The end is near...
Chapter 44
The group of friends walked into the castle and past a few people on their way to Dumbledore's office. They ignored things like, "Where've you been?" and, "You look really bad."
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of walking, the group reached Dumbledore's office just as Professor McGonagall walked out. She gasped when she saw them.
"You children look terrible! What happened?"
"We were just coming to see Dumbledore," Hermione said wearily.
"I just finished talking to him, follow me," Professor McGonagall said and led them up the spiral staircase to Dumbledore's office.
When Professor McGonagall knocked on Dumbledore's door and he let them in, they all sat down. Hermione started to tell Dumbledore what had happened that day even though he hadn't asked.
Everyone except Bita and Rachelle took turns telling the story when the person talking started to look too tired to continue. Finally, Tiffany – the last person to speak – told about how Matt was still in the now closed tunnel.
Everyone was silent after that and Professor McGonagall looked pale.
"I'm sure that Zastrin won't attempt to harm you for a while, now…Not now that he knows that you three can protect yourselves," Dumbledore said, finally breaking the silence. "I will call Mr. Vilner and inform him of what's happened. Now, Professor McGonagall, could you please bring all of these children to the hospital wing so Madam Pomfrey can look them over?"
"Yes…but what about Matthew?" Professor McGonagall asked worriedly.
"I will contact his parents and inform them that he's missing," Dumbledore said solemnly. "Simply missing. We have no proof that he's been killed yet."
"Alright…I'm sure they'll come as quickly as they can, so I'll be right back to help you with them," Professor McGonagall said.
She looked back at the group and sighed. She motioned for them to follow her out of Dumbledore's office and to the hospital wing. When they arrived at the hospital wing, she left them with Madam Pomfrey and went back to Dumbledore's office.
"Oh, dear…it's very lucky not many people have been sick or injured lately," Madam Pomfrey said, more to herself than The Odds, Hermione, Ron, and Harry.
They looked around and saw that she was right – there were plenty of beds for all of them.
Once Madam Pomfrey had assigned everyone their own bed and left to get medicine for everyone's cuts and other various minor injuries, Rachelle turned to Tiffany, who was in the bed to the right of her own.
"Dumbledore didn't say too much, did he?" Rachelle, who had been completely silent since they left the tunnel, said quietly.
"Well he doesn't know too much about our case, does he?" Tiffany said.
"Yeah…we were really lucky that the tunnel closed behind us, weren't we?"
"Actually I think the tunnel is controlled by our thoughts…why else would it lead to the Hogwarts grounds?" Tiffany said.
"It wasn't your fault. I'm sure it wasn't," she added after Rachelle was silent again for a while.
"Yeah…"
"Enough chit-chat, you all need rest!" Madam Pomfrey said as she came back into the room with medicine.
After she had cleaned everyone's injuries, she turned off the lights and left the room again. Though they thought it would be difficult, it didn't take long for everyone to fall asleep.
