HI GUYS IF YOU WANT READ 200 + CHAPTERS THEN VISIT
patreon.com/Benzoid
"She could have died you know!" That's what Percy had said. Once breakfast was over, she claimed she had a headache and retreated to her room; her mother cast her a concerned look but, having to get everything organized for the trip in Egypt and having been reassured by her daughter's smile that it was only a headache and nothing more, had appeased her.
Ginny had then climbed the stairs to her room, gently closed the door behind her, locked it and sat at the corner of her bed. "She could have died you know!" still echoed in her head. Yes, Penelope could have died. Hermione with her. And all the other students that had been petrified during the past year. It had been a miracle nobody had died. And who would have been responsible for that? Looking back, she could see that, even during those two weeks of numbness she had been placing the blame on others, trying to keep herself from thinking on what had really happened.
Tom for being who he was and enchanting her, possessing her to bend to his will. Lucius Malfoy for giving her the diary in the first place. Dobby the elf, after Ron had told her of how he had been freed and how he had tried to warn Adrian, for not telling them who the Heir was right away. Even her own brother, Percy, for unwittingly preventing her from telling she was being possessed in the very end.
But deep down she had known, she had always known, that it had been her fault. She had grown up listening to her father's stories of enchanted objects with a mind of their own and how they couldn't be trusted. And what was the first thing she did once she found one? She poured her soul into it. Had seen been that lonely? Had she been that desperate for someone to just listen? She should have known better. There was no one but herself to blame, she had decided there and then. She had spent her whole morning crying.
When she had emerged from her room she was smiling once more; her family had been put through enough because of her, Ginny thought, there was no need for them to share her guilt too. Maybe, come next school year, she would take professor McGonagall's advice and talk to her after all. Everyday from then on had been a struggle; she was putting a brave front for her family, but her nights were filled with nightmares. She had lost count of how many times she woke up, muffling her cries to her pillow. There was death in her dreams; her hands were covered with blood and she was in the Chamber once more. Tom was always smiling, the corners of his lips turned up cruelly.
It was one of those dreams that woke her up this time too. She had been trying to take an afternoon nap since there was some type of local spectacle Bill was bent on the whole family to see later that night. It had only ended up with her dreaming of the Chamber once more; why had she ever expected anything different. Tom had actually spoken to her in her dream this time.
"You killed them all!" And he pointed at the dead bodies of her family and friends and of the petrified victims from last year. "It's all your fault, you silly girl." And he had laughed, the sound of his cold voice and the hissing of the basilisk accompanying her as she woke up panting and covered in sweat on her bed.
He's gone, damn it! She cursed as she looked at the desert in the distance. He's gone and the diary is ashes and back to wherever it came from and that bloody snake is dead! She sighed and slammed backwards to the wall. There was that too. How in the world had the basilisk died? Once she had come around in the chamber, the dead serpent was the first think that had caught her attention. How could it not, when it was laying there, in the middle of the rambles and the blood that was seeping from its wound. Then, after a few seconds spent in marveling at being alive, she turned her eyes away from the basilisk and around the Chamber. It had been halfway to demolished, she had found out in shock.
And there, next to the dead snake and a fainted Adrian Potter, stood another boy. He was tall with jet black hair and held a glittering sword in his hands; his right hand and white Hogwart's shirt was soaked in dark blood. He was looking at a crimson coloured bird she later found out to be Fawkes, Headmaster Dumbledore's phoenix, and had asked him to get them out. Then he had sighed and turned towards her; Ginny had acted impulsively and had shut her eyes. She then heard the clanking of metal on stone and the swooshing sound of a spell being cast. She had tentatively opened her eyes, just to catch a glimpse of the boy again disappearing into thin air. The clanging sound must have been the bejeweled he had held hitting the floor, for now it was in Adrian's hands. Adrian seemed to have woken up, and was staring at the dead basilisk in wonder. What had happened? And why did that strange boy sound just like Harry?
For -the more she thought about it later- it must have been Harry, even if he had looked so different back then. Ginny couldn't be certain, she was still too dizzy, too much disorientated when she woke up to know for sure, but Harry had seemed different that night; different but somewhat utterly recognizable. For one, he had been taller. Definitely taller than she remembered him to be, or how he had looked the next day when she had seen him again.
Two, it was just something about him; the way he had stood straight and sure of himself, the way he had talked to Fawkes as if the phoenix wasn't perched on a dead basilisk. Even the way he disappeared had been a clue; Ron had often spoken of Adrian's invisibility cloak and how they had used it to sneak out at night. Since Adrian wasn't wearing it, why couldn't Harry have had it? It wasn't as if an invisibility cloak was a common thing to find! It was highly doubtful more than one student could have acquired one. But if Harry had been there, then that meant that he had been the one to face Tom.
And that was yet another part of that night that almost drove her mad in ways the diary had never managed to do; Harry had been the one to slay the basilisk. She had seen him holding the sword and heard him throwing it next to his unconscious brother before he disappeared. And then he was gone and Adrian was waking up and she was left wondering what in Merlin's name had happened.
How could Adrian, the Boy Who Lived, lay on the floor unconscious, while his younger brother was doing all the work for him? And without taking credit for it either, Ginny realized. She was too dazzled to say anything that night in the Headmaster's office, and when she had tried to ask Dumbledore how could he be so sure that it was Adrian that had killed Slytherin's monster since the boy couldn't remember doing anything of the sort, a cursory glance from Fawkes had stopped her. Then it had hit her, even amidst her daze; Fawkes, Dumbledore's familiar, knew about Harry and his involvement yet he had chosen to keep the boy's secret. The phoenix was backing Harry up, she had realized, and who was she to do anything different?
HI GUYS IF YOU WANT READ 200 + CHAPTERS THEN VISIT
patreon.com/Benzoid