Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

Harry called for Fawkes, and the answer came from above the pillars. Red wings crossed the dim light before the phoenix settled beside my shoulder, his golden claws clicking against the stone.

I tried to raise my injured arm towards him. It barely moved, so Harry drew the cloth away from the wound and held it where Fawkes could reach. The bird bent his head, and a clear drop fell onto my skin.

For an instant, nothing changed. Then the cold stopped spreading and began to retreat through my arm, leaving an ache sharp enough to make me nearly cry with relief. The wound’s edges drew together, and the stone beneath us became clear again, along with the stains on the book and the wet feathers at Fawkes’s neck.

I took a breath. Pain stabbed through my ribs, making the difference between those injuries and the one in my arm perfectly clear.

‘Still alive,’ I managed. ‘Definitely.’ Harry made a broken sound and sat back on his heels, looking as though he had been holding his own breath until I could take mine.

Ginny touched the place where the fang had gone in. The skin was whole beneath the blood, and her hand shook against it. ‘You were dying,’ she said.

I told her I had noticed. It was a poor answer when she began crying, but the next breath hurt too much for a better one, so I put my hand over hers. Fawkes pressed his head against my shoulder, and I thanked him as clearly as I could.

He lifted his head towards the causeway. Harry followed his gaze and said we needed to get me out, but I pointed to the things on the floor before he could try lifting me.

‘His book doesn’t stay here for someone else to find.’ That much I could say without moving. Harry looked at the diary, then nodded and reached for the cloth he had used on my arm.

I let the fang fall onto it. He folded the cloth around the point without touching it, wrapped the diary separately and put both into the inner pocket of his robe. Ginny found her wand, then retrieved Harry’s from beside the pillar where Riddle’s charm had thrown it.

She gave it back handle first. Harry thanked her, and she nodded without answering, her mouth trembling as she looked down at his hand.

I checked my pouch from the floor. The brush remained in its loop and the folded map was beneath it, but several charged strips had spilled through the torn fastening. Ginny gathered the dry ones she could reach, and I put them separately from the preparations still inside; the wet pieces stayed on the stone, where I could no longer trust them.

Harry picked up the Sorting Hat. The sword took longer: he approached the basilisk carefully, kept away from its remaining fang and gripped the hilt through a fold of his robe. When it finally came loose from the roof of the mouth, he stepped back so quickly that he nearly sat down.

‘Keep the edge away from everyone,’ I told him. He wrapped the blade in another fold of cloth with the grip exposed, still looking between it and the hat tucked under his arm. I would have found his expression funnier if I could have laughed without regretting it.

Fawkes came closer and took a fold of my robe in his beak. I began to tell him he could not carry me, then remembered Dumbledore explaining that he could. Harry and Ginny gathered the loosened robe beneath my back instead of pulling me up by the arms, and Fawkes caught the cloth in his talons.

Warm air brushed my face. The stone dropped a few inches beneath me, and I gripped the gathered fabric with both hands as the bird lifted me into a low, supported sling.

‘Slowly,’ I said. I had no idea whether a phoenix needed instructions from the person he was rescuing, but every movement tugged at my chest. Fawkes carried me over the causeway while Harry and Ginny followed on foot, and at least I no longer had to pretend I could stand.

At the door, I looked back once. The basilisk lay across the platform, parts of its body still hidden behind the pillars as the last fires dwindled. Harry had the diary. I rested my head against the cloth and let the chamber disappear behind us.

We heard Ron before we reached the fallen roof. Ginny ran the last few yards when he called her name, stopping at the gap to shout that she was there.

A bright light moved beyond the stones. Flitwick told her to stay where she was while he dealt with a loose slab above the opening, and the rubble began shifting slowly. A supporting shape hardened beneath the largest piece; only then did Ron squeeze through.

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He caught Ginny so tightly that she disappeared against his chest. He told her she was all right twice, and she held on, nodding into his robes. Then he looked over her shoulder and saw me suspended beneath Fawkes.

‘What happened to you?’ he demanded. I said I had landed badly, which was true until Harry gave me a look that made me add the basilisk.

Flitwick came through the opening. His expression changed at the blood on my sleeve, and with a quick movement of his wand he formed a firm support beneath the cloth, easing me onto a proper stretcher. Fawkes released the robe once my weight was settled.

The professor asked for the injuries first. Harry described the strike and the fang; I added the tears and the pain when I breathed. Flitwick checked my arm, then told me the rest could wait until Pomfrey had seen me.

