Harry and everyone had collectively decided to let McGonagall know everything instead, since Dumbledore is currently out of the picture, but it takes three long days before they manage to get a meeting with her, thanks to the number of emergency meetings she's had to attend with the Ministry and School Board.
Apparently, the School Board has voted to keep the school open until exams finish out, and then shut the school down to get someone in to try and clear out the monster.
Harry doesn't know how to feel about this- he's mostly annoyed that the Board doesn't seem to care about muggle-born safety. On the other hand, he is also relieved that Theo isn't going to have to go home too much earlier than he would have had had the school not been shut down at all.
McGonagall is disappointed at how much information they've been withholding, but grateful they've brought it to her attention now. McGonagall tightens up patrols around areas that the book Theo and Hermione had found shows that the pipes let out in, and it's detention and fifty points loss for any student found alone in the halls and not with a teacher or within a sizable group- and without a mirror to check around corners with, since that had clearly worked for Hermione.
McGonagall also assured them that she'd have Snape and Pomfrey working on all sorts of antivenoms, and would be consulting various magizoologist as to what sorts of monsters might fit the bill. She'd also gone to talk with Myrtle herself, although Harry doubts that she found anything else out.
Harry appreciates how seriously McGonagall is taking this. He's also going crazy. They can hardly get anything done, and meeting with the Slytherins outside of mealtimes is getting harder and harder with the tightened precautions. He'd send Merlin with messages, but considering the fact that both Mrs. Norris and Nick have been attacked, Harry isn't taking any risks. That doesn't keep Merlin from slipping off on her own when she feels like it.
These days, Harry and Merlin have more fights in a single day than they have had in the last seven years.
"We should think about studying for exams at some point," Daphne says.
"Why would you even say that?" Ron asks disbelievingly.
"Daphne is right," Percy says as he butters a roll. "Exams are no joke, and even at your age you should be taking them seriously."
"I can't believe we're related," Ron says, shaking his head. Percy shrugs.
"Harry, you've been studying, right?" Tom asks.
Harry freezes and Tom looks up at him, eyebrow raised.
"Er," Harry says. "Yes?"
"You are a terrible liar," Tom says finally.
Harry had, as promised, written to Remus after Hermione had been petrified. He'd explained everything that had happened that day, although he'd glossed over the whole Veritaserum thing. If he hadn't, Harry thinks Dumbledore might actually be in danger of murder-by-werewolf and that's a headache that Harry doesn't want to deal with right now.
Remus had responded right away, saying he wanted to take Harry out of Hogwarts but that it was ultimately up to Harry. True to his word, he didn't push the issue after Harry had told him no. All he'd done was ask for Harry to stay safe and alert, and stick with his friends and Tom. Harry said that he would.
Harry counts himself lucky- a lot of richer families that can afford private tutors and paying for at home exams have pulled their children for the year, Blaise's mum included.
Blaise had been both furious and a little bit relieved. Harry is mostly relieved: he wishes Daphne could have gone too. He loves his friends, but those two in particular don't just love being involved in Harry's brand of meddling.
Other than Blaise, no Slytherin pure-blood has gone home. Harry assumes most of them are sticking around because they don't think they are in any danger. Hell, for all Harry knows, they're right.
They don't feel any closer to catching the culprit. That said, Ginny has a new suspect every other day. Harry thinks she's having more fun than anyone, tailing and then (despite Percy's warnings) confronting each person. So far she hasn't had any luck, but her hero-worship of Harry has at least taken a back-seat to detective-ing. In fact, she and Merlin have struck up a bit of a friendship. Harry doesn't necessarily think this bodes well, but at least neither of them are running (or slithering) around alone in the halls.
Every day that passes weighs heavier on Harry, who can't help but think about Hagrid all alone in Azkaban. He'd elected not to tell his friends about that part of it all, but thinks they'd probably read between the lines anyways. He did tell Remus about it, hoping the man might be able to pull some strings to get Hagrid into a better spot.
Remus wasn't very optimistic, but promised he'd try. They've been exchanging letters every other day, switching between Hedwig and a couple school owls to give the birds a reprieve.
Hedwig does not appreciate this, and has been giving Harry a bit of a cold-shoulder (wing). Harry doesn't care- Hedwig needs her rest. He couldn't bear it if she got hurt or over-worked.
