Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets By J. K. Rowling chapter one the Worst Birthday

“Open,” said Harry, in a low, faint hiss. 
The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry, 
shaking from head to foot, walked inside. 

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 
The Heir of Slytherin 
He was standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. 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. 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 Ginny? 
He pulled out his wand and 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 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. 
“Ginny!” Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. “Ginny — don’t be dead — 
please don’t be dead —” He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny’s shoulders, and turned her 
over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn’t 
Petrified. But then she must be…
“Ginny, please wake up,” Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny’s head lolled 
hopelessly from side to side. 
“She won’t wake,” said a soft voice. 
Harry jumped and spun around on his knees. 
A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely 
blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But 
there was no mistaking him. 
“Tom — Tom Riddle?” 
Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry’s face. 
“What d’you mean, she won’t wake?” Harry said desperately. “She’s not — she’s not —?” 

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“She’s still alive,” said Riddle. “But only just.” 
Harry stared at him. Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a 
weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen. 
“Are you a ghost?” Harry said uncertainly. 
“A memory,” said Riddle quietly. “Preserved in a diary for fifty years.” 
He pointed toward the floor near the statue’s giant toes. Lying open there was the little black 
diary Harry had found in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. For a second, Harry wondered how it had 
got there — but there were more pressing matters to deal with. 
“You’ve got to help me, Tom,” Harry said, raising Ginny’s head again. “We’ve got to get her out 
of here. There’s a basilisk… I don’t know where it is, but it could be along any moment… 
Please, help me.” 
Riddle didn’t move. Harry, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and bent to pick 
up his wand again. 
But his wand had gone. 
“Did you see —?” 
He looked up. Riddle was still watching him — twirling Harry’s wand between his long fingers. 
“Thanks,” said Harry, stretching out his hand for it. 
A smile curled the corners of Riddle’s mouth. He continued to stare at Harry, twirling the wand 
idly. 
“Listen,” said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny’s dead weight. “We’ve got to go! If 
the basilisk comes —” 
“It won’t come until it is called,” said Riddle calmly. 
Harry lowered Ginny back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer. 
“What d’you mean?” he said. “Look, give me my wand, I might need it —” 
Riddle’s smile broadened. 
“You won’t be needing it,” he said. 
Harry stared at him. 

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“What d’you mean, I won’t be —?” 
“I’ve waited a long time for this, Harry Potter,” said Riddle. “For the chance to see you. To 
speak to you.” 
“Look,” said Harry, losing patience, “I don’t think you get it. We’re in the Chamber of Secrets. 
We can talk later —” 
“We’re going to talk now,” said Riddle, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed Harry’s wand. 
Harry stared at him. There was something very funny going on here…
“How did Ginny get like this?” he asked slowly. 
“Well, that’s an interesting question,” said Riddle pleasantly. “And quite a long story. I suppose 
the real reason Ginny Weasley’s like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her 
secrets to an invisible stranger.” 
“What are you talking about?” said Harry. 
“The diary,” said Riddle. “My diary. Little Ginny’s been writing in it for months and months, 
telling me all her pitiful worries and woes — how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to 
school with secondhand robes and books, how —” Riddle’s eyes glinted “— how she didn’t 
think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her…” 
All the time he spoke, Riddle’s eyes never left Harry’s face. There was an almost hungry look in 
them. 
“It’s very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl,” he went 
on. “But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No 
one’s ever understood me like you, Tom… I’m so glad I’ve got this diary to confide in… It’s 
like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket…” 
Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn’t suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of 
Harry’s neck. 
“If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured 
out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted… I grew stronger and 
stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful 
than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to 
start pouring a little of my soul back into her…” 
“What d’you mean?” said Harry, whose mouth had gone very dry. 
“Haven’t you guessed yet, Harry Potter?” said Riddle softly. “Ginny Weasley opened the 
Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the 

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walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib’s cat.” 
“No,” Harry whispered. 
“Yes,” said Riddle, calmly. “Of course, she didn’t know what she was doing at first. It was very 
amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries… far more interesting, they 
became… Dear Tom,” he recited, watching Harry’s horrified face, “‘I think I’m losing my 
memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don’t know how they got there. Dear 
Tom, I can’t remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I’ve got 
paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I’m pale and I’m not myself. I think 
he suspects me… There was another attack today and I don’t know where I was. Tom, what am I 
going to do? I think I’m going mad… I think I’m the one attacking everyone, Tom!’” 
Harry’s fists were clenched, the nails digging deep into his palms. 
“It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary,” said Riddle. “But she 
finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that’s where you came in, Harry. You 
found it, and I couldn’t have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, 
it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet…” 
“And why did you want to meet me?” said Harry. Anger was coursing through him, and it was 
an effort to keep his voice steady. 
“Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry,” said Riddle. “Your whole fascinating 
history.” His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead, and their expression grew 
hungrier. “I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided 
to show you my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust —” 
“Hagrid’s my friend,” said Harry, his voice now shaking. “And you framed him, didn’t you? I 
thought you made a mistake, but —” 
Riddle laughed his high laugh again. 
“It was my word against Hagrid’s, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando 
Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, 
model student… on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to 
raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls… but I 
admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that 
Hagrid couldn’t possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out 
everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance… as though 
Hagrid had the brains, or the power! 
“Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He 
persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might 
have guessed… Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did…” 

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“I bet Dumbledore saw right through you,” said Harry, his teeth gritted. 
“Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled,” said 
Riddle carelessly. “I knew it wouldn’t be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at 
school. But I wasn’t going to waste those long years I’d spent searching for it. I decided to leave 
behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I 
would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin’s noble work.” 
“Well, you haven’t finished it,” said Harry triumphantly. “No one’s died this time, not even the 
cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be 
all right again —” 
“Haven’t I already told you,” said Riddle quietly, “that killing Mudbloods doesn’t matter to me 
anymore? For many months now, my new target has been — you.” 
Harry stared at him. 
“Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was 
writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out 
how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who’d been 
strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it 
back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin’s heir. 
From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the 
mystery — particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the 
whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue…
“So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled 
and cried and became very boring. But there isn’t much life left in her… She put too much into 
the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last… I have been waiting for you to 
appear since we arrived here. I knew you’d come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter.” 
“Like what?” Harry spat, fists still clenched. 
“Well,” said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, “how is it that you — a skinny boy with no 
extraordinary magical talent — managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you 
escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort’s powers were destroyed?” 
There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now. 
“Why do you care how I escaped?” said Harry slowly. “Voldemort was after your time…” 
“Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter…” 
He pulled Harry’s wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three 
shimmering words: 

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