It was a very slimy pipe. Rosalyn slipped and slid, going down at so fast a fast pace that she didn't really make out anything. She yelled all the way, Harry and Ron joining in. Eventually she came round a bend and stopped on something that was crackling.

She heard the cracks of Harry and Ron landing on... bones. They littered the floor and Rosalyn suddenly realised how long this chamber had been there.

Lockhart was already on his feet as Rosalyn, Ron and Harry clambered to theirs. She had his wand in hand but Rosalyn and Ron pointed theirs at him, Harry somehow didn't catch up.

"Now remember," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Any sign of movement, close your eyes straight away."

She climbed through another tunnel, but this one was level. Her brother followed her and Ron, keeping his wand on Lockhart, said. "Come on!"

So their useless Professor went third and Ron fourth. Rosalyn, leading the way, said. "This way!" When she really had no idea.

She entered a kind of cavern that had several tunnels coming out of it and she suddenly saw a slimy, slippery, scaly snake-

Skin. It was a snake skin, and it was huge! For the first time, Rosalyn properly realised how big the monster was. She realised what they were facing and how the odds were against them. And she still didn't have any sort of plan, either.

She was pulled back to real life as Ron asked. "What's this?"

"It looks like a... snake," Lockhart seemed genuinely worried, but Rosalyn and Harry, who had caught up, answered in unison.

"It's a snake's skin."

Rosalyn went over, Harry following her, and she touched it and confirmed their theory.

Ron walked forward a step and practically yelled. "Bloody hell! Whatever shed this must be sixty feet long!"

"Or more..." Lockhart said, and then he collapsed, obviously in shock or fright.

Ron looked down at him and back up at the twins. "Heart of a lion this one," he concluded.

But his wand was gripped loosely in his hand, and Lockhart suddenly jumped up, getting Ron's wand and pointing it at Rosalyn, Harry and Ron.

"The adventure ends here you three, 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." He pointed Ron's wand at Rosalyn. "You first, Miss Potter, say goodbye, to your memories. Obliviate!"

But the spell didn't hit Rosalyn, oh no, in fact, it went out the back of the wand, and hit Lockhart. Of course! It was Ron's broken wand he had snatched! He was blasted backwards and his body hit the stone then ka-thunked to the ground.

But the rest of the cavern hadn't taken lightly to Lockhart's spell. The stone started to break and the dust rained. And then so did a pile of stones. They rolled out, and Rosalyn and Harry had to duck to avoid some of the big boulders. Once the dust, rubble and stones had cleared, it was obvious what the avalanche had done. It split the cavern in half, Ron and Lockhart on one side, Harry and Rosalyn on the other.

"Harry! Rosalyn! Harry!" Ron's muffled voice led them to the pile of rocks.

"Ron! RON! Ron are you okay?" They yelled in unison.

Rosalyn climbed the rock pile and saw, from a small gap between a huge boulder and the ceiling of the cavern, Lockhart sitting up. He said to Ron, not in a flamboyant voice, but a mellowed one, "Hello."

Ron looked bewildered as Lockhart asked again. "Who are you?"

"Ron Weasley."

"Really? And- er- erm- Who am I?"

Ron looked completely confused, but he stated the obvious as he turned to Harry and Rosalyn. "Lockhart's memory spell backfired! He's got no clue who he is!"

Lockhart interfered, however, before Rosalyn or Harry could get a word in. "It's an odd sort of place, this, isn't it?" He picked up a rock and threw it up, then caught it. "Do you live here?"

Ron picked up the rock he was holding and said, "no," as if it was obvious.

"Really-" but Ron whacked him on the head with the rock, he lolled to the side and was quiet and still.

Ron sighed. "What do I do now?"

"You wait here, try and shift some of the rock so we can get back through!" Harry yelled through the stone.

"We'll go on and find Ginny! If we're not back in an hour..." Rosalyn stopped, because what could Ron do if they weren't back in an hour? Nothing.

"Just go, Rosie!" Ron reassured her.

So they left.

They walked a little way down a narrow tunnel and came to a circular door with snakes all over it. Rosalyn drew her wand and stepped forward, Harry following her.

"Open it, Rosie," Harry said.

Rosalyn was already on it. "Open," she hissed in parseltongue.

The snakes splayed out on the door moved inward as another moved round the edge of the door, once it was all the way round, the door opened.

Rosalyn and Harry looked at each other, and they knew this was it. There was a small tunnel that the two twins climbed through, holding hands in a reassuring way. There was a ladder on the other side of it and Rosalyn climbed down first.

Once Harry was beside her again they took in their surroundings. They were in a huge chamber, with stone busts of snakes all the way up it. Rosalyn and Harry walked slowly up it, but he saw the body lying at the top before she did.

"Ginny?" He said, and then his walk turned into a run, and Rosalyn quickly followed him. The ground of the chamber was wet and their feet splashed on the ground, but neither cared.

Harry got to Ginny first and knelt down beside her, Rosalyn also went down, and dropped her wand along the way. "Ginny? Ginny please wake up! Please don't be-"

"She won't wake."

Rosalyn and Harry's heads turned to see a teenage boy, he had black hair, Slytherin robes, and Rosalyn had seen him before. She had been inside his diary.

"Tom? Tom Riddle? What d'you mean she won't wake?" But Rosalyn was starting to understand what he meant, Ron was right. Was Riddle someone they could trust?

Harry, beside her, said. "She's not-"

"She's still alive, but barely."

