The Parselmouth and the Basilisk {Jade Book 2}

Chapter 15

For a moment, there was absolute silence as the five of us stood in the doorway, dusty and slimy.

Then a woman who looked considerably like Ron and Ginny – Mrs Weasley, I guessed – screamed, "Ginny!"

She leapt to her feet, followed by her husband, and they flung themselves on Ginny.

Meanwhile, Professor Dumbledore was beaming and Professor McGonagall was gasping. Fawkes flew to land on Dumbledore's shoulder.

Mrs Weasley ran forward and embraced both Harry and Ron.

"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it? And, er, who is this?"

This last part was directed at me, as she took in my Slytherin robes.

"Well, uh, Mrs Weasley –" I began.

"How did you know who I am?" she asked suspiciously.

"I can tell because you look like both Ron and Ginny," I explained.

She nodded. "That's normal. Anyway, what was your name?"

"I'm Jade. Jade Evans. Harry's half-sister," I told her.

She looked at me again and did a double take. "You do look so much like Lily."

She smiled, then turned back to the others. "How did you save her?"

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

Harry explained everything. It took almost fifteen minutes, and he'd somehow managed to avoid mentioning Ginny.

"Very well," Professor McGonagall said, "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 kept talking. He told them everything about what had happened in the Chamber, and then paused. I had the feeling he was trying not to mention Ginny, but that was now impossible.

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

"W-what's that?" asked Mr Weasley, sounding shocked. "You-Know-Who? Enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not...Ginny hasn't been...has she?"

"It was this diary," Harry explained quickly. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen."

Dumbledore took the diary from Harry and peered at it closely. "Brilliant. 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...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."

He had explained this to me two years ago, but I had forgotten until just recently, in the Chamber of Secrets.

"But Ginny," Mrs Weasley asked, frowning, "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 b-been w-writing back all year –"

"Ginny!" Mr Weasley exclaimed. "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!"