Unmitigated - HP Fanfiction

Chapter Fifteen - Secrets

  ".........Ginny Weasley."

I stopped breathing. "No...." I whispered.

"Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever......" I heard Ron behind me, reading the blood on the wall. ".....Ginny."

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I was having trouble keeping up with Harry. Who was running at full speed towards the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. "Harry! Where are we going?" I asked out of breath.

He turned around slightly, but continued running. "Lockhart may be useless, but he's going to try and get into the chamber."

"Useless? If he's useless how is it he has gone on so many heroic quests?" I asked. But was ignored.

We ran up the stairs inside the classroom that led to Lockhart's office. Harry was the first in the door and stopped quickly, causing Ron and I to run into his back.

"Professor! We have some information for you!" Harry yelled. I looked around the room to see packed trunks sprawled across the room. "Are you going somewhere?" Harry asked.

"U-uh yes. Urgent call, unavoidable. Uhhh gotta go." He stuttered.

I saw Ron get angry. "What about my sister!" He yelled. I stood next to him glaring at Lockhart with my arms crossed.

Lockhart looked nervous. "W-well, as for that, most unfortunate. No one regrets more than I." I got really angry.

"You're the defence against the dark arts teacher." Ron said fuming. "You can't go now!" I could feel the heat burning off him.

"Yes well, when I took the job, it said nothing in the job description—" Harry cut him off.

"You're running away? After all that stuff you did in you're books?"

"Books can be misleading!"

"You wrote them!" Harry argued.

"My dear boy do you use common sense? My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I did all those things."
Harry shook his head. "You're a fraud. You're just taking credit for things other wizards have done."

I stepped foreword. "I can't believe this." I shook my head. "I looked up to you! You were my hero!" I screamed. Ron grabbed my arm and pulled me back a little.

Ron looked him in the eye and seethed. "Is there anything you can do?'

Lockhart nodded. "Yes, now that you mention it, I'm rather gifted with memory charms. Otherwise all of those wizards would have gone blabbing, and wouldn't have sold another book." I shook my head angrily and spat at his feet.

"You disgust me." I said with as much hatred as I could pull out.

"In fact uh, I'm afraid uh....." He started walking towards his wand. "....I'm going to have to do the same to you." He pulled out his wand, but not fast enough. Because Harry and Ron pulled theirs out first and pointed them at Lockhart. I looked at Ron's broken wand, when did he do that?

All the sudden, I saw major Déjà vu. Where have I seen this mental picture before? "Don't even think about it" Said Harry. Making the Dark Arts teacher lower his wand.

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When we walked into the old girls bathroom, my nose was hit with a familiar dusty moist smell. I could hear Myrtle moaning as usual and flying above her usual cubical. She then quickly realised she wasn't alone.

"Who's there?" She turned around her face showing misery. Her face then softened, and then she smiled. "Oh, hello Harry." She flirted. "What do you want?" She asked.

"To ask you.... How, you died."

Her expression showed no emotion. "Oh it was dreadful. It happened right here, in this very cubical. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. I was crying, and then, I heard someone come in."

"Who was it Myrtle?" Harry asked carefully.

"I don't know. I was distraught! But they said something funny. A kind of made-up language. And I realised it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door to tell him to 'go away!' and.... I died." She said the last my gloomily.

"Just like that? How?"

"No idea. I just remember a pair of great big yellow eyes. Over there..." She pointed. "By that sink."

We walked over to the sink. Harry noticed it first, but I saw a very small symbol of a copper snake sitting about the faucet.

"This is it guys. This is the entrance to the chamber of secrets." Harry said touching the faucet cautiously.

Ron spoke up. "Say something Harry. Say something in Parseltongue." Harry looked off. Contemplating something.
"Open up." He said.

I shook my head. "That was English Harry, try again."

Harry then hisses something. The language gives me shivers. I felt the ground vibrate and move. The next thing I know, the sink are moving. Spreading apart and moving away from each other. The top floated up and away. Creating an opening in the middle of all the taps.

