Harry Potter 02 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

head up the tunnel towards the pipe. ‘He’s in a bad way. Come and see.’
    Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, they 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 them 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 the others. ‘We’ve got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron’s hand. Professor Lockhart –’
    ‘He means you,’ said Ron sharply to Lockhart.
    ‘You hold Ginny’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 Harry reached out and took hold of Fawkes’s strangely hot tail feathers.
    An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through his whole body, and next second, with a whoosh, they were flying upwards through the pipe. Harry could hear Lockhart dangling below him, saying, ‘Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!’ The chill air was whipping through Harry’s hair, and before he’d stopped enjoying the ride, it was over – all four of them 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 them.
    ‘You’re alive,’ she said blankly to Harry.
    ‘There’s no need to sound so disappointed,’ he said grimly, wiping flecks of blood and slime off his glasses.
    ‘Oh, well … I’d just been thinking. If you had died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet,’ said Myrtle, blushing silver.
    ‘Urgh!’ said Ron, as they left the bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. ‘Harry! I think Myrtle’s got 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. They strode after him, and moments later, found themselves outside Professor McGonagall’s office.
    Harry knocked and pushed the door open.

 
— CHAPTER EIGHTEEN —
     
Dobby’s Reward
    For a moment, there was silence as Harry, Ron, Ginny and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Harry’s case) 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.
    Harry, 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 Harry’s ear and settled on Dumbledore’s shoulder, just as Harry found himself 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, who hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, 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 into the rapt silence: he told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realised that he was hearing a Basilisk in the pipes; how he and Ron had followed the spiders into the Forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the Basilisk had died; how he had guessed that Moaning