Author's Note: SORRY! I did not mean to take so long to write this chapter, but writer's block + life + Graduation etc. = unintentional hiatus.

At any rate, here's the chapter, full of disaster and fear and characters reflecting on stuff. Enjoy and review, thank you!

~ Secrets Burn ~

Su struggled to find her bearings. She wasn't in the Ravenclaw dormitory, but in one of the school bathrooms. She was still wearing her pyjamas, though they were soaked with water, and Tom Riddle's diary was tucked into a bag swinging from her shoulder.

The screaming didn't stop.

"He's dead!" she heard someone shouting from outside the bathroom.

She stumbled outside, into a growing crowd of students, all staring wide-eyed and horrified at the scene in front of them.

On the wall were the words she had dreaded all year –

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened.
Enemies of the Heir, beware.

Below the message written in blood was the corpse of Argus Filch, frozen in the act of flinching away in horror from whatever nightmare creature had killed him. His skin was pale and cold and tinged with blue, his eyes glassy and dull.

There was no mistaking it for paralysis. Argus Filch was dead.

Su felt sick, even as some other students – who clearly didn't understand what was going on – started laughing at the look on Filch's face. At his feet, Mrs Norris was wailing, trying to nudge her master into life and not understanding why he wasn't moving.

She ran back into the bathroom, throwing open the door of a stall and throwing up in one of the toilets.

It wasn't fair! She'd worked hard so that something like this wouldn't happen! It was all her fault! She pulled the diary out of the back and prepared to throw it into the toilet before realising – oh, wait – that Ginny Weasley had already tried that.

And it hadn't worked.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware?" She could hear Draco Malfoy drawling in the distance. "You'll be next mudbloods! He's already got the squib!"

"What makes you think the Heir is a he, Malfoy?" Hermione Granger retorted.

Someone was crying in one of the other stalls – sobbing about Peeves and someone named Olive Hornby – but Su ignored them, whoever it was, and ran to the sinks, splashing her face with water and washing away the vomit around her mouth.

Someone had died and it was all her fault. She'd interfered with the story – changed it – and someone had died as a result. She couldn't go back and change it; she couldn't take back her friendship with Harry and let him start all over again.

Death was permanent.

Was this the price of Sirius Black's freedom?

Su frowned and wiped the tears from her eyes. She had to get out of here.

She waded out into the crowd again, and could see Percy Weasley and the professors trying to regain a sense of order. She ignored them in favour of trying to push through the sea of bodies and get back to Ravenclaw tower. Preferably to go and throw the diary in the common room fireplace.

Someone stood on her foot and she shrieked, stumbling and falling into someone's open arms. She looked up into the concerned face of Cedric Diggory.

"Are you all right?" He asked. Su shook her head and buried her face in his chest, bursting into tears while a very awkward Cedric looked around for someone to help him. He didn't know how to deal with crying girls.

"Hey, shush, it's okay," he murmured, stroking her hair. "It's okay."

"No it's not!" She gasped. "He's dead!"

"It's not your fault," Cedric told her. Su just sobbed harder.

Cedric gently led her out of the crowd so that she wouldn't get trampled, and then just held her close. He didn't really know what to do about crying girls, but hugs seemed to work, and so he just waited out the tears.

It took a few minutes, but Su's sobs began to calm down, and Cedric pulled away from her, watching as the crowd thinned, shooed away by the teachers and prefects.

Percy Weasley appeared at his shoulder soon afterwards.

"Hello, Cedric," Percy nodded at the Hufflepuff. "Su? Are you all right?"

"Percy," Cedric nodded back. "Is this one of your Gryffindors?"

"Ravenclaw," Percy corrected. "Why don't you go back to your common room, Cedric? I'll take Miss Li back to Ravenclaw tower. I know the way."

"All right," Cedric disentangled himself from Su and began to walk away.

"Thank you, for staying with her," Percy added.

"No problem."

Su sniffed, checking for her wand in her pyjama pocket and the diary in its bag. She moved to wipe her face with her sleeve, but Percy, typically, batted her hand away and handed her a handkerchief from out of thin air – probably conjured, she supposed.

