Fred and George stared sullenly down at the innocuous scrap of paper between them as they stood together in one of the secret hide-y holes outside Madame Pomfrey's realm.

"Sure, you want to do this Gred?"

"We won't know if we don't try Forge."

Fred held his wand over the Marauders' Map and made a very different oath then the one he and his brother usually made when using the enchanted object.

"If you don't tell us what you know about Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets I solemnly swear to rip you in half."

'Moony would like to inform the Misters Weasley that there is no need for violence.'

'Prongs wishes to know why the Misters Weasley are so interested in the Chamber.'

'Padfoot would like to make it known that the Chamber of Secrets is a bunch of stupid Pureblood propaganda.'

'Wormtail agrees with Padfoot and hopes that such a place does not exist.'

"Darn."

"We've never seen it on the map before either,"

"-So they probably never found it."

"Guess Percy'll just have to wait until they can brew the revival potions."

"Does this mean the annual Prank wars are canceled?"

George thought about it for a minute.

"Nah. Percy won."

"Really? That dumb Valentines thing?"

"You're just mad you didn't think of it first."

Fred made a face at his twin who in turn made the same expression back at him mockingly.

"Is this really what we become without Percy to compete with?"

"Well~ we could always prank other Percy!"

"I dunno. He's been looking like one word could make him explode."

"…He really needs the laugh then."

"You just want to see if he'll actually explode."

"Is that judgment I hear Forge?"

"No, no. Just making an observation."

Fred tucked the unopened map back into the recesses of his pocket. Neither brother reading the streams of ink working their way across the typically blank paper.

'Padfoot would like to inform the Misters Weasley that if they don't tell them what happened to Percy Black he'll tear them in half.'

On top of the persisting worries about future attacks and the maturing Mandrakes, the second year students had yet another thing to add to their concerns.

What elective courses to take next year.

Hermione was apparently going to take all of them. Harry and Ron were planning on taking Divination on Percy's advice. Not that Percy either. Percy Weasley suggested the course and it seemed appropriate since neither of them were sure what they wanted to do in the future. They nearly changed their minds when they heard that Draco Malfoy was considering taking the course as well, but then they would have to decide on one of the other courses and, eh.

They could have done the same as Dean and picked subjects randomly.

Too bad they couldn't drop potions, really.

Glinda had made her way into the hospital wing to keep an eye on her wayward person. She had settled herself under the bed by Percy's head. The perfect vantage point to watch all the other people's movements and scare away any troublesome creatures. She had already sent two cats running for the door, though one of them with peculiar markings around its eyes had more just decided to saunter out of the room after noticing her protective position by her wizard.

So far this room they've placed him in seems fairly safe, with the old witch puttering about all the beds and shooing away most of the other students that tried to visit.

It had been remarkably quiet since the last time Julius Aberman purposefully instigated a fight with Marcus Flint in order to necessitate going to the get his wounds healed and check-in on her wizard. The others of the boy's house were very bemusing for Glinda, as they wouldn't just try to visit Percy as most any normal student would do. No, they had to have some reason to be there besides making sure her poor petrified wizard was still looking well for his condition. The only one who didn't keep up these pretenses was Percy's young cousin who often stopped by in the early morning before classes.

There were other students from the other houses who visited on occasion. Percy's Gryffindor friends among them. Lee was complaining about how his pet tarantula had run off early in the year and his mother would never let him live it down, and the twins would share stories about presumably funny things that had happened in their classes which Percy had missed. All three of them tried to keep a kind of forced cheer when talking to their Slytherin friend.

Some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had even stopped by to leave 'Get Well Soon' cards, and one of the Hufflepuff boys left a couple chocolate frogs at each of the beds for those staying in the hospital wing long term. Glinda had been absolutely offended by the lesser beings made in her image and had summarily executed them. She had been sure to crush each of them beneath her and after she was done glared about the room as if daring any others to make themselves known and face her wrath. There can be only one.

Then the youngest redhead visited.

Glinda remembered being introduced to the youngest sibling and only sister of the twins. She had not looked nearly as gaunt and nervous back then as she did now. The little first year sat on the seat perpetually next to the bed and looked so terribly scared that she might cry. She spoke only in a thin whisper that Glinda could never hope to understand.

What she could hear was the apology in the tone of her voice and the tremble in her hands. When the young witch did leave with an imploring last look back Glinda left her post for the first time in days. Her wizard would be safe in the old witch's domain for some time at least, and he would have wanted her to look after and help the first year if she could.

So, she followed little Ginny Weasley all the way up the stairs into Gryffindor tower and everywhere else she went.

When Neville said that someone broke into their dorm room, Harry hadn't really been expecting to see anything in particular, but even so, to find the contents of his trunk strewn around the room along with the rest of his area in disarray was shocking. Even his desk drawers had been shown no mercy. Removed from the desk and their contents dumped out on the floor.

Harry just stood for a long minute staring at the mess as his other dormmates wandered into the room behind him and did much the same.

They all helped him put everything back over the course of which he realized that the only thing missing was Riddle's Diary.

