Wow, I only put this prologue up last night and I already have reviews!  I love you guys!  I'm trying to do at least a chapter or two every other day…hope everyone will still like it.

Disclaimer:  Same as before.  I don't really own it, unless you don't recognize it from the books.

Chapter One

''A green serpent, long and monstrous, lay coiled up in the dungeon.  What was left of the huge eyes had turned brown and green with decay, and dried blood was caked around the eye sockets.  One curling fang grotesquely sprung from one side of the snake's mouth, and the other lay discarded over by the wall, surrounded by what looked like a mixture of dark ink and blood.  The dead basilisk was rotting, and a horrible smell permeated the whole dungeon. 

However, it was not alone.  In the corner, away from the serpent, stood a chair.  It was a chair that had long ago been used by Salazar Slytherin himself, and had a high, hard back.  The elegance of the green, silver, and gold chair contrasted greatly with the cement walls of the dungeon, but the engraved snakes that stood as legs for the chair made it fit right in.  Next to the chair was a folding chair, one that even ordinary Muggles used.  Voices rang out and echoed in the dungeon; one was wobbly and stuttering, the other hissing and threatening. 

Voldemort was in the dungeon, this time not as his teenaged self, but in his real body.  Having been recovering for nearly three years, his powers were restored almost back to what they were originally.  His slanting eyes looked even more deadly, his body looked stronger and tougher, and his voice was still as menacing as it had ever been.  He no longer needed a host to live; he was independent in that manner.  However, he still thrived on power and wanted, needed revenge on the person who had taken it away from him all those years ago.

"Wormtail," Voldemort hissed, "Have you the news I ordered you to get?"

Peter Pettigrew shivered at being addressed directly from his Master.  "M-m-m-my Lord, I have not yet received the news f-f-from Ma—'

The long, slanted eyes of his master glowed red, as the man didn't let him finish the sentence.  "Silence, then," he whispered menacingly, "I asked for this news many weeks ago.  I need this information, Wormtail, before the batty headmaster learns of what is to come."  Wormtail bent his neck down in rejection; he knew what was to come if his master wasn't happy.  He did not have long to wait, though, and he screamed in pain as he fell to the floor with the yelled word "Crucio!" from his master. 

Voldemort looked down with disgust at Wormtail writhing on the floor and laughed.  Time was getting to be crucial in what he had planned; time was one thing that he did not have on his side.  For once Dumbledore knew of the outcome, he would find the counteract, and it was not hard to find at all.  No, time was definitely not on Voldemort's side.'

Ginny Weasley rolled over in bed, unconsciously trying to fight the visions that she was having.  She restlessly tossed and turned, but it did not help stop the terrifying dream.

 'Ginny herself was in the dream now.  Looking down to see that she was in her nightdress still, it was obvious that she didn't belong there in the dream.  She stood inside a large room that held a crib and a rocking chair, and many pictures were up on the faded yellow walls.  It was a charming little nursery, obviously tended to by loving parents.  Stuffed animals had been charmed to move slightly, and the crib was now full of animals trying to chase each other.  Ginny smiled, tickling a particularly floppy bunny that was trying to hop over the edge of the crib unsuccessfully.

A loud crash from down the stairs made Ginny jump, and she heard a woman scream.  Ginny ran out of the nursery to see what was happening.  She saw a woman with dark red hair scurrying away from the door as a man yelled for her to go, that he would stop whoever it was that was obviously intruding.  A louder bang sounded as the front door fell to the floor, and Ginny saw a figure dressed in black robes towering over the man. 

Another scream sounded, and then everything went gray.'

Ginny sprung up in bed, panting.  She leaned back against her headboard and shut her eyes, trying to drown out the visions still dancing around in her head.  A tear rolled down her cheek from underneath her closed eyelid, and she held back a sob.  This wasn't the first time that she'd had that last dream, she'd had it many times, in fact.  Every time it ended in the same place: with the terrified scream of the young woman holding what Ginny assumed to be the baby that belonged in the crib.   What made it worse was that the woman had long, dark red hair, and Ginny had this feeling that she was glimpsing the past - the sad past of James and Lily Potter.  But she had no way of knowing; Ginny could not see either face of the two people in her dream.

The first dream, however, had been a new one.   Ginny had had dreams off and on about the Chamber of Secrets since her very first year of school; lately, though, the dreams had evolved from seeing Tom Riddle and the freshly dead basilisk to seeing Voldemort and the decaying basilisk.  Sniffling, Ginny sat up.  There was no way that she could go back to sleep now.  She looked at the clock next to her bed.   'Go back to sleep,' the top of it said, and the time read 3:28am.

Ginny sighed, and walked over to her window.  She looked up at the stars, and sighed again.  'Here's to another sleepless night,' she thought to herself.

*

*

The same time that night, a white owl stirred in her cage as her owner moved restlessly in bed.  The now alert owl watched as the young man kicked his covers off while still asleep; it was obvious that he was having a nightmare.

