CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE REWARD FOR HELPING A PRINCESS

When we entered Grandmother's office, there was nothing except silence at first, before there was a scream.

'Ginny!'

Mrs Weasley, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire, leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr Weasley, and both of them flung themselves on their daughter. I ended up looking past the relieved parents and noticed there were three more occupants in the room. Grandfather was standing by the mantelpiece, beaming masking the relief in his eyes. Next to him was Grandmother who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest, while Uncle Severus remained hidden in the shadows.

As Fawkes went whooshing past my ear and settled on Grandfather's shoulder, I found myself being swept into Mrs Weasley's tight embrace.

'You saved her! How did you do it?' she cried.

'I think we'd all like to know that,' Grandmother said weakly, still clutching her chest. I met her eyes and saw that she was only just restraining herself from following Mrs Weasley's example and embracing me so tightly I would find it hard to breath.

After the slightest hesitation, I gently removed myself from Mrs Weasley's hug, walked over to Grandmother's desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the ruby encrusted sword – which turned out to be Gryffindor's sword -, and what remained of Uncle Tom's diary. I then started telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour I spoke into the spellbound silence, informing the adults of everything that had happened. Of course I tactfully left out the part about revealing that I was a Valkyrie and the discovery that my uncle was a madman.

When I was finished, Grandfather ended up sending Mr and Mrs Weasley to the Hospital Wing with Ginny, before turning to Ron and I. Ron gulped while I moved nervously.

'I seem to remember telling you both that I would have to expel you if you broke any more school rules,' he said, 'which goes to show that the best of us must sometimes eat our words.'

Ron and I looked quickly at Grandmother and Uncle Severus, before looking right back at Grandfather.

'You will both receive Special Awards for Services to the School and two hundred points apiece for Gryffindor,' Grandfather continued with a smile.

Ron and I looked at each other, speechless.

'But one of us seems to be keeping mightily quiet about his part in this dangerous adventure,' Grandfather added. 'Why so modest, Gilderoy?'

Ever since we entered Grandmother's office, Lockhart stood quietly in a corner of the room wearing his vague smile. When Grandfather addressed him, he looked over his shoulder to see who he was talking to.

'Professor Dumbledore,' Ron began quickly, 'there was an accident down in the Chamber of Secrets. Professor Lockhart –'

'Am I a professor?' Lockhart said in mild surprise. 'Goodness. I expect I was hopeless, was I?'

'That's one way to put it,' I muttered. I could have sworn Uncle Severus snorted with laughter.

'He tried to do a Memory Charm and the wand backfired,' Ron continued to explain quietly.

'Dear me,' said Grandfather, shaking his head, 'impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!'

'Sword?' Lockhart said dimly. 'I haven't got a sword. That boy has, though.' He pointed at me. 'He'll lend you one.'

While Uncle Severus and Grandmother stared at Lockhart, wondering how anyone could be so dim, Grandfather addressed Ron.

'Would you mind taking Professor Lockhart up to the infirmary, too, Mr Weasley?'

'Yes sir,' Ron replied, sending me a curious look before leading Lockhart out of the room and to the Hospital Wing.

When Ron and Lockhart were gone, Grandmother pulled me into a bone crushing hug.

'Don't you dare scare us like that ever again!' she scolded, while crying.

'I'm sorry,' I apologised.

'We can understand why you did it, Harri,' Uncle Severus said, coming over to us and prying Grandmother off me. 'We just wished that you had come to us instead. We are a family; you have no need to keep secrets from us.'

'That works both ways,' I said with a hint of coldness to my tone. 'I know who Tom Riddle really is. I know that he is Voldemort and he is my Uncle Tom.'

My family all exchanged looks.

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'We were going to tell you when you were older,' Grandfather admitted. 'We didn't believe you were ready to know the truth as you were still settling into our family.'

'Even so, I had the right to know,' I replied bolshily. 'Do you know why my own uncle wants me dead?'

'I have theories, but that is it.'

'Let me guess, you're not going to share any of them with me.' I had a hint of annoyance in my tone.

'Not today, sweet heart, but I will tell you this. 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?' I said, thunderstruck.

'It certainly seems so.'

For a minute, none of us spoke.

'You should go now, Harri,' Uncle Severus said eventually. 'You need food and sleep, and it wouldn't hurt to go and see Madam Pomfrey, either.'

'Do I have too?' I whined.

'It would be wise,' replied Grandfather.

Groaning, I muttered a grudging, 'Goodnight,' and crossed the room to the door. I 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.

'Dobby!' I exclaimed, finally knowing who his master was.

Dobby gave me something that could have been a smile, before looking nervously up at Lucius. His master looked down at him coldly.

'Good evening, Lucius,' Grandfather greeted pleasantly, making Lucius turn his cold gaze away from Dobby.

'So,' he said, 'you've come back.'

'Well, you see, Lucius,' said Grandfather, 'when the other eleven governors heard that Arthur Weasley's daughter had been killed and they wanted me back here. They seemed to think I was the best man for the job after all. Very strange tales they told me. Several of them were under the impression that you'd curse their families if they didn't agree to suspend me in the first place.'

Lucius ignored Grandfather's last comment in favour of inquiring, 'I assume the culprit has been caught?'

'Correct.'

'Well? Who is it?'

'The same person as last time, Lucius,' said Grandfather. 'Only this time, Lord Voldemort was acting through somebody else by means of this diary.'

He held up the small black book with the large hole through the centre, watching Lucius closely, as were Uncle Severus and Grandmother. However, I was watching Dobby as he was doing something very strange. His great eyes fixed meaningfully on me; he kept pointing at the diary, then at Lucius, and then hitting himself hard on the head with his fist.

