The connection of Eve Unit 8319 caused a ripple of silence to flow throughout the Sequence Obelisk Network, not just the usual love and welcome that any Eve had for their sisters.
Normally, whenever a new Eve connected to the network, her identity files automatically uploaded to the Database almost before anyone could realize she was connecting, allowing each and every one of her sisters to find out who she was if ever they wanted to say hi. This, combined with the immense curiosity of every Eve, usually meant that, within the first second after each new Eve arrived, a vast majority of all Eves- well over ninety percent, often- had requested and received those identity files, curious to learn about their new sister’s world. Every once in a while, an Eve- usually one of the digital ones- would be so fast on the uptake that her request would reach the Database before her new sister’s files reached it, causing it to refuse her request because it couldn’t find the file. This happened to an unfortunate Eve on about five percent of new connections by now, and very, extremely rarely to two at once. Fortunately, every Eve knew that whenever they saw that error, all they had to do was wait a mere millisecond and try again to be basically guaranteed a success.
When Unit 8319 connected, the initial curiosity wave was relatively strong. About 7953 Eves requested her identity files within that first second, for a full 96% of her sisters… but every single one got back an error. Not only that, but every single one received an error on their retries as well.
By the time three seconds had passed, every single other Eve on the network had pinged her ID files… and received the report that those files just weren’t found.
Fully three seconds after that, her ID files still hadn’t been uploaded and the database was fielding about ten million requests for them each second. It could handle a theoretically infinite number, though, so Eve Zero, the mother of all the Eves, requested a database health report and a report on the new Eve’s database activity. If there was something stopping her from uploading her identity files, she needed to know.
The reports came back instantly. The first calmly reported an immeasurably low utilization percentage… and the latter indicated that her new daughter’s Emergency Backup, which would reduce the time required for the Emergency Upload in the event of her death, was about eighty-seven percent complete. The database had been notified that her identity files were in the girl’s upload queue, but unfortunately, the Seed’s throughput capacity was far more limited than the database itself, so the emergency backup had priority. She and the rest of her daughters could stand to wait the extra seconds it would take for the backup if it meant that they didn’t lose their new family member- something which had never happened before, even to older Eves. The poor girl’s Seed was evidently running at maximum utilization in its attempt to preserve her life.
Zero immediately made an instantaneous broadcast to the entire Sequence; many of her daughters- particularly the ones that tended to get ‘file not found’ errors on their sisters’ identity files- had already asked her if there was a problem with the database, since it wasn’t turning up the files.
“Remain calm, your new sister is running her backup. Her ID will be up soon.”
The response was, rather than a reduction in worry as she’d expected, a sudden increase in worry and concern. She then got swamped with so many questions about if their new sister was fine that she was almost instantly glad that she wasn’t limited by biological processing speed, as a digital entity herself. Unfortunately, she knew no more than her daughters did; it could take years, even with the processing power available to the Sequence, to decode even a single, small backup file, as each entity used their own format.
And the seven-second duration of the upload suggested that the poor girl wasn’t around twenty years old, like most Eves were when they connected- rather, she had around seventy years of experience, assuming normal accumulation rates. That wasn’t unheardof, but it also wasn’t exactly common, at well below a single percentage of new Eves.
When the upload finally finished, and everyone received the identity files, they didn’t do anything to calm everyone’s worries. Whereas most of her daughters had name, appearance, and some sort of rundown of their life so far, this daughter- Ginny Weasley- was missing the last of the three. They knew what she went by, what she looked like… and that was it.
She also started a long chain of downloads as soon as her uploads were over, which was pretty typical of a new Eve. Their thirst for information often included their own equipment, at least until they knew it like the backs of their hands.
The emotional side bands that opened alongside that download served to calm a fair few of her daughters, who returned to whatever they were doing; the rest, however, waited with baited breath for her first words, to find out who she really was.
