The Reticulation, Part II

"Harry," Ginny said suddenly as she and him headed through the passageway that led to the Chamber of Secrets, "there's something you have to understand--it's about why I have to be here."

"What?" asked Harry, still wishing Ginny had remained in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom where she would be safe.

"It might not seem important to you," she said, "but I--I've had nightmares since my first year about--this and I--I think--I thought that if I ever got the opportunity to enter the Chamber of Secrets again, I should take it, because it would--I thought I ought to face my fears and that might help me. Can you understand that?"

"Sure," Harry said tersely as they continued down the dark tunnel. Neither said anything more until they reached the wall with the emerald-eyed snakes.

"Open," Harry hissed in Parseltongue, causing it to obediently open up. Standing on the other side, in the center of the Chamber, was the very last person they expected to see...

"Luna!" Harry asked incredulously. "How the hell'd you get in here?"

"That's very bad language," Luna told him serenely. "You should learn to be more polite."

"Yeah, whatever," Harry said quickly. "So, how'd you get in here?"

"I touched a mirror in the chamber where He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named trapped me," she said quietly, "and the next thing I knew, I was here."

"It's not him, it's Umbridge," Harry said in disgust.

"She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" Luna asked vaguely.

"That's a fair assessment," Ginny replied, shrugging. "Now, we know that this chamber contains--" However, before she could finish, the head on the giant statue of Salazar Slytherin started moving and turned itself into the head of Dolores Umbridge, complete with its usual horribly smug, toad-like smile.

"Oh, you foolish children!" the Umbridge head said. "Did you honestly think you could fool me, Dolores Jane Umbridge, senior undersecretary to the Minister?"

"Yes," Ginny said at once. Harry was looking desperately under the chamber for anything that might get Umbridge out of the Reticulation, but all that he could see were the statues of snakes and stone walls that he remembered from the last time he had been in the Chamber of Secrets.

"I read the classified Ministry reports of the Chamber incident," Umbridge said angrily. "I knew what you were up to from the start--I only let you get away with it so I could kill you all here! Miss Weasley, your skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever...along with Mr. Potter's and Miss Lovegood's." The Umbridge head faded back into being the head of Salazar Slytherin and the ground began shacking violently.

"She's bringing the chamber down on top of us!" Harry shouted. Now, he really, really wished Ginny had stayed behind. Parts of the ceiling started to fall on them and water from the lake, which was right above them, started flooding in. Ginny and Luna were thrown to one side of the Chamber, away from Harry.

"What should we done now?" Ginny asked absently.

"Reticulatio," Luna whispered solemnly. Ginny decided that this was better than nothing, so she ran in front of the statue of Slytherin and pointed her wand at it.

"Reticulatio!" she shouted and a thin line of white light shot out of her wand and hit the head of the statue.

There was a flash of light and, the next thing Harry knew, he was lying on the floor of the infirmary with Luna and an unconscious Ginny. Then Ron, Hermione, McGonagall, Fudge and most of the other students appeared as well, all looking confused.

"What happened?" asked Ron, who looked rather dazed. "Is Ginny all right?"

"Yes!" they heard Ginny's voice answer. "I'm--I'm a little scared, but I'm still here and everything." She sounded anxious and breathless, but her voice was magically magnified like Voldemort's and Umbridge's had been.

"Where are you?" Ron asked, looking up at ceiling.

"In the Reticulation, you idiot!" Ginny replied angrily. "I'm--I'm--oh, dear God, this is so scary! B-b-but don't worry, I can handle it--I really can."

"Can't you just leave it like Voldemort did?" asked Harry, his heart pounding. He wanted Ginny to be in a human body that he could hold in his arms.

"If I left it without taking over someone else's body, I would die and if I took over my own body again, that would put Umbridge back in the Reticulation."

"Okay, so that's definitely a bad plan," Ron said immediately. "What can we do?"

"We'll have to find a way to put the original Reticulation back into the Reticulation," Hermione explained briskly. "It should be located inside Lord Voldemort's body."

"How can we do that?" Harry asked her. Hermione was annoyingly silent for a moment.

"Well, I don't know exactly," she said eventually, "but it's a place to start..."

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE RETICULATION, PART III