They standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.
"It's this way," Luna said, leading the way.
"You know what, I'm with Ron, I have a real bad feeling," Dean whispered.
"Me too, but we can't leave her down here," Dudley said. He was suddenly regretting following Luna Lovegood. Even if Slytherin's monster was dead, this place gave him the creeps. Bad things had happened here—he could tell.
"Ok—anything we see that isn't Luna we blast, got it?" Ron said, firmly. "We don't take any chances. Blast anything we see, grab Luna and drag her out of here."
"Conjunctivitus," Dean said. "If the snake is alive—if we hit it in the eyes, then maybe …"
Dudley nodded. With Hermione's help, they had managed to pull off the conjunctivitis curse, but his own usage was patchy. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. He looked back at Lockhart.
"What do you think, Professor?"
Lockhart looked like he was going to be sick. "Yes … yes … conjunctivitis sounds good," he said softly. His wand waved from side to side as if he was expecting something to leap out of any corner.
"Wish we'd waited for Dumbledore," Ron muttered. "He's going to be no use."
They followed Luna.
Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. Dudley kept his eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following him. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, he thought he saw one stir.
Then, as he drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.
"Blimey!" Ron whispered.
Dudley had to crane his neck up to look at it. It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor.
"Luna!" Dean cried.
Dudley snapped his head up just in time to see Luna Lovegood collapse on the floor five feet away. Her body convulsed and quickly, Dudley and Dean rushed over to her. Ron snapped his wand around for any signs of attack. Lockhart hand was shaking, the light from the end wavering around.
Dudley crouched next to Luna. He felt her neck for a pulse, even though he wasn't exactly sure what he was meant to feel for.
"Is she …" Dean began.
"Look out!" somebody cried, wildly—it was Lockhart.
Dudley jumped and looked up. Dean had leapt back and fell to the floor.
A figure had appeared beneath the giant feet of the statue. It was a tall, handsome, black haired boy.
"Who …" Dudley began.
"Conjunctivitus!" Ron yelled. The spell hit the boy causing him to shimmer slightly before it passed right through him.
"It's a ghost?" Dean questioned.
"More than a ghost," the boy said, stepping forward. "Much more."
Dudley kept his wand aimed at the boy.
"I am a memory," the boy said. "Preserved for 50 years in a diary."
He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary Dudley had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, Dudley wondered how it had got there. He thought he had destroyed it by tossing it onto a fire.
Dudley looked back up at the boy. "I dunno what you mean."
"Dud," Ron said, "Be careful … it's Riddle."
Dudley leapt to his feet and staggered back, his wand aimed at the boy. "Riddle … Tom Riddle?"
The boy laughed, it was a harsh sound with no amusement in it. "Correct," he said. "Little Luna has been talking to me for months … writing in my diary all her thoughts and feelings. How the other students in the school laugh at her. How they call her names. How she only has one friend."
"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. Luna simply loved me."
"Yeah, but how …"
"And of course, she mentioned you—how much she wanted to be accepted by your little circle of friends. And how you, Dudley Dursley, managed to stop a certain Professor Quirrell from stealing the Philosopher's Stone last year."
Dudley glanced quickly at Ron. This was too confusing for him. But Ron too looked baffled.
"I was very interested in hearing about the Philosopher's Stone … and even more interested to hear that Quirrell was working for Lord Voldemort. How I longed to meet the boy who stopped Lord Voldemort's return to power."
"You are Lord Voldemort," Dudley said. "Dumbledore told me last year."
Riddle looked impressed. "Yes. Lord Voldemort is my past, my present and my future."
"So of course I was interested in how you, a mere muggleborn, managed to stop Lord Voldemort from rising once again—managed to stop one of his loyal servants from stealing the Philosopher's Stone. So, I questioned her more. If I say it myself, Dudley, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Luna 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 Lovegood. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Lovegood a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."
"Wait, you mean …" Dean looked at Riddle, then at the motionless Luna.
"Worked it out have you?" Riddle said. "Yes, it was Miss. Lovegood who opened the Chamber of Secrets. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on blood traitors and mudbloods."
"It wasn't her, it was you!" Ron snarled. "You forced her."
"I did," Riddle said, sounding proud. "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 Dudley's horrified face, `I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and 1 don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, l 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, Ginny is worried about me and tells me I'm not myself... 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!"
"You got Luna to attack my sister?" Ron said through gritted teeth.
"Ginny suspected. One day she confronted Luna … of course she had to go. By chance, she caught a mere reflection of Slytherin's monster in the metal of one of those suits of armour around the castle. And of course, it was simple enough to use Luna to trick you all to come down here."
"Bastard!" Ron cried.
"Incarcerous! Conjunctivitus! Locomotor mortis! Tittilando!" Ron fired off a burst of hexes and spells at the form of Riddle. "Petrificus totalus! Flippendo!"
Though they passed through him, they managed to drive him back and he looked furious.
"Enough! You wish to fight, then fight the Serpent of Slytherin!" Riddle shouted. "You should never have crossed Lord Voldemort, Dudley Dursley. If he wouldn't kill you, then the mere memory of him will."
He let out a loud hiss that made the hairs on the back of Dudley's neck stand on end.
Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, Dudley saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole.
And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.
"Run!" Dean shouted.
