"All those times we were in that bathroom, and she was just three toilets away," said Ron bitterly at breakfast next day, "and we could've asked her, and now..."

It had been hard enough trying to look for spiders. Escaping their teachers long enough to sneak into a girls' bathroom, the girls' bathroom, moreover, right next to the scene of the first attack, was going to be almost impossible. 

But something happened in their first lesson, Transfiguration, that drove the Chamber of Secrets out of their minds for the first time in weeks. Ten minutes into the class, Professor McGonagall told them that their exams would start on the first of June, one week from today. 

"Exams?" howled Seamus Finnigan. "We're still getting exams?"

There was a loud bang behind Y/N as Neville Longbottom's wand slipped, vanishing one of the legs on his desk. Professor McGonagall restored it with a wave of her own wand, and turned, frowning, to Seamus. 

"The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education," she said sternly. "The exams will therefore take place as usual, and I trust you are all studying hard."

"Yeah, right." Y/N murmured. 

There was a great deal of mutinous muttering around the room, which made Professor McGonagall scowl even more darkly. 

"Professor Dumbledore's instructions were to keep the school running as normally as possible," she said. "And that, I need hardly point out, means finding out how much you have learned this year."

Y/N looked down at the pair of white slippers he had transfigured from rabbits. What had he learned so far this year? He couldn't seem to think of anything that would be useful in an exam.

 Ron looked as though he'd just been told he had to go and live in the Forbidden Forest.  

"Can you imagine me taking exams with this?" he asked Harry and Y/N, holding up his wand, which had just started whistling loudly

Three days before their first exam, Professor McGonagall made another announcementat breakfast. 

"I have good news," she said, and the Great Hall, instead of falling silent, erupted.  

"Dumbledore's coming back!" several people yelled joyfully.

"You've caught the Heir of Slytherin!" squealed a girl at the Ravenclaw table. 

"Quidditch matches are back on!" roared Wood excitedly.

When the hubbub had subsided, Professor McGonagall said, "Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last. Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been Petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what, attacked them. I am hopeful that this dreadful year will end with our catching the culprit." 

 There was an explosion of cheering. Harry looked over at the Slytherin table and wasn'tat all surprised to see that Draco Malfoy hadn't joined in. Y/N, however, was lookinghappier than he'd looked in days. 

"Hermione'llprobably have all the answers when they wake her up! Mind you, she'll go mental at the fact that we've got exams in a few days, but knowing her she did all her studying over the break or something."

Just then, Ginny Weasley came over and sat down next to Ron. She looked tense andnervous, and Harry noticed that her hands were twisting in her lap. 

"What's up?" said Ron, helping himself to more porridge.

Ginny didn't say anything, but glanced up and down the Gryffindor table with a scaredlook on her face.

"Spit it out," said Ron, watching her.

Y/N nudged Ron harshly, and moved him out the way.

"Gin, can you tell me?" Y/N asked sweetly. 

Ginny opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"I won't get mad, Gin, I promise." Y/N said. "Could you tell me alone?" 

She nodded, and together they left the Great Hall, Y/N mouthing that He'd 'be back' soon.

"So what is it, Gin?" Y/N asked as they entered an old classroom not being used. 

"Gin?" Y/N asked, it was like she was fighting something, her head shaking like she was saying no.

Her head stopped shaking, and she pulled her wand out, pointing it at Y/N.

"Ginny," Y/N said firmly. "Is this some sort of game?" 

"Imperio!" It was like her voice had doubled, a high girly voice and a deeper teenage voice.

A warm feeling flushed itself over Y/N like a nice bath, like all of his worries being whisked away in a nice breeze. 

He had only one thought burning at the forefront of his mind. 

