What had Cassandra been thinking the day that she got her hands on the diary? That she just had to do some research into it. She would uncover its secrets. Find out who and what had been behind the attacks at Hogwarts. It had been something for her to fix, a project, a mystery to take her mind off her grief and the memories of what she'd one. She had wanted to prove that she could be one of the good guys.

But Tom Riddle had made sure to put an end to her delusions. He'd exposed her for the liar she was, made her face the fact that killing those werewolves had felt good. Whatever conscience she had did not care about a pack of bloodthirsty beasts. The world had punished her for all her family's bad choices, their every mistake. She had liked doling out punishment herself. And she certainly wasn't sorry.

If her intention had been to stop Tom Riddle, it was because she understood why he did the things he did. Even the way he'd manipulated her had been beautiful in its own way. He'd forced her to give voice to the unmentionable. She hadn't wanted to talk to anyone about that Yule night. Hadn't wanted to look back. Maybe because she'd been afraid that if she opened that door again she might see something terrible about herself she would no longer be able to ignore. But that was exactly what she needed to be now — something terrible.

Riddle had abducted, hurt and taken Cedric to the Chamber of Secrets. Cedric, who'd offered her the gift of being loved. Who'd readily given her a million chances, as if she'd deserved any of them. Whom she felt for as she'd never had for anyone else. The mere idea of his death, finite and irreversible, was enough to undo her.

She made herself sit up and slide out of bed. Professor McGonagall had forcibly taken her to the hospital wing after she'd had a fit in her office, and the peppermint aftertaste of the Calming Draught Madam Pomfrey had administered to her lingered on the back of her tongue. She called out for the matron, but no one answered.

She took a step and tumbled. Her movements were slow and clumsy, as if she were trying to wade underwater. That would not do. Taking advantage of Madam Pomfrey's absence, she broke into the medicine cabinet with a simple Alohomora, grabbed the most useful potion she could see, disillusioned herself and left without being noticed.

As soon as she was out of the hospital wing, she reached out for Klaus, sending him an impression of what she wanted him to do. Her familiar answered promptly. He brought her a sprig of Belladonna from the Forest on his beak, which she mashed and added to the vial of stolen Elixir to Induce Euphoria. The potion turned from sunshine-yellow to bright violet, a surefire sign it would produce the results she wanted. It was a little potioneer trick her grandfather had taught her: Adding the highly poisonous Belladonna to euphoria elixir turned it into a powerful stimulant, while doing away with the excessive happiness. It made you sharper, more focused and awake. Too much of it would also cause your organs to shut down. She tilted her head back and downed the liquid.

This time, she didn't greet the fat lady who guarded the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room politely. Instead, she cancelled her Disillusionment Charm and pounded on the wall as hard as she could, until a Gryffindor Prefect — Percy Weasley, one of Ginny's brothers — came to see what had the portrait screeching bloody murder.

"You can't be here," said Percy, who was pale and abated but still tried to sound stern.

"Go get the twins," said Cassandra. The potion had taken effect and her blood could be dragonfire, for how it was searing its way through her. "Before I do something I regret."

Percy's eyes narrowed. "Haven't you done enough?"

Cassandra had him under a Confundo before he could even raise his wand. She took a breath and gave him the most doleful look she was capable of. "Don't you think I should tell your brothers this? It could be important."

Percy took a step backward. He touched his hand to his chest as if he'd had a staggering realization. "Of course," he said earnestly. "Of course, you should. I'll go get them."

Fred and George came out staring at her wide-eyed.

"What did you do to him?"

"It's nothing."

"It's noth— What's wrong with you? He's our brother," Fred said fiercely.

"And I'm trying to save your sister's life," Cassandra responded in the same tone. "How about you help me with that?"

That immediately deflated him. She nodded towards an empty classroom and Fred and George followed her inside. George closed the door quietly and then turned to look at her.

"D'you think there's really a chance that she's still — that he hasn't —"

"Of course she's alive, George. Cedric wouldn't let Riddle kill your sister."

She had entirely blocked out the possibility of Cedric being anything other than alive and mostly well from her mind.

"You're right. Diggory's — Diggory's a decent bloke, right? He'd protect her."

"He would. He will, for as long as he can. But we have to find them."

"We've tried everything, Cassandra," said Fred despairingly, his hands messing his hair so wildly he looked as if he'd been hit with a Shock Spell. "She's not even on the map."

"What map?"

The twins looked at each other.

"What map?"

