Chapter 2-16 The Chamber of Secrets

• Exams are still on, even with the attacks going on. Professor McGonagall announces in the Great Hall that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting and that the people who have been Petrified will be revived at night.
• Ginny Weasley joins them at the table, looking nervous and wanting to tell Ron and Harry something but she decides not to when Percy joins the table.
• Ron and Harry try to sneak out to visit Moaning Myrtle to ask her some questions but are stopped by Professor McGonagall. They lie that they were about to visit Hermione and they are allowed to do so. Having to go there now, they discover a paper clutched in her hand. It's a page from an old library book. It's about the Basilisk, also known as the King of Serpents. This Snake has a murderous stare; all who are directly fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. It is the mortal enemy of spiders. The note goes on to say that the Basilisk only flees from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it. Written under the information Hermione wrote "pipes". Now Harry understands that the monster from the Chamber of Secrets is a Basilisk and because he can understand Parseltongue, he is the only one who can hear it moving through the plumbing pipes. Nobody died yet because nobody had looked directly into it's stare. The entrance to the Chamber of secrets is probably in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
• They decide they should tell everything to the teachers, and head toward the staff room. Just then, there is an announcement telling all student to return to their House dormitories and teachers to return to the staff room. Harry and Ron stay hidden in a wardrobe and overhear there has been another attack, and that the victim is Ginny Weasley who has been taken right into the chamber itself. The Heir of Slytherin left another message, "Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever". Lockhart joins the teachers, arriving late. All teacher angrily tell Lockhart, who has been bragging all year long about himself, that now it's time for him to be the hero; that he should go and rescue Ginny.
• Unable to wait any longer, Harry and Ron go to Lockhart to tell him what they know about the Chamber. Lockhart is packing his stuff, getting ready to leave Hogwarts as soon as possible. He is a coward, confessing that the stories in his books mostly didn't happen to him. He 'stole' other peoples stories and put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn't remember. Lockhart is on the point of putting a Memory Charm on Ron and Harry when Harry disarms him with an ¤ Expelliarmus. They take Lockhart to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and ask her how she died. Myrtle tells them she was hiding because Olive Hornby was teasing her. She heard a different language, a boy talking, she opened the door and died and that the last thing she remembered seeing was a pair of great big yellow eyes.
• They find the entrance and Harry opens it, speaking in Parseltongue. The three of them enter and go down, falling miles under the school; probably under the lake. It's completely dark and Harry lights the place with a ¤ Lumos. They find a snake skin. Lockhart manages to get Ron's Spellotape wand and tries to perform a Memory Charm ¤ Obliviate. Ron's wand explodes. The tunnel is blocked, Harry continues alone and finds the Chamber.