Harry Potter 02 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom …
    ‘Very well,’ Professor McGonagall prompted him, as he 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, Potter?’
    So Harry, his voice now growing hoarse from all this talking, told them about Fawkes’s timely arrival and about the Sorting Hat giving him the sword. But then he faltered. He had so far avoided mentioning Riddle’s diary – or Ginny. She was standing with her head against Mrs Weasley’s shoulder, and tears were still coursing silently down her cheeks. What if they expelled her? Harry thought in panic. Riddle’s diary didn’t work any more … How could they prove it had been he who’d made her do it all?
    Instinctively, Harry looked at Dumbledore, who smiled faintly, the firelight glancing off his half-moon spectacles.
    ‘What interests me most,’ said Dumbledore gently, ‘is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania.’
    Relief – warm, sweeping, glorious relief – swept over Harry.
    ‘W-what’s that?’ said Mr Weasley in a stunned voice. ‘You Know Who? En-enchant Ginny ? But Ginny’s not … Ginny hasn’t been … has she?’
    ‘It was this diary,’ said Harry quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. ‘Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen.’
    Dumbledore took the diary from Harry and peered keenly down his long, crooked nose at its burnt and soggy pages.
    ‘Brilliant,’ he said softly. ‘Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen.’ He turned around to the Weasleys, who were looking utterly 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 … 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 recognisable. 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,’ sobbed Ginny. ‘I found it inside one of the books Mum got me. I th-thought someone had just left it in there and forgotten about it …’
    ‘Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing straight away,’ Dumbledore interrupted in a firm voice. ‘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.’ He strode over to the door and opened it. ‘Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up,’ he added, twinkling kindly down at her. ‘You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She’s just giving out Mandrake juice – I dare say the basilisk’s victims will be waking up any moment.’
    ‘So Hermione’s OK!’ said Ron brightly.
    ‘There has been no lasting harm done,’ said Dumbledore.
    Mrs Weasley led Ginny out, and Mr Weasley followed, still looking deeply shaken.
    ‘You know, Minerva,’ Professor Dumbledore said thoughtfully to Professor McGonagall, ‘I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?’
    ‘Right,’ said Professor McGonagall crisply, also moving to the door. ‘I’ll leave you to deal with Potter and Weasley, shall I?’
    ‘Certainly,’ said Dumbledore.
    She left, and Harry and Ron gazed uncertainly at Dumbledore. What exactly had Professor McGonagall meant, deal with them? Surely – surely – they weren’t about to be punished?
    ‘I seem to remember telling you both that I would have to expel you if you broke any more school rules,’ said Dumbledore.
    Ron