Fred pulled something from his back pocket and laid it on one of the desks. It was a large, square, very worn piece of parchment with nothing written on it.

"We found it during First Year, in one of Filch's filing cabinets. It's how we've been able to pull off most of our pranks."

He took out his wand, touched the parchment lightly and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

And at once, thin ink lines began to spread like a spider's web from the point that his wand had touched. They joined each other, they criss-crossed, they fanned into every corner of the parchment. It was a map showing every detail of the Hogwarts castle and grounds. But the truly remarkable thing was the tiny ink dots moving around it, each labelled with a name in minuscule writing.

Cassandra bent over it. "How reliable is it?"

"A hundred percent, as far as we can tell. We've been using it for four years now," said George. "No errors."

Cassandra stood there, gazing at the impressive magical object. A labelled dot in the top left corner showed that Professor Dumbledore was pacing his study, with Professor McGonagall and all the other Heads of Houses present. She traced the corridors with her index finger, reading the familiar and unfamiliar names moving around the map.

"They're not here."

"No, they're not," said Fred, his voice barely above a whisper.

"This doesn't mean anything. The Chamber of Secrets is protected by powerful enchantments. It's probably unplottable."

And as Cassandra's eyes travelled up and down the map, she noticed something else.

"The student Riddle killed, back in 1943, what was her name?"

"I don't remember," said George.

"Me neither," said Fred. "Why?"

"There was something about her name that nagged at me before, but I was too wrapped up with the diary to follow up on it," said Cassandra. She bounced the facts she'd uncovered during her research into the Chamber of Secrets around in her head. "Myrtle Warren! Her name was Myrtle Warren. Fred, George, what if Myrtle never left the castle? What if she's still here?"

The twins looked down at the minuscule dot she was pointing at. And then they understood, too.

"You don't think —"

" — not Moaning Myrtle?"

They ran downstairs. The castle was eerily deserted, all students gathered in their respective Common Rooms since word of Cedric's and Ginny's abduction had broken.

When they entered the bathroom, Moaning Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet.

"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw Cassandra. "What do you want this time?"

"To ask you how you died," said Cassandra.

Myrtle's whole demeanor changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.

"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said with relish. "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then —" Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. "I died."

The boy, the different language, it all made sense. It had to have been Riddle, speaking in Parseltongue. The password. The entrance might be here.

"How did you die?" said Cassandra urgently.

"No idea," said Myrtle in hushed tones. "I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away..." She looked dreamily at the ceiling. "And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she'd ever laughed at my glasses."

It was as though somebody had just flicked a light on in Cassandra's brain.

"Of course," she breathed. "That's it. That's the answer. The monster in the Chamber is a basilisk. A bloody giant deadly serpent. That's how he's able to control it. It's well-known that Parselmouths are able to influence the will of serpents."

"You're saying I was killed by a basilisk?" said Myrtle, her eyes like saucers. "How ghastly!"

"But basilisks kill people by looking at them. No one's died," said Fred. The missing yet at the end of the sentence hung between them for a few seconds.

"Not this time," said Cassandra. "And yes, looking a basilisk directly in the eye causes instant death, but an indirect look will render the victim Petrified."

"How do you know that?" said George.

"It's on the Physiologus." At their blank expressions, she elaborated. "The 2nd century Greek compendium of magical creatures."

"Yeah, because that's on everyone's reading list," said Fred.

"The Hufflepuff boy, wasn't he Petrified together with Nearly Headless Nick?" she said, ignoring his comment. "He must've seen the basilisk through Nick. Nick got the full blast of it, but it's not like you can kill a ghost. And the Gryffindor boy…"

"Colin Creevey," said George. "Colin must've seen it through his camera. He's always walking around taking pictures."

"Mirrors, puddles of water, a glass window, any reflective surface would've done the job."

Cassandra racked her brain for more information. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. "The roosters… Weren't all the school's roosters found strangled earlier this year? The crowing of roosters is fatal to basilisks. Of course, he wouldn't want one anywhere near the castle once the Chamber was opened... It all fits."

"But how's the basilisk been getting around the place?" said Fred. "A giant snake... Someone would've seen it."

"The pipes," said a small, confident voice behind them.

They turned around. Harry Potter was standing there, flanked by Ron Weasley and the Muggleborn girl the two boys were always stuck at the hip with.

"Ron, what're you doing here?" said George, sounding every bit the older brother he was.

"Looking for Ginny, same as you! Hermione figured it all out."

"Well, it took some research, but once I realized the voice Harry had been hearing was the monster —"

"Where did you hear it?" said Cassandra, addressing Potter.