During that time, Ginny’s seed automatically submitted a request to tie the girl’s private database to the Sequence network as such, so it would serve as an access path back into her world in case she died before she managed to build a Void Weave Drive. She would still have full control over that database, and even Zero wouldn’t have access to it without Ginny’s permission.
Zero approved it. Whatever Ginny stored in it would automatically be backed up to the main Sequence database, with files locked so only she could open them, in case her database was destroyed. Interestingly, judging by the running mode of her database, she was using it to run some other kind of network, not merely for herself.
It was also somewhat alarming that the girl had enough Luminous Astrium to build a database, even before she connected back up. Her identity files claimed that she was a mere eleven standard years old, and Luminous Astrium production demanded so much power that most Eves required twenty years- after linking up- to make their first sample of the stuff! Yet if Ginny had enough to build a database, she almost certainly already had enough to make a simple Voidship!
She waited silently. She had no idea what Ginny was doing, and didn’t want to risk interrupting something- but especially with so much concern pointed at her, the girl had to know everyone was waiting with baited breath.
Still, though. A full minute passed- and Ginny then submitted a request to change the status of her database on the Sequence network. This one wasn’t an automated request, it was a request that definitely came from her; the Seed would never automatically request a private database be set into a multi-network operating mode whilst also serving as a backup for the entire Sequence Database.
She considered the request for a second. Ginny’s database would then serve as a backup in case the Sequence Fleet out in the Void was attacked and destroyed- something which hadn’t happened yet, but Zero wasn’t in the habit of taking chances. On top of that, judging by the operating specifics she provided in her request, her database would be serving a completely separate Obelisk Network she was currently running on it and serving as a database for that network, whilst keeping the two networks entirely separated… save only that her private network database would be mirrored securely into the Sequence Database.
On top of that, her database seemed to be hosting multiple lesser networks, which were set up as ‘servant networks’ of her private Obelisk Network. She wanted to keep her setup entirely intact, and retain the control over her database to configure- or remove- sub-networks like that on her private Obelisk Network, whilst adding the Sequence Database backup function as well. Implicit in her request was a promise not to dismantle her database nor otherwise take it offline in the foreseeable future. On top of that, completely unmentioned by the request and- she suspected- unconsidered for it, her database would serve as an avenue through which her sisters could visit and help her, even before she built a Void Weave Drive to depart her universe.
She debated with herself for a couple of femtoseconds, then approved it- and the full duplication of the encrypted database began. It only took a single second, thanks to the immense capacities of the databases in question.
More minutes passed- and eventually, someone spoke up, but it wasn’t Ginny.
“Do you think she’s too busy?”
It was a young Eve, one who had linked up just a few months before and hadn’t even gotten her initial Nocturnic Astrium sample yet, let alone the Luminous Astrium she’d need to join her sisters in the Void. Unlike the transmissions earlier, she used a realtime vocal transmission; that was only natural, considering she was a biological Eve, so that was the speed she was used to working at.
“No, I don’t think so.” Zero stopped, unwilling to admit that no matter how many different models she applied, she simply could not imagine a situation that would cause the events she’d seen. She also chose not to mention that Ginny had downloaded the lump sum of the publicly available identity files, evidently curious who she’d just connected to- and a clear action of curiosity rather than panic. “She doesn’t seem to think she’s in any danger,” she observed.
“But is she really?” a relatively senior Eve asked, the worry creeping into her tone. “I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time deciding which I hope is wrong: Her Seed, which panicked hard enough to initiate an Emergency Backup, or her, who evidently doesn’t feel like she’s in danger.”
“Why?” a younger one asked- this one had just achieved her first Luminous Astrium the day before, but didn’t yet have enough to build the Void Weave Drive she’d need to join her sisters in the Void. “I know I’m hoping it’s her Seed that’s wrong, because that’d mean she’s actually safe.”
