strawberrylily: Thank you so much for the review! Portraying the twins in the wrong way is my biggest fear with this story, so I am glad that you are enjoying it! They are by far my favorite characters in the entire series, so I'd hate not to do them justice. As for your question, yes, my intention is to continue this story for the rest of the series. I am already about 5 chapters into the Prisoner of Azkaban storyline, so more to come. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter Twenty-One

Three days before her first end-of-year exam, she was where she always was — the library. The twins and Tori had taken up root with her in an attempt to figure out anything at all. They'd hit a dead end. Hagrid hadn't opened the Chamber of Secrets and that was all well and good, but it left them no indication of who had done it. As the dead ends kept piling up, it became harder and harder to figure out what was going on. Other than Lockhart, no one seemed to believe that Hagrid was the true culprit and the teachers were just as antsy as before.

The four of them had only seen Harry and Ron in passing since visiting Aragog a week before and they'd hardly had time to speak to each other much about anything they'd found. Harry was looking hopeful, which she found odd, but when she'd asked about it, Ginny had come to sit next to them in the common room and they'd promptly stopped talking. The younger girl was looking worse and worse by the day and Nessa was worried she was falling into a pit of depression. She never spoke, she never smiled or laughed, she moved slowly, like she was in a daze. Her brown eyes were horribly dull and she refused to answer any questions that Nessa had posed to her about how she was doing.

She'd advised the twins and Tori of her concerns about her, but they'd had just as much success as she had. She half suspected that this was part of the reason the three of them were going through texts so ferociously with her. She'd never seen the three of them studying so hard, but they seemed about as frazzled and frustrated as she was feeling. They'd taken turns using the cloak to get into the Restricted Section and they'd each surrounded themselves with a tower of books, muttering to themselves and shaking their heads when something didn't make sense. Their concern for the younger girl seemed to have them just as willing to put an end to the terror the school was feeling as much as her, but the constant days and nights in the library were putting them all on edge.

Fred and George seemed more irritated by the hour, the content they were surrounding themselves with darker than they would have preferred. It went against everything in their nature to willingly put themselves in a position that left them pessimistic and unhappy, and Nessa could tell it was taking a toll on them. Tori was equally frustrated, her personality taking a turn from mischievously bubbly to homicidal rage in the span of seconds if she even caught a sign of someone breathing too loudly. Nessa felt bad seeing the three of them so morose because she'd dragged them into the entire thing in the first place, but they'd only glared at her when she'd mentioned it to them.

They'd woken early on that Monday, sneaking into the kitchens and grabbing a quick breakfast to take with them into the stacks, and had been pouring over tomes about Slytherin, about dark magic, about Hogwarts history, all through the morning. They were getting nowhere quickly, but Nessa still felt hopeful for some reason. She scoured through the book in front of her, as the twins and Tori went searching through the bookshelves for a book that had been cited in one of the others.

"Nessa?"

She jumped and looked up in surprise at a terrified-looking Ginny, who was standing a few feet away from the table and eyeing her nervously. Given how horrible the younger girl looked, it felt wrong for her to be happy to see her, but her heart soared anyway, a crippling relief flooding into her veins.

"Ginny?" she breathed. "What're you doing here?"

She looked around the library nervously, as if making sure that they were really alone. She looked nervous and tense and she was wringing her hands in her lap as she sat down in the chair next to her. Nessa hardly moved, for fear that it would scare her away.

"Ginny, what's wrong?" she said gently.

She didn't say anything, but continued to glance around the library, eyeing the bookshelves nervously, clearly trying to make sure no one would overhear them. The anxiety of waiting for an answer made Vanessa want to shift restlessly, but she forced herself to sit still and remain calm in the face of whatever Ginny was dealing with. Ginny began to rock back and forth, her mouth gaping, like she was trying to force herself to speak, but no words would come out. Nessa held her breath.

