Harry Potter - The Accidental Animagus

Chapter 53 - Trading Dobby

It’ll be good to get away from the castle for a while, Tom, Ginny wrote on the train ride home. It was getting scary there. I couldn’t concentrate on my work, either.

I think you’ll feel better after a break, Ginny, Tom replied. If you take it easy for a couple weeks, you should be more rested to learn more spells.

I just hope they can find the Chamber of Secrets while we ’re gone so they can stop the attacks.

I ’m sure Professor Dumbledore is doing the best he can.

Do you really think it ’s true, what Harry said? How almost everyone in school could be the Heir?

I suppose it could be. The thought unsettled Tom, as much as he didn’t want to admit it. He’d never done the maths himself, but Potter’s words rang far too true. It was too much to expect Salazar Slytherin’s bloodline to stay confined to a single family, or even to only wizards, for a thousand years. Still…It’s hard to be sure of how the families lined up that far back. Even with good records, bloodlines can be buried for a long time. But even if Slytherin’s blood spread far and wide, I suspect his true magical Heirs, those with the gift of Parseltongue, would be confined to a select few.

You don’t think—Ginny held her quill to the page indecisively—my family could be part of them, do you?

Of course not. Your family has all been in Gryffindor for generations, and you ’re one of the surest Gryffindors among them.

Ginny breathed a sigh of relief. Despite her growing uneasiness about the diary, those words were a real comfort to her. Of course, the Heir would really be a Slytherin. And even though a lot of people suspected Harry, probably more than half the school recognised how silly that was. Thanks for being so understanding, Tom. I know you were a Slytherin, but you’ve still been really nice to me.

As I told you, your house is only a label. It tells some of your qualities, but not all of them. The true test is one of character.

“Are you okay, Ginny?”

Ginny flinched and looked up to see who had entered her compartment, hastily covering up the diary. “Oh, hi, Luna. Yeah, I’m fine,” she said breathily.

“Your wrackspurts have got worse,” Luna said matter-of-factly. “And you may have a secondary infestation of something else. Perhaps I should ask Daddy to help you with them.”

“Um…no, thank you, Luna. I think I’ll be okay.” Is it just me, or is she getting loonier? she thought.

Quite possible, Tom replied.

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In comparison with last year, when the Iron Curtain fell, it was a sombre Christmas in magical Britain. In fact, there was a bit of a pall over the entire magical world, for with only about a million witches and wizards in the world, any serious threat in a magical school garnered international headlines. As soon as the story broke in The Quibbler, a few people both inside and outside of Britain called up the Daily Prophet for confirmation, and at that point, they couldn’t outright deny it. By Christmas Day, magical newspapers as far away as Australia were running stories like, TERROR IN BRITAIN: MULTIPLE STUDENTS PETRIFIED AT FAMOUS MAGICAL SCHOOL! They didn’t always make the front page, but most of the dozens of widely circulating newspapers in the magical world ran articles. France offered investigative assistance, as did a magical private investigator in America. Questions mounted as to whether and why the story had been covered up, but the Board of Governors skillfully manoeuvred out of them by saying they were trying to run their investigation under a media blackout. Harder to justify was the choice not to revive the petrified students when they had the chance, and the resultant war of words left egg on both Dumbledore’s and the Board’s faces.