Chapter 2.
Harry was enjoying his summer holidays for the first time in his life. The Grangers made good on their pact of getting him new clothes for both school and free time. He now had two pairs of shoes that actually fit for the first time in his life outside of his Hogwarts uniform.
He did have to open up a bit about his life at number four to the Grangers, who were very understanding. They took notes and documented what was said via a recorder, just in case.
He let them know things he had never told another soul. How his uncle had taken the belt to him when he was just four years old for tracking mud through the kitchen, how his room was the cupboard under the stairs that he got locked in for accidental bouts of magic.
He did explain the good side of things too, like how funny he found it when Dudley became an exhibit at the zoo and when Hagrid showed up and gave him a pigs' tail.
The week before school started the group headed into the Alley to get school supplies and meet up with Ron and his family. He was pleased that Harry was freed from his personal prison and invited both Harry and Hermione to his house over the next summer holidays.
Harry was excited to learn that he could fly at Ron's house so was extremely interested in spending some time there next year. Hermione in turn offered to host Ron at her house over the yule holidays, Ron was nervous but accepted and promised to ask him mum.
Molly Weasley was a coddler, she loved children and could instantly see how much better Harry looked being in the Grangers care. She had wrapped both Harry and Hermione in a tight motherly embrace before introducing herself to the Grangers.
What her children didn't know was that she kept in constant contact with Mrs. Figg, a neighbor of Harry's relatives that was a squib, or a non-magical person born into a magic family. She was on assignment from Albus to watch over Harry, the only reason she knew of the agreement was a slip-on Mrs. Figg's part while at the Leaky Cauldron.
She knew that Harry wasn't the favorite child in the household but didn't know all the evil that played within. Which might be a good thing considering she had a temper that was famous amongst the trio, and well, basically all of Hogwarts with the number of Howlers she sends to the twins.
Speaking briefly with the Grangers, she made a vow to check in with Harry for the two weeks he was required there and agreed to be the Grangers contact for Hogwarts should things go haywire.
Hermione made no haste of telling her parents how the end of term went. When they told her they wanted to remove her from Hogwarts she all but threatened to run away, further explaining Harry's situation and explaining the circumstances of a witch who choose to remove themselves from school. Not only could the Grangers not make that decision themselves, without the consent of Hermione's magical guardian, who happened to be her head of house Minerva McGonagall, but that she would lose all her memories of anything magical to boot.
This is what stopped them from their ranting and pulled them down the path they now found themselves on. Their twelve-year-old daughter had written home about friends, friends she went into great detail explaining.
Hermione's life before Hogwarts was a rough one. None of the kids at her primary school wanted to speak with her, she was always the butt of nerdy jokes and took solace in reading, which didn't help the bullying.
There was no way they could pull their daughter out of the magical school even if they did have the rights to, they could never take away her friends.
The first thing the Grangers did was file for Mrs. Weasley to be the magical guardian of Harry and Hermione, finding out that Dumbledore was Harry's caused a ripple of unease to grow within the group.
The Grangers had talked with Molly and Arthur about the things they had learned, keeping Harry's life private for the most part on things he didn't want discussed. Molly who was always a big supporter of Dumbledore turned pale.
How could a wizard they had trusted, muck things up so bad for Lily and James' child? Although she wasn't super close with the Potters, she was close with Alice and Frank Longbottom, from being aurors with her brothers.
Alice was and still is Harry's godmother, but she was currently a permanent resident of a ward in Saint Mungo's for cruciatus damage.
Molly explained who Harry's legal magical guardians should be and why they aren't able to assist. She explained Alice's ailment, and the sad tale of Sirius Black. She didn't believe Sirius guilty, although she wasn't close with the Potters or their gang of friends in school, everyone knew Sirius and James were as close as brothers.
By the time the kids returned from grabbing ice-cream and shopping the Grangers and Weasley's had become extremely close. Dan had allowed Hermione to get an orange scruffy looking kitten from the menagerie, while he himself purchased an owl to keep in touch with the Weasley's.
Hermione named her cat Crookshanks, and the Owl, a handsome barn owl, Godric after her house founder.
The Weasley's promised to keep in touch and that they would see the Grangers and Harry at the Platform on September first.
The last week of the summer holidays flew by, Harry under the watchful eye of Hermione, had gotten all of his homework done and approved by her. Everything was packed and Harry had released Hedwig to fly to Hogwarts on her own.
