Arthur Weasley's Anglia left the group of students at the forest's edge; from there they tramped morosely across the frosty grounds of the school and into a side door. Only when they nearly dodged an encounter with Percy Weasley did they remember the increased patrols of the corridors. "We can't get around without being seen," Harry muttered.

"What about the—" Hilda began, then noticed Draco beside her. "Nevermind. We'd better find a place to hide until morning."

Ron's stomach rumbled like a dump truck on a gravel. "Could we maybe find somewhere with food? I just remembered we missed dinner."

Hilda smiled. "I think I know a place."

They crawled through the small door and into the warm, cozy confines of the Hogwarts kitchens. The room was empty save for Mitzy the house elf, who glanced up from a book in surprise. Hilda noted it was a battered copy of Das Kapital. "What is Miss Hildy and friends doing out of their beds?" she asked, hiding the book under a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

"We got lost," Hilda said quickly. "And we don't want to be caught by the professors. May we spend the night here?"

Mitzy nodded her little head. "Mizty shall fetch blankets. Would Miss Hildy's friends like cocoa?"

Heads nodded. "A sandwich would be nice!" Ron said.

Hilda rolled her eyes. "Surely you can do it yourself, and not make Mitzy juggle three tasks at once."

Harry was about to agree when a loud snap echoed through the room and someone rugby-tackled him to the floor. "Harry Potter!" the attacker yelled. "You must leave! Death has come to Hogwarts! Why won't Harry Potter listen?!"

"Merlin's sake, Dobby! Gerroff!" Harry yelled, pushing the babbling house elf off of him and sitting up. "Why are you still around?"

"Harry Potter did not listen to Dobby! Harry Potter in in great danger."

"Dobby?"

The house elf turned to Draco and flinched. "Master Draco! Dobby can explain!" He opened his mouth, then stopped and began to whack himself in the head with a rolling pin.

"Dobby, stop!" Draco ordered.

"Wait, Dobby is your house elf?" Harry asked.

Draco nodded. "What on earth are you doing here, Dobby? Father mentioned you were up to something. Is this where you've been sneaking away to all this time?"

"Master Draco need not tell his father about Dobby's doings," the house elf pleaded.

"I won't," Draco said quickly. "I'm just confused."

Harry rolled his eyes, then perked up. "Draco! Dobby has been trying to warn me about danger at Hogwarts all year, but he could never tell me what danger!"

Hilda picked up the thread. "He can't tell us, but you're his...master," she frowned at the distasteful concept. "If you ask him, maybe he will answer. We could find out who's behind all of this!"

Draco nodded and looked back at Dobby. "Dobby, you need to tell us who is behind this."

Dobby almost spoke, but clapped his hands over his mouth at the last moment. "Master Lucius told Dobby not to tell Master Draco anything."

Draco recoiled in surprise. After a moment, he resolved himself and pressed on. "Tell me, Dobby."

Dobby sobbed into his hands. "Master Lucius was to get the her to open the Chamber. She needed the book to control the snake."

"Snake?" Harry's mouth went agape. All the pieces were starting to fall into place. "The voice in the walls!" He shouted. "You all heard hissing, and thought it was the steam ducts, but it was a snake!"

Hilda caught on and snapped her fingers. "You speak Parseltongue, so you understood it while everyone else couldn't!"

"What kind of snake can petrify students?" Ron asked.

"It could be a basilisk," Draco muttered. All heads swiveled to him. "A basilisk? None of you have heard of it?"

"I know the word," Hilda admitted. "But not much else."

"Typical Mud...Muggleborns. A basilisk is a giant, magical snake. It has a highly toxic bite, and it's gaze can kill anything that meets it."

"But no one's died," Harry said, "I mean, with the exception of that girl in 1945, all of the victims were petrified."

"They didn't die," Alfur spoke up, bouncing on Hilda's shoulder excitedly, "Because they didn't look it in the eye!"

"I don't follow."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Mrs. Norris and David saw the basilisk's reflection in the water!" He began, counting off the victims on his fingers. "Colin Creevey saw it through his camera lens. Justin Finch-Fletchley saw it through Nearly-Headless Nick, and Nick couldn't be killed by it because he's already dead!"

"And Hermione and David had the mirrors!" Hilda shouted. "They knew!"

Harry turned back to Dobby. "What was that about a girl?" Dobby refused to answer. "Draco?"

Draco shook his head. "Please, I don't want to know any more."

"Draco, please."