It only takes Harry a week to break out the invisibility cloak and start sneaking into the forest with it. He knows it's dangerous, and that Remus would be disappointed, but if he doesn't do something soon, he's going to burn down the whole school. His magic has been a little erratic lately, and Harry blames it on being cooped up.
"Hello," Harry says softly to the thestral herd. The thestrals snort and chuff excitedly as they gather around Harry and he lets them ruffle through his hair and cloak. "How have you been? Okay, I hope? Sorry, it's been a while."
The thestrals don't respond, because they can't, but they do redouble their effort to lick the inside of Harry's ear. Merlin is off who knows where, which will turn into another argument, so the reminder of her has Harry's heart panging.
"Oh," says a dreamy voice. "You again."
"Luna!" Harry says, grabbing his magic tight and trying to calm his racing heart. "You scared me. Why are you out here? It's after curfew."
Luna just stares at him owlishly, blinking a couple times.
"It's different for me," Harry sighs. "I have an invisibility cloak."
"Yes, I saw," Luna agrees. Harry decides not to comment on that one.
"Come on, let me walk you back to your dorm," Harry says as he pulls the cloak over him. Luna hesitates. "You'll get to come under the cloak."
Luna cocks her head, then walks over to join Harry under the cloak. They walk in silence, Harry being careful not to step on the girl's bare feet. Harry doesn't actually know where the tower entrance is, but thinks Luna is probably guiding them in the right direction. Probably.
Even though Luna is undeniably odd and absolutely unreliable; something about her floaty, dreamy presence quiets the part of Harry that's been feeling claustrophobic, panicky, and irritated these last two weeks.
He hasn't interacted with the girl much, mostly just spent time with her during quiet afternoons in the forest with the thestrals, or up in the owlery. Harry resolves then to spend more time with the girl.
Harry is sitting in the common room a couple days later when Ginny bursts in, Merlin around her shoulders. Harry groans; he does not need this right now.
"I've got it for sure, this time!" Ginny crows, dropping into a seat.
She practically lands on Neville, who just scoots out of the way without looking up from his potions textbook.
"Who is it?" Harry asks.
"Okay, it sounds crazy, but hear me out: the Giant Squid."
Harry sits up straight and looks at her, and then at Merlin. "How did- how did Merlin manage to convince you of that, without you being able to understand her?"
"Oh," Ginny says, looking down at Merlin. "I should have led with that. I can sort of understand Merlin."
"What?" Harry and Neville exclaim at the same time.
Ginny cackles. "To be clear, I don't actually think it's the Giant Squid."
Harry waves her off. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. You can speak parseltongue?"
Ginny scoffs. "I didn't say that. I just sort of… get the idea of what's being said, is all."
"Wh-why?" Neville asks, setting his book to the side. "Has it-it always been like th-that for you?"
"I reckon it was the diary. Side-effect of tangling with a Slytherin artifact," Ginny says.
Merlin hisses in agreement, and Ginny holds out her fist for Merlin to bump her snout into. Harry rolls his eyes.
"Can T-Tom do it too?" Neville asks.
Harry sits up. "I… don't know," he says. "You'd think it would have come up, right? So I don't think so. But then again, he does really seem to get Merlin."
"I just w-wish we could go ask him," Neville says tiredly. "I'm s-so sick of th-this isolation shit."
"Amen," Ginny says.
"Ginny, you were just sneaking around outside," Harry points out, irritation flaring again.
Ginny turns to him, scowling. "So? And if you tell any of my brothers…" she warns.
Harry sighs and sinks deeper into the couch. "Whatever," he mutters. He should go find Luna. She's probably wandering the halls too- Harry could both make sure she's okay and get a refreshing break from the growing stuffiness of the common room.
Merlin slithers from Ginny's shoulders and onto Harry's. He considers not letting her up, but decides that would be petty.
"I know we're fighting right now," Merlin hisses, "but I had a great idea and you should hear it."
Harry grinds his teeth, then gives in. "What is it?"
"We're both going stir-crazy, right?"
Harry rolls his eyes again. Obviously.
"Well, why don't we go flying?" Merlin continues.
