Kai Lily Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 1)

Chapter 20: Dobby

For a moment there was silence as Harry, Kai, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart stood in thedoorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Harry and Kai's case) blood. 

Then there was ascream.

"Ginny!" It was Mrs. Weasley, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire. 

She leapt to herfeet, closely followed by Mr. Weasley, and both of them flung themselves on theirdaughter. 

Harry and Kai, however, was looking past them. 

Professor Dumbledore was standing by themantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadyinggasps, clutching her chest. 

Fawkes went whooshing past Kai's ear and settled onDumbledore's shoulder, just as Kai found herself, Harry 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 and Kai, who hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the deskand laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the ruby-encrusted sword, and what remained ofRiddle's diary.

Then they began telling them everything. 

For nearly a quarter of an hour they spoke intothe rapt silence: They told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione and Kai had finally realized that he was hearing a basilisk in the pipes; how Harry, Kai and Ron had followedthe spiders into the forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of thebasilisk had died; how Harry had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim, andthat the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom... 

"Very well," Professor McGonagall prompted him as he paused, "so you found outwhere the entrance was — breaking a hundred school rules into pieces along the way, Imight add — but how on earth did you all get out of there alive, Potters?" 

So Harry and Kai, their voice now growing hoarse from all this talking, told them about Fawkes'stimely arrival and about the Sorting Hat giving Harry the sword. 

But then they faltered. 

They had so far avoided mentioning Riddle's diary — or Ginny. 

She was standing with herhead against Mrs. Weasley's shoulder, and tears were still coursing silently down hercheeks. 

What if they expelled her?

Harry and Kai thought in panic.

Riddle's diary didn't workanymore... How could they prove it had been he who'd made her do it all? 

Instinctively, they looked at Dumbledore, who smiled faintly, the firelight glancing offhis halfmoon spectacles. 

"What interests me most," said Dumbledore gently, "is how Lord Voldemort managed toenchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently in hiding in the forests ofAlbania." 

Relief — warm, sweeping, glorious relief – swept over the Potters. 

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

Dumbledore took the diary from Kai and peered keenly down his long, crooked noseat its burnt and soggy pages.