A/N: I LIVE! Read on!

Chapter 14—The Chamber and the Morning After

Fi sighed, swinging her legs back and forth before finally tucking them under her, Indian-style. Ryan waited with quickly-fading tolerance, bouncing her foot impatiently.

"Well…you must understand, I don't know the whole thing. I had to sneak Penny's book away from her, because she hates it when I use her things, but I do remember reading about this…this…"

"Chamber of Secrets."

"Yeah. Yeah, the Chamber of Secrets. You heard what Penny read, right?" Ryan nodded.

"Yeah, something about Salazar Slytherin…say, the Slytherin house…"

"Was named after him," finished Fi promptly. "See, there were four Founders of Hogwarts: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and…Slytherin. So, stood to sense that they'd name the houses after themselves."

"But Slytherin never got along, so he tried to hide a monster from everyone? I guess that's no big surprise," said Ryan, thinking of the enmity between Ben and Regina. Fi shrugged uneasily.

"But that's not all, Ryan. The monster is supposed to scourge the school of those…of those unfit to study magic. And he thought that those people were…"

"You and I. Muggleborns. Mudbloods." Fi's eyes widened.

"Don't say that!" she hissed. Ryan leaned back, wondering if she ought to assume the defensive position.

"Say what?"

"That…that last thing. That word."

"What, Mud—?" She stopped as Fi looked like she was having a seizure. "What's wrong with that word?"

"It's like a wizarding swear-word," she explained, looking ill at ease. "You might as well go around calling black people the n-word."

"Oh…sorry…I didn't know it was that bad. Someone called me that, and I knew it must have been bad, but I didn't know it was that bad." Fi was suddenly indignant. The girl's moods seemed to shift from one extreme to the other; it was very hard for the laid-back Ryan to keep up with her.

"Someone called you a…that? Who? Was it Elise?"

"No…Elise hasn't been a princess to me, but even she hasn't called me that. It was a second-year boy, Draco Malfoy." Fi's lips twisted in distaste.

"Oh, I've heard of him. Slytherin through and through. He's nasty to Muggleborns for a hobby. When did you run into him?"

"On the train. He actually helped me with my trunk, until I told him about my mum." Fi opened her mouth to say something, then shut it as their dorm-mates began to trickle back in. Elise was first, smiling smugly at the both of them. Thankfully, she said nothing. Next in was Luna, smiling vaguely, as though the night's happenings hadn't really registered with her at all. Ryan wondered if she was even worried in the slightest. Well, why should she? thought Ryan grumpily. She's not in danger from a mysterious monster over a thousand years old. Now, there was a thought. Hogwarts was almost older than time, it seemed to her; could a monster from the Founders' Era still even be alive today? She wanted to ask, but Fi was already heading back to her bed, changing into her pyjamas. That was a good idea. Ryan reached under her pillow and pulled out hers. Just as she did every night, Elise snickered at them.

"There's no need to advertise that you're Muggleborn," she said. "I'm sure Slytherin's monster will know without your help."

"What sort of monster do you think it is?" asked Ryan, trying to avoid a confrontation. Not tonight. Elise shrugged. "Well…maybe it's dead," said Ryan hopefully. "It must be over a thousand years old…nothing can live that long, right?"

"Don't be dense, Lapitske," snarled Elise. "Plenty of things could live that long. I hear phoenixes are pretty long-lived."

"I wouldn't mind if it was a phoenix," said Luna, almost to herself, brushing her hair absent-mindedly. "Phoenixes aren't so scary. I've heard they're quite lovely."

"I'm not completely Muggleborn," said Ryan. "I'm a half-blood."

"Then it'll only half-kill you," said Elise, glad to distract from the (fairly good) point Luna made. Maybe Lovegood wasn't as spacey as she seemed.

"We should not be arguing," said Fi crossly. "We should all be friends. We're going to be living together for the next seven years, you know."

"Some of us might not be," said Elise slyly. Then she climbed into bed and pulled the hangings shut. Luna watched this as if nothing could ever be half so fascinating. Then she put down her hairbrush.

"Well, I don't want you to die," she said serenely.

"That makes two of us," said Ryan, pulling her own hangings shut. As if hangings will stop any millennia-old creature. She tried to shake that thought away. She would not start jumping at shadows. There was no chamber. It's just a sick joke, like Roger Davies said.

But I'm not laughing…

The next day, breakfast was a subdued, hushed affair, as everyone put their heads together to murmur about the Chamber, Slytherin's monster, and the cryptic message on the wall. Not to mention Mrs. Norris, who wasn't really dead at all, but petrified. If there was a difference, no one seemed to be able to tell Ryan what it was.

The post came in as it always did, though there seemed to be double the number of owls as usual. Obviously, more than a few students managed to send off word of the attack to their parents. Ben and Finn each got a letter, and Penny passed the one she had received to Fi. And, to her utmost surprise, an unfamiliar owl landed in front of Ryan and presented her a letter.

"For me?" asked Ryan, astonished. The owl stood in front of her mutely, offering the letter tied to its leg. "Oh. I guess so." There was her name, written in large letters: Ryan Lapitske. She untied the letter, then poured some dry cornflakes for the owl. "Thank you very much." The owl crunched through a mouthful of cornflakes, then took off out the window again.

"Did you write your mum?" asked Ben curiously. "But you don't have an owl. Did you sneak down to the owlery?"

"Of course not. I didn't write anyone…" she stopped, trailing off. "Wait, this is my dad's handwriting!"

"The one in America?" asked Finn through a mouthful of toast.

"How many dads do you think I have?" demanded Ryan, ripping the letter open. Both boys shrugged, but Fi leaned in, reading over Ryan's shoulder.