Kill Harry Potter when the time is right.

~~~

Y/N proceeded with his day blissfully unaware of the task of killing one of his best friends.

"Y/N!" Harry called, finding him in the halls. "We know what's been attacking students."

"A Basilisk." Harry whispered.

Echoing through the corridors came Professor McGonagall's voice, magically magnified. 

"All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."

"Not another attack? Not now?" Y/N said.

"What'll we do?" said Ron, aghast. "Go back to the dormitory?"

"No," said Harry, glancing around. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe to his left, full of the teachers' cloaks. "In here. Let's hear what it's all about. Then we can tell them what we've found out."

They hid themselves inside it, listening to the rumbling of hundreds of people moving overhead, and the staff room door banging open. From between the musty folds of the cloaks, they watched the teachers filtering into the room. Some of them were looking puzzled, others downright scared. Then Professor McGonagall arrived. 

"It has happened," she told the silent staff room. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."

 Professor Flitwick let out a squeal. Professor Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, "How can you be sure?"

"The Heir of Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall, who was very white, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. 'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.'"

Professor Flitwick burst into tears. 

"Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?"

"Ginny Weasley," said Professor McGonagall.

"We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow," said Professor McGonagall. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said..."

The staffroom door banged open again. For one wild moment, Y/N was sure it would be Dumbledore. But it was Lockhart, and he was beaming. 

"So sorry — dozed off — what have I missed?"

He didn't seem to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred. Snape stepped forward. 

"Just the man," he said. "The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last."

Lockhart blanched. 

"That's right, Gilderoy," chipped in Professor Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"

"I — well, I —" sputtered Lockhart.

"Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it?" piped up Professor Flitwick.

"D-did I? I don't recall —"

"I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn't had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested,"  said Snape. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first?"

 Lockhart stared around at his stony-faced colleagues. 

"I — I really never — you may have misunderstood —"

"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," said Professor McGonagall. "Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by yourself. A free rein at last."

 Lockhart gazed desperately around him, but nobody came to the rescue. He didn't look remotely handsome anymore. His lip was trembling, and in the absence of his usually toothy grin, he looked weak-chinned and feeble. 

"V-very well," he said. "I'll — I'll be in my office, getting — getting ready." And he left the room.

"Right," said Professor McGonagall, whose nostrils were flared, "that's got him out from under our feet. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories."

The teachers rose and left, one by one. 

It was probably the worst day of Y/N's entire life. He, Harry, Ron, Fred, and George sat together in a corner of the Gryffindor common room, unable to say anything to each other. Percy wasn't there. He had gone to send an owl to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, then shut himself up in his dormitory. 

 No afternoon ever lasted as long as that one, nor had Gryffindor Tower ever been so crowded, yet so quiet. Near sunset, Fred and George went up to bed, unable to sit there any longer. 

"Are you sure she didn't say anything to you, Y/N?" said Ron, speaking for the first time since they had entered the wardrobe in the staff room. 

"No," Y/N said sadly.

She knew something, that's why she was taken. It wasn't some stupid thing about Percy at all. She'd found out something about the Chamber of Secrets. That must be why she was —" Ron rubbed his eyes frantically. "I mean, she was a pure-blood. There can't be any other reason."

"D'you think there's any chance at all she's not — you know —"

"I dunno, but Ginny's strong, she'll pull through." Y/N said, not confidently, but hopefully.

"D'you know what?" said Ron. "I think we should go and see Lockhart. Tell him what we know. He's going to try and get into the Chamber. We can tell him where we think it is, and tell him it's a basilisk in there."

 Darkness was falling as they walked down to Lockhart's office. There seemed to be a lot of activity going on inside it. They could hear scraping, thumps, and hurried footsteps. 

 Harry knocked and there was a sudden silence from inside. Then the door opened the tiniest crack and they saw one of Lockhart's eyes peering through it. 

"Oh — Mr. Potter — Mr. Weasley — Mr. L/N." he said, opening the door a bit wider. "I'm rather busy at the moment —if you would be quick —"