Lockhart sat against the wall beyond the gap with his hands folded in his lap. He regarded the stretcher with polite interest and asked whether there had been an accident. Ron made a noise through his nose before explaining how the teachers had reached him.

‘Myrtle found Professor Flitwick. He heard me calling.’ Ron pointed towards the rubble. ‘I’d moved some small stones, but he said the big ones were holding the roof up.’

Flitwick confirmed that they were and told him he had been right to stop. Ron handed over Lockhart’s wand, keeping his own broken one tucked away. The professor took charge of the spare and directed Lockhart ahead of him, well clear of the stretcher.

Water was running through a crack high in the passage wall where it had not been before. Voices came from beyond it, and Fawkes flew towards the opening, returned to us and went that way again. Flitwick explained that Snape had found an old outfall from the grounds and the staff were opening a route from that side.

It would be easier than taking me up the chute. I did not need a detailed comparison to agree, and lay still while he guided the stretcher towards another teacher’s light. Harry and Ron helped Ginny over uneven ground beside a rope leading between wet rocks.

Cold air reached us before daylight. McGonagall stood outside the opening with Sprout and other members of staff, with the sky already darkening behind them. I had lost track of how much of the day we had spent under the school.

When Ginny emerged, McGonagall put one hand against the rock beside her. It was the first movement I had seen from her since the hospital which seemed to happen before she had decided how to respond.

She told Ginny her parents were waiting inside. Ginny lowered her head and began apologising, but McGonagall said they would talk when she was warm and safe. Then she came to the stretcher and listened while I told her the basilisk was dead and the diary destroyed.

Harry showed her the wrapped objects, keeping the fang covered. ‘Oswald did both,’ he said. McGonagall looked at me for a moment before telling him that Mr Mercer was now going to let somebody take care of him.

I agreed with more enthusiasm than she seemed to expect. Inside the castle, Mrs Weasley reached Ginny before anyone finished explaining, and Mr Weasley put an arm around both of them. Ron stood close enough for his father to draw him in as well.

Pomfrey intercepted the stretcher before I could see more. She sent us straight through, called Harry to accompany her and told Flitwick she would need an account of Lockhart’s injury once she had finished with me.

The ward still smelled faintly of smoke beneath the sharp scent of potions, though the beds had been returned to clean rows. Hermione lay behind a screen, unchanged. I watched her until the stretcher turned and I could no longer see her face.

Pomfrey began with my injuries instead of the adventure. Two ribs were broken, she told me, with a matter-of-fact delivery that almost made me disappointed in them for causing so much trouble. A potion eased the pain enough to let me breathe comfortably, but she warned that this did not give me permission to get out of bed.

She examined the healed place on my left arm more than once. Then she cleaned and dressed my right hand again, asked Harry exactly when I had become drowsy and made him describe what Fawkes had done. I would be staying where she could watch me, which was an arrangement I accepted without offering any improvements.

McGonagall took the sword, hat, diary and wrapped fang to a cleared table. She kept other hands away while Flitwick examined the book. Ginny had her wand back, and Harry put his beside my bed only after Pomfrey told him to sit down.

I asked about Hermione’s bag. Pomfrey said the fire had not reached its cupboard and showed me the beaded fastening and the two undisturbed parcels before locking it away again.

I told her where the blood and horn had come from: the wounded unicorn, the encounter in the Forest and the promise I had made. I gave enough of it to make clear that we had neither killed the creature nor used what it had given me. Her face grew more serious while I spoke.

‘Keep them sealed,’ she said. ‘Being given something dangerous doesn’t make experimenting with it harmless.’ I told her we had not, and she said we could discuss proper storage when I was better.

She sent a message to Emma as well. I dictated a few lines to accompany it, saying I was awake, the worst had passed and I would write again in the morning. I tried leaving out the word injured. Pomfrey kept it in.

By the time Dumbledore arrived, Harry had been examined, Ginny was with her parents in the next room and Ron had returned to sit at the foot of my bed. The Headmaster looked tired, with mud darkening the hem of his robes.

‘The governors reversed their decision,’ he told us. ‘Minerva’s messages reached me while we were arranging my return.’ He drew a chair beside the bed, and Fawkes settled on its back, looking considerably more composed than the people around him.

‘There is a great deal to discuss,’ Dumbledore said. ‘But the first thing is simple. You brought Ginny back. Thank you.’