he picked up Ginny's wand that was in Riddle's hand and mumbled, ”it seems he is the greatest wizard after all. He was able to battle Dumbledore evenly with only a fragment of his power and that too with another person's wand. Hmm, a Horcrux, huh”.

Then he picked up Ginny with his basilisk wand using the Floating charm and at the same time used Blackwalnut wand for ”Lumos spell”. He walked outside and then closed the door with parseltongue. As he was walking inside the dark tunnel, he met the Professors and Harry as he expected.