Riddle was on the brink of erupting, his furious red eyes locked onto Kyle.
Even when he'd been called a monster back at the orphanage, he hadn't hated anyone this much. But now, this boy had shown up. He was convinced beyond a doubt: He was the true heir to Slytherin. And yet, Kyle had the audacity to call him an impostor!
In a reckless surge of rage, Riddle cast his spell.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A bolt of green light shot forward at breakneck speed, but Kyle had already anticipated the attack, ducking behind a pillar just in time.
"Sectumsempra!"
It was a spell Kyle had picked up from the Advanced Potion-Making book, a relic of Snape's youth, scrawled with his handwritten spells. The technique wasn't difficult to master, and Kyle launched it at Riddle.
But Riddle didn't even try to dodge; in fact, a sneer curled at the corner of his mouth. The Sectumsempra passed right through him like a breeze, cutting through the air but leaving no mark. Only a faint black line appeared in its wake, vanishing just as quickly.
"It's useless," Riddle laughed coldly. "Your spells can't hurt me... Avada Kedavra!"
Another flash of green light.
Kyle quickly ducked behind another pillar.
"Do you really think you can escape?" Riddle taunted, approaching him slowly. "You're going to die here, and not even Dumbledore can save you!"
Kyle felt a twinge of helplessness—Sectumsempra was useless. If he couldn't beat Riddle with magic, maybe it was time for a different approach. He glanced over at the diary lying at the base of the Slytherin statue. Unfortunately, it was several seconds' sprint away, and with the Killing Curse already in play, getting to it would be a gamble he might not win.
Just then, the Basilisk emerged, slithering from the mouth of the statue.
Kyle briefly considered ordering it to bite the diary, but he dismissed the idea; with the Basilisk's limited intelligence, understanding what a diary was would be far too complicated.
"Kill the impostor!" he shouted, as Riddle echoed, "Kill him!"
Riddle had held onto some faint hope, thinking that his previous commands to the Basilisk might sway it in his favor. But as the creature turned its head toward him without a moment's hesitation, his hope was utterly shattered.
"Bang!"
Riddle's form exploded in a burst of black mist, and his wand fell to the ground.
The mist, however, quickly reformed, pulling his body back together. The Basilisk's gaze could indeed affect souls, but Riddle was now merely a Horcrux. As long as the diary remained intact, he couldn't be destroyed.
"You fool!" Riddle screamed furiously. "I am your master, the true heir of Slytherin! I'm the one who commands you!"
But the Basilisk ignored him entirely. Seeing its intended prey still moving, it struck, sinking its fangs directly into Riddle's head.
Riddle exploded again.
"Bang,"
"Bang!"
"Bang…"
For a while, the Chamber of Secrets resounded with the rhythmic explosions as if a string of firecrackers were going off. Riddle, smug in his supposed immortality, made no effort to dodge, continually hissing commands in Parseltongue to wrest back control over the Basilisk.
Until he saw Kyle lift the diary from the base of the statue.
Riddle's pupils narrowed in horror as a terrifying thought formed in his mind.
He knows I'm a Horcrux!
Once the idea took root, it was impossible to shake. Kyle's triumphant smile only deepened his dread, and panic crept over him.
Abandoning the Basilisk, Riddle snatched up his fallen wand and aimed it at Kyle.
"Avada Kedavra!" he screamed, followed by a frenzied, "Crucio! Confringo!"
...
In his haste, Riddle's spells missed their mark entirely, and Kyle easily dodged them. Each spell crashed into the massive Slytherin statue behind them, blowing open a gaping hole in it. From inside the shattered statue, fragments of bones and snake scales tumbled out.
"Tsk... look what you've done," Kyle taunted, smirking. "You don't even respect Mr. Slytherin's statue—some heir you are."
Riddle ignored Kyle's mockery, his focus fixed entirely on retrieving the diary and killing him. Fortunately for Riddle, Horcruxes were incredibly resilient. Even in Kyle's possession, the diary was unlikely to be destroyed immediately. There's still time, he reassured himself.
"Avada—"
Just as he prepared to cast another spell, a pair of bright golden eyes flashed in front of him.
"Bang! Pat…"
Riddle's form exploded once more into a swirl of black mist.
"Accio Wand!" Kyle commanded.
Ron's wand, lying discarded on the ground, bounced up and shot into Kyle's hand.
At that moment, muffled footsteps and voices began echoing from the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. "Here… Potter… come… open…" The voice was faint but unmistakably Professor McGonagall's, and Kyle also caught the mention of Harry's name. It seemed the professors had realized that the entrance required Parseltongue to open, so they had brought Harry along.
Perfect timing, Kyle thought.
He glanced at the shifting, coiling mist of Riddle's form and then signaled for the Basilisk to prepare to end it once and for all. His plan was to have the Basilisk sink its fangs into the diary before the professors arrived. He'd broken a fair number of school rules during this ordeal, so he hoped he'd at least earn some points back for vanquishing Riddle… though he doubted he'd get to keep the Basilisk afterward.
Just as Kyle was about to press the diary between the Basilisk's lethal fangs, something golden caught his eye, slipping from the hole in the statue. It looked like a small, round, golden pocket watch, except it had five hands.
"Tock…"
The pocket watch hit the ground, its five hands whirling in unison.
Suddenly, everything began to rewind. The Basilisk, its mouth still open, snapped backward at an impossible speed, disappearing from sight. Ron's wand flew from Kyle's hand, landing back in Riddle's grip. Bone fragments, rubble, and shattered scales returned to the statue, seamlessly sealing the gaping hole. The three spells Riddle had fired raced in reverse toward his wand, vanishing into its tip.
Time was reversing.
Everything around Kyle, except for him, rewound at an incredible pace.
When Kyle's senses caught up, he found himself standing alone in the massive Chamber of Secrets, the diary still clutched in his hand. The Basilisk, Riddle, and even the distant sounds of Professor McGonagall and the others were gone.
"What's… going on? What just happened?"
He stared, dazed, at the empty chamber, his mind whirling. Did Riddle have a Time-Turner? But no—if time had rewound, he should have been affected as well. Was this a dream?
To check, Kyle pinched his thigh hard.
It hurt.
Which meant… this was real. Or at least, it seemed to be.