The Boy Who Couldn't See: Year 2

Dobby's Reward

TW: i hint at harry's past abuse once

//

For a moment, there's silence. And then someone screams.

"Ginny!"

If Harry's mind serves him correctly, that's Mrs. Weasley. Fawkes swoops past Harry's ear and he flinches just as he's pulled into a tight embrace by Mrs. Weasley.

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

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

Mrs. Weasley lets go of Harry. Harry, still absolutely exhausted, walks across the room to Professor McGonagall's desk. He places the Sorting Hat, the sword, and what remains of Tom's diary. His wand finds his hand and he grips it tightly and then begins telling them everything.

For nearly twenty-five minutes, he speaks into the silence. He tells them about the disembodied voice, how Hermione had realized it was a basilisk in the pipes that he had been hearing; how he and Ron had followed the spiders into the forest and that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died; how he had guessed that it must've been Myrtle who died and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets must be in her bathroom...

"Very well," Professor McGonagall says when he pauses, "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 sighs quietly and shuts his eyes, though he continues to talk. He tells them about Fawkes' arrival with the Sorting Hat and how the Sorting Hat gave him the sword. Here, he falters. He had so far avoided mentioning the diary or Ginny but it's imperative to how he managed to survive the battle. He's just about to try and explain the diary without bringing Ginny into it when a voice speaks up. Dumbledore. So, he's back?

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

Harry frowns. If your sources tell you he's in Albania, why don't you go to Albania and get rid of him?

Apparently, nobody else seems to care about this.

"W-what's that?" Mr. Weasley says, sounding stunned. "You-Know-Who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not... Ginny hasn't been... has she?"

"It was this diary," Harry says, deciding not to worry about the Voldemort thing for the time being. He picks it up off the desk and holds it out. "Tom — Riddle, he wrote it when he was sixteen."

Dumbledore takes it from Harry.

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

Harry reaches up and rubs his eyes, out of both exasperation and tiredness. Of course he was a brilliant student but there are certainly more important things than that, like the fact that he murdered Harry's parents.

"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."

"But, Ginny," Mrs. Weasley says. "What's our Ginny got to do with — with — him?"

"His d-diary!" Ginny sobs. "I've b-been writing in it, and he's been w-writing back all year —"