Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 17

Hermione was laying on a hospital bed, completely stiff and holding a mirror in one of her hands.

"We found her near the library…" Professor McGonagall said. "Do any of you know what she was doing?"

I thought back to the last time we had spoken. She didn't really say what she was doing in the library, but she seemed like she had just figured out something and wanted to check on it.

"No," I told her, still looking at Hermione's body. "She just said that she wanted to check on something in there."

Professor McGonagall nodded and motioned for us to follow her. We had to go back to the Gryffindor Tower and stay there until she returned with further instruction. When we got to the common room, everyone jumped to us at once, eager for information.

"Who was it?" Neville asked me.

Everyone went silent and stared at us.

"Hermione and Penelope Clearwater," I said.

We all waited around quietly for Professor McGonagall to return to tell us what exactly we were going to be doing now. Everyone was talking amongst themselves, trying to figure out what was going to happen next.

"What if they close down Hogwarts?" Dean asked. "Will we have to go to another school then?"

"There is no way I can go back to living with Gran all the time," Neville said. "She drives me mad during the summer and that's only a few months!"

"Who are we going to test out our pranks on?" Fred asked.

"We could still use the family," George suggested.

"This is true…" Fred nodded.

"We cannot go back to living with the Dursleys all the time," I said. "There is no way I can go back to that."

"I would go mad…" Harry said.

"You could live with us!" Ron said.

"I don't think that your mum would appreciate that," I said. "Your mum already has enough to deal with."

"Oh, she won't mind!" Fred said.

"She probably wouldn't even notice," George said. "We could even hide you in the attic!"

"Oh, that's fun," Harry laughed.

"Just like the old days," I said thinking back to that old broom cupboard under the stairs.

Then the portrait door opened up and McGonagall stepped through with a scroll of parchment. Everyone went silent as soon as she stepped into the room, ready to listen to her every word.

She cleared her throat and opened up the scroll and began to read:

"All students will return to their House common rooms by six o'clock in the evening. No student is to leave the dormitories after that time. You will be escorted to each lesson by a teacher. No student is to use the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher. All further Quidditch training and matches are to be postponed. There will be no more evening activities."

When she rolled up the parchment, there wasn't another sound in the room.

"It may be obvious to some that the school may have to close until the culprit is caught. If anyone has any information on who it is, please step forward."

She looked around the room for a moment and then left the room. The moment she left, everyone began to panic even more than they were before she was in the room. Lee Jordan was going on about how the only people that were being attacked were people that weren't in Slytherin. It was obvious to everyone that it was the heir of Slytherin that was up to this.

"Can't they just send all of the Slytherins home, that would solve all of our problems!" Lee said.

I went over to Harry and Ron who were talking about Hagrid.

"I think that it's time that we bring out Dad's cloak again," he said to me. "We need to ask Hagrid what happened when he was here."

I nodded in agreement and decided that we would wait until everyone was asleep to go and visit Hagrid's hut.

"Did you actually see Hermione in the hospital?" Dean asked me.

"Her and all of the other people that were petrified."

"And they have no evidence of who they think did it?" Seamus asked. "None of the victims have any clues on them or anything?"

"Yeah, doesn't Colin have that camera with him all the time," Dean said. "Maybe he took a picture of it!"

"They already checked that," I told him. "The camera practically exploded when they tried to look at it."

When everyone had gone to bed, we grabbed the cloak and began to make our way down to Hagrid's house. We couldn't move all that fast because we had to make sure that our feet were covered because we knew that the teacher's and ghosts were going to be guarding the hallways.

We weren't all that far from the Gryffindor Tower when Ron tripped and I fell down. Someone had seen me too because I saw them moving towards me.

"Keep going," I said under my breath. "I'll make something up…"

"Okay," Harry whispered.

"Sorry," Ron said so quietly that I could hardy tell if he had said anything at all.

The person was now walking faster towards me so I had to think fast. I was laying on the ground and I started to stand up but hit someone in the process.

"Ow!" I said.

