Following the second attack on a student, things were changed dramatically at Hogwarts. The morning after Colin was found, Dumbledore addressed the entire school and tried to allay people's worries. As part of the attempt to make students feel safer a strict curfew was put in place and Professors were to escort their students to their next classes. Of course the new rules led to longer breaks between lessons, but Dumbledore was adamant the new rules were going to be kept in place.
The new rules also made it difficult for Hermione and Harry to meet up with Draco. Their free time was sorely lacking now, and even when they were in the library there was always a Professor present with Madam Pince. The only time they did manage to at least speak was when Severus was the Professor in the library. In that time, they learnt that Colin had been found with his camera and Dumbledore had hoped that he'd pictured his attacker. Unfortunately for Dumbledore, the film had exploded when he'd opened the camera. As for Lockhart, he wasn't in any trouble for not doing his patrols as he hadn't actually confessed his laxity to the headmaster. Dumbledore was under the impression that Lockhart had been patrolling the school and it was just unfortunate he'd seen nothing.
After almost two weeks following the new school rules, tensions were still as high as ever. A portion of the student body were seriously worried for their safety, and nothing the Professors could say eased their worries any. If anything the extra precautions Dumbledore had put in place only made the students more wary. It would appear they couldn't even roam the corridors without being in danger, and naturally people were nervous.
In one Defence against the Dark Arts lesson, Dean voiced his concerns to Lockhart. As the Defence Professor, Lockhart was the natural person for the students to turn to. Of course, Hermione, Harry and Draco didn't think he'd be able to help a jot, but it would be interesting to see what he would come up with.
"Please sir," Dean begged. "Just teach us something we can use to protect ourselves from a mystery attacker."
"I know how to avoid being attacked," Theo boasted loudly.
"Ah Mr Nott, would you like to share your pearls of wisdom," Lockhart urged, pleased to have the limelight on someone other than himself.
"I avoid being attacked by not being a muggleborn," Theo answered with a smirk. "Everyone knows the creature in the chamber is targeting muggleborns. They're the only ones in danger. The rest of us don't need protection."
"Well not all of us are pureblood brats," Dean shot back at Theo. "Some of us have no control over who our parents are."
"Muggleborns or not, shouldn't we all be able to protect ourselves?" Seamus questioned. "So far, we haven't really learnt any practical defence magic."
"Finnegan has a point," Draco said with a shrug. "In fact, we haven't learnt anything in this lesson."
"Then maybe you are not paying attention, Mr Malfoy," Lockhart snapped. "I'm sure the rest of the class will agree they've all learnt something this year."
Much to Lockhart's dismay, the majority of the class voiced the opinion that they'd learnt nothing. The only ones not complaining were the girls who gazed dreamily at the Defence Professor.
"Partner up and we'll run through some simple disarming tactics," Lockhart muttered.
Hermione turned to partner up with Harry, but found that Ron had already grabbed him. Shooting daggers at the back of Ron's head, Hermione turned to her other side and partnered up with Neville. At the back of the room, Draco had partnered up with Blaise, while Theo was with Daphne.
"Now we begin," Lockhart announced. "Everyone get out their wands."
The entire class followed Lockhart's instructions and pulled out their wands. Turning back to the Defence Professor, they watched as he swirled his wand around in a ludicrous fashion as he sprouted some daft incantation. After demonstrating his technique, he instructed the students to try it one half of their pair at a time. Obviously, the spell failed and no-one disarmed their opponent using Lockhart's spell.
"Keep trying, these things take time," Lockhart urged.
"This is ridiculous," Draco complained loudly, before turning to Blaise and giving him a wicked smirk. "Expelliarmus!"
Blaise's wand flew clean out of his hand, and landed in the outstretched hand of his best friend. The action had caught the attention of the rest of the class, and they all applauded. Even the Gryffindors had to admit the result was more impressive than anything Lockhart had come up with.
"Expelliarmus can work," Lockhart said begrudgingly. "But it does lack flair. If you persevere you'll find my spell works just as well."
