Lockhart did not improve under pressure. That was the first clear thing.
Harry and Ron returned with him in less than ten minutes. Either they had moved with unusual speed or Lockhart had been nearby arranging his face for posterity. He arrived in peacock-blue robes. His smile was already under strain. He carried his wand as if it were a prop he had not yet decided how to hold in a crisis.
The smile vanished when he saw the open sink. He did not scream, but the first thing he said was, "Extraordinary."
Ron looked ready to strangle him. Harry said, "You said you knew where the Chamber was."
Lockhart's face performed four expressions in quick succession: surprise, concern, professional seriousness, and an attempt at command. All of them looked unfinished. His features had been trained for photographs and applause. They found themselves short-handed for actual depth.
"Yes," Lockhart said. "Well. Naturally. I had a general idea, of course."
Hermione stared at him in a way that should have counted as a weapon. Adrian remained near the sinks. He felt a sharp, persistent ache in his lower back from the damp cold of the bathroom. Distance gave better perspective. The room had become all sharp shadows and bad acoustics. Myrtle floated in a corner. She was watching with the bright misery of someone whose personal tragedy had finally become central enough to be respected.
The shaft in the floor remained open. Cold rose from it in patient breaths. It smelled of stagnant water and old, wet stone.
"Ginny's down there," Harry said.
Lockhart looked at Harry. Adrian saw something ugly and almost human there. It wasn't courage: it was the recognition of cost. Then it passed.
"Quite," Lockhart said. "Yes. Precisely why I've come."
Riddle's diary in Adrian's bag felt suddenly heavier. It was as if the year had gathered all its false narrators into one room.
"Then let's go," Harry said.
Lockhart blinked. "Go?"
"Into the Chamber."
Ron made a sound that was either agreement or a threat. For one beat, the room held its breath. Then Lockhart laughed. It was a short, brittle noise.
"My dear boy," he said. "This is hardly an errand for children. Best leave the matter to your professors."
"Good," Hermione said. "We've been trying that."
Lockhart's expression sharpened with offense. Vain adults were often hit by truth where ethics failed to reach them.
"Then go," Harry said.
Lockhart looked at the shaft. He looked at the sinks and the four students. Adrian watched the line of his shoulders change. It was calculation, not bravery. The man was choosing which version of cowardice would remain survivable if witnessed.
He moved quickly. One second he stood near the broken sinks. The next, his wand was out and trained at the students.
"Right," he said. "That's enough."
The room went still. Ron stared. Hermione's breath caught. Harry looked betrayed. Lockhart's face had altered completely. The smile was gone. Under the vanity lay something thinner and more desperate.
"I was wondering how long it would take you all to realize," he said.
"Realize what?" Ron asked.
"That I never did any of those things," Lockhart replied.
It was a confession from cornering, not remorse.
"I merely took credit," Lockhart said. His wand hand trembled. "Obliviated the poor fools who had really done the work. Much tidier. Safer, too."
"You're going to run," Harry said.
"Of course I'm going to run!" Lockhart snapped. "The girl is almost certainly dead. The monster is probably ancient. If I'm seen dying in a pipe, the obituary options become extremely limited."
Ron moved. He didn't move strategically: he moved with the fury of a boy whose sister was missing. He lunged.
"Obliviate!" Lockhart yelled.
But Ron's wand exploded. The force hit the bathroom like a spell cast into a mirror. Light burst white-blue. One sink shattered. Lockhart flew backward into a cubicle door. The wood splintered off the hinge. Ron hit the floor. Myrtle vanished upward with a shriek.
The floor above the shaft gave way.
The plumbing around the sink tore apart with a shriek of stone and metal. The floor lurched. Harry barely caught the side of the opening. Ron grabbed his sleeve. Adrian seized a rusted pipe bolted to the wall just before the line of tile dipped sickeningly inward.
Lockhart sat against the far wall. His expression was erased. It had been emptied of context.
"Can someone tell me who I am?" he asked.
Ron groaned. Hermione covered her face. Harry was already looking into the hole. The collapse had made the shaft narrower. Broken stone jutted inward. Several pipes hung like bent ribs over the darkness.
