to
do it all along, Harry seized the basilisk fang on the floor next to him
and plunged it straight into the heart of the book.
There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the
diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor.
Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then
He had 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. His head was spinning as
though he'd just traveled miles by Floo powder. 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. Her bemused
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eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead basilisk, over Harry, in
his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in his hand. 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 ddiddt
mean to -- R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over -- and - how
did you kill that -- that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I rremember
is him coming out of the diary --"
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" 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?"
Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber entrance.
Harry urged Ginny forward; they stepped over the motionless coils of
the dead basilisk, through the echoing gloom, and back into the tunnel.
Harry 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 Harry's ears.
"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"
He heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they 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
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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.
"I'll explain when we get out of here," said Harry with a sideways
glance at Ginny, who was crying harder than ever.
"But --"
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"Later," Harry said shortly. He didn't think it was a good idea to tell
Ron yet who'd been opening the Chamber, not in front of Ginny,
anyway. "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."
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.
*324*
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.
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"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 the next second, in a rush of wings, they were flying upward
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.
* 325*
"Oh, well ... Id 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 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. They
strode after him, and moments later, found themselves outside
Professor McGonagall's office.
Harry knocked and pushed the door open.
G F-I A P T E IR
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k' I G 14 T V V N
DO
Y'$ REWARD
or 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.
Weasleys 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
rubyencrusted 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 realized 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
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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 anymore .... 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."
*328*
Relief -- warm, sweeping, glorious relief -- swept over Harry. "Wwhat's
that?" said Mr. Weasley in a stunned voice. "YouKnow-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
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disappeared after leaving the school ... traveled 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 recognizable.
Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever,
handsome boy who was once Head Boy 