"I'm trying it Draco's way," Theo announced. Turning to Daphne, he promptly disarmed her using the spell Draco had used.
Within minutes cries of Expelliarmus could be heard around the classroom as everyone tried using the preferred method of disarming an opponent. By the end of the lesson, everyone had managed to disarm their opponent at least once. Some people like Draco, Hermione and Harry had managed it on their first attempt, but others like Neville, Crabbe and Goyle had to work a bit harder. But even they got it in the end, and everyone left the classroom feeling proud of themselves.
"Can you believe Malfoy's a better teacher than Lockhart," Harry said with a laugh as he headed to the Great Hall for lunch with Hermione and Ron.
"Anyone's a better teacher than Lockhart," Hermione retorted. "The man's an imbecile."
"And Malfoy didn't really do much," Ron added. "He only knew one basic spell."
"Did you know the spell?" Hermione asked pointedly. She'd known the correct spell to use to disarm someone, as had Harry, but she wasn't sure if Ron would have known. Even though Expelliarmus was a basic spell, it hadn't been in any of their books so far and Ron wasn't the type to look to the future to see what they were going to be learning in other years.
"Not exactly," Ron admitted, turning slightly red around the ears. "I knew Lockhart was just being an idiot, but I couldn't remember the actual spell."
"I don't suppose it matters who mentioned the spell," Harry said, eager to keep the peace as he wasn't in the mood to referee a slanging match between Hermione and Ron. "The important thing is we now know something new. At least we can disarm someone threatening us."
"Yeah, not that's it's going to do much good against the creature from the chamber," Hermione retorted.
"Why not?" Ron asked with a frown.
"The clue is in the word creature," Hermione replied. "Creatures don't use wands."
Leaving Ron to digest that what he'd just learnt wouldn't save him from the creature from the Chamber, Hermione settled down to enjoy her lunch.
C.O.T.D.
A few weeks later, Dumbledore relaxed a few of the new rules. There was no longer a Professor in the library when the students were using it, and they no longer had to walk each of their classes to their next lesson. However, curfew was still a lot earlier than usual, meaning Harry, Hermione and Draco still only had a limited time they could meet.
Eager to progress their plan, the trio had arranged to try and meet up in their secret room via a hurried conversation between Hermione and Draco in the potions cupboard. On the evening in question, Draco made an excuse to his friends after dinner and headed to the library. Entering the library, he frowned when he spotted Harry sitting at a table, writing in his grandfather's diary. Draco's confusion at seeing Harry sitting in the main part of the library rather than the secret room, was explained when he ventured further into the room and spotted the Weasley girl sitting at the next desk, her attention firmly on Harry.
"Poor sod," Draco muttered as he slunk into the bookshelves.
Checking there was no-one watching him, Draco made his way to the entrance to the secret room. Sliding inside the room, he wasn't surprised to find Hermione already in residence. His friend was sitting with her homework in front of her, and when she looked up, she offered him a warm smile.
"I don't suppose you've seen Harry, have you?" She asked as Draco settled down beside her. "I thought he was right behind me, but I haven't seen him."
"He's in the main body of the library," Draco answered. "But I don't think he can get away. The little She-Weasel has her greedy eyes all over him. It looks like poor Harry has earned himself a stalker."
"She's worse than Ron," Hermione said with a frustrated sigh. "Can you believe she's got such a crush on Harry at eleven years old? Although from what Ron said, her obsession started last year."
"Tart," Draco hissed, causing Hermione to laugh at him. "But seriously, is she going to cause problems for us? Bloody Weasley's bad enough, now Harry has his sister to contend with."
"I don't know, she could prove problematic in the future," Hermione replied. "I'm just hoping she's going to forget about Harry in time."
"How much time?" Draco questioned. "If she's this obsessed at eleven, she might only get worse. Has Harry been encouraging her?"
"Of course he hasn't, he can't stand her," Hermione replied. "She's just too thick-headed to get the message."
"Ah, typical Weasley then," Draco said with a smirk.
