(CoS) CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: THE CHAMBER, PART ONE
"We'll split up," said Harry a few minutes later, after George had given them the shaky report that Ginny had slipped into some sort of trance, knocked him out with a Stunning Spell, and slipped off somewhere into the castle. "Someone needs to go and check the Room of Requirement for the diary, someone needs to go and talk to Myrtle, and someone needs to go and find Ginny."
"And someone needs to go and tell McGonagall what's going on," said Fred firmly. "Enough is enough. It's Ginny we're talking about."
Ellie nodded in agreement. "I'll go and find Ginny in my dog form. Harry, Ron—you two use the cloak to go to Myrtle. Fred, George—can you use the Map to get to the Room of Requirement safely? As soon as you're done, you can go to McGonagall—hopefully with the diary in hand."
"Sure, we can do that," said Fred, "but I don't like you going after Ginny alone. She Stupefied George, El. She could—"
"I'll be fine," she interrupted. "There's no time for this. Just show me where she is on the Map—and someone find us some sunglasses."
"Ginny!" Ellie shouted a few minutes later when she changed back into her human form to confront her friend in the first floor corridor. "Are you—?"
But she stopped short when she saw that Ginny was very much still in a trance—and appeared to be cutting her own fingers with a knife.
"Snap out of it!" Ellie shrieked, reaching out to stop her. But Ginny shoved her away with surprising force, reached up to the wall, and started to write.
It was her, Ellie realized in horror as she watched her friend. It was Ginny who had written the writing on the wall the last time—Ginny who was responsible for some, if not all, of the attacks on the students. Ginny, through the puppeteering of what Ellie could only assume was Tom Riddle's diary.
How could she have been so blind?
Ellie glanced frantically around, starting to panic. They weren't far from Myrtle's bathroom; she could try to grab Harry and Ron for help. But would that only serve to endanger them? How long before Ginny tried to hurt her?
The second word Ginny wrote made Ellie's heart lurch with fear: skeletons.
She yanked open her locket and glowed Fred, whose face appeared a moment later. He hadn't yet made it to McGonagall's, she could tell.
"The diary is gone," he said as soon as he saw her. "She must have gotten it back somehow. Did you find her?"
Ellie glanced up at the message on the wall, tears pricking at her eyes. Their skeletons will lie…
"I found her," she whispered. "Fred… it's her. The writing on the wall… the blood… it's been her all along."
"Wh…" Fred stopped short. "What are you talking about?"
Her tears were falling openly now. The sentence was almost complete. It wasn't the knowledge that she would likely die tonight that scared her the most; it was the knowledge that her friend would, and if she'd only paid more attention, she could have prevented it.
She turned the locket slowly around to face the writing on the wall, which was now complete: Their skeletons will lie in the Chamber forever.
"Ellie!" she heard him shout. "Don't move! Just stay there! We're almost to McGonagall's—"
But she let the locket fall back to her chest, squared her shoulders, and followed Ginny along to Myrtle's bathroom.
All she could do now was pray that Harry and Ron weren't still there. If they were, there would be four skeletons in that Chamber instead of two.
They were there, Ellie learned a minute later. But they weren't going to be joining Ellie and Ginny down in the dungeons.
A split second after entering the bathroom, Ginny lifted her wand, pointed it at the boys, and bellowed, "Stupefy!"
Ellie had never seen a Stunning Spell affect two targets at once, but this one did. Within an instant, the boys were knocked backwards and rendered unconscious.
Good, she thought with a heavy heart as she followed Ginny over to the sinks. At least they'll survive the night.
They reached the sinks at that. Ginny parted her lips to speak, and a strange hissing sound emerged from her—Parseltongue. The sink gave way to a pit, which Ellie deduced could only be one thing: the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
She glanced down at her locket. She knew she should tell Fred about this. If she told him, he could tell McGonagall, and they might stand a chance at beating whoever the Heir of Slytherin was.
