Bella and the Chamber (Book Two)

Chapter Forty-Seven

I was standing at 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.

My heart beating very fast, I stood listening to the chill silence. Could the Basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where were Bella and Ginny?

I pulled out my wand and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. I kept my 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 me. More than once, with a jolt of my stomach, I thought I saw one stir.

Then, as I drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.

I had to crane my neck to look up into the giant face above: it was ancient and monkey-like, with a long thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous grey feet stood on the smooth chamber floor. And between the feet, face down, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming red hair. Next to her was another figure, face up, brown-haired and wearing the same black robes.

"Bella! Ginny!" I muttered, sprinting to them and dropping to my knees. "Don't be dead! Please don't be dead!" I flung my wand aside, grabbed Bella's shoulders and looked at her. Her face was white as marble and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. I looked at Ginny to see her the same as Bella. 

"Bella, please wake up," I muttered desperately, shaking her. Bella's head lolled hopelessly from side to side. I let go and do the same to Ginny, but she too doesn't wake.

"They won't wake," said a soft voice. 

I jumped and spun around on my knees.

A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though I was looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.

"Tom - Tom Riddle?"

Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off my face.

"What d'you mean they won't wake?" I asked desperately. "They're not - they're not - ?"

"They're still alive," Riddle said. "But only just"

I stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shinning about him, not a day older than sixteen.

"Are you a ghost?" I asked uncertainly.

"A memory," Riddle told me quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years"

He pointed towards the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary I had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, I wondered how it had got there - but there were more pressing matters to deal with.

"You've got to help me, Tom," I said, raising Bella's head again. "We've got to get them out of here. There's a Basilisk...I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment. Please, help me..."

Riddle didn't move. I, sweating, managed to hoist Bella half off the floor, and bent down to grab Ginny and my wand again.

But my wand was gone.

"Did you see-?"

I looked up. Riddle was still watching me - twirling my wand between his long fingers.

"Thanks," I said, reaching out my hand for it.

A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. He continued to stare at me, twirling the wand idly.