Dumbledore's command silenced the corridor almost immediately.
The students began moving away in small groups, their earlier excitement replaced by nervous whispers. Prefects hurried among them, ordering everyone back toward their common rooms while several professors remained behind with Colin.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione hadn't moved.
They stood together beneath the flickering torchlight, all three looking as though they had just been caught doing something they couldn't possibly explain.
Dumbledore turned toward them.
"Harry, Ron, Hermione," he said quietly. "I would like to speak with the three of you."
Harry swallowed. "Professor, we didn't ... "
The rest of the sentence was lost as the remaining students were guided away. Ethan caught only the low murmur of Dumbledore's voice and the tense set of Harry's shoulders before Ginny was carried along with the crowd.
The mood inside Gryffindor Tower that night was suffocating.
The warm crackle of the hearth did nothing to dispel the cold panic gripping the common room. Students clustered in tight, hushed groups across the armchairs and rugs, their voices a continuous drone of anxious speculation.
"Did you see Colin?"
"He was stiff as a board. Proper dark magic, that is."
Ginny sat curled up in the corner of a deep sofa, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her face was pale, her hands trembling slightly as she stared blankly into the fire. She had barely spoken a word since the Prefects ushered them back to the tower.
Inside the void of the diary, Ethan observed the emotional turbulence sweeping through her mind.
Fear. Confusion. Guilt.
The guilt was faint, irrational, and purely instinctual, a nagging discomfort tied to the fact that she had spoken to Colin right before he went missing, even if she couldn't remember anything sinister about their brief exchange.
Ethan waited patiently until the common room portrait hole swung open, admitting Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
The entire room instantly fell dead silent.
Dozens of pairs of eyes locked onto the three second-years. The tension was thick enough to choke on.
Harry looked exhausted, his shoulders tense under the weight of the stares. Ron looked defiant, glaring back at anyone who looked too long, while Hermione kept her chin up, marching straight toward the corner table to avoid eye contact.
"They're staring at us," Ron muttered under his breath, dropping heavily into a chair near the fire.
"Can you blame them?" Hermione whispered, leaning in close. "We were found standing right beside him. Dumbledore might believe we had nothing to do with it, but the rest of the school didn't hear what we told him in the office."
Later that night, long after the common room emptied and the dormitory curtains were drawn shut, Ginny pulled the little black book from beneath her pillow. Her hands were still cold as she uncapped her ink bottle and set the quill to parchment.
*Ethan... something terrible happened tonight.*
The ink soaked smoothly into the cream fibres.
Ethan waited a deliberate two seconds before letting his script bleed up from beneath the surface in steady, comforting lines.
*I see, Ginny. I can tell you feel frightened right now. Tell me what happened.*
Ginny's writing came in a rush, Colin frozen on the stone floor, Harry standing only a few feet away, the way everyone had looked at him.
*Everyone is looking at Harry,* she wrote, her handwriting messy and trembling. *They think he had something to do with it. But Harry wouldn't do that. He couldn't.*
Ethan stared at the words for a moment before carefully writing his response.
*I don't think he would either. But that doesn't mean everyone else will see it that way. People are frightened, Ginny. When they're frightened, they look for someone to blame.*
Ginny remained silent for several seconds, staring down at the page.
*Do you think Colin will be okay?*
Ethan answered truthfully.
*I think so. If Professor Dumbledore said he was alive, then the professors would do everything they could to help him.*
She hesitated before writing again.
*Ethan?*
*Yes?*
*I'm scared.*
The words were smaller this time.
Ethan watched them appear one letter at a time.
*I know. But you're not alone, Ginny. Whatever happens, you can always talk to me.*
Ginny stared at the words for a long moment. Then, slowly, a small smile appeared on her face.
*Thank you.*
Ethan waited a few seconds before writing one final message.
*You should try to sleep now. Today has been a long day.*
Ginny relaxed and carefully closed the Diary. She placed it beneath her pillow before pulling the blankets around herself, and within minutes her breathing began to slow.
