Back To The Chamber

Back to the Chamber

Harry groaned and rolled over in his sleep. The dormitory was quiet, yet something had woken the wizard.

Opening his eyes, Harry blinked a bit before deciding against wasting hours trying to recapture the illustrious thing that people liked to call sleep. He swung his legs over the side of the fourposter and, still in his nightwear, headed down to the common room with the intention of sitting by the fire for a bit.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, however, he found someone already there. She could have been asleep. Harry almost thought she was until she turned to see who was there after hearing the creaky step at the bottom of the boys' staircase.

"Hi, Harry," Ginny awkwardly greeted him before Harry could say anything.

"Oh, err, I just came down to look for my quill," Harry replied quickly, making a big deal of looking under all the chairs surrounding the table at the far side of the room.

Ginny looked over at him and watched him look up every so often and give her looks that, unintentionally, seemed almost playful. She wondered if she should ask him. If she asked him now, would he say yes?

"Harry?" she began.

Harry suddenly froze. What was she about to ask him?

"Yeah?" he replied, his voice a little shaky.

Ginny continued, "Well, you remember my first year."

"Yeah," Harry replied uncertainly.

"And the diary?" she went on, trying to find the words for what she wanted to say, but failing miserably..

Harry, no matter how much he didn't want to, decided he had to take matters into his own hands. "Ginny, what is it?"

"Ha...Harry, could you take me back to the, the Chamber?"

Crawling out from a tangle of chair and table legs, the boy thought back to his second year, and Ginny's first. He had to do this for the sister of his best friend, for Ginny. He was the only one who could open the Chamber and he knew this wasn't the first time Ginny had stayed up late in front of the common room fire. Besides, Harry often thought of similar things whilst sitting in front of that very same fire in that very same chair.

Standing up, Harry looked over at Ginny. "Do you want to go now?" He walked towards her.

She looked up at him now standing in front of her. She'd known this was a stupid idea. Now Harry would go back to thinking she was an idiot, but then again, Ginny really did want to go back. The place had been plaguing her mind. Filling every little cracked corner, and Tom, what about Tom? Did it really happen? Had the boy whom she'd trusted with her deepest thoughts really grown up to be You-Know-Who himself?

Harry interrupted her thoughts. "I'll go get my cloak."

Harry came downstairs again carrying the invisibility cloak, once again creaking the last step and informing Ginny of his presence. She turned her head quickly to make sure it was him.. She was standing by the portrait hole now, waiting, still in nightwear. Neither of them had thought to change into more practical clothing. It hadn't crossed their minds.

Ginny's stretched, dull nightdress hung at odd places and looked a bit small, but it still made Harry's cheeks turn a shade pinker than normal. Ginny usually wore trousers or jeans.

Ginny, however, ignored Harry's open nightshirt (which he was hurriedly pulling closed), and in a serious tone said, "We should get going."

Harry smiled; Ginny was back to her normal, assertive self. With the Marauders Map in hand, he pulled the cloak over the two of them. Ginny pushed open the portrait and they climbed through and down the stairs under the invisibility cloak leaving a very confused Fat Lady behind them.

"Thanks for doing this, Harry," said Ginny.

"No, it's okay," said Harry. "In truth, I kind of want to go back there as well."

Ginny looked up at Harry questioningly.

"It's just Tom Riddle. I saw Tom Riddle. Voldemort when he was almost the same age as I am now. It's something I need to work out in my head."

Ginny nodded, "I know what you mean. I still can't believe... that diary. He was so kind, so understanding. I have to believe that some of that was real, but how could it have been? He's evil, or was evil. I don't know. It's too weird."

Harry looked at Ginny's troubled face. He had never really thought too much about Ginny's experience with the diary. When she spoke about Riddle, she spoke as if talking about an old friend who betrayed her.

"I mean, I swear, it wasn't all him listening to my problems. We talked about other things as well. We joked. He was funny." Ginny looked up at Harry and spoke with a sort of disbelieving laugh as she continued, "Voldemort has a sense of humour!"

Something about that was very funny and both Harry and Ginny broke into stifled fits of laughter. But the laughter abruptly stopped as they reached the corridor where Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was situated. Without speaking, Harry removed the cloak and the two approached the toilet and pushed open the door. On a distant window ledge in the corner of the room sat Myrtle. Ginny had to admit, there was something very sad about her, but Harry pulled her by the wrist to the sinks before Myrtle could notice them.

"Ginny, do you remember which one it was?" whispered Harry.

Ginny shook her head and started looking for the engraved tap.

"Harry," she said, pointing to a pipe.

Harry walked over to her side to find the tap. It was there, exactly how he remembered it.