"Are you all right?" Percy asked.

"No."

"What are we going to do with you, Miss Li?" Percy shook his head. "Boggarts, kidnappings, rogue Death Eaters… you, Harry, and Neville must be the most troublesome people I know."

"It's the nargles," Su murmured, smiling despite herself. "They always make trouble."

"Nargles," Percy sniffed. "What a preposterous idea."

He looked down his nose at her, but when he took her hand his skin was warm, and he squeezed her fingers with gentle reassurance.

"Let's get you back to Ravenclaw Tower, shall we?"

He knew plenty of shortcuts, perhaps as many as the twins, and they were up at the tower in no time. It was only when Percy answered a riddle at the door that Su realised he must visit all the time for Penelope Clearwater.

Percy's girlfriend greeted them at the entrance, tutting over Su's wet clothes but thankfully not asking what happened to her. Percy received a kiss on the cheek for his chivalrous services, and his ears reddened.

Everyone was chattering about the mysterious Chamber of Secrets, books scattered all over the floor and the whole House was flipping through pages trying to remember everything they had ever heard about the Chamber of Secrets, about Slytherin, about what the monster might be that killed Filch and whether they should fear it or thank it.

Su slinked past all of them, shell-shocked and bone-tired.

In her dormitory she wrapped the diary in a scarf and then tucked it into the deepest corner of her trunk and locking the whole thing up and pushing it under the bed.

She needed to think. She needed to sleep. She needed to talk to Ana.

"You!" Ana pointed an accusing finger at Su as soon as she opened her eyes in the Death Chamber. "Of all the stupid, infuriating, moronic things to do–"

"I know."

"You've gotten someone killed!"

"I know."

"We don't even know what the monster is! We don't know where the Chamber is. We don't know who stole your memories! There are holes all over your head where things used to be but now there's only empty space and it's all your fault."

"I KNOW!"

They were standing nose to nose, glaring hard at each other.

"We should owl the diary to the Department of Mysteries," Su decided. "They'd do something about it. If it's not in the school it can't get to the Chamber."

"Don't be stupid," Ana scoffed. "If you send it to the Department of Mysteries, someone will write in it. Then Voldemort will learns secrets that he should never know, access to experimental magic and any politically powerful person he runs into."

"Then we give it to Dumbledore. He knows Voldemort's identity."

"I thought you didn't trust Dumbledore."

"I don't like him," Su corrected. "That doesn't mean I don't trust him. He's one of the most powerful wizards of the age, and he's one of the good guys."

"Good guys make mistakes," Ana looks pointedly at Su.

"Well what else can we do with it? I was going to throw it in the common room fire, but somebody thought it would be a bad idea." She glared at Ana.

"Throw it in the fire then, if you think you're so clever," Ana snapped.

"I don't hear you making any suggestions," Su retorted.

"He was in your head," Ana hissed.

"I noticed. Where were you that whole time?"

"I was there. You couldn't see me. He couldn't see me either."

"How does that work?"

"We're a mystery, remember?"

"Shut up."

Su glared at Ana, frustrated with the whole situation. There was a mysterious dead girl in her head, she was trapped in a fictional universe and had just inadvertently caused someone's death, her friends were in grave danger and she really, really just missed her Mum.

I just want to go home, she thought to herself, turning away from Ana and wrapping her arms around herself. I just want to wake up and for it all to have just been a dream.

She could hear Ana sighing and shuffling behind her, but when she turned around, the other girl was gone. Vanished.

"Back to the mysterious-ghost-in-my-dreams routine I suppose," Su murmured, wondering why Ana even bothered to speak with her in the first place if she was just going to disappear again whenever she felt like it.

She thought about the diary in her trunk, about the options available to her and decided that perhaps destroying the diary was her best option. She'd throw it into the common room fire as soon as she could, probably during the wee hours of the morning when most of Ravenclaw was either sleeping or in a zombie-like study-state.