"Wicked." Ron and I spoke at the same time.

"Excellent Harry, good work. Well then. I'll just be going. There's no need for me...." I was the one to pull my wand out at Lockhart this time.

"Oh yes there is, you first." I said while nodded my head toward the entrance.

"Now Ella, what good would that do?" He asked me holding up his hands.

"A lot if it's a two hundred drop with sharp, jagged rocks at the bottom." I said smartly.

"Better you than us." Ron said sticking behind me.

Lockhart moves foreword and looks in the dark gaping hole. He wasn't moving fast enough, so I pushed him. Making him fall headfirst and out of sight. Ron looked at me. "You are terrifying when you're angry."

We all waited for Lockhart to make some sound. Finally we heard him whinge. "It's really quite filthy down here." I rolled my eyes.

I heard Myrtle speak behind us. "Oh Harry, if you die down there, you're welcome to share my toilet." She flirted.

"Thanks Myrtle." Then he turns around and jumps into the entrance.

Ron and I look at each other, grabbing hands and jumping down shortly after. Me and Ron slide wicked fast, in a hair-raising, vertical plummet, catching glimpses of other, smaller pipes branching off in all directions, twisting and turning until the pipe levels off, dumps us onto the damp floor of a stone tunnel.

I look at Lockhart who is looking miserable. Harry turns to us. "Now remember, any sign of movement, close your eyes straight away." We all nod.

Harry climbs up into the tunnel being brave and going first. Ron points his wand at Lockhart. "Go on." He says to him, making him follow after Harry. Ron and I on his tail. And the whole time we were making our way towards the chamber, all I could think about his how many rat skeletons there were.

I see something large ahead, long and curved. "What's that? Up ahead?" Ron asks.

"Looks like a... snake." Lockhart says terrified.

My whole body starts shaking. Ron notices this and grabs my hand. "It's okay Ella it's just snake skin, not the actual snake." I look up and see that he's right.

Just one problem. "It would have to be a bloody large snake to shed this much skin." I say still slightly shaking. "It looks about twenty feet long." I then start to think about the monster that shed it. And my heart quickens.

I hear a THUD behind me. I turn around to see Lockhart passed out. Ron moves closer to him to take a closer look. And quicker than Ron has to process, Lockhart sits up and snatches his wand, pointing it to all of us.

"The adventure ends here, kids! But don't fret. The world will know our story. How I was too late to save the girl. How you three tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body. I'll even bind a limited edition in this snakeskin. Say goodbye to your memories." I close my eyes for impact. "Obliviate!" I don't feel anything, but I hear a large crash. I open my eyes to see Lockhart thrown backwards hitting the roof of the tunnel. Knocking him out instantly.

All of the sudden Rocks start falling from the top of the tunnel almost crushing us. I look up to see a large boulder about to fall on top of me. But Harry tackles me, pushing both of us out of the way. We both lay on our stomachs covering our heads until it stops.

I then sit up and see Harry standing. He lends me his hand and helps me up. Then I realise something. "Ron!" I freak out looking at the pile of rocks in front of us. "Ron are you okay!?" I yell frantically.

"I'm fine!" He yelled back. Harry and I crawl up the rocks and peek through the top of them. It's hard to see but I see Lockhart sit up. He starts speaking to Ron, but I can't make out what he's saying. Suddenly Ron looks up at us. "Lockhart's memory charm backfired! He hasn't got a clue who he is!" Lockhart starts talking to him again. This time, Ron gets fed up and knocks him out with a rock. In any other circumstance, I would have laughed. But this is the right place or time.

"What now?" Ron asks.

You wait here. Ella and I'll go find Ginny. If we aren't back in an hour, go find help. Try and shift some rocks so we can get out when we get back."

Ron nods. Harry gets ups and starts walking away. I stay sitting. "Ella come on we got to go. Ron'll be fine, but Ginny isn't. She needs our help." I nod and get up following him.

