A/n: And the drama of the second book continues! I remember reading the second book, and I still think that it's the most dramatic of all the books, as well as the most mysterious.
In the weeks following, Hermione found herself being visited many times by her five friends. The group was on their way to one such visit when they heard Filch down the corridor.
The man had spent most his time hanging around the corridor Mrs Norris was found on lately, seeming to think that the perpetrator was going to come back and let him see it.
Filch was currently complaining about the state of the floor, saying that a student must be flooding the bathrooms purposefully. Knowing full well that nobody ever used the bathroom on that floor due to it being haunted by Myrtle, the five decided to investigate.
Inside the girl's bathroom, Moaning Myrtle was curled up and sobbing loudly next to one of the high up windows.
"Uhh..." Harry started, no idea what to say.
Myrtle noticed their presence then, swooping in with a screeching cry and passing right through them. She landed in one of the toilets, causing the water to splash up and over the edge. 'Well, I see how the room's flooding.' Ash thought, watching Myrtle come back out and stay this time, floating in their line of vision.
"Uhh..." Harry tried again, "Why are you crying?"
"I was just sitting in the u-bend, minding my own business." Myrtle sniffed dramatically, "When someone came in here and threw a book at my head!" She wailed again, flying back over to the window. Clearly, she had taken this event very personally.
"People think that just because I'm a ghost, and I can't feel things... it's okay to throw them at me!" Myrtle continued. Harry made his way into one of the stalls while she talked, locating the book in question.
"What a fun game, throwing things at Myrtle!" Ash was beginning to really see why no one ever came in here, if this was what they had to put up with. "Ten points if you get her arms, fifty if it goes through her head!"
With those cheery words, Myrtle swept off again, flying back into the toilet and crying.
Harry came out of another stall a few seconds later, diary in hand. He looked at it, realising that the diary had only one thing on it: a name.
"Tom Riddle..." Ron said, peering over Harry's shoulder. "That's the guy that won that award. Special services to the school." He shuddered, trapped in the memory of cleaning it.
When Hermione got out of the hospital wing, she checked the diary over for any signs of spells on it. Although she found nothing, it was still suspicious that someone would throw a book down the toilet like that, even more so when the book didn't get wet from the experience. Harry decided to keep it in his possession because of this, carrying it round with him in his bag.
Professor Sprout announced that the mandrakes would be ready soon, and she was certain that they would be able to revive the victims. This, accompanied by the fact that nobody had been petrified for a few weeks, helped to calm the students considerably.
Professor Lockhart decided, stupidly, that the perfect idea for morale boosting was to celebrate valentines day. He brought a multitude of dwarfs into the school, all dressed as cupids and tasked with singing valentines to people.
Of course, this idea was a recipe for disaster. Draco and his gang used it as a good way to continue his attempts into tormenting Ash, through the use of a cupid-goblin.
"To Ash." The creature droned as Ash was making his way to potions. Ash tried to out run the goblin, but it was persistent. It spoke out the whole poem, a dreadful thing created by Draco which insinuated several times that Ash and Pikachu spent their spare time doing rather unsavoury things. Luckily it only managed to confuse Ash, who didn't understand any of the references, an it was only a few immature students who heard the poem and found a few seconds of amusement.
Harry also had a valentine, being cornered by a particularly ugly goblin who refused to let him leave until his poem was read out to the gathering crowd. It was quite terrible, causing many of the others to laugh at him.
During his escape from the valentine, Harry managed to spill the contents of his bag everywhere. Draco made a show of the old diary, gaining a couple of laughs and a particularly horrified look from Ginny, who rushed off as the Slytherin started to taunt her for her poetry skills (or lack thereof).
That night, Harry decided to try actually doing something with the diary, rather than just carrying it around. He had noticed before that it hadn't been stained by the ink that tipped over it, not even having so much as a drop left behind on the blank pages.
