Malfoy

The Feast

For a moment there was silence as we stood there, covered in slime and grim wearing wet clothes dripping gross water.

"Ginny!" Mrs Weasley shrieked breaking the silence. She and Mr Weasley ran forward from where they'd been standing and wrapped Ginny in a tight hug.

I looked around the room, McGonagall was there looking surprised and so was...Dumbledore? He was standing at the mantlepiece and was smiling at Harry.

Just then, I felt myself be pulled into a tight embrace by Mrs Weasley along with Harry and Ron.

"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?" She asked us.

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

As Mrs Weasley let go of us Harry walked over and put the sword, the sorting hat, and the diary down on the desk.

He began to explain everything, so far it was everything we'd discovered together. About the Basilisk, Aragog, Myrtle, Ron and I nodded along for most of it not wanting to interrupt the story.

"Very well," McGonagall spoke as Harry took a minute for air, "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?"

This was the part I was interested in. I listened with rapt attention as he continued telling us how he'd faced off against the Basilisk with the sword within the Sorting Hat. Then he paused and looked at Dumbledore, unsure of something.

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

"W-what's that?" Mrs Weasley asked and I looked between Dumbledore and Ginny confused, this part of the story I wasn't familiar with. "You Know Who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not...Ginny hasn't been...has she?"

"It was this diary," Harry picked up the diary from the desk and held it out to show Dumbledore. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen."

Dumbledore took the diary from Harry and peered into its soggy pages.

"Brilliant," Dumbledore muttered softly. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen."

He then turned to the Weasleys who looked as confused and bewildered as I did.

"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, and underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognizable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here."

"But Ginny," Mrs Weasley was still confused, "what's our Ginny to do with-with-him?"

"His d-diary," Ginny sobbed. "I've b-been writing in it, and he's been w-writing back all year-"

This was starting to make sense now, Ginny had been writing to the diary and Tom Riddle had been within the diary and had somehow taken control of her mind.

"Ginny!" Mr Weasley scolded but his voice wasn't mean more surprised. "Haven't I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain. Why didn't you show the diary to me, or your mother? A suspicious object like that, it was clearly full of Dark Magic!"