Disclaimer: You all know the drill.

Harry gently turned the diary over in his hands, lost in thought, gazing into the fire. He unconsciously massaged the book, feeling the borders of its covers and playing with the page marking tassel. Anyone watching him would think he was in some sort of trance.

What Harry had seen really disturbed him. Hagrid? The gentlest giant he had ever known? Granted, he had never met another giant, but to suspect Hagrid of such an atrocity?

There was something about this Tom Riddle that rubbed Harry wrong, but he just couldn't place it. Heck, there was a lot about the vision that rubbed Harry wrong. He ran it again and again through his head. He just couldn't get anything, but it wrenched his gut so bad he thought he might shrivel into nothingness.

"Mr. Potter?" Harry glanced up at McGonagall's quizzical face atop he nightgown. Under any other circumstances, he might have thought the sight slightly funny. "I understand that tomorrow begins the weekend, but it is very late... in fact very early to be up."

Harry managed a weak smile. "My apologies, Professor. I was just-" Harry paused. Surely Professor McGonagall, who was far more experienced with magic, would be able to help him with his puzzlement. "Professor, would you mind helping me out with something?"

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "And what would you need helping with, Mr. Potter?"

Harry held up the diary. "This is a blank diary..." McGonagall glanced at the book before looking back at his face, waiting for him to finish. "But it is far from empty. Somehow, contained inside, are the memories of a Tom Riddle."

McGonagall's eyebrows shot high on her brow. "A book of memories, Mr. Potter? You can view these memories?"

"The book is entirely interactive, like it has a will of its own. I've written in the diary and it wrote back. One thing led to another and the memory of Tom Riddle showed me the very tail end of the last Chamber of Secrets incident fifty years ago." Harry set the book down. "The way the memory plays, it seems that the creature that attacked the students, and even killed a girl, seems to have been a pet of Hagrid's." Hatty let his shoulders drop. "But that can't be right. Every fiber of my being is shouting that it's a lie, yet the proof is right here!" He jabbed at the book.

McGonagall thought a moment. "Mr. Potter, perhaps it is necessary to see the headmaster." She gestured for him to follow her and together they left the common room by the portrait hole. McGonagall led him up to a large and quite ugly stone gargoyle and called, "lemon drop." The gargoyle leapt aside and together they ascended the moving spiral staircase.

For some odd reason, Professor Dumbledore was up and humming quietly to himself as he sucked on a lemon drop. He motioned to them to enter. "Please do come in, Minerva. What brings you to my office at this- oh!" he exclaimed as he noticed Harry. Dumbledore gave his eyes a little twinkle. "What can I do for both of you this early morning?"

"Potter has acquired a diary that is interactive. It used to belong to Tom Riddle." At the mention of Riddle, Dumbledore's face fell. "It has shown Harry a disturbing account of what happened the last time the chamber of secrets opened."

Dumbledore looked at the book that Harry was holding. "Let me see the diary, Harry."

Harry obediently obeyed, and Dumbledore performed numerous tests on it while McGonagall and Harry looked on. Occasionally, Dumbledore would mutter something like, "oh, really?" or, "fascinating".

Finally, Dumbledore looked up, his face grave indeed. "It appears that this diary is a very dark artifact."

Both McGonagall and Harry jumped at this. McGonagall was worried for the welfare of the students and Harry didn't quite know what to think. Both started talking at once, but were halted by Dumbledore's gesture for quiet.

"Let me explain better. I became suspicious when you, Minerva, explained that this was the diary of Tom Riddle. What many people do not know is that Tom Riddle later became known as Lord Voldemort."

Harry felt his blood freeze. He knew there was something off about that book.

"Harry, I need to see what you saw. I need to know what it showed you." Dumbledore pulled out his pensieve, and, after a brief explanation and instruction, Harry inserted the memory.

They watched Tom's conversation with Dippet, how Tom had paused at the bottom of the stairs to think, the short encounter with a younger Dumbledore, then the grand finale. At some points, Harry would ask for Dumbledore to pause the memory and all three would examine the details.

At the appearance of the 'monster', Harry paused it again. He looked closely at the creature. "I cna't see it clearly, but I'd bet my vault that it is a spider. A really big spider."

Dumbledore stepped closer. "I believe it is an Acromantula."

"If that is a Latin word for big effing spider, it is very accurate," Harry replied.

Dumbledore chortled at Harry's words, then stopped and smiled. "This proves that Hagrid did not open the Chamber of Secrets."

"How, Albus?" McGonagall asked.

"The Acromantula can not petrify its prey. It's like other spiders. It bites its prey, injecting them with venom, which then liquifies the innards so it can suck them all out."

Harry shuddered and glared at Dumbledore. "Thank you so much for that visual. Now I can never suck the filling out of a jelly donut ever again."

"So, Hagrid is innocent," McGonagall said, trying to keep them on topic. "What's next?"

Harry thought a moment. "Who was the girl that was killed the last time the chamber was opened?"

"Forgive the unsightly hour, Myrtle, but this is of upmost importance," Dumbledore called out."

While Dumbledore questioned Myrtle, Harry spotted something. There was a trail of spiders leaving the bathroom. In quite a hurry. He quietly pointed it out to Professor McGonagall, who nodded and observed it for a moment before gesturing Harry to look around with her.

As his head of house looked through the stalls, Harry examined the faucets. Finding a snake scratched on one of them, he signaled the adults.

Dumbledore frowned. "Kills on sight... the roosters were killed off this year... and the spiders are fleeing the castle. I noticed there seemed to be more flies this year... I believe we are dealing with a basilisk, the most dangerous of snakes." He turned to Harry. "And Harry could understand it when it was traveling through the pipes... Harry, focus. Try to tell this entrance to open."

After a few tries, Harry managed it.

Looking down the pipe, Dumbledore frowned. "Assemble the teachers. We're going to kill it."