The Forgotten Twin

Chapter 16

They headed to McGonagall's office and knocked on her door. She opened it and as soon as she saw Ginny beckoned them inside. 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 hugged their daughter.

Delilah looked past them and saw Professor Dumbledore standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest. Fawkes whooshed past Delilah and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder, just as Delilah, Harry, and Ronald were pulled into Mrs. Weasley's embrace

"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?"

"I think we'd all like to know that," said McGonagall weakly.

Mrs. Weasley let go of them and Harry set the sword, Sorting Hat, and the diary (Delilah had handed it to him) on the desk and then told the whole story from the beginning of hearing the voice til he guessed that Moaning Myrtle was the victim and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom.

"That is very well, but how on earth did you manage to get out of there alive?" Professor McGonagall asked.

Harry then explained what happened in the Chamber, and actually included Delilah's duel, which surprised Dumbledore and McGonagall, even when Delilah said that Riddle, for some reason, had gone easy on her.

Harry did leave out Riddle's diary and Ginny, who was standing with her head against Mrs. Weasley's shoulder, and tears were still coursing silently down her cheeks.

Harry paused, looking towards Dumbledore.

"What interests me most," he gently said, "is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently hiding in the forests of Albania."

"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 the diary," Delilah quickly answered, pointing to Riddle's diary. "Riddle wrote in it when he was sixteen."

Dumbledore picked up the diary 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 looked utterly baffled.

"Very few people know that Lord Voldemore was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He 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 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 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 —"

"Because she didn't realize that, she found a source to tell things to, and though it was a very bad source, she has now learned her lesson. Now really isn't the time to tell her off, you can see that she's learned her lesson," Delilah coldly replied.