“Well yes,” the senior Eve agreed, “that’s true. However, if her Seed is that wrong, it could mean there’s a problem- a vulnerability- in Mother’s programming, which exists in every single one of us as well, and that could be huge.” She paused. “Yet, I certainly don’t want her to be in danger.”
Zero heaved a sigh and, fully five minutes after Ginny had connected, she reached out directly to her. The conversation had taken place in a channel that any Eve- including Ginny- could hear, but the girl had probably tuned it out or otherwise not realized they were talking about her. “Ginny?” she called out. “Are you okay?”
The answer came back immediately, and sounded a little confused and a lot stunned. “Huh?” There was a very brief pause. “Oh, uh, Yeah, I’m okay- or at least, I will be. Why?”
“We noticed you uploaded an Emergency Backup as soon as you linked,” one of the senior Eves informed her. “That’s… I think it’s the first EB in the history of the Sequence- right, Mom?”
Zero gave the Network equivalent of a nod. “Yes, that was the first emergency-priority backup the Sequence has ever seen.” Usually, the initial backup ran in the background over the first minute or two of a young Eve’s connection to the network, then was kept constantly up to date, rendering the Emergency Backup unnecessary. Not to say that Emergency Uploads hadn’t happened; they saved more than a few of her daughters from time to time, after all. Backups had also been executed at high priority before, when the Eve in question discovered her Obelisk in a dangerous situation- but emergency priority only happened if the Seed thought it might not have time for even that before she died, and it was unlikely to be able to pull her out of danger.
There were a couple seconds of silence before Ginny answered. “Um… Yeah, my Seed kinda did that on its own. Had to triple-auth-override the activation sequence, because it thought soul damage was going to affect it.”
“Soul damage?” Zero asked, horrified. That was the one thing the Obelisk Network couldn’t protect her daughters against!
“Yup,” Ginny answered, and sighed. “It’ll heal, though, don’t worry. The danger’s past.” There was a brief pause. “And it shouldn’t hurt so much next time.”
A good ten minutes of silence passed before Ginny stood up again. She was still just a little unsteady on her feet, but she could manage- and her psionics could be used to shore it up if need be. She stretched, then sighed, then looked around at the rest. “Shall we be on our way, then?”
“Might as well,” Hailey agreed, then she and Hermione rose to their feet as well… but Luna stayed sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees.
Ginny looked at her, then bent down a little. “Luna?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
Luna twitched, then looked up at her. “He… He’s been controlling me.”
“I know,” Ginny answered, using psionics more than muscle to draw her sword out of the Diary- and a quick command to the Astrium to dull it, even before she commanded it to dissolve back into Raw Astrium and store itself back inside her body. That revealed her wand hidden in the handle- and now held in her hand, before she pocketed it. “That was a Horcrux. There’s a lot of nasty magic on those things- and only three things can destroy them: The Killing Curse, Fiendfyre, and Basilisk Venom.” She paused, and glanced at Hailey. “And apparently a three-hour-long ritual that can only be performed on the night of the full moon.”
“And requires one werewolf, one phoenix, one dementor, and one unicorn to be present,” Hailey agreed. “It’s perhaps the hardest way to destroy a Horcrux safely, even including Basilisk Venom.” She paused. “Though the werewolf can’t have taken Wolfsbane Potion or it won’t work, and they can’t be restrained, magically or otherwise, so it’s only for certain definitions of ‘safely’.”
“Seems like the riskiest method as well,” Hermione observed. “Imagine being chased around a spell circle by a crazy werewolf for three hours, while manipulating said spell circle…” She shuddered. “Whoever discovered it must’ve had really good legs.”
“And don’t forget that unicorns and dementors are mortal enemies,” Hailey observed. “The discovery was through Arithmancy rather than trying things out, and the poor guy died of exhaustion, not Dementor or Werewolf attacks or getting trampled by the unicorn thirty-seven times, about two hours after he succeeded in casting it.” She shrugged. “The phoenix might be the reason why.”
Ginny winced. “Yikes.”
