Ron and Harry ran up to the infirmary so quickly that Harry was surprised that neither of them had tripped up on the stairs.

"Hermione!" The boys burst through the infirmary doors and Harry waved Riddle's diary in front of Hermione's face for the second time that week,"It was Hagrid! Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago!"

Two days before then, Harry and Ron had found Riddle's diary in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She told them that someone had thrown it at her, however, Harry knew it could not have hurt her at all, for she was a ghost. ("It still hurt my feelings!" She had screeched when Ron had pointed this out.) They had hurried up to the infirmary and shown it to Hermione, though she hadn't had any idea who Tom Riddle was.

But now more light had been shed on their situation; Harry had just been shown that, fifty years ago, Hagrid had let a rather large creature roam loose in the school, and Riddle was the only one who'd known it. Riddle had told a tall boy whom Harry had learnt or be Hagrid that the teachers would all believe him over such a monster-obsessed lump of a boy, so he should really confess before Riddle handed him over. Hagrid was in denial, so Riddle took matters into his own hands and got Hagrid expelled, but not before Hagrid was able to let his creature free into the school.

"But...but Hagrid would never..." Hermione gaped as Harry told her and Ron what he had seen.

"Mate, that's mental. Hagrid wouldn't let a wild beast into the school!" Ron agreed.

"Not on purpose."

"Oh." Hermione said.

Ron objected,"But you said he let the thing go just before he left! Not exactly an accident of you ask me."

"It wasn't a viscous beast then." Harry explained.

Ron nodded slowly in comprehension,"So, it must have grown up."

"No!" Hermione frowned,"That doesn't make any sense. Remember what Professor Binns said? "Fifty years ago, a Muggleborn student was killed by the beast inside of the Chamber." And what Harry saw was after she had died. Hagrid's baby beast couldn't have killed her if it was with him all along."

"Maybe. It still sounded like Riddle was accusing Hagrid of opening the Chamber too, though. Not just having a pet monster." Harry rubbed his forehead.

"So there's two beasts?" Ron shrieked,"Mate, this school can only take so many monsters!"

"But we all know Hagrid likes dangerous creatures..."

"Why don't we just go and ask him about it?" Hermione suggested gravely.

The boys shot her equal looks of disapproval, so she didn't bring it up again.

***********

It wasn't long before Hermione was out of the hospital wing, and the Easter holidays came around rather quickly. Second year students had to pick the subjects that they were going to start the following year. Hermione had decided that she was going to take all of them.

"You can't do that! They overlap!" Ron held in a laugh,"You'll need to be in two places at once!"

Hermione shrugged.

Ron, Harry and Hermione were sitting in the common room on the first day of the Easter holidays, trying to decide what subjects the boys should choose, when Neville ran down and flapped his arms about frantically.

"Harry - I don't know who did it - I just found - it was like that when I went up - I swear - I didn't touch the dorm -"

The trio jumped up and ran to the boys dorm with Neville trailing anxiously behind.

"Hermione," Ron sighed,"go away. You shouldn't be able to come up here."

"Shut up, Ron."

Harry placed a hand on the doorknob and went inside.

"Oh, Harry..." Hermione whispered.

The contents of his trunk had been thrown everywhere. His cloak lay on the floor, torn. The bedclothes had been pulled off of his four-poster and his bedside drawer was on the floor, empty. Harry walked over to his bed in shock, treading on ripped up copies of Lockhart's books ("At least something good came out of this..." Ron muttered.) and put the sheet back onto his bed. Seamus and Dean came in. Dean swore loudly.

"Someone was looking for something." Hermione said in a small voice, looking at the turned-out pockets in his robe and the empty drawer and trunk,"Is there anything missing?"

"I don't know."

"Let's put everything away. Then we can see if something isn't here." She suggested.

Everyone that was there helped Harry put all of his things back where they belonged. Once they had finished, he stood up gravely and said,"Riddle's diary. It's missing."

Neville, Dean and Seamus looked very confused. Ron and Hermione looked terrified.

"Only a Gryffindor could have done it." Hermione sighed,"No one else knows the password."

"But it wasn't any of us boys, Hermione, and you're the only girl who knows how to get up here." Ron sniffed.

"Well, I've not told anyone else how I do it, so none of the other Gryffindors could have used my...nevermind."

"So it has to be a boy!"

"No," Hermione snapped,"somebody else could have figured it out...or could have been told by someone who knows how to get up."

Ron opened his mouth again.

"It. Wasn't. Me." Hermione's voice was like a dagger. It shut all of the boys up.

Later that evening, Harry and Hermione had left Ron in the Great Hall during dinner, for he had wanted a third helping of steak and kidney pie, and they had both been waiting a while for him to finish already.

Hermione was reading about Runes and Harry was still trying to decide why on earth someone would have wanted Riddle's diary. His mind, however, wandered to a place very far from that.

"Hermione?"

"Yes, Harry?" She put her book down.

"Don't most friends have, you know, nicknames for each other?" He asked tentatively.

Hermione raised an eyebrow,"No, I don't think so."

"Oh." Harry looked down awkwardly.

"Fine, what was your idea for me?"

"Moral Compass."

Hermione laughed,"Moral Compass? Really funny, Moral Fibre."

"Oi!"

"That's a good thing." Hermione struggled to control her laughter.

"So's Moral Compass."

"I know." She stopped laughing,"Thanks."

***********

The Easter holiday went quickly, and it was soon the morning of Gryffindor's first Quidditch match since March.

Ron, Harry and Hermione were on their way to the Quidditch pitch when Harry heard the voice again.

"Must kill...let me rip...tear...it is today...now is the time...blood will be mine..."