"I've got to tell you something," Ginny mumbled quickly, looking down at her hands and continuing to rock back and forth.

"You can tell me anything, Ginny, you know that," she said, softly, despite the fact that she was so concerned at this point that she wanted to shake the younger girl until she spit it out.

Ginny did look up at her then, her eyes filled with tears.

"I'm so sorry, Nessa, I didn't mean to," she said, her voice breaking. Nessa felt her chest constrict and she reached out to touch one of her hands. Ginny jumped at the action. "I tried to tell Harry and Ron at breakfast but…"

"You didn't mean to what?" she said as Ginny trailed off, her eyes looking at her intensely. "Ginny, I can't help you if I don't know what's going on."

Ginny drew a deep breath, steeling herself, but the twins and Tori came around the corner, bickering about something, while Tori brandished the book in her hand in irritation. Ginny jumped up so quickly at the sight of them that she knocked over a stack of books in front of her. The twins and Tori halted as they realized who was sitting at the table with her, but Ginny was already racing away, ignoring Nessa's attempts to get her to stay.

"You couldn't have waited another five minutes to come back?" she snapped at her three friends with a glare.

"We didn't know!" said Tori, her voice sounding horribly guilty. "Shite, what happened?"

"Nothing," said Nessa with a huff, sitting back down and letting her head hit the table, wishing she'd chased Ginny out of the library and forced her to talk or maybe have told her friends to leave the library instead. They all stared at her forlornly as she spoke. "She was going to tell me something, though. She was horribly nervous. She knows something."

"Well, let's go find her and make her tell us then!" said Fred fiercely, slamming his book onto the table in frustration. "We aren't finding a bloody thing in here and there's clearly something upsetting her."

"We can't make her tell us anything, Fred," said Nessa dejectedly. "I've been trying that for weeks now. And so have you, I might add. I'm surprised she even wanted to tell me anything at all. Besides, did you see the look on her face when she saw the three of you? She isn't going to tell me anything with you lot hanging around."

"So, what do you suggest we do then?" said George, clearly as frustrated as his brother. "We aren't any closer to figuring this out than we were 3 months ago!"

Nessa opened her mouth to retort heatedly because that was her first instinct when someone took that tone with her, but she swallowed down her anger instead and stood up. They had more important things to be doing than turning on each other. Arguing would hardly solve the problem and she was certain that they had to be missing something important. They'd read what felt like half the library in the last month — there was no way they hadn't learned at least something.

She paced back and forth, her strides clipped, and ran a hand through her hair. When they all still stood standing, she paused briefly and looked at them sharply. The three of them sat down and watched her wearily.

"Okay, so let's just go over it all," she said, turning to face them with her hands on her hips. "We have to be over-thinking this. There's something here, but we're missing it. So what's all happened — start to finish?"

Tori cleared her throat. "Okay, well, Harry says the voices started toward the end of September. Always the same thing 'let me rip…let me kill you…'"

"Right but he's the only one who can hear it because none of us nor Ron or Hermione heard it," said Fred, clearly thinking that this was a waste of time and wanting to stick to his plan of kidnapping his kid sister. "And then Halloween, there was the writing on the wall about the Chamber of Secrets being opened."

"Fast forward some and we've got four people petrified, Harry says that someone opened the Chamber of Secrets 50 years ago and that Hagrid was blamed for it, and we almost get murdered by Acromantulas," finished George, his hand rubbing at his temples.

"Okay, so let's start there," said Nessa, pacing again. "It was opened for the first time 50 years ago. And it wasn't Hagrid. So who was it?"

"Well, if we knew that, I don't think we'd be sitting here, now would we?" said Fred snarkily.

She glared at him.

"Can you turn off your attitude for six seconds and let me think?" she snapped back. Tori snorted, which Fred did not seem to enjoy, but he pursed his lips slightly and said nothing. Nessa continued pacing, willing herself to think of a way to know who had opened the Chamber fifty years ago. "Okay, so what we really need is a list of people who attended Hogwarts with Hagrid. Who would have been here fifty years ago."