Luna let out a soft sigh. “He… He said he had no control over it, it just happened.”
Ginny snorted. “He lied,” she told her. “Lying is the thing Voldemort was best at. Possession like that is strictly voluntary.”
“I imagine he felt a little funny whenever he was possessing you,” Hailey mused.
Luna nodded. “He said he’d never been a girl before.”
The Chamber of Secrets promptly rang with Ginny, Hailey, Hermione, and Myrtle’s laughter. After a second, Luna joined in as well, though a bit feebly.
When the laughter died out, Luna went on. “That wasn’t all,” she half-whispered. “He said I was… different. Strange. Weird. Craz-!”
“So you can see auras, so what?” Ginny asked. “Most wizards don’t even know they exist, but they’re no less important for it.”
She winced. “But- But the other things-!”
“So you can see the multidimensional objects passing through this plane of existence, so what?” Hailey asked. “That only means you’re a Royal. Voidwalker, specifically, which incidentally makes you the most powerful true Royal since Merlin.”
Luna looked up. “True Royal?”
She shrugged. “Well, neither me nor Ginny are technically Royals, since that portal had nothing to do with our powers- I mean, with one being a reincarnated goddess and the other being gifted powers by a multiversal civilization…” She trailed off. “Voidwalkers technically aren’t divine beings, but thanks to being a higher-dimensional being capable of traversing the Void and manipulating the worldwall, you’re actually stronger than the local deities.” She paused. “Not by much, mind, but you are.”
Ginny looked up. “Is that how she was able to wake up through Riddle’s drain?”
She nodded. “Even the most powerful four-dimensional drain like that is but the tiniest prick of the finger to a twelve-dimensional Voidwalker. She’s still in the developmental phase, though, so for the most part, her wellspring is sticking to human-like limitations for now.”
Luna blinked at her. “Human-like,” she observed.
Hailey shrugged. “Well, you haven’t accidentally sidestepped out of reality yet,” she observed. “That’s a human-like limitation. It doesn’t reduce your actual capability, so if something happens or something startles you into reflexive action, those limitations go straight out the window, and whatever is bothering you gets the full brunt of your true capabilities.” She smiled. “So yes, you’re different. And unusual. Perhaps a bit strange to the people around you, and I’m sure they’ll call you weird because they apply that label to anything they don’t understand. Yes, I know, it’s annoying.
“But you’re most definitely not crazy.”
Then Ginny tilted her head. “Um… Hailey? Why can’t I find anything on Voidwalkers in the Sequence database?”
“Because that database is only around four hundred years old,” she answered, “and she’s the first Voidwalker since the Multiverse was destroyed and re-seeded.”
Ginny scowled. “So…” She rubbed her chin. “So why is there so much Multiverse stuff gathering right here?”
She shrugged. “Because my presence in this universe warps the laws of physics,” she answered simply. “As a matter of fact, that portal- the one that causes Royals- is a side effect of the damage done to said laws of physics by my presence. It is, in a very real sense, a wound in the voidweave continuum- and one that connects all the way back to the pre-disaster Multiverse that I destroyed, drawing power and patterns from back then.” She paused. “Sorta…” She rubbed her chin. “Yeah. It is to the Voidweave Continuum what a singularity is to the Spacetime Continuum.”
“A hole,” Hermione mirrored. “That’s… interesting.”
Luna sighed, staring at her knees. “But if I’m a Royal-!”
“If you don’t want to end up in a political career, the same Multiverse-level enchantment that’s keeping me out of a political career will do it for you too.” She paused. “It’s already doing that for Ginny- I understand it’s resulted in some very interesting situations. And like I did in Dumbledore’s office a month ago, that doesn’t mean you can’t use your powers or even Royal authority- just means you want to be careful about it.”
“But- But my dad-!”