"Inside the walls," he said. "I'm a Parselmouth, so no one else could hear it…"

"I should've made the connection sooner," said a frowning Hermione. "Once I did, I looked into magical serpentine creatures capable of petrification, which led me to basilisks. And then I realized, of course, that the basilisk has to be traveling through the plumbing. So I looked into all the deaths that have occurred at Hogwarts in the last one hundred years, which total thirty-six by the way, really an astoundingly high number for a school, and of those only three occurred in bathrooms, the last one being —"

"Mine!" said Moaning Myrtle.

"So we came to see if we could find the entrance to the Chamber here," said Ron Weasley.

"Myrtle, where exactly did you see the eyes before you died?" said Cassandra.

"Somewhere there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.

They all hurried over to it. It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Potter saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.

"That tap's never worked," said Myrtle brightly as they tried to turn it.

"Exploding Charm?" said Fred.

"No," said Ron. "Harry, say something. Something in Parseltongue."

Harry Potter's look of confusion quickly turned to determination. He stared hard at the tiny engraving. "Open up," he said.

"That was English," said Ron.

"Try imagining the snake's alive," suggested Hermione .

The boy who lived looked back at the sink. He spoke again, except that words were not what he uttered; a hissing that had grown familiar to Cassandra had escaped him, and at once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.

Half of them gasped.

"I'm going down there," said Harry.

"Me too," said Ron.

"Absolutely not," said Fred, George and Cassandra.

"Mom would kill us, Ron. Actually kill us dead," said Fred. "No. Cassandra, George and I are going, you're going to get Dumbledore and McGonagall."

"But —"

"I don't have time for this," said Cassandra, angrily. "My boyfriend is down there right now, possibly injured. The more people come down, the more chaotic it will be, and higher the chances are of someone getting killed. The three of you can either agree nicely to stay behind or I'll immobilize you and spell you all unconscious until this is over."

Ron's face contorted with indignation. "You can't —"

"She's right, Ron," said Hermione quickly. "We need to do whatever gives Ginny the best odds of coming out unharmed." She turned to Cassandra. "You can do this, right? I read in the Prophet that you fought off a pack of werewolves."

"Yes."

She could do this. She would.

"Fine, then," said Ron.

"I'm still going, right?" said Harry.

His friends protested, but Cassandra agreed. "There's another passageway that can only be opened by a Parselmouth."

"How do you know that?" Hermione asked.

"I saw it in a memory," Cassandra said honestly. "Come on, Potter. George, Fred, after us. The two of you —" she pointed at Ron and Hermione "— go warn the Headmaster. Tell him it was Tom Riddle."

"Who's Tom Riddle?" said Hermione, but by then, Cassandra had already plunged into the darkness.

After what felt like an endless fall, she landed on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel, soon followed by Harry, Fred and George.

"We must be miles under the school," said Harry, his voice echoing in the black tunnel.

All four of them turned to stare into the darkness ahead. Only Cassandra already knew what it hid — she recognized the tunnel as being the same one she'd walked through in Riddle's memory of opening the Chamber.

"We should hurry," she said, cast a Wand-Lighting Charm, and off they went.

"D'you think the basilisk knows we're down here?" asked Fred.

"Maybe," Cassandra said quietly as they walked cautiously forward, "so any sign of movement, close your eyes right away."

"If we make it out of this alive, Charlie's gonna be so jealous. Basilisks totally beat dragons."

They made their way around a dark bend in the tunnel and then, in quick succession, three things happened: they heard a loud crunch as Cassandra stepped on what turned out to be a small animal skull; George let out a startled shout as he saw the outline of something huge and curved lying right across the tunnel; and Fred, wanting to protect them from the basilisk, lifted his wand high over his head and yelled "Bombarda!".

The tunnel exploded with the force of a small bomb. Lightning-quick, Cassandra cast a strong Depulso around herself, banishing the great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor away from her. Next moment, she was standing gazing at a solid wall of broken rock alongside Harry Potter, who instead of using magic to protect himself had simply flung his arms over his head and ran.

"Fred! George!" Potter shouted. "Are you okay?"

"We're here!" came a muffled voice from behind the rockfall. "We're okay — mother of Merlin, Fred, why'd you do that for?"

"I thought it was the basilisk!"

"What now?" George's voice said, sounding desperate. "We can't get through — it'll take ages..."

Harry and Cassandra regarded the tunnel ceiling. Huge cracks had appeared in it. The whole structure had been compromised — it might cave in if they tried to displace the rocks.

