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They walked as quickly as they could through the gloomy tunnel, passing the occasional skeleton -- thankfully never human, at least as far as they could tell. The tunnel narrowed slightly as they went, angling downhill, until Dora realised that they must be underground -- possibly even under the lake.

"This could be Roman," she said in a hushed voice, studying the stones as they passed. "Some kind of underground crypt."

"Remus says the Roman wizards got this far, but most of them went native," Harry replied in a hushed voice.

"Makes sense -- the people around here built underground barrows for the dead," Dora agreed. "Never this big, though."

"Remus gave me a book that says all the trouble over purebloods and halfbloods started with the Romans," Harry continued, as if speaking helped keep away the looming shadows. "It says that the Romans thought the Picts and Celts and the Gauls weren't as good at magic as they were, and all the Romans declared themselves purebloods, so the only pureblood houses have Latin names."

"But none of the big pureblood houses now have Latin names," Draco said. "Even Malfoy is French."

"Remus says that's the point," Harry answered. Draco digested this in silence, and seemed about to speak again when they emerged from the tunnel into an enormous cavern.

There was something in the cavern, enormous and glowing pale white with undertones of green and blue, black and red. Harry could feel Tonks grow tense.

"That's not it," he whispered, stepping forward. "The basilisk is green..."

Tonks moved quickly, placing herself between him and the rest of the cavern; she edged toward it carefully, wand held high. Finally the little globe of light thrown by the wand began to encompass it, picking out facets that shone like glass.

"It's the skin," she said, amazed. "It shed its skin."

"It must be..." Draco glanced at Harry. "It must be bloody enormous."

"Yeah," Harry said grimly, reaching out to touch the papery skin, feeling it between his fingers. The thin parts alone felt like thick parchment. "Let's go on."

They edged around the snake-skin and Tonks held her wand aloft again; shadows danced across the far wall and were swallowed up by a great black tunnel nearby. She peered into it as they passed.

"I think this is how it got into the school," she said. "It looks like a drain-pipe. There are thousands of branches off of it."

"Wonder where it leads," Harry said.

"Probably bricked over," Tonks replied. "So much for the secret entrance to the Chamber of Secrets."

She moved closer to the far wall where shadows played like black fire over two figures; on closer inspection they resolved themselves into two entwined serpents, their eyes set with great glinting emeralds. Neville drew a shaky breath.

"They look alive," he whispered.

"I've seen that before," Draco added, pointing to the design. Harry and Tonks turned to look at him. "That's Slytherin's personal crest."

"I don't see any doors," Tonks said, biting her lip.

"We're looking at it," Harry replied. He knew what he had to do; every time he spoke, the emerald eyes flickered. He cleared his throat and spoke in Parseltongue.

Open.

A narrow crack appeared in the middle of the crest and the snakes began to pull apart as the wall slid smoothly out of sight in two halves. Tonks looked pale and frightened.

"We have to go in," Harry said softly.

"I go first," she answered. Harry looked at her, amazed. Even if she was a girl, in that moment he wanted only to be like Dora Tonks when he grew up.

She moved forward, nimbly climbing up to the gaping hole and vaulting through. Harry and the other boys followed less decisively but no less quickly, watching silently to see what she would do next.

This was also a cavern, though it seemed more intentional somehow, as though it had been carved. 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.

"This is it," Tonks said, her voice barely audible. "We're standing in the Chamber of Secrets."

***

He would have recruited the house-elves in the kitchens if he could, but they had no idea what to look for and he had no time to fetch them; he would have to search himself.

Severus had learned detection spells early in his childhood, even before they became a vital part of his life at Hogwarts; a bullied child soon learns every method of detection his father can employ, and uses them himself when he suspects his bullies are hiding in wait for him. Hiding, and discovering when others were, had been twin weapons of his childhood.

Now he went methodically and carefully, never minding that centuries of searching had been futile; they hadn't known what to look for or where to look. He was using at least three on each washroom in Hogwarts: identifying strange drafts, revealing all hidden hexes, and searching for traces of recent magical activity. He found, mostly, graffiti.

In the third-floor washroom, however, he encountered Myrtle.

"Out of my way, you stupid bint," he roared, when she barged out of her stall to demand why he, a boy, was in the girls' washroom AGAIN. "There is a child in danger."

She looked at him, burst into tears, shouted, "I know!" and fled to her stall. He paused, amazed.