"I'm going down," Harry said.
"No," Hermione said.
"You can't," Ron added.
Harry looked at them with the terrible calm he reserved for when adults failed. "Yes," he said. "I can."
Ron's wand was conclusively broken. Smoke curled from the tip. It smelled of sulfur and burnt wood.
"You stay with Lockhart and Hermione," Harry told Ron. "Try to get help."
"We're not staying."
"You are if you can't use your wand."
Harry looked at Adrian. This was new. Until this second, Harry had not needed to decide whether Adrian belonged inside the center.
"You don't have to come," Harry said.
Adrian looked down into the ruined shaft. Cold, rot, and old dark rose from the Chamber. The diary weighed against his side like a second pulse.
"I know," Adrian said. He moved to the edge of the shaft.
Hermione caught his sleeve. Her face was stripped of all her usual structures. "If that diary says anything," she whispered, "you tell Harry before it matters."
"Yes," Adrian said. He meant it.
He climbed down first. His body was built better for the narrow descent. The shaft smelled of wet stone and the deeper, uglier scent of a place long sealed. Above them, Ron's voice echoed, thin with distance.
The pipe turned. The darkness took them. The bathroom above became a ragged circle of light.
The descent was not elegant. The pipes were slick with age and sewage. Adrian felt the filth soaking into his robes, a cold and heavy weight. They slid the last six feet on loose stone. They smelled appalling.
The approach was a tunnel of old pipes and slick stone. Water dripped at irregular intervals. Every sound came back altered: Harry's breathing, Adrian's steps. Harry raised his wand.
"Lumos."
The light struck bones. The floor was thick with them. Small ones first, then larger things that might have been cats or rats. All were whitened and broken.
At one bend, Harry stopped. Adrian nearly walked into him. He could smell the sweat and panic on Harry's skin.
"What?" Adrian asked.
Harry tilted his head. Adrian listened. Faint and far ahead, there was a sound. It was wet, human, and wrong with exhaustion.
Crying. Ginny.
Harry went forward. The tunnel opened into the Chamber. Columns rose out of the dark like stone trees. They were carved into coiling serpents. The floor was black and reflective under standing water. At the far end stood a huge stone face: Salazar Slytherin.
Ginny Weasley lay before it. She was crumpled in the red-black damp. Her hair was spread against the stone. Her skin was pale enough to be luminous.
Harry ran to her. He dropped to his knees. He turned her over and spoke her name. No answer.
Beside her lay the diary.
Leaning against a column stood Tom Riddle. He was not as ink or paper. He was a boy-shaped outline drawn from memory. He was dark-haired and handsome in the aggressively careful way of old photographs. He looked sixteen. He looked real until one stared too long.
Harry rose sharply. "You."
Tom smiled. It was not kind or cruel. It was as if the room had finally arranged itself into the form he preferred.
"Yes," he said. "Me."
Adrian stood still. The diary in his bag felt suddenly warm. Tom's gaze moved to him. It was accounting.
"Well," Tom said softly. "You too."
"You know him?" Harry asked.
"Not in the way I know you," Tom said.
"What have you done to Ginny?" Harry asked.
"Taken a great deal from her," Tom replied lightly. "Life, memory, strength. Writing in a diary is such an intimate habit."
Adrian felt the line land. Ginny had fed the Chamber. Page by page. Loneliness turned into access.
"Why?" Harry's face was white with fury.
"Because I wished to preserve myself," Tom said. "And because she was there. Lonely little Ginny, pouring herself out into my pages and never asking where anything went."
The Chamber seemed to lean around his voice. It was old stone and old blood fantasy. Tom was the servant. He didn't need Harry to be the Heir: only the visible shape of it.
"Help her," Harry said.
"I can't," Tom replied. "I am not a healer."
Harry drew his wand. Adrian did the same. Tom's smile sharpened.
"Do you know what is delightful about this place?" Tom asked. "It was built for language before force. For permission before violence."
Tom's eyes moved toward the stone face of Slytherin. The mouth opened. The Chamber finally answered itself.
End of Chapter 31