Narrator's POV

After the break, the group of friends returned to the school.

Professor Lockhart created a Dueling Club and Harry made a show out of Ron.

The Slytherins celebrated that night.

Several weeks later, Hagrid had been thrown into Azkaban for 'opening' the Chamber of Secrets.

***

Now, Harry found himself in the Chamber of Secrets with the diary horcrux who was slowly becoming solid as Ginny's soul was drained.

Upstairs, the school had found a new message on the wall once they had discovered Ginny missing.

Harry stood next to Tom with his invisibility cloak around his shoulders, Ginny was almost dead and Tom was almost solid.

Suddenly, the pair heard a voice heading towards them, Tom quickly threw the cloak's hood over Harry's head to hide him and hid himself in the shadows.

"Ginny!" Ron yelled, sprinting to her

"Ginny, don't be dead! Please, don't be dead." Ron said, throwing his wand to hold her

Her face was white as marble, she was almost gone.

"Ginny, please wake up." Ron muttered desperately, shaking her

"She won't wake." Tom softly said

Ron jumped and spun around on his knees.

"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Ron said desperately "She's not-?"

"She's still alive," Tom answered "but only just."

Ron stared at him.

"Are you a ghost?" Ron asked

"A memory," Tom answered "preserved in a diary for fifty years."

He pointed toward the floor near the statue, lying open there was the little black diary.

"You've got to help me." Ron said, raising Ginny's head again "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk —I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment —Please, help me"

Ron managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and bent to pick up his wand again, but his wand had gone.

"Did you see -?" Ron asked only to see Tom was still watching him —twirling Ron's wand between his fingers.

"Thanks," Ron said, stretching out his hand for it

"Listen." Ron said urgently, "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes -"

"It won't come until it is called." Tom calmly replied

"What d'you mean?" Ron asked "Look, give me my wand, I might need it-"

"You won't be needing it." Tom said

"What d'you mean, I won't be needing it?" Ron asked

"I've waited a long time for this, Ronald Weasley, for the chance to see you. To speak to you." Tom said

"Look," Ron said, losing patience, "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later -"

"We're going to talk now," Tom said, pocketing Ron's wand.

Ron stared at him, "How did Ginny get like this?"

"Well, that's an interesting question, and quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger." Tom answered

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked

"The diary," Tom answered, "my diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes —how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books. It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven- year-old girl, but I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. 'No one's ever understood me like you, Tom, I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in, it's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket.' If I say it myself, Ron, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted. I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her."

"What d'you mean?" Ron asked

"Haven't you guessed yet, Ronald Weasley?" Tom asked "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four children, and the Squib's cat."

"No." Ron whispered

"Yes." Tom said, calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries ... far more interesting, they became 'dear Tom, I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and 1 don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, l can't remember what 1 did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me. There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad, I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!' It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary, but she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's when I knew I needed to take control. So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her —she put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Ron."

"Like what?" Ron angrily asked

"Well, how is it that you a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?" Tom asked

"Why do you care how I escaped?" Ron asked "Voldemort was after your time."

"Voldemort is my past, present, and future, Ronald Weasley." Tom said, waving Ron's wand to write his name and it changed

"You see?" Tom asked "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Ron, I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

Suddenly, a phoenix had appeared, with a sword in its mouth, flying straight to Ron.

"Fawkes." Harry muttered as the phoenix picked Ron up by the robes and began to fly towards where Harry and the diary were

Harry rushed to pick up the diary and in its spot, he put the black journal he had gotten from Theo for Yule.

Fawkes dropped Ron next to the diary and Ron used the sword to stab it.

Tom quickly faked his death and retreated back into the real diary.

Fawkes grabbed Ron again and disappeared back the way it came along with the journal and sword.

That was a very close call.

But, Ginny had died, and in the chaos Tom was unable to get the last part of her soul so he was not solid.

***

Back in the DADA classroom, Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort, was failing to keep Lockhart's body alive.

He had used up the entirety of Lockhart's magical core and the body was shutting down —just like it had with Qurriell and Weasley had been there by chance.

Tom let go of his hold on the body and left to find something else to inhabit...