Harry sits up straight, heart leaping. Why hadn't he thought of that? He wastes no time, jumping up from the couch and running to his dorm.
As he leaves, he hears Neville ask, "sh-should we be worried?" And Ginny respond:
"I don't think so. Merlin said something about flying. I think."
In no time at all, Harry is soaring through the sky, his invisibility cloak wrapped precariously around himself, his broom, and Merlin. Harry can't help it: he lets out a loud whoop of delight. This is exactly what he needed.
"Hey," Merlin hisses in his ear. She's half in the satchel, half out, and coiled very tightly around Harry's upper arm and shoulder.
"Yeah?" Harry hiss-yells back over the sound of the roaring wind.
"I'm sorry," Merlin says.
"Thank you," Harry says. They do a couple loop-de-loops, then Harry says, "I'm sorry, too."
Merlin licks the inside of his ear and he shrieks in indignation. He feels lighter than he has in days.
Classes go on mostly normally, although Lockhart is in an even better mood than before.
"Surely you heard," Lockhart says after Seamus had asked why one Monday. "They caught the culprit! Carted him away! We have nothing to worry about."
Neville places a cautioning hand on Harry's arm before he can storm out of the classroom (or light the man's hair on fire).
The next morning, Harry wakes up late. He looks around blearily, trying to figure out why. For some reason, the door and the windows seem to be glowing silver.
"What…" Harry says. He's too tired for this. He turns to look at the other boys' beds, and sees they're asleep too.
"Guys- hey guys! Wake up! We're running late!"
Seamus and Dean both wake up easily enough and start frantically getting ready but Harry has to go over and shake Neville awake. The boy had fallen asleep in his uniform, which is covered in dirt and torn in places. Neville has a shallow cut on his face, which is also covered in dirt. He has twigs and leaves sticking out of his hair.
"Nev- wake up, what happened?" Harry asks frantically.
Neville's eyes burst open and the silver glow around the door and window disappear with a soft popping sound. Harry hadn't realized it before, but now he can hear the ambient sounds of Hogwarts coming from outside of their dorm.
"Whazzappening?" Neville asks, rubbing his eyes.
"I think you accidentally cast a silencing charm on… the whole dorm," Harry says.
Neville looks wide-awake now. "Oh no! Oh, I'm so s-sorry, are we late?"
"Don't worry about it. But yes. But also, more importantly, what happened? Do you need to go see Madam Pomfrey?"
Neville grimaces. "N-no, I just need a sh-shower."
"Neville," Harry says. "What. Happened."
Neville sighs as he starts to pick leaves from his hair. "Remember how th-the spiders have been act-acting weird? Me and Ginny thought th-that might help us figure something out about th-the monster, so we found s-some st-stragglers last night and decided to… f-follow them?"
"Into the forest," Harry clarifies.
Neville nods, and Harry groans. He's glad Neville is becoming such good friends with Ginny, he really is. But he has a feeling they bring out the Gryffindor in each other.
"Okay, then what?"
"We followed th-them to the colony of giant spiders that live in-in the forest. I already knew that they existed be-because I've run into them before- don't worry," Neville adds hastily as he sees Harry's expression. "They're pretty easy to-to deal with if you can keep from being caught in th-the webs they leave laying around."
Harry doesn't know where to start, so he just lets Neville keep talking.
"Unfortunately, Ginny got caught, which led to-to me getting caught. We were th-then brought in front of the Spider King- Aragog, the oth-other spiders said his name was?
"W-well, he was about to kill us when I m-mentioned Hagrid. He asked us where Hagrid was, so I told him. Apparently Hagrid raised him from a b-baby sp-spider, so he's basically like Aragog's d-dad.
"Then me and Ginny asked him questions about why the sp-spiders were running, and he said it-it's because they're af-afraid of the 'ancient monster' in the school. At-at that point, Aragog had gotten-gotten bored and told his children to-to ea-eat us."
Harry stares, wide-eyed.
"Then- get th-this, the car that Ron and Theo flew in-into the Whomping Willow? Rescued us. I've n-never understood the appeal of cars, but I do now," Neville says happily.
Seamus and Dean run off to class and Neville gets up, groaning slightly. Harry supposes, as he reels from his godbrothers story, that he's probably pretty sore. From all the spiders, and what-not.
