Section 1

Harry and Ron escorted Lockhart to the girls' bathroom, and by chance, Myrtle was there, sitting on her usual toilet.

Myrtle excitedly told how she died, and she kept talking as if she was showing off.

"I only remember seeing a pair of scary yellow eyes. My whole body seemed to be caught, and then I floated away..." Myrtle looked at Harry in a daze. "Later I came back. You know, I was determined to settle the score with Olif Hongtan. Oh, she regretted mocking me for wearing glasses."

"Where did you see those eyes?" Harry asked.

"It's almost there." Myrtle said, pointing to the pool in front of her vaguely. Harry and Ron hurried over. Lockhart hurriedly stepped aside, with a look of horror on his face. The pool looked very ordinary. They checked it inside and out, up and down, and even the water pipe below it was not spared. Then, Harry saw: on the side of a copper faucet, there was a small snake engraved. "This faucet never comes out of water." Myrtle said happily when he saw Harry wanted to unscrew the faucet. "Harry," Ron said, "You say a few words. Say a few words in a serpent."

Harry thought desperately, staring at the carved snake, trying to imagine it as a real snake.

"Open." he said.

He looked up at Ron, who shook his head.

Harry turned his head and looked at the snake again, forcing himself to believe it was alive. "Open it." He said.

However, what he heard was not this sentence. What he heard was a strange hissing sound from his mouth. Suddenly, a dazzling white light came out of the dragon head and began to rotate rapidly. Then, the pool also moved. They watched the pool slowly disappear from their sight, revealing a very thick water pipe that could allow a person to get in.

Harry heard Ron gasp. He raised his head, already making up his mind what to do.

"I want to go down," he said.

He had to go, since they had found the entrance to the secret room, since there was still a very small, weak, and slim glimmer of hope: Ginny might still be alive.

"I'll go, too," Ron said.

A moment of silence.

"Well, it seems you don't need me anymore," Lockhart said, with a hint of the smile he used to be, "I'll-"

He reached out to grab the door handle, but Ron and Harry both pointed at him with their wands.

"You can go down first." Ron yelled.

Lockhart, who had lost his wand, looked pale and slowly approached the hole.

"Children," he said, in a pitiful voice, "children, what's the point?"

Ha poked his back with his wand, and Lohat pushed his legs into the tube.

"I really think it's not like this-" he wanted to say it, but Ron pushed him and he slid down and couldn't see it. Harry then slowly got into the tube, then let go and let himself slide down.

It felt like a long rushing down a dark, sticky, endless slide. He could see many pipes spreading in all directions, but not as thick as this one. Their pipe was twisted and turns, twisting and turns, and the slope was steeply downward, and he suddenly fell to the ground. The water pipe became horizontal, and he emerged from the mouth of the pipe, and fell on the wet ground with a thud. This was a dark stone tunnel, so big that it could stand inside. Very close to him, Lohart was standing up from the ground, muddy, and pale as a ghost. Harry stood aside, and Ron also emerged from the tube.

"We must have been several miles below the school," Harry said, his voice echoing in the dark tunnel.

"It's probably at the bottom of the lake," said Ron. He narrowed his eyes and looked at the dark and sticky walls around him.

Then, all three of them stared at the front of the darkness in a blink of an eye.

"Fluorescent flash!" Harry whispered to his wand, and the wand shone again. "Let's go." He said to Ron and Lockhart. The three men stepped on the wet ground with a loud sound.

The tunnel was too dark, and they could only see a small piece of land in front of them. The light of the wand reflected their shadows on the wet walls, looking like monsters.

"Remember," Harry whispered as they walked forward carefully, "Whenever there is any movement, close your eyes quickly..."

"I don't know if the glasses Sauron gave you are useful," Ron whispered, "I hope it protects you from harm."

The tunnel was as silent as a grave. They heard an unexpected sound. It was clicking, and it turned out that Ron stepped on a rat skull. Harry lowered his wand and looked at the ground and found that there were bones of small animals everywhere. Harry tried his best to restrain himself, not to imagine what Ginny would look like when they were found. He led the way forward and turned a dark bend in the tunnel.

