This chapter is a serious chapter. Don't ask me why. I didn't write it.
Wait, I did.
OH WELL!
I sat up in bed, gasping for air. A gaggle of teachers was surrounding me, all looking ecstatic that the potion worked.
"Jinx!"
"It worked!"
"Miss Malfoy!"
"How wonderful!"
"The potion didn't kill her!"
Wait, what?
"Ron! Harry! Lockhart!" I spluttered, a million thoughts running through my mind.
I seduced a few.
I'M FUCKING BACK BITCH!
Bless the llama gods.
HARRY'S A POTATO!
LOCKHART'S A FRAUD!
RON'S AN IT!
"How do you feel Jinx?" Madam Pomfery asked me sweetly.
"Like I can run a thousand miles," I lied quickily. "There's only one way to cure this feeling! I'll see you in a week!"
I leaped off the bed, scrambled through the gaggle of teachers and down the corridors to Myrtle's bathroom.
"Hullo Jinx," Myrtle said. "If you're looking for Harry, Ron, and Lockhart when that way."
She pointed to the pipe.
"Thanks Myrtle!" I called, diving into the pipe.
I rushed down the pipe and came out where I had came out before, with a more audible thump this time. Bet that'll cause them to panic.
I lit my wand and ran down the pipe. I came across the spot where the creature/thing/llama was.
"Who's there?" I heard Ron's voice call. I held up my wand so it's light would cast down the tunnel.
"Ron," I said, grinning. I could see the outline of Ron's face as it broke out into a grin. He ran forward and embraced me in a hug.
"Jinx!" he said weakly. "How -- ?"
"I know everything you've been doing in the past seventeen days," I interrupted him. "I was a ghost."
"Weird," Ron said.
"Indeed," I said. "Where's Harry? Lockhart?"
"Is that my name?" Lockhart said coming forward. "What an odd name that is."
"What happened to him?" I asked. "He's stupider than usual."
"Memory charm backfired," Ron said. "Can you make that thing any brighter? I can barely see you, and I'm standing right next to you."
"Lumos Maxima," I said confidently. My light shone much brighter. So bright, it burned my eyes to look at it.
"Much better," Ron said.
"Where's Harry?" I repeated. Ron pointed to the wall of rock that I hadn't noticed before.
Pfft. I'm stupid.
"I've been trying to shift it," Ron said. I examined where he had been working. He had made it to the other side, where a giant snake skin laid. "Harry was on the other side. He went on."
"I think I can fit through the hole," I said. "I'm going in."
I crawled up the rock wall and squeezed myself through the hole.
"Jinx?" Ron called once I was on the other side.
"Yeah?"
"Try not to die."
I rolled my eyes. "Thank you, Ron, for your brilliant advice."
I crept past the skin and through the tunnel until I came to wide door/thing. I extinguished my light.
"Here we go, then," I muttered as I walked in.
I was standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.
I nervously walked down the chamber, trying not to make any noise, my hand gripped on my wand tightly.
"She won't wake," said a soft voice. I dashed behind a pillar and peeked out at the scene. Ginny was lying on the ground, looking very pale. Harry was beside her and a tall, black-haired boy was leaning against a pillar near mine.
Is he a little blurry or is my reception bad?
"Tom -- Tom Riddle?" Harry asked. THAT'S Tom Riddle?
Damn, he's sexy.
Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face.
"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately. I realize now that Ginny's unconcious. "She's not -- she's not -- ?"
"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."
Harry stared at him.
Wait a minute.
Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen.
"Are you a ghost?" Harry said uncertainly.
Fuck no, Harry. He ain't no ghost.
"A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."
He pointed toward the floor near the statue's giant toes. Lying open there was the little black diary we had found in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. For a second, I wondered how it had got there -- but there were more pressing matters to deal with.
"You've got to help me, Tom," Harry said, raising Ginny's head again. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk... I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment... Please, help me."
Riddle didn't move. Harry, sweating, managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor, and bent to get something.
"Did you see -- ?" He looked up. Riddle was still watching him -- twirling Harry's wand between his long fingers.
"Thanks," said Harry, stretching out his hand for it. A smile curled the corners of Riddle's mouth. He continued to stare at Harry, twirling the wand idly.
