| HIDDEN IN SECRETS |

chapter twenty-four

THE GIFT

•

"You're alive."

"There's no need to sound so disappointed," Potter said grimly to Myrtle.

"Oh, well... I'd just been thinking... if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet," said Myrtle.

"I think Myrtle's grown fond of you, Potter," Verena smirked, and she looked at the younger girl. "You've got competition, Weasley."

"Don't tease her," Ron scowled. "Only I can. So, where now?"

Potter pointed out the door. Fawkes was leading the way. They followed him, and moments later, the four found themselves outside Professor McGonagall's office. Potter knocked and pushed the door open.

There was silence. And then, there was a cry.

"Ginny!"

Mrs Weasley had leaped to her feet, closely followed by Mr Weasley, and both of them embraced their daughter tightly.

"You saved her! You saved her!" Mrs Weasley said happily, embracing Potter in a hug. "How did you do it?"

"I think we'd all like to know that," said Professor McGonagall.

For what seemed like half an hour, they told them everything – well, almost everything. Verena didn't want to tell them about her dreams yet. She wanted to understand it rather than sound like a crazy person.

"Very well," Professor McGonagall spoke. "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, Verena and Potter told them what had happened (often finishing each other's sentences). They explained how Fawkes had come in to blind the Basilisk, how the Sorting Hat held the sword, and how he used it to kill the Basilisk.

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

"What's that?" said Mr Weasley in a shocked voice. "You-Know-Who? Enchant Ginny?"

"It was this diary," Potter explained quickly, showing it to Professor Dumbledore. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen."

"Brilliant," Professor Dumbledore said softly. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. 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 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— "

"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," Ginny cried. "I found it inside one of the books Mum got me. I thought someone had just left it in there and forgotten about it— "

"Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing right away," Professor Dumbledore interrupted firmly. "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."