A/N: Thanks to everyone who's been continuing to review. In this chapter I (may have) made a small deviation from canon in terms of the layout of the Chamber of Secrets... Or maybe it's only a deviation from the film set. Anyway. I expect we'll all be able to live with it.

~oOo~

With Britain's fortunes in the war – both muggle and magical – worsening, and the heated arguments hence going on among the Wizengamot, not to mention the regular pressures of the new school term, it was some weeks before Albus opened the box again. He'd had an extra large brandy this time, knowing full well what letters number two and three contained.

Albus –

This night, too, I find myself awake, but for a different reason… What a pity that I had to leave so abruptly, or you might have returned the favour and put me out of my misery. I wonder if your many talents will extend to this area? My imagination does not struggle to conjure it; it is in your nature to seek perfection in all things, and in mine too. You make quite the sight, incidentally.

Aunt Bathilda asked many questions at supper – she is thrilled we are 'getting on' (!) – can you imagine the look on her face if I told her the whole truth? Isn't it exciting, having a secret? As we have already frequently remarked, the lives of others are so dull!

I await tomorrow eagerly; my own company is no substitute for yours.

G

There was no way these pieces of paper – these memories – should still hold power over him, so why was he trembling? Worse than that, why was his traitorous body – by no means eighteen anymore – still responding? He would master it. If he were ever to face Gellert again, voluntarily or otherwise, he would not make a fool of himself. He would not.

The things he had said in his reply could probably make him wish the earth would swallow him up, if he were to read it again now, so it was just as well that he didn't have it. With hindsight, he had been trying to make up for the inexperience he had demonstrated earlier that day, and he had always found it easier to write something down than to say it aloud. He unfolded letter number three before he could lose his nerve.

Albus –

Who would have thought that you could bring yourself to write such things? Already, it seems, I have been a bad influence. How thrilling.

I imagine you sat at your desk, stroking yourself as you await my response. How do you do it, I wonder? Do you like the rhythm that I find most pleasing, or another entirely? We have so much to learn about each other.

Perhaps, instead of remaining at the desk, you have retired to bed. I can imagine that too. Tomorrow I will lie there, I've decided, while you suck me. Your movements are going to be shy, I expect – almost apologetic. It's going to drive me wild with need.

Finish yourself now, then sleep, and in no time I will see you again.

G

Oh, Merlin. He couldn't do this. It was too much. He hated himself for his past behaviour; hated, too, his present reactions. Hated whatever it was in his head that made him desire the body of a madman but not one single woman, however attractive or intelligent or socially acceptable. Even his fantasies of other men were rare and short-lived, for who could compare? As for anything beyond fantasy… non-existent. He was not the type for casual encounters – think of the gossip – and equally disinclined or incapable of forming lasting attachment. And so, as the decades passed and youth became middle age, Gellert had remained his sole point of reference for any physical contact beyond the formal. How he would laugh, if he knew… and he probably did know. Or would, somehow, upon setting eyes on him.

He ought to be a good actor because his public persona was little more than a charade, or a caricature of himself, but it relied on people not having known him before. He would need to pull off that same confidence in the face of whatever Gellert could say to him, if he were to have any chance of beating him. The inevitable duel was not the issue – the issue was in the mind. With a deep breath, he ignored his exhaustion and extricated the fourth letter.

Thankfully, they had discussed nothing more exotic than international politics on that third night. Letters four, five and six contained a debate about the relative merits of starting the revolution in Scandinavia – where support might be strongest – or in Austria-Hungary, where the political situation was already fragile. Albus noted, with yet more shame, that it had been him to argue the case for Austria-Hungary, which was what Gellert had ultimately chosen to great effect. Exactly how much was he to blame? It was unhelpful to dwell on it, he decided.

The fireplace roared to life, signalling an impending Floo connection, and he shoved the letters hastily back into the box. Number seven would have to wait for another night.

~oOo~

The more Tom thought about the circumstances surrounding his discovery of the Chamber of Secrets, the more puzzled and angry he became. How had she just happened to round the corner at that moment? How had she known all those other things? There was something odd about her, and always had been – something that had drawn them together from the very beginning. Something that didn't add up, even though he had no idea what it was.

Increasingly last year he had put it down to his own surprise at finding someone of reasonable intelligence among the mass of idiot classmates. But it was more than that, wasn't it? The way he had never been able to follow her around, as if she could just disappear. The way she seemed to follow him, without him even noticing. It was unsettling at best.

His options, at least at the present time, were limited. He could kill her, as he had threatened… but it would be an empty sort of victory, because then he would never know how she did it all. Not to mention the risk, however small, of discovery and punishment. Or the unfortunately larger risk of her overpowering him. No. Violence, in this instance, was very much a last resort. It hadn't worked in the past.

What was the alternative? He could keep her close, and try to learn her secrets through trust, but she never seemed to be affected at all by anything others found charming. Their encounters were therefore more like a fragile truce than a friendship, though in truth he would have little idea what a friendship was – and no use for such a thing anyway. At any rate, the strategy of closeness would be a lot of effort for a low chance of success.

