Harry stood rigidly next to Draco, who with a sour face was fixing his grey orbs on Ginny Weasley. A crowd had gathered around them, due to the scandal that the dwarf dressed as a cherub had made to get Potter's attention. The not-so-discreet laughter was making itself present. Harry, red in the face with embarrassment at being the center of attention for such a shameful reason, was reaching levels of anger and indignation that he had rarely experienced and Draco did not look much better than him.

"He has eyes as green as a pickled toad and hair as black as a slate at dusk," said the creature in a shrill, singing voice, and laughter finally exploded in that corridor.

Harry couldn't stand it much longer and with a dignified air he turned around, ready to leave and never hear another sentence of that ridiculous poem, song or whatever it was. It was horrible, it was humiliating and above all ridiculous. He was the great Harry Potter, conqueror of dark lords and the youngest leader Slytherin had ever had, he didn't want to even imagine what his housemates would say if they came across such a scene, one thing was a letter, like the many he had received that morning for Valentine's Day, another thing the chocolates, but that... that had no name, Merlin and Salazar knew it.

"Stop!" the dwarf growled, grabbing Harry by the bag to stop him.

He had walked only a couple of meters, with Draco at his side with the most serious expression he had ever seen on him. He looked so much like his father that it was impossible not to bow his head in respect. However, Harry was more busy glaring at the dwarf with all the hatred he could muster while he pulled his bag and along the way, scattered the things inside. Things that were stained with red ink from his inkwell that had broken when it hit the floor.How disrespectful!Harry thought.I am the prince of Slytherin, not its jester!

—He has eyes as green as a pickled toad and hair as black as a slate at dusk, —the dwarf repeated, once he was sure that Harry would not escape. —I wish he were mine, because he is glorious, the hero who defeated the Dark Lord.

By that time, all the boys had left their classrooms only to see the great Harry Potter in that bizarre situation. Thunderous laughter filled the entire corridor and Harry, exploding like never before, let his magic flow. The windows vibrated, the fury was palpable in the frozen air that had nothing to do with nature. And everyone remained in sepulchral silence, as if they had suddenly remembered who they were laughing at.

Draco raised his nose in a gesture of unpleasant superiority while Harry gathered his things with a wave of his wand, noticing for the first time that the diary, which had belonged to Draco, had fallen to the floor along with the rest of his things. When everything was safely inside his backpack he looked at the blond, but as he did not notice any change in his behavior he came to the conclusion that possibly he had not noticed anything. That was a real relief, Harry did not want, nor could he give explanations at that moment, he did not want to be under his friend's gaze, not when Harry had already put Draco under his own, suspecting and intuiting a lot of things that he had not been able to prove due to lack of evidence and boy had he been observant. However it was obvious that either Draco was very good at pretending, or he simply was not hiding anything and Harry was becoming more desperate every day to unravel that mystery.

"Pathetic," Draco said then, and Harry looked up to see Ginny standing close behind them, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Classless, absolutely disgusting. What were you trying to do, girl? Embarrass Harry with your pathetic dedication?" he snorted in annoyance. "Don't ever try anything like that again or I'll have to curse you."

Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran into class. With a growl, Ron, who had come out of one of the classrooms to look at the mess that had taken shape in the corridor, pulled out his wand, ready to curse Draco for making his little sister cry, but Harry snatched it away with a Disarming Charm, so serious that Ron didn't even dare open his mouth to retort. Harry gave him his wand back after Percy Weasley told him off for using magic in the corridors using his position as prefect and left for his own class, Charms, only to notice that something strange had happened; Riddle's diary was spotless, ink had fallen on it as well as the rest of his things, but it had remained intact.

That night, gathering all the information about the camera that he had managed to gather over the months, he sat on his bed and closed the curtains, silently asking for some privacy to which Draco agreed so easily that he even disappeared from the room, surely having gone to spend time with Zabini or Parkinson.

The books about magical creatures were spread wide open around him, right at the pages that showed the creatures that could petrify their victim, there were also a few books from the forbidden section—stolen of course, with the help of his cloak—that talked about the chamber of secrets and finally, right in front of him, the diary, opened in half, showing off its white pages.

Harry stared at him in silence, trying to process everything. He closed his eyes and tried to mentally piece everything together, but as always, something slipped through his fingers, it was a tiny detail, but of utmost importance, something he wasn't looking at. He sighed heavily, he had no idea how long he had been at this and it didn't matter, he thought giving up was the best thing to do, however the fact that the Malfoys were involved made him curious and that was the only reason he didn't give up. As a last resort he took a quill and dipped it in ink and wrote:

"My name is Harry Potter." The words flashed for a moment on the page and then vanished, leaving no trace behind. Then, almost immediately, other words began to appear on the surface of the page.

«Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come across my diary?»

"Someone tried to flush it down the toilet."

«It's a good thing I recorded my memories in something more durable than ink. I always knew there would be people who wouldn't want my diary read.»

"What do you mean?" Harry wrote, fascinated by how things were turning out.

"I mean, this diary tells of horrible things; things that werehidden, things that happened at Hogwarts; things connected with the Chamber of Secrets." His heart was pounding, ecstatic, he would finally receive answers.

"What do you know about it?" he asked, his hands shaking so much that the ink stained almost the entire sheet of paper and the letters became blurred.

"I'll show you," he replied, and Harry was dragged by some kind of magic into a memory that did not belong to him.

—You're still awake— Draco said, entering the room with a sleepy expression. Bringing a shocked Harry back to reality—. There's still too much time left before the exams, you don't have to kill yourself too much—he said with a neutral expression before entering the bathroom and the sound of falling water became present.

Only then could Harry process everything Riddle had shown him; an orphan boy, son of a witch and a muggle, anonymous hero of the school for having stopped the one who had opened the Chamber of Secrets... Rubeus Hagrid, whom Harry knew very well that fondness for taking dangerous creatures as if they were puppies. Just as he had read in Lucius' letter to Draco, a student had died and many others had been attacked, Hogwarts would have closed its doors if it hadn't been for Tom Riddle, who had discovered the truth and had only revealed it so he wouldn't have to return to the orphanage during the summer. And Harry didn't blame him, he would have done anything last year to not have to return during the summer with the Dursleys.

However, there were two things that weren't entirely clear to him. The first was that the monster in the chamber looked like some kind of giant spider, very similar to an acromantula, but Harry didn't know of any magical spider that could petrify its victims. All of them were lethal, their bites killed you almost instantly due to the venom and if they had the chance to devour you, they would do it, they wouldn't just leave you there, petrified in the middle of the hallway.

The second of those doubts that still remained was Lucius Malfoy and his role in the whole mess. After the vision that Tom showed him, he didn't speak again even though Harry asked and in the vision there wasn't a single Malfoy who had been involved. He knew that Riddle had been a Slytherin, he had seen the emblem on his school robes, it was possible that he had left his diary at Hogwarts and that the Malfoy patriarch had found it much later and taken possession of it, but Harry didn't think it was a coincidence that just when the chamber had been opened again the diary had returned to Hogwarts. There was also the fact that Lucius seemed genuinely interested in the heir of Slytherin doing his thing. But that was a contradiction, if Lucius had wanted everything to stay the same, he wouldn't have given him the diary of the one who had stopped Hagrid.

Nothing made sense to him, either Riddle was lying, or Lucius Malfoy really wasn't as racist as everyone said he was.

It was the day Slytherin faced Ravenclaw that things started to spiral out of control, someone had broken into Harry and Draco's room and stolen Tom's diary, leaving the room looking like a hurricane had taken place inside. Draco had been furious, they had broken all of his jars of potion ingredients in their quest to find whatever it was they were looking for, since Harry never told them what they needed, and they had smashed his racing broom.

Both boys were aware that whoever had done such damage had to be a Slytherin or a teacher with authority to break into the common room. Harry had been on the verge of accusing Snape, at least mentally, as he had remained strangely calm all year, especially after discovering that he spoke Parcel. However, it was possible that it was the Heir of Slytherin himself trying to erase the only evidence of his misdeeds. Harry wondered if Hagrid had access to the common rooms; he thought it was unlikely.

Ginevra Weasley was found petrified very close to Gryffindor Tower that same night.

[...]

"I know you did it, Hagrid," the raven-haired man confronted him as soon as the man opened the door to the cabin. "I know you stole the diary from my room and that you did something to Draco to keep him from telling anyone what he knows. He's been in the infirmary for days, half-conscious from fever, and I want you to stop him, now."

—Harry? I... what are you talking about? —she asked with genuine doubt.

—Stop lying, wasn't it enough for you to be expelled? Now you want to be fired too? Don't be silly Hagrid, stop this now or I'll go tell Dumbledore everything I know —he threatened, hoping that would be enough to get information out of him.

"I didn't open the Chamber of Secrets," he defended himself, quite offended, "not now, not before, that Tom Riddle, he..." Then some voices coming from the grounds, approaching, stopped him. "Oh no..."

"What's wrong?" the black-haired man asked, putting on the invisibility cloak.

—The Minister and Dumbledore are coming for me... they think that... Lucius Malfoy he... listen Harry, there's no time, go after spiders, the trail starts right at the back of the hut, tell Aragog that I sent you.

Harry ran back to the castle in search of Ron and Hermione. He needed to bring them up to date, he needed their help to advance in that game that seemed to have become complicated. However, he would soon discover that Hermione would not participate in that adventure; she had been found petrified near the library, next to Ginny Weasley.

