Harry Potter 02 & The Chamber Of Secrets (Illustrated) (36 page)

‘Fawkes,’ said Harry, ‘isn’t an ordinary bird.’ He turned quickly to the others. ‘We’ve got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron’s hand. Professor Lockhart -‘

‘He means you,’ said Ron sharply to Lockhart.

‘You hold Ginny’s other hand.’

Harry tucked the sword and the Sorting Hat into his belt, Ron took hold of the back of Harry’s robes, and Harry reached out and took hold of Fawkes’s strangely hot tail feathers.

An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through his whole body, and next second, with a whoosh, they were flying upwards through the pipe. Harry could hear Lockhart dangling below him, saying, ‘Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!’ The chill air was whipping through Harry’s hair, and before he’d stopped enjoying the ride, it was over - all four of them were hitting the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat, the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place.

Myrtle goggled at them.

‘You’re alive,’ she said blankly to Harry.

‘There’s no need to sound so disappointed,’ he said grimly, wiping flecks of blood and slime off his glasses.

‘Oh, well … I’d just been thinking. If you had died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet,’ said Myrtle, blushing silver.

‘Urgh!’ said Ron, as they left the bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. ‘Harry! I think Myrtle’s got
fond
of you! You’ve got competition, Ginny!’

But tears were still flooding silently down Ginny’s face.

‘Where now?’ said Ron, with an anxious look at Ginny. Harry pointed.

Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor. They strode after him, and moments later, found themselves outside Professor McGonagall’s office.

Harry knocked and pushed the door open.

For a moment, there was silence as Harry, Ron, Ginny and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in 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. Fawkes went whooshing past Harry’s ear and settled on Dumbledore’s shoulder, just as Harry found himself and Ron 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 for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the ruby-encrusted sword and what remained of Riddle’s diary.

Then he started telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour he spoke into the rapt silence: he told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realised that he was hearing a Basilisk in the pipes; how he and Ron 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 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 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 the 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 -‘

‘Ginny!’
said Mr Weasley, flabbergasted. ‘Haven’t I taught you
anything
? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself
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 of Dark Magic!’

‘I d-didn’t know,’ sobbed Ginny. ‘I found it inside one of the books Mum got me. I th-thought someone had just left it in there and forgotten about it …’

‘Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing straight away,’ Dumbledore interrupted in a firm voice. ‘This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort.’ He strode over to the door and opened it. ‘Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up,’ he added, twinkling kindly down at her. ‘You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She’s just giving out Mandrake juice - I dare say the basilisk’s victims will be waking up any moment.’

‘So Hermione’s OK!’ said Ron brightly.

‘There has been no lasting harm done,’ said Dumbledore.

Mrs Weasley led Ginny out, and Mr Weasley followed, still looking deeply shaken.

‘You know, Minerva,’ Professor Dumbledore said thoughtfully to Professor McGonagall, ‘I think all this merits a good
feast.
Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?’

‘Right,’ said Professor McGonagall crisply, also moving to the door. ‘I’ll leave you to deal with Potter and Weasley, shall I?’

‘Certainly,’ said Dumbledore.

She left, and Harry and Ron gazed uncertainly at Dumbledore. What exactly had Professor McGonagall meant,
deal
with them? Surely -
surely
- they weren’t about to be punished?

‘I seem to remember telling you both that I would have to expel you if you broke any more school rules,’ said Dumbledore.

Ron opened his mouth in horror.

‘Which goes to show that the best of us must sometimes eat our words,’ Dumbledore went on, smiling. ‘You will both receive Special Awards for Services to the School and - let me see - yes, I think two hundred points apiece for Gryffindor.’

Ron went as brightly pink as Lockhart’s Valentine flowers and closed his mouth again.

‘But one of us seems to be keeping mightily quiet about his part in this dangerous adventure,’ Dumbledore added. ‘Why so modest, Gilderoy?’

Harry gave a start. He had completely forgotten about Lockhart. He turned and saw that Lockhart was standing in a corner of the room, still wearing his vague smile. When Dumbledore addressed him, Lockhart looked over his shoulder to see who he was talking to.