The plan was to use Hedwig for communication between the kids and the Grangers and Godric for any communication that the adults needed be that to the kids or to the Weasleys.
Hugging Harry tightly, Jean made him promise to write. It was still hard for her to feel the young man tense up whenever she hugged him, but noticed he stopped tensing for Hermione. A good sign she thought.
Harry promising to add into Hermione's letters each week which saw a smile grace her lips. Passing him off to Dan, Jean hugged her daughter tightly. "We love you baby girl" Hermione sniffled a little and told her Mum she loved her too.
Meeting with Ron the trio all piled onto the train, Harry made a comment to Hermione that he half expected trouble from Dobby and brought Ron up to speed on the weird house elf he had found in his room at private drive.
"He had to have been from a rich pureblood family, they are the only ones with house elves." Ron stated.
The worry was for not however as the trio had a smooth trip to school, Ron made sure to pop in by Ginny who was sitting with her friend and neighbor Luna Lovegood, it was both girls first time to Hogwarts and Ron being the older brother that he was wanted to make sure she was settling in comfortably.
Unfortunately for him, Ginny didn't enjoy being checked up on by all of her brothers and all but threw him out of the cabin, making the twins laugh as they had gotten the same treatment.
Arriving at the school saw the trio say goodbye to Ginny leaving her in Hagrid's care and heading towards carriages that had no horses. They joined Neville in a carriage and headed toward the school.
Ginny was of course sorted into Gryffindor while her friend Luna had been sorted into Ravenclaw. Ginny was very shy and nervous around Harry, Ron telling him that she had a crush on him made Harry nervous. He didn't know how to approach a female that liked him like that, none the less the sister of one of his best friends. He would have to ask Hermione later on that subject.
Ron was right in the middle of telling Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas about his experience with their new defense against the dark arts professor. Apparently, Ron and his family had made a separate trip to the ally to get their books and such when they ran into Professor Gilderoy Lockhart.
Supposedly, there was a scuddle between the Senior Malfoy and Mr. Weasley at the bookshop that ended up in Hagrid having to pull Arthur off of him. Based on his knowledge of Draco Malfoy a platinum haired bully in their school year, Harry was cheering on the Senior Weasley.
Hermione, who was always very much a teacher's pet had issues with putting the story that Ron was telling up against their defense professor. She had of course read all his books that were assigned, to all school years, which she thought odd. Why would a first or second year need the same books as a NEWT student? But as always, she loved to read, and the professor did have some very detailed accounts of his time in the world chasing and helping smaller civilizations of their beastly situations.
Harry and Hermione had talked about Lockhart after they purchased the books, Harry was under the impression that the teacher was a self-absorbed git and had already resigned to the fact that he wasn't going to learn anything in what he considered one of the most important classes in his Hogwarts career.
Hermione however was smitten with the professor, and even though things didn't really make sense, like his choice to assign the same books to all seven years, she trusted in the professor to teach them valuable information.
Classes went swimmingly for the first few days until the second year Gryffindor students had their first defense class.
"Can you all hear me? Can you all see me? Very good." Lockhart crooned and continued to sing his own praises for well over twenty minutes, all the while having the girls in class drooling over him, Hermione included, which Harry found strange. All the boy's rolled their eyes and drifted off somewhere other than the classroom in their minds.
Lockhart's whole class was spent on talking about him and his achievements, followed by a pop quiz on the git himself. How anyone could call that nit wit a professor was beyond Harry.
Hermione of course had gotten a hundred and ten percent on her pop quiz having read all seven of his books before school. Harry had asked her if she felt okay, to which she replied, "never better". So, he dropped his worries for now.
/* - /* - /*
Harry Potter had detention. Normally he was an excellent student, Harry always enjoyed learning, even if he had to curb his enthusiasm when he was in school with his cousin Dudley. However, Harry always seemed to land himself in detention at least once a month from the potion's professor and head of Slytherin, Professor Snape.
Harry, who was not well liked by the resident potions' professor due to a feud the professor had with his father during their time in school, was just on his way to see his head of house for a detention given by said professor. This time it was for breathing too loudly. That's when he heard it, a strange, unusual voice echoing through the corridor.
"Riiiiiipppp, teaaaarrrr, kiiiiiiiiillllllllll…"
Harry startled by the sound rounded the corner rather quickly to find nothing, fully expecting to run into someone the halls were empty. Confused Harry listened closely to see if he could hear the voice once more. No luck, whatever or whoever the voice belonged to it was gone now.