"Open," said Harry to the engraved snake before looking up at Ginny. It had been a long time since he had last spoken Parseltongue.

Ginny didn't need to nod. The Chamber immediately started to noisily open. Over in the corner, Ginny saw Myrtle look around, but apparently she decided to ignore them and went back to dramatically looking out the window in a wistful manner.

"Ready?" asked Harry before Ginny was prepared.

"No!" replied Ginny as Harry grabbed her wrist pulling her in backwards behind him as he jumped in.

Harry was still laughing when they'd landed at the bottom. The whole front of Ginny's nightdress was covered in green gunk while Harry only had it neatly down the back of his pyjama bottoms.

"Yeah, thanks, Harry, I really appreciate it," she said sarcastically reaching for her wand.

"No problem." Replied Harry happily.

"Oh crap, I don't have my wand," said Ginny angrily.

Harry began to laugh again, but took pity on her when she gave him a venomous look and brought out his own wand.

"Err, I can't do household spells very well," he cheekily confessed

Ginny grabbed Harry's wand from his hand where he was twirling it and cleaned her robes herself, ignoring the fact that Harry also had a trail of gunk down his backside.

"Okay, let's go," she said, starting forward, not looking at him.

"Aw, Ginny, I'm sorry. I was only playing," Harry said with his innocent, playful grin.

Ginny smiled back at him, but remembering the matter at hand, she turned serious again.

"We should keep going," she told him.

Harry agreed. Who knew what else Salazar Slytherin had left down here?

They both walked along the underground tunnel in silence until they came to an almost completely blocked up section.

"This is where that ruddy git tried to Obliviate us," frowned Harry.

"Well I can see he wasn't too successful," said Ginny as she observed the huge pile of rubble.

Harry smiled, then made his way up to the hole at the top, which Ron had made. Ginny followed him up and through it.

"So, what was Vol... Tom like?" asked Harry out of curiosity.

"He...I don't know. It's hard to explain. He seemed just like most people." Ginny looked up at Harry, "I know you probably think I was just young and easily taken in by someone as clever as him. I guess I probably was, but it's so hard to believe that. He was kind. He listened to me. He seemed just like," Ginny blinked then looked up again. "Just like you, Harry."

Ginny suddenly realised what she had said and turned the colour of a fresh cherry. "I mean, I didn't mean it like that."

But Harry hadn't noticed. He was once again worrying about the similarities between him and Tom Riddle, a train of thought that Harry had stopped worrying about long ago. Harry shook it away. This was about Ginny.

"Here's the door," Harry pointed, seeing the almost lifelike snake. "Open."

The door slowly slid opened. Ginny found herself willing it to stop or suddenly slam shut again. Maybe she shouldn't have come. This was a stupid idea.

Looking down, Harry saw Ginny's fear. Without thinking, he grabbed her hand. It felt warm and delicate. Ginny looked down at the hand. Harry could swear he saw her smile.

Ginny felt Harry's rough hand in hers. She had no time to be confused. The Chamber stretched out in front of them. Stupid idea or not there was no going back now. In the middle of the night, alone, she and Harry had come back to the Chamber of Secrets.

Still holding her hand, Harry led her forwards towards the giant stone face of Slytherin. The floor was slippery and wet and Ginny's feet were starting to go blue. Harry stopped at the edge of the lingering pool of water. He turned around to face Ginny.

"You okay?" he asked.

Ginny hesitantly nodded, then offered a slight smile. She let go of Harry's hand and sunk down onto her knees. She had had so many dreams about this place. It was exactly as she remembered. She looked over to the corner to see if the basilisk was still there. It wasn't.

"Where's the basilisk?" she asked, expecting no answer.

"I dunno, probably burst into flame or something dramatic," Harry replied dryly.

Ginny smiled. They were both overcome. It was so weird to be back. Harry sat down beside Ginny and took her hand again.

"Gin...Ginny, you know how you said Tom seemed, well, normal?"

"Yeah?" Ginny replied.

"Do you think Voldemort would have turned out okay if..."

"I don't know. Maybe," Ginny interrupted. She had secretly been thinking the same thing.

Harry and Ginny sat in silence for awhile. Everything was quiet, apart from an occasional drip. Ginny felt herself beginning to shiver. Harry sat closer and put his arm on her shoulder.

"Harry?" Ginny asked not looking at him.

"Yeah?" Harry replied.

"Do you think this'll all end okay?"

"I don't know," replied Harry truthfully. He wanted to reassure her, but he didn't know how. He couldn't lie.

"Harry?" Ginny asked again as she lay her head on his shoulders.

"Yeah?"

Ginny didn't continue. She didn't need to. This question was already answered.