Welcome to what is shaping up to be a lengthy fanfic! This story is AU from the second book, but vaguely follows the same structure as the original story until the final battle and Harry, Ron and Hermione's post-Hogwarts choices. All will be revealed.


"This time, a student has been taken to the Chamber of Secrets. It is Ginny Weasley."

No, Harry thought, not daring to look at Ron. Not Ginny. Ginny was Ron's little sister, a member of the Weasley family, a family he loved more than anything. She could not die. Harry wouldn't let it happen.

That was the night that Ron and Harry decided to enter the Chamber of Secret themselves. Dumbledore was gone, Hagrid was gone, Hermione was Petrified. It was only them. And Harry told himself that it was because of Ron that he felt petrified himself, and because of his love for the Weasley family that he felt such an indescribable sense of terror at the thought of getting there too late to save her.

In the end, it was Harry himself who had to enter the Chamber, separated from Ron and Lockhart by the wall of stone. He was terrified of what he might find there. Please, please don't let me be too late, the 12-year-old pleaded desperately with whatever or whomever might be listening.

"Enter," Harry hissed at the stone snake. The round door of the Chamber swung open.

The cavernous hall was dark, with ominous shadows in the corners making the hairs on the back of Harry's head stand on end and a shiver run down his spine. The Basilisk could be anywhere. He had to find Ginny.

At the very center of the Hall, Harry saw a large, grotesquely carved stone head. Salazar Slytherin, he thought and shuddered.

Looking away, Harry scanned the Hall, looking for a glimmer of that tell-tale fiery red that reminded him of Weasleys and Gryffindor and everything else he liked. Surely even in the dim light he would be able to...

Harry gasped. As he moved, what he thought had been a fallen pillar suddenly glinted in the reflection of a shallow pool at the base of the statue, and he saw: it was the Basilisk.

He stopped dead in his tracks, not daring to move. Had it heard him? Should he close his eyes? It still wasn't moving though. Maybe he could get closer...

Slowly, ever so slowly, Harry began to move. Maybe it was sleeping. He didn't really have a good idea of how to battle a Basilisk, and even though his common sense was telling him to Run, run you noble idiot!, he found that he couldn't. Ginny needed him. Ginny needs me. That thought was enough to make him speed up, as Harry's courage finally caught up with his fear.

When he was almost within reach of the snake, Harry found himself stopping again. Was it a trick? It was like the shedded skin which he and Ron had found in the corridor – big, cold, unmoving. Surely the Basilisk should have sensed him by now. That's when Harry noticed: beneath the Basilisk's head, which had previously been hidden by its enormous body, was a pool of blood.

Curious, Harry moved around to look at it closer – and let out a sharp yell of surprise, because he found himself staring into the Basilisk's yellow eyes! Quickly shutting his own eyes, Harry fell to the ground – only to realise with a shock that he wasn't dead. Glimpsing through his fingers, Harry chanced another look, and sure enough. The Basilisk was staring straight ahead, yet there was an odd blue-ish film covering the yellow center, and the eyes stayed completely unmoving.

It's dead, Harry realised. Confused, Harry glanced around the Hall. Had Dumbledore...?

"Professor?" Harry called out hesitantly, but there was no response except for a faint echo. Harry ignored the shivers he felt, and looked back to the Basilisk. The pool of blood had come from its open mouth, where a dark gap showed a missing tooth.

What the...? Harry did not understand what he was seeing. The Basilisk was dead, someone had taken its tooth, but...

"Ginny?" Harry called, louder than before. "Ginny, where are you?"

He contemplated the possibility that Ron's timid little sister, the one who had put her elbow in the butter dish and sent him a singing Valentine, had killed the Basilisk and ripped out its tooth. No, that didn't sound right. Of course, that only left Slytherin's heir. But there was no sign of him anywhere, either, and why would he kill his own snake?

That's when Harry saw something else. His eyes had followed the slowly growing pool of blood drifting out from the Basilisk's mouth, when he noticed a small object. Carefully moving towards it, the darkness still didn't allow him to make it out, yet... was it...?

As he got closer, Harry frowned, because this situation just made less and less sense. He was staring down at the diary of Tom Riddle. How did that get here? Harry wondered. He bent to pick it up, only to see that its front seemed to have been pierced by a sharp object. And what was gathered around the book was not blood like he'd thought, it seemed to be... ink. Harry opened up the book only to see the blackened pages crumble before his eyes.

Harry once again rose to his feet. He looked around, completely at a loss. A dead Basilisk, a ruined diary... and no Ginny Weasley.

That's when Harry Potter realised that he had failed. He was too late. Slytherin's heir had clearly done what he needed to do in the Chamber of Secrets, and had vanished. And Ginny was gone.