LITTLE MISS MUDBLOOD | draco malfoy

29 ; the end of the term ✔︎

LITTLE MISS MUDBLOOD – ACT 1 : SCENE 2 : CHAPTER 29

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For a moment there was silence as Harry, Ron, Y/N, Ginny, and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Y/N's case) ink. 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, who had detached herself from Y/N.

Y/N, 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 Y/N's ear and settled on Professor Dumbledore's should, just as Y/N found herself and 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 Y/N, who hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk together and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the ruby-encrusted sword, and what remained of Riddle's diary.

Then they started telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour they spoke into the rapt silence: they told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realized that they were hearing a basilisk in the pipes; how they and Ron had followed the spiders into the forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died; how they 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 Harry and Y/N 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 took over the talk, seeing as Y/N's voice was growing hoarse and scratchy. He told them about Fawkes's timely arrival and about the Sorting Hat giving him the sword. But then he faltered when it came to Riddle's diary manipulating Ginny, so Y/N chose her next words carefully.

"Tom Riddle's diary. . . it had this aspect of it," she said slowly. Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall watched her curiously, and she could feel the Weasleys' stare on her back. "It manipulated the user and enchanted them so they'd bend to its will. You can't expel Ginny. She was simply manipulated and used, and unconscious to what she was doing. It could have happened to anyone, even me."

Professor Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "You're quite right, Miss Granger. And what interests me most," he said gently, "is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny in the first place, when my sources tell me he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania."