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Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor. They

strode after him, and moments later, found themselves outside

Professor McGonagall's office.

Harry knocked and pushed the door open.

G F-I A P T E IR

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Y'$ REWARD

or a moment there was silence as Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart

stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Harry's case)

blood. Then 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 flung themselves on their daughter.

Harry, however, was looking past them. Professor Dumbledore was

standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall,

who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest. Fawkes

went whooshing past Harry's ear and settled on Dumbledore's

shoulder, just as Harry found himself and Ron being swept into Mrs.

Weasleys tight embrace.

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

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

Mrs. Weasley let go of Harry, who hesitated for a moment, then

walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the

rubyencrusted sword, and what remained of Riddle's diary.

Then he started telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an

hour he spoke into the rapt silence: He told them about hearing the

disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realized that he was

hearing a basilisk in the pipes; how he and Ron had followed the

spiders into the forest, that Aragog had told them where the last

victim of the basilisk had died; how he had guessed that Moaning

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Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of

Secrets might be in her bathroom ....

"Very well," Professor McGonagall prompted him as he paused, "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, his voice now growing hoarse from all this talking, told

them about Fawkes's timely arrival and about the Sorting Hat giving

him the sword. But then he faltered. He had so far avoided

mentioning Riddle's diary -- or Ginny. She was standing with her

head against Mrs. Weasley's shoulder, and tears were still coursing

silently down her cheeks. What if they expelled her? Harry thought in

panic. Riddle's diary didn't work anymore .... How could they prove

it had been he who'd made her do it all?

Instinctively, Harry looked at Dumbledore, who smiled faintly, the

firelight glancing off his half-moon spectacles.

"\What interests me most," said Dumbledore gently, "is how Lord

Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is

currently in hiding in the forests of Albania."

*328*

Relief -- warm, sweeping, glorious relief -- swept over Harry. "Wwhat's that?" said Mr. Weasley in a stunned voice. "YouKnow-Who?

En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny's not ... Ginny hasn't been ... has she?"

"It was this diary," said Harry quickly, picking it up and showing it to

Dumbledore. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen . . . ."

Dumbledore took the diary from Harry 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 were looking utterly bewildered.

"Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom

Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He

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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-diaryl" Ginny sobbed. "I've b-been writing in it, and he's been

w-writing back all year --"

"tinny!" said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. "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 ='

*329*

"I d-didn't know," sobbed Ginny. "I found it inside one of the books

Mum got me. I th-thought someone had just left it in there and

forgotten about it --"

"Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing right away,"

Dumbledore interrupted in a firm voice. "This has been a terrible

ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards

than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort." He strode over

to the door and opened it. "Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming

mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up," he added,

twinkling kindly down at her. "You will find that Madam Pomfrey is

still awake. She's just giving out Mandrake juice -- I daresay the

basilisk's victims will be waking up any moment."

"So Hermione's okay!" said Ron brightly.

"There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny," said Dumbledore.

Mrs. Weasley led Ginny out, and Mr. Weasley followed, still looking

deeply shaken.

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"You know, Minerva," Professor Dumbledore said thoughtfully to

Professor McGonagall, "I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask

you to go and alert the kitchens?"

"Right," said Professor McGonagall crisply, also moving to the door.

"I'll leave you to deal with Potter and Weasley, shall I?"

"Certainly," said Dumbledore.

She left, and Harry and Ron gazed uncertainly at Dumbledore. What

exactly had Professor McGonagall meant, deal with them? Surely

surely - they weren't about to be punished?

"I seem to remember telling you both that I would have to expel you if

you broke any more school rules, said Dumbledore.

*%30*

Ron opened his mouth in horror.

"Which goes to show that the best of us must sometimes eat our

words," Dumbledore went on, smiling. "You will both receive Special

Awards for Services to the School and -- let me see - yes, I think two

hundred points apiece for Gryffindor."

Ron went as briglitly pink as Lockhart's valentine flowers and closed

his mouth again.

"But one of us seems to be keeping mightily quiet about his part in this

dangerous adventure," Dumbledore added. "Why so modest,

Gilderoy?"

Harry gave a start. He had completely forgotten about Lockhart. He

turned and saw that Lockhart was standing in a corner of the room,

still wearing his vague smile. When Dumbledore addressed him,

Lockhart looked over his shoulder to see who he was talking to.

"Professor Dumbledore," Ron said quickly, "there was an accident

down in the Chamber of Secrets. Professor Lockhart --"

"Am I a professor?" said Lockhart in mild surprise. "Goodness. I

expect I was hopeless, was I?"

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"He tried to do a Memory Charm and the wand backfired," Ron

explained quietly to Dumbledore.

"Dear me," said Dumbledore, shaking his head, his long silver

mustache quivering. "Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!"

"Sword?" said Lockhart dimly. "Haven't got a sword. That boy has,

though." He pointed at Harry. "He'll lend you one."