‘Professor Dumbledore,’ Ron said quickly, ‘there was an accident down in the Chamber of Secrets. Professor Lockhart -‘

‘Am I a Professor?’ said Lockhart in mild surprise. ‘Goodness. I expect I was hopeless, was I?’

‘He tried to do a Memory Charm and the wand backfired,’ Ron explained quietly to Dumbledore.

‘Dear me,’ said Dumbledore, shaking his head, his long silver moustache quivering. ‘Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!’

‘Sword?’ said Lockhart dimly. ‘Haven’t got a sword. That boy has, though.’ He pointed at Harry. ‘He’ll lend you one.’

‘Would you mind taking Professor Lockhart up to the hospital wing, too?’ Dumbledore said to Ron. ‘I’d like a few more words with Harry …’

Lockhart ambled out. Ron cast a curious look back at Dumbledore and Harry as he closed the door.

Dumbledore crossed to one of the chairs by the fire.

‘Sit down, Harry,’ he said, and Harry sat, feeling unaccountably nervous.

‘First of all, Harry, I want to thank you,’ said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. ‘You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you.’

He stroked the phoenix, which had fluttered down onto his knee. Harry grinned awkwardly as Dumbledore watched him.

‘And so you met Tom Riddle,’ said Dumbledore thoughtfully. ‘I imagine he was
most
interested in you …’

Suddenly, something that was nagging at Harry came tumbling out of his mouth.

‘Professor Dumbledore … Riddle said I’m like him. Strange likenesses, he said …’

‘
Did
he, now?’ said Dumbledore, looking thoughtfully under his thick silver eyebrows at Harry. ‘And what do you think, Harry?’

‘I don’t think I’m like him!’ said Harry, more loudly than he’d intended. ‘I mean, I’m - I’m in
Gryffindor,
I’m …’

But he fell silent, a lurking doubt resurfacing in his mind.

‘Professor,’ he started again after a moment, ‘the Sorting Hat told me I’d - I’d have done well in Slytherin. Everyone thought I was Slytherin’s heir for a while … because I can speak Parseltongue …’

‘You can speak Parseltongue, Harry,’ said Dumbledore calmly, ‘because Lord Voldemort - who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin - can speak Parseltongue. Unless I’m much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I’m sure …’

‘Voldemort put a bit of himself in
me
?’ Harry said, thunderstruck.

‘It certainly seems so.’

‘So I
should
be in Slytherin,’ Harry said, looking desperately into Dumbledore’s face. ‘The Sorting Hat could see Slytherin’s power in me, and it -‘

‘Put you in Gryffindor,’ said Dumbledore calmly. ‘Listen to me, Harry. You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand-picked students. His own very rare gift, Parseltongue … resourcefulness … determination … a certain disregard for rules,’ he added, his moustache quivering again. ‘Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think.’

‘It only put me in Gryffindor,’ said Harry in a defeated voice, ‘because I asked not to go in Slytherin …’

‘Exactly,’
said Dumbledore, beaming once more. ‘Which makes you very
different
from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.’ Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned. ‘If you want proof, Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I suggest you look more closely at
this.
’

Dumbledore reached across to Professor McGonagall’s desk, picked up the blood-stained silver sword and handed it to Harry. Dully, Harry turned it over, the rubies blazing in the firelight. And then he saw the name engraved just below the hilt.

Godric Gryffindor.

‘Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the Hat, Harry,’ said Dumbledore simply.

For a minute, neither of them spoke. Then Dumbledore pulled open one of the drawers in Professor McGonagall’s desk, and took out a quill and a bottle of ink.

‘What you need, Harry, is some food and sleep. I suggest you go down to the feast, while I write to Azkaban - we need our gamekeeper back. And I must draft an advertisement for the
Daily Prophet,
too,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘We’ll be needing a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Dear me, we do seem to run through them, don’t we?’

Harry got up and crossed to the door. He had just reached for the handle, however, when the door burst open so violently that it bounced back off the wall.

Lucius Malfoy stood there, fury in his face. And cowering under his arm, heavily wrapped in bandages, was
Dobby.