Chapter 80 — The Empty Beds

Lucius’s hand went towards his wand. Harry was still crouching beside Dobby, and my fingers reached for a pouch which was on the cabinet behind me. Before I could do anything more useful, the elf moved.

A sharp burst of magic threw Lucius backwards into the opposite wall. Dumbledore stepped between him and Harry with his wand raised, while Dobby remained in front of Harry, holding the sock in one hand and the diary in the other.

‘That is enough,’ Dumbledore said. Malfoy stared at Dobby, whose ears were trembling, but the elf did not move aside.

Dumbledore told Lucius to leave. He answered with a thin promise that Harry would regret this, receiving the observation that he had made enough threats for one visit. Then he turned down the passage, his footsteps remaining loud long after he disappeared from my view.

Dobby stood still until Harry gently touched his shoulder. He looked along the empty corridor, then at the sock, as though somebody might yet take it away and explain why it did not count.

‘Harry Potter has freed Dobby.’ Harry told him I had thought of it and supplied the sock. When Dobby turned towards the ward, I raised my good hand and said he could keep it.

He came to the bed and held out the diary before anyone asked for it. Dumbledore returned it to its case, closing the lid with a quiet click while Dobby began explaining that he did not know how to thank us.

‘You don’t have to bow,’ I said, because he had bent almost double. He straightened uncertainly, still holding the sock, and Harry sat in the chair beside us.

Harry asked about the diary and the attempts to keep him away from school. Dobby said he had overheard plans at the Malfoys’ house, but had not been able to explain everything. When I asked whether he knew Ginny would be taken, he shook his head hard enough to make his ears flap.

He had known there would be danger at Hogwarts. He had known Harry must not be there, which made Harry put down the hand he had been resting on the chair arm.

‘Other children would be,’ Harry said. Dobby looked at the floor and began explaining that if he could only keep Harry Potter safe, then stopped before reaching the end of it.

Harry waited until he looked up. ‘Why me?’ he asked, and Dobby answered in a rush.

He spoke about the years when Voldemort had been powerful and the cruelty inside the house. Harry’s name had meant somebody terrible could be stopped. Dobby had wanted to protect the person he believed had changed that world, and in trying to preserve that hope he had nearly killed him.

Harry reminded him of his promise about the Bludger. ‘If you think I’m in danger, tell me or a professor. Don’t decide hurting me is the best way to help.’ Dobby nodded, slowly this time, and said he remembered what he had promised.

Dumbledore asked to hear what he had overheard when he felt able to speak. Ginny’s experience mattered too, he said, and they would arrange somewhere safe for the account. Dobby looked towards the door through which Lucius had left, then asked whether his former master could still forbid him to tell.

Dumbledore said he could not. Dobby drew himself a little straighter and agreed to speak, holding the sock against his chest as if it helped him finish the decision.

Pomfrey allowed a few more minutes before deciding I had had enough excitement for the morning. Dumbledore offered Dobby somewhere to rest and time to consider what he wanted next. The elf said he wanted to discover what it felt like to leave because he had chosen to.

He thanked Harry and me again at the door, then went. I looked down at my bare foot, and Harry observed that I would need another sock.

‘Worth it.’ He smiled and settled back in the chair. Through the window, the grounds looked ordinary again: wet grass and the path towards Hagrid’s hut, with nobody visible who knew that one small person had just walked away from Lucius without asking permission.

By lunchtime, Dumbledore’s written announcement was posted outside the ward. Harry brought me a copy: the basilisk was dead, the object controlling the attacks destroyed and the remaining patients would receive treatment as soon as the mandrakes were ready. Hogwarts would remain open. Ginny’s worst memories had not been made into something everyone could read over lunch.

That did not prevent stories. Ron arrived during the afternoon to report that I had apparently fought Riddle for nearly an hour while the basilisk circled us.

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I asked whose account he was using. He looked away and explained that people asked questions, so I reminded him he had not been in the room.

‘I said that part,’ he protested. Harry had begun laughing quietly beside me, which did not help Ron’s expression.

‘Say it before you make up the rest of the room.’ Ron objected that the real version was difficult to tell when we refused to provide anything properly dramatic. I gave him an account of being unable to get off the floor, and he became quiet before I reached the fang.

The stories I overheard afterwards were a little less tidy. I preferred them that way; we had enough to remember without supplying extra events to people who had not needed to be there.

Hagrid returned that evening. McGonagall told us the official confirmation had arrived before he did and he was resting in his hut. Ron’s personal letter was still somewhere with Errol, who appeared to have selected a longer route. For once, the owl’s delay had inconvenienced nobody but the owl.