Harry yelped,"The voice! It says...it says 'now is the time...it is today'...I think it'll kill someone - or it'll try to - today!"

Ron gasped, but Hermione clapped her hand to her head.

"Oh my god! I...I think I've just figured something out!" Hermione looked at the boys,"Sorry, Harry. I'm going to the library, but I won't miss the match, don't worry." She turned and ran down the corridor, but stopped after a few moments,"Oh yes, and good luck!" And then she was gone.

"I don't understand her."

Harry shrugged,"With every genius, there comes a little crazy." He could feel Ron watching him very closely after that.

***********

"Good luck, mate!" Ron cheered ten minutes later as he walked towards the stands, leaving Harry with the team.

"Not so fast, Mister Weasley." McGonagall strode up to them anxiously,"The match has been cancelled."

Harry almost knew why,"What's happened?"

McGonagall didn't answer him.

"You can't cancel Quidditch!" Ron cried.

"Yes, Mister Weasley, I'm afraid I can." She turned to Harry,"Mister Potter, there is something I feel you should see."

"Can I come too?"

The professor looked Ron up and down before sighing,"Oh, all right. But we must hurry." She led the boys up to the infirmary, and Harry's dreads became worse and worse, though he was nowhere near prepared for what he saw as McGonagall pulled back the third bed curtain along the left wall.

For a second, Harry was relieved that he had seen both Colin and Justin in their petrified states for, if he hadn't, he would have been certain that Hermione was dead.

"Hermione..." He whispered.

Her right arm was held upwards rigidly, a pink satin mirror in her hand. Her left arm lay stiffly at her side, fist clenched tightly around what seemed to be nothing. Her once warm eyes were cold and glassy, and her mouth was slightly open, forming a surprised 'o' shape.

"Bloody hell..." Ron muttered.

Harry squashed all thoughts telling him that this was all his fault.

***********

Harry felt thoughts pump through his mind along with the adrenaline that had arrived as soon as he and Ron had started running away from Aragog's children. He thought about the Ministry suspending Hagrid from his position until they acquired more information on the situation fifty years ago. He thought about everything Aragog had told them about the last time the Chamber was opened, and that Hagrid was more than innocent. Furthermore, he couldn't seem to get rid of the picture of Hermione, lying on the hospital bed as though carved out of stone.

"Harry!" Ron snapped him out of his thoughts,"The car!"

Sure enough, Arthur Weasley's turquoise Ford Anglia had screeched to a halt in front of them, looking more battered than before, and covered in mud.

"Quick! Get in!" Harry cried.

The boys climbed in - Ron at the wheel and Harry in the passenger seat - but spiders were crawling into the car through the smashed windows and Ron was whimpering.

Harry pointed his wand at them,"Arania Exumai!" He yelled. The spiders flew backwards off of and out of the car.

"Didn't think you could do that one, mate." Ron sounded impressed as he stepped on the accelerator.

"Hermione." Harry said matter-of-factly.

Ron drove at full speed as Harry hit every spider that dared come near them with the Arania Exumai charm until they reached Hagrid's hut again, and all the spiders scuttled back into the Forest. They both slumped in relief, but the car tossed them out again and drove away.

"Bloody tin can!" Ron scowled at it.

"Come on!" Harry pulled him up,"Let's go and tell Hermione!"

"Mate." Ron raised his eyebrows.

"Oh. Oh, right."

***********

The boys weren't allowed to go and see Hermione until the next afternoon. Once they were allowed into the hospital wing after a long Saturday of contemplating facts with no avail, Ron fiddled with the pink hand-mirror whilst Harry sat on the bed beside Hermione, holding her left hand gently.

"I wish you were here, Hermione." He murmured,"We need you. Now more than ever." Harry stroked the top of her cold hand.

"Yuck..." Ron sniffed,"No need to get all mushy. She isn't dead. Besides, it's only Hermione. I'm sure you can survive without her for a while."

Harry wasn't so sure. He tried in vain to put some warmth back into Hermione's icy hand when he heard the crinkling of parchment. Frowning, Harry moved his hand again and, to his surprise, felt something papery in Hermione's fist. He pulled it out and unscrunched it.

The boys knew at once that it was a page from a book. It read:

Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.

"I...Ron, this is it. This is what's in the Chamber of Secrets! Hermione's figured it out!"

"But how's it been getting around school?"

"She's answered that one too." Harry pointed to the single that had been written on the page in a hand that Harry knew was Hermione's: Pipes.

Suddenly, everything they had been trying to figure out since September made sense,"And it's a snake, which is why only I could hear it - I can speak Parsletounge! No ones died yet because nobody has looked it directly in the eyes: Mrs. Norris saw it through the water on the floor, Colin saw it through his camera, Justin saw it through Nick, Nick can't die because he's already dead, and Hermione saw it through that mirror. Hagrid's roosters were all killed, and the spiders were terrified of it. It all fits!"

Harry waited for Ron to process this.

"Someone would have seen it."

"No." Harry pointed to the word Hermione had scribbled at the foot of the page,"Pipes. That's how it's getting around. It's been using the plumbing. I heard the voices from inside the walls."

"What about the girl who died fifty years ago?" He asked.

"She obviously saw the Basilisk directly and-" Harry stopped,"Ron. Ron, that girl...Aragog said she died in a bathroom. What if she's still there?"

"Eh?"

"Moaning Myrtle. She lives in that bathroom. And she's never told us how she died. No one ever goes into her bathroom anyway." Harry continued slowly,"So, maybe the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is in-"

"-Myrtle's bathroom!"

Harry nodded.

"Let's go!" Ron yelled.

As the boys got up, Harry turned to Hermione, placed his hand back on hers for a moment and said,"Thank you."