Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Chapter 19

"You think that Myrtle was the one that was killed before?" Neville whispered to me.

We were walking behind Professor McGonagall and some other students in the hallways towards our next class. Harry and Ron were taken with Lockhart - apparently he didn't want to be around me. I was telling Neville about what all we had found out - he swore to not tell anyone else.

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" I whispered to him. "Aragog told us that a girl was killed last time and she was in a bathroom. Who else could it have been?"

"You should probably talk to her about it though," Neville said.

I was about to say something else when I heard McGonagall yell at someone ahead of us.

"Potter! Weasley!" she said. "What do you think that you are doing?"

I looked ahead to see Harry and Ron ahead of us and they weren't around a teacher. Apparently they had managed to get Lockhart away from them. They probably told him that his hair looked bad or something.

"We were going to see Hermione in the hospital wing," Harry said.

I could tell by looking at my brother that he had just come up with that right on the spot. It wasn't a bad lie considering the fact that we were close to the hospital wing.

"Oh…" McGonagall said sounding a little bit sad. "That's understandable."

"Could I go with them?" I asked her. "I haven't gotten to see Hermione in a while…"

"Yes, you may…" McGonagall said while she wiped her eyes dry.

She walked us up to the hospital and then departed. Neville and the rest of the class continued on with her when we went into the hospital.

We sat alongside of Hermione's bed where she lay completely frozen. Once Madam Pomfrey left them alone, I turned to Harry.

"Now what were you all really going to do?" I whispered.

"We were about to go to ask Moaning Myrtle about how she died, but we were caught," Harry told me.

"How did you know that he was lying?" Ron asked.

"Harry's my brother," I said. "I know when he's lying."

We looked at Hermione in wonder. What if she had known who the attacker was? After all, she ran off to the library that day because she thought that she discovered something.

Then Harry grabbed for Hermione's hand, looking like he was trying to take it off.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"There's something in her hand," Harry said. "It's a piece of paper."

It took Harry a minute to pry the paper out of Hermione's hand, but it eventually came out. Once we had the paper, Harry smoothed it out and began to read silently. I looked over his shoulder and read it too.

Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.

Underneath that was the word Pipes that Hermione had written in.

"It's a basilisk!" I whispered. "That's what the monster is!"

"That doesn't make any sense," Ron said. "Look here - it says that whoever looks it in the eyes would die. No one here is dead."

"That's because no one has looked at it directly in the eyes!" Harry whispered.

"That's right!" I said. "Colin saw it through his camera, Justin saw it through Nearly-Headless Nick - he couldn't die again, so it didn't effect him that much - and Hermione and that Ravenclaw girl must have saw it through a mirror!"

"Brilliant!" Harry said.

"What about Mrs. Norris?" Ron asked.

"She must have seen it through the water that was on the floor that night!" Harry said.

We added up all of the other clues - spiders flee before it and Hagrid's roosters being killed - and it all made sense. Hermione must have figured out that the snake had been using the school's plumbing to move throughout which explained why we heard it in the ceiling.

"We need to tell Professor McGonagall!" I said.

Just then we heard her voice throughout the school.

"All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teacher's go to the staff room immediately!"

"Someone has been attacked!" I said.

We ran throughout the school towards the teacher's staff room to tell them what we had figured out. I ran into Fred and George on the way there.

"Emily, they said to go to the common room!" George said, grabbing my arm.

"Yeah, and you're one to preach the rules to me!" I said sarcastically as I broke free from his grip.

I caught up to Harry and Ron just as we reached the staff room. We hid behind the wall there and listened in to the conversation.

"Someone's been taken down to the Chamber," McGongall told the staff.

I heard panic within the room, but it all stopped within a minute.

"Who was it?" Snape asked, sounding slightly panicked. "Which student?"

"Ginny Weasley."

Ron grabbed onto my arm beside me. I knew how he felt - if it had been Harry, I would have panicked too. I looked over to him and saw his eyes getting watery. I grabbed onto his hand and tried to comfort him silently as I listened into the conversation more.

"We're going to have to send everyone home - we can't risk another attack," McGongall said sadly.

Then I heard a door burst open.

"What have I missed?" Lockhart asked.

"Ah, just the man that we needed," Snape snarled. "A first-year girl has been taken down to the Chamber, your moment has come."

"W-what?" Lockhart stammered.

I felt Ron squeeze onto my arm even more. I would be freaking out too if my sister's life depended on Gilderoy Lockhart.

"You've been bragging for a long time that you've known where the entrance to the Chamber is all along, so this shouldn't be a problem," Snape said.

"It's up to you Gilderoy," McGonagall said. "You must go there tonight."

I heard Lockhart whimpering, but he began to speak with false-courage.

"I'll go to my office and get ready…" he mumbled.

I sat next to Harry, Ron, Fred, and George in the common room that night. Each one of the Weasleys were silent that night, fearing what was happening, or has already happened, to their only sister.

"Do you think that there is any chance that she is…okay?" Fred asked us.

Everyone was silent and Harry and I looked at each other, hoping that we could help the family.

"Yeah…" I said slowly. "She's a pure-blood…so maybe…"

I couldn't bring myself to say anymore. I knew that there was a strong chance that the monster had already killed her down in the Chamber, but I couldn't tell them that.

After a while of being silent, Fred and George went up to their room for the night. I doubt that they would get any sleep.

"We should go tell Lockhart what we know…" Ron said. "It could help…"

I was about to tell him that Lockhart probably wouldn't make it alive himself, but I knew that it wouldn't help.

"Yeah, let's go…" Harry said.

We walked through the hallways towards Lockhart's office. When we got there, I opened up the door to see Lockhart throwing a bunch of things into trunks.

"Um…what are you doing?" I asked him.