“You’re the only one that magic will allow to make the decision to expose your Royal status to the political world,” Hailey informed her. “If you tell your father, which is up to you, then he goes to try and tell, say, Dumbledore, he’ll get the same thing Molly Weasley did when she tried to tell him Ginny had a Phoebe: Delivery failure after delivery failure, and strange, sudden confusion while talking to him.”
Ginny blinked. “Then when he asked me directly-?”
Hailey nodded. “Yes. When someone tries to manipulate you into revealing it against your will, that magic will step in to help you out. If you start noticing sudden, inexplicable bouts of confusion while being interrogated or even ‘talked to’ by certain people, you know that’s what’s happening- they’re manipulating you, and it’s helping you keep the secret. No amount of fancy words can fool that enchantment.” She paused. “Though… I should probably mention that it won’t stop random strangers that won’t try to shepherd you into a political career from finding out about it, only people that might push you into a political career.” She snorted. “As a matter of fact, there’s a special little cutout in that magic. So… if I told you I knew a Royal, would you be able to tell me what the color of her silver hair was?”
She looked up at her. “You just said it,” she answered. “It’s silver.”
“Silver?” Hermione asked, looking up at Hailey.
She nodded. “She’s still in the formation stage, but that necklace is turning her into a goddess. Multiversal- and the first one since me.” She looked back down to Luna. “If you ask someone about some tidbit of a Royal’s appearance and include the answer in the question, only someone that will be safe to tell about that Royal will be able to provide that answer. Anyone else will likely be utterly confused about why they can’t remember the color of the Royal’s blonde hair.” She smiled. “It’s a special clause in the enchantment, and it’ll work even when someone else- that knows- is the one asking, no matter how far they are.”
“Silver’s going to be interested to know that,” Ginny observed.
“Just told her,” Hermione smiled.
“Anyways,” Hailey supplied. “Lockhart’s waiting in the entryway, and your parents are waiting upstairs, so we should probably go meet them.”
Luna scowled. “What’s Mom doing away from Saint Mungo’s?”
“Probably coming to see her daughter after receiving a message that said you may have been killed,” Hailey answered, then chuckled. “Not that the Killing Curse would even phase you.” She paused. “Fun fact, in most worlds like ours, your mom is dead. In this world, though, when she would have died, you were there- and reflexively used your powers to save her.” She chuckled. “The will of a child is a powerful thing, and even their own wellspring will bow to it.”
Gilderoy Lockhart had a problem.
Firstly, he was in a strange, stone tunnel somewhere; it was a bit too long- and curved- to be a room, and the animal bones all over the floor suggested that he was screwed if he didn’t find a way out. Unfortunately, though, there didn’t seem to be an entrance… unless you ascribed that name to the high shaft at one end, but no light came from above and he couldn’t fly either. At the other end were some creepy snake carvings. There was even a massive green serpent skin on the floor around the middle- and he had no idea what it was from.
The truly terrifying part was that one or two of his books detailed people in spaces like this one before, so everyone the world over would think this was old news to him.
On the other hand, even knowing what he claimed in his books (which really had happened, even if he hadn’t actually been the one to do it), he had no idea what to do. He didn’t want to try blowing through the ceiling or walls, having no idea what was on top of him- and the spells his books talked of using to determine just that, which really had been used by the people in question… weren’t telling him anything. Maybe he wasn’t casting them properly?
He was still a wizard, though. He could conjure light, he could clean up the floor. Before desperation could set in, he conjured himself a comfortable armchair around halfway, before settling down to wait and think. Perhaps calm himself down a little bit, and try not to panic. His timekeeping spell seemed to be utterly confused about the current date and time, refusing to give him anything but the magical equivalent of a shrug- which suggested something big had happened… or perhaps the tunnel was warded against time spells. It seemed silly, but he’d heard of sillier.
Fortunately, his time spell was able to measure how long he’d been there, and count elapsed time.
Because of that, when he heard a sudden rumbling from the snake wall end, he knew he’d been there for about fifteen minutes.