The council of parents, led by Lucius Malfoy, then called for Dumbledore's resignation, and without him in the castle there was no child or adult who did not fear the worst.

Harry was no longer, for everyone, the culprit of the attacks, no one had believed him capable of having attacked Hermione or Ron's younger sister, who when she heard everything that Harry knew about the chamber, did not hesitate to help him end it all, fearing for her sister and the rest of her family, it seemed that no one was safe anymore.

[...]

"Aragog," said Harry in a commanding voice, standing as tall as he could before the creature. "Hagrid sent us here. He's in trouble and apparently thinks you can help him."

"Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow," he said slowly. "Why did he send them?"

—They think he's opened the Chamber of Secrets again, there are students in danger, right now, I'm afraid, he's in Azkaban.

"He never opened such a chamber, and I am not the monster that inhabits it. I was not born in the castle. I came from a far-off land. A traveller gave me to Hagrid when I was in the egg. Hagrid was only a boy, but he looked after me, hid me in a cupboard in the castle, fed me scraps from the table. Hagrid is a great friend of mine, and a great man. When I was discovered and blamed for the death of a girl, he protected me. Since then, I have always lived in the forest, where Hagrid still comes to see me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see how my family has grown, thanks to Hagrid's kindness. Out of respect for him I never attacked anyone; the body of the murdered girl was discovered in the toilets. I never saw anything of the castle except the cupboard in which I grew up. Our kind likes darkness and silence." What dwells in the castle is an ancient creature that we spiders fear more than anything else, we never name it.

Harry felt something light up inside his head, he finally understood everything, the monster, the chamber, Tom Riddle, Lucius Malfoy and Draco...

"We must return to the castle," Harry said to his red-headed friend who, although he seemed brave, was actually trembling with fear inside.

"I think not," Aragog said then, and his sons began to approach the boys. "We did not attack Hagrid, but... I cannot deny my sons fresh meat when he approaches of his own free will."

—I think not—Potter said then, in Parseltongue, causing the spiders to back away in terror—And from now on, if you don't want to have the monster from the chamber roaming around here, you'll consider me your friend too—he smiled when Aragog let out an affirmative growl—good boy—he raised his wand, illuminating that area of the forest excessively and taking Ron by the arm he led him out of there.

[...]

By the end of the term, Quidditch had been cancelled, as had walks in the corridors after school, all lunches were taken in the common rooms, and the teachers made security rounds throughout the castle, with not even the prefects allowed to leave their rooms. With Dumbledore gone, things seemed like complete chaos, and Harry knew they were.

Of the many fearsome beasts and terrible monsters that roam our earth, there is nonemore astonishing or more deadly than the basilisk, known as the king of serpents. This serpent, which can grow to gigantic size and whose life span lasts for several centuries, is born from a hen's egg hatched by a toad. Its methods of killing are most extraordinary, for in addition to its deadly poisonous fangs, the basilisk kills with its gaze, and all who fix their gaze on the gleam of its eyes are killed instantly. Spiders flee from the basilisk, for it is its mortal enemy, and the basilisk flees only from the crowing of the cock, which to it is deadly.

He read that paragraph again, not understanding why he had forgotten to look at his own copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them from his first year for so long. Maybe he should have realized it sooner, but there was no point in complaining anymore.

He spent the rest of his break searching his room for Riddle's diary, to no avail, just like every other time he had tried. He sighed tiredly, thinking that the best thing to do would be to talk to McGonagall, an action he had refrained from mainly so as not to get his best friend into trouble. However, now things had gotten out of hand, he couldn't play the hero when his best friend was in danger and all because he hadn't been able to see him before.

And he was furious, furious with himself and with Draco for having put his despicable father's honor before his integrity. Harry already imagined that that was the only reason why his best friend had not opened his mouth. Draco had already told him once, the Malfoys were only loyal to themselves, to their family, even if this meant that the rest of the world was silent around them. And Harry felt jealous, jealous of not being able to have a family to defend tooth and nail to the death, but above all he felt jealous of not having such an important place in Draco's life. He was consumed by fury every time he imagined that, if he had been a victim of the monster in the chamber, Draco would have remained silent to protect his father, whose only purpose in giving him the diary had been to make him succumb, without imagining that it would be his son who would end up under the control of Voldemort himself, a young Voldemort, but no less cunning for that.

Humiliated didn't quite describe him, he felt completely stupid for not seeing it coming, he felt stupid because Voldemort had proven himself superior to him. Harry had been so busy training magically that he had forgotten the thing that best characterized Slytherins, cunning.