"Okay, I'm t-taking that sh-shower now. Sorry about the silencing spell, I guess I got back so late that my magic decided I needed to-to sleep in."
Harry sits back heavily as the other boy gathers up a change of clothes and heads into the bathroom. He feels a little sick.
They need to get this monster thing under control, and fast- otherwise Harry has no doubt that his friends are all going to get themselves killed.
Harry is sneaking around the halls a couple days later when he runs into Tom.
"Tom," Harry whispers.
Tom jumps, then looks around wildly. "Harry?"
"Yeah, I'm under the cloak."
"What are you doing out? It's dangerous. You should go back to your dorm."
"Well why are you wandering around?" Harry counters. "It's just as dangerous for you!"
"No it's not," Tom says, laughing. "I'm nearly an adult and can do what I want. You are a twelve year old who needs to listen to his older brother- and his dad; I'm sure Remus wouldn't be too happy with you wandering."
Remus isn't Harry's dad, but Harry doesn't bother correcting Tom. It doesn't help that Harry doesn't actually know what Remus counts as.
"Come on, Tom! I'm going crazy cooped up. What are you doing, maybe I can help?" Harry says.
He's bordering on whinging and he knows it, but Harry's seriously about to lose it. Flying helps, but it's not a cure-all.
Tom sighs. "Fine. Meet me up at the Room and we can duel. Just this once, though."
"Yes! Thank you, Tom. Race you there!"
"Harry, no, be careful," Tom whispers harshly, but it's too late: Harry is already bolting off.
Harry is already within the Room and shooting off little bolts of harmless white light as he waits for Tom. The Room is especially big and mostly empty, since Harry had asked it for a place to duel in.
Tom opens the door, already in the process of rolling his eyes. "Days like these I wish you'd been in Slytherin," he says. "It's like you don't know the meaning of the word 'careful'."
"The Hat did consider it," Harry says.
"I absolutely take it back," Tom says immediately.
Then he shoots a red spell at Harry, who yelps and instinctively pushes his magic to extinguish the orange flame that's now climbing up his pant leg.
After that, the two throw themselves into the duel. Tom causes the ground to buckle beneath Harry, who responds by floating chunks of ground up and shooting them back at Tom and on the duel goes; the room being utterly destroyed and remade. All the while the two are shooting general offensive spells at each other.
Harry gets the sense that Tom is holding back. Unfortunately, he still very handily beats Harry nine times out of ten. Of course, Harry is also technically holding back. It doesn't make him feel much better though, since he'd prefer not to end every duel with burning his opponent into dust.
Finally they call it quits and lie down amongst the smoking rubble, breathing heavily.
It occurs to Harry that now is a great time to ask Tom something he's been meaning to ask: "hey Tom, did you know Ginny can kind of understand Merlin?"
Tom is quiet for a moment. "Interesting," is all he says.
"We think it might be the diary. Have you noticed anything like that?"
"Hmm. I suppose I have been able to sort of get what Merlin is conveying when she talks to you. It's worth experimenting with- you said Hermione has been able to learn to understand some Parseltongue, right?"
"Yeah," Harry says, heart panging at the thought of Hermione.
"When she wakes up, I might see if she and Merlin can teach me too- maybe the diary's effect will make it easier for me to learn."
"Oh, that would be cool," Harry muses. Then he laughs. "Maybe by the time you're fluent in Parseltongue, I'll be able to beat you in a duel."
"You get better every time," Tom says. Harry groans. "No, really! That was some really creative spellwork. You still need to work on your situational awareness, though."
"I have great situational awareness," Harry says grumpily. "It's not my fault you keep changing the situation."
"Harry," Tom says, sitting up. "That is quite literally all dueling is."
"Fuck off," Harry mutters.
"I'll tell Remus on you," Tom warns.
Harry snorts. "Remus wants us to swear. Says it builds character."
Tom looks at Harry disbelievingly. "Seriously?"
"Seriously," Harry agrees. "Remus is the best- you'll see."
"Mhm," Tom hums as he lays back on the ground. Harry smiles up at the ceiling, despite feeling a bit like he's just managing to keep the world from crushing in on him.