Ginny Weasley lay motionless on the bed in the Hospital Wing.
Madam Pomfrey had just examined her and confirmed that she was fine.
"Darling, I shall get you some Pepperup Potion. Drink it, get some sleep, and you shall be fine the next day," Madam Pomfrey said kindly, drawing the bed curtains for her.
She could hear Madam Pomfrey walk out of the Hospital Wing and say in a low voice, "She is fine... she just needs to rest... please do not disturb her, let her recover, poor girl, having to go through all this at such a young age..."
She could hear her parents and brothers breathing a sigh of relief. And Harry's voice too.
Then all was silent.
A little while later, there were rustling sounds coming from next door, as well as the sound of a girl yawning and stretching.
Ginny was startled. She had no idea there were other living patients in the Hospital Wing.
Peeking through the gap in the bed curtains, she saw Hermione Granger leap alive from the bed next to her, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling. Ginny hurriedly pulled the curtains down, making a slight noise.
Hermione turned her head—she caught a glimpse of Ginny's eyes through the curtains.
"Oh, Ginny, are you all right?" She hurried over and said excitedly from outside the bed curtains, "Thank goodness! They rescued you!"
"Hermione, I am so sorry." Ginny's voice came from behind the bed curtains, sounding very sad. "I am the one who started this. I released the Basilisk and opened the Chamber of Secrets."
"That is not your fault, it is all the diary's doing, is it not?" Hermione said crisply. "I know that was not your intention."
"No, that is not what he said..." Ginny cried. "He always said he was standing up for me... he said he was thinking what I was thinking, and worried about what I was worried about... Thinking about it, I do have some issues with those victims... maybe it is me—"
"Ginny!" Hermione pulled back the curtains and said angrily, "You cannot think like that! We all have opinions about certain people, but that does not mean we have to hurt them! You were crying for them all the time back then, and I think you did not want to hurt them! Do not be fooled by this sweet-talking diary!"
"Really?" Ginny said, her eyes brimming with tears. "Do you not think I am evil?"
"I do not think so." Hermione went over and hugged her tightly. "I think you are the kindest girl in the world. You wanted to throw the diary away, did you not? You wanted to struggle against it, to rebel against it. You saw Harry holding it and were afraid he was in danger, so you stole it, did you not?"
"Yes..." Ginny sobbed, "I wrote a lot of silly things in that diary... He took advantage of me, took advantage of the malice in my heart... I felt something was wrong... That day, I wanted to tell you... But I was afraid you would hate me... I was afraid I would embarrass Mum and Dad... I even Petrified you... Will you not hate me?"
"Oh, poor Ginny." Hermione stroked her hair. "We all know you did not mean it. Nobody will blame you. I will not hate you. Besides, I am standing right in front of you, perfectly fine."
Ginny stopped crying, her mouth agape, and suddenly she was startled.
"Oh, what happened? How come you are still all right?" She looked Hermione up and down, and asked in surprise, "He told me that when he possessed me, he Petrified you—because you were touching the truth."
"I was indeed Petrified, and it felt awful." Hermione's face showed a hint of lingering fear, but then a smile appeared on her face. "But someone saved me."
"Who?" Ginny asked curiously. "How did they save you? It is unbelievable."
"It is a secret," Hermione said mysteriously, suddenly experiencing a bit of the fun Draco's feigned mystery gave her. "You can guess."
"Oh, Hermione, how am I supposed to guess?" Ginny said, annoyed, and began to rack her brains, her sadness temporarily dispelled.
"Harry? My brother Ron? Fred? George?" Ginny was even more confused as Hermione shook her head repeatedly at her. "It probably was not Madam Pomfrey, otherwise the other students would have been saved too..."
"That is right... it is not her," Hermione said with a smile. "Guess again!"
Students attended Hogwarts' celebratory dinner in their pyjamas, an event that lasted all night.
Draco gazed at the boisterous crowd, lost in thought, oblivious to his past life. Once, everyone had celebrated just as wildly—the food, the cheers, the smiles—all exactly the same; the only difference was him.
His mindset was completely different from his previous life. In his previous life, he was busy being stubborn, complaining to the Slytherins about the loss of the Chamber of Secrets and the fact that everything had come to an end. Back then, he was a twelve-year-old boy who loved to stir up trouble. What rationality could you expect from a boy of that age?
At that time, he did not know that death was like a lamp going out, an irreversible and cruel fact; he thought death was just a curse, like those Petrified people who would eventually come back to life.
This greatly reduced his fear of death.
But now, Draco Malfoy, with the mental age of nineteen, finally understood the ruthlessness of death. He understood the fragility of life. Even if he kept a close eye on Hermione for an entire term, she could still be Petrified in the blink of an eye; life and death hung by a thread.
What if she had not looked in the mirror? Would she have become the next Myrtle?
He saw the real Chamber of Secrets in Slytherin, and he thought he would be overjoyed, with a kind of pilgrimage mentality; but what impressed him most was the wreckage in the passage leading to the Chamber, all of which were the remains of the dead.
Having witnessed the Basilisk's horror and the devastating effects it could cause, he was only thankful that no one had been injured or killed—if Lockhart's amnesia did not count.
As for Harry, Draco looked at the grinning, dark-haired boy in the crowd, watching his lightning bolt-shaped scar gleam in the candlelight. Harry had accomplished what no other twelve-year-old wizard could; he was a brave little wizard, and in some ways, incredibly powerful.
