Gryffindor's next Quidditch match would be against Hufflepuff. Wood was insisting on team practices every night after dinner, so Rose rarely saw Fred and George, who had barely enough time to do their homework each day. Their moods, however, were slowly rising, as the practices were slowly getting drier. They were excited and knew that Saturday would be a good day.

After the last practice before the game, Rose watched as Harry went up to his room. She knew something was going on when he came back down not much later and started whispering frantically to Hermione and Ron. She sighed but tried to pay attention to the twins.

"Now, Rose, we know that you're really not the biggest Quidditch fan," Fred started.

"And we also know that you are our biggest fan," commented George.

"So, we were wondering,"

"If you were going to go to Quidditch tomorrow!" they said together.

Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head as she kept working on some homework that wasn't due until Thursday, "Yeah, I'll be going. Like always. Really, you're all obsessed."

The twins hugged her, one on each side, and kissed her cheeks, making her face flame bright red.

"Stop it, guys!" she said as she pushed them off of her, her stomach annoyingly fluttering again.

"Awwww, but Rose," they said, drawing her name out. "We just wanted to thank you!"

"Then thank everyone who goes the same way," she huffed, trying to refocus on her work.

The twins shared a look and made an equally disgusted face at the thought of kissing everyone's cheeks, "Let's not and say we did," George muttered.

"Agreed," Fred said.

Rose just shook her head and worked, occasionally telling them different spells she had been finding in the library that may help them with their map.

They woke the next day to brilliant sunshine and a light refreshing breeze.

"Perfect Quidditch conditions!" said Wood enthusiastically at the Gryffindor table, loading the team's plates with scrambled eggs with Rose's assistance. "Harry, buck up there, you need a decent breakfast."

Rose made sure Harry, George, and Fred ate, letting Lee Jordan just nibble on some toast, knowing that he wasn't going to want to eat as he had to do commentary today.

As the Golden Trio left the Great Hall to collect Harry's Quidditch things, Rose heard the disembodied voice again-

"Kill this time… let me rip… tear…"

She almost shouted aloud and stood suddenly, drawing the attention of Fred, George, and Draco.

She noticed their worried faces but she just ran out of the hall, not knowing that she had just caused a confrontation between her three worried friends, who had each noticed each other looking.

Rose then realized something. The voice wasn't talking anymore, there was silence. She found Ron, and followed him to the Quidditch match, not realizing that something much bigger would be going on in the castle.

"Where's Hermione?" Rose asked Ron finally.

"Went to the library. Recon's she knows something 'bout this voice," Ron dropped his voice low when talking about the voice.

Rose frowned but nodded, settling into her seat. The teams walked onto the field to tumultuous applause. Oliver Wood took off for a warm-up flight around the goal posts; Madam Hooch released the balls. The Hufflepuffs, who played in canary yellow, were standing in a huddle, having a last-minute discussion of tactics. Suddenly Professor McGonagall came half marching, half running across the pitch, carrying an enormous purple megaphone.

Rose's heart dropped like a stone, "No," she gasped as she grabbed onto Ron's arm.

"This match has been canceled," Professor McGonagall called through the megaphone, addressing the packed stadium. There were boos and shouts. Oliver wood, looking devastated, landed and ran towards Professor McGonagall without getting off his broom. He was obviously trying to change her mind. Professor McGonagall ignored him and continued to shout through her megaphone:

"All students are to make their way back to the House common rooms, where their Heads of Houses will give them further information. As quickly as you can, please!"

Then she lowered the megaphone and beckoned Harry over to her. Rose and Ron detached themselves from the complaining crowd and ran over to Professor McGonagall and Harry. Surprisingly, Professor McGonagall didn't object.

"Yes, perhaps you'd better come, too, Weasley, Miss Potter…"

Some of the students swarming around them were grumbling about the match being canceled; others looked worried. Harry, Ron, and Rose followed Professor McGonagall back into the school and up the marble staircase. But they weren't taken to anybody's office this time.

"This will be a bit of a shock," said Professor McGonagall in a surprisingly gentle voice as they approached the infirmary. "There has been another attack… another double attack."