"Listen," said Harry urgently, his knees sagging with Ginny's dead weight. "We've got to go! If the basilisk comes -- "
"It won't come until it is called," said Riddle calmly. Harry lowered Ginny back onto the floor, unable to hold her up any longer.
"What d'you mean?" he said. "Look, give me my wand, I might need it -- "
Riddle's smile broadened.
Shit, he's a bad guy, ain't he?
"You won't be needing it," he said.
Harry stared at him. "What d'you mean, I won't be -- ?"
"I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter," said Riddle. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."
"Look," said Harry, losing patience, "I don't think you get it. We're in the Chamber of Secrets. We can talk later -- "
"We're going to talk now," said Riddle, still smiling broadly, and he pocketed Harry's wand. Harry stared at him.
"How did Ginny get like this?" he asked slowly.
"Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."
"What are you talking about?" said Harry.
"The diary," said Riddle. 'My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes -- how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with second-hand robes and books, how" -- Riddle's eyes glinted -- "how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."
All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Harry's face. There was an almost hungry look in them.
"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. 'No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket...'"
Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."
"What d'you mean?" said Harry, whose mouth had gone very dry.
"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, the Squib's cat, and that weird Pureblood."
Excuse me?
"No," Harry whispered.
"Yes," said Riddle, calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... Far more interesting, they became... Dear Tom," he recited, watching Harry's horrified face, "'I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, l can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me... There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!'"
Harry's fists were clenched. I've got to do something. I scanned the ground. Four feet away, a shovel laid on the ground.
How peculiar.
"It took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her diary," said Riddle. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's where you came in, Harry. You found it, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet..."
"And why did you want to meet me?" said Harry.
"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," said Riddle. "Your whole fascinating history."
His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Harry's forehead, and his expression grew hungrier. "I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust -- "
"Hagrid's my friend," said Harry, his voice now shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but -- "
Riddle laughed his high laugh again. "It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student... On the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls... But I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber ofSecrets and discover the secret entrance... As though Hagrid had the brains, or the power!
"Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed... Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did..."
"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," said Harry, his teeth gritted.
"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," said Riddle carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."
"Well, you haven't finished it," said Harry triumphantly. "No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again -- "
Little bitch hasn't noticed me yet.
"Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been you."
Harry stared at him.
"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked.
"What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters? Sothe foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery -- particularly if your best friends were attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue...
"So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her... She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last... I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter."
"Like what?" Harry spat, fists still clenched.
I started inching silently towards the shovel. Harry's eyes widened as he finally noticed me, but luckily didn't call out.
"Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "how is it that you a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent -- managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.
"Why do you care how I escaped?" said Harry slowly. "Voldemort was after your time..."
"Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..."
He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
Holy fuck, I did not see that one coming.
"You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry -- I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"
Harry stared numbly at Riddle, at the orphaned boy who had grown up to murder Harry's own parents, and so many others...
"You're not," he said, his quiet voice full of hatred.
I wrapped my fingers around the shovel and quietly lifted it up. I crept slowly back towards my pillar.
"Not what?" snapped Riddle.
"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," said Harry, breathing fast. "Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days -- "
The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.
"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" he hissed.
"He's not as gone as you might think!" Harry retorted. Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle whirled around to stare down the empty Chamber and luckily didn't spot me.
The music was growing louder. It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on my scalp and made his heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size. Then, as the music reached such a pitch that I felt it vibrating inside my own ribs, flames erupted at the top of my pillar.
I whimpered slightly.
A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle. A second later, the bird was flying straight at Harry. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying at his feet, then landed heavily on his shoulder.
And Riddle finally realized I was there.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Don't recognize me, Tom?" I asked, my voice surprisingly smooth. "I'm that weird Pureblood. I'm Jinx Not-So-Malfoy, and if you touch me or Harry, I'm gonna fucking beat your head in with my little friend here."
I went and stood by Harry and Riddle decided to ignore me.
Bitch.
"That's a phoenix," said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it.
"Fawkes?" Harry breathed.
"And that -- " said Riddle, now eyeing the ragged thing that Fawkes had dropped, "that's the old school Sorting Hat -- "
So it was.
