Cassius had only just finished explaining—for the third time—that unicorn blessings did not, in fact, imply anything remotely scandalous when a faint tremor of magic brushed the edge of his senses.
A pulse.
Subtle.
Intentional.
He went still mid-sentence.
Daphne noticed immediately. "Cassius?"
He lifted a hand for silence.
A second pulse.
Sharper.
Like the diary inhaling.
His eyes narrowed.
Ginny was moving, the possession had taken hold and the final act beginning as the Diary sent a pulse to alert him of its success.
Cassius turned toward the dormitory entrance just as Luna—still perched cross-legged on one of the stone benches—tilted her head, eyes going distant.
"Oh," she whispered. "It's happening."
The girls exchanged looks—confused, uneasy—but Cassius was already moving.
He slipped past them, alighting from the dormitory doors of House Draconis before sprinting up the staircases making his way to the canon location of the final message.
The torches dimmed as he passed, reacting to his magic humming through the air.
He stepped into the main corridor—
—and stopped.
~
Minutes before
The diary's compulsion had fully taken hold.
Ginny Weasley walked the corridors ahead, her steps slow, deliberate, trance-like.
Students coming up the staircase didn't even see her; their eyes slid off her like she didn't exist.
A side-effect of his protocol: subtle ignorance wards.
Ginny clutched the diary open in one small, trembling hand.
Her other hand—ink-stained—dragged along the wall as though guided by something inside her bones.
Her eyes were unfocused.
Hollow.
She turned the corner into the lower hallway near the girls bathroom.
Ginny stopped before the long, empty stretch of wall.
The glow from enchanted torches flickered, dimmed… then guttered out, leaving only a faint reddish light from the windows.
The diary's pages fluttered violently in her grasp.
Ginny's arm lifted.
Her fingers curled.
And red—deep, wet, impossibly dark—bled from her fingertips as though her veins themselves were turning to words.
Her body being willed to expell a small quantity of blood to be used like ink to record the final message upon the castles walls.
Slowly, shakily, she began to write.
HER SKELETON SHALL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER
The letters stretched across the stone like wounds.
Ginny stepped back, swaying.
Her lips parted as though she tried to speak, but no sound came.
She blinked once.
Twice.
Then her eyes rolled upward.
Total possession had taken place, walking unconciously she entered the girls bathroom before a simple utterance of parseltongue caused the chambers entrance to open before the girl jumped in, the chamber closing itself behind her.
~
Students came around the corner—laughing—only to go silent mid-breath.
A scream tore the air.
Then another.
"Someone—someone get a professor!"
"Oh Merlin—look at the writing—!"
"It's real! The Chamber is real!"
~
It didnt take long for a crowd of teachers to arrive, see the message scrawled on the wall, before sending all the students to their dormitories.
Madam Pomfrey arrived questioning just who had been taken.
Only for Professor McGonnagal to hold up a school book found on the floor as evidence.
"Ginny Weasley."
Cassius drifted backward into the dark, unseen, untouched by the panic erupting around him.
He watched for only a moment, expression unreadable.
Phase two, he thought, turning away, complete.
~
The corridor dissolved into shouts, frantic footsteps, teachers barking orders.
Students crowded around trying to see the writing before being ushered away by the teachers.
Cassius watched from behind a suit of armor, half-shrouded in darkness.
Gazing across the way as he spotted a familiar head of unruly red hair, and beside it the equally unruly mop of black hair.
Harry and Ron were present, witnessing the events just as it had happened in the books.
Once the teachers had all moved on leaving things as they stood to get the matter in hand, and inform the powers that be of the recent developments.
Harry and Ron stepped forwards, getting the chance to see the writing for what it was.
Harry stood stockstill slowly repeating what he was reading with his eyes, Ron on the other hand could only impishly cry out Ginny once harry was finished.
There was no lockheart this time, so instead of wasting time running to find him and assist him with what they knew, instead the two fell into a pointless discusion about going to get her themselves.
Ron surprisingly advocating for getting a teacher, while harry with a hero complex and desire to prove himself after recent events pushed to simply go now themselves.
Seeing this Cassius did not hesitate to make himself known.
Walking forwards as he scoffed at the two boys.
Pft.
"You two save her?" Cassius derided. "Unlikely, two dunces, with troll brains would only get themselves killed in a location as deadly as the chamber, best to leave this up to the professionals with real skill."
"Cassius!" Harry cried out, almost in anger.
"We'll save my sister! Just you wait and see." Ron howled as well.
"Oh is that so? Perhaps we should bet on it, i bet you wont make it a single minute within the chamber before falling to the ground." Cassius continued to push and provoke the two hotheads before him.
"A bet! You think so little of us, oh high and might Cassius! Fine we'll bet, and i'll show you wrong when we are the ones to save my sister, not anyone else!" Ron lost in his rage howled.
Cassius didnt say anything further just turned round laughing at Rons outburst.
But as soon as he was out of eyesight Cassius began to run, leaving the boys behind on the upper floor quickly heading for the castle's front doors.
But the thing he didnt expect to happen was his running into Daphne and Cho who stayed waiting for his return outside the Draconis commonroom.
"Cassius!" Daphne called out upon seeing him.
"You're going arent you? Then we're going with you!" Cho called out as the two began to run chasing after him.
Cassius didnt disagree afterall no harm would befall any of them in the chamber and for his method of entering the chamber these two would be the most suited to join him.
As they exited the castle doors and got into the courtyard, Cassius pulled his Aeriusbolt broom from an expanded storage pocket with the girls following suit, as the three zipped off of the ground and sailing through the night sky.