"We're wasting time," said Cassandra in a low voice. "We have to go on, just the two of us."

Potter looked up at her with his forest-green, guileless eyes. They had never so much as exchanged a word before this, and knew nothing of one another beyond wild rumors and public speculation. It was an odd thing, to ask a perfect stranger to deliberately walk into a life and death situation by your side. He nodded, like he knew that was the only thing to do.

"Wait there," Cassandra called to the twins. "Harry and I will go on. If we're not back in an hour… Tell Cedric's family — Tell them I did everything I could."

There was a very pregnant pause.

"We'll try and shift some of this rock," said one of the twins. Whichever it was, seemed to be trying to keep his voice steady. "So you can — can get back through. And, Harry —"

"See you in a bit," said Harry, trying to inject some confidence into his shaking voice.

And they set off together in the tunnel and past the solid wall on which two entwined serpents were carved, where Harry hissed a password just as Riddle had done, into the Chamber of Secrets.

Cassandra saw Ginny Weasley first, a mop of flaming-red hair facedown and limp between the feet of Salazar Slytherin's statue, and then her eyes made out Cedric's figure, spread-eagled on the ground beside the girl.

"Cedric!" she breathed out his name as if she'd caught a Bludger to the stomach, sprinting to him and dropping to her knees. He was alive. Unconscious and seemingly Petrified, but that hardly mattered because he was alive. "Cedric — Rennervate! — wake up — WAKE UP — Reparifors! —"

Such was her state that she didn't notice Harry making similar pleas to Ginny Weasley to her right, or hear Tom Riddle approaching.

"Bellatrix, you brought me a gift."

Cassandra jumped and spun around, taking up a defensive position in front of Cedric.

Tom was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching them. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though she were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.

"She won't wake, you know," he said softly, looking at Harry who was still cradling Ginny's unconscious body.

"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."

Cassandra was standing very still, watching them. There was something about the way Tom was looking at Harry — he would not take his eyes off Potter's face — that seemed almost hungry, his eyes found Potter's lightning bolt-shaped scar and narrowed almost imperceptibly, and a hundred different puzzle pieces fell into place and she knew.

"Harry, STAY BACK! Stupefy!"

Riddle erected a shield and sent a curse at her, crimson and nasty, and then another and another. She dodged and fired back, trying out any spells she could think of that might affect an opponent that wasn't entirely corporeal.

"Stop, you're hurting Ginny!" Harry shouted, and in the split second Cassandra's attention had to be diverted from her duel with Riddle to process what Harry said, a jet of light hit her squarely on her chest, and her body flew backwards until it hit stone and she fell to the ground, bound and gagged by thick ropes of green light.

A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. "How remiss of me! I forgot to say; since I am consuming Ginny Weasley's life force in order to sustain this form, every bit of magical effort I exert only brings her closer to the brink of death."

He looked at Cassandra, amused. "As for you… Figured it out, did you?"

She looked at him hatefully, unable to answer.

"Figured what out?" said Harry.

"Well, Lestrange and I were playing a little game, and she just understood the strategy behind my moves. A little late, but I won't begrudge her that. Hiding your real name from me… What a clever trick that was, Cassandra. It would've been much less challenging to get through to you had you not done that. I believe in rewarding cleverness, you know, especially when it is so very hard to come by."

The sound of her name coming from the Dark Lord's mouth sent a wave of anger and revulsion through Cassandra. That's who Tom Marvolo Riddle was. The wizard who had robbed her of her family, her childhood, who would rob her of her future. She struggled uselessly against the magical bonds.

"Unfortunately for Cassandra, Ginny spoiled her game. She saw her and her boorish brothers with the diary, you see, and panicked. So the foolish little brat waited until their dormitory was deserted and stole it back. She was so desperate to know what they had found out, I barely had to pry. She told me everything she knew about Cassandra Lestrange."

"Why would Ginny steal a diary? Who are you?" Harry asked slowly.

"They didn't tell you anything, did they? I suppose there was no time," said Riddle. His smile broadened. "I made sure of that. As to why Ginny would steal a diary, that's an interesting question. And quite a long story. But I'll tell you all about it."

Cassandra listened, helpless, as the boy who had grown up to become the most feared sorcerer in the world recounted his entrapment of Ginny Weasley, the things he had forced her to do and the secrets she had revealed to him. Harry had started looking sick.

