Slytherin Raised by Wolfstar: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter Nineteen: Dobby's Reward

For a moment, there was silence as Harry, Theodore, Allison, Tracey, Hermione, and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Harry's case) blood. Then there was a scream.

'Hermione!'

It was Mrs and Mr Granger, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire. Mrs Granger leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr Granger, and both of them flung themselves on their daughter.

Harry, however, was looking past them. Professor Dumbledore was standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest. Fawkes went whooshing past Harry's ear and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder, just as Harry found himself being swept into Mrs Granger's tight embrace.

'You saved my daughter! You saved my precious Hermione! How did you do it?'

'I think we'd all like to know that,' said Professor McGonagall weakly.

Mrs Granger let go of Harry, who hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it what remained of Riddle's diary.

Then he started telling them everything. For nearly an hour he spoke into the rapt silence: he told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Theodore had finally realised that he was hearing a Basilisk in the pipes; how he and his friends had followed the spiders into the Forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the Basilisk had died; how they had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom...

'Very well,' Professor McGonagall prompted him, as he paused, 'so you found out where the entrance was–breaking a hundred school rules into pieces along the way, I might add – but how on earth did you all get out of there alive, Potter?'

So Harry, his voice now growing hoarse from all this talking, told them about Fawkes's timely arrival. But then he faltered. He had so far avoided mentioning Riddle's diary, or Hermione, or that he used Fiendfyre. Hermione was standing with her head against Mrs Granger's shoulder, and tears were still coursing silently down her cheeks. What if they expelled her? Harry thought in panic. Riddle's diary didn't work any more...How could they prove it had been he who'd made her do it all?

Instinctively, Harry looked at Dumbledore, who smiled faintly, the firelight glancing off his half-moon spectacles.

'What interests me most,' said Dumbledore gently, 'is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Hermione, when my sources tell me he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania.'

Relief–warm, sweeping, glorious relief–swept over Harry.

'W-what's that?' said Mr Granger in a stunned voice. 'Voldemort? He enchanted Hermione? But how could that be possible?'

'It was this diary,' said Harry quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. 'Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen.'

Dumbledore took the diary from Harry and peered keenly down his long, crooked nose at its burnt and soggy pages.

'Brilliant,' he said softly. 'Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen.' He turned around to the Grangers, who were looking utterly bewildered and confused.

'Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He disappeared after leaving the school...travelled far and wide...sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind, underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognisable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here. I didn't help with the separation between who Tom Riddle was and who he became, I got rid of most things that mentioned him when I became Headmaster.'