PHANTOM FIGURES | harry potter

20. aftermath

     For a moment, there was a silence as Aspen, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime (and in two cases), 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.

     Aspen glanced past them and saw Professor Dumbledore 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 landed on Dumbledore's shoulder, just when Aspen, Harry, and Ron were 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 off the kids and Harry tentatively walked toward Dumbledore's desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, and then 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 in rapt silence, with Aspen cutting in to say bits every few minutes. He told them about hearing the weird voice, how Hermione had finally realised he was hearing a basilisk through the pipe; how he, Aspen, and Ron had followed the spiders into the forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died; how Aspen had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was in her lavatory...

     "Very well," Professor McGonagall prompted him when 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 get out of there alive?"

     So Harry, his voice getting very hoarse from all the 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 not mentioned 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. Harry looked at the Headmaster, who seemingly understood the circumstances and intervened.

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

     "W-what's that?" stuttered Mrs. Weasley in a shocked voice. "You-Know-Who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not... Ginny hasn't been... has she?"

     "It was this diary," explained Harry quickly, picking it up and showing the book 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 to the Weasleys who were looking utterly bewildered.

     "Very few people know 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 recognizable. 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-"