Fawkes squawked loudly and flourished its tail feathers, indicating that they should follow him.
"I don't feel so good," groaned Oleandra. "I hope it doesn't want us to walk too far."
Without the adrenaline flowing through her veins, Oleandra was starting to feel the aftermath of overdrawing her powers.
"Are you okay?" Harry asked, concerned. "You look awful."
"You need to work on how you speak to girls," gasped Oleandra. "Oof."
Daphne and Ron levitated their family members, as well as Mafalda, and they all set off after the Phoenix. Luckily for Oleandra, they wouldn't have to walk far, as they were being led to Professor McGonagall's office, not far from Myrtle's bathroom.
Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape were there, as well as the twins' father Maxwell Greengrass, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. The angry shouting subsided into shocked silence as Oleandra and company entered the room.
"My darling boy Percy!" screamed Mrs. Weasley, who had cannonballed into Harry and Ron to embrace them. "You saved him? You saved him! How did you do it?"
Maxwell, however, was livid.
"How could you do such a thing!" he fumed. "Your mother would NEVER have wanted you to risk your lives, even to save her! Don't you care about your lives? Astoria and I would have been devastated to lose all three of you at once! Daphne, I expected better from you. You are both grounded."
"Come now, Max," said Mrs. Weasley. "They obviously did what they thought was right. They shouldn't be punished—"
"I don't tell you how to raise your children, coz," said Maxwell angrily. "So don't you lecture me—"
"Now, now," interrupted Dumbledore. "The important thing is that the children are safe and sound. Now, I would be very interested to hear what happened down there."
He slapped his forehead with his palm.
"Oh dear, how could I forget," he said. "Rennervate."
Dumbledore waved his hand, and all three of the sleepers awoke.
Percy and Iris sat up with a start, still thinking they were under attack. Mafalda looked around, confused, and tried saying something through her gag.
Professor Snape reached for the gag, but Daphne stopped him.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Professor," she said. "She's the Heir of Slytherin, and she's extremely dangerous. She can omit incantations, and I think I saw her use Wandless magic at some point."
Mafalda's eyes widened in what could only be called surprise.
"Miss Greengrass," he said quietly, "with the strongest Wizard in the world present, I doubt she would be able to do anything to us."
He removed the gag, and Mafalda opened her mouth. Contrary to Oleandra's expectations, instead of a slew of Curses, she launched into an outraged tirade.
"What in the world are you talking about?" she asked hotly. "Heir of Slytherin? I went to bed early last night to get ready for the Defense Against the Dark Arts finals, and then I woke up here, bound and gagged! I demand an explanation!"
Oleandra was dumbfounded. Did she really think she could claim amnesia to get out of this?
"Playing dumb, eh?" said Ron angrily. "I dunno what you're playing at, but you nearly killed us, and you admitted you did it all!"
Dumbledore signalled for everyone to keep quiet. For an instant, he seemed to have aged another hundred years. This had Voldemort signed all over it. Manipulation was one of his greatest strengths.
"I apologize, Miss Prewett," Dumbledore said mournfully. "There is a mountain of evidence against you. Until such a time comes that we can prove beyond a doubt that you undertook such actions without your consent, you will need to be imprisoned. Severus, if you'll inform the Ministry?"
Professor Snape took Mafalda to the dungeon to await transport to the Ministry for judgment. Oleandra had a hard time connecting this girl who had been reduced to tears to the confident girl who had masterfully dueled two against four and nearly won. Suddenly, her victory felt extremely hollow.
Dumbledore then asked Percy and Iris what had happened to them. They recounted the same story that Professor Sprout had told; Professor Lockhart had died a hero to protect them.
Once more, Dumbledore felt a chill down his spine. He had hired Gilderoy Lockhart for two reasons. The first was that he was the only one stupid enough to sign up for a cursed post, and the second was that he wanted to expose Lockhart's wrongdoings at the end of the year. Lockhart had indeed been a phoney; he had stolen the lives and deeds of countless heroes and erased their memories for his own personal benefit.
But now, everyone thought of the man as a true hero and martyr. There was no way he could tarnish the memory of a hero, now, could he? And yet, Dumbledore knew Lockhart had to be alive. Knowing his track record, he had obviously manipulated their memories. But for what purpose had such a glory hound faked his own death? The reason eluded Dumbledore, and the possibilities scared him.
"Harry," began Dumbledore. "Would you tell me what happened, from beginning to end?"
Harry told the headmaster everything he knew. The voices he had heard, Granger's deduction that the monster was a Basilisk, the visit to the Acromantulas, how he had met the Greengrass twins at the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets…
"Very well," said Professor McGonagall weakly, "so you found out the entrance and entered the Chamber of Secrets, breaking a hundred school rules along the way, the four of you— but how on earth did you make it out of there alive?"
Harry resumed his story. He told them about how Mafalda had taken them by surprise with a nonverbal spell, how she had been oddly interested in Voldemort, yet had disparaged him, how she had commanded the Basilisk by talking in Parseltongue, how the twins had collapsed, the miniature sun, the trees, the mistletoe, the sword in the hat—
Dumbledore looked at the Greengrass twins with a sombre expression on his face.
"Oh, girls, what have you done to yourselves?" he said woefully.
Oleandra was looking less and less well by the minute, while Daphne's hair had turned bright green and seemed to have taken a life of its own.
"Sister," Oleandra said, laughing ruefully. "You've got a daisy growing out of the top of your head. Haha. Ha. Haaa…"
And for the second time that day, Oleandra's world spun around her as people's shouts jumbled into an incomprehensible word salad, and she slipped into darkness.