Harry decided to brush the incident off, it could be Peeve's playing a prank after all, and continued on to his detention.
He did eventually tell Hermione and Ron about the incident. Ron let him know that hearing voices even in the wizarding world was not normal, and Hermione appeared worried about him.
He explained his thought process of Peeve's and the pair thought it was a very logical explanation. Hermione cataloged it in her brain while the boys forgot about it.
A few months had passed, and Harry found himself following Hermione's suggestion of talking to Ginny, all this landed him however was an angry first year who ran away crying. He didn't have a clue on what he did wrong. He simply told Ginny that he didn't fancy her in the way she fancied him. Short, simple and to the point. He was flabbergasted.
Ron had told Harry not to worry about it and that girls are crazy, winning him a slap to the arm from Hermione.
Harry was heading down to dinner after his latest detention, this time for not crushing his porcupine quills correctly the first time. His detention was set up with Lockhart, something that Snape found rewarding considering he somehow knew how Harry felt about the git.
Harry had spent most of the evening and most of dinner addressing envelopes for Lockhart's fan mail. He could have sworn some of the letters appeared in Lockhart's handwriting but whatever, he was starving and thanks to Lockhart he was almost going to miss dinner.
Harry rounded the corner to the connecting corridor of the great hall when he once more heard that eerie voice.
"Riiiiiipppp, teaaaarrrr, kiiiiiiiiillllllllll…" this time it sounded closer.
Harry started to take off at a run heading toward the voice, he once more rounded the corner and stopped dead in his tracks. There hanging on the wall was Mrs. Norris, the grouchy caretakers' pet who guarded the halls and would snitch on students to her master.
She looked to be dead hanging by her tail next to some words written in blood, "The chamber of secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware."
Harry was frozen to the spot; he was so engrossed in trying to figure out what the message meant that he didn't hear the footsteps of oncoming students. The gasps are what alerted Harry to their presence, that and Hermione coming up and grabbing his hand.
"Harry, what happened?" She asked quietly.
"I don't know Hermione, I just walked up on this, but I heard the voice again." He whispered back and caught her eye, they have been getting better in not needing words this year, and she nodded in understanding.
"What has happened, let me through, make way." Minerva McGonagall's Scottish brogue sounded.
Once she reached the front of the mass of students the professors face turned white, Snape and Dumbledore weren't far behind her and paused the same way when they saw the message.
Filtch came barging up through the crowd and let a wail loose when he saw his cat. He quickly turned to Harry and blamed him for killing his cat.
Dumbledore took charge right away, "Argus relax, I do not believe that Harry has any hand in this incident."
Filtch shut his mouth but was still glaring at Harry. Dumbledore continued, "Prefects, I need you to lead your house back to the dormitories please. Harry, would you remain back for questioning please."
The students immediately dispersed with the prefects leading the way, two groups to the towers two towards the dungeons. Hermione squeezed Harry's hand and left with Percy Weasley.
Harry noticed Hermione started to be more affectionate this year, holding his hand when nervous or excited, and she hugged him a lot more, and of course there was that kiss she gave him at the Dursley's that he could swear he still felt. Shockingly he was realizing how much he enjoyed it, and her company, which just served to mess with is head a bit more while waiting for Dumbledore to finish talking with the staff.
"I do believe that Mrs. Norris is not dead Argus, she is simply petrified. But what petrified her I can not say. Harry, I would like your account if you please." Dumbledore said turning his twinkling blue eyes onto him.
Harry felt like he was under a microscope with everyone looking at him. He stuttered out his reply that he was simply heading to the great hall when he came across the message and froze to the spot. It's not like students see messages written in blood every day.
Snape had recounted that he didn't see Harry at dinner that evening as asked about his whereabouts.
Lockhart confirmed Harry's story explaining how he had released him much later than normal due to getting lost in his fan's admirations. Then following up with some ridiculous story about it being a shame he wasn't around when the petrifying happened as he knew the exact counter curse for it. Something Harry very much doubted.
Harry was excused by the headmaster and McGonagall escorted him to Gryffindor tower where Hermione launched herself at him the moment he came through the door. Minerva raised an eyebrow but didn't say a word about the curly haired witch, instead she called for a house elf to bring Harry some dinner to be eaten in the common room.
