Megan and Harry were with Ron, Fred, George and Percy in the common room. The others were packing their bags. But they couldn't. Megan had hated leaving Cedric, and had promised to let him know when they did anything.

"... She knew something..." Ron said, pulling Megan from her thoughts. "That day, she meant to tell us something, remember?"

Megan nodded and squeezed his hand. Fred and George had gone to bed, and seeing them had been hard enough. They were older than Ron and Ginny, and like Percy, felt responsible for them.

"That's why she was taken," Ron went on. "It wasn't whatever rubbish Percy was talking about. I bet it was something to do with the Chamber of Secrets."

He rubbed his eyes.

"I think you're right," Harry said. "She was a pure-blood, so I can't see why else... unl-"

Megan kicked him before he said something to make things worse. She herself already felt awful. How many times had she seen Ginny look upset, and done nothing about it?! If only she could do something now...

"Do any of you think..." Ron asked thickly. "That there's any chance she's... not..."

Megan didn't know how to answer that question both soothingly and realistically. If she was truly honest, she couldn't see how Ginny could still be alive. But telling Ron that would not help anything. And at the same time, she didn't want to give him false hopes to cheer him up.

"D'you know what," Ron said, "I think we should go to Lockhart, tell him what we know. I mean, he's going to try and get in, right? We could tell him where we think it is and what is in it."

Megan and Harry looked at him aghast. Ron had said nothing but negative things about Lockhart all year, and now he wanted to go and see him? But then, Megan couldn't think of anything else to do, and didn't think she was going to stand sitting here doing nothing much longer, nodded. The Gryffindors were all sad and no one stopped them from leaving. Before she did, however, Megan went up to her dormitory and pulled out the coin. She tapped her wand and said:

"Lockhart's office. ASAP. He's going to the chamber, we're thinking our information can help. Be careful. Megan."

She was about to pocket it when it glowed in her hand.

"OK. Be right there. How's Ron?"

"Been better."

"I can barely imagine it, being an only child..."

"Yeah, I know... have to move. See you soon."

She pocketed the coin and headed back down.

As planned, they found Cedric in front of the office.

"How does he do that?" Harry asked in a whisper.

"I called him, I thought we could use the help. Plus he'll have more weight than us with Lockhart."

"How..."

"Later.

They climbed up the stairs. The door was open and they could hear noises inside.

"Professor Lockhart, we have -"

She paused. The office was untidy and Lockhart had frozen, as if trying to hide what he was doing.

"Potter, Weasley... Nelson, and Diggory... ah, this is a bad time... I'm rather busy, I'm afraid..."

"We think we can help you with the Chamber of Secrets," Harry said.

It was only then that Megan took closer notice of the mess. There were trunks all over the place, pictures had come off the walls, robes stuffed into suitcases...

"... Are you going somewhere...?" Megan asked suspiciously.

"Ah, well..." Lockhart looked uneasy. "Urgent call, unavoidable... I have to go..."

"What about my sister?" Ron demanded, outraged.

"Well, as to that, most unfortunate..., no one regrets more than I...!"

"You're the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, you can't go now!" Ron said.

Lockhart kept rummaging around, packing things.

"Well, I must say, there was nothing in the job description, that suggested..."

"You're running away?!" Harry said. "After the stuff you did in those stupid books of yours?"

"Books can be misleading."

"You wrote them!"

"Oh, do use your common sense! My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things!"

"My father told me something about that..." Cedric said. "Several memory losses with obvious magical origins... it was you! You've been lying, taking credit for what other, truer, greater wizards have done!"

"There was work involved," he protested. "I had to get those old fools to tell me what they'd done, and then use a powerful enough Memory Charm to not have them blabbering about the truth when I'd published my books. And then there was the writing, the publicizing, the autograph signing... it's been a lot of work."

He snapped a trunk shut.

"And if I'm proud of any of my accomplishments... it's my Memory Charms... and now, I'm going to have to... do the same to you."

But when he turned around, wand in hand, four (one broken) others were pointed straight at him.

"Don't even think about it."

Ron, who had the less reliable wand, stepped forwards, yanked Lockhart's out of his hand and threw it out the window.

"W... what d'you want me to do?" Lockhart whined. "I don't know where the Chamber is..."

"You're lucky," Megan said coldly. "We think we do. And what's in it."

They marched Lockhart out of the office, along the hall, and down the stairs until they reached Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Lockhart was shaking when they shoved him inside. Myrtle was sitting in a corner, and brightened up when she saw them.

"Oh, it's you again," Myrtle said. "What is it this time?"

"... I wanted to ask you how you died..." Megan asked hesitantly, worried it might bring about a new crisis of tears and screams. But to her surprise, she beamed.

"Ooh, it was dreadful," she said. "It happened in this bathroom. I remember it well. I'd hidden here because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. I was in a cubicle, and I was crying, when I heard someone come in. They said something odd. It didn't sound like English, so it must have been a foreign language or something. But I could definitely tell it was a boy's voice. So, I got out of my hiding place to tell him to go away, and then... I died."

Megan frowned.

"... How?"

"I don't really know." she said, grinning. "I guess I just seized up and then I was floating away... I just remember seeing a pair of big yellow eyes."