He reached the staff room where the door was ajar, thinking that after that he could go to the infirmary and make sure that Draco was stable, because despite his anger he was still his best friend. He stopped in front of the door, ready to knock, but Minerva McGonagall's voice stopped him, apparently they were having some kind of discussion inside. Harry frowned slightly, but finally decided to peek through the crack in the door.

"It has happened," she said to the audience, who listened in silence. "A student has been abducted by the monster. He has been taken to the chamber."

Professor Flitwick let out a scream. Professor Sprout covered her mouth with her hands. Snape gripped the back of a chair and asked:

—Are you sure?

"The Heir of Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall, who was pale, "has left a new message, beneath the first: 'His bones will rest in the chamber forever.'"

"Who did it do it?" asked Mrs. Hooch, who had sat down in a chair because her knees would not support her. "Which student?"

"Draco Malfoy," said Professor McGonagall.

Harry heard no more of the argument that was taking place inside the room. He felt his legs give out and he wouldn't be able to stand for much longer. Draco, Draco had been kidnapped and taken to the Chamber of Secrets to die. If Harry had ever thought he would hate anyone as much as he hated Voldemort for taking his parents away from him, he soon found out that there was someone he hated more; Lucius Malfoy.

And he wasn't going to allow it, of course not. His best friend was going to come back alive to play pranks on the first years, to make fun of those whose magical abilities bordered on the absurd, so that he could continue teaching him everything he knew. Draco had to come back and grow up to see Harry eat the world in one bite, to share with him the glory and the power that he knew they could only achieve together, side by side.

"We will leave it all in your hands, Gilderoy," said Professor McGonagall, and Harry came out of his trance. "Tonight will be an excellent opportunity to do so. We will make sure that no one disturbs you. You will be able to face the monster yourself. It is finally in your hands."

Harry quickly stepped away from the door as Lockhart emerged, pale as a corpse. It took the dark-haired boy about a couple of seconds to decide that following him would be a good idea, taking him with him to the chamber he suspected was in the ladies' room on the third floor, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"Harry!" Ron called from halfway down the road. "Listen, Malfoy... he..."

"I know, Ron," he replied, surprised at how quickly everyone seemed to pick up on things.

—Are you planning...?

—Go and look for him? Of course.

—And you were planning to go alone?

—I was thinking of taking the defense professor with me.

—That useless guy?

"It's always good to have some bait," he replied, and the redhead smiled and shook his head in amusement.

—Let me go with you, maybe I can be of help, like when we went after the stone, remember?

Harry knew that Ron's intentions were truly noble, he was a Gryffindor after all. But this matter was personal. Did Voldemort want to come back year after year and screw up his life? Let him try, Harry wouldn't let him, never again, he would destroy him again and again and again, even if his life depended on it.

—I think it would be best if you told the teachers, in case something goes wrong —Ron frowned but finally agreed.

Harry continued on his way until he found Lockhart's office. He opened the door with determination and what he found made him smile wryly; the guy was packing all his things quickly, like the cowardly mouse he was. It almost seemed to him that this overly strong survival instinct made him more of a Slytherin than anything else. But then again, Harry was the prince of snakes and he was about to put himself in danger for his best friend, like a true Hufflepuff.

"Is he going somewhere?" Harry asked grimly.

"Um, well, yeah," Lockhart admitted, tearing off a life-size poster of himself and beginning to roll it up. "Urgent call, unavoidable, gotta go."

"And what about Draco Malfoy?" he asked, his fury boiling over. Cowards disgusted him.

"Well, as for that… it is certainly regrettable," Lockhart said, avoiding eye contact as he pulled out a drawer and began emptying the contents into a bag. "No one regrets it more than I do."

—Listen, Professor Trinket —he said then in a dangerous voice, the mirrors in the room trembling from his furious magic—, I know where the entrance to the chamber might be and you are going to accompany me. Whether you are a fraud or not is of little importance —he smiled maliciously—, today you are going to have your first real adventure, you will have the honor of accompanying the great Harry Potter.

Then the professor quickly drew his wand and pointed it at him, exclaiming:

—Ovibl...!

—Avada kedravra! —the boy replied, leaving the man in front of him practically petrified. The killing curse had passed close to him, only ruffling his hair. —Expelliarmus! —he said then, disarming the guy and looking at him with disgust. — You choose Gilderoy, die right now or go face the monster andmaybecome out unscathed.

Lokhart nodded and followed him silently. Harry hadn't intended to use the Killing Curse, he knew it was illegal, but if there was one thing he had learned that second year, it was that if people didn't follow you the easy way, they would always follow you the hard way. He had to use everything he had at hand to rescue Draco and if he had to sacrifice someone as insignificant as that man, he would do it, his best friend's life was worth a million Gilderoys Lokhart.

And so, he headed towards the chamber of secrets.