"Since Harry's stuck outside, we should get on with planning our next move," Hermione said. "Although, it is our turn to open the chamber. Do you have any ideas when we can do it?"
"Actually, I do," Draco replied. "Both attacks have happened on an evening, so the Professors are doing their extra patrols at that time. I say we strike on a morning. We could get up early and find a victim before breakfast."
"That's genius," Hermione said with a grin. "There's always students up early. We're bound to catch one of them."
"Exactly," Draco replied. "So when do you want to strike?"
"How about Friday?" Hermione suggested.
"Friday it is then," Draco said.
With a day to strike settled, the pair made a few more arrangements before settling down to chat for a while before they had to part ways and head back to their respective house dorms.
C.O.T.D.
On Friday morning, Draco and Hermione met up half an hour before breakfast in an alcove near to the girls' bathroom. After checking the coast was clear, the pair used the incense burner to safely enter the bathroom. Like the previous two outings, they quickly opened the chamber and sent the basilisk off to have some fun. Ten minutes later, the basilisk returned and once it was back down in the chamber, Hermione shut the chamber once again.
"Let the fun begin," She said, giving Draco a grin before they exited the bathroom.
With each of them dying to see who the next victim was, they parted ways and joined their friends for breakfast. Luckily neither set of friends asked questions about why Draco and Hermione were up as early as they were all used to it. It may have been the first time the pair had met up to cause trouble, but it wasn't the first time they'd met up before breakfast.
"How did it go?" Harry hissed to Hermione.
"Perfect," Hermione replied with a smile. "Let's just wait for the fun to begin."
They didn't have to wait very long, before a loud, high pitched scream was heard coming from nearby. Immediately everyone was on their feet, but unfortunately, Dumbledore charmed the doors shut before anyone was able to leave.
"No-one is to leave the Great Hall," He declared as he made his way to the doors with the other Professors.
Opening the doors, Dumbledore slipped out with a few Professors, while the others remained behind in the Great Hall. Since leaving wasn't an option, everyone returned to their seats to finish their breakfast.
"What do you think it is?" Neville asked, nervously eyeing the door. "Another victim?"
"Most likely," Ron replied with a shrug. "What else is there to be screaming about?"
"This might be the answer," Harry said, gesturing to where the door was opening.
Instead of Dumbledore and the Professors, it was a couple of second year Hufflepuffs, Zacharias Smith and Hannah Abbott, that entered the room. Both Zacharias and Hannah looked deathly pale as they quietly spoke to the Professors at the door before joining their friends at the Hufflepuff table.
Within five minutes of Zacharias and Hannah arriving, word had spread about what had happened. The pair had found Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick petrified just outside of the library.
"Nick was also petrified?" Ron questioned with a frown. "What can petrify a ghost?"
"I don't know, but it can't be good," Hermione said ominously. "And have you noticed, this attack is much nearer to the second one. This is escalating quickly."
"I wonder what the next step will be," Dean said with a shiver.
"Death," Theo contributed from right behind them at the Slytherin table. "So far everyone has been lucky they're only petrified, but surely the next step is death. After all, that's what the creatures there to do. Get rid of the mudbloods."
"Bugger off Nott," Harry snapped, just as the doors to the Great Hall opened once again and a serious looking Dumbledore entered the room.
"I regret to inform you all, we have another victim," Dumbledore announced. "I want you all to return to your house dormitories, classes are cancelled for the day. No-one is to leave their dorms without express permission of their head of house."
"This sounds serious," Harry muttered as they got up and joined the crush leaving the Great Hall. "Do you think they're going to shut the school?"
"I don't know," Hermione replied, wishing she could talk to her brother.
She really wanted an inside track on what was happening, but it didn't look like she was going to get one today. Instead, she had to make do with returning to Gryffindor Tower and hoping that the adults had the situation in hand. Hopefully if things were so serious, Severus would get in touch with Lucius and he would infiltrate his plan with Hagrid. Although personally, Hermione was hoping they wouldn't have to use that card just yet. She was hoping for more fun with the chamber before they had to sacrifice Hagrid and shut the fun down completely.