Hugging her tightly Harry had a quick thought that he didn't want to let go. Hermione pulled away from the embrace first with a little bit of a blush tinging her cheeks. Which Harry though made her look beautiful with her wild curls.
Pulling him over to a quiet corner of the common room, Hermione pumped him for information as he ate. Ron was busy in a chess match against his elder brother at the moment, and she told him they could catch him up later.
Harry told Hermione everything, glad that she was finally out of her Lockhart phase, her comment on the pompous windbag made him laugh a much-needed laugh. It had only been a week ago that Hermione's crush on the professor came to a screeching haul after having to immobilize a swarm of Cornish pixies and getting Neville down from the chandelier.
"I'm not sure what to make of the situation Harry" Hermione said.
Harry suggested the only thing he knew would calm her down, a trip to the school library tomorrow to investigate into the chamber of secrets and its heir.
Harry, Hermione, and Ron all searched the library for the next couple of months, trying to figure out what the chamber of secrets was, Ron kept saying that Draco Malfoy was the heir to Slytherin and was the cause of everything as Draco was trying to pin it all on Harry. He came up with an idea to use polyjuice potion to sneak into the Slytherin common room to test his theory out after finding the potion in a book while researching.
Hermione however put a stop to that, it wasn't like she was going to brew an illegal potion that took months. Instead, she came up with the idea to ask a teacher and the teacher she trusted most was Professor McGonagall, which lead to the Scottish professor talking about the chamber to the Gryffindor/Slytherin transfiguration class.
Although they got helpful information it wasn't anything they haven't already found in the library. Her next idea was to talk with someone who was in the castle at the time when the chamber was last opened, which they learned was more fifty years ago.
That lead them to Hagrid, who advised them to speak with Moaning Myrtle. She was more than happy to talk about her death, after her tyrant about a girl throwing a book at her.
Confused about the book Harry asked if it was still there, the young-looking ghost pointed to a black diary that laid on the floor, bare, with nothing in its pages. The only identifier was a name on the spine, Tom Marvolo Riddle.
It was a few more weeks of finding nothing new about the chamber, Hermione was getting anxious with the yule time holidays coming up that they wouldn't make any sort of breakthrough and Ron was stressed because Ginny was becoming unbearable. She was always distraught and crying, very much unlike the Ginny he knew before Hogwarts. He was happy they were all going home for the holidays, hopefully Mum would pull her out of her funk.
There were two days before they left on the train for home, Harry was sitting in the common room while everyone else was asleep. He was inspecting the diary once more after doing some transfiguration homework. He was just getting ready to head for bed and was capping his ink well when a bit spilled onto the diary and disappeared.
Shocked by this Harry let his quill drip on the pages where they once more absorbed the ink and remained blank.
Harry wasn't sure what compelled him to write in the diary, curiosity he supposed, but before he could comprehend what he was doing he had dipped his quill into the ink and wrote "Hello?"
Thinking it was all a farce and that it must be some sort of security measure Harry was getting ready to close the diary when words appeared on the page.
"Hello, who is this?"
Gasping Harry wrote "My name is Harry Potter" once more the ink absorbed and once more words that were not his own appeared.
"Hello Harry Potter, my name is Tom Riddle."
Thinking that he was making headway, he wrote the one thing that crossed his brain the most, second only to Hermione recently.
"Do you know anything about the chamber of secrets?"
"Yes" was the only response that came back.
Thinking hard and breathing heavily Harry wrote, "Can you tell me about it?"
It took the diary a few moments to respond this time, Harry almost worried that it didn't really know about the chamber when suddenly the words once more appeared.
"No, but I can show you." And before Harry knew what was happening, he was sucked into the book itself.
He was flown through the memories of Tom Riddle, seeing Hagrid in school was fun, until Tom accused him of opening the chamber. Then watching as Myrtles body was carried out, Dumbledore, not headmaster at the time but as the transfiguration professor staring Tom down. Harry got a bad feeling.
Something wasn't right. Hagrid wouldn't be allowed at Hogwarts still if he murdered Myrtle. And he didn't think Myrtle would be as friendly towards Hagrid if he was the one who killed her.
Tom seemed to be very nosy, and obviously didn't have the trust of Dumbledore.
Before he knew it, he was thrown back in his chair in the common room. He closed the diary and promised himself to never write in it again. How could an inanimate object suck you in and show you things. Something wasn't right and tomorrow he would talk to Hermione about it.