Rose's insides did a horrible somersault. Professor McGonagall pushed the door open and they all entered.

Madam Pomfrey was bending over a fifth-year girl with long, curly hair. Rose recognized her as someone who Percy often talked to. And on the bed next to her was-

"Hermione!" Ron groaned.

Hermione lay utterly still, her eyes open and glassy. Rose's eyes filled with tears and she clutched her chest, feeling as if her heart had been torn open.

"They were found near the library," said Professor McGonagall. "I don't suppose either of you can explain this? It was on the floor next to them…"

She was holding up a small, circular mirror.

Harry, Ron, and Rose shook their heads, all staring at Hermione.

"I will escort you back to Gryffindor Tower," said Professor McGonagall heavily. "I need to address the students in any case."

They walked to the Gryffindor common room, Rose clutching to both of the boys hands as if they were a lifeline.

"All students will return to their House common rooms by six o'clock in the evening. No student is to leave the dormitories after that time. You will be escorted to each lesson by a teacher. No student is to use the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher. All further Quidditch training and matches are to be postponed. There will be no more evening activities."

The Gryffindors packed inside the common room listened to Professor McGonagall in silence. She rolled up the parchment from which she had been reading and said in a somewhat choked voice, "I need hardly add that I have rarely been so distressed. It is likely that the school will be closed unless the culprit behind these attacks is caught. I would urge anyone who thinks they might know anything about them to come forward."

She climbed somewhat awkwardly out of the portrait hole, and the Gryffindors began talking immediately.

"That's two Gryffindors down, not counting a Gryffindor ghost, one Ravenclaw, and one Hufflepuff," said Lee, counting on his fingers. "Haven't any of the teachers noticed that the Slytherins are all safe? Isn't it obvious all this stuff's coming from Slytherin? The Heir of Slytherin, the monster of Slytherin- why don't they just chuck all the Slytherins out? He roared, to nods and scattered applause.

Rose stayed strangely silent, just studying Percy Weasley who was sitting in a chair behind Lee, but for once he didn't seem keen to make his views heard. He was looking pale and stunned.

"Percy's in shock," George told Rose quietly. "That Ravenclaw girl - Penelope Clearwater - she's a prefect. I don't think he thought the monster would dare attack a prefect."

Rose didn't think that was it, but she was also half-listening. She couldn't get rid of the picture of Hermione, lying on the hospital bed as though carved out of stone. And if the culprit wasn't caught soon, she was looking at losing time at the beloved school.

Rose shakily left the common room and went to her dorm room, for once not feeling safe. The twins were trying to help her, but she felt as if everything was wrong. She climbed into Hermione's bed and clung to her pillow as she cried, feeling as if her friend's fate were her fault. She slept like that for the rest of the night.

Summer was creeping over the grounds around the castle; sky and lake alike turned periwinkle blue (the color of Dumbledore's eyes, Rose had noticed) and flowers large as cabbages burst into bloom in the greenhouses. But with no Hagrid visible from the castle windows, striding the grounds with Fang at his heels, the scene didn't look right to Rose; no better, in fact, than the inside of the castle, where things were so horribly wrong.

With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before, so that the sun warming the castle walls outside seemed to stop at the mullioned windows. There was barely a face to be seen in the school that didn't look worried and tense, and any laughter that rang through the corridors sounded shrill and unnatural and was quickly stifled.

Rose had been slowly separating herself from the twins, who, although stressed, didn't handle it the same way as everyone else. They were an even stronger force for happiness, for laughter, and Rose didn't know how to handle it. She didn't turn to Harry, she didn't turn to Ron, and she wasn't allowed in the Hospital Wing. So she turned to the one person who this seemed to not affect, the one person who was drawing so much ire.

Draco Malfoy pretended to be thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of terror and suspicion. Draco had taken to strutting around the school as though he had just been appointed Head Boy. One day, when they were walking to Potions, Rose stopped him and sent Crabbe and Goyle forward.

"Look, you don't need to make everyone hate you. You're going to create a united front against you, and that won't help you at all. You're going to make your life at school miserable," she hissed into his ear.