"You know?" he demanded, banging the door open. She dove into the toilet. "Damn you! You are still a student at this school and I am a senior professor! Come out of that bloody toilet this minute!"

A pair of eyes peered up at him from the toilet seat. He rubbed his forehead.

"How do you know that Padma Patil is in danger?" he asked, trying not to shout.

"She fell down the hole," Myrtle whimpered.

"What hole, idiot?"

"The hole she made in the sink," Myrtle offered, pulling back a little into the toilet.

"Which one?" he demanded, turning to stare at the row of sinks. He cast a discovery spell without waiting for her to answer. Two of them glowed slightly; recent magical usage.

"Second from the end," Myrtle whispered, pointing to one of the glowing ones. "She made a hole in it by hissing at it."

Severus ignored her; he was, instead, studying the sink itself. He reached out and rubbed some of the grime off the decorative tap; a snake's head, mouth open to allow water through. A similar treatment of the handles showed them to be composed of intertwining snake bodies, sinuous and scaly.

"Severus Snape commands you to open," he tried, feeling an idiot. Nothing happened. "Open, damn you!"

"She hissed," Myrtle said.

"She did?" he demanded, turning to stare at her.

"She hissed and then there was a big hole and she fell into it."

Parseltongue. He didn't speak it; it wasn't something one could learn easily and he'd never seen the need. He tried a random hiss; of course it didn't work.

But any lock with a password could, his devious soul knew, be picked.

He sat down on the damp floor, composed his mind, and began to pick, slowly, at the concealment charms wreathing the sink.

***

"Keep your eyes narrowed," Tonks said as they moved forward, footsteps echoing off the shadowy walls. "If you see movement, shut them."

As they came level with the last pair of pillars, Tonks' lit wand illuminated an enormous statue, as tall as the Chamber itself. Harry looked up, basilisk forgotten, into an ancient wrinkled face with a long thin beard.

"Salazar Slytherin," Tonks whispered, studying the enormous gray feet in front of them. Then she gasped and ran forward.

"Padma," Harry breathed, dropping his broomstick and rushing to the crumpled, black-haired figure. Tonks was rolling her over, running her hands over Padma's arms and chest, checking her neck and head for injury.

"She's not dead -- not Petrified -- there's a pulse -- knocked unconscious, maybe," Tonks murmured. Her hands, when Harry took them, were cold; Neville knelt next to him and looked at Tonks worriedly. Harry turned to see Draco, his face white as a sheet under his pale hair, his eyes like dark, angry shadows in his face. His fingers were clenched around the broomstick so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

"Padma, sweetheart, wake up," Tonks said, cradling the girl's head on her lap. "Padma, come on, it's Professor Tonks. Wake up."

"She won't wake," said a new voice, and all four of them turned. Draco and Harry had their wands out before they'd properly registered who it was.

There was a tall, black-haired boy leaning against the nearest pillar, hands in pockets, watching them. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though seen through a misted window. Still, Harry recognised the green eyes, the tidy black hair, and the narrow, clever shape of his face.

He heard Tonks slowly ease Padma's head back onto the stone and rise. She had come forward and wrapped her arm around Harry protectively, wand outstretched in front of them both, before Harry found his voice.

"Tom Riddle?" he asked hoarsely.

The boy nodded, glancing at Tonks warily.

"Why won't she wake?" Tonks asked. "What do you know?"

"She's still alive," the boy said with a shrug. "Only just."

"Do you know this boy, Harry?" Tonks asked. Harry glanced up at her, then turned back to stare at him. "He's not a student here."

"He used to be," Harry said. "He was a student years ago."

"You're a ghost, then?" Tonks asked. "Can you go for help?"

The boy shook his head. "Can't. I'm not a proper ghost."

"What?"

"I'm a memory," he said. He took one hand out of his pockets and pointed past Padma, to where a little book -- her journal -- lay between Slytherin's feet.

"I don't know if she'll survive being moved," Tonks said, ignoring his gesture. "Boys, take your broomsticks and go back the way you came. Go straight to Dumbledore in the Great Hall and tell him we've found her and she needs -- "

"I don't think that's a very good idea," Tom interrupted.

"Why -- the basilisk?" Tonks asked. "Do you know where it is?"

"No. It won't come until it's called," Tom replied.

"Then they've got to go now -- Harry, fly straight down the tunnel and don't touch the ground when you leave -- you'll have to get out before the acromantulae even know you're there -- "

"You'll never make it out of the Chamber," Tom interrupted again.