"Um, well, you see the thing is…" he stammered when he saw us. "I have to go, it's extremely important."

"More important than the life of Ginny Weasley, huh?" Harry said.

"What about all the things that you wrote about?" Ron said. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of expert on this sort of thing?

"He doesn't know anything," I said. "It's all a lie. He's a fake."

The color in Lockhart's face drained.

"You're right…" Lockhart said. "I didn't do any of those things. I'm not really good at anything…aside from Memory Charms that is. It's unfortunate that I'm going to have to do them now."

He whipped out his wand and pointed it at all of us, but I was faster.

"Expelliarmus!" I yelled.

His wand went flying in the air and Ron caught it in his hand and threw it out of the window. Lockhart panicked and threw himself against the wall and held up his hands as I pointed my wand directly at his face.

"It doesn't even matter!" he cried. "I don't know where the Chamber is anyway!"

"Well we do," Harry said. "Let's go."

We walked out of the room, I continued to point my wand at Lockart who was now shaking in fear. He was so pathetic.

When we made it to the bathroom, we found Myrtle floating around.

"Why hello," she said smiling at Harry.

"We came here to ask you how you died," Harry asked.

"Oh, it was awful!" she said. "I was killed right here in this stall. I remember I was crying in here because I was being made fun of for my glasses. Someone came into the bathroom and started talking in a very funny language - I couldn't understand it. When I opened the door to tell them to leave me alone, I died."

"How?" I asked her.

"I don't know," she whispered. "All I know was that there were two yellow eyes staring at me right over there."

We looked over to the sink. Harry continued to talk to her as I checked out the sink. Ron took over for Lockhart by pointing his broken wand at him.

"There's a snake on it…" I murmured. "Right here…"

"Say something in Parseltongue," Ron suggested. "Maybe it'll open."

"Um…open up?" Harry said to it.

"That was English," Ron said.

I concentrated on the little snake picture and tried to imagine if it were real. Then, at the same time, Harry and I spoke the same hissing noise.

"Open up," we said together.

The sink moved over to the side and a large hole was in its place. I pointed my wand at Lockhart again and said:

"You go first."

"W-why?" he said. "It seems like you have it all right, so I'll just be leaving-"

Ron stepped forward and pushed Lockhart down the hole, he screamed the entire way down. Once we heard him hit the bottom, we all jumped down the hole too.

It seemed to take forever to hit the bottom and it was completely dark down through the tunnel.

"What is up with all of these secret, underground rooms in this school," Ron muttered when we hit the bottom.

"Lumos!" I said and my wand lit up.

Harry and Ron lit up their wands too - it surprised me that Ron's could even do that spell without messing it up somehow.

"If you all see anything," Harry said. "Close your eyes immediately…"

We all walked forward slowly. Lockhart stopped for a moment in front of me, but continued when I poked him in the back with my wand.

"Keep going," I said.

Lockhart whimpered, but kept moving forward. Then we saw something ahead of us. It was a large, transparent thing ahead of us in the tunnel. When we moved closer to it, we saw that it was just the skin from the snake. It was really big, so we knew that the basilisk was going to be about the same size if not bigger than this.

Then, without any kind of warning, Lockhart fell to his knees and cried.

"Get up," Ron said.

Lockhart jumped to his feet and tackled Ron until he was able to take Ron's wand from him. When he had hold of it, he pointed at us and smiled evilly.

"We're finished here," Lockhart snarled. "I'm going to take some of the skin back up to the school and tell them that I was too late to save the girl. You three went insane when you saw her dead down here - get ready to lose your memory children! Obliviate!"

The wand exploded on Lockhart, sending him flying backwards. Harry and me flew in the other direction towards the snake skin as the tunnel collapsed in front of us. When it stopped, there was a large mountain of rocks that separated Harry and me from the Ron and Lockhart along with the exit of the school. We were trapped inside.

"RON!" I yelled. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" Ron said. "I don't know about Lockhart though, I think he's been knocked out!"

There was a pause and then Ron shouted at us again.

"What are we going to do now?"

Harry and I looked around the room and then at each other.

"We're going to keep going!" Harry shouted. "If we aren't back in an hour, well…"

"I'll just move these rocks out of the way!" Ron yelled back.

We walked on and eventually made it to a large stone door that had several snakes lining it. We both took a deep breath and together we said in a weird hiss:

"Open."

I hope that you liked the chapter!

pJato431 - Thanks for long review on the last chapter, it gave me a lot to think about. I know that I am making Emily seem to be more like her father personality wise, but I still think that she is like her mother in other ways. Like her mother, Emily is a person that will trust people that don't necessarily deserve her trust and of course, she is excellent in potions. I know that it isn't that much, but it's little things. I plan on having her grow up to be more like her mother in certain ways - as of the current moment, Emily is supposed to be a little immature in some ways, so that's what I'm trying to do there.

lilyevans12681998 - Thanks for your reviews! I'm sorry to tell you that I will not be having a Snape and Emily pairing, I think that would be a little strange considering he is old enough to be her father. I am, however, planning on making them have a sort of father-daughter relationship, but that's as far as it will go. As to who the godfather will be, if you haven't already, I encourage you to vote on my profile page. Thanks!

GhostOfFanfiction - Thanks for your review! Yeah, I wanted to make sure that Emily left a mark on Draco's face. I do like Draco's character, but I figured that it would be a little funny if Emily punched him and left him with a black eye. :)

Remember that I'm having a poll on who Emily's godfather is going to be, just go to my profile page and it should be towards the top. As of right now, the poll is as follows: Severus Snape with 2 votes, Sirius Black with one vote, and Remus Lupin with one vote. Don't like the results? Then go to my page and vote! Also, please tell me what you think of this chapter!

PLEASE REVIEW!