The Mystery of the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 18: Dobby's reward

For a moment there was silence as all five of them stood in the doorway, covered in muck, slime and (in Harry's case) blood and Etta in ink. 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 her husband, Mr Weasley and both of them flung themselves on their daughter. Harry, 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 Harry's ear and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder, just as Harry found himself, Ron and Etta 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," said Professor McGonagall weakly.

Mrs Weasley let go of Harry, who hesitated a moment, walked over to the desk and laid the Sorting Hat and the sword on it while Etta placed the diary beside them. Then Harry started telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour he spoke into the rapt silence: he told them about how he and Etta heard the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realised that they were hearing a basilisk in the pipes: how he, Ron and Etta had followed the spiders into the forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died; how he had 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 prompted him, as he paused, "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, Potter?"

So Harry, his 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 he faltered. He had so far avoided mentioning Riddle's diary-or Ginny. She was standing with her head against Mrs Weasley's shoulder and tears were still coursing silently down her cheeks. What if they expelled her? Harry thought in panic. Riddle's diary didn't work any more. How could they prove it had been he who'd made her do it all? Instinctively, Harry 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 Harry.

"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," said Etta quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore, "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen."

Dumbledore took the diary from Etta 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, "Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He disappeared after leaving school...travelled far and wide...sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind, underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognisable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here."

"But Ginny," said Mrs Weasley, "what's our 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-"