This chapter is going to be UBERLONG, because I am absolutely terrified to write a chapter that doesn't initiate a plot (so, if a plot ever DOES emerge, thank FreakyD45663), but I still need to wrap up some non-plot things. So YAY THIS CHAPTER WILL TAKE ME FOREVERR (im starting on August 16, 2007).

Chapter 25: Holy Crap, everything!

Screw waking up and eating breakfast; that takes way too freaking long to write AND IT PROVIDES NO SIGNIFIGANT INFORMATION IN THIS CASE. The girls entered the potions class room in the dungeons and sat at the tables along with their fellow classmates.

When Snape came in, much to the girls' dismay, his hair was back to its usual black color. Of course, it was much cleaner and still shorter, so they knew he must have dyed it or cast a spell upon it to get it back to that shade. They doubted he would ever wash it again, however. During the class, he avoided them as much as possible but did not try to punish or humiliate them. This made them feel lucky, so they decided to stay after class and test out what they thought to be the reason behind Snape's bitterness.

As class was dismissed, they just kind of sat around at the tables, not knowing what to do and looking really dumb.

Snape, without turning to them, said, "As kindly as I've treated you before, that does not mean I want to spend any more time than I have to with either of you," as he put away the rest of the potions supplies.

"Oh, of course not," Triana gave a fake laugh, "I mean, please, we all know you're gay…."

Kait slapped her hand to her forehead. Real smooth, Triana. Subtly is TOTALLY your thing… she thought sarcastically.

He paused slightly just for a moment, but then continued with his work and his speech. "How did you know? Ah yes, a few years ago Professor Quirrel and I had the most fleeting relationship, let me tell you, until I learned what he was, of course. Oh god, the Dark Lord teased me about that one for weeks…."

Kait was wide-eyed in shock. Their whole plan was falling and crashing around her!

Snape, upon noticing the silence, turned around. At the sight of the girls' faces, he said, "I was kidding."

"Oh, righ—AHAHAHAHA THAT WAS HILARIOUS!" Triana quickly laughed rather lamely and forcedly. Kait joined in too, but they held the laughs for too long to be convincing.

Noticing Snape wasn't buying it, she started up again. "Well, since it turns out you aren't gay, could you tell us which staff member YOU ARE MADLY IN LOVE WITH!?"

Okay, so, Triana sucked at getting information from people. I mean, she was a partial Slytherin and hung out with them all the time, but she was also a combination of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Sometimes she lost her head a little.

"What are you going on about?" he snapped at them.

"We know about… your relationship with Professor Trelawney. I'm sure it wasn't your fault she broke up with you! That's why were here to help! WE SENSE THE CHEMISTRY! As disturbing as the whole thing is, we can tell how much she means to you. It's all so sweet, and tragic! And you know, if we could just keep up your new appearance, I'm almost positive she'll consider!" Kait burst forth ecstatically.

"Both of you. Detention." He fumed, with his eyes closed and fists balled.

"Aww… when?" Triana said, getting over it rather quickly.

He sighed. "Ugh, right now."

"YAY! I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO HISTORY OF MAGIC!" Kait cheered.

"So what do you want us to do, Professor?"

"Just… sit here and DON'T DO ANYTHING. If I assign you to anything you'll just screw it up and humiliate yourselves," he spat caustically.

He went back into his office to do paperwork or something.

The two girls sat there for a while, tapping their quills against parchment… not knowing how to pass the time.

"Hey, Kait?"

"Yeah?"

"Well… now that we have Snape's other detention out of the way and we have this free time on our hands, I say we should think about the work thing."

"You're right…."

The workin their sweatshops had been getting increasingly strenuous on them, and especially the younger kids, in the past week. Their Quidditch team didn't have enough energy to practice, and their match was this weekend. Everyone's grades were falling behind; there was a drought of detentions (besides all of theirs), causing the school to fall into a slight, very subtle state of poor shape.

Also, the teachers all seemed to be more bitter or just slightly more weary within the past weeks.

"We could tell the professors that they need to do something…" Kait babbled out.

"They all love Dumbledore too much; they'd never do anything to him," Triana cut off.

"Well, I love Dumbledore too!"

"I do too, don't get me wrong…" Triana mumbled.

"Ugh, this is exactly what's happening to everyone else! Just because we like him doesn't mean we can stand around while he hurts other people we like! I don't know what has come over him, but I don't want these younger students to have to suffer, and I know that he doesn't either," Kait lectured

"You're very right Kait, we have to find out what is going on here, and put a stop to it. I just don't know where to begin!"

They sat there in though for a few moments.

Then, Triana decided, "We can't get much done sitting here in detention."

Kait pointed her wand at her shoes. "Silencio!" she whispered, and the spell shot towards them and hit them with the jolt. She did the same to Triana's, and they both carefully stood up from their seats. They walked on their silenced shoes towards the door, and then they cast the same spell towards it, swiftly opened it, and walked out of Snape's classroom.

"Wow, that was easy!" Kait whispered while beaming, after they had shut the door.