"How would we possibly narrow that down, Vanessa?" said Tori incredulously. "There's got to be at least a hundred students. Likely more."

"Yes, but whoever did it then has to have a kid at the school now, wouldn't they?" said Nessa, suddenly feeling as though something were beginning to make sense. "We can narrow down the people based on that factor."

"That could still be like fifty people."

"Do you have a better idea?" she said, raising her eyebrow at them all. They looked back at her unhappily, but they seemed resolved, so she continued. "There's old stacks of the Daily Prophet in the filing cabinet up front. We can start there. They used to list incoming first-years there before Dumbledore became headmaster."

She raced to the front, shooting a placating smile at Madam Pomfrey, and rifled through the filing cabinet, pulling out any newspapers that would have been released around the start of term. She came back with a stack of newspapers and sat them on the table. The four of them split the stack and flipped through the pages, finding the small portion on the side that listed incoming students to Hogwarts and writing them down on a piece of parchment. It took at least an hour before they'd finished.

"Okay, so now let's go through them and cross out any of the ones that don't fit. George, you go first."

George began listing the names on his sheet, crossing off names they were unfamiliar with, so that he had only a handful left. Fred went next and they began to lose some hope when the majority of his list could be left as potential candidates. Tori began reciting off her own.

"...Nathaniel Murton — could be him, I suppose, because Adelaide is a real bitch, if you ask me….Steven Pucey — could be Adrian's father or grand-father…T.M. Riddle — that one's nothing —"

"Wait," said Nessa suddenly, the alarms in her head going off again. "Did you say Riddle?"

Tori paused and looked up at her oddly.

"Yeah, but there's no one here with the last name Riddle, so it can't be him," she said as though this were obvious.

Nessa did not agree. She'd seen that name before. In one of the books. In the one that had given her nightmares for weeks. She shot up, grabbing the cloak and throwing it over herself, and disappearing without another word to her friends.

"What the hell was that?" said Tori to the twins, who were looking just as confused as she felt. They shook their heads at her, but waited for Vanessa to come back and explain what was happening.

They didn't have to wait long because she reappeared next to them again suddenly, dropping the cloak next to her seat without a care and carrying a large moldy tome in her hands. The instant George saw it, he sat up and tried to snatch it from her.

"Absolutely not, Vanessa, we aren't doing this again —" he said, standing to take it back from her.

"For God's sake, George, just wait until —"

"No, you nearly had a breakdown the last time you read that and I'm not —"

"Fine," she said heatedly and allowed him to pull it from her hands. Fred and Tori were eyeing the both of them as if they'd gone mad. "You look at it then. It's in the chapter on the First Wizarding War."

George rolled his eyes but flipped through until he found the section and was going to eye her expectantly to finish explaining to him what was happening, except his eyes caught on one of the words in front of him and he froze. He felt Nessa step closer to him and look over his shoulder.

"You see now, don't you?"

"But — but — how?" he said, continuing to stare at the first paragraph of the chapter as if willing it to change, for the words to rearrange themselves into something different. There was just no chance — Voldemort didn't have a kid….did he?

"Okay, do the two of you mind explaining because you're really starting to freak me out," said Tori suddenly as the silence lingered.

"Lord Voldemort isn't his real name, Victoria," said Nessa, ignoring the flinch the others gave. "He had just a normal, average name before he changed it to that."

"What was his name before?" said Tori, feeling suddenly like she was going to vomit.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," said George, still staring at the page in horror and reading aloud. "'The First Wizarding War divided many and continues to do so to this day. Many lives were lost in the fight to keep the likes of Lord V-Voldemort and his Death Eaters at bay and the fight only ended under the strangest of circumstances. In this chapter, we will discuss the dark magic used by Lord V-V-Voldemort and his followers and discuss what little is known about their leader. V-Vold —- I can't say it again. You-Know-Who. '...,who's born name is Tom Marvolo Riddle,…'"

Tori and Fred stared at him in horror, trying to make all of the pieces fit into place. Tori shook her head slowly, the pieces they had, while coincidental, still not managing to fit cohesively in her mind.

