Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets - Rowling Joanne Kathleen. Страница 53

“KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. SNIFF — SMELL HIM.”

Harry was on his feet, ready. The basilisk’s head was falling, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face him. He could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous —

It lunged blindly — Harry dodged and it hit the Chamber wall. It lunged again, and its forked tongue lashed Harry’s side. He raised the sword in both his hands —

The basilisk lunged again, and this time its aim was true — Harry threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent’s mouth —

But as warm blood drenched Harry’s arms, he felt a searing pain just above his elbow. One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into his arm and it splintered as the basilisk keeled over sideways and fell, twitching, to the floor.

Harry slid down the wall. He gripped the fang that was spreading poison through his body and wrenched it out of his arm. But he knew it was too late. White-hot pain was spreading slowly and steadily from the wound. Even as he dropped the fang and watched his own blood soaking his robes, his vision went foggy. The Chamber was dissolving in a whirl of dull color.

A patch of scarlet swam past, and Harry heard a soft clatter of claws beside him.

“Fawkes,” said Harry thickly. “You were fantastic, Fawkes…”

He felt the bird lay its beautiful head on the spot where the serpent’s fang had pierced him.

He could hear echoing footsteps and then a dark shadow moved in front of him.

“You’re dead, Harry Potter,” said Riddle’s voice above him. “Dead. Even Dumbledore’s bird knows it. Do you see what he’s doing, Potter? He’s crying.”

Harry blinked. Fawke’s head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the glossy feathers.

“I’m going to sit here and watch you die, Harry Potter. Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”

Harry felt drowsy. Everything around him seemed to be spinning.

“So ends the famous Harry Potter,” said Riddle’s distant voice. “Alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by his friends, defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged. You’ll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry… She bought you twelve years of borrowed time… but Lord Voldemort got you in the end, as you knew he must…”

If this is dying, thought Harry, it’s not so bad.

Even the pain was leaving him….

But was this dying? Instead of going black, the Chamber seemed to be coming back into focus. Harry gave his head a little shake and there was Fawkes, still resting his head on Harry’s arm. A pearly patch of tears was shining all around the wound — except that there was no wound.

“Get away, bird,” said Riddle’s voice suddenly. “Get away from him — I said, get away —”

Harry raised his head. Riddle was pointing Harry’s wand at Fawkes; there was a bang like a gun, and Fawkes took flight again in a whirl of gold and scarlet.

“Phoenix tears…” said Riddle quietly, staring at Harry’s arm. “Of course…healing powers…I forgot…”

He looked into Harry’s face. “But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter…you and me….”

He raised the wand …

Then, in a rush of wings, Fawkes had soared back overhead and something fell into Harry’s lap — the diary.

For a split second, both Harry and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book.

There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry’s hands, flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then —

He had gone. Harry’s wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Silence except for the steady drip drip of ink still oozing from the diary. The basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it.

Shaking all over, Harry pulled himself up. His head was spinning as though he’d just traveled miles by Floo powder. Slowly, he gathered together his wand and the Sorting Hat, and, with a huge tug, retrieved the glittering sword from the roof of the basilisk’s mouth.

Then came a faint moan from the end of the Chamber. Ginny was stirring. As Harry hurried toward her, she sat up. Her bemused eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead basilisk, over Harry, in his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in his hand. She drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down her face.

“Harry — oh, Harry — I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy — it was me, Harry — but I — I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to — R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over — and — how did you kill that — that thing? W-where’s Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary —”

“ It’s all right,” said Harry, holding up the diary, and showing Ginny the fang hole, “Riddle’s finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C’mon, Ginny, let’s get out of here —”

“I’m going to be expelled!” Ginny wept as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. “I’ve looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I’ll have to leave and — w-what’ll Mum and Dad say?”

Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber entrance. Harry urged Ginny forward; they stepped over the motionless coils of the dead basilisk, through the echoing gloom, and back into the tunnel. Harry heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss.

After a few minutes’ progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry’s ears.

“Ron!” Harry yelled, speeding up. “Ginny’s okay! I’ve got her!”

He heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make in the rock fall.

“Ginny!” Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. “You’re alive! I don’t believe it! What happened?” How — what — where did that bird come from?”

Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.

“He’s Dumbledore’s,” said Harry, squeezing through himself.

“How come you’ve got a sword?” said Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Harry’s hand.

“I’ll explain when we get out of here,” said Harry with a sideways glance at Ginny, who was crying harder than ever.

“But —”

“Later,” Harry said shortly. He didn’t think it was a good idea to tell Ron yet who’d been opening the Chamber, not in front of Ginny, anyway. “Where’s Lockhart?”

“Back there,” said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. “He’s in a bad way. Come and see.”

Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, they walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.

“His memory’s gone,” said Ron. “The Memory Charm backfired. Hit him instead of us. Hasn’t got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He’s a danger to himself.”

Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at them all.

“Hello,” he said. “Odd sort of place, this, isn’t it? Do you live here?”

“No,” said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry.

Harry bent down and looked up the long, dark pipe.

“Have you thought how we’re going to get back up this?” he said to Ron.

Ron shook his head, but Fawkes the phoenix had swooped past Harry and was now fluttering in front of him, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers. Harry looked uncertainly at him.

“He looks like he wants you to grab hold…” said Ron, looking perplexed. “But you’re much too heavy for a bird to pull up there —”

“Fawkes,” said Harry, “isn’t an ordinary bird.” He turned quickly to the others. “We’ve got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron’s hand. Professor Lockhart —”

“He means you,” said Ron sharply to Lockhart.

“You hold Ginny’s other hand —”

Harry tucked the sword and the Sorting Hat into his belt, Ron took hold of the back of Harry’s robes, and Harry reached out and took hold of Fawkes’s strangely hot tail feathers.

An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through his whole body and the next second, in a rush of wings, they were flying upward through the pipe. Harry could hear Lockhart dangling below him, saying, “Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!” The chill air was whipping through Harry’s hair, and before he’d stopped enjoying the ride, it was over — all four of them were hitting the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat, the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place.

Myrtle goggled at them.

“You’re alive,” she said blankly to Harry.

“There’s no need to sound so disappointed,” he said grimly, wiping flecks of blood and slime off his glasses.

“Oh, well…I’d just been thinking…if you had died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet,” said Myrtle, blushing silver.

“Urgh!” said Ron as they left the bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. “Harry! I think Myrtle’s grown fond of you! You’ve got competition, Ginny!”

But tears were still flooding silently down Ginny’s face.

“Where now?” said Ron, with an anxious look at Ginny. Harry pointed.

Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor. They strode after him, and moments later, found themselves outside Professor McGonagall’s office.

Harry knocked and pushed the door open.