No one else was going to die. She'd make sure of it.

Harry didn't know what to think.

Sure he'd hated Filch – everyone had – but it didn't meant that he wanted the man dead. Death was so… so… permanent. His parents were dead. He'd never, ever see them again. He wondered if Filch had a family. Probably. It's not as though he'd just popped up out of the ground somewhere, growling at the world with Mrs Norris in his arms.

Probably.

The Chamber of Secrets. That was a very sinister-sounding name. He imagined that Su probably knew all about it – or if she didn't she'd research it, like Hermione was doing. He'd heard from Percy that the whole of Ravenclaw was throwing themselves into study, not just on school subjects – though of course those remained priority – but also on the history of the Chamber, all the rumours, and legends, and whispers ever told.

Typical.

And Neville was sleeping in, which Harry found simultaneously hilarious and depressing. How could Neville just sleep through someone's death?

Although… he and Neville had stayed up all night, making plans for Christmas, only a few weeks away. Brothers, they'd said, and Harry liked the sound of that.

Friends are the family you choose for yourself, Su had told him once.

He'd woken up early – force of habit left over from years of conditioning with the Dursleys – and headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast, happy and excited for the holidays to come. An actual Christmas with an actual family, even if it was one that he had cobbled together himself… well, he supposed that he, Neville, and Su had all gravitated towards each other, a ragtag bunch of orphans searching for a home.

There'd been a commotion on the second floor – lots of screaming – and he'd just wandered down, buoyed by happy thoughts… until he saw Filch.

Paralysed with fear, eyes wide… it was almost comical, the expression on the caretaker's face… until Harry realised the man was dead. There was something terribly sad about the way Mrs Norris was nudging at Filch's feet, trying to wake her master up, and even though Harry despised the wretched animal, he also pitied her, a little bit.

He knew what it was like to be alone.

Malfoy started shouting obnoxious things about 'mudbloods' and 'squibs', and Harry lost his appetite, stumbling backwards through the crowd trying to just get away. He felt panicked and trapped – and, for a moment, Filch's glassy eyes became Quirrell's, and Harry had to grasp at a wall to keep from fainting or throwing up or something equally embarrassing.

"Harry, are you alright?" Percy appeared in front of him, eyebrows creased in concern. "Are you going to be sick?"

Harry shook his head.

"'M fine."

"If you say so," Percy frowned, and gestured for another queasy Gryffindor to join them. "Fay, why don't you and Harry go back up to the Common Room? I'm sure McGonagall will be up soon to explain what's going on."

"Weasley, what's going on?" Fay asked, looking at Percy and Harry, before turning and eyeing the body of Argus Filch by the wall with the bloody message above it.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

"I don't know," Percy admitted. "We're sending all the students back to the common rooms for now, and Dumbledore sent Lockhart into the Forbidden Forest to get him out from underfoot. The professors are investigating, though. You shouldn't worry."

"All right," Fay nodded, nervously, she took Harry's hand. Her palm was sweaty and cold. "Let's go, Potter." She tugged him forward and Harry nodded, reminded of the year before, when Su had held his hand as they ran away from the three-headed dog – Fluffy – from the third-floor corridor.

"What do you think happened?" Fay asked, as they made their way back up to Gryffindor Tower. "Some kind of monster, maybe?"

"If it is a monster, it's probably a snake of some kind."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because it's Slytherin."

Fay nodded. "Slytherin could talk to snakes. It makes sense."

"Is that normal? Talking to snakes, I mean?"

"No, it's not," Fay glanced over her shoulder again, as if afraid that Slytherin's heir were listening in, preparing to strike them down, even if they were only twelve years old. "People who can talk to snakes – parselmouths – they're usually Dark Wizards; like Herpo the Foul for example. You-Know-Who was a parselmouth; a lot of people thought that he was Slytherin's heir, back in the day."

"Does that mean that we could be at school with Volde- I mean, You-Know-Who's heir? Did he have children?"