"You-Know-Who can't have done it, though," she said, a tinge of desperation in her voice. "I mean, he doesn't have any kids. Maybe it's just a coincidence that he was in school with Hagrid."

"That's a horribly large coincidence, Tori," said Nessa, pacing again. "And he doesn't have to have a kid to have opened it again."

Fred stood now, shaking his head, and trying to keep a lid on his own panic. The insanity of the conversation was beyond what he had truly expected they would find in the library.

"You don't think he could have just waltzed in here, do you, because that's ridiculous."

"He did it last year, so clearly not," said Nessa, rolling her eyes at him. "But, no, I don't. There was another part of that book that disturbed me so much. The part George caught me reading. Except I couldn't figure out what about it was bothering me —"

"Possession," said George, looking at her, suddenly letting his thoughts trail along with hers, his mind racing toward a finish line he didn't really want to reach. Tori and Fred made noises of panic. "You were worried Harry was possessed."

"Right," she said, sobering immediately and pulling the book back toward her. Her heart was racing. "Because he kept hearing that voice in his head and it was the only piece of dark magic I could find that would cause that sort of symptom. Well, other than the Imperius Curse, but that's highly advanced and I don't imagine anyone in the school would know much about using it."

"I think we'd notice if Harry had another face in the back of his head," said Fred. "I mean, when he did it to Quirrell, that's what Harry said had happened right?"

Nessa nodded, but continued flipping through the pages until she reached the section on possession again.

"Yes, but that's only one form of possession," she said, reading it all over again. "Quirrell would have had to have come into contact with him in whatever form he takes now in order for him to be possessed in that manner. And he's supposedly back in Albania, isn't he? So I highly doubt that a student would have run into him and met the same fate as Quirrell. Besides, as much as I hate to say so, Voldemort is very intelligent. That's why he was so successful for so long. I don't think he'd be too keen to repeat what happened last year, considering."

"Okay, so what's the other form then?" said Tori, praying to everything that it made less sense because the thought of someone in the school being possessed by Voldemort was something she had never wanted to consider.

"You can possess someone from a distance," Nessa responded, sinking into her chair. "It's not always ideal and the symptoms tend to depend on the person being possessed and how hard they fight against it. But there has to be a connection between the two people. That's the piece I can't figure out."

"A connection?" said George, slowly, amazed at the way her mind was working to put all the pieces together.

"Yes, like something to tether them together. You and Fred, for example. Magical twins — they have a connection to each other that gives them an insight into each other. How you're feeling, sometimes what you're thinking, that sort of thing. Which, of course, part of that is because you're so accustomed to each other, but the bond intensifies that a little. Magical twins tend to be stronger together than they are apart."

"Okay, but what does this have to do with anything?" said Tori, impatiently. "Fred and George have issues, I got that, but the rest of it?"

"Possession works in the same manner," said Nessa patiently. "Magical twins have an insight into each other because of their connection, but possession is deeper and darker than that. You need a similar tether, but it needs to be stronger. It gives the possessor the sort of power they need to force themselves into your head, show you images they want you to see, get you to act without knowing you're doing it. It also makes the possessed harder to break away because the stronger the tether becomes, the less free will they'll have."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Tori muttered. Nessa grimaced at her in understanding.

"But, unlike the connection between twins, this sort of thing, it's…it's forced onto another person. It's all-consuming. It's hard to distinguish reality from fiction because of the nature of the connection. A twin connection…that's natural. It has no impact on the free will of the other person —"

"And thank Merlin for that," said Fred, who was looking positively green.