Two days after the Chamber, Pomfrey allowed me to stand beside the bed without looking as though she expected me to collapse. She examined my chest, changed the dressing on my hand and said I could leave provided I came straight back if anything hurt.

‘No flying this week, no duelling and no experiments to discover whether you really are better.’ When I suggested that the final instruction sounded specific, she said she had met me. I accepted the discharge before she could add anything else.

We checked Hermione’s bag before I left. The bottle and horn remained sealed, their wrapping undisturbed, and Pomfrey would keep the whole bag until Hermione could decide what she wanted done with it. My little mirror lay on a tray of objects recovered from the patients, its edge chipped but its glass intact. I left it there as well.

The mandrakes were ready that morning, and Harry and Ron arrived eager to wait for Hermione with me. Pomfrey told us preparation would continue until the afternoon and that our presence would not make it quicker. We left reluctantly, with my return visits that day now concerning somebody else’s recovery instead of my own.

At dinner I watched the doors more than my plate. Colin arrived carrying a new camera, with a strap still bent sharply from its packaging. The school had replaced his old one, he told us, then asked Harry for a photograph before hesitating and asking whether all three of us would join him.

Ron immediately tried arranging us for the best light. His explanation involved the trophy he had not yet received, which required Colin to use more imagination than was usually needed to operate a camera.

Justin came over while Colin was choosing an angle. He looked at Harry and told him Pomfrey had explained the snake at the club, including what Harry had been trying to say to it.

‘I wanted it to stop,’ Harry said, putting down his fork. Justin nodded and apologised, then seemed to wait for an answer worse than the quiet acceptance he received.

He asked about my arm afterwards. I showed him the healed skin beneath my rolled sleeve, and after staring at it for a moment he found something better to discuss over dinner. Mrs Norris had returned to Filch’s side as well, looking no more grateful to the world than she ever had. I found that unexpectedly reassuring.

Then Nick rose through the table. Ron dropped his spoon, and the ghost told him he had missed being able to make an entrance like that.

I watched Nick settle into a position which suggested a chair without needing one. ‘How did they give you the potion?’ I asked. He looked at his transparent hands before answering.

They had not expected him to drink it. Pomfrey and Flitwick had worked together with a cloud of the preparation and some very particular magic, he said. The creature’s magic had been able to affect him; fortunately, theirs could undo it.

I wanted to ask about the particular magic, but his expression persuaded me to save it. I told him I was glad he was back, and he brightened enough to share another piece of news: the Headless Hunt had made an exception for him in recognition of his unusual experience.

Harry congratulated him at once. Ron followed a little later, and Nick drew himself up proudly before beginning an invitation to celebrate.

‘Here,’ I suggested quickly. ‘Tonight, with us.’ He considered whether that might be too informal, so I offered a speech from Ron, who had been practising. Ron kicked at my foot beneath the table, and I moved my chair before he could try again.

Harry was no longer listening. He was looking towards the doors, where Hermione stood beside Penelope.

For a moment, I could only watch. Hermione lifted a hand to move a strand of hair from her face, an ordinary movement I had seen countless times, and my throat tightened before I could say her name.

Then we were all on our feet. She met us between the tables, where Harry reached her first and Ron caught her from the other side. I put my arms around as much of the group as I could without reminding my ribs what they had been through.

‘Careful,’ Hermione said. ‘Pomfrey told me about you.’ She was laughing against my shoulder, then holding on more tightly, and I could feel her hand moving over my back instead of lying still above a blanket.

When we stepped apart, Ron seemed to have forgotten whatever he meant to say. Eventually he managed to tell her he had missed her, and Hermione asked whether she or her homework had been absent more painfully.

‘You can keep your homework.’ Her startled expression made Harry laugh, and Ron hurried to add that he meant for tonight. I touched the side of the hand I remembered from the ward and asked about the mirror.

Hermione’s smile faded a little. They had found the reference, she said, and Penelope was beside her when she looked round the corner with it. She had seen the eyes in the glass; that was the final thing she remembered, and what she had told Pomfrey when asked.

Both of them had looked. Hermione said my warning had made her take the mirror out, and she thought that was why they were here. I glanced towards Penelope, who had joined a group of Ravenclaws; Percy stood nearby, waiting until she turned and saw him.

‘I keep thinking I should have done more,’ I told Hermione. She said she did too, but it was a poor way to spend our first evening back. Then she took my hand and led me towards the table.