Hi everyone! Thanks for waiting and I really hope you like the chapter! Please review! Thanks again! -Kelly
CHAPTER 9
THE LATE NIGHT VISITOR
Weeks after the Halloween incident, rumours about the Chamber had reached a level so great that Professor McGonagall officially said that no faculty member believes the Chamber of Secrets is the cause of Osric's condition, and that they should all stop assuming something like that happens every time something goes wrong, though Rose doubted Hogwarts would ever take that advice. She had recently taken to spending more time in the library, if only to avoid Scorpius and Emma, who seemed to have an uncanny ability to be in every stairwell Rose wanted to use. The library was not, however, a good place to avoid Aidan, and if Rose had to endure another awkward moment of studying with him at the next table she thought she might die. Rose was trying to research what was happening to the ghosts, but she didn't exactly know where to start. She had been reading books on spirits in general during her free time. It wasn't as if she had much that was better to do; Al had begun shifting towards spending more time with Scorpius and less time with her. Rose told herself she didn't care, but that wasn't entirely true. She had other friends, true, but she didn't exactly want to talk to Emma either and Min and Roxanne didn't see much of a problem with the whole Scorpius situation. She found herself talking much more to James than anyone else, who was becoming almost as annoying as Tom had been when it came to Quidditch. Toward the end of November, it was announced that there would be a dance to celebrate the end of the fall term the night before the Christmas break began, and Rose felt terrible about the whole thing. She knew it would be awkward to see Aidan there and there wouldn't be any avoiding going alone this time. The drama was abounding about who had asked whom and Rose was so sick of it that she had gone up to the library immediately after dinner one night. It wasn't long before James came running in with his school bag and slammed it down onto the table. Rose looked at him in alarm.
"Are you okay?"
"We're playing Hufflepuff this weekend, I needed to find you," James said, pulling out a roll of parchment from his bag. Rose blinked.
"I didn't even know you know where the library was."
James rolled his eyes and said, "I got 6 Owls, Rosie, and honestly, who cares about Astronomy? Anyway, you've got to help me plan this out. A few of the players are in your year, do you know anything about Dominic Allan and Adam Finch-Fletchley?"
"Er, not really, I mean I have Muggle Studies with Adam and Runes with Dominic but we don't really talk," Rose shrugged. James sighed.
"Well, they're two of the best Chasers Hufflepuff's had in years. Them and the new recruit, some third year I'd never even heard of. Grayson Wallace? Hannah won't shut up about them, it's quite annoying." Rose rolled her eyes, thinking it couldn't possibly be too annoying considering the rumours she'd been hearing about him and the Hufflepuff captain. "Anyway, you should try to get to know them, maybe they'll let something slip."
"I don't know, James, I don't really want to spy on anyone, and I'm already pretty busy," she complained, and James looked at the book in front of her.
"What are you reading, anyway? You can't possibly have this much homework this early on." He took the book and read off the cover. "Spirits of Scotland. What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to figure out what attacked Osric," Rose said. "I believe McGonagall, it can't be the Chamber."
"Well, I agree with you, but are you really going to find anything in some outdated book that can't possibly even mention the Battle of Hogwarts ghosts?"
"I don't know where else to start, so…" Rose sighed. "I'm not making very much progress. Naturally, things that can kill people who are already dead aren't exactly common knowledge."
"D'you think you could get Neville to give you a Restricted section pass?" James asked.
"I don't know. Maybe. But I'm not sure I want any faculty to know I'm still looking into this. They seemed pretty determined to keep it away from the students."
"Yeah. I don't know." After a moment or so, James asked, "So you're sure you've never heard either of them talking about strategy?" The rest of the conversation progressed in this way and Rose did her best to field his questions without encouraging him to continue. Finally, she was able to say, "It's 7:30, I have to be there for study hall."
"Oh, damn, me too," James muttered. "It's not like anyone wants help from me."
"You just said you had 6 OWLs," Rose reminded him and he rolled his eyes.
"I test well. Homework doesn't work with me."
"Sure." Arya was waiting for Rose in the Great Hall when they arrived and they spent most of study hall practicing Switching Spells and talking about the Army.
The next morning, Rose walked into Muggle Studies and found the blackboard had written on it, FREE DISCUSSION. She sat down and Al entered a few moments later, confused. "What's going on?" Rose shrugged and Professor Creevey entered not long after that.
"Settle down everyone!" she called out, and most of the students quickly directed their attention to her, as curious as Rose was. "The headmistress and I agree that it is an important part of a class such as this to be able to share and discuss your own ideas with your peers. So in the spirit of this, we'll be having a free discussion class for you all to do just that. Spread out, I don't want anyone talking to their best friend. Talk to someone different." Rose looked at Al, a little put out, and became even more annoyed when she saw him making a similar face at Scorpius. Since when were they best friends? "All right. I'm not lecturing today. Discuss what we've talked about. Don't start talking about Quidditch or anything." She smiled and sat down at her desk, taking out a book. Rose was uncomfortable as she looked around the room, realizing how few of the other students she actually knew. It wasn't a large class by any means, about a dozen students, and most of the students had paired off when a tall Hufflepuff boy approached her and she smiled awkwardly.
"Er, hi," she said, and he smiled.
"Rose Weasley," he said, "it's a pleasure. Dominic Allan."
"I know," she lied, and gestured for him to sit in the desk in front of her. He sat backwards on the chair to face her and leaned over the back to rest his arms on her desk. "So, we're supposed to talk about history of Muggle relations with wizards, I suppose, based on this week's lessons."
"Right," he said. "I'm not going to be much help, I don't think. Haven't really paid much attention, to be honest."
"Well, um, the general idea was that Muggles were pretty much perfectly fine interacting with wizards until religious 'reawakenings' started up in Europe, which basically made everything go pretty badly for a while. That's where the Statute of Secrecy eventually came from—"
"You know all about that," Dominic interjected.
"Er, yes," Rose said nervously. Dominic grinned and Rose felt herself blush. What the hell? she thought. She couldn't deny that he was handsome, that much was true. "Um, but I don't know, what do you think about that?"
"I think if it worked before I don't see why it couldn't again," Dominic said. "Especially with the decline of religious fanatics in the last century or so."
"Yes, that's what I think," Rose said. "I mean, you probably know that."
"Yeah," he said. "I've read your articles this whole time. They're brilliant, seriously."
"Thank you," Rose said, smiling a little, and Dominic shrugged.
"My parents are pretty neutral in this whole thing. My dad works for the Ministry, but he's not really… super loyal, I don't know. And my mum's an artist. She's a witch but still, not really that involved in the whole world of politics."
"Right," Rose said.
"Your mum definitely is, though, I'm sure," he said. "What does she think?"
"She supports the Union," Rose said. "But not too strongly. A big part of her job is staying neutral, so…"
"Yep. Sorry if this is weird. I know all about you," Dominic laughed. "You're kind of famous in your own right by now. And being their daughter probably adds to that."
"I'm sort of used to it, my baby picture was in Witch Weekly," Rose said, and realized approximately one second later that that was an odd thing to say to a stranger. Dominic laughed, though.
"I guess. You're like a real person though. It's nice. Sometimes people like that have got big heads and are all snobby. Aidan's a lucky guy."
Rose blushed a little and said, "Oh, er, we broke up."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Dominic said quickly, and Rose shook her head.
"It's fine, it was a month ago. Don't worry about it. But anyway, thanks," Rose said. "I can think of a couple of my cousins where that isn't true." She knew Dominic thought of James when she said that, and even though she knew he really was probably one of the most insecure, she decided to let him keep his image and moved on. "Anyway, anything else you want to talk about?"
Dominic hesitated a little before he asked, "You're playing in the match this Saturday, aren't you?"
"I sort of meant about Muggle Studies," Rose said, though she was smiling.
"Well, you did say anything," Dominic said, smiling again. "Can I take you to the party when Hufflepuff wins?"
"Oh, confident much?" Rose said, raising an eyebrow, her stomach doing somersaults. "Maybe. I don't know yet. I might be a sore loser."
"That doesn't seem like you," he said. "But that's okay. How about you just let me take you to the Christmas dance and we'll call it even."
Rose felt herself blush again and said, "…Okay."
"Brilliant," Dominic said, then looked around a little. "I think most people are moving on to a different partner. As much as I'd like to keep talking, I don't want to monopolize your time. I'll see you on Saturday."
"Okay, sure," Rose said, smiling, and when Dominic walked away, she stayed seated, grinning. Her grin faded quickly when Scorpius sat down in his place. "Malfoy. We're supposed to find strangers."
"You treat me like one," Scorpius said, shrugging, and leaned back in the chair, looking far too comfortable for Rose's liking. "You didn't seem like strangers with Allan over there."
"He's my date to the Christmas dance," Rose said quickly and Scorpius raised an eyebrow.
"Wow."
"What?" Rose asked indignantly.
"Nothing, just thought you didn't go for guys like that."
"What do you mean?"
Scorpius rolled his eyes. "He's a dumb jock, Weasley, and he only wants—"
"He's not dumb."
"Whatever. Girls go with him for about a week. He gets what he wants and moves on."
"And I'm sure you're going at Emma in every corridor in the school because of her beautiful personality," Rose said.
"At least my date can hold a conversation," he replied.
"How would you know? I don't see you talking," she shot back, and he rolled his eyes.
"Jealousy isn't becoming."
"You think I'm bloody jealous of her?"
"You wouldn't care so much if you weren't," he said, grinning, and she kicked the legs of the chair that was already leaning back quite precariously so that Scorpius had to do a quick spell to keep from falling backwards to the floor. His smile was gone.
"Do you want to talk about Muggle Studies or do you want to find another partner?" Rose asked with gritted teeth, and he stood up and stalked away. Rose, fuming, moved on to a different table and talked to a girl from Ravenclaw until the class was finally over. She came into the common room that night and saw the books from the previous night in her trunk. She rifled through them until she reached one towards the bottom that she had meant to read. Instead, as she picked up she caught sight of the cover of a book she had brought from home, her new copy of Hogwarts, a History: Revised Edition. She opened it, realizing that she may be able to find something more specific to Hogwarts within its pages, and flipped to the table of contents where she found a section titled Creatures and Spirits of Hogwarts Castle. The storm outside continued, only becoming worse as she read through the spirits section of the book without finding much other than the basilisk involving ghosts having been attacked. It was when she flipped back to the index of Creatures that lightning struck worryingly close to their window and she nearly dropped the book in surprise.
"Nasty out there, isn't it?" Min commented from her bed. "I reckon it's hardly stopped raining since September. Odd, isn't it?"
Alana shrugged and said, "Weather's weird here."
"Not this weird." Min shrugged. "I'm going to get ready to go to bed. Need the shower, Rose?"
"I already went, you go," Rose said, and Min went into the bathroom off their room as Rose changed into her pajamas. The last two of the girls in their room entered soon after and as the lights slowly went out, Rose settled down to sleep, leaving the book open on the night table. She closed her curtains and soon fell asleep.
Later, in the dead of night, Rose was startled awake, staring at the ceiling, and discovered she couldn't move a muscle apart from her eyes. She felt an ominous feeling from the foot of the bed and glanced down to see the outline of a dark, shadowy figure sitting at the bottom of the bed. Rose tried as hard as she could to sit up, scream, reach for her wand, anything, but she couldn't move at all. She began to panic and it felt like years before she finally jerked into action, turning the lamp on and fumbling for her wand. She looked at the end of the bed again but saw nothing. She looked around frantically, confused, and Alana's curtains flew open after a few seconds. "Rose, are you okay?"
"I… I'm okay, I just… I guess I had a nightmare," she said, trying to breathe normally, and Alana looked sympathetic.
"Er… okay. Are you sure you're fine?"
"Yeah, go back to sleep, it's fine."
"Okay…" Alana closed her curtains again and Rose set her wand down shakily. She went to turn the lamp off and froze again when she saw Hogwarts, a History: Revised Edition was closed on the night table. Along the front cover a long scratch that definitely had not been there earlier ran down through the title down to the edge of the book. Rose quickly shut the light off and closed her curtains, suddenly very sure that it hadn't been a dream. She struggled to fall asleep again for the rest of the night, but she couldn't stop thinking about what could have been there at the end of her bed. Whatever it was, she sensed it didn't like her looking in the book very much.