I looked up and saw Snape standing in front of me.

"What are you doing out here?" he said in an almost concerned toned.

"I guess that I was sleep walking," I lied.

"Do you realize what is going on in this school?" Snape said. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"Sorry, I just-"

"I don't want to hear it!" Snape said, grabbing onto my arm and half-dragging me back to the Gryffindor Tower. "You're going to stay in here, okay?"

"Okay, I-"

"Can you make sure that she doesn't leave the tower?" Snape asked the Fat Lady.

The Fat Lady looked like she had just been awoken from sleeping, but nodded at the teacher's request.

"What if the monster attacks one of the teachers?" I asked him.

"That's none of your concern," Snape said. "Just stay in the tower where you are safe, understood?"

"Yes, but I was just wondering-"

"You cannot use that cloak either," he said.

"I wasn't going to ask-"

"This isn't the time to talk Emily!"

There was a pause and I noticed something odd.

"Did you just call me Emily?" I asked him.

He opened his mouth to say something, but he stayed silent for only a moment.

"Goodnight," he said, closing the portrait.

I stood there for a moment, then I ran over to the window let me see Hagrid's house. I saw the door closing shut and I assumed that Harry and Ron had made it there.

I stood there for a while to see if I could make anything out, but then I saw two people walking towards the hut. One was Dumbledore and the other was someone that I didn't recognize. I hoped that Harry and Ron could hide themselves…

"What are you doing?" a voice said behind me.

I whirled around and saw one of the Weasley twins behind me. I knew that it was George because I saw the mole that was on his neck - something that Fred didn't have.

"Nothing," I said a little too quickly.

"Mhm," he said, obviously not believing me.

George walked over to the window to see what was going on outside. I looked out too and saw someone else walking towards Hagrid's hut. It was Lucius Malfoy.

"What's going on at Hagrid's?" he asked, still looking out the window.

"Um…" I said, trying to come up with something.

"Harry went down there, didn't he?" he asked me.

"How did you know-"

"Ron went too."

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"Why aren't you with them?"

"Ron tripped and I fell…I was seen by Snape, so I told them to keep going."

"Snape caught you?" George asked. "And you're still alive?"

I laughed and looked back out of the window. I saw Hagrid being taken from his house, Dumbledore walking not that far from him.

"Whoa, why are they taking Hagrid?" George asked.

"Oh no…" I said.

"What?"

"They think that he's the one that opened the Chamber of Secrets!"

"What?" he said dumbfounded. "That doesn't make any sense."

"You're telling me…"

I waited to see if I could see any signs of Harry and Ron leaving the house for a while, but I was starting to get tired.

"Wait, why are you still awake anyway?" I asked George.

"I never sleep, I just wait," he smiled.

"Yeah, okay," I laughed.

It was a while later when Harry and Ron came through the door to the common room. I was still sitting on the couch, practically asleep and George was lounged out on the other couch, practically drooling in his sleep.

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but saw George and shut his mouth immediately. He raised an eyebrow and then looked back over to me.

"He's out of it," I said. "What happened? I saw Hagrid being taken."

"Hagrid's being taken to Askaban," Harry said. "And Dumbledore's been told to step aside to let the Ministry do something about it!"

School was getting worse by the day without Dumbledore here. It was only a matter of time before everyone went insane from being on complete lockdown since all of the attacks too.

We were in Potions class when we started talking more about what was going to happen with Dumbledore gone now, although it was Malfoy that was doing most of the talking.

"I think that it should be you that becomes headmaster, Professor Snape," Draco said during class. "My father would definitely vote for you."

"No one cares about your bloody father, Malfoy," I snarled.

"Shut up you filthy little half-blood!" Malfoy snarled back at me.

"Mr. Malfoy!" Snape shouted at Draco, who shut his mouth immediately. "Enough!" he said, looking to Draco and me.

Everyone was silent for a moment, then Draco started talking again.

"I just think that it's great that all of the Mudbloods of the school are getting killed off," Malfoy muttered, looking in my direction.