Draco shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, "Is it really a bad thing? With someone to hate they won't panic as much, now will they? Just don't be seen with me for awhile Rose, it'll hurt your reputation."

And he walked away from her.

Then, he did the unthinkable in Potions.

"I always thought Father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," he said, not troubling to keep his voice down. "I told you he thinks Dumbledore's the worst headmaster the school's ever had. Maybe we'll get a decent headmaster now. Someone who won't want the Chamber of Secrets closed. McGonagall won't last long, she's only filling in…"

Rose wanted to cry. Knowing this was an act didn't make it any better, one of her friends had been petrified and the cruel words spilling so easily out of Draco's mouth made her want to punch him. She wanted to say something, but she stayed silent as Snape swept past.

"Sir," said Malfoy loudly. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?"

"Now, now, Malfoy," said Snape, though he couldn't suppress a thin-lipped smile. "Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he'll be back with us soon enough."

"Yeah, right," said Malfoy smirking. "I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job- I'll tell Father you're the best teacher here, sir-"

Snape smirked as he swept off around the dungeon, fortunately not spotting Seamus Finnigan, who was pretending to vomit into his cauldron.

"I'm quite surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now," Theodore Nott said. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger-"

The bell rang at that moment, which was lucky; at Nott's words, Ron had leaped off of his stool, and in a scramble to collect bags and books, his attempts to reach Nott went unnoticed.

"Lemme at him," Ron Growled as Harry and Dean hung onto his arms. "I don't care, I don't need my wand, I'm going to kill him with my bare hands-"

"Hurry up, I've got to take you all to Herbology," barked Snape over the class's heads, and they marched, with Harry, Ron, and Dean bringing up the rear, Ron still trying to get loose. It was only safe to let him go when Snape had seen them out of the castle and they were making their way across the vegetable patch toward the greenhouses.

The Herbology class was very subdued; there were now two missing from their number, Justin, and Hermione.

Professor Sprout set them all to work pruning the Abyssinian Shrivelfigs. Rose watched as Ernie Macmillan apologized to Harry and shook her head as Ernie and Hannah came to work with Rose, Harry, and Ron.

"That Draco Malfoy character," said Ernie, breaking off dead twigs, "he seems very pleased about all this doesn't be? D'you know, I think he might be Slytherin's heir."

Rose's head spun at the accusation. She couldn't focus on the conversation anymore, simply sitting there pulling dead twigs away from the healthy plant.

With someone to hate they won't panic as much, now will they?

Rose felt tears rise unbidden to her eyes. The idiot was putting a target on her back, and the one person she had felt safe going to was now out of her grasp. She was glad no one noticed, but she also felt so very, very alone.

At the end of the lesson, Professor Sprout escorted the class to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Harry and Ron lagged behind the others so they could talk, and Rose didn't question them.

Lockhart bounded into the room and the class stared at him. Every other teacher in the place was looking grimmer than usual, but Lockhart appeared nothing short of buoyant.

"Come now," he cried, beaming around him. "Why all these long faces?"

People swapped exasperated looks, but nobody answered.

"Don't you people realize," said Lockhart, speaking slowly, as though they were all a bit dim, "the danger has passed! The culprit has been taken away-"

"Says who?" said Dean Thomas loudly.

"My dear young man, the Minister of Magic wouldn't have taken Hagrid if he hadn't been one hundred percent sure that he was guilty," said Lockhart, in the tone of someone explaining that one and one made two.

"Oh, yes he would," said Ron, even more loudly than Dean.

"I flatter myself to know a touch more about Hagrid's arrest than you do, Mr. Weasley," said Lockhart in a self-satisfied tone.

Ron started to say something more but stopped when Harry kicked him hard under the desk and muttered something to him.

But Lockhart's disgusting cheeriness, his hints that he had always thought Hagrid was no good, his confidence that the whole business was now at an end, irritated Rose so much that she wanted to throw Gadding with Ghouls right in Lockhart's stupid face. Instead, she contented herself with taking notes that she thought Hermione would love, not writing the disgusting comments he was making otherwise.

The Gryffindor common room was always very crowded these days, because from six o'clock onward the Gryffindors had nowhere else to go. They had plenty to talk about, though, which resulted in the common room normally not emptying until past midnight.