He leaped off his chair as though burned, vanished it, and extinguished his light as well, before crouching in the shadows. Who was coming?
He heard voices. Girls, it sounded like, and saw wandlights around the corner. There was a sudden hush.
Then someone spoke, and he made out the words.
“Huh. Where’d Professor Lockhart go?”
Professor?
In what life was he a professor? What had happened? Had-
Had he tried to obliviate someone, and hit himself instead? Had something obliviated him?
He had been lying flat on his back when he awoke, after all.
He racked his brains. Last he remembered, he’d returned home from a disguised trip to Diagon Alley- he liked to be famous, but a famous man simply couldn’t shop in peace- to the news that the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts had been killed by Voldemort. He’d had a stray thought that maybe he should apply.
Had that happened? Had he applied, then gone to Hogwarts and become a well-respected Professor?
All told, if he’d been one for very long, he rather doubted he’d been well-respected. His own Defense grades had been in the dumps, to the point where they’d nearly held him back a year at one point- and while he had sat that NEWT after a frankly amazing OWL score, he’d flunked it. Compound that with his total inability to cast any of the spells in his books… Sure, he knew about lots of Defense work in the wild, but what good would it be? Maybe he’d built up a head of overconfidence and attempted something he’d never done before in the name of showing off, only to get burned, but the only other thing he could even imagine himself doing was trying to convey the lessons he’d learned through writing his books.
But how on earth would he do that? Given time pressure, he could imagine that he’d simply start trying to act them out, partly to appeal to the children and partly in the hopes that they’d remember something of the techniques.
All in all, going to Hogwarts as a Professor would be a supremely stupid idea.
That was about the point that the girls rounded the corner- and sure enough, by the light reflecting off the walls, they were dressed in Hogwarts uniforms. Four girls… and one ghost, all walking side-by-side. The red-headed girl seemed to be leaning on the black-haired girl, almost like she’d been hurt somehow.
Were these also captives of this tunnel, or…?
He rose quickly to his feet, abandoning his crouch, and cast a light charm, casting it over them to see better.
Interesting. They looked like lower-year students; the ghost was taller than all of them, and he recognized her, too: That was Myrtle Warren, also known as Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of a third-year student that had died in a bathroom the year before Lockhart started at Hogwarts himself.
She was quite different from last he’d seen her; in his later years, she spent all her time crying in the bathroom she’d died in, because people kept insulting her- and from what little he’d heard about her in the time since he’d left Hogwarts, things hadn’t improved.
“Hello?” he called.
One of the girls pointed their own wand light up at him, then lowered it. “Oh, Professor Lockhart.” The derision evident in her voice suggested that he had indeed gone the Hogwarts route.
He paused, trying to think of how best to handle the situation. Finally, he settled on playing it straight- and not-quite-outright telling them of his issue. Obliviation already wasn’t an option, as it didn’t work on ghosts, but he’d have to figure that out later. Finally, he spoke. “Am I a Professor?” he asked, blinking bemusedly to sell the act. “I don’t recall.”
All five girls stopped walking and stared at him. “You don’t recall?” the redhead asked. “You’ve been one all year!”
The brunette tilted her head. “Do you… remember… where we are?”
He shook his head. “I was actually hoping you knew that,” he muttered.
“The entryway to the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts,” the black-haired girl said matter-of-factly. “I guess you’ve forgotten, but the exams are scheduled to start in a few days, and you’ve been the Defense Professor for the entire year.” There was a brief pause, in which they got close enough for him to read the badges that three of them- the black-haired girl, the redhead, and the brunette- were wearing. “With the Chamber of Secrets issues we’ve been having this year, we came down here with you to rescue Luna from the Basilisk back there… then, as we were approaching that gate back there, you just… fell over, unconscious.” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb.
“B-Basilisk?” he asked, his eyes wide- then he turned to look at the massive snake skin. “A basilisk?” he gasped.