On the other hand, hiding from her had so far been entirely unsuccessful. And if she were inclined to discover things anyway, it made more sense to eliminate the secrecy, because at least that way he would be in a certain amount of control. Maybe she could even make herself useful.

These thoughts took several days to mull over, and it was even longer before he could come to a decision on a course of action, so September was almost out before he found himself in front of the snake carving again.

Hermione, who had been keeping watch around the corner whilst he opened the passageway, slipped through behind him. He re-sealed it quickly.

"There's an hour until the dinner bell. Have you got some parchment?" She looked at him quizzically: good. He was determined to take the lead down here. "I'm going to make a map of the corridors. We don't know how far they extend."

"Oh," she said, rifling through her ever-present bag. "That's a good idea."

They soon got into a system, him counting the distance in measured paces – and trying his best not to appear bothered every time there was the slightest scuttling noise in the distance – and her taking notes in typical verbosity. What had happened to the snake? Whether a basilisk or not, the fact remained that he had heard something. Several times, last term, but not since the summer… it was too early to draw any sort of conclusion from that.

After about half an hour had passed they found themselves back at the foot of the original staircase; the twin corridors formed nothing more complicated than a rectangle around the main chamber. He'd been hoping for some kind of labyrinth, if he were honest, but at least there were several side rooms as yet unexplored.

The first door, barely a dozen paces to the left of the staircase, stood open a crack. It took both of their weight to shift it; the hinges had seized, presumably with rust. Inside the large room a long table ran parallel to the corridor. It looked to be made of one single gigantic piece of wood, warped with age and damp – behind, a row of barrels stood in various states of completeness: a stain beneath one indicated that it had once contained wine. Cups, plates and knives were scattered about haphazardly. He wondered when the last person had sat down to eat there. Centuries ago? Hermione was pacing out the room's width and depth: he saw her write Dining/Store Room on the parchment before returning to the passageway.

The second door was just around the next corner and swung open with less effort – the atmosphere was, for some reason, drier on this side. The room was the same size as the dining room but empty save for a bench along one wall facing a single carved chair.

"What do you think this was for?" asked Hermione. He made a circuit of the space. On the wall containing the door ran a series of scorch marks, replicated opposite.

"The defence room has these," he said, always happy to work something out before she did. "It's probably why Professor Merrythought bans so many spells from duelling practice." She raised her eyebrows, looking around again, and wrote down Classroom, followed by a question mark.

From the classroom, the passageway climbed uphill for some distance before levelling out and taking another turn to the right. The third door was in the centre of this corridor, on the exact opposite side of the main chamber from the entrance arch and staircase. It was, in fact, two doors, each reaching to the ceiling and wide enough for several people to pass through. Instead of handles, iron rails provided a place for multiple pairs of hands to grip. Hermione tucked the parchment back into her bag and they both took hold of the left-hand rail.

It was locked, or rusted shut, or simply too heavy to move. Trying the right hand one yielded the same result. Trying with magic was no better: the door was defiantly immobile, while they were left exhausted and gasping down the damp dungeon air. He looked around for another snake carving – touched each panel of the door to no avail. It was some time before either of them spoke.

"These open outwards," said Hermione, in a far-away sort of voice. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but only narrowly.

"Evidently. Or did you think we were pulling on that bar for fun?"

"No – no, I mean, look – they open, outwards." She mimed the movement of the door through the space, and he was just about to mock her again when he suddenly understood. The doors were exactly the width of the corridor – and exactly the height of the corridor. Opening them would seal it off. In unison, they turned to face the wall behind, and he knew what would happen when he touched it.

The password for this snake was the same as the one upstairs – open, originally enough – but this time the wall did not disappear entirely. Instead, a circular hole formed in it, perhaps three feet across. It appeared to be the entrance to a sort of slide, lined with bare earth.

"I – I don't think that was designed for a human." He nodded in agreement. Though he could easily fit through, it was hardly the sort of thing you might find in a playground.

"I've got a hunch where it comes out." With a wave of his hand the corridor fell into darkness, but as predicted, a faint glow was now visible through the opening. He relit the torches.

"Here." She produced an apple from her bag – he took it, and, understanding the purpose, threw it lightly into the tunnel. A dull thud followed. Doors number four and five flashed past as they hurried back downhill to the archway but they paid them no attention, both intent on confirming the suspicion.

It seemed to take a long time to cross the length of the chamber, but eventually the red of the apple came into view at the end. It had come to rest on the flagstones just underneath the Slytherin statue: just underneath the mouth, in fact, which was a circular tunnel lined with bare earth. Behind him Hermione was speaking, though perhaps more to herself than to him.

"They could let it out. Without looking at it. They could open the slide, like you just did, and then open those doors, remaining on the outside. Clever, really." He thought about it for some time, looking around. "Why take such care, though, when the other end is an open archway? Unless it wasn't." She was halfway back by the time he turned around, walking surprisingly quickly. He caught up with difficulty, but she had already spotted her quarry, leaving him feeling frustratingly sluggish.