Rose watched in disinterest as Fred and George challenged Harry and Ron to a few games of Exploding Snap, with Ginny sitting watching them in Hermione's usual chair. She sat in front of Ginny and allowed the younger girl to mess with her hair, not knowing just how much the younger girl needed it. Rose could tell that Harry and Ron were trying to get the games over and done with as they kept losing while there were normally spectacular battles. Nevertheless, it was well past midnight when Fred, George, Ginny, and Rose finally went to bed.

Rose had gotten over her need to climb into Hermione's bed by staying up late until she was past the point of exhaustion. She could barely move Maple out of the way before she flopped onto the bed with only sleep on her mind. She didn't think about trying to transform, she didn't think about trying to work on the map, she didn't think about anything. She fell into an uneasy sleep, and for the first time since Hermione had been petrified, she dreamed.

She walked down the hallway towards the infirmary, trying to come up with a reason to be there. She knew that while Madam Pomfrey was a kind hearted woman she would never let her into the room if she thought for even a second that she was faking an illness or wound. Rose looked herself over, and could find nothing physically ailing her.

However, she needn't have worried, for as soon as she reached the doors of the infirmary they opened and she slipped through them.

Rose looked around in confusion, there wasn't anyone there. It was empty, completely, and the beds seemed to be in perfect shape, pristine as they so rarely were. She started exploring the room for a hint, anything that could tell her what was going on with the eerily still room.

All she found was a spider trying to get outside.

Rose shook her head, "Well, it's a good thing Ron's not here, then, now isn't it? His screams can get so shrill…"

She opened the window and watched as the spider scuttled down the side of the castle. She felt as if she should follow the spider but pulled away from the window and exited the Hospital Wing.

"Hello?" she called into the silence, unsure as to why it unnerved her so.

"Rose? Rose Potter?" a voice asked from behind her.

Rose turned to see a teen, seemingly around Percy's age, who had black hair with a midnight blue hue to it in the moonlight. His eyes were dark, almost like Snape's, but they held no animosity of any kind, only curiosity. His pale skin was practically glowing in the moonlight.

"Who's asking?" she retorted, unusually on edge with the appearance of this boy.

"Tom, Tom Riddle," the boy retorted, giving a disarmingly charming smile.

Rose frowned, and Fred and George flashed into her mind's eye, "Well, I think you must have the wrong girl. Rose Potter isn't me, at least I was never told it was me."

Rose watched as the boys eyes flashed at her lie, "You lie."

Rose frowned, "Well if you know who I am then why ask?"

Tom Riddle gave a shark-like smile and turned around, walking away, giving a wave of the wrist as a sign of her dismissal, "Goodbye, Rose Potter."

Rose woke with a start and looked out of the window of the girls dormitory, not knowing why she felt so uneasy. She shook her head and got ready for the day, and ate breakfast in silence between the Weasley twins.

Something happened in her first lesson, Transfiguration, that drove her uneasiness out of her mind immediately. Ten minutes into the class, Professor McGonagall told them that their exams would start on the first of June, one week from today.

"Exams?" howled Seamus Finnigan. "We're still getting exams?"

There was a loud band behind Rose as Neville Longbottom's wand slipped, vanishing one of the legs on his desk. Professor McGonagall restored it with a wave of her own wand, and turned, frowning, to Seamus.
"The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education," she said sternly. "The exams will, therefore, take place as usual, and I trust you are all studying hard."

Studying hard! Of course, she was! In order to help the class as Hermione used to, Rose had been studying anything and everything, ranging from Occlumency to the properties of a bloodroot. There was a great deal of mutinous muttering around the room, which made Professor McGonagall scowl even more darkly.

"Professor Dumbledore's instructions were to keep the school running as normally as possible," she said. "And that, I need hardly point out, means finding out how much you have learned this year."

Rose looked down at the pair of white rabbits she was supposed to be turning into slippers. In all honesty, she wasn't sure what she had learned this year. Perhaps not throwing a firework into a cauldron would become part of the exam in Snape's class, or perhaps the Chamber of Secret's history could be on Binn's exam. What had she learned? She waved her wand, transforming the rabbits into slippers perfectly.