But she wasn't sure that was the smartest thing to do anymore. Thanks to her, Ginny was probably going to die tonight; how many more deaths could she be responsible for? Would it not be better to go with Ginny, do her best to get her out, die trying, and let the school close?
Taking a deep breath, Ellie looked away from her locket and followed Ginny down into the Chamber.
Ellie's head spun as she followed Ginny further and further into the Chamber. She spotted the diary in Ginny's back pocket and was overcome with the urge to grab it and rip it apart, but it was no use; she could barely keep up with Ginny as it was. When they finally came to a stop, Ellie tried her hand at coaxing Ginny out of her trance one last time. There was a reason she was the only one Ginny hadn't Stupefied, right? Could it mean a part of her was still lucid?
"Ginny," she whispered. "Please. Snap out of it. We can still figure this out together. Whatever Riddle's doing to you, I know you're still—"
But it was no use. Ginny had pulled the diary out from her pocket and was pointing her wand at it. A moment and an incantation later, the diary shot open, and a giant cascade of white light poured out from it.
Ginny stumbled to the ground, blinking out of her stupor at that. When she finally looked back at Ellie, she was herself again.
"E… Ellie?" she whispered, eyes wide with panic. "Where are we?"
"In the Chamber of Secrets, of course," said a new voice—a voice Ellie had only heard once before, in a memory. She looked up, dread filling her to the core, as Tom Riddle stared back at her, seemingly having materialized from the diary.
"Thank you, Ginny," said Tom, smiling pleasantly at the girl. His eyes trailed to Ellie, and he added, "And thank you, as well. When you first discovered me and talked about turning my diary in to McGonagall, I was sure it was all over. But then you stuck me in the Room of Requirement, and it was all too easy to find my way into Dean Thomas's hands and thus back to Ginny."
Dean? she thought with a pang of disgust. She should have known, she supposed. The diary seemed to have a way of calling out to people, and once it had them, it wasn't their fault what came next.
"Why?" demanded Ginny, a hint of ferocity in her voice. "Why me?"
Tom looked rather amused by that question. "I must admit, I had my doubts about you at first. I didn't choose you, Ginny—it was fate that put my diary your hands that day at Bourgin and Bourkes. Fate… among other things."
Ellie's mind started to spin as she recalled that day at the bookstore when Lucius Malfoy reached into Ginny's bin of books. Had he slipped her the diary? If Lucius Malfoy was in cahoots with Tom Riddle…
Ellie was starting to get a very bad feeling about who, exactly, this man was.
"But you proved me wrong," Tom continued. "You were just so lonely, even with your friend here trying to convince you not to be. Hard, isn't it, when the only friend you've got looking out for you is the very person the object of your heart's desire has fallen for?"
Ellie took a step back as she processed his words. He was talking about Harry, wasn't he? Did Ginny know about Ellie and Harry? It almost sounded like Ginny had known about Harry's feelings for Ellie before Ellie did.
It also sounded like all of this was even more her fault than she'd realized.
"They're coming for you," she growled at him, suddenly wishing she'd shared more with Fred when she had the chance. She didn't want her friends down here, but McGonagall? Dumbledore? They could take him, right?
"Thanks to an old friend of mine," said Tom easily, "Dumbledore isn't even here in the castle. I do believe someone else is coming, though—a certain Boy Who Lived? In fact, I'm counting on it."
"Counting on it?" repeated Ellie, laughing dryly at him. "On the boy who's defeated you—twice—to come and defeat you again?"
"So you're figured it out, then," said Tom with a smirk. "Smart girl. But you're wrong about one thing—no one will be defeating me tonight." And with that, he raised his head toward the depths of the Chamber and uttered something in Parseltongue.
He was summoning the basilisk.
I know Ellie was a little frustrating in this chapter by not telling Fred about the location of the Chamber, but it does show how much she loves him and wants to keep him safe. Besides, she's pretty traumatized by knowing she could have prevented all this... anyway, drop your thoughts and stay tuned for Part Two!