The following morning Harry hid the diary in a sock at the bottom of his trunk and left to find Hermione. All their testing was done, and they had a free day to do with what they pleased before hopping on the train to the Grangers home tomorrow morning.
Harry was extremely excited to head back and spend time with a family he was quickly coming to love. This shocked him because he wasn't quite sure what love was but knew he felt strongly for the pair of doctors and their daughter.
Harry dragged Hermione to what was dubbed her corner of the library in first year, even the upper classmen didn't bother her in her corner.
Harry explained everything in detail about what he saw in whispers to Hermione. She was a very good listener and came to the same eerie feelings as he had the prior night.
Her comment on you shouldn't trust anything where you can't see where it keeps its brain, made Harry both nervous and chuckle a little at the funny saying.
Hermione wanted to investigate this diary herself and followed Harry to the tower so that he could retrieve it. Upon entering his dormitory, he noticed several beds were up-rooted along with all their trunks. Harry called down to his dorm mates to find out what happened.
They reported the incident to Percy who stated he would follow up with McGonagall however seeing as nothing was stolen it appeared to have been a prank, although even the twins admitted they didn't see the humor in it.
Harry returned to the common room to inform Hermione that something was in fact stolen. The diary.
Not knowing what else to do, they pair decided to put the diary out of their minds, it wasn't like they trusted the information they gained from it anyway.
Harry and Hermione had a wonderful holiday. Harry for only the second time in his memory had gotten Christmas presents.
Hermione had gotten him a detailed broom servicing kit for his Nimbus 2000, Ron who had to cancel their plans due to Ginny having a meltdown at home sent him and Hermione a box full of chocolate frogs each along with a Weasley sweater for everyone in the Granger household.
Harry had gotten Hermione several of her favorite sugar quills and a beautiful eagle feather quill set and had owl ordered the Grangers a snow glob with Hogwarts in it, courtesy of the twins, since they never got to see where they spent most of the year.
Harry in return was told they were taking him shopping to make the room he was staying in his. That he could pick out bedding and paint colors, even some decorations. Harry had never expected to have his own personalized room at their home and thanked them profusely.
Hopping on the train at the end of the holiday was a sad occasion. Harry and Hermione in their matching Weasley sweaters met up with Ron at the gate, Ginny had barged her way past with a huff.
"Not to worry dears, she's just getting her bearings at school and worried about how it looks to be over protected by not one but four of her six brothers." Molly said while hugging them all.
Returning to the school was pure chaos. Apparently, there had been an incident while everyone was getting settled in. A student this time, was found petrified. The boy, a first year named Colin Creevey, was found with his camera up to his face now made of stone.
The Minister of Magic himself was at the school to sit in on interviews being given by a red headed witch wearing a monocle. She had asked to speak with Harry as he had found the initial victim and wanted to see if there were any matching themes.
Harry was led into a room where the witch with the Monocle waited for Mrs. Weasley to arrive. Harry being underage immediately activated his need for his guardian, when Dumbledore tried to come in Amelia had to tell him in no uncertain terms that he was no longer Harry Potters legal magical guardian taking him by surprise.
The red headed witch who introduced herself as Amelia Bones had a smile on her face as she said her next words to Dumbledore, "Yeah, not so much fun when the boot is on the other foot is it Albus. Molly Weasley was appointed by his legal guardians as his magical one, so it is she I will wait for."
Amelia made short work of sitting Molly down when she arrived and started the interview. Because he was a minor the Minister was not allowed in, which made things feel a bit more comfortable.
"Hello Harry, once more my name is Amelia Bones." She paused to shake his hand.
"I am the head for the department of magical law enforcement or DMLE for short. I am also Susan Bone's aunt and was a close friend of your parents, to which Molly can verify." Glancing towards Mrs. Weasley she nodded at Harry, and he instantly felt at peace.
"I'm not here to accuse you at all Harry, and I love the fact that you got your magical guardian changed to someone with a head on her shoulders."
Harry saw Mrs. Weasley sit up just a little bit taller with pride. He smiled and agreed. He explained for the first time everything he knew. The voices, the diary, the diaries disappearance, the untrust they had on the diary and his reasonable explanations for the voices he's been hearing.
