Chapter 42
Taylor found herself some hours later, along with Luna, in the Hospital Wing facing the headmaster.
Dumbledore had returned to the school before students were sent away. After checking that Ginny was alive and well, he put an end to that confusion. With Ginny ‘found’, he didn’t see a reason to send students back home.
Madam Pomfrey hadn’t been happy to see Taylor in the Hospital Wing again. She bustled around, feeding Taylor potions that smelled and tasted like washed leather.
Taylor had spent hours trying to figure out what to say when the questions inevitably arrived. There was no easy way to keep the Chamber of Secrets location a secret, so Taylor decided she wasn’t going to bother that much about it. That didn’t mean she was going to give out all her secrets.
“What do we tell them?” Luna asked.
Her friend hadn’t left her side ever since Flitwick dragged the trio to the Hospital Wing.
Ginny had gotten her own cubicle, but Luna was just dirty and not hurt, so she stayed with Taylor.
“The truth.”
Luna tilted her head.
“With a few omissions.”
Luna nodded.
Taylor whispered to her friend the new version of events, which was very similar to what actually happened. The only difference being that their new story suggested (and just suggested) that it was Aragog who knew where the Horror and the Chamber were and going to him is what allowed them to confront the Heir and the Horror.
The leaving part was the one which Taylor had no good excuse for, so she also told the truth. Pixies carried them out. Before they knew what was happening, they were back at the castle and the pixies flew away.
It wasn’t a good enough misdirection, but Taylor hoped it would work.
It didn’t take long until Dumbledore arrived at the Hospital Wing. He first went to Ginny, who confessed about everything, saying she was guilty and the one attacking the students and all that. The Headmaster nodded, tried to comfort her but gave up when Ginny didn’t stop crying.
Soon after Ginny’s, it was Taylor and Luna’s turn.
“Good morning, Miss Hebert, Miss Lovegood. I must say, I hadn’t thought I’d see you again this soon.”
“Headmaster,” Taylor said. Luna nodded.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Dumbledore gently asked.
“Luna thinks I’m a HereSeer,” Taylor said.
“A HereSeer?”
“She sees the here, instead of then and there,” Luna explained.
“Ah, fascinating. Please continue,” said Dumbledore.
It was a risk telling the headmaster this much, but Taylor decided she needed to give some ground, or the man would probably be even more suspicious.
“The night Harry was attacked, I think whatever the Horror did affected me as well.”
Luna gently patted her hand.
“I see. And how did that lead to rescuing Miss Weasley?”
“You’re forgetting the spiders,” Luna chimed in.
Dumbledore looked at Luna, then back at Taylor.
“I noticed that whenever the Heir attacked, the spiders would try to flee the castle,” Taylor said. “We asked Hagrid about it and he acted all suspicious. So I followed him into the forest and saw him meeting with Aragog.”
“The acromantulas,” Dumbledore said, nodding.
“Later, we visited Aragog and he told us the Horror lived under the castle.”
“And the spiders didn’t attack you?”
Taylor shook her head.
“He didn’t like me. Said I wasn’t welcome.”
“But Arabelle is a good girl.”
“Arabelle?” the Headmaster asked, looking at Luna.
Luna took the giant spider from under her robes. “Bell, this is Dumbledore, the school Headmaster.”
Arabelle clicked her pincers. “Dumbles.”
Taylor thought that for some reason, the Headmaster’s smile looked strained. “She’s very pretty,” he said.
“When I noticed Ginny had gone missing, we went to Aragog again,” Taylor continued with her tale. “He didn’t want to help at first, but he changed his mind later.”
“I told him that Hagrid had been taken to Azkaban,” Luna said.
“We went with Aragog to some sort of tunnel, very deep underground, that led to the Chamber of Secrets.”
Luna nodded.
“We found Ginny there, but she wasn’t alone.”
“Who did you meet?” Dumbledore asked.
“There was a boy. A Slytherin. He said his name was Tom Riddle. He said he was a memory living inside a diary for fifty years.”
Taylor took out the diary and handed it over to the headmaster.
Dumbledore held it in trembling fingers.
“He said he was Lord Voldemort, and admitted to having possessed Ginny to open the Chamber, attack students and write the messages.”
“Really,” Dumbledore murmured, still looking at the diary.
“We talked, and Tom got angry. He called the Horror to attack, but Aragog saved us.”
“In the confusion, we tried to take Ginny away,” Luna added.
“What happened then?” Dumbledore asked, finally looking away from the diary.
Taylor shrugged. “Tom became like this ghostly thing. He was flying toward Luna and I…” she trailed off.
“Taylor jumped in front of him.”
“My head hurt, I heard someone laughing.” Taylor recounted the events. “When I woke up again, Tom Riddle had disappeared and Arabelle was panicking.”
Arabelle decided that was the time to jump onto Taylor’s lap. “Mother hurt.”
Taylor smiled, trailing her finger over the spider’s back. “Sorry, Bell. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What happened to Tom, the Horror and Aragog?”
Taylor sighed. “I don’t think the Horror will be a problem to anyone else. Aragog died fighting it,” she said, looking down and sniffling. “I don’t know what happened to Tom.”
And she really didn’t. Taylor had no idea what the consequences of Brunette-Taylor eating Tom’s shard would be.
“May I cast a spell on you?” Dumbledore asked.
Taylor nodded.
He took out his wand, murmured words Taylor couldn’t understand, moving the wand up and down along her body. A few moments later, he put the wand away, and his smile wasn’t strained.
“And how did you escape the Chamber?”
“Pixies!” Luna exclaimed.
“Pixies?”
