Ever wonder how McGonagall found out it was Ginny who was taken to the Chamber? This answers that question.

Enjoy!

Chapter 24

Abducted

"Exams?!" Seamus Finnigan howled at the beginning of Transfigurations. "We're still getting exams?!"

Rin groaned, "Now I really miss Hermione." It was going to take a miracle for him to pass any exam this year. With Hermione down for the count, studying for any kind of exam just became harder. It took the combined effort of both Hermione and Yukio to keep the others focused on studying.

Professor McGonagall gave Seamus a stern look. "The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education," she said. "The exams will therefore take place as usual, and I trust you are all studying hard."

Neville audibly gulped. Rin didn't blame him. What did they learn this year? No one could recall anything they've learned that would be beneficial to them for the exams.

As soon as class was dismissed, the trio gathered outside the classroom with the other Gryffindor boys. They all looked like they were told they had to camp out in Aragog's hollow.

"Can you imagine me taking exams with this?" Ron asked the others, holding up his wand that had now started whistling like a tea kettle.

"I can see my exam results already," Rin said forlornly. "None of them are pretty."

"It's going to take a miracle for me to pass even one," Neville moaned.

"How can they expect us to remember anything this year after everything that's happened?" asked Dean Thomas.

Harry looked inside the classroom at the desk where Hermione would normally sit. His friends were right. They had no idea how they were even going to study for their exams without Hermione to help them.

~0~0~0~

Three days before the first exam Professor McGonagall made another announcement at breakfast.

"I have good news," she announced and the Great Hall erupted.

"Dumbledore's coming back?"

"You've caught the Heir of Slytherin?"

"Quidditch matches are back on?" Oliver Wood roared excitedly.

McGonagall put up a hand to silence the students. "Professor Sprout just informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last. Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been Petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what, attacked them. I hope that this dreadful year will end with us catching the culprit."

Terry pumped his fist as he sat down at the Ravenclaw table. "Great way to end the year," he said.

"Doesn't change the fact that we still have exams," Michael groaned. "Do any of you guys remember anything we've learned this year?"

"Barely," Anthony answered. "How are we in Ravenclaw again?"

"We took the word of a talking hat," Yukio remarked. He looked through some of his notes. "This is going to be challenging even for me."

"Between keeping up with your studies, your brother and his friends' antics, tutoring us, and avoiding Loony Lovegood, you've got your work cut out for you," said Terry.

"Gee, thanks for the sympathy," Yukio deadpanned.

Terry raised his goblet to his friend. "Anytime, my friend."

Luna Lovegood sat down next to the group of boys. "Are you ready for exams yet?" Anthony, Michael, and Terry groaned. Luna looked at them. "Not ready at all I see," she said naively.

Yukio sighed and shook his head. He didn't understand what his friends had against the first year. Sure, she was an odd duck but she wasn't that annoying. She only sat down next to them when there was no other place for her to sit at the Ravenclaw table.

"Did you hear that someone has been destroying Professor Lockhart's robes?" she suddenly asked.

"Really?" asked Terry.

"Yes. Someone has been sneaking into his office and shredding them," Luna confirmed. "I wonder if Nargles are responsible? They don't usually destroy people's clothing though."

Yukio shrugged. "Maybe they're an invasive species."

"Don't encourage her," Michael whispered as he elbowed Yukio.

~0~0~0~

Kuro wandered through the corridors. He was torn between going to the kitchens for an early dinner and sneaking into the annoying professor's office and shredding more of his colorful robes. After hearing Rin and his friends complain about this guy all year, Kuro decided to take things into his own paws and do something about it.

He turned a corner and saw Ron's sister Ginny standing in front of Mrs. Norris's attack site. In her arms was a bucket filled with what Kuro hoped was paint. She seemed to be writing something on the wall underneath the first message. Curious, Kuro trotted up to her and rubbed against her leg (he had forgiven her for her behavior this past winter). Besides, he was always in the mood for a nice scratch behind his ear.

Ginny looked down at the cat sidthe with a blank expression on her face before kicking him away. It didn't hurt Kuro but he was shocked at this sudden change in behavior. Ginny was always eager to pet him and play with him. She also knew where to scratch behind his ear in juuuust the right spot. So why did she suddenly kick him away like he was a football (soccer) ball? Ginny was gone by the time he shook off the kick. Kuro looked at what she did to the wall and his ears drooped.