Harry picked up a quill and started to write. "I am Harry Potter," He spoke as he wrote, watching with slight shock as the words seeped through the page. He checked frantically through the book, finding no evidence that the words had ever been written.
"Could've picked something better to write." Ash shocked Harry by popping up behind him, Pikachu jumping onto the diary pages. "Like: 'I am Harry: ruler of all.' That's how villains like to introduce themselves."
Ash nodded at that, being the leading expert on the various phrases a villain would use. He jumped back slightly when he noticed that the book was now writing a reply.
"Hello Harry," Harry read slowly, "My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?"
Harry immediately dipped the quill back into the ink to write out "I found it in the bathroom." The diary wrote out its reply and Harry remembered that it was supposed to be fifty years old. 'Perhaps...'
"Do you know anything about the chamber of secrets?" Harry wrote. Ash nodded in approval at the better question, sitting beside Harry to find out the answer.
"Yes..." The book did know something, causing Harry great excitement and suspense as he wrote out the next words.
"Can you tell me?" Harry frowned in disappointment as the book answered with the negative, then he noticed that something else was being written out. The book promised to show them, and then the three at the table found themselves being pulled into the book as a bright light poured out of it.
Harry, Ash and Pikachu found themselves stood in the halls of Hogwarts, fifty years in the past. Everything had a slightly black and white quality, and the people in the scene, Ash realised, felt like ghosts. In fact the whole experience felt much like standing inside a ghost, so Ash had to concentrate on not using his aura. Ghosts were, after all, very uncomfortable things to sense with aura.
Inside the room with them were a two people having a discussion. Neither had noticed the trio's presence, so Harry and Ash guessed that nobody actually knew that they were there.
"-stay at Hogwarts over the summer, instead of going back to that muggle orphanage?" The student- presumably Tom Riddle- asked the older man. The beginning if his speech had been missed, but they still managed to get the gist of it.
"I may have considered, but... with all the attacks recently? Especially the death of that poor girl... no. I'm sorry Riddle, but you can't."
Tom looked quite upset at the news. "If I caught the culprit? Stopped the monster? Could I stay then, Professor Dippet?" He asked.
Dippet didn't respond, choosing instead to shoo Tom out of the room. Harry and Ash followed the one who's memory they were stuck in, wondering what was about to happen.
They were both quite surprised to run into a younger version of Dumbledore as they roamed the hallway. It was strange to see Dumbledore with actual colour in his hair: a bright auburn visible even in the washed-out colours of the memory. Pikachu walked over to Dumbledore and placed a paw right into him, jumping back as he realised that he could go through the headmaster.
"What are you doing out of bed? Talking to the headmaster again?" At Riddle's nod, the two onlookers realised that Dippet was the headmaster, not Dumbledore. "Well you need to get to bed now. Run along."
After Dumbledore's dismissal, Tom didn't head to bed. Instead, he went directly into the dungeons and just waited.
Harry and Ash shared a look, still not knowing what was coming next. They soon discovered it though, as a spider started rushing towards them, followed closely by... Hagrid.
They both watched on, intrigued, as Hagrid attempted to get the spider out of the dungeons. He seemed stressed, telling the creature that it had to escape now, otherwise it'd be killed.
Neither spider nor Hagrid noticed the boy stood in the way, otherwise he may have turned and ran. Tom marched over to the two, telling Hagrid to give up and turn himself in.
Tom got out his wand, preparing to put a spell on the arachnid. He didn't get the chance to though, as Hagrid tackled him bodily out of the way to protect his spider.
As soon as Tom fell to the ground the memory started fading, quickly throwing the boys and pokemon out and back into the common room.
Harry, Ash and Pikachu sat in silence for a moment as they mentally went over what had just happened. The quiet lasted for a while, only the flickering of the fire and the slightly laboured breaths of the two boys audible in the room.
Eventually, Harry broke that silence. "It was Hagrid." he said, confirming Ash's thoughts. Neither wanted to believe it, but the evidence was compelling. "Hagrid opened the chamber of secrets fifty years ago."