We were standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber.
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 sprinted after him, dropping next to the poor girl.
"Ginny — don't be dead — please don't be dead —" He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over.
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," I muttered desperately, shaking her.
Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.
"She won't wake," said a soft voice.
Harry and I jumped and spun around on our knees.
A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though I was looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.
"Tom — Tom Riddle?"
Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off My face.
"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately.
"She's not — she's not —?"
"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."
We stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen.
"Are you a ghost?" Harry said uncertainly.
"A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."
He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black
diary we had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
For a second, I wondered how it had got there — but there were more pressing matters to deal with.
"You've got to help us, Tom," Harry said, raising Ginny's head again. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk...I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment...Please, help me."
Riddle didn't move. Harry, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and bent to pick up his wand again.
But his wand had gone.
"Did you see —?"
Mine was too. I looked around, but no sight of them.
We looked up. Riddle was still watching us — twirling Harry's and my wand between his long fingers. "Thanks," said Harry, stretching out his hand for it.
A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. He continued to stare at Us, twirling the wands
idly.
"Listen," said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny's dead weight. "We've got to go! If
the basilisk comes —"
"It won't come until it is called," said Riddle calmly.
Harry lowered Ginny back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer.
"What d'you mean?" he said. "Look, give me my wand, I might need it —"
Riddle's smile broadened.
"You won't be needing it," he said.
Harry stared at him.
"What d'you mean, I won't be —?"