He had to find someone and fast, preferably that teacher who could change into a cat and he could tell her what happened. McGonagall, if he remembered her name correctly. He ran off to the first floor since that's where her classroom was. And not a moment too soon since it appeared that she was about to enter it. Kuro couldn't just talk to her. She had to be a cat so they could communicate.

Kuro pounced and grabbed at her ankle.

"Ah!" McGonagall cried out, nearly losing her balance. "What the? Get out of my way!" She tried gently scooting Kuro out of her way with her foot but Kuro hung on. "Get off me!" She bent down and tried to get him to let go. Kuro did so but started circling around her, meowing incessantly. McGonagall let out an annoyed groan and changed into a cat.

"Finally! You changed into a cat!"

"What do you want? You're annoying me! I need to prepare for my lesson for my fifth years."

"That's not important right now!"

McGonagall's fur bristled. "What could be more important than educating my students?"

"It's Ginny! She's in trouble!"

"What do you mean? What's happened to Miss Weasley?"

"Follow me!"

The two cats scampered back towards the writings on the wall. McGonagall's cat ears drooped when she read the new message.

"What's… How…"

"I don't know. I think that the Slytherin monster you're looking for hypnotized her or something because she had this blank look on her face and she kicked me away."

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know. By the time I shook the kick off she was gone."

"So the monster took a student into the Chamber of Secrets, a place no one knows the location of." McGonagall sighed. "This has gone far enough. The school needs to close."

It wasn't until both cats parted ways that Kuro finally realized that the secondary scent from Shutterbug's attack lingered in the air near the bathroom door. He also finally realized what that scent was: snake.

~0~0~0~

"Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Demons are no exception to its stare save for the Demon Kings. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it."

Harry read the passage and saw that Hermione had written the word "pipes" underneath. Everything suddenly clicked in Harry's brain.

"Guys," he breathed. "This is it. This is the answer. The monster in the Chamber's a basilisk - a giant serpent! That's why I've been hearing voices all over the place, and nobody else can hear it. It's because I can understand Parseltongue."

"That also explains the lack of coal tars," said Yukio who managed to break away from the Ravenclaws after seeing Harry, Rin, and Ron head towards the Hospital Wing where they currently were.

That also got Harry's attention. "Professor Shura! After Colin was attacked, Shura tried using her nagas to find out what happened but she said they wouldn't cooperate with her. She said that they didn't want to 'defy him.'"

"'Him' as in the basilisk, their king," Yukio said grimly.

"That also explains why Kuro could hear it," Rin piped up. "It's a snake born from a chicken's egg. Kuro used to be an ordinary cat. His animal instincts probably told him that danger was near."

Ron looked at the other hospital beds where the other victims laid. "If the basilisk kills people by looking at them, then how come no one's died yet?" he asked.

The boys also looked at the victims as if one of them would wake up and tell them the answer. Then Harry spoke again.

"Because no one's looked it in the eye," he said. "Not directly at least."

A light bulb switched on in Rin's head. "Shutterbug had a camera in front of his face when Dumbledore and I found him. The basilisk burned up the film inside but Colin just got Petrified," he recalled.

Harry then remembered when he and Shiemi found Justin and Nearly Headless Nick. "Justin must've seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick. Nick got full blast of it but he's a ghost, he can't die again. Hermione and that Ravenclaw prefect were found with a mirror next to them. Hermione had just figured out the monster was a basilisk. I bet you anything she warned the first person she met to look around corners with a mirror first," he said. "And that girl pulled out a mirror and…"

Ron's jaw dropped. "And Mrs. Norris?" he whispered eagerly.

They all thought about the scene from Halloween. Rin then put his fist in his palm.

"The water!" he remembered. "Moaning Myrtle's bathroom flooded that night. I remember we stepped in a puddle. Mrs. Norris probably saw her reflection in the water."

Harry scanned the page in his hand eagerly. The more he read it, the more it made sense.

"'The crowing of the rooster… is fatal to it,'" he read aloud. "Hagrid's roosters were killed. I remember Hagrid told me and Shiemi that something was killing his roosters."

"Or someone," Yukio added grimly. "The Heir didn't want the basilisk getting hurt when he opened the Chamber again since a rooster's crow is fatal to it. Then the spiders were seeking refuge in the Forbidden Forest."

"'Spiders flee before it.' It all fits!" Harry said excitedly.