"I don't know," Fay whispered, as they approached the Fat Lady's Portrait. "I hope not." They gave the Fat Lady the password and clambered into the common room, but Fay paused before she went back to her dorm. "Potter, if we are at school with You-Know-Who's heir, then you'll be a target. You know that, right?"

Harry winced and rubbed his forehead, feeling the raised skin of his scar under his fingers.

"Yeah, I figured that."

Fay nodded. "Be careful, Potter. You mean a lot, to the wizarding world. I know that you probably don't remember what happened to you, and I know that it's horrible that you lost your parents and everything… just… be safe, okay? Be safe."

Harry didn't know what to say to that, but he was saved the trouble of thinking something up because Fay turned on her heel and dashed up to the second-year-girl's dorm.

He thought about Quirrell and Quidditch and Fluffy the Three-Headed-Dog. He thought about a rat in his bedroom that was really a Death Eater, and about whoever or whatever or both that had killed Filch. He thought about the Dursleys and was reminded:

Staying safe is easier said than done.

So he'd climbed up the stairs to his own dorm and watched Neville sleeping through all the chaos of that morning and he wondered if Su knew about Filch and what she'd think about the Chamber of Secrets, and about Darth Volder having an heir in the school, and if there was a monster what kind of monster would it be?

He dropped onto his bed and waited for McGonagall to come up to the tower and explain what was going on, because his second year at Hogwarts was shaping up to be much more exciting than he had anticipated, and they were only halfway through it.

"It's my fault." Su confessed.

She, Harry, and Neville were in the kitchens, eating lunch away from prying eyes and other nervous students while the house elves fussed over everyone.

"What are you talking about?" Harry frowned.

"Filch. It's my fault. Or the diary's." Su pulled out Riddle's diary. She was hesitant to show her friends, but without Ana to talk to, she needed advice.

"Whose diary is that?" Neville asked.

"Darth Volder's," Su said, wincing at Harry and Neville's alarmed gasps. "From when he was in school. Look," she pulled out a spare piece of parchment and wrote down the words Tom Marvolo Riddle and I am Lord Voldemort, using arrows to show the rearranged letters.

"Su, what are you doing with Voldemort's diary?" Harry asked, his voice eerily calm.

"I took it off Ginny Weasley," both boys jumped again, but Su held up a hand for silence. "She was acting weirdly about it – not like herself – and I saw the diary writing back to her and thought it was… suspicious."

"So you took her diary?" Harry gaped.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Su muttered, hanging her head in shame.

"So… what does it do?" Neville asked, holding up the diary and flicking through the pages – all empty, of course.

"It compels you to write in it, and it writes back, like a conversation," Su explained. "Then – I don't know – it gets hold of you somehow, and makes you do things. When I went to bed last night it was under my pillow and when I woke up I was on the second floor in the bathrooms right next to where Filch's body was."

"We should destroy it," Harry decided. "This is dangerous, Su. What were you thinking?"

"I don't know, okay?" Su snapped. "I'm not perfect Harry! You can't expect me to be smart about everything!"

"Hey, calm down!" Neville put a hand on Su's shoulder. "We're just frightened, Su."

"Me too!"

"I'm sorry, Su," Harry retorted, "I just expected you to be smarter than this!" He gestured to the diary. "Someone's dead!"

"I know that! I know that, and I can't change it!" She sobbed, gasping and clutching her robes around her shoulders. "I thought I could just lock it up and it wouldn't hurt anyone – and I thought wrong, I don't need you to tell me that. I just need your advice now. What should we do with it?"

"Destroy it," Harry repeated, firm.

"How, Harry?" Neville asked. "If it belongs to You-Know-Who, he's probably protected it from getting ripped up or something. What if we give it to Dumbledore?"

"No," Harry scowled. "I don't trust him."

"He's not a bad guy," Su pointed out.

"So? Lockhart's not a bad guy and we're not exactly best chums," Harry pointed out.

Neville snorted. "Yeah, but Lockhart couldn't find China if we dropped him in the middle of it. Dumbledore's the most brilliant wizard alive."

