Chapter 12
Hermione was sitting on a couch in her common room, pouring over her copy of “Hogwarts, a History,” looking for any mention of the Chamber of Secrets she may have missed. She’d searched every other source she could think of, and she still couldn’t find any actionable intel to help Draco. She shut the book in frustration and rubbed her eyes. She looked around and realized she was the last one in the room.
As she stood and began packing up her things, she heard voices coming down the hall. A group of fourth year boys came stumbling and laughing into the common room, passing a bottle between them. Hermione rolled her eyes. She tried to make her way past them, but they blocked her path.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” The leader of the group, a large boy named Dennis, sneered at her.
“It’s the mudblood!” hooted another boy. Hermione’s blood ran cold.
“She is a pretty one, I’ll give her that. It might be fun to roll around in the mud for a bit,” said a third boy. He tried to grab her, but she managed to pull away.
The boys howled with laughter.
She tried to push past them, but they grabbed her and held her, groping and pawing at her until she saw red. She remembered a spell she had learned at the reservation, and uttered it frantically. A pulse burst from her body, sending the boys flying into the walls of the room and holding them there. They looked at her in shock and disgust.
“How the hell did you do that?” Dennis asked.
Hermione didn’t bother to justify his question with an answer. She grabbed her things and ran as fast as she could down the hallway and out into the school. She ran through the halls until her lungs burned and the anger boiling her blood had simmered a bit. Once logic returned to her mind, she made her way to Professor Hicks’ office.
She had been so preoccupied with schoolwork and Draco, she hadn’t been paying much attention to anything else. As she wandered the halls, her eyes were now drawn to the various message boards she passed, and her blood ran cold. On each one was pinned a pamphlet with the Death Eater emblem emblazoned on the top. She yanked one down and crushed it in her hand as she stormed to her Head of House’s office.
Just as she was about to knock, she realized that it was the middle of the night, and she had no idea where Professor Hicks’ rooms were. Her arm dropped to her side dejectedly.
“Hermione? What are you doing here this late?”
Hermione spun around to find the professor eyeing her with concern. “Professor Hicks! I’m sorry to disturb you. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
“That’s alright, sweetie. I just finished my rounds. Is there something you needed?”
“Can we talk in your office?”
Professor Hicks led the way, and Hermione sat down heavily, fidgeting with the ring on her finger.
“Alright, what is going on that’s so important we needed to talk in the middle of the night?”
Hermione relayed her experience in the common room, trying to keep her emotions in check. She felt on the verge of breaking down at any moment, but forced herself to keep going. The professor’s face tightened with anger as Hermione spoke, but she didn’t appear to be surprised. When Hermione presented her with the pamphlet, she nodded her head sadly.
“We’ve been finding them all over campus. We keep trying to get rid of them, but as soon as one gets taken down, another appears somewhere else. We haven’t been able to figure out who is behind it. Incidents like yours are becoming more and more common. We’ve had reports of harassment from almost every No-Maj born in the school, and triple the normal amount of sexual harassment reports. Professor Picquery is at her wit's end trying to deal with all of it. I never thought we’d see this type of Death Eater activity in America, let alone the school.”
“So it’s not just here?”
“Unfortunately not. There are Death Eater rallies popping up all over the country, and someone set off the Dark Mark at the NQL final last month.”
“Really? I’m surprised Harry and Ron didn’t say anything. The National Quidditch League is their number one topic of conversation.”
The professor chuckled. “Yes, well, it was kept very quiet. I only know because one of our seventh years was found to be involved.”
“Oh, dear!”
“Yes, it was very sad. He was a very bright student, one of my favorites. He’s in jail now, awaiting trial at MACUSA. We were hoping his expulsion would put an end to the Death Eater presence here, but it seems only to have made things worse. We’ve already had to expel three more students.”
“I had no idea any of this was going on!”
“We’ve tried to keep things as quiet as possible, but they just keep getting louder and louder.”
“What’s going to happen to Dennis and the other boys?”
“Seeing as this is their first reported offense, they will each be given a week of In School Suspension. They will eat, sleep, and do their schoolwork in seclusion in the basement. But if anything of this severity happens again, we will be forced to expel them.”
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief that she would not have to worry about seeing any of the boys for a week, but her heart still beat out a rhythm of fear and anxiety, knowing that they would be back and probably looking for revenge on her for getting them in trouble. Ilvermorny had always felt safe to Hermione. No matter what horrible things were going on in the world, the school had seemed to live in a bubble of quiet, where none of the bad things could ever reach them. Having that safety breached felt like the worst kind of violation.
______________________________________________________________________________
Draco banged his fist on the table. They had read through every book Pansy’s spell had provided, but none contained any actionable intel whatsoever. They all said essentially the same thing: a terrifying monster was contained within the chamber, and when released, it would decimate the muggleborn population of the school. No mention of what type of monster it was or what it was meant to do to the muggleborns. There was even less information about the location.
To make matters worse, it had been weeks, and he’d yet to hear anything from Hermione. He’d thought about trying to astral project to her, but whenever he looked for her in the mirror, she seemed to be searching through records just as feverishly as he was. In addition, he knew that if she had found anything useful, she would have found a way to tell him. He ran a hand down his face in frustration.
His gaze caught on the mirror again, and he had a thought. What if he was going about this the wrong way? The library had provided these specific books in response to his need, so there must be answers here somewhere. Perhaps he just needed to need them a little more. He walked to the mirror and closed his eyes. He dug down deep to find all of the desperation he felt at his inability to find the answer, and his need to create a world where Hermione would be safe, and he directed all of it toward the mirror.
He opened his eyes and turned around, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He turned back to the mirror irritably, only to see figures moving in it. He moved closer, and could hear sound coming from it as well. There was a boy, standing in a bathroom. He had black hair and an aristocratic face, which was studying a row of sinks intently. The sound of a door slamming open made both Draco and the boy jump.
“What on earth are you doing in here?” came the high-pitched, whiny voice of a girl. “Don’t you know this is the girls restroom? Can’t you read?”
Draco watched as the boy’s handsome face turned ugly with a sneer. “You’re first, you filthy mudblood,” he said as he stalked out of the room.
Draco barely had a moment to wonder at what he’d just seen before a new scene took shape. The boy was in the girls bathroom again, and this time he was making a horrid hissing sound as he walked around the sinks. Slowly, they began moving, opening, revealing a tunnel. The boy laughed as he climbed inside. The image flickered, and this time he saw the restroom door open to admit a mousy looking girl with tears streaming down her face. Draco realized with a start that he knew this girl. She was one of the Hogwarts ghosts. He realized that hers had been the voice he’d heard in the first scene, and he wondered if he were about to discover the secret of how she died. He heard the whisper of a hiss, and the sinks began to move.
Myrtle stumbled backward, eyes wide with terror. Draco almost lost his lunch as he watched an enormous snake slither out of the passageway and into the bathroom. It made eye contact with Myrte, and her piercing scream was abruptly cut off. He heard a familiar chuckle as the scene faded away.