"Listen, there's no time for games," Tonks said impatiently.

"Actually, I have all the time in the world," Tom said, grinning. Tonks slowly looked up at him, doubt beginning to show on her face.

"What are you?" she asked.

"I told you. I'm a memory," he said. "It's nice to have a bit of a stretch; I've been in that diary an awfully long time."

"What did you do to her?" Tonks asked. Neville and Draco slowly moved to put themselves between Tom and Padma.

"Nothing she didn't invite on herself, the stupid girl," he said. "She's been writing in my diary for ages, you know. She told me, actually..."

He turned to Draco, grinning at him. "It was supposed to be you, sport, wasn't it? You gave her the diary? Got it from some bloke named MacNair. Sounds like a stand-up character, if you ask me," he added with a laugh.

"Get away from him," Tonks snarled.

"Or what?" he asked. "You can't hex me until I properly exist, can you?"

"Whatever you're doing to her, stop it, or believe me I'll find a way," she retorted.

"Good luck with that," he answered. "It's wonderful, really. I've been gaining in power all these months as she's written to me, even when she was scared I was the one doing things to her -- making her kill the chickens, all that kind of thing. She's a very independent-minded girl, you know. It took a lot to keep her under harness; she even tried to trick me once or twice. And she did slip away from me once -- she was quite mad with fear by then, which I suppose excuses things. She got that Creevy boy. She did it to give you an alibi," he added, fixing his eyes on Harry. "You....are very interesting to me, Harry Potter. Try it and see what happens," he added conversationally, as Tonks made a move to hex him. "She's unconscious, but she can still feel pain."

"Why am I so interesting to you?" Harry asked uneasily. "I'm just Harry."

"Oh, no you're not! You're Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived! Padma's told me all about you. How you defeated the Dark Lord before you could walk, how you can speak to snakes and how you're in Slytherin house too. Delightful."

And then, to Harry's shock, Tom spoke in Parseltongue. Look at all the tricks we can do, Harry.

Realisation slowly dawned.

"It was you, fifty years ago," Harry said. "You let the basilisk out then, too. And then -- then when you were afraid of getting caught, you framed Hagrid -- "

"He framed himself," Tom said, but he was quick to say it. "He was keeping an acromantula in a box under his bed, the fool. Where do you think they came from out there in the Forest? Horrific creatures. Dumb as rocks."

"Smart enough to know a bastard when they see one," Harry replied. "Been giving the basilisk enough trouble, haven't they?"

"Have they? Not quite enough, it would seem," Tom retorted.

"Dumbledore knew, didn't he?"

"Oh, who cares about him? Probably he did, but he never did anything to stop me," Tom answered with studied carelessness. "Still, after that he was annoyingly present all the time, always watching...and I couldn't very well let my beauty roam free again after the monster had supposedly been dealt with, could I? Hence, the journal."

"So that if someone ever got hold of it again...." Tonks murmured.

"I must say, I don't know where it's been all these years. I would think it would be my most prized possession," Tom mused. "Still, it worked."

"Not very well," Harry said. "Nobody's died -- not even Cricket."

"Yet," Tom replied. "Besides, there will be plenty of time for that after I've dealt with you. You don't think it's chance that led you here? You couldn't resist the mystery, and we both knew it. I could have had her bring anyone down here -- even her own sister. But you wouldn't have come yourself for anyone less than the article herself. And look what gifts you've brought with you! Even down to Little Malfoy, son of my greatest supporter -- "

"Oh, god," Tonks whispered. Harry turned to look at her, but she was staring at Tom.

"I see someone's finally figured it out," Tom sneered. He held up a finger and wrote letters in the air with it; they left a glowing aftermark, spelling out the name Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"From the geneaology," Draco murmured. "The one Padma showed us, remember? The Gaunt that wasn't a foster from the Blacks..."

"That's right. Fascinating stuff. Padma copied it down into the journal," Tom said. "I never knew the Blacks were heirs to Slytherin as well. Means I wasn't the last heir of Slytherin after all. In fact, it means that you are," he said to Draco. "The Tonks girl doesn't count; watered-down half-breed. And I don't suppose your godfather's likely to breed any time soon, is he?" he asked Harry. "Padma told me all about him, too."

"I'll show you who's watered down," Tonks muttered, glaring at him. Tom grinned at her and turned his hands palm up, setting the letters into movement; slowly they formed new words.

i aM loRd voldemorT

Draco made a soft, fearful noise.