"Here, give it to me," Harry stood up and took the diary from Neville's hands. "Who builds the kitchen fires, Su?"

"No one, Harry," Su frowned. "It's Old Magic – the founders set up the fires so no students or visitors would ever be cold or hungry or afraid. It never goes out – it says so, in Hogwarts: a History."

"So old, magic fire made so that no one would ever be afraid of anything – sound like a good place to get rid of an evil diary?" Before either Neville or Su could reply, Harry tossed the diary into the middle of the fire, which roared up and swallowed it whole.

"Problem solved."

He stalked out of the kitchen, robes billowing in an icy exit almost reminiscent of Snape. Su and Neville watched him go, still a little in shock.

"He's angry with me, isn't he?" Su sighed.

"Su, Filch is dead," Neville pointed out.

"I know."

"You put a lot of people in danger by not turning the diary in or destroying it straight away."

"I know," she whispered to her knees. She didn't want to hear any more about how she was a failure. She already knew. She just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry until she couldn't cry anymore.

"Su, he's not just angry about that," Neville knelt in front of her and grabbed her face, forcing her to look at him. "You were possessed by the man who murdered his parents. We're the only family he's ever known and he could have lost you. You scared him. You scared me, too. Please Su, don't do something like this again. We worry about you."

"Neville, I–"

"Not now, Su," he stood up and left, running out the door to catch up with Harry.

Su watched him leave, and when she heard the door snap shut, burst into tears.

Neville caught up to Harry and the two of them walked in silence for a few minutes. Neither of them consciously chose a direction, but when they came out of their daze they were standing on the second floor in front of the message written in blood.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened.
Enemies of the Heir, beware.

"So… she did this then?" Harry asked quietly.

"It wasn't really her, Harry."

"So He did it then," Harry remembered a twisted, ugly face on the back of another man's head, remembered the fear that came with being trapped by a monster, with no way out and with no way to save himself or – more importantly – his best friend.

"Harry…" Neville trailed off, unable to think of anything to say.

"What else might she have done if she hadn't told us?" Harry asked. "What if He made her kill you, or me, or herself? What if he tried to go after Dumbledore?"

"Harry you can't ask questions like that – it's in the past, you destroyed it. We don't have to worry about it anymore."

"I'm worried about her!" Harry shouted. "She's in and out of the hospital wing all the time; worries herself sick over her secrets; Neville, you know that she's keeping something from us! What is she hiding? Why is she lying?"

"I don't know," Neville shook his head. "But Harry, she's our friend."

"I know that," Harry snapped. "I just… Neville, what could be so horrible that she'd keep it from us? We're her best friends – doesn't she trust us?"

Neville shrugged. "I don't know, Harry. I don't know."

"Is Miss okay?" one of the elves asked, as Su sobbed into her hands. "Does Miss need ice cream for cheering up?"

"No thank you, Iggy," Su murmured, wiping her eyes. "I'll be okay."

The elf looked unsure, but nevertheless left Su alone by the fireplace. She watched the flames flickering, wondering if it was really over. It just seemed so easy – no climactic battle with whatever monster Slytherin's heir controlled, no desperate cry for Fawkes the Phoenix… just fire and the ashes of Voldemort's teenaged self.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, staring into the flames of the kitchen fire, but she was startled out of her reverie by a bar of Honeydukes best chocolate thrust in front of her face.

"Hullo, Su Ren," Luna beamed at her. "Chocoloate?"

"Sure," she took the offered sweet and carefully unwrapped it, while Luna hummed an off-key tune and ate her own chocolate.

"Is something the matter?" Luna asked, her eyes wide and luminous. "Have the nargles been bothering you?"

"Have you heard about what happened with Filch?" Su asked.

"Of course," Luna nodded. "It's all anyone talks about. I suspect the nargles are behind it – or, possibly, a medusa. Maybe a basilisk."

"What if it wasn't any of those things?" Su asked, examining her hands as though she might see the blood on them. "What if it was a person?"