"When stupid little Ginny got me back, I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that with the proper incentive, Cassandra would go to any lengths to solve the mystery — particularly if the person she holds dearest was in danger. And Cassandra had seen in my memories that she would need a Parselmouth to open the Chamber of Secrets. I have been waiting for her to drop you in my lap since we arrived here. I knew she would." He tsked reprovingly. "Sentimentality. Of all the weaknesses. So easily exploited..."

Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut, focusing inward and drowning out Riddle's self-congratulatory drivel. She hated him for being able to read her as deftly as he had, hated herself for being so predictable, so vulnerable. She wanted to chew that word and spit it out — vulnerable — would set it aflame then stomp it into nothingness if she could.

Riddle was still talking. Spitefully, she wondered if this is how he'd been defeated the first time around. Perhaps, one-year-old Harry Potter had grown so bored of his monologuing he'd deflected the Killing Curse just to shut him up. She trashed around on the floor again, attempting to escape the magical ropes that confined her. The more she struggled, the harder they bit against her skin. If only she could get free…

The thought was interrupted by the incredible, miraculous cry of a phoenix. The sound was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Cassandra's scalp and made her heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size. Riddle was whirling around to stare down the empty Chamber. It was as good an opportunity as she would get. Cassandra willed Harry Potter to look at her, desperately trying to catch his attention. Look at me. The music was growing louder. Look at me!

He did, finally, and she mouthed one word around her gag, hoping with everything she had that he understood it: "Finite."

Please let him know it. It's a second year spell, he should know it, please let him know it.

Then, as the music reached such a pitch that Cassandra felt it vibrating inside her own ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar, Harry Potter pointed his wand at her, and she was free.

"Expelliarmus!"

Riddle turned to her in shock as his wand (or more accurately, Ginny Weasley's wand) flew eight feet into the air and soared toward Cassandra. She snatched it out of mid-air, triumphant. The phoenix had just dropped something at Harry's feet, and was landing on his shoulder.

"I suppose you think you have me at a disadvantage now," said Riddle, staring shrewdly back and forth between Harry and her. "She has the wand and you have… is that the old school Sorting Hat?"

So it was. Patched, frayed, and dirty, the hat lay motionless at Harry's feet.

Riddle began to laugh. He laughed so hard that the dark Chamber rang with it, as though ten Riddles were laughing at once.

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

"And you, Cassandra, do you see this? This is how the leader of the light means to protect his most important acolyte. How much effort would he muster for you, do you think? The daughter of two of the proudest pureblood families in Britain. You are not meant to fight for them. They seek to destroy us and our way of life. Pledge yourself to me. I will train you in the Dark Arts, shape you to be the most fearsome witch in the world."

Cassandra mustered up every bit of arrogance fifteen generations of aristocratic breeding had imbued into her to spit out her answer. "There's no us, you pathetic fucking halfblood."

Riddle's face contorted. Then he forced it into an awful smile.

"I think I'm going to teach the two of you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against Cassandra Lestrange and famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give them..."

Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed. The ground trembled and Cassandra shuddered. The basilisk was uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth.

She thought about her grandfather and what he would say to her then. They had fought together and he'd died. No. They had fought together, and she'd lived. She wanted to live through this, too. "He called you clever, didn't he, child? So be clever."

She needed a way to get to Riddle without meeting the basilisk's stare. The spell came to her as easily as breathing. "Nebulus."

Rapidly, the fog emanating from the tip of her wand spread throughout the Chamber. It was so thick that she could only see a little distance ahead. Her other senses guided her. The basilisk was moving; she could hear its heavy body slithering heavily across the dusty floor. Someone fell — a yelp — Tom Riddle was laughing, just a few meters ahead — there was a loud, explosive spitting sound and something heavy smashed into a wall — Dumbledore's phoenix was screeching — Riddle was close, there.

"Found you."

His voice was a warning. "Cassandra."

Somewhere in the Chamber, Harry screamed for help.

"If you do anything to me, little Ginny dies."

"You're tethered to her. Just as you're tethered to the diary."

A smug gleam in his eyes. "Yes."

Cassandra smiled, all teeth. What she intended was dangerous, and that felt right. She dropped all of her Occlumency shields, opened herself up to Riddle completely. One by one, she started showing him her memories. Come. See.