"- and you don't have to do anything to jumpstart or maintain it. It's a sort of magic that starts in the womb and continues outside of it. In order to mock that sort of connection, someone would have to open themselves up to it, willingly or not."

"Open themselves up to it?" said Tori. "What does that mean?"

"Well, I'm sure there are other ways to form that sort of connection, but they're rare. The most common way would be to…well, to pour your heart and soul into something." said Nessa, looking for all the world like she was going to explode from the thoughts in her head. "The more you open up to this other person, the more they understand your fears and your desires, the easier it is to maintain control over them."

"And that's why it bothers you so much," said George, coming to an understanding all at once. "Because that would mean Harry would have had to put himself in the position to open himself up to You-Know-Who."

"That's part of it, yes," she agreed. "But the other part of it is…well, I don't think Harry would open himself up enough to allow this sort of chaos. He barely opens up to himself. Plus, I mean, all he's hearing is a voice and he'd have to be pretty far gone to set a monster on students because it goes so against his nature."

"Okaaay," said Tori, slowly, relaxing a little at the prospect that it wasn't someone they knew. "So, we can rule Harry out then. The voice has to be something else and You-Know-Who has to be possessing another student."

"That's making the assumption that we stick to this possession story because, I mean, it's a huge leap, isn't it?" said Fred suddenly. "I mean, we're hinging this argument on the voice in Harry's head, but if the voice isn't related and is coming from the monster instead then the more likely scenario is that You-Know-Who has a kid we don't know about."

Nessa nodded because that was the case, but there was something…something just out of her reach that made her cling to the theory. Whatever piece her brain was refusing to consider was the one that would make the entire thing make sense. Would be the answer to all of their questions, and yet still, she felt that once she uncovered what it was, it would throw her completely over the edge and there would be no going back.

"My head hurts from the circles we're talking in right now," said Tori, rubbing her temples. "So let's throw out the possession theory then for a second. If the voice is the monster, then why is Harry the only one that can hear it? What could Slytherin possibly control that only Harry could hear?"

"A snake," said George, looking at Nessa in realization. She straightened immediately and hit herself on the forehead.

"Of course! You're brilliant, George!" she said, grinning. "He can hear it because he's a Parselmouth. And so was Slytherin. It's got to be a snake. I mean, I have no idea what kind of snake would be able to petrify people, but it makes sense."

"It'd have to be a pretty big snake to take down ghosts and students," said Fred, thoughtfully. "I mean, how would it be getting around the school? Surely, we would have noticed a snake hanging about by now."

They dissolved into silence, each of them staring off into a separate corner of the library. How could it have been getting around? The reaction of the school at the Dueling Club should have been proof enough that even if the snake wasn't very big, it would never have gotten far before someone started screaming.

"Harry kept putting his ear on the wall," said Tori slowly. "When we were coming back from the kitchens...and he said it was going around us, remember?"

"Yeah because I was sure he'd lost it," said Fred immediately.

"And he said, he always lost it at Myrtle's bathroom," she continued, synapses firing at a mile a minute. "It's the pipes. It's inside the walls."

Nessa leaned over and kissed her square on the mouth, excitedly. Tori laughed as she started shoving things into her bag, leaving the books they'd removed scattered around the table.

"C'mon," she said suddenly. "Myrtle must have seen something at least once this year if it's been using the pipes in her bathroom."

The others hurriedly shoved their own things back into their bags and went racing after her out of the library.

"But we already asked her," said Tori, panting to keep up as they rounded the corner.

"We asked her if she'd heard anything," Nessa argued. "We never once asked her if she'd seen anything."

The trip to Myrtle's bathroom was much longer than usual because they'd left the library without a teacher to escort them to their next class and kept having to dive into hidden alcoves and broom closets to avoid the ones that were escorting other students to class. As they skidded around the corner, the words dubbed there were still as bright as ever, but Nessa's excitement was mounting because they were close. She could feel it.

