chosen - harry potter

Chapter 16 - Quiet Departure

Silence met them as they stepped through the door. Harry, Ron, Cassia, Ginny, and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered in slime and, in Harry's case, blood. Then there was a scream.

"Ginny!"

Mrs. Weasley had been sitting crying by the fire. She jumped to her feet, followed by Mr. Weasley, flinging themselves on their daughter.

Professor Dumbledore stood by the mantelpiece, beaming. Professor McGonagall was taking deep, shaking gasps, clutching her hand to her chest. Mrs. Weasley swept Cassia, Ron, and Harry into a tight embrace.

"Oh, you saved her! How did you do it?"

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

Mrs. Weasley let go of them. Harry walked toward the desk, laying down the Sorting Hat, the sword, and the remains of Riddle's diary. Then, Harry and Cassia explain, in pieces, everything. They explained Hermione realizing it was a basilisk in the pipes, Harry and Ron's venture into the forest to follow the spiders, Aragog's explanation, Moaning Myrtle being the first victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets had been in her bathroom all this time.

"Very well," Professor McGonagall said as they 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?"

Harry and Cassia shared a look, and then they began to explain Fawkes's timely arrival, the sword from the Sorting Hat, and Riddle's hope to convince Cassia to join him. But, then they missed a beat. They didn't want to mention Riddle's diary or Ginny's involvement in everything. They knew that she could very well be expelled, and there was no viable way to prove that the diary had made her do it all. They both looked toward Dumbledore, hoping he could save them. He smiled faintly.

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

Cassia smiled with relief.

"W-what's that?" Mr. Weasley said, stunned. "You-Know-Who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not...Ginny hasn't been...has she?"

"It was his diary," Harry said quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen..."

Dumbledore took the diary from Harry's hand, peering down at its burnt pages.

Cassia crossed the room, sinking into an armchair closest to the fire.

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

He turned to face the Weasleys, who looked horrified and 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...traveled far and wide...sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind, and 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," Mrs. Weasley said. "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!" Mr. Weasley said, 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 -"