“Yes! There were lots of them. They flew us out and put us inside the castle.”
“How interesting,” Dumbledore said, stroking his beard. “I’ve sent someone to fetch your parents,” he said. “What you girls did was very dangerous, and broke several of the school rules.”
Taylor looked down again. It had been worth it to save Ginny.
“It is only logical then, you two receive a Special Awards for Services to the School and — let me see — yes, I think two hundred points apiece for Ravenclaw,” Dumbledore said, beaming.
“I get a medal in the trophy room?” Taylor asked, looking up.
“Two hundred points?” Luna squeaked.
“Why, yes. You deserve it, I might add.”
Luna flung herself over Taylor in a bear hug.
“I’ll leave you to recover, we might talk again once your parents have arrived.”
What followed was horrifying in a whole different way.
The first to arrive were Ginny’s parents. After their smothering, Ginny told them about the diary.
“Ginny!” said Mr Weasley. “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 …”
That went on for a few more minutes and Taylor wanted to leave her bed to rescue her friend.
That sentiment didn’t last long, because after traumatising their kid, it was Taylor and Luna’s turn.
Mrs Weasley bustled toward their cubicle hugging the two girls without leaving them a chance to escape. “You saved her! You saved her!”
Taylor’s mother arrived soon after with Xeno, and before she could even check on Taylor, Mrs Weasley was hugging Annette as well.
“Thank you!” Mrs Weasley said. “You have to come visit in the holidays, it is the least we can do.”
After all the kerfuffle died down, Taylor cuddled against her mum, and Luna hugged her dad.
Annette hadn’t been happy to know Taylor had been hurt and hadn’t said anything in her letters. The look her mum gave her promised another talk later, but for now, Taylor was safe.
Among the many people arriving at the castle, one was of particular interest to Taylor. Not because Taylor thought the man important, but because of who was following him like a kicked puppy.
Malfoy senior arrived with his robes out of place and his hair not immaculately combed. It was like he had been doing something else, and had to stop and come to the castle in a rush. Behind him was a house elf trying to fix his master’s clothes.
A house elf Taylor had seen before. Dobby.
The conversation between Malfoy and the Headmaster was illuminating.
In Taylor’s mind, it became clear Malfoy was the evil mastermind behind the diary. He even went to the trouble of threatening the governors to suspend Dumbledore. Malfoy left soon after, Dobby trailing behind.
She watched with narrowed eyes and the pit of anger in her tummy grew.
There were several ways she could do something about it. Right now, she had to fight back the bugs wanting to swarm him, eat his eyes out, drown him in.
Taylor took a deep breath. That wasn’t her. Malfoy would pay, but attacking him with bugs on school grounds would cause more problems instead of solving them. She had a better idea anyway. Up in her nest, she had one of the pixies write a message on a parchment, then had her bugs carry it and drop the paper on top of Dobby.
The house elf caught the parchment, his eyes growing wide when he read the message.
Malfoy started to turn and Dobby disappeared the paper.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, sir, master, just school paper.”
Malfoy kicked the house elf. “Useless,” he sneered. “You’ll get your punishment when we return.”
Taylor had her Itchygnats bite the prat a couple times, just to appease her anger. He’d get his comeuppance, sooner or later.
Fortunately, Taylor wasn’t confined to the Hospital Wing for long. In the afternoon an annoyed Madam Pomfrey let the trio go, promising hell if they returned too soon.
At dinner, Taylor sat at Ravenclaw's table with her mum, Luna and Xeno. On the other side of the Great Hall, the Weasleys sat with their children, and Ginny had become the centre of that table, with every Gryffindor having to shake her hand, give her a hug or even a back pat.
Dumbledore was giving yet another one of his dinner speeches.
“What happened today is a secret,” he said. “So it is only normal that everyone in the castle already knows about it.”
There was laughter.
“Yes, it is true. Lord Voldemort—”
The whole Great Hall erupted in gasps and cries of fear.
“—enchanted a student to open the chamber and attack the school. Fortunately, due to the action of two brave Ravenclaw students, Taylor Hebert and Luna Lovegood, this dastardly plot was thwarted and a life saved.”
Dumbledore and the rest of the school were looking at Taylor and Luna.
Ginny was the first to get up and start clapping. The whole school soon followed, some a lot more animated than others.
“With the matter of the Heir put to rest, classes are to return to normal.”
A few students started cheering, yelling “Quidditch! Quidditch!”
“Quidditch, unfortunately, is still cancelled for the year.”
It was Taylor’s time to join the booing with the crowd. By her side, her mum laughed, shaking her head.
“And for risking their own lives to save a friend. For proving that the bonds we make matter more than the labels we assign them. For showing that bravery, loyalty and cunning are not traits exclusive to a single house, Taylor Hebert and Luna Lovegood hereby earn two hundred points—”
The Great Hall erupted in noise again.
“—each,” finished the Headmaster.
The Ravenclaw table exploded in cheering.
Without Snape to dock points from every house, Slytherin had lost its first place in the house cup. Four hundred points placed Ravenclaw in the first place, leading the other houses by a lot of points.
Students that hadn’t given Taylor the magic of day, now crowded her and Luna, hugging, patting their backs, offering congratulations. With one announcement from Dumbledore, she and Luna had become Ravenclaw’s darlings, at least for now.
Taylor hugged her mum, then Luna. She tried to smile at the people around her, but might have missed the mark, given how people were looking at her strangely.
It hadn’t been a bad start of term, overall.
Students (and a cat) were still petrified, there were more mysteries to solve and debts to pay, but finally, Taylor thought things were about to improve.