"Professor, we've got some information for you," said Harry. "We think it'll help you."

"Er — well — it's not terribly —" The side of Lockhart's face that they could see looked very uncomfortable. "I mean — well — all right —"

He opened the door and they entered. 

His office had been almost completely stripped. Two large trunks stood open on the floor. Robes, jade-green, lilac, midnight blue, had been hastily folded into one of them; books were jumbled untidily into the other. The photographs that had covered the walls were now crammed into boxes on the desk. 

"Are you going somewhere?" said Harry.

"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. "Urgent call — unavoidable — got to go —"

"What about my sister?" said Ron jerkily.

"Well, as to that — most unfortunate —" said Lockhart, avoiding their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. "No one regrets more than I —"

"You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!" said Y/N. "You can't go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here!"

"Well — I must say — when I took the job —" Lockhart muttered, now piling socks on top of his robes. "nothing in the job description — didn't expect —"

"You mean you're running away?" said Harry disbelievingly. "After all that stuff you did in your books —"

"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.

"You wrote them!" Harry shouted.

"My dear boy," said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at Harry. "Do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He'd look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a harelip. I mean, come on —

"So you've just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?" said Harry incredulously.

"Harry, Harry," said Lockhart, shaking his head impatiently, "it's not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn't remember doing it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms. No, it's been a lot of work, Harry. It's not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog."

He banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them. 

"Let's see," he said. "I think that's everything. Yes. Only one thing left."

He pulled out his wand and turned to them. 

"Awfully sorry, boys, but I'll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can't have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I'd never sell another book —"

Y/N reached his wand fast, shouting "Expelliarmus!" 

Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window. 

"Shouldn't have let Professor Snape teach us that one," said Y/N furiously, kicking Lockhart's trunk aside. Lockhart was looking up at him, feeble once more. Y/N was still pointing his wand at him. 

"What d'you want me to do?" said Lockhart weakly. "I don't know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There's nothing I can do."

"You're in luck," said Y/N, forcing Lockhart to his feet at wandpoint. "We think we know where it is. And what's inside it. Let's go."

They marched Lockhart out of his office and down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. 

They sent Lockhart in first. Y/N was pleased to see that he was shaking. 

 Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet.

"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw them. "What do you want this time?"

"To ask you how you died," said Y/N.

Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question. 

"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then —" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

"How?" said Y/N.

"No idea," said Myrtle in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away..." She looked dreamily at Harry. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."

"Where exactly did you see the eyes?"

"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.

They hurried over to it. Lockhart was standing well back, a look of utter terror on his face. 

 It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Harry saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake. 

"That tap's never worked," said Myrtle brightly as he tried to turn it.

"Harry," said Ron. "Say something. Something in Parseltongue."

"But —" Harry thought hard, staring harder at the tiny engraving. 

"Open up," he said.

Ron and Y/N shook their heads. 

"English,"

Harry turned back to the sink.

A strange hissing had escaped him, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into. 

"Well, off we go." Y/N said, grabbing Lockhart by the robes and throwing him into the pipe.

"Wait, Wait!"

They followed quickly after.

 It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. He could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and he knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. Behind him he could hear Ron and Harry, thudding slightly at the curves. 

And then, just as he had begun to worry about what would happen when he hit the ground, the pipe leveled out, and he shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in. Lockhart was getting to his feet a little ways away, covered in slime and white as a ghost. Y/N stood aside as Ron and Harry came tumbling out of the pipe, too. 

"We must be miles under the school," said Harry, his voice echoing in the black tunnel.

"Under the lake, probably," said Ron, squinting around at the dark, slimy walls.

