𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 - Harry Potter x Fem!Reader¹

16.. DOBBY'S REWARD

For a moment there was silence as Y/N, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Y/N's case) blood. Then there was a scream.

"Ginny!"

It was Mrs. Weasley, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire. She leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr. Weasley, and both of them flung themselves on their daughter.

Y/N, however, was looking past them. Professor Dumbledore was standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest. Fawkes went whooshing past Y/N's ear and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder, just as Y/N found herself, Harry, and Ron being swept into Mrs. Weasley's tight embrace with Ron being squeezed in the middle.

"I'm so sorry, Harry, dear," cried Mrs. Weasley as she hugged them tighter still. "I heard what happened to Jonathan — poor boy — I'll have to make it up to you and your parents."

"No need, Mrs. Weasley," said Harry. "Jonathan and the others will be okay soon, I heard. And all that matters is that Ginny's all right, thanks to Y/N, of course."

"B-but," stammered Mr. Weasley, "how did you do it, Y/N?"

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

Mrs. Weasley let go of the three. Y/N hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the ruby-encrusted sword, and what remained of Riddle's diary.

Then she started telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour she spoke into the rapt silence: she told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realized that she was hearing a basilisk in the pipes; how Y/N, Harry, and Ron had followed the spiders into the forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died; how she had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in the bathroom...

"Very well," Professor McGonagall prompted her, "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, L/N?"

So Y/N, her voice now growing hoarse from all this talking, told them about Fawkes's timely arrival and about the Sorting Hat giving him the sword. But then she faltered; she had so far avoided mentioning Riddle's diary — or Ginny.

Ginny was standing with her head against Mrs. Weasley's shoulder, and tears were still coursing silently down her cheeks. What if they expelled her? Riddle's diary didn't work anymore... How could they prove it had been he who'd made her do it all?

Instinctively, Y/N looked at Dumbledore, who smiled faintly, the firelight glancing off his half moon spectacles.

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

Relief — warm, sweeping, glorious relief – swept over Y/N.

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

"It was this diary, sir," said Y/N quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen..."

Dumbledore took the diary from Y/N and peered keenly down his long, crooked nose at its burnt and soggy pages.

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

He turned around to the Weasleys, who were looking utterly bewildered.