"Harry, what's there..." Ron grabbed Harry's shoulder and said hoarsely.

The three of them stood still and stared. Harry saw the outline of a coiled behemoth, lying on the other side of the tunnel, motionless.

"Maybe it's asleep," he said gasping, looking back at the other two. Lockhart held his eyes tightly with his hands. Harry turned his head to look at the giant, his heart beating fast, and he felt a faint pain in his chest.

Harry narrowed his eyes as small as possible and could see things. He now really hoped that his glasses would protect him. He moved slowly forward with his wand in his hand.

The light shone on a huge snake skin, green and very bright, and at first glance it was the skin of a poisonous snake, coiled around on the ground of the tunnel, and it was empty inside. Obviously, the animal that had just peeled off this layer of skin was at least twenty feet long.

"Oh my God." Ron sighed weakly.

A sudden movement came from behind them. Gidrolohart's knees weakened and he collapsed.

"Get up." Ron said sternly, pointing his wand at Lockhart.

Lockhart stood up—he rushed to Ron and knocked him to the ground.

Harry rushed forward, but it was too late. Lockhart stood up panting, holding Ron's wand in his hand, his unique smile on his face, revealing his bright teeth.

"Children, your adventure ends here!" he said, "I will take this leather to school and say to them, I am late and unable to save the girl, and when you see her bloody body, you will feel sad and lose your mind.

"Say goodbye to your memories!"

He raised Ron's failed wand high above his head and shouted, "All forgetfulness is empty!" Harry pulled Ron backwards the moment Lockhart raised his wand and shouted "Armor Protecting"

"Bang!" The wand in Lohat's hand suddenly exploded, its power was no less than a small bomb. Ha used his arms to protect his head, ran away, tripped by the coiled snakeskin, and avoided the large piece of gravel that collapsed from the ceiling of the tunnel to the ground. Then, he stood up and faced a thick wall of gravel alone.

"Ron!" he shouted, "Are you okay? Ron!"

"I'm here!" Ron's muffled voice came from behind the gravel wall. "I'm fine. But this fool is in trouble - he was hit by a magic wand."

With a dull impact, someone screamed loudly: "Oh." From the sound, it seemed that Ron hit Lockhart in the calf.

"What should I do now?" Ron said, his voice looking desperate. "We can't get through it. It will take a long time to..."

Harry looked up at the ceiling of the tunnel, where several huge cracks appeared. He had never tried magically to separate things as big as these rocks, and it seemed inappropriate to try now - what if the entire tunnel collapsed? Another impact and "Oh" came from the rock. They were wasting time. Ginny had been in the secret room for several hours. Harry knew that there was only one way at the moment.

"Wait here," he said to Ron loudly, "wait with Lohart. I keep going forward. If I don't come back within an hour..."

Then there was a meaningful pause.

"I'll see if I can move the stone away," Ron said, as if trying to keep his tone steady, "so that you can -- you can get back. And, Harry --"

"See you later," said Harry, trying to inject some confidence into his trembling voice.

Then, he walked past the huge snakeskin alone.

Soon, Ron's grunting and moving stones was gone. The tunnel turned one bend after another. Harry's nerve was trembling uncomfortable. He hoped to quickly reach the end of the tunnel, and was afraid that the tunnel would really come to an end. Finally, he carefully turned another bend and finally found a solid wall in front of him, with two snakes engraved with each other, and their eyes were inlaid with large, shiny emeralds.

Harry walked closer step by step and felt his throat dry. Now there is no need to imagine these two stone snakes to be real, their eyes look exactly like they are alive.

Harry guessed what he had to do. He cleared his throat, and the emerald's eyes seemed to be flashing.

"Open." Ha said in a low, dumb hissing voice.

The two snakes separated, the stone wall cracked from the middle, slowly slid to both sides and disappeared. Harry trembled all over and walked in.