"I couldn't very well use my filthy Muggle father's name forever, could I?" Tom asked. "I made for myself a new name."

"Same pathetic Muggle blood, though," Tonks said suddenly. Tom stared at her, shocked. "You might think I'm a watered-down half-breed, but your father was a Muggle too."

Tom visibly restrained himself. "What's your point?"

"Only that you're lucky," Tonks said. "You won the genetic crapshoot and can talk to snakes. Big fucking deal. It doesn't make you powerful or special. A toddler beat the shit out of you last time you met him. What do you think he's going to do now?"

Tom took a step forward, bursting the smoky letters that still hung in the air. He stopped himself, then.

"That's the question, isn't it?" he asked Harry. "What are you going to do now, Harry Potter?"

"Picking on a little kid? Why don't you try fighting grownups?" Tonks demanded contemptuously.

"Dora," Neville said nervously.

"It's all right, Neville, he can't really do anything to you," Tonks said. "He only picks on children and the weak. He's a bully, nothing more. A half-blood bully."

"Bitch!" Tom shouted.

"Bastard!" Tonks shouted back. Tom's eyes flared red.

"How dare you, you puny little -- "

" -- half-blood?" Tonks asked. Tom raised his first and she raised her wand. "You really want me to try?"

Tom hesitated, then a smirk crept over his face. He let his fist fall and turned to the statue, raising his arms.

"When I tell you, take Padma and run," Tonks whispered to Harry. He turned to look at Neville and Draco, who nodded to show they'd heard.

Tom spoke again in Parseltongue, even as the other two began to edge closer to Padma's too-still body.

Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four, he said, raising his arms. Almost involuntarily, Harry and Tonks turned to look at the statue. There was the horrible sound of stone grating on stone, and the statue began to move, its mouth opening wider and wider, revealing a gaping hole behind it.

A hole in which something was moving, slithering....

"Do you truly wish to see what I'm capable of?" Tom shouted, over the roar of the stone. The whole Chamber shook.

"Close your eyes," Tonks shouted, shoving Harry towards Padma and the shelter of Slytherin's feet.

Harry shut his eyes obediently, ducking under the shadow of the statue's robes with Neville and Draco. The grinding noise stopped with a sharp finality, and there was silence broken only by the sound of the basilisk, emerging from Slytherin's mouth. Harry squinted; Tonks was looking at Tom.

"Can't fight yourself so you call on something bigger? Typical," she snorted. Harry was no longer at all afraid that Professor Snape was being too mean to Dora.

"Be silent," Tom snarled.

"Make me," Tonks answered.

Tom hissed; Harry heard the order to kill and tried to shout a warning at Tonks, but she was already ducking and rolling behind a column. The basilisk dropped to the floor in front of them, but it was focused entirely on Dora; Harry could see its huge head but not its eyes.

"Dora, it's coming on the left!" he shouted. She wheeled around to the right and fired a lucky shot; something exploded wetly and the serpent screamed in pain. It hurt Harry; it sounded no different from his own Snake when he had died, amplified a thousand times. It drew back and hissed, turning its head; Harry closed his eyes just in time and pulled Neville and Draco further back, away from Padma but into the safety of a low niche. He heard scales grate on stone as the basilisk tried to fit inside, but the crown of horns on its head prevented it.

Not them! Kill the woman! Tom screamed. There was a thunderous booming noise and the basilisk shrieked again, so close to Harry that he thought he might go deaf. Neville was clutching his arm so tightly that his nails were drawing blood.

There was a groan of scale-on-stone as the basilisk pulled away, again chasing after Dora; Harry ducked out of the niche and snatched the diary from where it lay, then darted back into the shelter of Slytherin's robes and began tearing out pages. This time it was Tom who screamed in pain.

"She got the other eye," Draco whispered in his ear.

"HARRY!" Tonks shouted. "THROW IT TO ME!"

Harry darted forward, leapt over Padma and ducked under the basilisk's flailing tail; he threw the diary in her direction, paper flying everywhere, just as the basilisk made a sudden strike.

Tom Riddle laughed as blue light exploded around Dora; the serpent let out a moan of agony and there was a terrible snapping noise. Harry saw Dora struggle backwards, an enormous fang buried in her leg.

The basilisk's tail flopped, spasming, and Harry glanced over his shoulder to see Draco and Neville dragging Padma into the safety of the stone niche. With a crash, the serpent's head fell to the floor, blood drooling out its mouth.

