Easter holidays came, and with it, their choices for their classes as third years.  Hermione kept up an ongoing run of how it would affect their future in the wizarding world.

“I just want to ditch Potions,” grumbled Ron.

“You can’t,” said Niamh. “Or I’d ditch Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“But that’s very important!” cried Hermione.

“Not the way Lockhart teaches it,” deadpanned Harry, Ron, and Niamh.

In the end, Hermione signed up for everything while Ron, Harry, and Niamh all put down the same things.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

“Harry!  Harry, Harry, Harry!”

“Wha’?”

Harry sat up groggily in his bed and peered at Niamh, who still had no shame about bounding into the boys dormitory at all hours.

“C’mere!  You have to see this!”

“See wha’?” moaned Harry, trying to burrow back under the covers.

“Just come on!”  Niamh grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of bed, not noticing that Harry was wearing nothing but a pair of black pants.

Harry stumbled after Niamh into the common room and collapsed onto the couch in their customary corner.  Niamh flopped down beside him and plunked a quill, an ink well, and the black book on the table.

“Harry, c’mon, sit up.”

Harry groaned and pulled himself up, brushed his now once again waist-length hair out of his face.

“Wha’?”

“Look.”

Niamh flipped open the book and picked up the quill, dipping it in the ink well.  She then wrote on the first page, “Hello, My name is Niamh O’Feir.”

The ink was absorbed into the paper and then more words appeared.  Words that Niamh had not written.

“Hello, Niamh O’Feir.  My name is Tom Riddle.  How did you come about my diary?”

Harry blinked and breathed, “‘Ow?”

Niamh shrugged and replied, “Some kind of enchantment I think.  Nothing I’ve ever seen before thought.  I accidentally spilled ink on it yesterday and meant to see what is was about, as the pages seemed to absorb it.  I just now remembered it and thought you would want to know.  Its like the diary has a mind of its own.”

“So, we c’n talk ter i’.”

“Yeah.”

Harry frowned at the open diary and said, “I doan know, Ni.  I get a bad feelin’ off tha’ book.”

“Oh, c’mon, Harry.  Where’s yours sense of adventure?”

“Back in me bed, which i’ where I shou’ be.”

“Harr-eeeeeey!”

“Oh, alrigh’.  But doan tell i’ anything.  I doan trust i’.”

“You don’t trust a diary?”

“A talkin’ diary.”

“But a diary nonetheless.”

Harry waved a hand irritably and muttered, “Yeh, yeh…  Go on wi’ ye.”

Niamh turned back to the diary, dipping her quill down into the inkwell.

“Some tried to flush it down a toilet.”

The words sank down in to the page and then more appeared.

“I see it was a good thing that I recorded my memories in a more lasting way than ink.”

Harry and Niamh looked at each other then turned back to the diary.  Niamh quickly wrote another sentence.

“What do you mean?”

“This diary holds memory of horrible things.  Things that some would not want uncovered.  Things that occurred at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

“That’s where we are now.  We’re at Hogwarts and two students have been Petrified, along with the caretaker’s cat and one of the ghosts.”

“We?”

Niamh winced and looked at Harry, who was looking at her in a manner not unlike Professor Snape’s cold demeanor.  She blanched and muttered, “Sorry, Harry.”

“Already been done.  We can’na go back now.”  Harry took the quill out of her hand and reached over to write in the diary in his untidy scrawl.

“My name is Harry Potter.”

These words sank into the page and more appeared in their place.

“Hello, Harry Potter.  Is there anything you would like to know?”

Harry looked at Niamh then dipped the quill in the ink well before turned back to the diary.

“Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?”

“Yes, I know of the Chamber.  The told us it was a legend, that it didn’t exist.  But they were wrong.  (“Damn straight,” muttered Niamh)  ‘Not all legends are as such’ as they say in the Muggle world.  The Chamber was opened in my fifth year and the monster attacked several students, finally kill one.  I caught the person who had opened the Chamber and he was expelled.  But Professor Dippet, the Headmaster, did not want the truth to be known.  He gave out the story that the girl died in a freak accident.  I was given a nice, shiny plaque and told to keep my mouth shut.  But I know – I knew it would happen again.  The monster still lived and the one who could awaken it was not imprisoned.”

Niamh suddenly grabbed the quill from Harry and scribbled, “Can you tell us who it was?”

“I can show you if you like.”

“We do.”

“Niamh!” hissed Harry as the pages of the diary began to blow as though in a strong gale.  They finally stopped at June.  Niamh gasped and pointed at the little square for June thirteenth, which had turned into what appeared to be a miniscule television.  Harry – on some strange whim – picked up the book and put his eyes up to the small box.  A second later he was sucked into it, leaving the Slytherin common room behind.

He landed on hit butt n a familiar, circular room.  Standing, he recognized it as Dumbledore’s office, just missing Fawkes and the silver contraptions.  Suddenly Niamh tumbled onto the floor behind him.  Harry turned to help her up off the floor and steadied her as she swayed woozily.

“What in Slytherin’s name was that?”

Harry shrugged and turned his head to see a wizened old man with wisps of white hair sitting at Dumbledore’s desk.  He said, “Wherever we are, i’ ain’t home.”

Niamh lifted her head from where it was laid against Harry’s bare shoulders and peered at the old man.  She then noticed that Harry was bare-chested and footed.

“Harry, why don’t you have a shirt on?”

“Did na’ sleep in one.  I was wondrin’ when ye’d notice tha’.”

“Well you could have told ma,” sniffed Niamh.  “Aren’t you cold?”

“Na.  We ‘ave bigger things ter worry about than me bein’ cold.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, “said Harry, “where we are.”