A beautiful, dark-haired woman leaned over a crib, making a floating ribbon twirl and twirl and twirl with small movements of her wand. Her child laughed and she did too. Adrian held Cassandra's hand. They never touched, so she knew whatever he was about to say was important. I have a secret to tell you. It's about me and no one knows but I trust you, he said. Cedric drew her hair from her neck and kissed it one, two, three times. It was the summer and she'd snuck him into her bedroom. She was intoxicated by the feel of his body bracketing hers in the sleep-warmed sheets of her bed. I love you, he whispered. I wish we could stay like this forever. Her grandfather stood in front of a cauldron. Cassandra smelled ashwinder egg, murtlap, squill. Unprompted, she handed him the ground-up occamy eggshells she guessed were next. He smiled proudly. The last one. Professor Trelawney delivering the prophecy. Cassandra Lestrange… Forced into battle, the war's greatest killer you'll become...

"Who was that?" Riddle hissed. She felt him probing further into her mind, deepening their connection. "Show me the rest of the prophecy. Tell me what it means, now!"

She was ready.

"It means I'm sick of having my family taken away from me. It means you shouldn't have kidnapped my boyfriend, you ass."

And then she did the only thing she could think of, that might stop Riddle without killing Ginny Weasley. She placed her hands on either side of Tom's neck, forcibly drawing him in, and once they locked eyes she pulled.

Instantly she felt him, a dark, malignant entity determined to live another day, another hour. His soul tasted like ash and tar. She felt his connection to Ginny and the diary and plucked them away like threads, catching them on her teeth, unraveling them bit by bit. She would crack him open. She would swallow him down. She opened her mouth as if to kiss him, but then he screamed, a long, dreadful, piercing scream, his soul detached from hers quickly and viciously like a whip being cracked, and the backlash was so strong it sent her stumbling onto the floor. Dark blood — no, ink — started to spurt out of his middle in torrents, streaming over Cassandra's legs, soaking her robes. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then — he had gone.

Harry Potter was standing next to a slain basilisk, covered in blood, holding what seemed to be Riddle's diary — except now it had a hole in the middle and was dripping with basilisk venom. They regarded each other in silence for a few moments, and then Harry spoke.

"Were you kissing Voldemort?"

Cassandra flinched, then scowled at herself for flinching. If she could duel him, she could certainly stand to hear his name. His moniker. Whatever. "Do you remember how he said he was controlling Ginny?"

Harry nodded. "He said he poured a little of his soul into her."

"More than just a little. I was pulling his soul from her and into myself. I figured I could break his hold over her that way. Did you kill that basilisk with a sword?"

"Fawkes helped. Do you think what you were doing would've worked?"

"Maybe. I can't be sure, I've never done anything like it before. But it felt like it was working until you interrupted me."

He actually looked sheepish. "Sorry."

A burst of laughter floated out of her. "Trust me, it's no problem at all. Just—"

"What?" asked Harry.

"Don't tell Dumbledore. Or anyone else, all right? It was a stupid idea. I could've made everything worse. I just didn't know what else to do."

"I won't tell. You were just trying to help Ginny, right?"

I'm not even sure what I was doing. I think I might've been trying to eat his soul.

"Right," said Cassandra.

A faint moan came from the end of the Chamber. Harry hurried over to Ginny. Cassandra pulled herself to her feet. She needed to check on Cedric. She stumbled toward him, her legs wobbly. She was pretty sure she was going to faint soon.

Fawkes was observing her.

"Can you Apparate us out of here?"

The bird chirped.

"You should probably get the twins, too."

At Cassandra's insistence, Fawkes took them directly to the hospital wing. Mr. and Mrs. Diggory flung themselves at Cedric as soon as they saw him. The Weasleys did the same with Ginny, albeit much more loudly.

Professor Dumbledore was standing in the doorway, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps; Professor Sprout, who was shedding tears of elation; and Professor Snape, who was characteristically tight-lipped.

"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?" shrieked Mrs. Weasley, from where she was trying to suffocate Potter with a hug.

"I think we'd all like to know that," said Professor McGonagall weakly.

Cassandra looked at the teachers and tried to make her mind work, but she felt wrung out. "With all due respect professor, Cedric is still Petrified, and I'm exhausted. I'd like to take a potion now and sleep for the next eighteen hours. I'm sure this can wait."

"That's quite right," said Madam Pomfrey wryly. "Albus, Minerva, I do have patients to treat here."

"Of course," said Professor McGonagall, having the grace to look a little embarrassed. "Would you like some rest as well, Mr. Potter?"

"No, thank you, professor. I'm all right."

"We'll take this to my office," said Dumbledore merrily. "Fawkes deserves a treat, and I keep the best ones hidden in my third desk drawer."