"Dora!" Harry shouted, as she collapsed against one of the columns.

"She'll be dead in minutes," Tom's voice called. He was still laughing. Harry ran to Tonks, who was holding the fang in both hands. Her wand lay next to the book, a few feet away.

"Harry, the book," she said. Harry turned automatically to pick the book up; there was a terrible noise and when he turned around again, Tonks had the fang free. Blood ran in rivulets down her leg.

She didn't even hesitate and Harry had no time to flinch; with a swift movement she swung the fang up in an arc and brought it down, right through the book in his hands.

There was a moment of silence even more terrible than the sound of the basilisk dying.

"Dora!"

Harry heard Snape's voice echoing in the Chamber, but he was busy staring at the book; great bursts of ink were gushing out of it, flowing over his hands and onto his robe. Someone pushed past him; he looked up to see Snape, catching Dora as her leg finally gave out.

"Basilisk venom," she murmured, her eyes turning glassy.

"Idiot woman," Snape snarled. There were noises in the background, someone was screaming and someone else was swearing, but Harry could only stand there, dazed, watching Snape slide one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders, lifting her off the ground.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked Harry. Harry shook his head.

"Under the lake, maybe," he said in a hushed voice.

"Are you unhurt?"

"Padma -- "

"She's all right!" Neville called. "We're fine."

"Right," Snape said. "I'll be back for you -- stay here if you can. Dora?"

"Mmh?"

"I'm going to side-along. Hold tight."

He closed his eyes and Harry saw his lips move; he thought he said Please Merlin let this work.

Then he was gone with a loud crack and a lingering smell of sulfur.

Harry pulled the fang out of the book carefully and walked with deliberate slowness around the blood-drenched head of the basilisk. He put one hand up to touch the lowest spike of its crown, sadly.

You didn't know any better, he murmured. Then he turned to the statue again.

"It's dead," he called. Neville and Draco emerged from the gloom, holding Padma upright between them. She looked confused and ill, but she was walking; even as he watched, she straightened up and began to move a little more confidently.

"Hiya, Padma," he said quietly.

"Is it over?" she asked. Harry nodded, holding out the diary. She let go of Neville and Draco's shoulders, walking up to him unsteadily and accepting the diary from him. Harry watched, wordlessly, as she sat on the ground next to the dead basilisk and began deliberately tearing the rest of the pages out of it. It took all three of them a while to realise that she had begun to cry, and that as she went on she was tearing them out faster, more desperately, until she as merely shredding the paper with her fingers and nothing was left but the cover. She ripped it in two, furiously, and hurled both halves at the basilisk.

Harry heard footsteps and knew that Snape was returning; he offered a hand to Padma and helped her to her feet, then led her around the serpent's head.

"You're not injured? Physically?" Snape asked without preamble. He crouched in front of Padma, dark eyes studying her coolly. She swallowed, lifted her chin, and shook her head.

"I'm taking you directly to St. Mungo's. I can't take all four of you; if you three are unhurt there's a passage back up to the school through the old pipes -- don't go through the forest, you won't last five minutes. Go directly to Dumbledore and tell him that I've taken Padma to the hospital and Professor Tonks is there as well; ask him to send Fawkes."

"Is she going to be all right?" Harry asked. "Professor Tonks?"

The shadows on Snape's face seemed to deepen and shift, frighteningly.

"I don't know," he answered. He straightened and took Padma's hand, wrapping it firmly around his arm.

"Hold on tightly to me, and picture the lobby of St. Mungo's as clearly as you can in your mind," he said. "This won't take long."

They vanished with the same appalling noise and smell; Harry looked at Neville and Draco, wondering if he was as dirt-smudged and messy as they were.

"Let's leave," Neville said quietly. He looked like he was about to cry. Harry realised that it was Neville's sister, not just Professor Tonks, who might die tonight. To his own surprise, he wrapped his arms around Neville's shoulders and hugged him awkwardly.

"It'll be all right," he said. "Come on, we'll find the tunnel Professor Snape talked about."

He led the other two back into the cavern where the basilisk-snakeskin lay, up to the mouth of the giant water-pipe. Even as they mounted their broomsticks there was a creaking crash and a cloud of dust burst out from the tunnel they'd come in by; the Viae Serpentorum was collapsing.

"We should hurry," Harry said, and the three of them together began the long journey back up the pipe.

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