Patched, frayed, and dirty, the hat lay motionless at Harry's feet. Riddle began to laugh again. He laughed so hard that the dark chamber rang with it, as though ten Riddles were laughing at once.
"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter?Jinx Malfoy? Do you feel safe now?"
Harry and I didn't answer. He might not see what use Fawkes or the Sorting Hat were, but we were no longer alone, and we waited for Riddle to stop laughing with his courage mounting.
"To business, Harry," said Riddle, still smiling broadly. "Twice -- in your past, in my future -- we have met. And twice I failed to kill you. How did you survive? Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he added softly, "the longer you stay alive."
Riddle had a wand and he probably knew a hell of a lot of dark magic. Harry and I had Fawkes, the Sorting Hat, and my wand and together we'd probably make up a quarter of the magic Riddle knows. It looked bad, all right...
Oh, we have my shovel too.
Wait a minute... this is the same shovel I used to hit Voldemort a year ago...
The fuck?
But the longer Riddle stood there, the more life was dwindling out of Ginny... And in the meantime, I noticed suddenly, Riddle's outline was becoming clearer, more solid...
"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you killing me. And I've seen the real you, I saw you last year. You're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, you're foul -- "
Riddle's face contorted. Then he forced it into an awful smile. "So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful counter-charm. I can see now... There is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike... But after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That's all I wanted to know."
Harry and I stood, tense, waiting for Riddle to raise his wand.
But Riddle's twisted smile was widening again. "Now, Harry, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him..."
He cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away.
Riddle said something in Parseltongue I didn't understand.
Then suddenly, Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, I saw his mouth opening, wider andwider, to make a huge black hole. And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths. Harry and I backed away until we hit the dark Chamber wall, and I shut my eyes. Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. I felt it shudder -- I knew what was happening, I could sense it, could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth.
The basilisk was moving toward Harry and I; I could hear it's heavy body slithering heavily across the dusty floor. Eyes still tightly shut, I tried to move towards Voldemort's laughing... I tripped. I fell hard onto the stone and tasted blood. The serpent was barely feet from me, I could hear it coming.
There was a loud, explosive spitting sound right above me, and then something heavy hit me so hard that he was smashed into the wall. Waiting for fangs to sink through my body I heard more mad hissing, something thrashing wildly off the pillars.
I couldn't help it -- I opened my eyes wide enough to squint at what was going on. The enormous serpent, bright, poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, just like what I had seen before, had raised itself high in the air and its great blunt head was weaving drunkenly between the pillars. As I trembled, ready to close my eyes if it turned, I saw what had distracted the snake.
Fawkes was soaring around its head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabers. Fawkes dived. His long golden beak sank out of sight and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor. The snake's tail thrashed, narrowly missing Harry who ended up right beside me, and before Harry and I could shut our eyes, it turned -- I looked straight into its face like before and saw that it's eyes, both its great, bulbous yellow eyes, had been punctured by the phoenix; blood was streaming to the floor, and the snake was spitting in agony.
"NO!" I heard Riddle screaming. "LEAVE THE BIRD! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. YOU CAN STILL SMELL HIM. KILL HIM!"
The blinded serpent swayed, confused, still deadly. Fawkes was circling its head, piping his eerie song, jabbing here and there at it's scaly nose as the blood poured from it's ruined eyes.
"Help me, help me," Harry muttered wildly, "someone -- anyone!"
I decided to take action. I scrambled across the floor for my shovel and as I gripped it firmly, I was smashed into the wall by the basilisk's tail.
I groaned in pain, then slowly got to my feet.
"KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. SNIFF -- SMELL HIM." Harry was on his feet as well, ready. The basilisk's head was falling, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face him.
I could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow Harry and I whole, lined with fangs long as Harry's sword, thin, glittering, venomous...
Wait, what?
When the fuck did Harry get a sword?
The basilisk lunged blindly. Harry dodged and it hit the Chamber wall. It lunged again, and it's forked tongue lashed Harry's side. He raised the sword in both his hands. The basilisk lunged again, and this time its aim was true -- Harry threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent's mouth.
But Harry did not escape unfazed.
One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into his arm and it splintered as the basilisk keeled overside ways and fell, twitching, to the floor. Harry slid down the wall. He gripped the fang that was probably spreading poison through his body and wrenched it out of his arm.
