Harry Potter's Twin Book Two

Ginny's Saved

We were standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.

My heart beating very fast. I stood listening to the chill silence.

Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Ginny?

I pulled out my wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls from Harry as we both walked side by side, leaving Dani awkwardly a little distance away, but otherwise in confidence.

Harry kept his eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following us. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, I thought he saw one stir.

Then, as we drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.

I had to crane my neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.

"Ginny!" Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. I breathed a sigh of relief. Dani and I shared a glance. We both didn't want to approach till we were sure she was alive.

"Ginny - don't be dead - please don't be dead -" Harry flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Even from a distance I could see that her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be... "Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her.

Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.

"She won't wake," said a soft voice.

I screamed, my wand dropping from my grasp as I whirled around and saw the thing - or person - I feared most: Tom Riddle.

Harry jumped and spun around on his knees.

Tom hadn't changed since the last time I had seen him. He was still a tall, black-haired boy with handsome brown eyes. He leaned against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though I were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.

"Tom - Tom Riddle?" Harry asked. Tom nodded. His eyes had been on me, not wavering at all, but when Harry spoke, he put his full attention on my brother.

"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately. "She's not - she's not -."

"She's still alive," said Tom. "But only just." I had a strange feeling that he was talking about me and Ginny. Harry stared at him.