Welcome back, everyone! Just a heads up that this chapter pulls much more directly from the book than the previous chapter, some of it word for word. I think it's kind of inevitable in this type of story, but I'm not totally sure how I feel about it, so let me know in the comments what you think!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Part Two: takes place after Ginny wakes up in the chamber to find she's been rescued by Harry.

Everything hurt. Everything was groggy. She didn't know where she was, just that it was dark and cold and damp. She looked around, realizing almost immediately where she must be. The Chamber of Secrets. Her eyes landed first on the giant snake that lay dead in the middle of the chamber, and then on her savior. She supposed she should have been more surprised than she was to see Harry Potter, robes soaked in blood though he appeared uninjured, holding the diary that had started all this in the first place. She should have been surprised, but it felt like part of her had expected this all along.

Of course he had saved her, that's who he was. Of course he had been strong where she was weak, and of course her weakness had ended up putting the boy she least wanted to hurt in mortal peril. A wave of shame swept over her. How could she ever have trusted that diary?

Without even realizing, she had started babbling, trying desperately to explain, to beg for his forgiveness. "Harry- oh Harry- I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn't say it in front of Percy - it was me, Harry- but I- I swear I d-didn't mean to- R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over- and- how did you kill that- that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary-"

"It's all right, Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C'mon Ginny, let's get out of here-" A new wave of shame hit her. He had just fought Riddle and the basilisk and here he was, comforting her, who absolutely did not deserve comforting after messing up so spectacularly.

As he helped her up, a new fear swelled within her. "I'm going to be expelled! I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and- w-what'll Mum and Dad say?" She cried and panicked and hated herself in turn as she and Harry followed what appeared to be a phoenix over the dead snake, through a pair of great stone doors and into a tunnel.

They walked on, Ginny lost in misery, until Harry startled her from her gloom by calling out "Ron! Ginny's okay! I've got her!" She realized for the first time she could hear faint noises from further down the tunnel, though she couldn't yet see the source. They both started to run towards the sound of Ron giving a strangled cheer from somewhere ahead of them. She didn't know why, but it hadn't occurred to her that Ron would be down here with him. She started to cry even harder thinking of how disappointed her older brother was sure to be with her. She'd risked his life along with his best friend's with her foolishness, and she was sure that neither he nor anyone else would forgive her.

They rounded a corner to find Ron's face poking through a small hole in what appeared to have been a collapse in the tunnel. He helped them through, and she saw Professor Lockhart at the far end of the small room with him, humming absentmindedly. She felt Ron's arms close around her, and cried even harder at the thought of how soon she'd have to confess everything to him as well.

Ron was questioning Harry, but, seeming to realize that the distressed girl couldn't bear much more at the moment, Harry put him off, asking about Lockhart instead. The group approached him, as Ron explained "His memory's gone. The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself."

Ginny stared at the professor, and, for a moment, forgot how horrible her own behavior had been in light of the revelation that her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had apparently tried to wipe Harry and Ron's memories. She felt an anger swelling up that he could turn on his own students like that, and would have been of a mind to hex him for attacking Harry Potter had she not herself done something so much worse.

Her chain of thought was broken by the sound of her own name. Harry told her to take Ron's hand, and told Lockhart to take hers. He then grabbed Ron's free hand in one of his own, and the phoenix's tail feathers in the other. Suddenly, she felt impossibly light and then they were flying through the air, up and out of the tunnel. They emerged in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, with the ghost staring curiously at them. "You're alive," she said blankly to Harry.

"No need to sound so disappointed."

"Oh, well… I'd just been thinking… if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet," replied a blushing Myrtle.

As the left the bathroom, Ron turned a disgruntled look at Harry. "Urgh! Harry! I think Myrtle's grown fond of you! You've got competition, Ginny!" But she was too upset to even bother being embarrassed now. As they followed the phoenix to Professor McGonagall's office, Ginny braced herself.

Inside sat her mother and father, accompanied by Professor's McGonagall and, to her surprise, Dumbledore. A fresh wave of dread rose inside her, but before anyone could say anything else, her mother was running towards her screaming "Ginny!" and both of her parents had her wrapped in a tight hug. After a moment, Mrs. Weasley moved on to Ron and Harry, throwing her arms around them and exclaiming "You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?"

Now, she knew, the whole, awful story was about to unfold. She sat in silence as Harry told his tale, from hearing the voice of the Basilisk in the walls to slowly piecing together what the monster was that was attacking students and eventually guessing that the bathroom still haunted by the monster's last victim, Moaning Myrtle, was also where the entrance to the chamber would be. He explained how he and Ron had made it into the chamber, how Lockhart had attacked them, causing the collapse of part of the tunnel and leaving Harry to go on ahead alone, and how Fawkes (which she learned was the name of the phoenix who had been with Harry) had arrived with the sorting hat just in time, allowing him to pull the sword from it and kill the basilisk. He stopped, she noticed, short of mentioning anything to do with her treachery or Riddle's diary.

