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ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛʏ ɴɪɴᴇ

For a moment, there was silence as Harry, Ron, Ginny, Lockhart and I stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime, and in Harry's case, blood, aswell. Then there was a scream.

"Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr. Weasley, and both of them dragged their daughter towards them and hugged her.
I looked away for a moment, and noticed Dumbledore standing by the mantelpiece, next to Professor McGonagall. Fawkes whooshed past and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder, just as I'd found myself, Harry, and Ron, being swept into Mrs. Weasley's tight embrace.
"You saved her!" She cried. "You saved her! How did you do it?"
"I think we'd all like to know that." McGonagall spoke as Molly let us go.
"Well..." Harry walked over to the desk and placed the sorting hat, the sword and what remained of Tom Riddle's diary down on it. And then, he started telling them everything, looking at me for help every now and then. It took nearly a quarter of an hour to tell them the whole thing.

"...Very well." Professor McGonagall spoke once we'd finished. "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?"

So now, we had to tell them about Fawkes' timely arrival, I whispered for only Dumbledore and McGonagall to hear how I'd transformed to help out Fawkes with the Basilisk, to which Dumbledore gave me a subtle 'knew you could do it' nod. And then Harry continued about how the Sorting Hat had given him the sword, but then he stopped. He didn't want to mention Riddle's diary, or Ginny.
Dumbledore smiled faintly, catching on to the reluctance to tell them the full truth.

"What interests me most..." He spoke gently. "Is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently hiding in the forests of Albania."
"W-What's that?" Molly asked. "You know who,
e-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not... Ginny hasn't been... has she?"
"It was this diary." I spoke quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen."
Dumbledore took the diary and peered down at its burnt and soggy pages.
"Brilliant." He nodded. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts had ever seen..." He turned to the Weasley's. "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...He underwent 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."

"But, Ginny..." Molly whispered. "What's our Ginny got to do with- with - with him?"
"His d-diary." Ginny sobbed. "I've b-been writing in it, and he's been writing back, a-all year."
"Ginny!" Arthur shouted, ish. "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 it's 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!"
"I didn't know. I found it inside one of the books Mum got me. I th-thought someone had just left it in there and gotten about it."
"...The books from Diagon Alley?" I asked Ginny. She nodded. "When we were at the bookshop?" She nodded again. '𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒔 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝑮𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒚'𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒍𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒎.' I thought to myself, remembering the time Lucius had took Ginny's book and gave her two in return...
"Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing." Dumbledore told them. "This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort."
'𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒚 𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓...'
Dumbledore walked past us all and opened the door. "Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up. You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She's just giving out Mandrake juice. I dare say the Basilisk's victims will be waking up any moment."
"So, Hermione's okay?!" Ginny asked, smiling up at Dumbledore.
"There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny."
Mrs. Weasley led Ginny out, Mr. Weasley followed.