We walk until we reach a door marked with more copper snakes. Funny how I'm in the house whose mascot is a snake, and that's the one thing I fear the most. Harry starts speaking Parseltongue, and the snake on the circular door start shifting. "You know that will always freak me out." I told Harry.

He look at me and smiled. The door opened and Harry looked at it. "Come on." He walk through it and starts climbing down the latter. I follow behind. When we get down, I look around and notice snakes. And only snakes. Great. Harry and I start slowly walking further into the chamber.

"Harry......." I call terrified.

"It's okay Ella." He reassures. Then he stops walking, starts squinting and looking ahead. I follow his eyesight and spot a body sprawled across the chamber floor. The longer I look, the more I come to terms on who it is.

"Ginny!" I start running ahead. I don't stop running until I'm sitting in front of her. I grab her hand. And it's too cold to be healthy. I start stroking her hair. "Ginny wake up. Wake up!" But she doesn't move. I see Harry sit down beside me from the corner of my eye. "Ginny please wake up!" I instantly start thinking the worst. And I shake her frantically.
I feel Harry's hand on my shoulder.

"She won't wake." I spin around and see a boy in the shadows of the chamber. Standing nearby.

"Tom? Tom Riddle?" The one from the diary? "What do you mean she won't wake? She not...."

"She's alive." I immediately feel a little better. "But only just." What!?!

"Are you a ghost?" Harry asks.

"A memory. Preserved in a diary for fifty years." I look at the diary in Ginny's hand.

"She's cold! We have to help her!" I yell.

"There's a basilisk—" Harry starts but is cut off by Tom.

"It won't come until it's called." I look at Tom and see both mine and Harry wand in his hand. We must have dropped them on the floor when we fell next to Ginny.
"Give us our wands Tom." Said Harry bravely.

"You won't be needing them."

"We got to save her!" I say to him.

"I'm afraid I can't do that Ella, you see, as poor Ginny grows weaker, I grow stronger."

"But she's dying!" I yell.

"Yes. I'm afraid so. But then, she's been in so much pain, poor Ginny. She's been writing to me for months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes. Ginny poured her soul out to me. I grew stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful enough to start feeding Ginny a few secrets, to start pouring a bit of my soul back into her..." He smiles cruelly. Something shifts in me. And I feel myself about to change into a wolf. But Tom continues.

"Yes Ella, Harry. It was Ginny who opened the chamber of secrets."

I shook my head. "But she couldn't, she wouldn't."

"It was Ginny who set the Basilisk on the Mudbloods and the Squib's cat. Ginny who wrote threatening messages on the walls."

"But, why?" Harry asked.
"Because I told her to. You'll find that I can be very persuasive. Not that she knew what she was doing. She was, shall we say, in a kind of trance. Still, the power of the diary began to scare her and she tried to dispose of it in the girls' bathroom. But then, who should find it... but you, Harry. One of the very people I was most anxious to meet. Ella being the other."

"And why did you want to meet us?" Harry asked.

"Ginny told me all about you, Harry. I knew I had to talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my capture of that brainless oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust." Harry shook his head, not believing it.
"She then continued to tell me of you, my dear Ella, and your....gift."

I crossed my arms. "What about it?" I asked cautiously.

"The dark lord could use someone like you. Someone with great power." I shook my head and was about to tell him I would never join the Voldemort, but Harry spoke first.

"But why would Ginny trust you so much, why would she do everything you asked and tell you everything you wanted to know?"

"Because she was afraid. Tell me Harry how is it you escaped someone so powerful, as a baby, with only a scar?" Tom asked.

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

"Voldemort is my past, present and future." He pulls out Harry's wand from his pocket and begins to trace the words; TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE. And then, with a wave, he rearranges them.
I freeze when I read the words it's changed to.

'I AM LORD VOLDEMORT'

I think I'm going to be sick.