The chamber is dimly lit. At the back of the chamber is a huge statue of Salazar Slytherin. There is a path to the statue, lined with columns in the shape of snakes. At the base of the statue is a small-looking, black robed figure with flaming red hair.

"Ginny," gasps Vin, then he starts running towards her body. Potter immediately follows and with a sinking feeling I start jogging towards them. Vin is kneeling down on the ground, awkwardly hugging her limp body. "Please Ginny, wake up. Please, please, be alright." Vin starts crying. Potter looks really pale. If feel stupid. We definitely should have gone to professor Snape.

I start tugging on Vin's shoulder. "We should go," I say, feeling more and more in panic every second. "We need to go. We need help. We need Severus."

Vin still holds Ginny. "I am not leaving her here."

Potter then kneels next to Vin, gently grabbing hold of Ginny's face. "Ginny, please wake up."

"She won't wake," said a soft voice.

I quickly turn around. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though I was looking at him through a misted window.

"Tom—Tom Riddle?" Potter then asked sounding shocked. Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Potter's face. "What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately. "She's not—she's not—?"

"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."

"Are you a ghost?" Harry said uncertainly.

"A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."

Riddle points at the black diary I had seen Ginny write in so many times before. I feel confused. How does Potter know this Tom? How did Ginny get his diary? Why was her diary familiar, like I had seen it somewhere before I saw it in Ginny's hands at Hogwarts?

"You've got to go with us, Tom," Potter said, raising Ginny's head again. "We've got to get her out of here. And you as well. There's a basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment... Please, go with us. Help us save Ginny—"

Riddle didn't move. Potter desperately wants to hoist Ginny out of Vin's arms, who seemed in shock and not very keen to let her out of his arms any time soon, neither did he seem very keen on moving. Sweating, Potter turns around looking for his wand. But his wand had gone. "Did you see—?"

Riddle was still watching Potter—twirling Potter's wand between his long fingers. "Thanks," said Potter, stretching out his hand for it. Riddle seemed strangely fascinated by Potter.

A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. He continued to stare at Potter, twirling the wand idly. I feel like I can only watch what is going on, like I can't move, like somehow I have been petrified, but I am not.

"Listen," said Potter urgently. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes—"

"It won't come until it is called," said Riddle calmly.

"What d'you mean?" he said. "Look, give me my wand, I might need it—"

Riddle's smile broadened. "You won't be needing it," he said.

Potter stared at him. "What d'you mean, I won't be—?"

"I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter," said Riddle. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."

"Look," said Potter, losing patience, "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later—"

"We're going to talk now," said Riddle, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed Potter's wand.

I got a stronger and stronger feeling that Tom Riddle was not going to help us.

"How did Ginny get like this?" Potter asked slowly.

"Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."

"What are you talking about?" said Potter

"The diary," said Riddle. "My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes—how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how"—Riddle's eyes glinted—"how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..." All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Potter's face. There was an almost hungry look in them. "It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket..." Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh.

I felt sick. I felt disgusted by Riddle.

"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."

"What d'you mean?" said Potter whose mouth had gone very dry.

"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat."

"No," Potter whispered. I felt horrible. She tried to tell me, I was sure. And then she'd tell she was just anxious about doing well at Hogwarts, or worried about all those attacks or that she was just having some trouble with her brothers. How many times did Vin not come to me, worried about Ginny.

"Yes," said Riddle calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... far more interesting, they became... Dear Tom," he recited, watching Harry's horrified face, "I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me... There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!"

I want to hit him. I feel angry. Still, somehow, I feel captivated in a horrifying way, not feeling like I was able to move or talk, only listening. Vin, however seems to have found his voice. "You basterd," he looks so revulsed, "Ginny's wonderfull and your.. How can you just laugh." He seems ready to lunge at Riddle. Riddle looks utterly bored by Vin. I understand it then, he wants Potter. It makes sense. Strange things always happen to Potter.

Riddle flicks Potter's wand at Vin, who freezes up.

"It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," said Riddle. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you came in, Potter. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet..."

"And why did you want to meet me?" said Potter.

"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," said Riddle. "Your whole fascinating history." His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Potter's forehead, and their expression grew hungrier. "I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust—"

"Hagrid's my friend," said Potter, his voice now shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but —"

Riddle laughed his high laugh again.

"It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student... on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls... but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance... as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power!

"Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed... Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did..."

"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," said Potter, his teeth gritted.

"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," said Riddle carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."

"Well, you haven't finished it," said Potter triumphantly. "No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again—"

"Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been—you."

Maybe I should just flee with Vin. I have the chance now. Riddle is so fascinated by Potter, but I stay put.

"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat asked one of her Slytherin friends to help sneak into your dormitory and steal it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery—particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue...

"So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her... She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last... I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter."

"Like what?" Potter spat, fists still clenched.

"Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "how is it that you—a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent—managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?" There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.

"Why do you care how I escaped?" said Harry slowly. "Voldemort was after your time..."

"Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..." He pulled Potter's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

"You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry — I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

I felt shocked. Voldemort was a mudblood?

"You're not," Potter said, his quiet voice full of hatred.

"Not what?" snapped Riddle.

"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," said Potter, breathing fast. "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—"

The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.

"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!" Potter retorted.

Potter most definitely has a death wish. He must have. I could not believe it. Telling Voldemort professor Dumbledore was the greatest sorcerer of our time. I could definitely see why he was in Gryffindor. I felt my fingers getting a tighter grip on my wand, bringing myself ready for something, fight or flee, I did not know.