"But how's it getting around the place?" asked Ron. "A giant snake. Surely someone must've seen it."

Yukio pointed to the word Hermione wrote on the page. "Hermione's figured that out too," he said.

"Pipes," Harry said. "Pipes… Guys, it's been using the plumbing. I've been hearing it inside the walls."

Ron suddenly grabbed Harry's arms. "The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets," he said hoarsely. "What if it's a bathroom? What if it's in…"

"Moaning Myrtle's bathroom!" the boys exclaimed.

They sat there for a long moment trying to process this new information.

"This means that I'm not the only one who can speak Parseltongue," said Harry. "The Heir of Slytherin is one too. That's how he's controlling the basilisk."

"That makes sense too," said Yukio. "Hermione said that Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth."

"So what now?" asked Rin. "Should we go to McGonagall?"

Harry jumped up from where he was sitting. "Let's go to the staff room," he said. "She'll be there soon. It's nearly break time."

The four boys ran out of the Hospital Wing. Not wanting to be caught hanging around in another corridor, they went downstairs and waited in the deserted staff room. For several minutes, they paced around the room, too excited to sit down.

But the bell never rang.

Instead McGonagall's voice echoed through the corridors, "All students are to return to their House dormitory at once. All teachers and faculty are to report to the staff room at once."

Yukio turned towards the others. "Another attack? Now?!"

"What'll we do?" asked Ron. "Go back to the dormitory?"

Rin panicked. "And what? Let McGonagall shut down the school? We've gotta tell the teachers!"

Yukio glared at his twin. "It's gonna be hard to tell them when they're escorting us to Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Towers," he deadpanned.

Harry looked around and saw a wardrobe full of teachers' cloaks. "In here. Let's hear what it's all about. Then we can tell them what we know."

~0~0~0~

Shura looked around the staff room. Several faculty members were confused while others looked scared. She tried to keep her face as neutral as possible. Severus seemed to be doing the same thing, if not more. She didn't need to be a mind reader to know what Snape was thinking; this was about the Chamber of Secrets.

Minerva soon entered the staff room looking very pale and disheveled. "It has happened," she said. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."

"Dammit," Shura swore.

Filius Flitwick let out a frightened squeal. Pomona clapped her hands over her mouth. Severus gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, "How can you be so sure?"

"The Heir of Slytherin," said a very white Minerva, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. 'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.'"

Filius burst into tears.

"Which student?" Shura asked. "Who was taken?"

"Ginny Weasley," Minerva answered. Shura could have sworn she heard something sliding around in the wardrobe in the back of the room. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said…"

The staff room door banged open. Shura was disappointed to see that it was only Cueball, smiling like nothing was wrong.

"So sorry," he said. "Someone's been shredding my robes again. What'd I miss?"

Everyone looked at Cueball with hate. How could he be so dense?

"A kid's been taken into the Chamber, school's closing, and we still don't know who or what is responsible. Any other questions?" Shura summed up.

Severus gave Cueball a sly smirk. "Just the man we need. Your moment has come," he said.

Cueball blanched.

"That's right, Gilderoy," Pomona Sprout piped up. "Weren't you just saying last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was?"

"I… well, I…" Cueball sputtered.

"Yes, didn't you tell me that you were certain you knew what was inside it?" Filius squeaked.

"D-did I? I don't recall…"

"I certainly recall you saying that you were sorry you hadn't had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested," Severus recalled.

Cueball was pale and started to sweat. "I… I really never… you may have misunderstood," he stuttered.

"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," Minerva decided. "Tonight will be a perfect opportunity to do it."

"I… I…"

Shura smirked and decided to throw the pest a bone. "Do this and I'll consider going out to dinner with you, Cueball," she offered.

That got his attention. "V-very well," he said nervously. "I'll… I'll be in my office getting… getting ready." He then left the room.

Shura let out a chuckle. "Sucker."

McGonagall then dismissed the other teachers, telling the Heads of Houses to inform the students that the Hogwarts Express was coming to take them home first thing in the morning. Shura waited until all the teachers left the room and she tiptoed next to the wardrobe.

It took only a few minutes until the door of the wardrobe slowly opened. Shura smirked at who came out.

'Just as I thought.'

I was gonna make this a little big longer but I thought this was a good stopping point as well. I'm looking forward to writing the next chapter!

Keep reviewing, folks! We're in the home stretch now!

P.S. Keep the people of Afghanistan in your thoughts and prayers.