 All three of them turned to stare at Lockhart. 

"What're you waiting for," Y/N said, lighting his wand with 'Lumos' and pointed it ahead. "You're taking point."

The tunnel was so dark that they could only see a little distance ahead. Their shadows on the wet walls looked monstrous in the wandlight. 

"Remember," Harry said quietly as they walked cautiously forward, "any sign of movement, close your eyes right away..."

But the tunnel was quiet as the grave, and the first unexpected sound they heard was aloud crunch as Ron stepped on what turned out to be a rat's skull. Y/N lowered his wand to look at the floor and saw that it was littered with small animal bones. Trying very hard not to imagine what Ginny might look like if they found her, Y/N forced Lockhart to lead the way forward, around a dark bend in the tunnel. 

"Y/N— there's something up there —" said Ron hoarsely, grabbing his shoulder.

They froze, watching. Y/N could just see the outline of something huge and curved, lying right across the tunnel. It wasn't moving. 

Very slowly, his eyes as narrow as he could make them and still see, Y/N edged forward, his wand held high. 

The light slid over a gigantic snake skin, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feetlong at least. 

"Blimey," said Ron weakly.

There was a sudden movement behind them. Gilderoy Lockhart's knees had given way. 

"Get up," said Ron sharply, pointing his wand at Lockhart. 

Lockhart got to his feet — then he dived at Ron, knocking him to the ground. 

Y/N jumped forward, but too late — Lockhart was straightening up, panting, Ron's wand in his hand and a gleaming smile back on his face. 

"The adventure ends here, boys!" he said. "I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you three tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body — say good-bye to your memories!"

He raised Ron's Spellotaped wand high over his head and yelled, "Obliviate!"

The wand exploded with the force of a small bomb. Y/N  flung his arms over his head and ran, slipping over the coils of snake skin, out of the way of great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor. Next moment, he and Harry stood, gazing at a solid wall of broken rock. 

"Ron!" they shouted. 

"I'm here!" came Ron's muffled voice from behind the rockfall. "I'm okay — this git's not, though — he got blasted by the wand —"

"What now?" Ron's voice said, sounding desperate. "We can't get through — it'll take ages..."

"Wait there," Harry called to Ron. "Wait with Lockhart. Y/N and I'll go on... If we're not back in an hour..."

There was a very tense silence, "I'll try and shift some of this rock," said Ron, who seemed to be trying to keep his voice steady. "So you two can — can get back through. And, guys—"

"See you in a bit," said Y/N, trying to inject some confidence into his shaking voice.

 And he and Harry set off past the giant snake skin. 

Soon the distant noise of Ron straining to shift the rocks was gone. The tunnel turned and turned again. And then, at last, as they crept around yet another bend, he saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds. 

They approached, Y/N's throat very dry. There was no need to pretend these stone snakes were real; their eyes looked strangely alive. 

"Open," said Harry, in a low, faint hiss.

 The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry, shaking from head to foot, walked inside. 

 He was 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. And where was Ginny?

They pulled out their wands and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following them. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, he thought he saw one stir. 

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

Y/N had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient, 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, stood a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.

"Ginny!" Y/N said happily, darting off with Harry, where Ginny stood.

"Gin, you alright, you're not hurt are you?" he said, there was no response and her eye's were vacant.

"She's fine." came a voice.

"Who're you?" Y/N said, pointing his wand at the person.

"Tom — Tom Riddle?" said Harry. 

"You mean the bloke with the diary?" Y/N turned to Harry.

"You've got to help us, Tom," Harry pleaded. "There's a Basilisk—" 

"I know, I set it free, with the help of that girl there."

"Why?" 

"To meet you of course," said Riddle. "To meet the skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent who managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"

There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes. 

"Why do you care how I escaped?" said Harry slowly. "Voldemort was after your time..."

"Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..."

He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE 

Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT 

They stared numbly at Riddle.  

He waved his hand quickly, causing Ginny to point her wand at Y/N and mumble something. 

Harry turned to a struggling Y/N.

"Y/N!" Harry cried, running to his friend. "Y/N, what's happen—" Harry was cut off as Y/N began to tightly choke Harry . 

"This is how it ends, Harry Potter, your best friend killing you, for me, Lord Voldemort!"