She glanced over at Ron, whose wand was starting to whistle loudly, "Can you imagine me taking exams with this?" he asked Harry.

Three days before their first exam, Professor McGonagall made another announcement at breakfast.

"I have good news," she said, and the Great Hall, instead of falling silent, erupted.

"Dumbledore's coming back!" several people yelled joyfully.

"You've caught the Heir of Slytherin!" squealed a girl at Ravenclaw table.

"Quidditch matches are back on!" roared Wood excitedly.

When the hubbub had subsided, Professor McGonagall said, "Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last. Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been Petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what attacked them. I am hopeful that this dreadful year will end with our catching the culprit."

There was an explosion of cheering. Rose noticed that Draco hadn't joined in, but she was feeling more alive than she had in days.

Rose watched as Ginny sat near Ron and Harry with a scared look on her face. She was rocking backward and forward slightly in her chair, exactly like an abused house-elf would.

Ginny seemed to be about to share something when Percy appeared, looking tired and wan. He said something and Ginny jumped up as though her chair had just been electrified. She gave Percy a fleeting, frightened look before scampering away. Rose frowned and recognized the strange behavior of her friend. She would have to ask her about it later that night.

Rose, it seemed, made a huge mistake that day. She was walking with Harry and Ron midmorning as they were being led to History of Magic by Lockhart.

Lockhart, who had often assured them that all danger had passed, only to be proved wrong right away, was now wholeheartedly convinced that it was hardly worth the trouble to see them safely down the corridors. His hair wasn't as sleek as usual; it seemed he had been up most of the night, patrolling the fourth floor.

"Mark my words," he said, ushering them around a corner. "The first words out of those poor Petrified people's mouths will be 'It was Hagrid.' Frankly, I'm astounded Professor McGonagall thinks all these security measures are necessary."

"I agree, sir," said Harry, making Ron drop his books in surprise, Rose almost following suit.

"What are you doing?" she hissed at Harry but was overshadowed by Lockhart.

"Thank you, Harry," Lockhart said graciously while they waited for a long line of Hufflepuffs to pass. "I mean, we teachers have quite enough to be getting on with, without walking students to classes and standing guard all night…"

"That's right," said Ron, much to Rose's amazement. "Why don't you leave us here, sir, we've only got one more corridor to go-"

"You know, Weasley, I think I will," said Lockhart. "I really should go and prepare my next class-"

And he hurried off.

"Prepare his class," Ron sneered after him. "Gone to curl his hair, more like."

At first, Rose was going to follow the other Gryffindors, but something told her to stick with her brother. They let the rest of the Gryffindors draw ahead of them, then darted down a side passage and hurried off toward Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. But just as the two boys were congratulating each other about something-

"Mr. and Miss Potter! Weasley! What are you doing?"

"We were- we were-" Ron stammered. "We were going to- to go and see-"

"Hermione," said Rose and Harry at the same moment. Ron and Professor McGonagall both looked at them.

"We haven't seen her for ages, Professor," Harry went on hurriedly, treading on Ron's foot, "and we thought we'd sneak into the hospital wing, you know, and tell her the Mandrakes are nearly ready and, er, not to worry-"

Professor McGonagall was still staring at them, and for a moment, Rose thought she was going to explode, but when she spoke, it was in a strangely croaky voice.

"Of course," she said, and Rose noted a tear glistening in her beady eye. "Of course, I realize this has all been hardest on the friends of those who have been… I quite understand. Yes, Potter, of course, you may visit Miss Granger. I will inform Professor Binns where you've gone. Tell Madam Pomfrey I have given you permission."

They walked away, hardly daring to believe that they avoided detention. As they turned the corner, they distinctly heard Professor McGonagall blow her nose.

"That," said Ron fervently, "was the best story you've ever come up with."

"It shouldn't have been a story!" Rose whispered. "Where did you intend to go anyways?!"

As the boys explained their plot to talk to Moaning Myrtle all of the pieces started falling into place in her mind. As they walked to the hospital wing, they filled her in on Aragog, on the story the Acromantula had told, and on their hypothesis because of it.

