Author's Notes: Seeing the blue lights where the WTC used to be. Time passes so quickly.

On the brighter side of things, I'm pretty overjoyed to have new readers! Thank you for the reviews! And I hope my old readers like the changes I've made. On with the story. Laterz...Lilguji

Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

The Secret of the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 4

October 31st ~ Halloween ~ All Hallows Eve

I was filled with nerves. Myrtle and I were standing in front of the entrance ready to begin our adventure. I had stolen the sheets off of one of the empty beds in my dorm. My year only had 2 other Gryffindor girls, so we had plenty of sheets and blankets to go around. With the Hogsmeade trip today, all I had to do was wake up early and stash my things in the broom closet at the end of the hallway. After the upper years left, it was easy enough to slip out of the quiet common room and make my way to the second floor. With the hallways empty, no one noticed the long, lumpy sheet-covered package I was carrying. So now I stood in front of the sink, my Cleansweep 7 in hand and sheet wrapped around my body, thinking of ways to stall. Of course, once I realized I was stalling, I had no choice but to make myself take a step forward.

I took a deep breath and stared at my pale reflection for a moment longer. My gaze was automatically drawn from the mirror to the carved snake.

"Open up." Although I didn't hear myself say anything different, the effect was immediate. The sink in front of me fell away while the ones next to it shifted to the side. In a matter of seconds, the pipe that led down below was exposed.

"Oh Merlin." I muttered under my breath.

"Ginny! Ginny! It worked! I told you it would work and now we can go down together!"

There was a roaring in my ears drowning out all sound. I was going to faint, probably, but seconds passed and I didn't, and Myrtle was still hovering around me, excited at the thought of snooping. I took a deep breath and realized that I had forgotten to breathe so I took a few more seconds to steady myself. All questions, all doubts had to be pushed away. The Chamber was open and I opened it. The whys and hows would only be answered if I took the final step forward and went down. And so, I did.

The journey down was like I remembered but different. Maybe the difference was that I was in the front seat this time. I have memories of my time under His possession, not many, mind you, but some. The pipes were still dirty as ever and I was glad I had wrapped the sheet around me. I was gripping my broom tightly in my lap as I slid down and I realized belatedly, that the ride was actually fun. A giant water slide with twists, turns and what had to be a loop de loop. The sheet soaked up all the sludge and helped me slide down even faster until I finally shot out of the pipe and rolled to a stop.

Untangling myself from the slimy sheets I looked around for Myrtle. I was confused when I didn't see her since she had agreed to wait for me at the bottom. I heard a faint screaming coming from the pipe and tensed when it got louder and louder until a white blur called Myrtle shot out from the pipes, laughing.

"That was so…much…fun! Come on Ginny, lets try it again!" I released the breath I didn't know I was holding and frowned at her laughing form.

"Myrtle you scared me, don't do anything like that again! What was I supposed to think when you weren't waiting for me when I got here?" Sighing and shaking my head I turned to face her again.

"If you really want to do it again, we can try some other time. I'm getting the feeling that one way or another we'll be coming back. Anyways, it just occurred to me, this Chamber was hidden by Salazar Slytherin and considered "lost," which makes it technically not school property. We can even claim ownership as the finders. What do you think? It needs a little work but might be a decent place to hang out." I flashed her a small smile and watched in satisfaction as she paled as much as she could as a ghost. She gave a nervous laugh and started floating up to the ceiling.

"Coward. You said you wanted to come down here, now stop fooling around and let's go."

"Hey, that's not fair. Just because I don't go charging into any situation like you Gryffs, doesn't mean I'm a coward. I was the one who wanted to come down here in the first place." She pouted and I laughed. Bringing Myrtle along was definitely a good idea if only to give me company and run for help should I get into trouble. I started walking purposefully towards the Chamber and she reluctantly followed. I considered casting a Lumos spell but Myrtle gave off enough light to see by. Well, I thought she gave off enough light, but that was before I tripped over the large snakeskin that I had some how forgotten all about. Myrtle came closer to see what happened and caught a glimpse of the harmless skin. With out a second thought her piercing screams filled the tunnel.

"Myrtle! MYRTLE! Its all right, its only a skin and the basilisk is dead inside the Chamber. You can stop screaming now."

"It's not alive? It wont kill me again?" She asked me in a small child-like voice. She reminded me of a toddler who had just seen monsters under the bed and hadn't realized yet that they were just old toys.

"No it's not alive and if its not alive, it can't hurt you let alone kill you. Remember, you're a ghost and ghosts cannot be hurt by anything, not even basilisks," I tried making my voice as soft and convincing as possible. "Are you okay now? Then let's go."

This time I did use a Lumos charm and found that the combined light of the wand and the ghost gave us enough light to see the walls on either side of us. It was then I noticed that there were unlit torches hanging in sconces on the walls. I walked towards the nearest sconce and tried an incendio to ignite it.

I jumped when a parallel torch on the far wall lit up as well. Then in pairs, torches lit up along the passageway about 10 feet apart. There was more than enough light to see by now, in fact, the torches illuminated the entire tunnel and let us see now the path to the Chamber. The bones that littered the floor were covered in dust, undisturbed for the most part except for the middle of the passage where Myrtle and I were traveling and where Ron, Harry and Professor Lockhart had traveled at the end of last year to rescue me. The ceiling was domed and there were arches where the torches were. Snakes carved into the arches provided intimidation for the timid adventurer with the tails curled around the torches and the bodies curved up the arch to the entwined heads in the middle. Ruby red eyes glittered down at us. The light reflected off the stones and I realized that they were real rubies. Thoroughly creeped out and slightly awed by the sudden flash of wealth in such a dump, we continued forward.

"What happened here?" Myrtle asked when we came to a wall of rocks with a gap in the middle.

"This is where Gilderoy Lockhart tried to erase Ron and Harry's memories using Ron's wand. Ron's wand backfired and caused this rockslide. Look, there's the gap that we came through. There's still a ways to go. I'll fly from now on, it'll be faster." I mounted my broom and we were off.

We flew past all the snakes with rubies for eyes and didn't stop until we saw a dead end. I dismounted and studied the stone wall with two more entwined snakes. The eyes on these snakes were green emeralds and I knew that we had reached the Chamber of Secrets.

"Well Myrtle, here we are." We exchanged nervous glances and I stepped up to the snakes. Clearing my throat I concentrated on the snakes in front of me.

"Open" I hissed. And slowly the wall before us parted.

Edit post date 9/11/13