Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
(A/N: Please read and review. Reviews motivate me to write faster. And on another note, I haven't abandoned my other story. I just couldn't make time for it as life got busy. I will try my best to get back to it. ENJOY)
Chapter 1 :Ginny Weasley?
I sleepily closed my eyes and the next time I woke up I was in horrible pain. Everything in my body ached.
I winced as I tried to move but nothing happened. Then memories started assaulting my mind. I couldn't understand them as there were memories of a little girl and a more memories about a boy.
It felt like forever before the memories stopped and my eyes snapped open in surprise. They were two sets of memories to be more specific. One were of Ginerva Molly Weasley and one were of Thomas Fucking Morvolo Riddle's.
As I snapped out of them I noticed that I was in some dimly lit greenish room. Which I knew from the memories to be the legendary chamber of secrets.
I moaned as I turned around hearing my bones pop and my body protest with pain. Damn, the possession did a number on this body.
As I sat up I was faced with the site of a huge monstrous green snake. The Basilisk was dead with blood tripping from its eye-sockets and mouth. There was also some green liquid dripping from its enormous mouth containing long teeth sharp as razors. Must be the poison.
Harry ( The Harry Potter , Boy-who-Lived, Chosen One, Fates- whipping- boy from The Harry Potter Universe created by J.K. Rowling) hurried towards me. This can't- This fucking can't be happening. I can't freak out now! Not now! It would look weird! Snap out of it! Damn It!
To distract myself I took to studying his profile. Harry who was still staring at me, was super cute with beautiful almond-shaped emerald green eyes, thick silky black hair which was messy and stuck in every direction and soft Aristocratic features ( High cheek bones, thin v-shaped jaw and thin lips). On his forehead there was also that legendary lightening- bolt scar which was bright red in color.
With a pang of sadness I noticed that he looked very short for his age and very thin as if there was no muscle there. His robes hid this fact well I thought absent-mindedly. At present he was covered in blood, sweat and grim. I realized with a start that he looked nothing like Daniel Radcliff from the movies.
He was clutched the diary of Tom Riddle which I knew was a Horcrux or was it an Ex-Horcrux. Whatever. Back to Harry. I tried to remember Ginny's dialogs. She tried to tell him something about telling him about the diary during breakfast but Percy interrupted her.
"Harry – oh, Harry – I tried to tell you at breakfast, But I couldn't say it in front of Percy – it was me, Harry, but I swear I didn't mean to – Riddle made me, he possessed me – and – I couldn't fight him. Where is Riddle? Last thing I remember is him coming out of the diary - ," I said my voice coming out in posh British accent. It sounded pathetically weak.
"It's all right," said Harry, holding up the diary, and showing me the fang hole, " Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C'mon Ginny, let's get out of here-"
I felt proud of him. At tender age of 12, he had defeated the basilisk. All the pent up emotions in Ginny's body: my body exploded as I wept , " I am going to be expelled!" as Harry helped me up.
" I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since Bill came and now I'll have to leave and what'll mum and dad say?"
I wailed. I have always been a good actress. And surprisingly I could remember the contents of the Harry Potter series quite clearly, which helps a lot. I tried to put all my emotions of feeling unfair about being replaced by Ginny's soul? Or somehow inhabiting her body without her?
As Harry started walking towards the entrance I spotted a fang lying on the floor. It was covered in blood and ink. The blood probably belongs to Harry. Making a split decision, I quickly bent down and stuffed it into my robe pocket without Harry noticing.
Just as I finished doing it Harry turned back towards me," coming?"
I nodded and we walked; stepped over the motionless coils of the dead basilisk, through the echoing gloom and, back into the tunnel. Fawkes the Phoenix was waiting for us, hovering in the Chamber entrance. We heard the stone doors close behind us with a soft hiss.
I glanced sideways at Harry not knowing what to talk.
After a few minutes' of progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached us.
"Ron!" yelled Harry as he sped up infront of me. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"
We heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and we turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make in the rockfall.
"Ginny!" Ron exclaimed as he thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull me throught.
I quickly took his hand and went through the rockfall and came out of the opening. As I looked at him I realized he also looked nothing like Rupert Grunt. Ron was thin and tall, lanky with bright red hair, blue eyes and freckles.
"You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened? How – what- where did that bird come from?"
Fawkes had swooped through the gap after me.
By now my crying has reduced to just sniffles.I knew I was supposed to cry more but I didn't have anymore energy. So I just fell silent staring blankly at everything occasionally sniffling.
"He's Dumbledore's', said Harry, squeezing through himself.
