Not my best work in the slightest. I've been busy with home improvement projects.

Keep reviewing, folks. We finally meet the rest of the Exwires in this chapters.

Enjoy!

Chapter 13

Fear

"I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted old looney," Ron said to his friends as they left Demonology (Yukio joined up with them after his house finished History of Magic). "But I never knew he started all this pureblood stuff."

"Understandable given the circumstances at the time," said Yukio.

Ron looked at the Ravenclaw incredulously. "Are you defending him?"

Yukio rolled his eyes. "Of course not," he answered.

"I think I get what you're saying," said Hermione. "You have to remember that for centuries people, whether they were Muggles or wizards, were burned at the stake for witchcraft. It's only natural that Salazar Slytherin would be wary of who would be enrolled."

"They were burned at the stake in Europe," said Yukio. "Contrary to popular belief, people were hanged for witchcraft in America, not burned."

"Doesn't excuse Slytherin's attitude towards Muggleborns," Ron grumbled.

Harry remained silent throughout the conversation. Rin noticed that a lot of students either went silent or moved out of the group's way as they walked through the corridor. It was quite clear to them that the student body believed that they had something to do with what happened to Mrs. Norris.

"Do you guys think there's really a Chamber of Secrets?" Rin asked Hermoine.

Hermione frowned. "I don't know," she answered. "Dumbledore couldn't cure Mrs. Norris, and that makes me think that whatever attacked her might not be… well… human."

"Or demon," Harry added.

Voices were suddenly heard up ahead where the writing on the wall was located.

"You guys weren't in Demonology today," one voice said nervously.

"We had the same lesson in History of Magic, Shima," another voice said. "A topic like blood purity doesn't really come up in conversations."

"As long as you don't say anything about your heritage, no one in Slytherin will know," a third voice added.

The group hurried ahead and found three students standing in front of the writing on the wall. The first student Harry recognized was Slytherin student Renzo Shima from Demonology. The two other students, Harry noticed, were also Japanese. One was a Ravenclaw student with dark brown hair and stern expression. The other was a short Hufflepuff student with a buzzcut and wore large glasses in front of his small eyes.

Harry noticed looks of recognition on Yukio and Hermione's faces. The stern-faced Ravenclaw then scowled at the group.

"Granger," he greeted Hermione.

Hermione sniffed. "Suguro," she greeted back stiffly.

Harry looked back and forth between the two. "You two know each other?" he inquired.

"Ryuji Suguro," the stern-faced Ravenclaw introduced himself. "I'm a second-year like you." His gaze landed on Yukio. "These guys must be your Gryffindor friends I hear you talking about with the others. Didn't know Granger was among them."

Hermione scowled in response. Yukio stepped in front of her.

"I'm sure you would have known about her if you weren't always away from Ravenclaw Tower," Yukio remarked.

Suguro scowled and took a step towards the mole-faced boy. "What was that? You wanna repeat that?" he challenged.

Rin stepped in front of his brother and glared daggers at Suguro. "Take one more step near my brother and the Tooth Fairy is going to make you rich after I knock your teeth out," he threatened.

Shima and the Hufflepuff boy grabbed each of Suguro's arms.

"Calm down, Bon," said Shima.

"If you start a fight here, the teachers are going to hear and we'll all be in trouble," the Hufflepuff reasoned.

Harry turned to Hermione. "How do you know him?" he asked.

"I sometimes see him in the library," Hermione explained. "Renzo Shima and Konekomaru Niwa are always tailing him. I can't tell you how often I've had to race them to get to a book."

"And what does Suguro have against you?" asked Harry.

Hermione sighed. "He's jealous that he scored the second highest marks in our year. And he makes sure I don't forget it."

Ron decided to step in before things got heated. "So what are you lot doing here?" he inquired.

Konekomaru turned towards the group. "Shima wanted to look at the writing because -"

Shima jumped onto Konekomaru, covering his mouth with his hand. "Because we wanted to see if we could figure out who attacked Filch's cat, that's what," he finished hurriedly.

Harry raised an eyebrow. What was Shima hiding that he didn't want Harry and his friends to know about?

Yukio smiled. "What a coincidence, so are we," he said. The others gawked at him. 'Say what?! Did he forget that there's a Slytherin in our midst?'

Suguro scowled at them. "You already solved the mystery of the Philosopher's Stone last year. Gonna solve this mystery too?"

Rin scowled back. "That's none of your business! We have our own reasons for checking this out."

"Perhaps we could all look into this," Harry stepped in. The last thing he wanted was a huge argument that could attract a teacher's attention. "The more eyes, the better."

Both groups scowled at each other before simultaneously exclaiming, "FINE!"

They all split up and looked the area up and down.

"Scorch marks!" Harry discovered. "Here and here!"

"Here too!" Rin exclaimed.

Shima suddenly started screaming like a little girl and backed up to the other side of the corridor. Ron looked at what he was so afraid of and started to pale. He soon joined Shima's side.

"Shima! Weasley!" Suguro cried out. "What's wrong?"

Both boys pointed to the wall. Everyone turned and saw about twelve spiders scurrying up a wall, all fighting to get through a crack.

"Have you ever seen spiders act like that?" Hermione asked in wonder.