Luna straightened up and looked at Su, her gaze more direct and less dreamy than Su had ever seen. The clearness of her friend's eyes was so intense that it was hard for Su to look directly at them.

"What if it was you, you mean?"

Su didn't say anything.

"Was it you?"

"Sort of?"

"You don't sound very sure, Su Ren," Luna admonished, breaking off a piece of chocolate and handing it to Su, who ate it without thinking. She was filled, quite suddenly, with a warmth that had nothing to do with the fireplace.

"I was… possessed, I think," Su admitted.

"Then it wasn't you," Luna shrugged, nonchalant.

"But it was my fault!"

"'We are responsible only for the actions in which we have a conscious choice'," Luna quoted sagely. "It's why people under the influence of the Imperius Curse aren't convicted for the crimes they committed while under the influence."

"Still… I should have done something sooner," Su sighed, looking into the flames, still queasily uneasy.

Luna sighed.

"You have a dreadful habit of taking the weight of the world upon yourself. Harry Potter does it too – he worries about you, you know."

"I know," Su whispered. "He worries about me, and I lie to him. I'm a horrible friend."

"That's not true at all," Luna ate another piece of chocolate. "You're just a horrible truth-teller. It's probably wrackspurts."

"Pardon?"

"Wrackspurts. They make your brain go fuzzy," without preamble Luna pulled a pair of bizarre spectacles from her robe and arranged them on her face, squinting at Su. "Yes, you're infested with wrackspurts. It's possibly a side effect of possession… or a memory charm. Did you know that memory charms have negative effects on cognitive processes? I don't even know what that means – it's something my father likes to say."

"It makes a lot of sense," Su murmured. "Memory charms cause damage to the brain… ergo your thinking goes fuzzy."

"You should just apologise, anyway," Luna shrugged.

"Pardon?" Su blinked at Luna's sudden tangent.

"Apologise. For lying," Luna clarified. "And then tell the truth. 'Honesty is the best policy', my father says. Honesty is very important for a journalist, but not so much for a storyteller. That's why the Daily Prophet sells more than the Quibbler. People like stories more than they like the truth, because the truth is often harsh and unpleasant."

"That's what your father says," Su nodded. "Makes sense. Thanks for your advice, Luna." She stood up and gave her friend a quick hug. "I'm glad to know you, Luna Lovegood."

"I'm glad to know you, too," Luna beamed at her, mouth smeared with chocolate.

"I'll go apologise to Harry right now," Su decided. "Neville, too. They deserve to know what's going on – at least as far as I can tell them… I just hope they won't be angry."

"They're your friends," Luna shrugged. "I'm sure it won't last."

"You're just full of wise words, aren't you?" Su shook her head. "See you later, Luna!"

Luna smiled hazily as she watched Su run out of the kitchens. She was glad to help her friends – she'd never had many, and after her mother had died, those she did have had treated her strangely and become distant.

Humming, she peered into the fire as she ate her chocolate, wondering what Su had been staring at so intently. There, in the middle of the inferno, was a small rectangular shadow. How unusual.

"Excuse me?" She tugged on the pillowcase of the nearest elf, which turned to face her with wide tennis-ball eyes. "What is that?" She pointed at the shadow in the midst of the flames.

"Dobby doesn't know miss," the elf admitted. "Dobby will see." With a snap of his fingers, the shadow floated out of the fireplace and onto the floor beside Luna.

Dobby's eyes widened.

"Oh!" Luna gasped, snatching up the book. "Ginny's diary! She has been looking everywhere for this! I should return it to her!"

"No!" The elf gasped, but Luna wasn't listening – she'd already left the kitchens, intent on finding her classmate to return her property.

"Oh noes," Dobby whispered, wringing his hands in despair. "Bad Dobby. Bad Dobby!"

A/N: So... I don't know how happy I am with this chapter. I've tried writing it and re-writing it a couple of times, but it just didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. Still, if covers all the points I'd hoped to make, so I'm posting it anyway.

Let me know what you think! Also: next chapter is Christmas (I promise this time!) so I'll hopefully have that up sooner rather than later.