𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐒 || Harry J. Potter [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter 17 ✎

"I'm going to kill that so called family of yours one day, just you wait."
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Third Person POV

For a moment there was silence as Harry, Jilly, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered with muck and slime and in Jilly and Harry'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.

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.

Jilly was looking at the ground. Fawkes went whooshing past Harry's ear and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder, just as Harry, Jilly and Ron found themselves 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, and Jilly, who both hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat and the ruby-encrusted sword. Jilly also walked forward and put, what remained of Riddle's diary.

Then they started telling the others everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour, they spoke into the rapt silence. Harry told them about him and Jilly hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realized that they were hearing a basilisk in the pipes, how he, Jilly and Ron had followed the spiders into the forest,
that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died, how they had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom. Jilly only spoke when Harry missed details or forgot what happened next.

"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??"

Jilly answered this time, she thought Harry must've been tired of talking. She told them about Fawkes's timely arrival and the Sorting Hat giving Harry the sword.

But then she faltered. She knew that Harry 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? Jilly thought in panic. Riddle's diary didn't work anymore... How could they prove it had been he who'd made her do it all?

Instinctively, She 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 and Jilly both.

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

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