Cassandra rested her body against one of the hospital beds and rubbed her eyes. Mr. Diggory, who alongside his wife had chosen to stay with their son rather than listen to the tale of Riddle's defeat, was looking at her with unshed tears in his eyes.

"Thank you. Thank you for saving our boy."

She smiled, but it felt empty. "He saved me first."

Madam Pomfrey swept over with her dose of sleep potion, drawing the curtain between her bed and Cedric's shut with a wave of her wand. "Lay down. Drink this." She did. The matron harrumphed. "Don't think I've forgotten what you did, Miss Lestrange. Stealing Euphoria Elixir and sneaking out to fight the Heir of Slytherin; honestly, what were you thinking?"

"That you didn't have anything stronger, or I would have taken that." Cassandra said before promptly passing out.

Cedric remained in the hospital wing for several weeks, alongside the others who had been Petrified, until the Mandrakes were ready for cutting. Cassandra spent the evenings by his bedside, writing and reading missives. If the attention afforded her when everyone believed her a villain had been grating enough, now that people associated her with Harry Potter's latest heroic feat, it was doubly so. So she hid from the unwelcome smiles and congratulations, soaking up Cedric's presence in whatever limited form she could get it, knowing that things were going to change soon.

She went to Dumbledore on the morning of the first of June, the day the exams had been set to happen before they were canceled as a school treat.

Dumbledore sat opposite Cassandra in the high chair behind his desk, smiling warmly before he asked, "How have you been, Miss Lestrange?"

"Busy."

"Yes, I've been informed that there has been quite an uptick in your correspondence lately."

Cassandra raised a single eyebrow.

"The staff worries about you, Miss Lestrange, that is all. I assure you, none of your letters have been touched by anyone other than yourself."

"Well, the content of that correspondence is what I'm here to discuss. Here," she said, handing over a letter bearing the Ministry of Magic's crest to the Headmaster.

Dumbledore picked up the letter and unfolded it. He read it and looked back at Cassandra, fixing her with his penetrating, light-blue stare.

"You appointed Boris Ivanovich as your guardian."

"Yes. I've known him since I was eleven, and my grandfather trusted him. We've been owling for the past couple of weeks, and he accepted taking over my guardianship once I explained my circumstances in full."

"I knew Boris a long time ago."

"During the war with Grindelwald. Yes, he told me." Ivanovich hadn't had many kind words to speak of Albus Dumbledore, thinking him a coward and a cretin for waiting as long as he did to duel Gellert Grindelwald during the Global wizarding war.

"He isn't a man I ever expected to adopt a young witch."

"I didn't ask him to be my father, professor. I already have a father, he's doing a life sentence in Azkaban. Mr. Ivanovich knows what I expect of him, and he is willing to provide it."

"Why not choose family? Both of your aunts would be glad to take you in."

Cassandra's finger was tapping against her thigh. She braced herself, knowing what was ahead.

"Aunt Andromeda made her choice when she left the Black family over twenty years ago. I refuse to drag her back into the wreckage for my sake. As for the Malfoys… Harry told me that Lucius was the one who gave Ginny Weasley the diary. I bet he thought it was quite the ingenious plan — sabotaging Mr. Weasley, purging Hogwarts of Muggleborns and getting rid of an incriminating Dark artefact, all with one stroke of his wand."

"Yes, I imagine he did think that," said Dumbledore.

"Do you think he knows yet?"

"Do I think that he knows what, Miss Lestrange?"

"That he's signed his death sentence."

Dumbledore paused and looked inquiringly at her. "Why do you believe he has?"

"I had the Dark Lord in my head, sir. I was in his head. Mercy is not a language he speaks. I don't know if he even understands it." Cassandra carefully picked her next words. "He will kill him once he finds out Uncle Lucius' light-handedness with his possessions got his Horcrux destroyed."

For a minute, neither of them spoke. Dumbledore opened his mouth and then closed it. He removed his half-moon spectacles to rub at his eyes, then heaved a great sigh.

"Well, there's that," he said ambiguously. "How did you come by that word, Miss Lestrange?"

"Tom alluded to the fact that his diary was no mere enchantment plenty of times. He called himself a memory at first, but in the Chamber he kept mentioning his soul. I —" Cassandra hesitated here. "I felt it, as well. His soul. It was foul and twisted and wrong, but it was a soul. So, I wrote to Mr. Ivanovich and told him everything about what happened. What the diary was able to do, how it possessed Ginny, how it had made me feel. I figured if anyone would know how Riddle had managed to attach a piece of his soul to a diary, an Auror who hunted Dark wizards for thirty years would. And he did."