He looked over at her, still in her mother's arms, and she could see the worry on his face at the prospect of telling them the bits of the story that would make it clear just how guilty she truly was. He looked back at Dumbledore, half pleadingly, as if hoping he could save Ginny from punishment by ending his story there. In that moment she didn't think it was possible to have loved him more, and a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation swept through her. It felt as though just the thought that he didn't blame her gave her strength. She took a breath and prepared to begin her story.

As it turned out, she didn't need to. Before she could get the first word out, Dumbledore spoke. "What interests me most is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently hiding in the forests of Albania."

She could hardly comprehend what he had just said, or what it meant for her future.

"W-what's that? You-Know-Who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not… Ginny hasn't been… has she?" Her father sounded too stunned to make out what Dumbledore was saying. She had to admit, even having lived it she didn't understand much better.

Now Harry chimed in. "It was this diary. Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen…." He passed the diary to Dumbledore, now thoroughly tattered and with a hole burnt through it.

"Brilliant," Dumbledore murmured. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen." He turned to face her and her parents. "Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He disappeared after leaving the school…traveled far and wide… sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind, underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognizable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here." Ginny's head was spinning at Dumbledore's words.

"But, Ginny," said her mother. "What's our Ginny got to do with- with- him?"

She started crying again, the full weight of what had happened sinking down over her. "His d-diary! I've b-been writing in it, and he's been w-writing back all year-"

Her father looked horrified. "Ginny! Haven't I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain. Why didn't you show the diary to me, or your mother? A suspicious object like that, it was clearly full of Dark Magic-"

She had devolved back into full-fledged sobs again by now. "I d-didn't know. I found it inside one of the books Mum got me. I th-thought someone had just left it in there and forgotten about it-"

She was interrupted by Professor Dumbledore. "Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing right away. This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort." Relief swept through her when he said those words. It seemed too good to even be real, and so much better than she deserved. Her father was right, she should have known better. She glanced over at Harry, and saw he looked immensely relieved, too.

"You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She's just giving out Mandrake juice- I daresay the basilisk's victims will be waking up any moment."

At this point, Ron spoke for the first time since entering the office. "So Hermione's okay!"

Dumbledore looked directly at her as he answered. "There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny."

With that, her parents led her out of the room and up to the hospital wing, leaving Harry, Ron and Lockhart with Dumbledore and McGonagall. At another time, she would have put up a fight; she was, after all, intensely curious about what else would be said between them. She wanted to know where the diary had come from, what it meant that Voldemort still had the power to possess people more than a decade after he was supposed to have "died", and what it meant that Harry had just come face to face with his parents' murderer for the third time in his life. But as it was, she didn't have the heart to argue. She was weak and exhausted, and still so overwhelmingly relieved at not being expelled that she was in no mood to push her luck.

Though she had no physical injuries to mention, her parents and Madame Pomfrey were still insistent that she spend the night in the hospital wing where they could keep an eye on her. By the time she had bathed and put on fresh pajamas, she was so tired she thought she might fall over, and, for the first time in a long time, fell into a restful sleep free of nightmares.

When she finally woke up, she sensed it must be a long time later. She looked over to find her parents resting next to her. She could see out the windows in the hospital wing that it was pitch dark outside. She felt a little stiff, but surprisingly alert; her mind was racing with the events of the last day. It was even worse than she had imagined; not only was she the one responsible for the attacks, but Voldemort himself had been the one making her carry them out. She shivered at the thought, resolving to never be so stupid again, and tried to turn her mind to something else.

The first thing her thoughts touched on was, no surprise, Harry Potter. He had saved her. What's more, he didn't blame her, and had tried to protect her from the anger of her parents and Dumbledore. She'd seen the relief flood his face when he realized she wasn't about to be expelled, and didn't quite know what to make of it. It seemed too much to ask for that he be at all concerned what happened to her now. He'd already done more for her than she had any right to expect; he'd risked his own life to save hers and they had very nearly both ended up dead in the chamber. But he did seem to care that she not be blamed.

And that was when she realized something extraordinary about Harry. It wasn't just that he was good and kind and loyal, there was more than that. He was accepting. He genuinely didn't blame her for what had happened, even as she had blamed herself. He believed the best in her, and never believed, for one second, that she wouldn't have stopped it if she could have. He forgave her without question, because in his eyes she didn't need forgiving, and she suspected this was how he was towards everyone.

She'd seen him take so much responsibility on himself, though none of it was his fault in the first place, and all the while never thinking to expect the same courage and goodness from those around him. She supposed there were some who would call this arrogance, but to her it was more clear than ever before exactly the kind of person Harry would become. She knew, deep down, that he was destined to be the hero. It was who he was. She'd seen it first hand, now, and wondered idly if he knew that about himself.

Suddenly, she felt very tired again. She lay back in her bed and closed her eyes. The last thing she thought of before she fell asleep was a pair of beautiful emerald eyes.

Thanks for reading, those of you who stuck around. As I mentioned before, this one pulls much more from the book, so I think it's not terribly original, but it was still fun to write. I wasn't totally sure about pulling this much verbatim from the book, but since it technically isn't an original story, I guess it was inevitable. I wasn't quite sure how best to end this chapter, so I'd be happy to hear any thoughts/suggestions on the ending, and on the chapter in general. Next chapter will be up next Monday. Cheers!