In turn Amelia explained that Hagrid was blamed the last time, but no proof could be found. They have since known that the so-called beast he had was an acromantula that was currently living in the forest. It does not petrify people, and it agreed to be interviewed by the ministry several years ago. Aragog, Hagrid's giant spider, also consented to having his family relocated to a special island when the population got too big.
She also let it be known that the imbecile of a minister still wanted to be seen doing something so wanted to lock up Hagrid again.
Harry jumped out of his seat "That's not fair!"
"Settle down dear, I'm sure Amelia will take care of it." Mrs. Weasley said while placing a hand on Harry's shoulder.
"She's right Harry, please calm down, we have no proof to hold Hagrid and he was cleared of the charges last time." Amelia tried.
"Then why was his wand still snapped?" Harry demanded.
"I'll have to look into that Harry, I'm sorry I don't have all the answers right away. But I promise to dig into it as soon as we have this chamber situation figured out." Amelia looked sincere in her promise, so Harry let it go.
Amelia told Harry that she would be posting her Aurors around the school to assist with keeping everyone safe until such time they figure out what beast is causing this.
Harry shook her hand and thanked her for her time, hugged Mrs. Weasley and headed off to find Hermione, he had a lot to catch her up on.
As expected, Hermione took the information and ran with it, straight to the library. For the first two weeks back, she had dedicated herself to figuring out the beast. They had talked Hagrid into letting them talk with Aragog, a freighting situation that Harry didn't want to be in again.
They didn't get much information; the giant spider didn't actually see anything while he was in Hagrid's care so many years ago. He did give a hint about spiders fleeing before it and such which Hermione was attempting to track down currently.
The worst day of Harry's life so far, besides losing his parents, happened on a gloomy spring day, in April, Harry and Hermione had spent the Easter holidays at the Burrow with the Weasleys, greatly enjoying Mrs. Weasley's cooking, and the twins' antics. Ginny had chosen to stay at Hogwarts along with Percy who was doing extra credit work for his Arithmancy professor.
When they returned Harry had quidditch practice every day leading up to the big match off between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Oliver Wood wasn't taking any chances, if he could get time on the pitch they were out there, no matter the weather.
Harry had endured a grueling two weeks of pure hell in torrential down pours. They were just getting ready to start the match when Professor McGonagall entered the team locker room and informed Wood that the match had been cancelled.
Wood was understandably mad, but Harry could see the stress and worry in her eyes when she turned to him. "Mr. Potter, I will require your presence in the infirmary immediately, please follow me.
What Harry walked into will forever haunt his nightmares for there, laying on the bed solid as stone, was Hermione. He ran over to her bedside in tears, reached his hand out to touch her hand and was shocked at the cold, stiff feeling. The anger was bubbling deep in his stomach, and he tried to control it least he gets kicked out by Madame Pomfrey, the school matron.
"Where was she professor?" Harry asked noticing her awkward hand placement.
Ron came running in just as Harry asked the question, "I came as fast as I could wha…." He stopped cold at the sight of Hermione. "What happened professor?"
"Miss Granger was in the library when we found her and Miss Clearwater down the hallway in this state. Miss Granger had a mirror in her hand which is why her arm is up. Does this mean anything to the two of you?" Professor McGonagall asked holding up the mirror.
The pair answered a "No professor" in unison. Both still looking down on their friend in disbelief.
Molly walked into the infirmary with Arthur and Madam Bones on her heels, "Minerva, can you please explain how this happened?" there was no kindness in her voice.
Minerva who looked sheepish had to answer honestly, "We don't know how this happened Molly, in fact Amelia's aurors report seeing the two leave the library together while doing their rounds. As Miss Clearwater was a prefect they didn't see the need to escort."
Amelia nodded as she had already checked with her guards around the school before following Molly's blazing path to the infirmary.
"Ah, thank-you for getting here so fast Amelia." The sound of Albus Dumbledore's voice was heard at the entrance to the infirmary.
"Nothing is too fast when children are in danger Albus, what are the evacuation plans?" Amelia asked sternly.
"Evacuation plans?" Dumbledore asked confused.
"Yes, getting the children out of the school, my aurors are on standby for instructions, how would you like to proceed?" the red headed witch didn't have time for Dumbledore's games today, Susan was in this school.
"I don't see any need to evacuate the school, I have just sent the ghosts around looking to see if they could spot what might have caused this issue. None of the children are harmed outside of them being petrified in which case we will have the antidote ready in a week's time now that our mandrake population has matured." Stroking his beard as he said this Amelia wished she could pull it out.