"Just ignore him, Emily," Neville whispered beside me.

"Maybe the next one could get killed. It's a shame that Granger didn't-" Draco said to me.

I stood up from the chair quickly and punched Draco right in his face. It felt great.

"MISS POTTER!" Snape yelled.

Malfoy's nose was broken and the Gryffindors were all applauding me. Malfoy went to shove me, but Snape held him back.

"Miss Potter, I will be seeing you after class."

I just looked at him and then returned to my seat. I didn't really care what the consequences are. I was just sick of hearing Malfoy.

"Nice one," Ron smiled.

"Why thank you."

The class ended not too long afterwards and Nearly Headless Nick came to escort the class out to lunch for that afternoon. I had to stay back though. When everyone had left, Snape looked up at me.

"What was that?" he asked slowly.

"I believe you saw what it was."

He glared at me for a minute, but then his eyes softened up and he looked down.

"Miss Potter, you do realize that if this school wasn't on lockdown, then I would have you serve detention for a month, right?"

"Did you not hear what he said?" I asked him. "He basically said that all Muggle-borns should be killed! You can't tell me that you agree with that!"

He paused for a moment and looked down.

"No, I don't agree with that at all…" he murmured. "But that does not give you the right to use violence. You should have said something-""And you would do what?" I asked him, already knowing the answer. "I don't know if you noticed, but my mother is a Muggle-born and it is an insult to her memory to not defend what she was. Some of the most brilliant witches and wizards come from Muggle families, just look at Hermione Granger!"

Snape seemed to be lost for words for a moment.

"I understand…" Snape said. "But you shouldn't result to violence…you're a better person than that."

I was stunned - that was the first compliment that I had ever heard come out of Snape's mouth in the two years that I had been going to this school.

"I will let you off this time, Miss Potter," he said. "But if it happens again, don't expect me to be so lenient."

He stood up from his desk and walked towards the door. He motioned for me to follow him and I quickly caught up to him once we were in the hallway. It wasn't long before we made it into the Great Hall where the rest of the school was.

I walked over to my table and sat down next to Harry and Ron.

"Is it true that you punched Malfoy in the face?" Fred asked me.

I nodded, not feeling as good about it as I had before. I had a feeling that Snape had something to do with that…

Thanks for reading! I hope that you liked this chapter - more to come tomorrow!

So, I have a few questions to ask everyone. I was talking about this with BlueMoon-Tenshi and it got me thinking about what I was going to do, so I think that I'll just ask everyone else what they think should happen: Do you think that Emily should be involved with the Triwizard Tournament in the Goblet of Fire? Why or why not?

Also, I would like to say some things to the people that have been commenting/giving me suggestions:

-BlueMoon-Tenshi: Where do I even begin? Thank you so much for sending me all of the messages that you do! I really do appreciate every suggestion that you have given me and I hope that you like the way the story is going!

-HayatoxAkemi:thanks for reading my stories - I'm sooo happy that you like them! The relationship between Emily and Snape is one of my favorites too!

-pJato431: thanks for commenting - it means a lot! I'm happy that you noticed the similarities between Emily and her father - that is why I made her a prankster! As for the way I'm going to end the series, I'm not really sure myself what I'm going to do there - *SPOILER* - though I highly doubt that I'm going to have Emily die…sorry. :/

-Sara: Thank you so much! I like that idea that you came up for with actually, I may even use it…we'll just have to se…As for the Valentine, I will not going to say who exactly it was until the end of this book (even though I'm sure everyone has already guessed it by now).

-GhostOfFanfiction: Thanks for reading my story - I like your name you used on here by the way…I also like the idea that you came up with for when they are in the Chamber - I'll take that into consideration also!

-EmInsane: I'm glad that you found that prank slightly funny! Thanks for commenting!

I would respond to every comment, sorry if I didn't get to yours, but I have a lot to do tonight. Sorry! I hope that you all still like where the story is going and I hope that you continue to read and comment!