Dumbledore looked deeply somber now. Cassandra waited patiently while he marshaled his thoughts, the tips of his long fingers together.

"I have been working on a theory for quite some time, that Tom Riddle found a way to make himself immortal. It would explain the mysterious circumstances of his vanishing on the night of James and Lily Potter's murder, and why he was able to resurface last year, feeble and dependent on unicorn blood as he was. When Harry handed the diary to me... I saw it as proof that Tom had split his soul. I believe the diary was indeed a Horcrux. But a lot of questions remain unanswered. So it is of the utmost importance that you do not tell anyone about this, Cassandra. Our very ability to stop Voldemort from rising again might depend on it."

Cassandra looked away from Dumbledore. His words hit her harder than she thought.

"You won't be able to stop him," she said softly, thinking of Trelawney's prophecy. "He will come back. There will be a war."

"Maybe," Dumbledore said calmly. "Tom was always a brilliant wizard — the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. I have no doubt he is plotting even now, thinking of ways to regain a body. But it is our duty to do all we can to prevent that."

"No."

"I'm sorry?"

"No," she repeated. "It's not my duty to do anything, professor."

"Miss Le—"

"Tom was right about one thing, sir: This is not my fight. It was my parents' fight, and it is your fight, and Potter keeps making it his fight, but it's not mine. I'm tired of atoning for my family's crimes. My whole life I've thought of myself as my own person, but I was no better than a beaten crup, snapping and snarling in any attempt to prove I was more than my parents' whelp. I'm done with that now."

Dumbledore listened to Cassandra with an impassive face, then said, "You have said it yourself that you have been in his head. If he does come back, do you believe Voldemort will allow you to abstain from the bloodshed?"

"I don't plan on asking for his permission. Mr. Ivanovich will floo you in a couple of hours. I'm leaving Britain today. I've already been enrolled at Durmstrang for next year."

"It's unorthodox to allow a student to leave the castle before the term is fully over."

"I'm sure an exception can be made."

"That is not a decision to be made lightly," said Dumbledore. "You would be leaving your loved ones behind."

"Adrian will do the same as soon as he's seventeen. We've already discussed it."

"And Mr. Diggory?"

"I'll make him the same offer. Wherever he and his family want to go, I'll pay for their relocation. I hear Canada has a robust Quidditch league."

"You don't have to leave today. Professor Snape is already brewing the Mandrake Restorative Draught. Mr. Diggory could wake up as soon as tomorrow. I'm sure you wish to say goodbye."

Off her look, Dumbledore went on. "I see. Your intention is not to tell him."

"I don't know what good it would do. It would just make it harder, and this is already hard enough."

It was with a slightly softened expression that Dumbledore spoke again. "It's clear you love Mr. Diggory."

"People who love each other still find reasons to leave."

"Yes," said Dumbledore wistfully. "That is often the unfortunate tragedy of love: that it isn't enough. But not here. You are absconding away without giving Mr. Diggory a chance to prove that his love for you is enough."

"Enough for what? Not to keep him alive."

"It seems like you are protecting him."

Cassandra made a little exclamation that was half scoff, half laugh. "If I cared to lie to myself, I might agree with you. It's the pretty, self-serving explanation, isn't it? That I'm leaving to protect Cedric. That I'm doing this for him... But that's not true. I'm leaving because I've realized I can't protect Cedric. If the Dark Lord had wanted to kill him that day, he would be dead. And I can't —" she took a deep breath, trying to return to a reasonable, calm tone. "I've lost my parents. I've lost my grandfather and my elf. I'm not strong enough to come back from losing Cedric. I can't be around for that."

"My dear…" said Dumbledore, looking sadly at Cassandra. "To be able to love so deeply, that you find losing it so painful... that is not something you should run away from. The pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love. It's perhaps the price we pay for it. To accept that and choose to love anyway is the bravest decision any of us could ever make."

Cassandra shook her head lightly. "I'm sorry, Headmaster, but I've made my decision. That's not a price I can pay."

She got up, turned away from Dumbledore. "I wrote a letter to Cedric. Would you give it to him after he wakes up?"

"If you're certain…"

"I am."

"Then I shall."

Cassandra took the letter from her robes and deposited it on his desk. She had written and Vanished a dozen versions of it, and ended up settling for five words — the only words she found to say goodbye to Cedric Diggory:

I'm sorry.

I love you.

- C.V.L.

And this concludes Part 2 of Cassandra's journey. Thank you for being on this ride with me so far.