"Can you tell me where you saw the eyes, exactly?" Megan asked.

"By the sinks," she said pointing.

Megan and the others (minus Lockhart) hurried to the sinks, looking at them. Then, Megan saw it. There was a snake carved on the tap. It looked like a pretty ordinary sink, save for the snake. She tried to turn it.

"That's never worked," Myrtle told her, glancing at her before turning away.

Megan was troubled to find that she was looking at... Cedric. He, however, was looking at Megan. He stepped forwards to examine the tap too.

"... Snake marks the spot," he said. "... Why not try saying something in Parsletongue?"

Megan looked at the tap. She tried to imagine the snake as a real one. Then, she took a deep breath and said "open". There was like a click. Then, the sinks moved apart and the one that had had the snake slid underneath the floor, revealing a large opening. Like a big, dark, damp slide. Megan had always found slides fun when she was small (and when she had the chance to go on one), but she would die before letting any child down this one.

"I'm going in," Megan said. "If I'm not back by dawn, get the teachers and tell them everything. Including what this windbag was planning to do," she added nodding curtly towards Lockhart; still cowering in a corner.

"No."

"Cedri-"

"No, because I'm going in with you." he interrupted.

"And I'm going too. I want to try and do something to find Ginny." Ron said firmly.

"You're not counting me out," Harry added.

"Well, then... you hardly seem to need my help..." came Lockhart's voice.

But Harry and Ron yanked him forwards.

"You first," Ron said fiercely.

He was poked into sitting on the edge of the pipe. Then, when he tried to protest, Ron pushed him. Megan stepped forwards to follow when Cedric touched her shoulder.

"Be careful." he said.

She kissed his cheek, and disappeared too.

It was a giant, dark, seemingly endless slope. She could just make out pipes in all kinds of directions but smaller than hers. Through twists and turns, she went deeper and deeper. She could her the sounds of her friends as they went along the curves. And then, when she was wondering whether it would end, she fell flat on the floor. Lockhart was attempting, miserably, to clean his now messy robes. Cedric, Harry and Ron soon arrived. They were in a small chamber, with another tunnel leading somewhere they didn't know yet.

"Where are we...?" Harry asked.

"Under the lake, I think," Cedric said, glancing at the damp walls. "Snakes like the dark and the damp."

Those who could lit their wands.

"Okay," Megan said in a low voice. "Now, don't forget, any sign of movement, close your eyes immediately."

Then, she stepped into the tunnel. After a few moments, however, a horrible crunch made them jump. Looking under their feet, Megan almost threw up right then and there. The floor was littered with bones. Trying hard not to envision Ginny like that and keep her eyes upwards, she pressed forwards. Just then, Ron asked.

"What's that...?"

"I think it's a snake..." Lockhart said.

"... No, it's just its skin," Megan said, stepping a little closer.

The skin lay green and curled across the floor. Megan's heart was hammering.

"Blimey... this thing must be about fifty feet long... if not more..." Harry said.

Just then, Lockhart dived for the closest wand he could have access to. Ron's.

Megan and Cedric quickly raised their own, as did Harry.

"The adventure ends here, I'm afraid." he said, pointing the wand at them one by one. "I'll just take a bit of this skin up to the school, say I was too late to save the girl and that you tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body."

"All four of us? They'll never believe that," Megan said. "They all think you're a joke."

"Ah, well, I see someone's in a witty mood. Fine, then, we'll start with you."

Megan stepped to the right, holding a hand up to stop Cedric from moving.

"Say goodbye to your memories... Obliviate!"

There was a flash, but instead of hitting Megan, the spell backfired, exploding like a small bomb. Lockhart flew backwards, hitting the wall, making the whole tunnel shake.

"Cedric, look out!"

She pushed him away just as large rocks fell to the floor. Megan threw herself on the ground, hands over her head. A few moments later, though they felt like ages, the rocks stopped falling. Megan got to her feet and looked at the wall of rocks that had formed. She couldn't see any of the others. She spotted a small crack in the wall between two rocks. She ran to it and climbed up so she could see through it.

"Cedric, Harry, Ron!" she called. "Are you okay?"

She saw Cedric do the same she had.

"Yeah, we're fine. That idiot Lockhart's not so good, though. He got caught by the spell, he hasn't got a clue who he is. What about you, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm all right." she said.

"... It'll take hours to get through this mess..." Harry said behind him.

"Can't you just blast it with a spell?" Ron asked.

"No!" Megan and Cedric answered.

"That's the last things we want to do, it could cause another cave in." Cedric explained. "No, we'll have to make our own opening."

If Ginny was still alive, they definitely couldn't wait that long... Megan was about to speak but Cedric cut her off.

"You are not going out there alone," he said.

"Cedric, we have no choice. If we wait here the basilisk could come. The best thing to do is go to it. And besides," she added in a whisper. "It could be the only chance to find Ginny alive."

Cedric looked dubious but she knew he realised they had few options here.

"If I'm not back in an hour..." she said, looking into his eyes.

There was a pause. Megan's hands were on the edge of the hole, Cedric's caught hers.

"You will be. I won't have it any other way. We'll try and shift some of this rock so you can come back through. And, Megan..."

She kissed his hand and said:

"See you later."

Then, she hurried off.