“Yup,” the girl said- Hailey Potter, according to her nameplate, and the Hogwarts Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead- something he’d never even heard of- according to her badge. “We killed it.” She paused. “Turns out that if you combine three witches and wands into a single blasting spell, and have each experience a magic surge during the cast, the resultant blast is absolutely deafening. Turned the statue the Basilisk was still inside into a crater.”
He let out a breath of relief. “That’s good, I suppose,” he muttered. “So, ahh-!” He glanced in the direction of the vertical shaft. “How do you suppose we get out?”
“The elevator should still be over there,” Ginevra Weasley- the redhead- observed, gesturing vaguely past him.
Hailey nodded. “It should, though because this is Salazar Slitherin’s Chamber of Secrets, only a parselmouth can control it.”
“And…” He trailed off. “I’m guessing one of you is…?”
Hermione Granger, the brunette, nodded. “Three of us.”
“And something happened to, ahh, Miss Weasley?”
Hailey looked down at her red-haired companion, then sighed. “Voldemort did, yes.”
He gasped. “Y-You Know Who?”
“Voldemort,” Hailey repeated firmly. “It’s a word and I’m not afraid of it. Anyways, yes. One of his horcruxes, specifically- possessed Luna to drag her down, then projected himself out in a physical-ish form, and summoned the Basilisk. After we foiled that by aerosolizing it, we fought him directly, and killed him. Myrtle in particular had fun beating him up.”
He blinked, trying to ignore Myrtle’s evident pride. “She’s a ghost,” he observed bluntly.
“So she is,” Hailey nodded. “But apparently, unlike spells and fists, ghosts collide with Horcrux-projections- which allowed her to beat him up when the rest of us were basically defenseless against him.”
“... Huh,” he muttered, as Myrtle began to glow with pride. “So, ahh…” He paused. “What’s today’s date?”
A few eyebrows raised, but then Ginny sighed. “Yeah, memory loss would tend to do that, wouldn’t it?” she muttered.
“Month something, day something, year something,” Myrtle helpfully supplied.
Hermione snorted. “May 20, 2023,” she answered. “Next week is exam week, and the Hogwarts Express is scheduled for the 29th.”
“Luna!”
“Mom?” Luna asked, stepping forward to catch her mom almost the moment she’d opened the door to Professor McGonagall’s office, where Hermione had said everyone would be waiting after waving her wand a bit and not casting any magic. “You look like you should still be in the hospital!”
“She should be,” Madam Pomfrey agreed, standing next to the seat Pandora Lovegood had just vacated, and glancing sideways at the St. Mungo’s healer standing on the other side. “The news that her daughter had been killed, though…”
Luna winced. “Yeah,” she muttered, then paused. “I… I saw the message.” She helped guide her mother back to her seat, and hugged her there.
“Good evening,” Dumbledore nodded, as Hailey, Ginny, Hermione, Myrtle, and Lockhart all entered behind Luna.
“Killed the monster, killed Riddle,” Hailey answered calmly. “Turns out that combining three surge-powered blasting spells is enough to turn the entire statue that Basilisk was still inside into a crater in one shot.” She shrugged. “Then Riddle was there, in his weird, ethereal way, but while we couldn’t fight him, Myrtle could. So she beat him to a pulp… then, all of the sudden, a diary left on the Chamber floor burst into flames and he disappeared.”
Dumbledore nodded, steepling his fingers. “Would you mind elaborating?” he asked, then looked up at Lockhart.
Lockhart shrugged. “I seem to have passed out on the approach,” he told Professor Dumbledore, “and lost a year or so of my memories. I guess the Chamber is warded against adults or something…? Good thing they didn’t need me, I think.”
Rita Skeeter, in the corner by the door, looked up.
Hailey chuckled. “Yeah. But that really is kinda all that happened down there.”
“Could you elaborate?” Dumbledore repeated.
“Oh alright,” Hailey relented, making Ginny, Hermione, Myrtle, and even Rita giggle.