Anger coursed through my veins.
"YOU BASTARD!" I yelled, running at Riddle. He was too shocked to respond and I hit him over the face with my shovel before he could even say llama.
Then I blacked out.
When I came to again, I saw through blurry eyes Harry, stabbing Riddle's diary with the basilisk fang. There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor.
I looked over at Riddle, who was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then... He was gone. Harry's wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Silence except for the steady drip drip of ink still oozing from the diary. The basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it. Shaking all over, Harry pulled himself up. Slowly, he gathered together his wand and the Sorting Hat, and, with a huge tug, retrieved the glittering sword from the roof of the basilisk's mouth. Then came a faint moan from the end of the Chamber.
Ginny was stirring.
As Harry hurried toward her, she sat up and I picked myself off the floor and hurried over. Her bemused eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead basilisk, over Harry, in his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in his hand, then to me. She drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down her face.
"Harry -- oh, Harry -- I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn't say it in front of Percy -- it was me, Harry -- but I -- I s-swear I d-didn't mean to -- R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over -- and Jinx -- I didn't mean to hurt you, Jinx -- how did you kill that -- that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary -- "
"It's all right," said Harry, holding up the diary, and showing Ginny the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C'mon, Ginny, let's get out of here -- "
"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny wept as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. "I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and -- w-what'll Mum and Dad say?"
"Just for the record, Ginny, I hold nothing against you for Petrifying me," I said casually. "But the next time I see Voldemort he's definately getting another wack on the head with this here shovel."
Fawkes was waiting for us, hovering in the Chamber entrance. Harry urged Ginny forward; we stepped over the motionless coils of the dead basilisk, through the echoing gloom, and back into the tunnel. I heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss.
After a few minutes' progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached my ears.
"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! We've got her!"
I heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and we turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make in the rock fall.
"Ginny!" Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened? How -- what -- where did that bird come from?"
Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.
"He's Dumbledore's," said Harry, squeezing through himself.
"How come you've got a sword?" said Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Harry's hand as I crawled through easily.
"I'll explain when we get out of here," said Harry with a sideways glance at Ginny, who was crying harder than ever.
"But -- "
"Later," Harry said shortly. "Where's Lockhart?"
"Back there," said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."
"Still stupider than Jupiter?" I asked. Ron nodded.
Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, we walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.
"His memory's gone," said Ron. "The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself!"
Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at us all.
"Hello," he said. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"
"No," said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry. Harry bent down and looked up the long, dark pipe.
"Have you thought how we're going to get back up this?" he said to Ron. Ron shook his head, but Fawkes the phoenix had swooped past Harry and was now fluttering in front of him, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers. Harry looked uncertainly at him.
"He looks like he wants you to grab hold..." said Ron, looking perplexed. "But you're much too heavy for a bird to pull up there -- "
"Fawkes," said Harry, "isn't an ordinary bird." He turned quickly to us. "We've got to hold onto each other. Ginny, grab Ron's hand. Jinx, grab Ginny's hand. Professor Lockhart -- "
"He means you," said Ron sharply to Lockhart.
"You hold Jinx's other hand -- " Harry tucked the sword and the Sorting Hat into his belt, Ron took hold of the back of Harry's robes and I grabbed onto Ginny's hand and grabbed Lockhart's robes, and Harry reached out and took hold of Fawkes's tail feathers.
An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through my whole body and the next second, in a rush of wings, we were flying upward through the pipe.
I could hear Lockhart dangling below me, saying, "Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!"
I couldn't help but laugh.
The chill air was whipping through my hair, and before I'd stopped enjoying the ride, it was over -- all five of us were hitting the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat, the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place. Myrtle goggled at us.
"You're alive," she said blankly to Harry.
"There's no need to sound so disappointed," I said grimly.
"Oh, well... I'd just been thinking... If you had died, Harry, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet," said Myrtle, blushing silver.
"Urgh!" said Ron as we left the bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. "Harry! I think Myrtle's grown fond of you! You've got competition, Ginny!"
But tears were still flooding silently down Ginny's face.
"Where now?" said Ron, with an anxious look at Ginny. Harry pointed. Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor.
We strode after him, and moments later, found ourselves outside Professor McGonagall's office. Harry knocked and pushed the door open.