Rose shook her head, if only Hermione were there to confirm her theory!

Once they told Madam Pomfrey they had permission from McGonagall, she let them in, but reluctantly.

"There's just no point talking to a Petrified person," she said, and they had to admit she had a point when they'd taken their seats next to Hermione. It was plain that Hermione didn't have the faintest inkling that she had visitors and that they might just as well tell her bedside cabinet not to worry for all the good it would do.

"Wonder if she did see the attacker, though?" said Ron, looking sadly at Hermione's rigid face. "Because if he sneaked up on them all, no one'll ever know…"

But Rose's and Harry's attention was not on Hermione's face. They were more interested in her right hand. It lay clenched on top of her blankets, and bending closer, they saw that a piece of paper was scrunched inside her fist.

Making sure that Madam Pomfrey was nowhere near, Harry pointed this out to Ron. Rose moved her chair slightly so that she blocked Harry from Madam Pomfrey's view.

It appeared to be no easy task for Harry, but he kept tugging and twisting, and at last, after several tense minutes, the paper came free.

It was a page torn from a very old library book. Harry smoothed it out eagerly and Ron and Rose leaned close to read it, too.

Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.

And beneath this, a single word had been written, in a hand, Rose recognized, as Hermione's. Pipes.

Rose sighed, and muttered, "I didn't want to be right."

Harry and Ron ignored her.

"Ron," Harry breathed. "This is it. This is the answer. The monster in the Chamber's a basilisk- a giant serpent! That's why Rose and I've been hearing the voice all over the place, and nobody else has heard it. It's because we understand Parseltongue…"

Rose picked up the explanation for the two boys in front of her, "The basilisk kills people by looking at them. But no one's died- because no one looked it straight in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. Justin saw the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick. Nick got the full blast of it, but he couldn't die again… and Hermione and Penelope were found with a mirror next to them. Hermione knew the monster was a basilisk, so she must've warned Penelope they looked around a corner with a mirror and that's how they got Petrified."

Ron and Harry's jaws had dropped.

"And Mrs. Norris?" Ron whispered eagerly.

Rose shrugged her shoulders, "The water. Mrs. Norris only saw the reflection."

Harry started scanning the page in his hand eagerly. The more he looked at it the more it appeared to make sense to him.

"... The crowing of the rooster… is fatal to it!" he read aloud. "Hagrid's roosters were killed! The Heir of Slytherin didn't want one anywhere near the castle once the Chamber was opened! Spiders flee before it! It all fits!"

"But how's the basilisk been getting around the place?" said Ron. "A giant snake… Someone would've seen…"

Harry was the one who explained this part. He pointed at the word Hermione had scribbled at the foot of the page.

"Pipes," he said. "Pipes… Ron, it's been using the plumbing. I've been hearing that voice inside the walls…"

Ron suddenly grabbed Harry's arm.

"The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets!" he said hoarsely. "What if it's a bathroom? What if it's in-"

"- Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," said Harry.

They sat there, excitement coursing through them, hardly able to believe it.

"This means," said Harry, "Rose and I aren't the only Parstlemouth's in the school. The Heir of Slytherin's one, too. That's how he's been controlling the basilisk."

"What're we going to do?" said Ron, whose eyes were flashing. "Should we go straight to McGonagall?"

"Let's go to the staff room," said Harry, jumping up. "She'll be there in ten minutes. It's nearly break. Rose, go back to the common room or stay here for now. I don't want you involved in this."

"Like hell I won't be involved in this! Hermione was my friend too!" Rose said as loudly as she dared.

Harry shook his head, "Look, either you stay here, or you go to the common room. Whatever you do, you're not coming with us."

Rose brewed in anger as her brother and his best friend walked out, she turned and stared at Hermione, "Is this how they treat you? Are we not good enough for their little adventures?"

She started heading back to the House commons. The bell to signal break never came.

Instead, echoing through the corridors came Professor McGonagall's voice, magically magnified.

"All students are to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."

Rose assumed that this was because Harry and Ron had managed to contact her, and she didn't know just how wrong she was.