“Good point.  I don’t think he can hear us.”  She nodded towards the man, who had gotten up and was standing by the window.  The two of them watched as he went back over to the desk and sat down, twiddling his thumbs.

They both jumped when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said the old man in a feeble voice.

A boy of about sixteen entered the office, a silver prefects badge glinting on his chest..  He took of his hat, revealing hair as jet-black as Harry and Niamh’s.  He was a good bit taller than Harry, although Harry himself was not that short.

“You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?” said the boy.

“Ah, Riddle.  Sit down, dear boy,” said Dippet.  Niamh gasped as Riddle moved to a chair and sat down.

“Harry, that’s…”

“I know, Ni.”

The two of them watched as Dippet opened his mouth to speak.

“I have just been reading over the letter you sent me.”

“Oh, really,” said Riddle in a rather squeaky voice.

“Yes,” said Dippet.  “But I am afraid I cannot allow you to stay at school over the summer.  Surely you wish to go home?”

“Not back to that – that…”

“You live in a Muggle orphanage over the holidays, do you not?”

“Yes, sir.”  Riddle flinched here and Harry knew how he felt.

“You are Muggle-born?”

“Half-blood, sir.  Muggle father, witch mother.”

“And both your parents…?”

“My mother lived long enough to name me – Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather.”

Dippet nodded, looking sympathetic.

“Well, Tom, arrangements might have been made for you but in the current circumstances…”

“The attacks, sir?” asked Riddle.  Niamh clung to Harry suddenly, staring wide-eyed at Riddle and Dippet.  Harry could feel her nails biting into the skin of his bare arms but he didn’t say anything.

“Precisely.  You must see, Tom, that I could not allow you to stay here when this term ends.  Especially after what happened to that poor girl…  You will be far safer at your orphanage.  The Ministry of Magic is even considering closing the school as he have not found the source of all this unpleasantness.”

“Sir,” said Riddle.  “What if – what if this person was caught?  What if this all stopped?”

Dippet’s eyes widened and he leaned forward in his chair.

“What do you mean?  Are you saying you know something about these attacks?”

“No, sir,” said Riddle quickly.  A little too quickly.

Dippet frowned and leaned back in his chair.

“I see.  You may go, Tom…”

Riddle nodded and left the room.  Harry and Niamh trailed after him, moving down the spiral staircase and emerging next to the gargoyle in the corridor.  Riddle paused here, chewing on his lip, his forehead furrowed in thought.

Then he set off again and Harry and Niamh followed.  It was only when they reached the entrance hall that they caught another sign of life.  A tall wizard with sweeping auburn hair and a beard called out to Riddle from the staircase.

“What are you doing out this late, Tom?”

Harry and Niamh’s jaws dropped.  They were looking at a fifty-year-younger Dumbledore.

Riddle replied, “I had to see the headmaster, sir.”

“Well, hurry off to bed.  Best not to roam these corridors.”  He bade Riddle good night and strode off. Riddle stood in the entrance hall until Dumbledore was out of sight before setting off on a path Harry and Niamh knew well.

They were heading down into the dungeons.

Riddle leg them straight to the very dungeons where Snape taught and Harry half expected to open the door and see his father’s classroom.  But the torches had not been lit so they couldn’t see a thing.  Especially not after Riddle closed the door behind him.  Harry and Niamh watched him as he stood stock-still by the door, peering out into the passageway.

After what seemed hours, they heard movement out in the hallway.  As they moved past what Harry and Niamh knew as the Potions classroom, Riddle slipped past the door and followed quietly.  They followed the footsteps down the hallway until Riddle paused, obviously listening to something.  Harry and Niamh coked their head and listened as well.

“C’mon…  gotta get yeh otta here…  C’mon now…  in the box…”

Niamh and Harry looked at each other.  There was something oddly familiar about that voice…

Riddle leapt around the corner and the two of them followed.  They could just make out the dark outline of a huge boy crouching by an open door, a large box next to it.

“Evening, Rubeus,” said Riddle casually.

The boy whirled, slamming the door shut as he stood.

“What yer doin’ down here, Tom?”

“It’s all over.  I’m going to turn you in, Rubeus.  They’re talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don’t stop.”

“What d’yeh…”

“I don’t think you really meant to kill anyone.  But monsters don’t make good pets.  I supped you just let it out for exercise and…”

“It never killed no one!”

“Come on, Rubeus.  The dead girl’s parents will be here tomorrow.  The least Hogwarts can do it make sure that the thing that kill their daughter is slaughtered…”

“It wasn’t him!  He wouldn’!  He never!”

“Harry,” whispered Niamh, tugging on his arm.  Harry hushed her, keeping his eyes locked on the dark figures of Riddle and Rubeus.

“Stand aside!”  Riddle drew his wand, filling the corridor with a sudden light.  The door behind the boy Rubeus flew open and out came a creature that made both Harry and Niamh scream in horror.  It was huge; a vast, low-slung, hairy body with long legs, gleaming black eyes of vast number, and razor-sharp pincers.

Riddle raised his wand but the creature bowled him over, tearing up the corridor.  Niamh yelled something in surprise but her voice was drowned out as Rubeus leapt on Riddle when the vastly smaller boy lifted his wand again.

“NOOO!”

Suddenly, the scene swirled and blackness took them.  They fall and quite suddenly Harry found himself sprawled on his stomach on the floor of the common room, Niamh lying across his back.  Riddle’s diary landed inches from Harry’s nose with a thump.  Niamh rolled off of him and the two of them sat on the floor for a few moments, staring at the diary.  Their eyes then met and Niamh spoke in a slightly teary voice.”

“Hagrid.  Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago.”