REBEL | a harry potter fanfiction

TWENTY-SIX

— 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐟 —

' *•.¸.•** . **•.¸.•*'

"GINNY!" SCREAMED A VOICE from inside the office, and then came a short woman with fiery red hair who lept to her feet, followed closely behind by her husband and the couple both flung themselves onto their daughter. The Weasleys.

Cassiopeia tried to make herself as small as possible so she would not get noticed by the two, creeping into the office as Harry and Ron were forced into a tight embrace. "You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?"

"I think we'd all like to know that," said a very stressed Professor McGonagall. Cassiopeia moved towards the corner of the room as Harry walked over to the desk and placed, to McGonagall's confusion, the Sorting Hat, a ruby-encrusted sword and the diary Cassie had been curious about for all those months.

He then proceeded to recite all the events; how he kept hearing voices, how Hermione managed to figure out it was a Basilisk travelling through the pipes, how Ron and Harry followed spiders into the Forbidden Forest and were told by an acromantula by the name of Aragog about how a victim died the last time and how they guessed where the entrance to the Chamber was.

 And, to Cassie's annoyance, bringing up the fact that she had seen the basilisk and decided to help save Ginny. She had finally been brought to the attention she so desperately wanted to avoid.

"Very well. 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?" questioned McGonagall.

Now Harry began to explain what happened in the Chamber and how Fawkes brought him the hat that gave him the sword. Cassie began to feel bad for Harry as all the explaining had caused his voice to grow hoarse.

"What interests me most," began Dumbledore calmly, "is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania." Cassie flinched at the mention of the Dark Lord.

"W-what's that?" asked Mr Weasley in a shaking voice. "You-know-who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not... Ginny hasn't been... has she?"

"It was this diary," Harry explained quickly, picking up the book with a hole through it. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen."

"Brilliant," remarked Dumbledore as he observed the diary as he took it from Harry. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen."

Cassie furrowed her brows, not knowing who this 'Riddle' they were talking about was. But it seemed as if Dumbledore read her mind as he began to elaborate, "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 deep 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 recognisable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once head boy here."