Elizabeth Kane and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 18

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𝕱𝖔𝖗 𝖆 𝖒𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙, there was silence as the three teachers and two parents took in the sight before them. Ron, Lockhart, and Ginny were covered in muck and slime. I looked like a water bedraggled rat covered in blood and Harry was just plain covered in blood and slime.

Then, Mrs. Weasley and Mr. Weasley recovered, throwing themselves on Ginny with hugs and tears and kisses.

I looked past them. Professor Dumbledore was standing by the mantelpiece, beaming as though this was what he'd expected all along, a piece of crumpled paper in one of his hands. Perhaps he had figured we'd save her since my outburst in the teachers room.

Professor McGonagall looked she might have an aneurysm. She had her hand over her heart and was taking deep breaths.

Then, for some reason I couldn't fathom considering he wasn't the head of Gryffindor house was Professor Snape. He glared at me furiously. I sighed.

Then, I found Mrs. Weasley hugging me and I yelped as her weight pressed me down into the ground. I found that she was sobbing, "You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?"

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

"Mrs. Weasley." Professor Dumbledore said kindly. "I think Miss Kane needs to sit down."

Mrs. Weasley let go of me and went back to Ginny's side. Harry helped me into a chair and I felt much better.

Harry laid the sword and diary on the table. Then, he started telling everything that had happened this year. The disembodied voice that both of us could hear, how Hermione finally made the connection, talking to Aragog in the forest, how we figured Myrtle was the girl who died, how the entrance was in her bathroom. . .

"Very well." Professor McGonagall prompted him as he finished telling that part. "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?"

Harry then told about Fawkes arrival, the sorting hat, all the instructions I'd basically screamed at him, and apparently how I'd distracted Riddle while he managed to destroy him. However, he avoided talking about the diary.

"What interests me most, is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania?" Professor Dumbledore said, somehow knowing this without knowing about the diary.

Was that where he was hiding?

"W-what's that?" Mr. Weasley asked in a stunned voice. "You-Know-who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not. . . Ginny hasn't been. . . has she?"

"It was this diary." Harry said quickly. "Riddle wrote in it when he was sixteen."

I avoided Snape's gaze. He hadn't taken his eyes off of me once and I found it a bit embarrassing. Couldn't he tell I looked horrible! Why didn't he let off?

"Brilliant." Dumbledore said softly, "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. 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. . . 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."