He also stood on the side of a long, dimly lit room. Many stone pillars carved with coiled and entangled snakes towered high to support the ceiling melting in the darkness of the high place, casting long and strange black shadows on the entire room filled with green and mysterious mist.

Harry's heart was pounding, and he stood there listening to the terrifying silence. He pulled out his wand and slowly advanced among the stone pillars coiled by the giant snake. Every time he took a careful step, he created a hollow and loud echo between the four walls of ghostly shadows. He kept squinting his eyes, preparing to close his eyes tightly whenever there was a whirlwind. He always felt that the empty eye sockets of the two stone snakes were always following him. More than once, he seemed to see something, and his stomach was so nervous that he was so nervous that he was spasming. When he walked parallel to the last pair of stone pillars, a statue as tall as the room itself appeared in front of him, close to the dark wall behind him.

Harry had to raise his neck high to see the huge face above: it was an old, monkey-like face, a sparsely long beard, almost dragged to the hem of the wizard's robe carved into stone, and two gray big feet stood on the smooth floor of the room. Between the two feet, a small figure in a black robe lay face down, with red hair like flames.

"Ginny!" Harry called in a low voice, rushed to her side and knelt down. "Ginny! Don't die! Please, don't die!" He threw the wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulder, and turned her over. Her face was as cold as marble, cold and bloodless, but her eyes were closed. So she had not been petrified. Then, she must be... "Ginny, please wake up." Harry shook her in despair and begged in a low voice. Ginny's head drooped lifelessly.

"She won't wake up." A voice said softly. Harry was shocked and turned around on his knees.

A tall, dark-haired boy leaned against the nearest stone pillar and was watching him. The boy's outline was blurry and strange, as if Harry was looking at him through a misty window. But he was undoubtedly him.

"Tom-Tom Riddle?" Riddle nodded, his eyes not leaving Harry's face.

"What do you mean? She won't wake up?" Harry asked in a frustration. "She doesn't-she doesn't?" "She's still alive," Riddle said, "but she won't live long." Harry stared at him blankly.

"Are you a ghost?" Harry asked in certainty.

"It's a memory," Riddle said quietly, "it has been preserved in a diary for fifty years." He pointed his hand at the statue's big toe. There was the diary that Harry found in the toilet room of the crying Myrtle.

"You have to help me, Tom," Harry said, and helped Ginny's head up again, "We have to get her out of here. There is a basilisk...I don't know where, but it can come over at any time. Please, help me..."

Riddle was not moving. Harry was sweating profusely and finally picked up Ginny from the ground. He leaned over to pick up his magic tricks. But the wand disappeared. "Did you see--"

He looked up, Riddle still stared at him—playing with Harry’s wand between his slender fingers. “Thank you.” Harry said, reaching for the wand. A strange smile appeared on the corner of Riddle’s mouth. He continued to stare at Harry, playing with the wand casually.

"Listen to me," Harry said anxiously, and the deadly Ginny pressed his knees to weaken, "We must go! If the Basil Monster comes..."

"It will not come without being summoned," Riddle said indifferently.

Harry put Ginny back on the floor and he could no longer hold her.

"What do you mean?" he said, "Hurry up, give me the wand, I might need it."

Riddle's smile became more obvious.

"You won't need it anymore," he said.

Harry looked at him in surprise.

"What did you say, I won't-"

"Harry Potter, I've been waiting for a long time," Riddle said, "I hope I'll have a chance to see you and talk to you."

"Oh," Harry said, gradually losing patience, "You probably haven't understood what I mean yet. We're in the secret room now. We might as well talk about it later."

"It must be talked now," Riddle said, still having a clear smile on his face, and he put Harry's wand into his pocket.

Harry looked at him in a daze. What happened here was so weird.

"How did Ginny become like this?" he asked slowly.

"Oh, that's an interesting question," Riddle said happily. "It's a long story. From what I see, the real reason why Ginny Weasley became like this is because she opened her heart to an invisible stranger and told all her secrets."
To be continued...