Harry led them to the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. Heart beating very fast, Aly stood listening to the chill silence. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was Ginny?
Harry pulled out his wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. Aly kept her eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following them. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, she thought she saw one stir.
Then, as they drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.
Aly had to crane her neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.
"Ginny!" Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. Aly right behind him. "Ginny — don't be dead — please don't be dead —" They flung both their wands aside. Harry grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be...
"Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side. Aly stood there awkwardly and afraid. Not knowing what to do.
"She won't wake," said a soft voice.
Aly was startled and Harry jumped and spun around on his knees. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though her and Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.
"Tom — Tom Riddle?"
Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face. But then — he noticed Aly.
"You," he said quietly with a weird look on his face.
"Uh —" Aly said looking around, seeing if he was talking to anyone else.
"Yes you... Isra Falke?" He asked with a smirk.
"Isra ... who?" She chuckled nervously.
"Oh," his smirk faded. "You remind me of someone i knew..."
"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately, changing the subject. "She's not — she's not —?"
"She's still alive," said Riddle, shaking off the feeling of familiarity. "But only just."
"Are you a ghost?" Harry said uncertainly.
"A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."
He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary they had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, Aly wondered how it had got there - but there were more pressing matters to deal with.
"You've got to help me, Tom," Harry pleaded, desperation evident in his voice as he held Ginny's limp form. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment... Please, help me."
Aly watched in horror as Harry struggled to lift Ginny, her mind racing as she tried to come up with a plan to help them escape.
Riddle remained unmoved, his expression cold and calculating as he observed the scene before him. Harry, sweat dripping down his forehead, reached out for his wand only to find it missing.
