The Mysterious Heir

Chapter 16, Book 2, "Dobby's freedom"

For a moment there is silence as Harry, Ron, Polaris, Ginny, and Lockhart stand in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Harry and Polaris's case) blood. Then there are two screams.

"Ginny!"

"Pol!"

It is Mrs. Weasley and Draco, the former has been sitting crying in front of the fire. She leaps to her feet, closely followed by Draco, and both of them fling themselves onto Ginny and Polaris respectively.

Harry, however, is looking past them. Professor Dumbledore is standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who is taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest. Fawkes goes whooshing past Harry's ear and settles on Dumbledore's shoulder, Castor doing the same on Polaris's shoulder, just as Harry finds himself, Ron, and Polaris being swept into Mrs. Weasley's tight embrace.

"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?"

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

Mrs. Weasley lets go of Harry and Polaris, who hesitate for a moment, then they walk over to the desk and lay the Sorting Hat, the ruby-encrusted sword, and what remained of Riddle's diary on it.

Then they start telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour they speak into the rapt silence: They tell them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione finally realised that they were hearing a basilisk in the pipes; how they, along with Ron followed the spiders into the forest, that Aragog told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died; how Harry 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 prompts them as they pause, "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 get out of there alive?"

So Polaris, his voice now growing hoarse from all this talking, tells them about Fawkes and Castor's timely arrival and about the Sorting Hat giving Harry the sword. But then he falters. He has so far avoided mentioning his fathers diary - or Ginny. She is standing with her head against Mrs. Weasley's shoulder, and tears are still coursing silently down her cheeks. The diary doesn't work anymore.... How can they prove that his father manipulated her to do it all?

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

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

Relief - warm, sweeping, glorious relief - sweeps over Polaris.

"W-what's that?" says Mr. Weasley in a stunned voice. "You-Know-Who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not...Ginny hasn't been...has she?"

"It was that damn diary," says Polaris quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. "My father wrote it when he was sixteen...."

"F-Father?!" says Mr. Weasley "You-Know-Who is your father!?"

Polaris sighs "Yes, unfortunately. He is one of the main reasons why I don't talk about my family often."