Ethan remained awake inside the parchment long after the dormitory fell quiet.
The first stage had gone exactly as planned. Colin was petrified, not dead. The Basilisk had obeyed. Harry had been found at the scene. The school was already beginning to look at him with suspicion.
That was enough for now.
Rushing a second incident would be a mistake. Fear needed time to settle into something more useful, a low, constant pressure rather than open panic.
Ethan wanted the students talking about the Chamber, wondering who had opened it and, more importantly, why Harry Potter always seemed to be nearby whenever something happened.
'Let them think about it.'
He had no reason to force anything yet. The more the students talked among themselves, the more the rumours would grow on their own, and the more suspicious people became of Harry, the more likely Harry would be to investigate the Chamber himself.
There was another possibility Ethan was particularly interested in.
The Duelling Club.
If the events unfolded anything like canon, the club would give him an opportunity he couldn't easily manufacture himself.
Harry speaking Parseltongue in front of half the school would be far more convincing than any rumour Ginny could spread.
'If Draco somehow were to know that Harry was deadly afraid of snakes, then maybe it would become a guarantee that Harry would have to face a snake.' Ethan thought to himself with some amusement.
Over the following weeks, the atmosphere within Hogwarts shifted from festive anticipation to a suffocating dread.
The corridors, usually filled with boisterous laughter and rushing footsteps, were now lined with anxious clusters of students moving strictly in groups.
Meanwhile, the whispers surrounding Harry Potter grew sharper with each passing day.
Without the writing on the wall announcing the Chamber of Secrets, it took the students considerably longer to piece together what had happened.
Still, curiosity eventually got the better of some of them, and after digging through old books, they finally uncovered the truth about what had happened in the castle fifty years ago.
The discovery spread through Hogwarts quickly. Students began whispering about the Chamber again, about the monster that had supposedly been released, and about the Heir of Slytherin who had opened it.
Ethan listened to the rumours through Ginny's conversations with the other students, carefully keeping track of how the story was changing as it spread.
The important part was that Harry's name was becoming increasingly connected to the attacks.
'Exactly what I wanted.'
The catalyst for the next phase arrived at the end of November.
Ginny walked into the Gryffindor common room after Charms class, joining a small crowd gathered around the house notice board.
Ethan surfaced lightly behind her eyes to read the fresh parchment pinned to the notice board:
DUELING CLUB
FIRST MEETING TOMORROW AT EIGHT O'CLOCK
THE GREAT HALL
Gather to learn the ancient art of magical defence under the expert tutelage of Professor Gilderoy Lockhart!
"They're starting a Duelling Club!" said Seamus. "First meeting tomorrow! I wouldn't mind duelling lessons; they might come in handy one of these days. . . ."
"What, you reckon Slytherin's monster can duel?" said Ron, but he, too, read the sign with interest.
"Could be useful," he said to Harry and Hermione as they talked among themselves. "Shall we go ?"
A low hum of excitement rippled through the common room. In a castle gripped by fear of an unseen attacker, the promise of learning practical defensive spells sounded good for all students, even though it was posted by Gilderoy Lockhart.
Ethan withdrew into the comfort of his mental armchair, a calm, satisfied smile on his face.
"The Duelling Club."
The stage where Harry's Parseltongue could be publicly exposed to the entire school, cementing his role as the primary suspect and driving him straight into the corner Ethan had prepared for him.
And once that happened, Harry would be pushed even closer toward the Chamber.
Now Ethan needed to make sure Draco knew about Harry's fear of snakes. He didn't want to depend on Snape telling Draco to use the spell.
He didn't need to tell Draco directly. That would only make the connection unnecessarily obvious. All he needed was the right conversation at the right time, somewhere Draco happened to be nearby and could overhear.
Ethan already knew Draco's personality well enough to understand that the boy wouldn't be able to resist using such information against Harry.
*********************************