Kassandra Bauer and the Chamber of Secrets. (Book 2)

Chapter 18: To the Victors go the Spoils.

Harry had banged on the door hard to Professor McGonagall's office. Couldn't say I blamed him. We were all in quite a mood to tell her the truth. The Basilisk was dead. And so was the heir. 

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Beatrice shouted and pushed the door open. 

"Well... that's one way to do it." I commented. It must've been a pretty crazy sight to see us covered in muck and slime for the teachers. Or in the case of Harry and I, blood.

"Ginny!" I saw Mrs. Weasley, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire, leap to her feet and closely followed by Mr. Weasley, and both of them ran up to little Ginny. For a moment, it sounded like they were suffocating her. 

"Kassie!" I could see my brother, Ethan was also there. 

"Ethan?" I asked as I was pulled into a hug. 

He looked at me. "What the hell happened? You look like you've crawled out of a battlefield." Ethan asked me. 

"Because I did." I answered. "But what are you doing here?" 

"Answering his call." Ethan answered pointing to Dumbledore. 

"Professor Dumbledore?! You're back!" I yelled out in excitement. 

Dumbledore was over by the mantlepiece. And was next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great steady breaths and clutching her chest. Fawkes went by Dumbledore's shoulder. And as for Ron, Harry, Ryan, and I. We were squeezed up by Mrs. Weasley's embrace. 

"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?!" Mrs. Weasley wanted to know. 

"I'd think we'd all like to know that." McGonagall interrupted.

"Ow!" Ryan yelled. Mrs. Weasley was crushing his bad leg. 

"What happened to your leg, Mr. Tyler?" McGonagall asked concerned.

"It got crushed." Ryan answered.

"I'm SO sorry." Mrs. Weasley quickly apologized. She let us go.  

I told the Professors and Ethan everything. And I also told Beatrice, Cedric, Ron, and Ryan everything. It took about an hour. And with Harry backing me up. The disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realized that it was a Basilisk, and how Beatrice came to the same conclusion, and how we followed the spiders in the Forbidden Forest that Aragog had told us where the last Basilisk had died; how we figured that it was Myrtle that was the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might have been in her bathroom. 

"Binns owes me 10 galleons." Ethan grumbled. 

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing." Ethan answered. "Just something I told Binns in History of Magic once. He said the Chamber was just a myth, so... who's laughing now, huh?!" He shouted in the air. 

"Very well." McGonagall prompted us as I paused. She heard enough at any rate. "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?!" She wanted to know. 

Ethan looked at McGonagall. "You do realize that we crawled out of... almost everything, right?" He reminded. 

"You want me to do the talking, Harry?" I asked. I could tell his voice was getting hoarse.

"Yeah. Sure." Harry answered.

And so I told them about Fawkes showing up. Us fighting off the Basilisk with the sword. I wasn't so sure about telling them about the Diary, or Riddle/Voldemort, or of Ginny's involvement. Ginny was still in tears with her head on Mrs. Weasley's shoulders. What if she got expelled? And what if Mrs. Weasley set off a storm on Ginny like she did Ron? This wasn't going to be easy. And I think Ethan could tell some of the hesitation with my words.