"Yeah… the hard part will be finding out way out of here, back to the Grand Staircase," Triana groaned softly.

"Uh…"

After a quick round of eenie-meenie-miney-mo, the girls went left.

After walking for a little, they came upon the entrances to 3 hallways.

"I don't think we went the right way… I don't remember these hallways. At all," Triana sighed.

"It has to be this way! We did eenie-meenie-miney-mo!" Kait shouted.

"Fine then, what path do we take now?" Triana asked, rolling her eyes.

After yet another round of eenie-meenie-miney-mo, they went through the middle hallway.

After coming upon more and more forks and tri-forks in the hallways, and after more and more sequences of eenie-meenie-miney-mo (and arguing), the girls finally came to a large, stone door. The stone was black mica, and gave off an odd reflection in the torch-light. They tried it, but it was securely locked. Alohamora had no affect and neither did kicking it various times.

"So what now?" Kait asked.

"Hm… let's go back to the last fork, go through a different hallway, and after we get to that door we'll come out and go to the last tri-fork and go through all of those hallways until we get to all of those doors…"

The more they thought about it, the more they realized in full how many doors there would be. (A/N: If I were any good at ASCII art, I'd draw you a map of what this underground spectacle looked like. But alas, one person can only do so many things).

"Cmon, let just go back," Kait whined after their fourth door and their quadrillionth headache.

"NO. We're part of something scandalous and/or mysterious! We can't just quit!"

So they trudged onwards literally for HOURS, when finally they had come to, what they deduced to be, the very last door. The two girls sighed and looked at each other. At the same time, they both gave the door a powerful side-kick. However, instead of their kicks landing on the stone wall, their legs went straight through it as if it was air, and they lost their balance and fell over.

Their fall propelled their entire bodies through the door, and they toppled out into an monstrous, cathedral-sized underground cavern.

"What are the odds!? The LAST door we get to! Finally, THAT'S the one!" Triana was about to go on a furious rant about this, but she stopped short when her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and she looked up at where she was.

"…what the fuck?" Kait asked in wonder.

Their eyes both went to the ceiling, where there seemed to be a strange liquid hovering in the air… not resting upon anything. A large mass of water, completely unsupported, was the very top of the dome that they had found themselves in. There even seemed to be creatures in the water! Some large, some small… but the water was murky and green, so they couldn't exactly see whatever was in there.

Then they scanned the innards of the cavern. It was damp and there were a few mismatching tables in various places, with detailed drawings and charts and descriptions or ingredients and vials upon them. Then, in one corner (I don't know if you can have corners in a dome BUT JUST USE YOUR IMAGINATION) there were various cauldrons, which were being tended to by a few house elves. The house elves scampered quickly from the ingredient tables back to the cauldrons, then hastily fiddled with the flames underneath it, stirred, looked through instructions, ran back to the potions table, and so on in that sequence, with each cycle taking about 2 seconds. In other words, these potions were difficult.

There was actually a goblin who was sitting at one of the tables looking through a chart and a very long summary of something. However, with all of the fussing that was already going on, no one had noticed the girls' entrances. The quickly dove back through the imaginary wall and peeked their eyes out, so they could see but could barely be seen.

"What is this place…?" Kait asked.

"Do you remember a while back when I called Umbridge a ho and she walked back this way? She must know about this place, there's nothing else down this part of the dungeon!" Triana deduced.

"So… it could be her… lair. Ew," Kait sneered, "So, we need to find out what she's up to! There is something very evil afoot!"

"It would be simple if only the house elves were here… they'd tell us anything. But that goblin! So good with security… gah…"Triana sighed.

"Wait… Umbridge, letting a goblin work for her? She's probably got him chained to the table doing work that she's to dumb to figure out herself. I honestly don't think she'd want a nonhuman messing with her workings, unless they were completely fool proof like house elves," Kait said, perplexed.

"If he's not, then what is the security?" Triana asked, "Oh, right, 63 doors before this one. I almost forgot," she spat angrily, answering her own question.

Just then, they heard a loud BAM! and everything went black for the both of them.

Wow, what a hideous way to end a chapter. Well, I'm really sorry about taking so long to update. I really was getting blocked, since I needed a plot and all… but thank you to my reviewers! I love you! I went back to school shopping today cries. UGH. I hate thinking about it xD. So yes, I hope I didn't make any of you die in anguish, and hopefully there will be a new chapter up soon! Okay wait hold on I need 40 more words so that I can be over 2,000 words. So… OH so I had this dream last night that I was married to this guy, and I had two kids. And I hated it (I don't want to get married or have kids ever). So in the middle of the night I took all of my husband's money while he was sleeping and ran away from home! I went to a different state, introduced myself by a different name, and started a new life. xD I think that is what I would actually do in real life if I somehow did end up married with 2 kids. Hopefully I won't ever fall into a state of drunkenness that lasts long enough for me to go through with all that though… OKAY WERE OVER 2,000 WORDS GOODNIGHT EVERYONE.