Chapter 18

Exams were drawing near. Hagrid was arrested. Dumbledore was gone! The four of us were really mad. Hagrid is one of the nicest people at Hogwarts. We already knew that Tom Riddle had framed him. With Dumbledore gone things were going to get worse. "We need to tell everyone what we know." Harry said. "We need to get Hagrid out of askaban. We need to clear his name."

"How are we going to explain how we know all the things we know." I asked Harry. "They already think you're the heir of Slytherin and we can't tell them about the Secret Library."

"Why the bloody hell not?" Asked Ron.

"We just can't!" I insisted. I didn't know why I was so against it. I just had a feeling it would be very bad if people found out about it.

"She's right Ron." Harry agreed. "I don't think it's a good idea to tell people about it. It could come in handy if there is an emergency."

"Dumbledore won't think Harry was the heir of Slytherin." Neville said.

"Yeah but Dumbledore's gone Neville." Ron said, none to gently.

"Well, McGonagall told us that the mandrake potion was almost done. Everyone will know then anyway. Surely someone saw the basilisk before they were petrified and if not, Hermione can pretend she did." Harry said.

I stopped participating in the conversation after that. I knew that we were going to have to go into the Chamber soon. I had already gotten the diadem and put it in the library. I intended to steal some basilisk fangs and destroy it later.

Ginny was acting strange. I still can't believe no one was picking it up. You would think one of the four brothers that go to Hogwarts would have realized something was wrong. Hermione would have. Boys are so stupid. To my great frustration, I still couldn't point it out to them. I tried and I tried but the curse was preventing me. It then occurred to me that I now had a way to look up time travel and curses. I don't know how I didn't think of doing that ages ago when I found the library. I found myself waiting for a spare moment when I could go to the Secret Library and stay there undisturbed for a while.

...

I never did end up getting a chance to go to the Secret LIbrary. We were walking down the corridor after class when we heard Professor McGonagall's amplified voice. She was telling the teachers to go to one of the corridors and the students to go to there common rooms. We didn't even have to look at each other to know where we were going to go.

The teachers were all gathered when we got there. We peeked around the corner and saw McGonagall talking gravely to the teachers. On the wall beside her were the words: Her skeleton will lie in the chamber for ever. "Our worst fear has been realized. A student has been taken by the monster, into the chamber." McGonagall was saying. "We must send all the students home. It is not safe."

"Who has been taken?" asked Madame Hooch.

"Ginny Weasley." McGonagall said. I saw Harry clamp his hand over Ron's mouth.

"We have to tell them what we know." Neville insisted.

"We can't." Harry insisted.

"We have to try." I agreed. I then walked round the corner. "Excuse me!" I called at the professors. They looked quite surprised to see me. Harry, Ron and Neville came round the corner afterwards.

"You should all be in your common room!" McGonagall yelled at us.

"But we know where-" Harry began.

"Go now!" McGonagall interrupted.

"If you would just listen for a second, we-" I started.

"Detention!" Snape hissed. "Now leave!"

"But-" Neville began.

"Go!" McGonagall shouted. We had no choice. We turned and ran away. But we weren't going to the common room. We were going to the girls bathroom. We had to save Ginny.

...

We quickly reached the bathroom. "Open it. Say something in parseltongue." Ron said to Harry. Harry stared at the sink for a long moment before opening his mouth. A strange hissing sound came out of it. I tried to memorize what he said for future use. The bathroom sink started to drop into the floor. It was much like the passage openings to the Ravenclaw Library. I didn't hesitate. I just jumped down the hole.

It was slimy. Very slimy. Soon I reached the bottom. There were rat bones everywhere. It was disgusting. "It's safe." I called up. They soon came down after me.

"Don't ever do that again!" Harry snapped angrily. "You could have gone splat!" I ignored him and kept walking. I knew it was safe but I couldn't tell him that. Because Lockhart wasn't here, he didn't try and steal Ron's wand and cause a rock fall because the wand back fired. Ron's wand wasn't broken anyway because they never crashed the car into the whomping willow tree.

We soon reached the second door. Harry opened that one too and we walked into the chamber. There were lots of snake statues along the sides of the walk way. Then there was the big statue of a head. I saw Tom Riddle. He was standing beside the statue. He was looking at us. On the floor in the middle of the chamber was Ginny. "Ginny!" Both Harry and Ron called as they ran towards her. I however kept my wand pointed at Riddle.