"My father is responsible for this whole mess!" Draco suddenly snapped. "You expect me to gather more evidence! I can't do it!"

Hilda put a hand on Draco's arm. "Draco, I know this is hard to hear. We need to find out who is controlling the basilisk. Please, ask Dobby the question."

Draco looked away for a few moments. Finally, he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robe and turned back to the house elf. "Answer Harry's question, Dobby."

Dobby nodded. "Master Lucius put the book in the red girl's bag at the bookshop," Dobby stuttered. "The book needed a…a can-do-it?"

"A conduit," Hilda corrected him. Dobby nodded vigorously. "Who is the red girl?" she asked, but the house elf's nerve finally failed, and he vanished with a crack.

Alfur rubbed his chin in thought. His brain was trying to remind him of something, but what? Then it struck him and he leapt nearly a foot into the air (an impressive feet for a creature only four inches tall). "Ginny!"

"What?" Harry shot up like a rocket. "What are you talking about?"

"I remember now! During the fight at Flourish and Blotts, Mr. Malfoy slipped a book into Ginny's bag."

"You mean Ginny is behind this?" Ron asked. He gave a scoff. "That's impossible."

"What did this book look like?" Harry asked.

"It was black, leather-bound," Alfur said, thinking. "And about the size of a journal."

Harry and Hilda locked eyes. "Tom Riddle," they said in unison.

"Who?" Draco asked.

"We'll explain later. First we need to get to Gryffindor tower. Unseen."

"Hilda, I can't use it in front of him!" Harry whispered.

"There's no time!"

Harry took a deep breath and rubbed his sleep-deprived eyes. "Fine."

"This is massively unfair," Draco muttered. "How come you get an invisibility cloak? Do you know how rare these are?"

"Yes. You've told me several times," Harry replied through gritted teeth. "One more time and I'm going to throw you out."

Hilda hushed them as they rounded a corner. Harry screeched to a halt, almost causing a catastrophic pile-up behind him.

The entire Hogwarts faculty were standing ten feet from them, staring in mute horror at a message scrawled on the corridor wall. Hilda craned her neck to see the writing. Scrawled hastily in red paint-or was it blood?-was a chilling message:

HER SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER

Ron made to cry out, but three hands were swiftly clapped over his mouth. All that came out was a low moan which only Snape seemed to hear. He turned and scanned the corridor, his eyes passing over the students huddled under the cloak. Frowning, he directed his attention back to the writing on the wall.

McGonagall moved to the head of the crowd and turned to face the rest of the faculty. "Tell your house prefects to do a head count. There will be an emergency faculty meeting in one hour," she said. Her age suddenly suddenly seemed to be weighing her down.

"We have to save her!" Ron shouted, crawling through the portrait hole and into the Gryffindor common room.

"Weasley, be reasonable," Draco said. "What chance to we have facing off against a fifty-foot long snake with killer eyes and poisonous blood?"

Ron turned and grabbed the Slytherin by the collar. "She's my sister!" he snarled.

Hilda's gaze drifted from the confrontation for a moment. Her eyes went wide. "Ron."

"Easy, Weasley," Malfoy said levelly as he unclenched the ginger's grip from his robes.. "I'm not saying she shouldn't be rescued, but are we really the ones to do it?"

"She's in trouble, and we are going to save her!"

"Um, Ron," Hilda said.

"I don't care if we die, so long as we try! I wouldn't leave anyone to die in the Chamber, especially not Ginny!"

"Ron!" Hilda tugged hard on the ginger's sleeve, halting his courageous speech. She gestured with her hand. "Behind you."

"Ron?" All heads turned to the couch by the fireplace. Ginny Weasley, disturbed from her dozing, sat up and rubbed the sand from her eyes. "What are you doing?"

Ron was speechless for a few moments before racing across the room and wrapped his sister in a tight hug. "Ginny! What on earth are you doing here?"

"I was trying to wait up for you," Ginny said, breaking away from the hug and pausing to gasp for air. "But I dozed off."

"We thought you were—" Ron paused to finish hyperventilating. "We thought you were taken by the monster!" he finally squeaked out.

Ginny went pale and began to shake. "So you found out," she said quietly.

"Found out what?" Hilda asked.

Ginny put her hands over her face and fell back into the sofa. "This is all my fault!"

"Slow down," Ron said, sitting beside his sister. Hilda joined them. "You're not making any sense."

Alfur leapt onto the girl's shoulder. "Start from the beginning. You need to tell us everything." Ginny flinched, looking around for the phantom voice. Hilda promised to get her the necessary paperwork after her confession.