The light green glow from the lightening shaped scar on his forehead was also a good indication of what the nightmare was about.  Suddenly, the young man awoke and sat up, gasping for breath.  A searing pain ran through his head and he winced, rubbing the scar in hopes to somewhat ease the pain.  Swear rolled down his neck and onto the white undershirt he was wearing as he tried to calm down from the awful visions that had appeared in his dreams.  Shaking his head as if it would help clear his mind, he mentally told himself to get a grip.

Once his breathing had returned to normal, he reached for his new glasses on his small bedside table.  After putting them on, his eyes traveled to his owl's cage.  Seeing that she was now awake, he got out of bed and opened her cage door.  She stepped out onto his outstretched hand and affectionately ruffled her feathers for her owner.

"I s'pose you heard me rustling, huh, Hedwig.  Sorry about that, you've had a long day," 16 year old Harry Potter said.  Indeed, Hedwig had had a long day, traveling to the Burrow in Ottery St. Catchpole and back to Surrey. 

The owl climbed to his shoulder and started nipping at his ear lightly before she took flight to the windowsill.  Harry opened the window for her, and she flew out of sight into the light of the early dawn.  Sighing, Harry stood there and looked out the window, thinking.

It had been a long time since he'd had awful nightmares, but they had started back up at the beginning of the summer holidays.  They weren't just any nightmares though; horrifying visions of the past were coming back to Harry rapidly, and he worried more and more about them each time he'd had one.  He'd even written to tell Ron about them, to see what he thought of them.  He sighed, and shook his head again.  He still couldn't get the visions out of his mind:  he had seen, or rather, heard the voice of the one wizard he had hoped to never see again – Voldemort.  Harry had heard him saying how his power was now restored, and as if that wasn't bad enough, he'd heard wailing of someone in the background.  Voldemort had laughed, and then Harry's nightmare faded into darkness.           

Harry must have been looking out the window for much longer than he realized when he noticed that the sun was already creeping up into the sky.  The sun's rays were still pink, orange, and purple, and Harry watched the sun rise over Surrey before the yell of Aunt Petunia told him that it was time to appear downstairs and make breakfast. 


Before he went down the stairs, Harry looked at his calendar.  Only one more week until he got to go to the Burrow; hopefully it would only be one more week of these bloody nightmares that kept on coming back to him.  Maybe Ron would have an idea of what the nightmares meant, or maybe he could ask another friend, Hermione Granger.  Either way, the idea of spending the rest of the summer at the Burrow cheered him up a bit, and he actually went to greet the Dursley's with a smile upon his face.

*

*

"Breakfast!" came the call of Molly Weasley, and soon after, many footsteps were heard running towards the kitchen.  Ginny was startled by the call; she had been staring out at the sunrise and must have finally dozed off on the windowsill.  She stood to go to breakfast when a quick glimpse in the mirror told her that her face had darker circles than ever, due to yet another nightmare.  She sighed, grabbed her wand, and said the spell for makeup – she hadn't shown anyone her 'true' face all summer, and now wouldn't be the time to start hearing from her mother about how worried she was about her.  Ginny quickly checked that the charm was perfectly in place before she headed down to breakfast, still in her nightclothes.  It was time for another lazy summer day, if anyone could truly be lazy at the Burrow.  De-gnoming the garden was on the calendar for today, Ginny knew, as well as weeding. 

Putting a smile on her face, Ginny saw what was on the calendar for next week:  Harry's visit, and Harry's birthday.  She still had a soft spot for Harry Potter, regardless if she admitted it or not, and she was looking forward to seeing him again.  She had gotten over her 'crush' long ago, back in her fourth year, but still couldn't help but smile at the thought of the nice, charming guy that she knew as her brother's best friend, and, as of the past year at Hogwarts, her own friend. 

As she nibbled at her breakfast, Ginny thought of the past year at Hogwarts.  Many things had happened, though none really dealing with Voldemort and Death Eaters, thank Merlin.  There had been the occasional missing Muggle, which was awful, but nothing near what had happened in her first or third years.  It had been one of the best years at school yet; Gryffindor had won the Quidditch Cup as well as the House Cup, and Ron had finally gotten up the nerve to ask Hermione out on a date.  Things had led on from there for Ginny's older brother, and he and Hermione were coming up on their one year anniversary soon.  It had been this relationship that had actually brought Ginny and Harry closer together; Harry had been sick of being somewhat of a 'third wheel' with his two best friends, and Ginny had seemed like the natural person for him to make friends with.

Ginny pushed her pancake around her plate at the thought of why Harry had made her the natural pick to be friends; she honestly didn't have many of her own.  There was her best friend, Dakota Ross, who was in her own year, of course, but other than that, Ginny's closest friends were Ron, Hermione and Harry.  She'd had a few boyfriends in her years at Hogwarts, but Colin Creevey just hadn't lasted – it had scared her when he'd known more about Harry than she did, and she was the one who was his friend.  So in the end, Colin was just a friend, and Ginny was by herself.  Not that she minded, really, but it did get to be quite lonesome when she only had four or five close friends.  It had made her year, last year, when she and Harry had gotten closer.

A soft 'zing' made Ginny's head shoot up, and she saw Fred and George fake dueling with their wands over the last biscuit.  While they were arguing about who had won, Ginny snatched the biscuit and walked upstairs to change.  She had work in the garden to do.