Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets By J. K. Rowling chapter one the Worst Birthday

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 
Dobby’s Reward 
For a moment there was silence as Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart 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. 
Harry, however, was looking past them. Professor Dumbledore was standing by the mantelpiece, 
beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her 
chest. Fawkes went whooshing past Harry’s ear and settled on Dumbledore’s shoulder, just as 
Harry found himself and Ron being swept into Mrs. Weasley’s tight embrace. 
“You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?” 
“I think we’d all like to know that,” said Professor McGonagall weakly. 
Mrs. Weasley 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 them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour he spoke into the rapt 
silence: He told them 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. She was standing with her head against Mrs. 
Weasley’s shoulder, and tears were still coursing silently down her cheeks. What if they expelled 
her? Harry thought in panic. Riddle’s diary didn’t work anymore… How could they prove it had 
been he who’d made her do it all? 
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.” 
Relief — warm, sweeping, glorious relief – swept over Harry. “W-what’s that?” said Mr. 
Weasley 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 showing 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 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 
recognizable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was 
once Head Boy here.” 
“But, Ginny,” said Mrs. Weasley. “What’s our Ginny got to do with — with — him?” 
“His d-diary” Ginny sobbed. “I’ve b-been writing in it, and he’s been w-writing back all year —” 
“Ginny!” said Mr. Weasley, 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 know,” sobbed Ginny. “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 
wizards 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 her. “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 Dumbledore. 

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Mrs. Weasley led Ginny out, and Mr. Weasley followed, still looking deeply shaken. 
“You know, Minerva,” Professor Dumbledore said thoughtfully to Professor McGonagall, “I 
think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?” 
“Right,” said Professor McGonagall crisply, also moving to the door. “I’ll leave you to deal with 
Potter and Weasley, shall I?” 
“Certainly,” said Dumbledore. 
She left, and Harry and Ron gazed uncertainly at Dumbledore. What exactly had Professor 
McGonagall meant, deal with them? Surely — surely — they weren’t about to be punished? 
“I seem to remember telling you both that I would have to expel you if you broke any more 
school rules,” said Dumbledore. 
Ron opened his mouth in horror. 
“Which goes to show that the best of us must sometimes eat our words,” Dumbledore went on, 
smiling. “You will both receive Special Awards for Services to the School and — let me see — 
yes, I think two hundred points apiece for Gryffindor.” 
Ron went as brightly pink as Lockhart’s valentine flowers and closed his mouth again. 
“But one of us seems to be keeping mightily quiet about his part in this dangerous adventure,” 
Dumbledore added. “Why so modest, Gilderoy?” 
Harry gave a start. He had completely forgotten about Lockhart. He turned and saw that 
Lockhart was standing in a corner of the room, still wearing his vague smile. When Dumbledore 
addressed him, Lockhart looked over his shoulder to see who he was talking to. 
“Professor Dumbledore,” Ron said quickly, “there was an accident down in the Chamber of 
Secrets. Professor Lockhart —” 
“Am I a professor?” said Lockhart in mild surprise. “Goodness. I expect I was hopeless, was I?” 
“He tried to do a Memory Charm and the wand backfired,” Ron explained quietly to 
Dumbledore. 
“Dear me,” said Dumbledore, shaking his head, his long silver mustache quivering. “Impaled 
upon your own sword, Gilderoy!” 
“Sword?” said Lockhart dimly. “Haven’t got a sword. That boy has, though.” He pointed at 
Harry. “He’ll lend you one.” 
“Would you mind taking Professor Lockhart up to the infirmary, too?” Dumbledore said to Ron. 

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“I’d like a few more words with Harry…” 
Lockhart ambled out. Ron cast a curious look back at Dumbledore and Harry as he closed the 
door. 
Dumbledore crossed to one of the chairs by the fire. 
“Sit down, Harry,” he said, and Harry sat, feeling unaccountably nervous. 
“First of all, Harry, I want to thank you,” said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. “You must 
have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to 
you.” 
He stroked the phoenix, which had fluttered down onto his knee. Harry grinned awkwardly as 
Dumbledore watched him. 
“And so you met Tom Riddle,” said Dumbledore thoughtfully. “I imagine he was most interested 
in you…” 
Suddenly, something that was nagging at Harry came tumbling out of his mouth. 
“Professor Dumbledore… Riddle said I’m like him. Strange likenesses, he said…” 
“Did he, now?” said Dumbledore, looking thoughtfully at Harry from under his thick silver 
eyebrows. “And what do you think, Harry?” 
“I don’t think I’m like him!” said Harry, more loudly than he’d intended. “I mean, I’m — I’m in 
Gryffindor, I’m…” 
But he fell silent, a lurking doubt resurfacing in his mind. 
“Professor,” he started again after a moment. “The Sorting Hat told me I’d — I’d have done well 
in Slytherin. Everyone thought I was Slytherin’s heir for a while… because I can speak 
Parseltongue…” 
“You can speak Parseltongue, Harry,” said Dumbledore calmly, “because Lord Voldemort — 
who is the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin — can speak Parseltongue. 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?” Harry said, thunderstruck. 
“It certainly seems so.” 
“So I should be in Slytherin,” Harry said, looking desperately into Dumbledore’s face. “The 
Sorting Hat could see Slytherin’s power in me, and it —” 

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“Put you in Gryffindor,” said Dumbledore calmly. “Listen to me, Harry. You happen to have 
many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand-picked students. His own very rare gift, 
Parseltongue — resourcefulness — determination — a certain disregard for rules,” he added, his 
mustache quivering again. “Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that 
was. Think.” 
“It only put me in Gryffindor,” said Harry in a defeated voice, “because I asked not to go in 
Slytherin…” 
“Exactly, “said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom 
Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Harry 
sat motionless in his chair, stunned. “If you want proof, Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I 
suggest you look more closely at this.” 
Dumbledore reached across to Professor McGonagall’s desk, picked up the blood-stained silver 
sword, and handed it to Harry. Dully, Harry turned it over, the rubies blazing in the firelight. And 
then he saw the name engraved just below the hilt.