The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|15| Imposter

Harry, Ron, and I ran from the Hospital Wing and towards the staffroom to tell Professor McGonagall what we found, but an announcement rang through the castle:

"All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."

Harry stopped in his tracks and wheeled around to Ron and me, "Not another attack? Not now?"

"I don't know, let's go now; we can hear what it's all about and then we can tell them what we've found," I suggested.

We hid inside the wardrobe, listening to the rumbling of hundreds of people moving overhead, and the staff room door banging open. From between the musty folds of the cloaks, we watched the teachers filtering into the room. Some of them were looking puzzled, others downright scared. Then Professor McGonagall arrived.

"It has happened," she told the silent staff room. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."

Professor Flitwick let out a squeal. Professor Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, "How can you be sure?"

"The Heir of Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall, who was very white, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. 'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.' "

"Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?"

"Ginny Weasley," said Professor McGonagall. I covered my mouth and felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside me.

The teachers continued to talk about how Ginny would be saved and ended up suggesting Lockhart be the one to save her because of his heroic past.

Back in the common room, it was deadly quiet. Harry, Ron, Fred, George, and I sat together, unable to say anything to each other. Percy wasn't there, he had gone to send an owl to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

"She knew something," said Ron, speaking for the first time since we had entered the wardrobe in the staff room. "That's why she was taken. It wasn't some stupid thing about Percy at all. She'd found out something about the Chamber of Secrets. That must be why she was—" Ron rubbed his eyes frantically. "I mean, she was a pure-blood. There can't be any other reason."

"W-we have to go save her," I whispered, looking up at Ron and Harry. They both gave me the same knowing look and we agreed.

The Gryffindors around us were so miserable, and felt so sorry for the Weasleys, that nobody tried to stop us as we got up, crossed the room, and left through the portrait hole. Making a bee-line towards Lockhart, to give him any information we know, we were completely stunned.

His office had been almost completely stripped. Two large trunks stood open on the floor. Robes, jade-green, lilac, midnight blue, had been hastily folded into one of them; books were jumbled untidily into the other. The photographs that had covered the walls were now crammed into boxes on the desk.

"Are you going somewhere?" said Harry.

"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. "Urgent call— unavoidable— got to go—"

"What about my sister?" said Ron jerkily.

"Well, as to that— most unfortunate—" said Lockhart, avoiding our eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. "No one regrets more than I—"

"You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!" I said. "You can't go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here!"

"Well— I must say— when I took the job—" Lockhart muttered, now piling socks on top of his robes. "nothing in the job description— didn't expect—"