They raced into Myrtle's bathroom so quickly that the door hit the wall and nearly bounced back into George's face. She hardly looked back — he had quick reflexes, so he was likely fine. George grumbled at her anyway.

"MYRTLE!" she yelled loudly, walking up and down the stalls and banging on the doors. "MYRTLE! I KNOW YOU'RE IN HERE, KNOCK IT OFF!"

Myrtle flew through the stall and directly through her and she swore violently and glared at the mopey ghost, who was floating up toward one of the windows. She tried to withhold the shiver as the feeling of being dunked into a bucket of iced water faded.

"Come to see me, have you?" blubbered Myrtle, raising her chin haughtily, despite the tears glistening in her eyes. "Have those mean boys finally driven you mad? Well, I don't want anything to do with you, so you can —"

"Myrtle, I don't have time for this," said Nessa impatiently. "I need to know if you've seen anything weird in here lately. Anybody that's been in here more than usual?"

Myrtle ignored her and eyed Fred and George behind her in distaste.

"Oh, yes, I bet they don't think you're much fun at all," she said happily. "I bet they stop being your friends, and then you'll have to come crawling back to Myrtle. WELL, I WON'T TAKE YOU!"

Nessa barely flinched as Myrtle lunged toward her and Tori huffed in exasperation, but she distinctly heard one of the twins mutter, "Bloody hell!"

"Myrtle, listen, if you help me out this one time, I will poison myself and come live in the toilet next to you, alright?" Nessa snapped. Tori sniggered when Myrtle turned to eye Nessa carefully.

"Why would you want to stay here with me when you ignored me earlier?" she said, mopily. "You think you're too popular now that you hang out with these two —"

"What are you talking about?" said Nessa in confusion. "I haven't been in here at all today."

"I SAW YOU!" Myrtle wailed. "You wouldn't even look at me!"

Nessa took a deep breath and raised her hands in consolation.

"Myrtle, I swear to you, it wasn't me," she said, her voice gentle but firm. "I've been in the library since six this morning. Why did you think it was me?"

"Because of the hair," said Myrtle, sniffling. "There aren't many people with red hair that come in here to visit me. Just you."

Nessa froze, her entire body stiffening and her stomach plummeting as the pieces locked into place.

Red hair…nightmares…memory loss…her diary…the book Harry had brought to the library…I woke up in the bathroom and I don't remember how I got there…

Oh, God. How had she not seen it sooner?

I'm so sorry, Nessa, I didn't mean to.

Nessa stumbled backward and had to brace herself on the sink, as the thoughts she had been suppressing barrelled into her head. As she realized why the possession piece had bothered her so much and why she couldn't let it go. As she recognized all of the symptoms she'd ignored, the red flags she'd made excuses for. As she realized how negligent she'd been for not having forced Ginny to speak to a teacher about the issues she'd been having.

Tori exclaimed in shock and grabbed her arm to help steady her. She looked up into her best friend's face and opened her mouth before she could ask her anything.

"Ginny," she whispered, the words shrouded in pain.

It was Ginny. Ginny had opened the Chamber of Secrets.

-o0o-

The end is near, my friends. The insanity of the last few chapters has been intense on my end. Hopefully, the way in which Nessa figured it out wasn't totally unbelievable. I considered long and hard how she could bridge the gap to figure out what was really happening and who was behind it. I sort of just tried to think of how a library would be the most helpful in this situation. Plus, you know, I really like the idea of the Fantastic Four being only seconds behind the Golden Trio to save Ginny.

Okay, and you know, there's something else because…I really do be wondering how Dumbledore couldn't have figured the whole thing out himself. Because he was there when Riddle opened the Chamber the first time. He can figure out about the Horcruxes, but not that Ginny Weasley is possessed? Pretty whack, if you ask me. But anywho, Dumbledore's issues aside, I hope you enjoyed!