"Would you mind taking Professor Lockhart up to the infirmary, too?"

Dumbledore said to Ron. "Id like a few more words with Harry .....

Lockhart ambled out. Ron cast a curious look back at Dumbledore and

Harry as he closed the door.

Dumbledore crossed to one of the chairs by the fire.

"Sit down, Harry," he said, and Harry sat, feeling unaccountably

nervous.

"First of all, Harry, I want to thank you," said Dumbledore, eyes

twinkling again. "You must have shown me real loyalty down in the

Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you."

He stroked the phoenix, which had fluttered down onto his knee.

Harry grinned awkwardly as Dumbledore watched him.

"And so you met Tom Riddle," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "I

imagine he was most interested in you . . . . "

Suddenly, something that was nagging at Harry came tumbling out of

his mouth.

"Professor Dumbledore ... Riddle said I'm like him. Strange likenesses,

he said ......

"Did he, now?" said Dumbledore, looking thoughtfully at Harry from

under his thick silver eyebrows. "And what do you think, Harry?"

"I don't think I'm like him!" said Harry, more loudly than he'd intended.

"I mean, I'm -- I'm in Gryffindor, I'm . . ."

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But he fell silent, a lurking doubt resurfacing in his mind.

"Professor," he started again after a moment. "The Sorting Hat told me

Id -- Id have done well in Slytherin. Everyone thought I was Slytherin's

heir for a while ... because I can speak Parseltongue ....

"You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly,

"because Lord Voldemort -- who is the last remaining ancestor

*$32*

of Salazar Slytherin -- can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much

mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he

gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure ....

"Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry said, thunderstruck.

"It certainly seems so."

"So I should be in Slytherin," Harry said, looking desperately into

Dumbledore's face. "The Sorting Hat could see Slytherin's power in

me, and it --"

"Put you in Gryffindor," said Dumbledore calmly. "Listen to me, Harry.

You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his handpicked students. His own very rare gift, Parseltongue

resourcefulness - determination -- a certain disregard for rules," he

added, his mustache quivering again. "Yet the Sorting Hat placed you

in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think."

"It only put me in Gryffindor," said Harry in a defeated voice, "because

I asked not to go in Slytherin . . . ."

`Exactly, "said Dumbledore, beaming once more. "Which makes you

very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what

we truly are, far more than our abilities." Harry sat motionless in his

chair, stunned. "If you want proof, Harry, that you belong in

Gryffindor, I suggest you look more closely at this."

Dumbledore reached across to Professor McGonagall's desk, picked

up the blood-stained silver sword, and handed it to Harry. Dully, Harry

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turned it over, the rubies blazing in the firelight. And then he saw the

name engraved just below the hilt.

Godric Gryffindor

*333*

"Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat, Harry,"

said Dumbledore simply.

For a minute, neither of them spoke. Then Dumbledore pulled open

one of the drawers in Professor McGonagall's desk and took out a quill

and a bottle of ink.

What you need, Harry, is some food and sleep. I suggest you go down

to the feast, while I write to Azkaban -- we need our gamekeeper

back. And I must draft an advertisement for the Daily Prophet, too," he

added thoughtfully. "We'll be needing a new Defense Against the

Dark Arts teacher... Dear me, we do seem to run through them, don't

we?"

Harry got up and crossed to the door. He had just reached for the

handle, however, when the door burst open so violently that it bounced

back off the wall.

Lucius Malfoy stood there, fury in his face. And cowering behind his

legs, heavily wrapped in bandages, was Dobby.

"Good evening, Lucius," said Dumbledore pleasantly.

Mr. Malfoy almost knocked Harry over as he swept into the room.

Dobby went scurrying in after him, crouching at the hem of his cloak,

a look of abject terror on his face.

The elf was carrying a stained rag with which he was attempting to

finish cleaning Mr. Malfoys shoes. Apparently Mr. Malfoy had set out

in a great hurry, for not only were his shoes half-polished, but his

usually sleek hair was disheveled. Ignoring the elf bobbing

apologetically around his ankles, he fixed his cold eyes upon

Dumbledore.

"So!" he said "You've come back. The governors suspended you, but

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you still saw fit to return to Hogwarts."

*%$4*

"Well, you see, Lucius," said Dumbledore, smiling serenely, "the

other eleven governors contacted me today. It was something like

being caught in a hailstorm of owls, to tell the truth. They'd heard that

Arthur Weasleys daughter had been killed and wanted me back here

at once. They seemed to think I was the best man for the job after

all. Very strange tales they told me, too .... Several of them seemed

to think that you had threatened to curse their families if they didn't

agree to suspend me in the first place."

Mr. Malfoy went even paler than usual, but his eyes were still slits of

fury.

"So -- have you stopped the attacks yet?" he sneered. "Have you