"Here! This is where the hinges were. And here –" she went into the corridor and indicated a faint vertical line of abrasion on the stones – "here is where it opened, and scraped on the wall." He didn't say anything, because she was far too smug already. Eventually she continued, in a smaller voice, "Do you think it's still there? Behind the doors…" He shrugged with as much nonchalance as he could manage and looked at his watch.

"Next time we'll find out," was all he said, ascending the stairs without a backward glance.

~oOo~

She shouldn't be thinking about him. Honestly, it wasn't like there was even any time, because there were classes – including all the extra third year classes – and meals and homework; there was visiting Tiggy and studying Occlumency and Animagi and working on the Marauder's Map. There was the small matter of ensuring that the universe remained safe from Voldemort.

And yet she did think of him. She thought, at night, of lying with him, and during the daytime she replayed their conversations in search of missed clues; something to tell her that he really cared, even as each day passed with no letters and her hopes of having meant something to him seemed more and more remote. She thought of his past, and all the things she still didn't know, and of the present, and what he was doing, and of the future, and where the Hallows were. She thought of his voice, a constant despite his changing looks. She thought of Zorion, whose face and body had become so familiar – and then, secretly, she imagined Salazar, and wondered what he looked like… underneath.

Increasingly, she thought about the Chamber of Secrets. A bunker, she now realised, kitted out for a siege – even a classroom, so the work of the then-fledgling school could continue. An ingenious layout, to protect the inhabitants from their deadly weapon… all in all, unlikely to be the gruesome work of a mudblood-hating psychopath, as she had all but accused. Time and again she wondered if she should write and apologise, but she told herself that since he hadn't even written on her birthday, he must be apathetic or busy or both. So she tried to forget all about it, throwing herself into work.

Visiting the secret space soon became habit – neither articulated it, but every day at five they would converge in the dungeon corridor, silent until they passed through the wall.

The fourth door, in the hallway on the opposite side of the chamber to the one with the classroom, contained what had once been a kind of dormitory. A row of small wooden bed frames had survived though there was no sign of mattresses or blankets. No other furniture remained except a single heavy chest which was disappointingly empty.

The fifth and final room was, like the dining room, adjacent to the stairwell. Along the back wall, sheltered by a carved wooden screen, ran a row of toilets – or rather, a raised plank of wood with large holes at regular intervals. On the other side of the screen stood several large wooden tubs accompanied by buckets – the water source was a stone tank in the corner, somewhat resembling an animal trough. She was thankful that the rest of the school had adopted relatively modern muggle plumbing, because the thought of using that bathroom wasn't particularly appealing.

It was the third door, though, that monopolised Tom's attention. They still could not move it, try as they did, every day, with a dozen methods from the ingenious to the violent. She wondered if the protection was original, or an addition of some previous heir – or even the work of Salazar mere weeks ago, in which case they were sure never to get through without assistance. In truth, she didn't know whether to help Tom or attempt to hinder him, because she had no idea of what lay behind the door, other than that it presumably somewhere connected with the first floor girls' bathroom.

Because of his obsession with the door, Tom had not yet appeared to consider any of the Chamber's other secrets. The final resting place of the basilisk, for instance, remained intact. The metal door, through which she and Ron had entered on that fateful day, went unnoticed – from this side it didn't immediately appear to be a door, and at any rate it was inconspicuously tucked into a far corner. Another thing she had yet to investigate was a possible link to the kitchens: her work on the Marauder's Map replica had caused her to notice that the castle's food stores were situated directly above the dining room. The kitchen proper, she predicted, lay largely above the classroom, the heat from the ovens being the reason the damp was kept at bay over there.

After a couple of weeks of spending a freezing hour staring at the unmoving doors, she decided to take action.

"I've been thinking," she said, as they descended the staircase on a Friday afternoon in early October, "that there might be another way in." Tom, as was his norm, said nothing at first. It was unclear whether the purpose of this was a form of politeness, to give her time to explain, or merely lack of interest.

"Earlier, I went to use the bathroom on the first floor, and… while I was washing my hands, I noticed that there's a snake design on one of the taps. I know it sounds quite silly… but it might be worth a try." They continued walking, Tom frowning somewhat.

"The one next to the Defence classroom?" She nodded. "I can't just walk in there."

It was a fair point. The bathroom – devoid of the ghost of Myrtle, though quite often containing her younger living self – was probably the busiest one in the castle, owing to its location very close to several classrooms as well as the main staircase. The fact that it had remained unused for fifty years in her original timeline was something of a testament to just how annoying the ghost was.

"What about first thing in the morning?" Slughorn was still under orders to escort Tom to bed every night after dinner, so evenings or nights were impossible: his room was locked and warded.

They continued walking the familiar path to the double doors, long since having lost any fear of the gloom or damp or – in Tom's case – possible basilisk. It was very nearly companionable.

"Alright. You go to breakfast. It's too suspicious if we're both missing." On this particular occasion, she couldn't help but think that a lookout might be helpful, but she decided not to argue the point. It would be suspicious, since they were just about the only two students who routinely ate at the earliest possible time.

"Fine."

When Tom, complete with murderous expression, entered the Great Hall for breakfast the next morning on the heels of Professor Dumbledore, she was barely surprised.

~oOo~