Deepest desire (a Harry Potter fanfic) book 2

chapter seven

For a moment, there was silence as we stood in the doorway, covered in muck, slime, (in Harry’s case) blood and (in mine) water. then there was a scream.

“Ginny!”

It was Mrs Weasley, she leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr Weasley, and both of them flung themselves on their daughter.

I don’t know why but I felt the need to look away, some family moments need to be in privet I guess. Professor Dumbledore was standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steading gasps, clutching her chest. The bird went whooshing past Harry’s ear and settled on Dumbledore’s shoulder, I stepped back as Harry and Ron were being swept into a tight embrace but Mrs Weasley.

“You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?”

“I think we’d all like to know that,” said Professor McGonagall weakly.

Mrs Weasley let go of Harry, who hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it an old, warn hat, a ruby-encrusted sword and what remained of an old black diary.

Then he started telling us everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour he spoke into rapt silence: he told us about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realised he was hearing a Basilisk in the pipes, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the Basilisk had died; how he guessed that Myrtle had been the victim, had that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom …

“Very well,” Professor McGonagall prompted him, as he paused, “so you found  out where the entrance was – breaking a hundred school rules along the way, I might add – but how on earth did you all get out of there alive, potter?”

So Harry, his voice now growing horse from all this talking, told us about the bird, Fawkes’s, timely arrival and about the Sorting Hat giving him the sword. But then faltered.

Harry looked at Dumbledore, who smiled faintly, the fire light glancing off his half-moon spectacles.

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

“W-what’s that?” said Mr Weasley in a stunned voice. “You-know-who? En-enchanted Ginny? But Ginny’s not … Ginny hasn’t been … has she?”

“It was the diary,” said Harry quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. “Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen.”

Dumbledore took the diary from Harry and peered keenly down his long, crooked nose at it’s burnt and soggy pages.

“Brilliant,” he said softly. “Of course, he was probably the brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen.” He turned around to the Weasleys, who were looking utterly bewildered.

“Very few people know the 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 worse of our kind, underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognizable. Hardly any one connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here.”

“But Ginny,” said Mrs Weasley, “What’s Ginny got 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-”

“Ginny!” said Mr Weasley, flabbergasted. “Haven’t I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for it’s self 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 if Dark Magic!”