"You have five minutes left. Make it count, if you please, I, probably like you, do not enjoy sitting around this cold and," Professor McGonagall took a pause as she walked around the classroom and prodded a dark patch on the wall whilst making a disgusted face, "damp classroom."
Crabbe Goyle put down his chewed pencil and looked up to the professor who was now sitting at a desk and furiously marking essays, mouthing sharp insults at the parchment in front on her. He loosened his collar and stood up, shaking and sweating nervously.
He pushed his chair out to reveal a scraping sound that made the other students jolt and release several worried gasps and then shuffled up face down to the desk.
"Finished already, Mr Goyle." Professor McGonagall said with a tone of sarcastic surprise in her voice yet not looking up to her pupil, raising an eyebrow. She rapidly scrawled three ticks onto a page of neat handwriting and looked up to him.
"Very well." She took the test from his quivering hand and glanced at it. "Looks like a pass. Goodnight, Mr. Goyle."
She looked back down to the essays as he made long and fast strides to the exit, desperate to leave the room.
As he finally turned the corner out of the classroom and shut the heavy door behind him he leaned against the cold, dark wood and sank down onto the floor, breathing heavily and shutting his eyes for a moment. He finally passed that test.
After finding his breath and beginning to feel enough strength through the giddiness to walk back to his common room he opened his eyes to see something above him.
A huge, black mass of hair and legs crawled along the ceiling and smaller, yet great beasts followed what appeared to be their master.
For what seemed like years, despite only being a few moments, he sat there, eyes wide open and his heart beating. He didn't take his eyes off of that spot on the ceiling, even though Aragog had long moved down the corridor and approached two giggling girls.
"Thirty seconds left. Wake up, Mr. Jefferson!" Professor McGonagall shouted, slapping her hand onto his desk as he shook himself awake. She tutted and continued to move along the row. She has finished criticising various third year essays and had now moved onto pacing between the rows in the final moments of the retests.
"Make sure your name is on your te-"
"PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL!"
The professor turned around in shock to hear such a scream.
"If anybody moves they will be hunted down and hung by body parts of their choice." She said firmly as she strode down the row of desks and into the corridor, here cloak billowing behind her.
She continued past Goyle and encountered both the girls who were standing upright, their wands poised and ready for battle.
"What on earth is going on here?" She shouted, anger rising in her eyes and voice.
"There was this spider! There was a big scary thing with eyes and legs and it started being, like, speicist and stuff, and it said someone was gonna die and it flipping kicked the door in!" Lavender shrieked, pointing at the large gap where a door had once stood and attempting to mimic a spider type creature.
The Professor, upon hearing Lavender's speech and amusedly watching her violent movements of limbs to reflect Aragog's own movement, putting a comforting hand upon Parvati's shoulder and nodded her head in understanding, hiding the fear and knowledge of what was about to come
"Get insid-"
"But Miss!"
"Get inside a classroom and lock the door. Do not come out until I come and get you. Which way did Aragog go?" She said calmly and looking deep into Lavender's eyes, simultaneously taking off and pulling her cloak around Parvati who was still shaking in terror.
"Aragog? It has a name?"
"Lavender." The Professor said sharply.
"It was going to the courtyard by the looks of things. Aragog, or whatever it was called. There were loads of babies behind it and…"
The professor listened intently and pinned her hair back, handing her earrings over to Parvati who was beginning to get her breaths back.
"And it what?" She questioned, urgency within her tone of voice taking out her wand and blowing the tip of it.
"It said it was going to kill someone." Lavender finished. She raised her hand to her faces as tears leaked out of her eyes. Professor McGonagall looked up towards her pupil startled when hearing the word 'kill'.
She then proceeded to roll up her sleeves and hugged Lavender, stroking her hair and looking into her eyes.
She smiled and took a deep breath.
"Not on my watch. Now go." She pushed the two girls back to her classroom form which anxious students now poked out their heads.
As the two girls walked arm in arm down the corridor, their wands still ready for action, the smile of the Professor left. McGonagall turned to face the path the spider had apparently taken and walked. And walked. And walked.
She followed the corridors, using various shreds of spider web as her guide until she finally reached the courtyards, confirming Lavender's prediction.
She saw two figures standing close together in the centre of the courtyard and slowly she approached. As she came closer she saw a giant black mass behind them. She raised her wand and continued, moving closer and closer.
But there weren't just three, well, beings there, as such. The ghosts that had once disappeared were standing around and watching the scene. Professor McGonagall then realised that these two living people were none other than Mr. Riddle and Harry Potter.
But they weren't standing together.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, was struggling in the grasp of the teacher. The ghosts watched this moment in silence and in stunned awe, Aragog keeping still and just staring at every flinch and subtle movement.
"No! Please, Tom!" McGonagall ran closer to the pair and held up her wand ready to release a spell to separate the two.
He turned to face her and revealed a knife in his hand that was simply grazing Harry's neck who by this point was taking frequent attempts to gasp for air and was whispering strangled 'no's, threatening to take his life.
"It has to be done."
He slit Harry's throat and threw him to the ground.
Harry's breathing began to fail, his blood seeping into the ground.
The ghosts just hovered there, watching the limp body lie there on the ground.
Mr. Riddle threw himself to the ground and reeled as if in pain, yelling and squirming.
His fit of apparent madness ceased several moments later as Nagini slithered her way to her master and wound herself around his neck.
He took laboured, deep breaths and looked up to McGonagall.
She herself was crouched over the body of her student, trying to mop up Harry's wounds and determinedly feel for a heartbeat.
But there was none.
The Boy Who Lived was indeed now dead.
