Chapter Twenty-Seven: Loose Ends

It was odd when classes started again the next day. Just like the days immediately before the school was closed, the days immediately after were characterized by neither teachers nor students being very attentive.

Defense Against the Dark Arts had, because of Lockhart's complete memory erasure, been canceled, meaning that the productivity during those hours was now higher than ever.

Even though the Petrified people still hadn't been revived, there was a lightness over the school that hadn't been there in a long time. Just like the year before, the things that had happened in the Chamber of Secrets were completely, well, secret, which meant that everyone in school knew some variation of what had happened.

Harry, Ron, and Daphne were seen as heroes — and many people came to sheepishly apologize to Harry for suspecting him, for which Harry forgave them far quicker than Ron did — as was Neville Longbottom, for his fight with Malfoy, which had taken on similarly legendary proportions, much to Neville's embarrassment and Malfoy's anger.

With Lucius kicked off the board of governors, he'd become less arrogant and more withdrawn, though Snape still openly favored him. Daphne had told Harry and Ron why he did it, but neither seemed to care, since Snape was still detracting points from the Gryffindors for stupid reasons, and they preferred disliking him without complicating it with nuances and reasons.

Hagrid had been released from Azkaban, and had repeatedly told Harry, Ron, and Daphne how proud he was that they'd solved the mystery in the end. Still feeling conflicted over her last conversation with Snape, Daphne was making a plan to do something for Hagrid to make up for his wrongful expulsion, but it would have to wait until the summer before she could put it into motion.

She'd also met up with her Slytherin friends again, and they'd finally come up with a name for their group: the Slytherin Improvement Nation. 'Nation' was maybe a bit grandiose for eight students, but the acronym S.I.N. made them grin too much not to use it, and it was much easier to refer to the group by an actual name than constantly having to come up with a descriptor.

Since the Chamber had been closed again, S.I.N. had continued from where they'd left off, and they were doing a fairly decent job. While most mentions of Slytherin in the Hogwarts halls were still pretty negative, she began to pick up more and more positive sounds as well.

Ginny, meanwhile, had a difficult first week back. Though people still didn't really know what had happened to her, there were rumors about her, and some of those got pretty close to the truth. Her brothers, Harry, and Daphne tried to help her as much as they could.

Percy especially seemed to feel responsible for not getting Ginny to see McGonagall earlier, which Daphne could very much relate to, so one day at lunch, she took Percy aside to have a chat with him.

"You don't need to beat yourself up over it," she said.

"I'm her brother, and I'm a Prefect. I've failed in both capacities. I thought she was just stressed, and that Fred and George were giving her nightmares with their stupid jokes. I should have–"

"She told me she thought she was the one attacking people," Daphne interrupted. "I kept her secret. You think you're guilty? Well, I think I am. And both Harry and Ginny have been telling me, every since the Chamber, that I should stop blaming myself. I haven't, of course, but I've been trying. And now, I'm telling you the same thing. Stop blaming yourself. You haven't failed anyone. I hope I don't need to remind you that without your help, Harry and I could never have gotten to her in time."

She could see that Percy wasn't entirely willing to accept what she was saying, but he didn't dismiss it out of hand, either, and that was all that mattered to her.

During the Easter holidays, the students had to choose their subjects for the new year, and Daphne sat with Harry and Ron to figure out what she was going to take. She'd noticed that a lot of her flippant, offhand remarks had had a habit of coming true, so she signed up for Divination to see if she was possibly some kind of seer, though she didn't actually think the class would be all that useful. Harry and Ron both chose it, anyway, so at least she'd have someone to talk to about it.

She also chose Care of Magical Creatures, not so much because she intended to ever use it in her future profession, but just in case another monster would end up being set loose in the halls of Hogwarts and they needed to figure out what it was.

Lastly, she chose Muggle Studies. Hermione's books had only told her so much, and she wanted to learn more about them. She wondered what Hermione would end up choosing, once the Mandrake potion was done.

The next Quidditch match for Harry was against Hufflepuff, and this time none of the Bludgers seemed determined to kill him. Even so, Daphne felt uneasy watching the match. She'd never understand the appeal, but there was no way she wasn't going to cheer for Harry.

Ginny had come to the match as well, and turned out to be every bit as much of a Quidditch fan as her brothers. When Madam Hooch missed a minor foul by one of the Hufflepuff players — which he even apologized for to Angelina Johnson — Ginny was shouting and swearing so prodigiously it made even Ron look over in surprise.

"Do you always get into the game this much?" Daphne asked.

"Oh, come on, Hooch had to have seen that! It was a great scoring opportunity, too…hopefully Harry will catch the Snitch soon, that'll show them… Come on, Fred, hit that Bludger harder! Take his head off!"

Daphne gave Ginny a thoughtful look. Maybe if she could get Ginny and Harry to watch a Quidditch game together, Ginny would get into the game enough for her to talk to Harry without thinking about who she was talking to. She made a mental note to ask her mother if there were any professional Quidditch matches at all over the summer.

After roughly thirty minutes, Harry caught the Snitch, leading to a Gryffindor victory of three hundred and twenty to ninety.

Daphne kept an eye on Ginny to see if she would actually talk to Harry after the match, but sadly, she seemed to have cooled down a bit by that time, and she lost her nerve again.

When, later in the year, Gryffindor absolutely demolished Ravenclaw with four hundred and ten to twenty, they were the clear winners of the Quidditch Cup, and the resulting euphoria was so big that Percy even allowed Daphne into the Gryffindor common room to join the party, which went until well into the night.