"No," Konekomaru answered. "Have you guys?"

"Nope!" the boys answered, except Shima and Ron. Harry turned and saw the two of them fighting the urge to run.

"What's up with you two?" asked Harry.

"I. Don't. Like. Spiders," Ron said tensely.

"I hate all bugs!" Shima cried. "Six legs, eight legs, or a hundred… I don't care! I hate bugs!"

"I never knew that, Ron," said Hermione. "You've used them in Potions loads of times."

"I don't mind them dead," Ron said fiercely. "I just don't like the way they move."

"Shima's been afraid of bugs for as long as we can remember," said Konekomaru.

Shima shivered. "All those eyes, their feelers, their legs… so many legs…"

Hermione giggled.

"It's not funny!" Ron argued.

Shima nodded. "Yeah! Arachnaphobia is nothing to laugh at!"

The boys blinked at the two.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say Ron's found an ally in his fear," Yukio noted.

"And with a Slytherin of all people," Harry noted.

Hermione continued holding in her laughter. Suguro scowled at her.

"Let's go guys," he said. "They obviously can't take this seriously."

Shima let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God, Bon! The sooner we're away from those creepy crawlies, the better."

The group watched the trio leave the scene. Rin then turned to Ron. "What's with you and spiders?"

Ron stiffened. "If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my - my teddy bear into a great filthy spider because I broke his toy broomstick…" Rin snorted in an effort to hide his laughter. "You wouldn't like them either if you'd been holding your bear and suddenly it had too many legs and…" He shuddered.

At this point, both Rin and Hermione were having difficulty keeping in their laughter. In an effort to save his friend's dignity, Harry decided to change the subject. "Remember all that water on the floor? Where did it come from? Someone's mopped it up."

"Filch must have done that," said Yukio.

Ron followed where the water came from until it led to a door. He grabbed the doorknob but suddenly let go as if it was on fire.

"What's up?" asked Rin.

"Can't go in there," Ron answered. "That's a girls' bathroom."

"Oh, Ron, there won't be anyone in there," said Hermione as she stood up and walked over to him. "That's Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Come on, let's have a look." Ignoring the "Out of Order" sign, she opened the door and went in.

Yukio quirked an eyebrow. "'Moaning Myrtle'?"

"She's the crying ghost of a girl who haunts this bathroom," Rin explained.

"Careful what you say to her," warned Harry. "She might take it the wrong way and start crying."

"Learned that the hard way at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party, we did," Ron added.

Rin looked around to make sure no one was looking before entering the bathroom. Yukio, Harry, and Ron followed.

~0~0~0~

Rin focused on his makeshift targets and started casting spells, but the results were all the same: nothing but blue flames. His arm dropped to his side; he couldn't focus anyway. His mind kept going back to what happened in the girls' bathroom. According to Moaning Myrtle, she was too distraught over how Peeves treated her at Nick's deathday party to notice anything.

"Fracto Strata!" Rin recited, aiming his wand at another target. Instead of an orange light, a small, blue fireball erupted from the tip of his wand and fired at the target. Rin stamped his foot in frustration. "Dammit! Why is this happening again?"

"Having trouble again, Rin?"

Rin turned and saw Professor Dumbledore standing right behind him.

Rin turned bright red. "Yessir," he grumbled. "I'm trying to remember everything you taught me, but I've forgotten most of it. Plus, I can't stop thinking about this whole Chamber of Secrets thing. From what I heard, aren't a lot of Muggleborn students in danger?"

Dumbledore held up a hand to silence Rin. "We can resume your training as soon as possible," he assured the boy. "As for the Chamber of Secrets, I cannot do much until I have evidence that points to the culprit."

This did not assure Rin at all. "Do you have any idea who could have been behind it?" he asked.

Dumbledore shook his head no. "I'm afraid not, Rin."

Rin frowned in fear. "There's something else that's bugging me," he said looking directly into Dumbledore's twinkling eyes. "I was told that the Heir of Slytherin is supposed to target Muggleborns. One of my friends is Muggleborn, but…"

Dumbledore lifted his eyebrows. "But what, Rin?" he inquired.

"What about me and Yukio?" asked Rin. "Hermione is Muggleborn, Ron and Neville are pureblood, and Seamus, and Harry is half-blood. I don't know what Dean is. And I don't know what me and Yukio are. We never knew our real parents. Dad won't say anything about Mom."

Dumbledore stroked his beard, deep in thought. He then smiled and placed a hand on Rin's head. "I can tell you this much, Rin, that you and your brother are half-bloods." Rin was about to say something but Dumbledore raised his hand again to stop him. "Alas, that is as much as I can say. To tell you more would only devastate you and I ask that you not look further into it."

Rin could tell that the headmaster was not kidding when he said that. He couldn't explain it, but whenever Professor Dumbledore spoke like that, Rin couldn't help but take him at his word and do what he said. Not even Shiro could pull something like off.

Like I said, not my best work. How did you like how Harry and the others handled the Exwires. They won't be interacting much in this story but if you want me to write the rest of the series, I think it can be arranged.

Rejoice! For I have gotten my job back! I'm so happy!

Please, please, PLEASE review! More reviews, equal more chapters.