The Anger.

Neville nodded and accepted the glasses. Harry turned back to the sinks and started calling words, §Entrance - entry - move secret - secrets - sesame - open...§

Except words weren't what he heard. He was making a strange hissing sound. On the hiss for open, the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.

Harry heard Neville gasp. He already knew what he was going to do.

"I'm going down there," said Harry.

He couldn't not go; not now they had found the entrance to the Chamber; not if there was even the faintest, slimmest, wildest chance that the Weasley girl might be alive.

"We are going down there," said Neville. Harry dropped his wand into his hand and lowered himself slowly into the pipe. With a muttered, "Lumos!" he let go.

It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. He could see more pipes branching off in all directions, but none as large as theirs, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, and he knew that he was falling deeper below the school than even the dungeons. Behind him he could hear Neville, thudding slightly at the curves.

Just as he had begun to worry about what would happen when he hit the ground, the pipe levelled out. He shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in.

Harry stood aside as Neville came whizzing out of the pipe, too. "We must be miles under the school," said Harry, his voice echoing in the black tunnel.

"Under the lake, probably," said Neville, squinting around at the dark, slimy walls.

Harry cast a quick Cleaning Charm on them both.

"Thanks, Harry," muttered Neville, not really paying attention.

"Come on," Harry said.

With a call of "Lumos!" from Neville, the two boys advanced down the stone tunnel, their footsteps slapping loudly on the wet floor.

The tunnel was so dark that they could only see a little distance ahead. Their shadows on the wet walls looked monstrous in the wand light. "Remember," Harry said quietly as they walked cautiously forward, "any sign of movement, close your eyes right away."

But the tunnel was quiet as the grave, and the first unexpected sound they heard was a loud crunch as he stepped on what turned out to be a rat's skull. Harry lowered his wand to look at the floor and saw that it was littered with small animal bones.

Trying very hard not to imagine what the Weasley girl might look like if they found her, Harry led the way forward, around a dark bend in the tunnel.

"Harry - there's something up there…" said Neville hoarsely, grabbing Harry's shoulder.

They froze, watching. Harry could just see the outline of something huge and curved, lying right across the tunnel. It wasn't moving. "Maybe it's asleep," he breathed, glancing back.

Harry edged forward, his wand held high.

The light slid over a gigantic snake skin, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feet long at least.

"Blimey," said Neville, weakly.

"Yeah," said Harry, his heart beating in his chest. "That's big."

After looking at it for a few moments more, Harry said, "Come on. We need to find the girl." And continued to lead the way.

The tunnel turned and turned again. Every nerve in Harry's body was tingling, unpleasantly. He wanted the tunnel to end, yet dreaded what he'd find when it did. And then, at last, as he crept around yet another bend, he saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

Harry approached with Neville right behind, his throat very dry. There was no need to pretend these stone snakes were real; their eyes looked strangely alive.

He could guess what he had to do. He cleared his throat, and the emerald eyes seemed to flicker.

§Open,§ said Harry, in a low, faint hiss.

The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight. The boys, both shaking from head to foot, walked inside.

They were standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rising to support a ceiling lost in darkness; casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.

His heart beating very fast, Harry stood listening to the chill silence. Could the basilisk be lurking in a shadowy corner, behind a pillar? And where was the girl?

Cancelling the Light Charm, Harry quietly said, "I think there might soon be a need for the glasses and roosters, Nev. Hold the block ready in your left hand, just in case." Following his own advice he donned his glasses and reached in to his own bag to draw out the block of wood, shifting it to his left hand.

Then he moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls.

He kept his 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 him. More than once, with a jolt of the stomach, he thought he saw one stir.

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

Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above. It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.

Harry indicated the girl to Neville. Staying alert, the two hurried to the girl. Neville resheathed his wand, knelt and shook the girl's shoulders; then turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't petrified.

"Ginny, please wake up," Neville muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side.

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

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