The party became even better when, that very same evening, the Petrified people were revived, and Hermione came into the common room to the loud cheers of everyone present. She, herself, was jubilant as well.

"You solved it! You solved it!" she shouted to Harry, Ron, and Daphne. "I had it figured out and wanted to tell you, but I got attacked on the way back…I'm so glad you found the solution yourselves!"

It was a party that was possibly even better than the feast on that fateful night had been, and when Daphne came back to the Slytherin common room — escorted there by Percy, who still took his Prefect duties very seriously — she was surprised to find that her S.I.N. friends were having a bit of a party as well, to celebrate Isaac's return.

"Daphne! I heard you and your friends saved the school," he said when he spotted her. "Great job!"

"Thanks," Daphne said with a smile. "How did you end up getting attacked, anyway?" she asked.

Isaac grinned sheepishly. "Well, I ran into that Weasley girl in the hallways after dark, when you'd been taken to the hospital wing. She said she wanted to visit you and had something important to tell…so I figured I might as well help her out and that she probably wouldn't have been out of bed to find you without a reason.

"But then she suddenly seemed to…I don't know, have a really bad headache or something and she pushed me away, knocking the jug of pumpkin juice I was going to bring to you out of my hands. Then I heard a weird hissing sound, saw the reflection of something in the jug…and then I woke up in the hospital wing a couple of hours ago."

Daphne winced. She could imagine what Ginny had wanted to tell her that night. Riddle had probably not liked that notion one bit and made her attack the person she was with to cover his tracks, even though that person was a Slytherin.

Of course, given Isaac's curse… When the S.I.N. party was winding down a bit, she approached Isaac separately and said, "I heard Dumbledore say you'd been cursed, when you were brought into the hospital wing."

Isaac glanced around to see if no one was listening, and then said, "Only Dumbledore and Snape know, and I suppose the rest of the staff by now. But please, keep it to yourself. People seem to think my curse affects them too, once they know I have it. I'm fine with everyone thinking I'm just very prone to accidents."

"Can't it be broken?" Daphne asked.

Isaac shrugged. "Maybe, but I'd need to find a very experienced curse breaker, and those are hard to come by. St. Mungo's wasn't able to do anything, anyway."

Daphne decided to keep the information in the back of her mind for now. If, at some point, she'd run into a curse breaker, she might be able to help Isaac out.

For the time being, however, she focused on preparing for the final exams of the year. Despite the stressful first half, the last few months had been a breeze, and she spent a lot of time studying in the library with her Gryffindor friends.

Hermione was frantic, having missed several months of education, and was usually the first one in the library each morning, and the last to leave.

To Daphne's great amusement, despite Hermione's months out of the running, she still had easily the best grades of all the second-years, though Daphne herself hadn't done bad by any means, either.

And then, at long last, it was time for the end-of-year feast. Gryffindor had won the House Cup for the second year running, to the surprise of no one whatsoever. With their Quidditch victories and the four hundred points Harry and Ron had earned between the two of them, even Neville's one hundred point detraction and Daphne's two hundred points for Slytherin barely even made a dent in the gap between Gryffindor and everyone else.

Just like the year before, most people in the Great Hall were entirely fine with this result, and Daphne and her S.I.N. friends cheered as loudly as anyone else when it was announced.

Only Draco Malfoy had a sullen expression on his face throughout the entire evening. Well, Snape didn't seem happy, either, but he rarely did.

During the train ride back to London, Harry said, "I don't know how much I'll be able to write to you during the summer. I doubt the Dursleys will have forgotten how I left."

He gave Ron and Hermione slips of paper. "This is a telephone number. I told your Dad how it works, Ron, so ask him about it."

He shot Daphne an apologetic look. "I'd give you one, too, but I don't think you have a phone," he said.

"No, but don't worry. If I really need to talk to you, I'll send Finny over," Daphne said.

Even though she tried to play it off, part of her still felt a bit left out for not having the phone number, whatever that would be good for.

"Good to hear. Call me at the Dursleys, guys. I can't stand two months with only Dudley to talk to."

"But surely they'll be proud of you, right? For what you did this year?" Hermione asked.

"Proud?" Harry said. "Are you crazy? All those times I could've died and I didn't manage it? They'll be furious…"

They all laughed, even Ginny, who sat with them, but Daphne felt uneasy that Harry's relatives apparently hated him that much. And especially after hearing what they'd done to him last year…

The train rolled into the station, and once they were on the platform, they said their goodbyes.

Before Ginny could follow Harry, Hermione, and Ron, though, Daphne pulled her aside for a moment.

"We'll stay in touch too, right?" she asked. "I know this year wasn't– anyway, you're my friend, too, so…"

Ginny giggled. "I'll write, if Errol can handle it," she said.

Daphne grinned. "Good. Well, have a good summer!"

"You too!"

Daphne looked after her friends for a moment, and then walked in the other direction, to the Apparition area, where her parents were already waiting for her.

Finally, the official end of year two. I considered putting this into the previous chapter, but it felt a bit more appropriate to stuff it into its own thing, even if it's a bit shorter than usual. Not every chapter needs to be pivotal, and this one, as the title suggests, mostly ties up some loose ends and sets things up for the third year. As ever, I'd appreciate everyone's opinions. And to the people who have been consistently doing so: Thank you so much! I'm really grateful for each response!