Always Together

33. Finally Safe

Chapter 33 — Finally Safe

A faint moan came from the end of the Chamber. Caitlyn was stirring. As Harry hurried toward her, she sat up. The shock began showing in her face as she saw her friend there, in his bloody robes, and her father's diary, holes in it and taint raining from it. Then she saw the dead basilisk.

"Harry — oh, Harry — I'm s-so sorry — it was me — all of it — I-I opened th-the Chamber and released the B-Basilisk — I Petrefied Hermione! — I-I'm so, so sorry — Voldemort was — he is my — oh, Harry, I'm sorry — I didn't mean to hurt anyone — I just couldn't control it!"

That was the first she ever said the name Voldemort.

"It's all right," said Harry, holding up the diary, and showing Caitlyn the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C'mon, CT, let's get out of here —"

"I'm going to be expelled!" Caitlyn wept as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. "Hogwarts was the best thing that's ever happened to me! Then I was adopted and — oh, what will Uncle Lucius and Aunt Narcissa do to me?"

Fawkes was hovering for them, which Caitlyn found curious. Stepping into the tunnel that she was so used to, Harry and Caitlyn held hands as she shook uncontrollably.

After a few minutes' progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry's ears.

"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Caitlyn's okay! I've got her!"

they heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make some rocks fall.

"Caitlyn!" Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened? How — what — where did that bird come from?"

Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Caitlyn.

"He's Dumbledore's," said Harry, squeezing through himself.

"How come you've got a sword?" said Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Harry's hand.

"I'll explain when we get out of here," said Harry.

"But —"

"Later," Harry said shortly. He didn't think it was a good idea to tell Ron yet who'd been opening the Chamber, not in front of Caitlyn, anyway. "Where's Lockhart?"

"Back there," said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."

Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, they walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.

"His memory's gone," said Ron. "The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself."

Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at them all.

"Hello," he said. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"

"No," said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry.

Harry bent down and looked up the long, dark pipe.

"Have you thought how we're going to get back up this?" He said to Ron.

Ron shook his head, but Fawkes the phoenix had swooped past Harry and was now fluttering in front of him, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers. Harry looked uncertainly at him.