"Are you a ghost?" Rosalyn was trying to stall, to do something that wouldn't make him aim for them.

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

Harry touched her and said, "she's cold as ice."

"Tom, you've got to help us, there's a basilisk-" Rosalyn started.

"Won't come until it's called," Tom said. Oh no, thought Rosalyn, and to make matters worse, she spotted something in Riddle's hand.

"Give me back my wand, Tom."

"You won't be needing it," Tom's curt answer was blood chilling.

"But we've got to go, let's save her!" Rosalyn still had a faint hope that he might be good.

"I'm afraid I can't do that Rosalyn," Tom Riddle said, twirling the wand. "You see as poor Ginny grows weaker, I grow stronger."

He let them digest this before her told them more. "Yes, Rosalyn, Harry, it was Ginny who opened the chamber of secrets, Ginny who set the basilisk on the mudblood's and Filch's cat, Ginny who wrote the threatening messages on the walls."

"Why?" Rosalyn asked.

"Because I asked her to," Tom said simply. "You'll find I can be very persuasive. Not that she knew what she was doing of course, she was, shall we say, in a kind of trance."

"You," said Harry from behind them, Rosalyn was quite surprised to hear her brother speak, but his voice was shaky, and he was clearly angry. "You- you're a- you snitched on Hagrid didn't you? You're going to kill Ginny? You led us to believe that you were on our side, but you're the heir of Slytherin, and I can't find words to describe how despicable you ar- AARRRGGH!"

BANG

Tom Riddle had used Rosalyn's wand to stun Harry non-verbally. Rosalyn yelled, "HARRY!" But her brother was blasted back, then laid still.

Rosalyn faced Tom, her eyes boring into his, she would kill him right now, but she wanted more answers. "What did you do to him?"

"I didn't kill him," was all Tom said.

"And Ginny... she tried to get rid of the diary didn't she?"

"Yes. The power of it began to scare her, and she tried to dispose of it in the girls' bathroom, and then, who should find it, but you. The very person I was most anxious to meet."

"But why did you want to meet me?"

"I knew I had to talk to you, you or Harry, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my capture of that brainless oaf Hagrid to gain your trust."

"Hagrid's my friend!" Rosalyn shouted, her voice echoing all the way round the chamber. "And you framed him didn't you?"

"It was my word against Hagrid's, only Dumbledore seemed to think he was innocent."

"Bet Dumbledore saw right through you," Rosalyn smirked.

"He certainly kept an annoyingly close watch over me after that, and I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the chamber whilst I was still at school so I decided to leave behind a diary preserving my sixteen year old self in its pages, so one day, I would be able to lead another to finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."

"Well you haven't finished it this time," Rosalyn was trying desperately to find something to talk about, because if Tom Riddle could control the basilisk, it was coming any second now. "In a few hours, the mandrake draught will be ready, and everyone who's petrified will be alright again."

Riddle, however, laughed. "Haven't I told you? Killing mudblood's doesn't matter to me anymore, for many months now, my new target, has been you." Rosalyn stared at him. "How is it, that two babies, with no magical talent, was able to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape-" he grabbed Rosalyn's arm and pulled up her sleeve. -"with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"

He said this is an accusatory tone, and Rosalyn asked a genuine question this time. "Why do you care how I escaped? Voldemort was after your time!"

Tom smirked sickeningly and said. "Voldemort is, my past, present, and future."

Rosalyn didn't understand what that meant, but Tom was only to happy to share it with her. Her turned round slowly, and, with Rosalyn's wand, wrote his name with spiky, orange letters.

TOM
MARVOLO
RIDDLE

He then waved her wand, and the letters moved to form new words. Tom Marvolo Riddle was an anagram of-

I AM
LORD
VOLDEMORT

No. No. No, it wasn't true, it couldn't be true. Tom Riddle was Lord Voldemort, the wizard that had tried to kill her as a baby. And she was a very vulnerable girl with no defence.

"You?" She asked. "You're the heir of Slytherin?"

Tom turned back round to her and asked, "Surely you didn't think I was going to keep my filthy muggle father's name? No, I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew one day wizards would fear to speak when I became the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

"Albus Dumbledore is the greatest sorcerer in the world!" Rosalyn yelled.

"Dumbledore has been driven out of this school by the mere memory of me!" Riddle shot back.

"He'll never be gone, not as long as those who remain are loyal to him!" Rosie quipped.

Just then, came a shrill cry of a bird, and Rosalyn saw a red thing flying towards her, she didn't know what it was, but then she realised and uttered, "Fawkes?" Under her breath.

The phoenix was also carrying something, and as he dropped it into her hands, she realised that it was the sorting hat. She didn't know why he had brought her that, but her misgivings disappeared for a second as Fawkes flew around the chamber and picked up Harry's unconscious body and went off to where he came from. Rosalyn uttered a silent thanks to the bird, because he saved her brother, and then she unfolded the hat in her hands. Riddle wasn't impressed.

"So this is what Dumbledore sends his great defender?" He laughed. "A songbird, and an old hat?"

He then turned round to the statue of Salazar Slytherin and said something in parseltongue. At first, nothing happened, but then Riddle turned and a section of the beard started to move to make a tunnel as he shouted. "Let's match the power of Lord Voldemort, heir of Slytherin, against famous Rosalyn Potter."

Rosalyn heard a slithering sound but she didn't hang around for more. She ran down the chamber, not looking back, not meeting the pair of eyes that would mean death.