And so Ginny told them everything: Flourish Blotts; the diary; Tom; the lapses in memory; Tom's growing abuse; the guilt and confusion and anger; her failed attempts to destroy the book; her growing loss of control, of identity, of self.

"-And so I threw the diary into Myrtle's toilet," she said, wiping a tear from her eye with the collar of her jumper. "I thought it was over. But then I came through the portrait hold that evening and saw you'd found it," she said, gesturing to Harry. "I should have thrown it into the lake, or the woods, or stuffed it in an abandoned classroom somewhere. I just had to get it back from you before Tom took over."

Harry was about to speak when the echo of footsteps on the dormitory steps silenced him. Percy Weasley appeared and paused when he saw them. "Ah, there you all are," he said. "Where on earth were you, and what in Merlin's name is Draco-bloody-Malfoy doing in our common room?"

"None of your bloody business, Percy!" Ron snapped, standing up. "Now sod off before we hex you into next Thursday!"

Percy was taken aback by his younger brother's anger. "I was just asking," he muttered. Hilda could've sworn his lip had quivered for a moment. He then counted them off. "I suppose we're all accounted for." The perfect prefect crossed the room and opened the portrait portrait. "I'll be sure to tell Professor Snape of your...presence," he said before leaving.

"It was you who ransacked the dormitory," Hilda said.

Hermione took the younger girl's hand. "Ginny, you need to give us the diary; the professors will know what to do with it."

She sat up and gave the group a look of confusion. "You don't still have it?"

"No," Harry said. "We thought you had it."

Ginny shook her head. "I don't."

"Then who does?" Ron asked.

Harry thought about it for a moment. Then he gave a start as he remembered. "Oh...oh no."

"What?" Hilda asked.

Think back, Hilda, the voice whispered.

So Hilda did:

"I don't need to take this from you. You don't know what I'm going through!"

"Whatever," Frida stood up as well, collecting her bags. "I'm going to the library."

"Good, I'll know not to bother you there."

Frida stormed off. As she reached the door, she collided with Harry, who had been running late and had dashed into the Hall. The books in both of their hands went flying. Harry swore, then bent to pick them up. "I'm sorry, Frida. Let me help."

"I'm can do it!" Frida snapped, scooping up her books and hurrying out. Harry looked taken aback, then shrugged and grabbed his books from the floor.

Hilda leaned across the table. "Do you have it?"

"Yep," Harry, rummaged through his books, then frowned. "Oh, I guess I left it in my dormitory in my hurry to get down here."

Draco was about to respond with a cutting remark when they rounded the corner and nearly collided with Hermione and David outside of Myrtle's toilet. "Watch it!" he snarled, regaining his balance.

"Hilda!"

"Hi, David. What's with the mirrors?"

"We'll explain when we get to dinner," Hermione said quickly. "Now c'mon."

"Where's Frida?"

"She left the library before us," David said.

"Alone? We have to get her!"

Malfoy snorted. "She's probably already at dinner, or holed up in the Ravenclaw common room with the other study nuts."

Hilda sat by the hospital bed, one hand resting in David's cold hand. She had been there all night, hoping against all odds that David would come out of his spell, that he would blink up at her and smile. But he didn't. Frida hadn't shown her face, which only angered Hilda more. "Some friend," she muttered.

Hilda's gasped, her eyes widening in horror. "No."

They grabbed the invisibility cloak and rushed across the castle to the headmaster's office. For lack of room under the cloak, Ginny, Hermione and Draco stayed behind; they promised to meet up in Myrtle's toilet one hour from then.

"Creme eggs," Harry whispered. The gargoyle stepped aside, and they hurried up the stairs.

Hilda had never seen Dumbledore's office before. She wasn't as awe-struck as Harry had been his first time inside; it corresponded very closely with how she imagined his office to look. Still, it was impressive.

However, they had more pressing matters at hand as they slipped inside and crept through the gathering of professors to a vacant corner. No one sensed their presence, save a large, gorgeously red-feathered bird who sat perched on a stand beside the headmaster's desk; its curious gaze followed them across the room. "It's Dumbledore's pet phoenix," Harry informed Hilda. "He looks a lot better than when I last saw him."

"How so?"

"He's not on fire."

Before Hilda had a chance to ask for elaboration McGonagall stepped to the center of the room. The gathered staff went quiet and gave her their full attention. "Has everyone done a head count?" she asked. The four heads of house nodded. "Who is missing?"

