Harry suddenly took off. Ron, not knowing what they were about to do, trusted his friend and took off after him.
"Where are we going, Harry?"
"Lockhart's office!" he answered breathlessly. "He may be useless, but at least we can tell him what we know!"
They ran all the way up to the third floor and into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. They bolted up the stairs and into the small door.
"Professor!" Harry shouted. "We have something to tell you!" He and Ron finally stopped. He looked around. Everything was neat and tidy and Lockhart's trunks were out. He was filling them up as fast as he could. He scowled. Gilderoy Lockhart was nothing but a coward. "Are you going somewhere?"
Lockhart whirled around, startled. He wasn't aware that he had guests. "Well, um, yes. Urgent call. Unavoidable. Gotta go."
"What about my sister?" Ron demanded. "You can't just leave."
"Well, uh, as for that, most unfortunate. No one regrets it more than I."
"You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. You can't go now."
"Well I must say when I took my job, there was nothing in the description about-"
Anger flooded through Harry. "You're running away?" he interrupted. Lockhart tried to go around him, but Harry blocked his way. "After all that stuff you did in your books?"
"Books can be misleading," Lockhart said.
"You wrote them!" Harry yelled.
"My boy, will you use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if they didn't think I did all those things."
"You're a fraud. You've just been taking credit for what other wizards have done!"
"Is there anything you can do?" Ron demanded.
Lockhart was getting frustrated. "Yes. As a matter of fact, now that you mention it, I'm rather gifted with memory charms. Otherwise all those wizards would have gone blabbing and I never would have sold another book."
Harry was steaming, his eyes narrowed. Ginny's life hung in the balance and this grown man in front of him was just going to let her life slip away because he was too afraid to face the monster.
Lockhart walked over toward the other side of the room. Harry and Ron looked at each other. They weren't stupid. "As a matter of fact, I'm going to have to do the same to you." He whirled around, but Harry and Ron already had their wands extended toward him.
"Don't even think about it," Harry warned him. "Leave your wand, Lockhart. You're coming with us."
~ * ~
Severus paced back and forth in the corridor on the third floor. The Hospital Wing was up there and he had already seen Alaina. The fact that Ginny was taken into the Chamber of Secrets was disturbing. It could have been any of the students. As a matter of fact, it could have been Harry. The thought was too terrible for him to think about, though it had plagued his mind since he read the message on the wall.
He was about to go back inside when he heard voices. He hurried to hide himself, wondering who would be out and about after Minerva had told them all to go to their rooms. His heart sank when he saw Harry and Ron with their wands out, leading Lockhart somewhere. Curious, he followed them. They went down to the second floor, to the girl's bathroom and Harry and Ron pushed the man inside.
Severus went close to the door so he could at least hear them. It was a few moments before anyone said anything. He could hear the rapid rhythm of Lockhart's breathing. Harry was the first to say anything.
"This is it! This is it, Ron. This is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets."
Severus's eyes widened in alarm. Harry had found it.
"But I don't know how to open it. There's a snake on the faucet."
"Say something," Ron said. "Harry, say something in Parseltongue!"
Severus moved closer to the entrance of the door as Harry spoke in a language he had heard too many times. Suddenly the floor started to shake beneath him. He peeked around the door facing. The bathroom sink was coming apart. When everything stopped moving, there was a huge, gaping hole in the floor.
"Ah," Lockhart said, "good work, Harry. There's really-" he paused, "no need for me to stay."
He tried his best to get away and Severus ducked back outside the door. There were sounds of a struggle.
"Now boys, what good would it do?" Lockhart asked.
Severus peeked back in. The boys had manhandled him, which made him want to smile. He didn't like Lockhart anyway. Not in the least. Their wands were pointed firmly at him.
"Better you than us," Ron quipped.
When Lockhart tried to protest again, Ron pushed him in. He screamed all the way down. There was a loud thud and then a very faint complaint.
"It really is rather filthy down here."
Ron and Harry looked at each other. Severus walked in just as they jumped down the hole as well. He looked down into the darkness and sighed. He was going to have to go after them. If anything happened to Harry, Alaina would kill him. He waited a few moments and then, after taking a deep breath, he jumped into the darkness. When he landed in the pile of bones down below, he swallowed hard. He could hear Lockhart's voice echoing through the tunnels. He began quietly following it.
"The adventure ends here boys. Oh the world will know our story, how I was too late to save the girl, how you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body."
Anger flowed through Severus's veins like hot lava. If he touched either of them, Lockhart may be the first person he killed in his entire life. He stopped when the three of them came into view and took out his wand.
"You first, Mr. Potter. Say goodbye to your memory."
Severus pointed his wand at Lockhart's back and fired.
"Obliviate!" Lockhart yelled, but he was too late. Severus's spell hit him first.
Harry jumped out of the way as debris began to fall and Ron fell to the ground. Lockhart was unconscious. A ton of rock fell from within the chamber and Harry and Ron were separated. Harry dove out of the way as rocks bounced over top of him. Severus fell too, dazed for a moment.
"Harry!" Ron yelled. "Harry!"