Everyone in the room was pretty disturbed by the event. It had to have been a Gryffindor who did it to. No one else would know the password to enter the tower or which room was his.

None of them slept easy that night.

Poor Trevor did not sleep at all having been given the freight of his life when he saw Glinda hop up the stairs into his dorm.

Hermione had been steadily making progress on interpreting Percy's notes and finding possible resources for looking up magical creatures. All of the quickly scrawled thoughts and questions were very helpful in guiding her research, but there was one she was hesitant to pursue. One of Percy's latter notes was to ask Myrtle how she died. The ghost girl was always…uncomfortable to talk to and had been especially distraught after the older student's petrification.

She didn't think it would be necessary after all. The latest book on magical creatures she had been searching through, an older tome titled Legendary Animals of the Magical World, seemed to have the answers she was looking for. The Basilisk…

All of the properties and ideas outlined in Percy's notes matched the description of the king of the serpents.

Hermione did something she would normally never so much as consider doing in any other situation. She ripped out the page and jotted some of Percy's ideas about how the creature could be controlled, and then stopped to consider her own questions that Percy hadn't been able to answer in his writing. How was the basilisk even moving around the castle? A creature of that size couldn't just wander the corridors without anybody noticing. Maybe seeing the end of its tail or a shed skin. The restroom. The same place Myrtle presumably died, and where the first petrification back on Halloween took place. The basilisk was using the pipes. No one had ever found the Chamber of Secrets because who thinks to check the plumbing when it's working.

She wrote 'pipes' at the bottom of the page and underlined it for good measure before snatching the page and Percy's notes off the table and making her way out of the library to tell others, hopefully Professor McGonagall if she had any luck.

Hermione had unconsciously started fiddling with the medallion she had gotten for Christmas. Percy had given her and serval others exactly what they would need to survive an encounter with the basilisk, but not everyone had been afforded the same luxury. She took off the necklace to hold it as a mirror and look around corners just in case and almost ran into the Ravenclaw Prefect.

It was easy enough to explain her discovery to the older girl, who luckily had a small hand mirror on her to look around corners like she was planning to do with her medallion.

If only she had considered another alternative. Like closing her eyes and making her way blindly to her Head of House's office.

But really, no one ever expects that the bad things they are preparing for will actually happen to them.

No one was terribly surprised when not even 24 hours later Cornelius Fudge and Lucius Malfoy appeared on Hogwarts grounds following the last two petrifications and subsequently removed both Hagrid and Dumbledore from the school.

That Dumbledore was being suspended was alarming given the continued attacks, but not surprising. After Black was petrified it was probably only a matter of time. After all, if even a Slytherin half-blood heir to a prominent dark family like the Blacks was attacked by Slytherin's monster, then could anyone really be considered safe from the same.

No one seemed to care that everyone who actually knew Percy believed that, if anything, the Slytherin boy was more likely attacked in an attempt to keep him quiet since his visions could undoubtedly be deemed a threat to whoever was opening the Chamber and controlling the monster.

But Harry and Ron just wanted to know what in Merlin's name Hagrid's whole 'follow the spiders' thing was about.

Ron especially regretted wanting to know what they would find if they followed the spiders.

Harry and Ron are perfectly happy to never go into the forest again and leave it as forbidden as the name would suggest. Enormous spiders and feral cars are enough danger without considering the other oddities and semi-legal creatures Hagrid keeps there. And the Centaurs. Can't forget the Centaurs.

At least they know for sure that Hagrid is innocent.

Bonus scene:

Not long after her grandfather had paid a visit to the school Severus received a letter from Sally Black.

Sure, it seemed perfectly innocent to most anyone else. Just a letter from a worried mother to her student's Head of House. When it had been delivered to him in the staff room the others there had uttered appropriate niceties concerning how awful it was to get letters from concerned parents. To the best of his knowledge none of them had ever met the Black Heiress before despite her meddling with the Muggle Studies course.

He, however, had and knew that this would not be at all like the others' typical concerned parent letters. If it had been one of those he would have gotten a howler instead of the stately parchment and thin green penmanship.

It had said, in not so few words, that if he allowed Professor Lockhart anywhere near her son or the revival potions… Well, the dark and terrible things she alluded to were left fairly vague but none the less ominous and threatening. Her exact words at the very end of the letter had been: 'You shall never complain about teaching your students ever again.'

The unwritten part of the message suggested: 'Because you won't be capable of doing so.'

He would, of course, have ensured that he was the one to brew the potions as the Potions Master of the school regardless. But, if she insists he be the one to make the revival potions and not allow Lockhart within so much as the same room as her son then who is he to argue with her?

Well, it took me a while, and I realize it probably isn't quite what you all were expecting. Don't worry, the end is nigh.

Okay, but would the Chamber of Secrets appear on the Marauders' Map? Or did they just not bother with mapping the plumbing. I don't remember if it was ever mentioned in the books or movies.

Also why Hermione who was probably the only one who feasibly could walk to her professors' offices blindfolded did not do so and instead went 'oh, look! you only get petrified rather than dead if you see it indirectly! I think I'll do that!' I will never understand. It's likely the dumbest, least thought-out thing she's ever done.