"No one from Slytherin," Snape began. "Although young Mr. Malfoy is in Gryffindor Tower, for reasons...inconceivable."

"All 'Puffs are accounted for," Sprout reported.

"And I have all of my Gryffindors," McGonagall said. "Filius?" she asked, turning to the diminutive Charms professor.

"All but one," Flitwick said, ashen-faced. He shook his head. "Miss Aiken is nowhere to be found."

Hilda bit her lip and commanded eyes to stay dry. She'd hoped for Harry to be wrong, hoped with all of her might.

McGonagall sighed and collapsed into Dumbledore's ergonomic desk chair. "I think I need a cigarette," she muttered. Several packs landed on the desk She pulled out a Menthol one and lit it with the tip of her wand. "I thought you'd quit, Snape."

"I thought you'd quit," Snape countered.

"Fair point." She exhaled and shook her head. "So, what on earth can we do?"

"What indeed," Filch said, stepping forwards.

"Who's that?" Ron asked.

In spite of the situation, Hilda gave a thin smile: in his hurry the caretaker had neglected to don his disguise.

"We are facing an unknown beast in an unknown environment," Filch continued, "Unsure whether the poor girl is even still alive. Even an auror would hesitate in this situation."

"We need an expert, then," Sprout said. "Someone with a history of getting out of sticky situations."

It was then that Lockhart blew into the room, robes atwirl. "Sorry I'm late," he said, grinning. "Just got the floo call. What have I missed?"

"A student has been taken by the Heir of Slytherin, Gilderoy," McGonagall replied, barely containing her frustration. She accidentally crushed her cigarette in her hand, seemingly unmindful of the burned palm she received.

"Ah, rum luck. I suppose I won't be getting anymore sleep tonight, then?"

Filch turned to Lockhart and cocked an eyebrow. "You're know you're a shite wizard, right?" he asked. In spite of the somber atmosphere, McGonagall and a few other professors burst out laughing. Which was fortunate, as that meant no one noticed three extra voices laughing along with them.

Lockhart puffed himself up. "Well, I'm a best-selling author, so I think I'm doing pretty well for myself, Squib."

"Really, Argus, this is hardly helpful," Pomona said, covering her mouth.

Snape gave the widest smirk Hilda had ever seen on the dour man. "Though it does gave me an idea," Snape said, stepping away from his spot against the wall. "Why don't you put your recognized talents to good use."

Lockhart stepped back. "What are you saying, Severus?"

"Well, who better to fight the beast of the Chamber than you?" he asked. "I'm sure it wouldn't be at all difficult to track down the entrance and slay the monster. You've done it countless times before. I seem to remember you talking on about an adventure you had regarding the discovery of the Ark of the Covenant. If you can face Nazi muggles and biblical magic armed only with a bullwhip, then this will be a walk in the park."

Lockhart blanched. "Well, I mean, I do have some theories, but really, it's such short notice."

Snape leaned forwards, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. It was very unsettling. "Use that fabled Lockhart ingenuity."

"I'll admit, Severus has raised an excellent idea," McGonagall said. "And we really have no options left-"

"I'm sure we have some," Gilderoy interjected. "The Aurors, perhaps? They have the numbers, remember. Sure, they'll lose a few, but that's the hazard of the job. Builds character, tool."

"In the time it will take for the Aurors to arrive," Snape said. "Miss Aiken could be dead. There really is no alternative."

"Well, I'm not prepared, I have no equipment-"

McGonagall ignored him. "All in favor of Lockhart putting his talents to good use, give a show of hands." Everyone obliged. "All opposed?" Lockhart opposed. "Well, then it's settled. Good luck, Gilderoy," she said, shaking the DADA professors quivering hand. She pulled him close to whisper in his ear. "If you can't save her, don't bother coming back."

Ice queen of Gryffindor, Hilda's Voice said. I think I'm in love.

We are back! I've been working on a book of my own these last few weeks, so I apologize for the delay. Those familiar with my work, however, will be used to such long hiatuses (hiati?).

Did I surprise some of you with my Ginny/Frida swap? Don't answer that: maybe I'm not as clever as I think I am. Some people voiced their confusion over this development, so I added in some flashbacks for context. Hope that helps.

We are nearly at the end of Part I. Again, thank you for all of the favorites and follows. If you are enjoying this so far and you haven't shown your love, please do so. It would stroke my ego.

Any questions? Did you notice any typos, misspellings? Please send me a PM: I appreciate your feedback, but I'd also appreciate your discretion.