"How come you've got a sword?" asked Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Harry's hand. I also stared at the legendary sword of Godric Gryffindor. It was long with silvery blade and the handle was beautiful with diamonds and rubes etched on it with Godric Gryffindor written on the blade.
"I will explain when we get out of here," said Harry glancing at me. I met his eyes but didn't say anything as I looked around the tunnel.
"But-"
"Later", said Harry shortly. "Where is Lockhart?"
"Back there," said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."
Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, we walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.
"His memory's gone," said Ron. "The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to him- self."
Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at us all.
"Hello," he said. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"
I snorted internally trying not to smile.
"No," said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry.
Harry bent down and looked up the long, dark pipe. "Have you thought how we're going to get back up this?" he said to Ron.
Ron shook his head, but Fawkes the phoenix had swooped past Harry and was now fluttering in front of us, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers. Harry looked uncertainly at him.
"He looks like he wants you to grab hold . . ." said Ron, look- ing perplexed. "But you're much too heavy for a bird to pull up there —"
"Fawkes," said Harry, "isn't an ordinary bird." He turned quickly to the others. "We've got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron's hand. Professor Lockhart —"
"He means you," said Ron sharply to Lockhart.
"You hold Ginny's other hand —"
Harry tucked the sword and the Sorting Hat into his belt, Ron took hold of the back of Harry's robes, and Harry reached out and took hold of Fawkes's strangely hot tail feathers as I took hold of Ron and Lockhart's hands.
An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through my whole body and the next second, in a rush of wings, we were flying upward through the pipe.
I smiled as I could hear Lockhart , saying, "Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!" The chill air was whipping through my hair, and before I'd stopped enjoying the ride, it was over — all four of us were hit- ting the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat, the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place.
Myrtle goggled at us. I almost shrieked at seeing a ghost. I was deadly afraid of them in my past life and seeing one abile a nicer one was still terrifying.
"You're alive," she said blankly to Harry.
"There's no need to sound so disappointed," he said grimly, wip-ing flecks of blood and slime off his glasses. Causing me to snort.
"Oh, well . . . I'd just been thinking . . . if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet," said Myrtle, blushing silver causing me to snicker.
"Urgh!" said Ron as they left the bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. "Harry! I think Myrtle's grown fond of you! You've got competition Ginny".
"Ron!" I exclaimed as I blushed. I could see Harry shifting uncomfortably.
"Where now?" said Ron. Harry pointed.
Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor.
We strode after him, and moments later found ourselves outside Professor McGonagall's office.
Harry knocked and pushed the door open.
For a moment there was silence as Harry, Ron, Lockhart, and I 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/ me.
Mrs. Weasley was crying as she and Mr. Weasley hugged me. I felt a pang of guilt as I thought about how I robbed them off their daughter and took her place. I felt tears well up in my eyes as I was overcome by guilt. The warmed of the hug only made matters worse as it touched my cold heart and I started crying. My situation catching up to me. I didn't know what to do. All these people and their lives were now in my hands whether I will save them or ruin them by my actions. Molly's arms tightened around me as I sobbed, laying my head on her shoulder as I absentmindedly noticed that I was almost her height despite being only 11.
After a few minute Molly passed me into Arthur's arms as she pulled Harry and Ron into a hug.
"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?"
"I think we'd all like to know that," said Professor McGonagall weakly.
Molly let go of Harry, who hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the ruby- encrusted sword, and what remained of Riddle's diary.
Then he started telling us everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour he spoke into the rapt silence: He told us 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 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's role or mine now. I was standing with my head against Molly's shoulder, and tears were still coursing silently down my cheeks.
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."
"W-what's that?" said Arthur in a stunned voice. "You- Know-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 show- ing 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 elder 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 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 recog- nizable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here."
"But, Ginny," said Molly. "What's our Ginny got to do with — with — him?"
"His d-diary!" I sobbed continuing my act. "I've b-been writing in it, and he's been w-writing back all year —"
"Ginny!" said Arthur, 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 —"
"I d-didn't knowww," I sobbed harder. "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 wiz- ards 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 me. "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 Dumble- dore.
'If only you knew' I thought as Molly led me out, and Arthur followed, still looking deeply shaken. As the door closed behind us I could hear Dumbledore speaking.
"You know, Minerva. I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?"
I released a long breath and felt Molly tighten her arm around me. I smiled sadly at her as we continued walking as I felt Arthur take my hand.
The guilt still bubbled inside me but I pushed it down for now as I let myself be loved by these strangers whom I only knew as Characters in a book. I don't know what the future may hold apart from the war and danger and stuff but I hoped selfishly that they never find out that I was not really their daughter.