"Well, despite a bit of residual dark magic, it's just ink, as far as I can tell," Madam Pomfrey explained to their head of house. "Should be no lasting effects. Ms. Weasley does seem to have evidence of mind magics being worked upon her. I'd like to keep her overnight for observation."
POPPY POMFREY
Healer, Level 11
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
SAINT MUNGOS,
RAVENCLAW]
Percy had called McGonagall to deal with the "backfired prank" in the common room, and Hermione had managed to quietly brief her before she had started docking points and assigning detentions. She'd marched them all down to the infirmary, trusting the prefects to keep students from the disaster area until it could be cleaned up. Hermione was quietly fuming that they'd just expect a bunch of elves to mop up that much ink.
"Let me see if I understand," the professor said to the seven of them. "You found out that Ms. Weasley's diary was a dark artifact and, before you could bring it to a member of staff, an apparition of a young Lord Voldemort threatened to kill her if you didn't pass the diary on. You threw it in the fire but it didn't destroy the book, but you happened to have a basilisk fang that did. Do I have that correct?"
They'd obviously only hit the high points, leaving off, in particular, the various mail thefts and pranks used to confirm their suspicions. "Yes, ma'am," Harry nodded. "We were on the way to bring the headmaster the book when Tom appeared."
"He said he was my friend," Ginny half-sobbed from the bed, where she was feeling betrayed.
"You wouldn't be the first he's tricked," the assistant headmistress said, with a tentative pat on Ginny's shoulder. "I'll summon the headmaster," she told them all, stepping a bit away and incanting, "Expecto Nuntius." A cat made of silvery light appeared and she instructed, "Tell Albus: I'm in the infirmary with Potter, the Weasleys, and Ms. Granger. They've destroyed a dark object connected to the Heir."
As the cat bounded away upwards and through the walls in the direction of the Headmaster's office, Harry tried to figure out what she'd done by consulting his spellbook. It had a lightly filled-in entry for the spell, but it appeared to be based on some other spell he hadn't learned yet, which remained a blank entry above it. Not that he couldn't use the game system for sending messages, but a way to send a quick message to just one person that wasn't in his guilds could be very helpful. "What was that spell, ma'am?" he asked.
"A messenger patronus," she explained, glad to see the boy's interest in advanced spellcraft. "You must learn to cast a standard patronus first up to a corporeal form, and it's a very advanced spell. Though, given the presence of the dementors around the school, it is perhaps one we should work harder to teach the upper-years."
Harry shot Hermione a look, and she nodded that they'd look it up later. Learning about dementors was still his next task for his remaining main quest. They hadn't had much time to research the creatures with everything else they'd been working on.
While they waited for the headmaster, Madam Pomfrey handed out sponges and uncorked a decanter of some kind of cleaning potion. "This should neutralize any remaining magics in the ink… though I suppose I might need more of this if the orange and green don't fade soon," she explained. "Clean yourselves up."
By the time Dumbledore walked in, wearing festive black and orange robes (and similarly-festive orange ink on his face), their skin was mostly free of both the black ink from the book and the prank ink that the twins had spread. Their robes, however, would likely be a big challenge for the elves doing laundry. Hermione had tried to spot-clean hers with the potion, to make less work for the elves, but hadn't been able to make much headway.
"I understand there has been a development in the search for the heir?" he asked, with a twinkle. Clearly, none of the students were severely injured, so it must have been a successful adventure.
"Involving a basilisk fang they were holding onto," McGonagall pointed out with some heat.
"Ah. I'd noted it only had one and wondered where the other had gotten to," he said with a smile, though seeing the look on her face, he amended, "and I suppose I must ask you to give it to me for safekeeping. It wouldn't do for you to accidentally hurt yourself."
"I only used it with gloves," Harry explained. He grudgingly produced the fang, stored in a glass jar the twins had hastily transfigured to fit it. Once they'd needed it to kill the diary, they'd pretty much realized that the secret of the fang wouldn't last much longer. He was very sad to lose the quest reward.
"And have stored it in good glass," Dumbledore noted, taking the large jar. "Though over time the transfiguration might have failed, and it could have broken free at an inopportune moment."
The kids all shrugged. They weren't going to mention that the jar was a very temporary solution. They also weren't going to meet his eyes, except Ginny. The old man made a mental note that she didn't seem to be included in their confidences.
"Tell me about this dark object," he suggested, after taking a seat in a nearby chair and setting the fang jar down next to him.
Harry produced the stabbed diary next, handing it over. "We didn't know Ginny had it. But we worked out that she was going around the castle where she shouldn't be, and could understand Parseltongue. When we asked her why she was doing all of this, we found out that the diary was talking to her. Tom Riddle's diary."
"I see," the old man nodded, inspecting the book and clearly feeling the last unraveling shreds of a powerful dark magic. He also figured he wasn't getting the full story. Flipping the diary over, he noted the monogram and admitted, "I recall Tom having a diary like this when he was a student. He was always very secretive of it, and I assumed it was a record of his misdeeds. Or perhaps his arithmantic calculations for dark spells. How did you come across this, Ms. Weasley?"
She shrugged, "It was in my school stuff. I thought my dad got it for me at the Alley."
"We think that it would start using its magic on you as soon as you touched it," Harry admitted. "I felt it trying something on me before we destroyed it. Tom showed up when he couldn't control me."