"Being petrified doesn't count as hurt in your book Dumbledore? Strange it definitely counts in mine and Miss Grangers parents." Molly all but screamed.
"No but they were not physically hurt, which could make this a very not funny prank. I wish to investigate everything fully before sending students home before the end of year exams and causing mass panic." Albus said reasonably.
At that Amelia turned towards the headmaster, "Do you truly believe this to be the work of pranksters?"
"No, but at this time we cannot rule that out either. The chamber of secrets is not so secret when it comes to knowledge of the last time it was thought to be opened, we have several younger generations of students here that had devious parents during that time frame. I simply wish to fully investigate matters rather than bringing widespread fear and panic to the parents." Albus said.
Amelia, knowing she didn't have a foot to stand on while on Hogwarts grounds unless asked for assistance, in which the headmaster had for safety reasons put him in charge when it came to the school. Amelia could enforce rules and regulations, however as things stood, he was right, no matter how much she disliked it.
"I would like to ask for assistance in escorting students to and from classes however and was wondering if you could spare maybe some of your recruitments to assist in this. No matter how much I trust my prefects and head boy and girl, I do believe this to be out of their capacity to handle should an incident arise." The old man asked politely.
Amelia had to admit, he was taking charge of the situation and looking for assistance when needed. It also made sense not to alert the parents and this should cut back on students walking the halls alone.
"I will get a crew out here right away; they will only work during school hours and the already stationed aurors will maintain their posts throughout the school." Amelia stated this with no room for Dumbledore to wiggle.
Instead, he simply said "Splendid, thank-you so much Amelia for your help during these troubled times." And off he went back to hide behind his stupid statue.
"Boys', I don't want you to go off and run amuck. Please follow all instructions given and owl me if you have any trouble with the twins or Ginny, I will ask the same of Percy. It seems Dumbledore is handling the situation to the best of his ability." Molly said sternly staring down the boys.
Both nodded. Molly asked Ron to walk with them for a family meeting, asking Harry if he would like to join made him happy to be included, but he turned it down in favor of staying with Hermione for a bit longer.
He loved the Weasley's, but Harry wasn't used to having quite so much family around. He enjoyed his time with Hermione and her parents for that exact reason, and now Hermione was made of stone.
Harry had sat there for a bit longer just holding her stone hand, thinking about how important she had become to him. It scared him honestly, he was not familiar with these feelings. He knew they were different than how he felt for Ron and his family, like they semi adopted him.
Hermione was different, she was always different. Who else would take the time to search for a missing toad of a boy they had just met, or risk your life for two boys who made fun of you the entire first half of the school year and potentially almost got her killed by a troll.
No Hermione was special, she was smart, loyal, kind, and just so remarkably Hermione. Harry knew he had to figure out this beast for Hermione's sake. As he thought about what he needed to do he gripped her stone hand tighter, that's when he noticed the piece of paper that was in her hand.
Pulling out the paper he gasped noticing it was a page ripped from a book. Hermione would never rip a beloved book unless it was under duress.
Reading the torn page Harry gasped and ran to find Ron, he had to see this. Running through the halls he heard the voice again.
"Riiiiiipppp, teaaaarrrr, kiiiiiiiiillllllllll…"
Turning the corner Harry ran smack into Ron who was coming back from his family meeting to be with Harry.
"Ron! Did you hear the voice?"
"What voice?" Ron asked confused.
"Of course, you wouldn't, you can't talk to snakes and Hermione thought it was a snake!" Harry's brain was putting together the puzzle pieces no doubt a lot slower than Hermione had.
"What do you mean you can talk to snakes?" Ron stopped dead, "That's really rare being a parselmouth"
Harry and Hermione had talked in depth about Harry's past, she wanted to know everything. He had of course brought up the zoo incident and Hermione immediately picked up on the fact that Harry had a full-on conversation with the snake.
So, Hermione being Hermione she dug into everything parselmouth related. They had discovered that Salazar Slytherin the founder of Slytherin house was one and that he passed this talent through his bloodline. Hence the heir of Slytherin that fit right into enemies of the heir beware.
Ron caught up much faster than Harry had thought he would and insisted they give this information to a professor. The pair made an about face and headed off to find a professor, Harry also wanted to contact Amelia Bones.