It took the Dark Lord five years to find the Chamber of Secrets. Harry found it in less than a year, making him the only wizard to have truly found its location at the age of twelve; he also pulled the Gryffindor sword from the Sorting Hat and killed a thousand-year-old Basilisk without losing an arm or a leg, a true miracle.
Whilst luck certainly played a part, such as the tears of Fawkes and the help of the Sorting Hat, not everyone could defeat the Basilisk and destroy the Horcruxes with such assistance.
Especially considering that Harry had no idea the diary was a Horcrux—it took a natural wizarding instinct to make the decision to stab the diary with a venomous fang, and Harry did it without hesitation, and succeeded.
This filled Draco with respect.
He did not understand why he had been blinded in his past life and had not discovered Harry's talent sooner; perhaps he had already discovered it, but was just too jealous, because such a person whom he admired had rejected his friendship, which made him indignant and unable to look at Harry's talent directly from then on.
That evening, Professor Dumbledore sat in the centre of the staff table, wearing his favourite purple robes, and announced several pieces of good news with great enthusiasm: Ginny Weasley had been rescued from the Chamber of Secrets by Harry and Ron, and for this, they received a Special Award for Services to the School, adding four hundred points to Gryffindor; the Chamber of Secrets would never be opened again, and the monster inside had been completely destroyed.
A cheer erupted at the tables in Gryffindor. The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students were also delighted.
Nobody wanted the school to close. However, perhaps because Harry had been rewarded and given Gryffindor a lot of extra points, Professor Snape looked grim, and the Slytherin students did not seem too happy either.
"Do not worry too much, we have been playing Quidditch quite well this year," said Slytherin team captain Marcus Flint with a grim face. "As long as we can beat Hufflepuff—"
Draco had no idea that Marcus naively hoped to use Quidditch scores to make up for the House's deficit against Gryffindor.
Then Professor McGonagall announced that this year's Quidditch Cup had been cancelled due to the Chamber of Secrets—Marcus was so shocked he turned to stone on the spot—and she also regretfully announced that this year's final examinations had been cancelled in order to entertain everyone.
At this, almost all the students in the Great Hall cheered. Pansy, diagonally opposite Draco, and Blaise, next to Draco, excitedly threw their pointed wizard hats into the air, just like the other students.
Goyle and Crabbe had incredulous, excited smiles on their faces. Draco was absolutely certain that their joy at having their examinations cancelled was genuine.
Marcus, standing nearby, angrily snapped the silver handle off his goblet. Goyle and Crabbe, who were about to raise their goblets in celebration, stopped and gave him a look of horror.
"Next year, we shall definitely play even better." After a pause, Draco said to Marcus, "We will take back everything that belongs to Slytherin, believe us."
Marcus nodded fiercely, grabbed a whole piece of chicken breast in front of him, and took a big bite. Draco understood that his anger was justified.
Marcus had little chance left. He would graduate next school year, and this year's Quidditch Cup was his last opportunity.
Unless Marcus repeated the year next year. In his previous life, he did indeed repeat the year. But this should not be something Draco said.
As for Draco himself, he no longer had the energy to be angry about "cancelling Quidditch".
It was definitely unfair to cancel the Quidditch Cup. It was obvious that before the four hundred points were added, Slytherin led Gryffindor by about one hundred points.
Just as Professor Snape, the Head of Slytherin, was known for his protectiveness of his own, each Head also had their favourite House. Dumbledore, from Gryffindor, was no exception.
He made it so obvious. He was clearly using this opportunity to give Gryffindor more points so that Gryffindor could win the House Cup.
Draco could not understand why no one else could see this. It was not that Gryffindor had to win, but that Harry had to win; Dumbledore was, in a way, encouraging and even inspiring Harry.
Dumbledore seemed to be creating an atmosphere for Harry.
In this atmosphere, Harry was a hero, revered and adored by everyone. For a boy who had been neglected since childhood, this was an irresistible honour and joy. Even Draco, a boy who grew up surrounded by admirers, could not resist such vanity; how much more so Harry, who desperately craved recognition and acceptance?
Draco was not sure if this atmosphere was healthy, but this time, he decided to let them off the hook.
Harry deserved this victory—he solved the problem of the diary for Draco. The Chamber of Secrets was successfully resolved, and the Malfoy family was temporarily safe; no one was seriously harmed.
This was already a stroke of luck.
He took a big gulp of hot pumpkin juice and looked towards the Gryffindor table. Ernie Macmillan, that gossipy Hufflepuff, was holding Harry and Ron's hands, pulling Harry aside and chattering away.
Hermione sat beside them. She had returned from the Hospital Wing. The little girl sat there peacefully, her pretty face regaining its healthy rosy hue.
Hermione immediately noticed the boy's gaze—in fact, she seemed to have been watching his every move—she raised her goblet of pumpkin juice and toasted him across the distance.
Draco's brows relaxed, and a faint smile finally appeared on his tightly pursed lips as he raised his goblet to the cheerful young girl.
The professors all looked very happy.
The news that a self-proclaimed Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, having lost his memory, would be unable to return to teach next term caused a burst of cheers from the staff table. Even Professor Snape's stern face softened slightly at this unexpected piece of good news.