"Indeed?" the headmaster nodded, appreciating the boy's sensitivity to subtle magics and noting that as a possible explanation for their refusal to meet his eyes. "I suppose that goes a long way to explaining why the daughter of a man tasked with recovering illegally enchanted muggle objects might believe her father had just given her one." Ginny blushed at the chastisement. "So it mysteriously appeared in your shopping?"
"Malfoy!" it was Ron who remembered. "Draco's father. He looked at her books and was really mean, and then got in a fight with dad. He must have slipped it in, then!"
Everyone nodded, including the headmaster. It would certainly explain just about everything. "Alas, that we will likely be unable to prove that Lucius was in possession of such an object. Hanging on to an object enchanted by Lord Voldemort as a student would be extremely suspicious."
"Dad's raids!" George realized.
"Malfoy must have been getting rid of anything they'd find in his house," Fred added.
Ginny gasped, "And he was trying to punish dad by giving me a cursed diary!"
McGonagall's face lost all emotion, which several of the students were aware meant that she was trying very hard to contain her anger. Lee and the twins had caused that face more than once, and didn't like what happened after. "Albus. Surely there must be some way we can prevent that man from getting away with this?"
He frowned, and shook his head. "I shall examine this thoroughly, and work to improve our detection of dark objects entering the school. But especially destroyed, I expect there will be no way to prove its origins. But, please, tell me exactly what happened tonight?"
Between the seven of them, they gave a disjointed but mostly-complete recounting of the evening, leaving off the pranking plan and any mention of the game system or Harry's clairvoyant dreams. They were pleased that Ginny cooperated in not mentioning her presumed source of the orange and green dyes. The headmaster seemed particularly upset at the description of the full-body apparition and how the book was immune to being burned.
Finally satisfied, he pronounced, "While I would normally take points for retaining such a dangerous object as a basilisk fang, since it proved essential in saving a life, I cannot justify doing so. But, please, include Minerva or myself in such decisions going forward. Overall, I think we can consider this a round ten points for each of you, ridding the school of such a pernicious threat. Now, I must proceed to my investigations."
"Assuming Poppy needs nothing further, I'll escort you six back to the dormitories," McGonagall told the Marauders after the headmaster left.
"I'm sorry everybody," Ginny apologized before they could head out. "I kept oversleeping and having to take naps at weird times, and I should have mentioned the talking book, and… he was just so nice."
"None of that, young lady," Madam Pomfrey insisted, bustling up. "You were likely being controlled by a powerful and subtle dark artifact. The first step to recovery is not blaming yourself."
"Yeah, don't worry about it, Gin," Ron told her. "We're… I guess we're sorry we didn't notice."
Fred and George shared a look and nodded, Fred admitting, "We haven't really been paying attention to our little sister as much as we should have."
"We'll do better," George finished.
Ginny got a cagey look in her eyes and said, "But it's not like you could have done much, since most of the stuff with the diary was in my room. Which you boys can't get up to."
Hermione turned slightly red and clearly thought about ratting them out to McGonagall, but said, "Then I'll keep a better eye on you, too."
Their head of house's eyes narrowed, as she was aware someone wasn't being totally honest. But after the night they'd had, she chose to let it go. "Right, let's get you back."
[Marauders: Active] Harry Potter: You think we should invite her to the guild?
George Weasley replies: Fine with me. She can clearly keep her mouth shut.
Fred Weasley replies: And she needs watching more closely.
Hermione Granger replies: More girls! Yay!
Ron Weasley replies: Okay with me.
Lee Jordan replies: If her brothers think she's cool, I'm fine.
[Marauders: Active] Harry Potter: Sounds like everyone. We'll mention it to her when she's out.
When they got back to Gryffindor Tower, the area around the hearth had been roped off with what seemed like antique hanging cords to rope off theater queues. The coating of ink was even more disgusting with time to appreciate what it meant. The whole area was basically a murder scene, where the victim was a ghost in a diary. Percy was the only one waiting up and McGonagall assured him, "Everyone is fine. Your sister will be staying overnight to make sure she doesn't have any other ill effects."
"Thank you, ma'am," the elder Weasley nodded. "We should get you to bed so the elves can come clean."
"I'll leave you to it. Good night," she said, exiting the portrait and heading back to her bedroom. Which Harry's map placed hidden behind her office.
Hermione waved as she headed upstairs to her own room, but Harry and Ron were surprised when Percy waved them on to enter the fourth-year room. He placed some kind of silencing spell on the door that Harry idly tried to pay enough attention to for his spellbook, and then demanded, "What has been going on?"
Harry shrugged, seeing no reason to not tell the last Weasley, even if he was kind of a stick-in-the-mud. "Voldemort left behind a cursed diary from when he let the basilisk out fifty years ago. Mr. Malfoy slipped it to Ginny back at our shopping trip. It possessed her and made her let the basilisk out. And it was trying to figure out what to do next since we killed the snake. But we stopped it."
As Percy was taking in that quick summary of existential horror, George realized, "Oh, hey! Yes we did! Before it could do any favors for the Slytherins."
Fred nodded, "So our quidditch match should be smooth sailing. We'll be unbeatable."
Ron groaned, "Now you've both jinxed it."