"Ron, are you okay?" Harry yelled back.
"I'm fine. What do we do now?"
"You try and sift some of this rock out of the way so we can get back through," Harry instructed. "I'm going to go in and find Ginny."
Severus ran up beside Ron. Ron's eyes widened. He looked like a hamster that was being squeezed too tight.
"Hello, sir."
"Mr. Weasley, are you alright?"
Ron nodded.
"Good. And Potter?"
He swallowed nervously and pointed toward the rock pile. "He's on the other side. He's going after Ginny."
"What?" Severus asked in disbelief. He took out his wand. "You start digging us out of here and I'll start using spells to move some of this rock. When I get a hold of Potter, I'm going to strangle him. What were the two of you thinking?"
Ron didn't answer. He just started moving rocks out of the way, careful not to hit an unconscious Lockhart when he threw them behind him.
~ * ~
Harry was inside the Chamber of Secrets before he knew it. A few words in Parseltongue at the door he had found and it had opened right away. Now he was staring at a row of stone serpent statues on either side of him. There was water present there beneath them. His heart pounding in his chest, he marched forward quietly. In fornt of him was a stone wall with a man's face carved into it, a man whose identity he did not know. Harry shuddered.
His eyes traveled downward. Lying there on the floor at the head of the rows of statues was Ginny Weasley. Harry threw caution to the wind the moment he laid eyes on her, rushing forward and letting his wand fall with a clank to the stone floor beside of him. Her hands were folded neatly on top of her chest, linked, and the diary that had gone missing from his room was tucked safely underneath her arm. He reached out to touch her hand, and when his hand closed around hers, Harry jerked it back, startled by how unbelievingly cold she was.
"Ginny!" Harry exclaimed. "Oh, Ginny, please don't be dead. Wake up!" He shook her gently, but there was no response. "Please wake up."
"She won't wake."
Harry's attention snapped in the direction of the voice that had suddenly spoken. It seemed familiar to him somehow. When he saw him he knew immediately who it was. He had seen him in the diary: Tom Riddle. He walked over to Harry.
"Tom?" he asked to be sure. "Tom Riddle?"
The boy in front of him nodded.
Harry took a deep breath and glanced down at Ginny. "Tell me she isn't-"
"She's still alive, but only just," Tom told him.
He stared at him curiously. "Are you a ghost?"
"No. A memory preserved in a diary for fifty years."
"She's as cold as ice," Harry said, touching Ginny's hand once more. "Ginny, please don't be dead. Wake up."
Harry was so preoccupied with trying to get her to wake up that he didn't notice Tom bending down to pick up his wand. Harry finally looked up at him.
"You've got to help me, Tom," he pleaded. "There's a Basilisk."
Tom's expression was smooth and calm as was his tone of voice. "It won't come until it's called."
Harry stared at him curiously, noticing for the first time that he was holding his wand. "Give me my wand, Tom."
"You won't be needing it."
"Listen, we've got to go! We've got to save her!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Harry. You see, as poor Ginny grows weaker, I grow stronger."
Harry glared at him. Chills ran up and down his arms. That wasn't possible. Unless- No. It couldn't be. Something was amiss here. Tom Riddle was way too calm.
"Yes," Tom said, as if he knew what Harry was thinking. "It was Ginny Weasley who opened the Chamber of Secrets."
"No, she couldn't," Harry protested. "She wouldn't."
"It was Ginny who sent the Basilisk on the Mudbloods and Filch's cat, Ginny who wrote the threatening messages on the walls."
"But why?"
"Because I told her to. You'll find I can be very persuasive, not that she knew what she was doing. She was in a sort of trance. Still, the power of the diary began to scare her. She tried to dispose of it in the girl's bathroom and then who should find it, but you, the very person I was most anxious to meet."
"And why did you want to meet me?"
"I knew I had to talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my capture of that brainless oaf Hagrid to gain your trust."
This revelation infuriated Harry. He had thought Hagrid was guilty. "Hagrid's my friend!" His eyes narrowed. "And you framed him, didn't you?"
"It was my word against Hagrid's. Only Dumbledore seemed to thing that he was innocent."
"I'll bet Dumbledore saw right through you."
"He certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after that. I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the chamber again while I was still at school so I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen year old self in its pages so that one day I would be able to lead another to finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."
"Well, you haven't finished it this time. In a few hours the mandrake draft will be ready and everyone who was petrified will be alright again."
Harry and Tom were so close now that they could feel each other's breath on their faces.
Tom sneered. "Haven't I told you? Killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore. For many months now my new target has been you." Harry frowned. "How is it that a baby with no extraordinary magical talent was able to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
"Why do you care how I escaped? Voldemort was after your time."
That seemed to make Tom very angry. He spoke through gritted teeth, enunciating each word carefully. "Voldemort is my past, present, and future."
He turned and Harry watched as he used his wand to write his name out in fiery letters: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE. With a swish of the wand, the letters rearranged themselves.
Harry's eyes widened, and fear he hadn't felt since the year before when he faced Quirrell resurfaced. He gasped as he read the message now hovering before him: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.