I ended up tuning out of Grandfather and Lucius' conversation in favour of trying to discover what hidden message Dobby was trying to give me. By the end of the conversation, I suddenly understood what the elf was trying to tell me. Nodding to Dobby, I addressed Draco's father.

'Don't you want to know how Ginny got hold of that diary, Mr Malfoy?' I enquired.

Lucius rounded on me.

'How should I know how the stupid little girl got hold of it?' he snapped.

'Because it was you, who gave it to her,' I replied calmly, 'back in Flourish and Blotts, when you ran into the Weasleys.'

'You should learn not to make such wild accusations when you have no proof,' Lucius told me coldly, before turning to Dobby. 'We're going, Dobby!'

He wrenched open the door and as the elf came hurrying up to him, he kicked him right through it. We could hear Dobby squealing with pain all the way along the corridor.

'That poor creature,' Grandmother said sadly.

I stood there staring after Dobby until an idea stuck me.

'Grandfather, can I have that?' I pointed to Uncle Tom's diary.

'Sure,' Grandfather replied, taken back. Even Uncle Severus and Grandmother seemed surprised.

'Thanks.'

I grabbed the diary and dashed out of the office towards Dobby's squeals of pain disappearing around the corner. I caught up with them at the top of the stairs.

'Mr Malfoy,' I said skidding to a halt. 'I've got something for you.'

I forced the diary into Lucius' hand.

'And why would I want this?' he demanded.

'Well, you were the one who gave it away, so I thought that you'd like it back.' I shrugged.

Lucius snarled as he shoved the diary at Dobby.

'You'll meet the same sticky end as your parent's one of these days, Harry Potter,' he informed me softly. 'They were meddlesome fools, too.'

He turned to go.

'Come, Dobby.'

Dobby began to follow him, but I stopped him and said quietly, 'Open the diary.'

Confused, Dobby did so and gasped. Inside was one of my disgusting, slimy socks, though the way he was looking at it one would have thought it were a priceless treasure. As I hurried after them, I ungracefully ripped off my sock and shoved it unnoticeably into the diary.

'Master has given a sock,' said the elf in wonderment.

'What? I didn't give you a -' Lucius broke off when he had turned around and saw the sock in Dobby's hand.

Lucius stood frozen, staring at the elf before he lunged at me.

'You've lost me my servant, boy!'

Dobby quickly jumped in front of me and there was a loud bang. Lucius was thrown backwards and crashed down the stairs, three at a time, landing in a crumpled heap on the landing below. He got up, his face livid, and pulled out his wand, but when he saw the elf raise a threatening hand, he grudgingly stormed off.

'Princess Harrietta freed Dobby!' the elf said shrilly, gazing up at me, moonlight from the nearest window reflected in his orb-like eyes.

'It was the least I could do, Dobby,' I said, grinning down at him. 'Just promise never to try and save my life again.'

The elf's ugly brown face split suddenly into a wide, toothy smile and flung his arms around my middle and hugged me.

'Princess Harrietta is greater by far than Dobby knew!' he sobbed. 'Farewell, Princess!'

With a final loud crack, Dobby disappeared.

-THE UNMASKED MYSTERY-

Grandfather ended up getting all the Heads of Houses to wake up their students for a feast celebrating the end of the Chamber of Secrets and the revival of all the students currently being un-petrified. I had been to several Hogwarts feasts, but never one quite like this. Everybody was in their pyjamas, and the celebration lasted all night. I didn't know whether the best bit was Hermione running toward Ron and me, screaming 'You solved it! You solved it!' or Justin hurrying over from the Hufflepuff table to apologise for suspecting him, or Hagrid turning up at half past three, cuffing Ron and I so hard on the shoulders that we were knocked into our plates of trifle, or Ron's and my four hundred points for Gryffindor securing the House Cup for the second year running, or Grandmother standing up to inform all the students that the exams had been cancelled as a school treat, or Grandfather announcing that, unfortunately, Lockhart would be unable to return next year, owing to the fact that he needed to go away and get his memory back. Quite a few of the teachers joined in the cheering that greeted this news.

The rest of the final term passed in a haze of blazing sunshine. Hogwarts was back to normal – well as normal as Hogwarts could get - with only a few, small differences such as Defence Against the Dark Arts classes being cancelled and Lucius Malfoy had been sacked as a school governor. Draco was no longer strutting around the school as though he owned the place. On the contrary, he looked resentful and sulky. On the other hand, Ginny Weasley was perfectly happy again.

However, before we knew it, it was time for the journey home on the Hogwarts Express. Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Ginny and I got a compartment all to ourselves. We made the most of the last few hours in which we were allowed to do magic – though Uncle Severus said that he would turn a blind eye to some magic I could perform back home at Acacia Palace - before the holidays. We played Exploding Snap, set off the very last of Fred and George's Filibuster fireworks, and practiced disarming each other by magic. I was getting very good at it.

Then, the Hogwarts Express slowed and finally stopped. Another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was over, and I knew that the next year would be just as exciting and eventful and the year just past.


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Written: 26 November 2012
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DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE ORIGINAL COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL IN THIS STORY. THIS IS A NON-PROFIT FANDUB CREATED BY FANS, FOR FANS. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED, FAIR USE ONLY. I DO, HOWEVER, CLAIM SOME COPYRIGHT OVER HARRI SINCE SHE IS HALF BASED ON MY ORIGINAL VALKYRIE CHARACTER, PRINCESS HARRIETTA.