"Hello." He said to us. "You must be Harry Potter." He gestured to Harry. Then he looked at Ron. "And you must be Ron Weasley. And you are Neville Longbottom." He said. Neville was currently frozen in fear beside me. Finally he looked at me. "Now which mudblood are you? Hermione Granger or Joanne Rogers? Wait I know. Hermione was petrified so you must be Joanne. I don't know how you managed to escape my snake but I will soon rectify that wrong." I don't know why I did it but I couldn't help commenting on the decorations.

"You know," I said. "Salazar Slytherin was really obsessed with snakes. Snakes here Snakes there. Seriously, he should have hired an interior decorator or something because this place needs some variety." Riddle looked at me like I was nuts. I gestured to the statue. "And look at this. He sure did have a big head."

"You are about to be very sorry you-" Voldemort began. But I wasn't finished. This was too much fun.

"And you." I said. "What kind of 'all powerful dark lord' keeps a diary? A pretty sissy one I say."

"It's a journal!" He insisted defensively.

"Diary! Also I don't get why you love pure bloods so much. You're. A. Half-blood." I said slowly, like I was talking to a toddler. "Or did that escape your attention?"

"You filthy-" He began.

"Little mudblood, blah, blah, blah. It's always the same." I said to him. "So unoriginal. Honestly, Slytherins!"

He was pretty mad now. He decided to ignore me. He turned to Harry. "I've waited long for this, Harry Potter." He said. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."

"Not now, Voldemort." Harry said. He wasn't taking his eyes off Ginny.

"We're going to talk now!" Yelled Riddle. I think he was getting a bit tired of people brushing him off. "I've been waiting for months. I had to listen to little Ginny wining about everything. Her pitiful worries. How her brothers tease her. How she had to come to school with second hand books. How Fred is ignoring her so that he can stare at Joanne all the time. How she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her." Riddle was sneering at Harry now. "Ginny poured out her soul to me. That was just what I needed. Her soul. After that, it wasn't hard to make her do what I wanted. She opened the chamber for me. She set the monster on the mudbloods and the cat."

"So when you said you wanted to talk to Harry, you really meant you wanted to rant like the evil villains from cartoons. 'Look at me. I'm so evil; I keep a diary and listen to people's problems.' Well that's great. Are you done yet?" I asked impatiently. I just loved how easy it was to make him angry. I could see he was desperately trying to ignore me. His left eye was twitching. It was hilarious. I would probably be afraid if he was holding a wand. He just continued talking to Harry. I could see my comment had got to him though because he cut to the chase.

"What I want to know is how did you, a baby with no extraordinary talent, defeat me. How did you escape with nothing but a scar when I was destroyed? I am the greatest sorcerer that ever lived." He said angrily.

"You're not." Harry said quietly.

"Not what?" Riddle snapped.

"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," said Harry. "Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days-"

"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" he hissed.

"He's not as gone as you might think!" Harry retorted. He was speaking at random, wanting to scare Riddle, wishing rather than believing it to be true.

Riddle opened his mouth, but froze. I heard music. Flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar. A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle.

A second later, the bird was flying straight at Harry. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying at his feet, then landed heavily on his shoulder. As it folded its great wings, Harry looked up and saw it had a long, sharp golden beak and a beady black eye. The bird stopped singing. It sat still and warm next to Harry's cheek, gazing steadily at Riddle.

"That's a phoenix." said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it.

"Really?" I said sarcastically. "I thought it was a dolphin."

"Fawkes?" Harry breathed, and he felt the bird's golden claws squeeze his shoulder gently.

"And that -" said Riddle, now eyeing the ragged thing that Fawkes had dropped, "that's the old school Sorting Hat-"

"Great deductive reasoning." I said as I clapped slowly. "You should be a detective. You could be the next Sherlock Holmes."

Riddle scowled at me. Then he began to laugh.

"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?"

Harry didn't answer.

"I don't think he was ever very afraid." I told Riddle. "Your just a memory. What are you going to do, talk us to death? Actually that might be possible, what with your horribly annoying voice. We might all kill ourselves so we won't have to listen to you talk any more." That was it. I had finally pushed him too far. Riddle turned to the statue of Salazar's head and started rapidly hissing at it. The mouth of the statue slowly began to open.

...