Unease.
"My cat!"
Nico knew that they were in trouble unless they were able to convince Dumbledore that it was a case of 'wrong place at the wrong time'. Their timing certainly seemed to be terrible.
Filch went to inspect Mrs Norris, then turned back to Nico, Harry, Ron and Hermione.
"You! You did this to her! What did you do to her? What did you do to my cat!" Filch demanded.
"We are second years, something like this is beyond us. We don't know what happened, we were walking, and ended up here, and saw her like this," Nico explained, knowing that the man didn't believe them. "You know what? Believe what you want, but Mrs Norris would have ran away from me. All animals hate me."
"What is going on here?" Dumbledore asked.
"These four-" Filch pointed to them "-did something to my cat!"
"None of us care about your cat!" Nico said.
"Please, calm down. Everyone, to your dorms. Mr di Angelo, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley and Miss Granger, if you four could come with me." Dumbledore grabbed the cat. The school filtered away. Dawn and Draco glanced back at them, worry in their faces. Nico told them to go with his hand.
"You can use my office, Professor," Lockhart offered. Nico realised that he'd spaced out.
"Thank you, Gilderoy."
They made their way to Lockhart's office which, when they entered, Nico noticed was full of portraits of himself.
'Dawn's right. This man is obsessed with himself,' he thought to himself. Well, as if the lectures he had spent playing tic-tac-toe with Dawn and pictonary on their parchment wasn't evidence enough.
Dumbledore placed the cat down on the desk and looked over her. It was silent in the room, and painfully so. Filch was hovering over the four of them, ready to kill them.
"She's not dead," Dumbledore announced.
"Not dead?! What is she then?! What's happened to my cat!?" Filch demanded.
"It appears that she has been petrified."
"Then she's as good as dead!" Fitch wailed.
"There are Mandrakes growing in the greenhouses. When they're ready then they'll probably be used to make a remedy for her," Nico said, voice rather void of emotion.
"You did this to her!" Filch accused.
"We didn't!" Harry protested.
"The evidence isn't looking so good for you, Potter. What were you four doing in that corridor and not the feast?" Snape, who had come with them asked.
"It wasn't us!" Ron reiterated.
"Mr-"
"I'm so sorry, Professor, but I have a few words for you before you continue," Nico said, effectively cutting off Snape, who was probably going to say something incredibly stupid. He wouldn't put it past him.
"Make it quick, Mr do Angelo."
"We're children and we can't do anything like this. It was probably a creature of some sort. What creature, I don't know, but blaming us, four children who have only one year of magical education up their sleeve, is rather stupid. And anyway, we were at Sir Nick's deathday party. He invited us and it was too rude to turn it down. On our way back, Harry heard something and followed it to there, where it disappeared and we saw Mrs Norris petrified." It seemed like some of the teachers didn't believe them.
He didn't blame them, honestly.
"Mr di Angelo is quite right. No child of their age can perform magic like this. It would have to be a dark wizard, one with many years of practice, to be able to petrify Mrs Norris like this," Dumbledore agreed. At least they had him on their side. Snape studied the headmaster.
"Very well, then," he said. Nico raised an eyebrow at him when the other teachers had turned around. Snape raised one in return. Nico rolled his eyes at the older man when the others in the room weren't looking at the two of them. Snape scowled, which caught McGonagall's attention. She looked at Nico, but he'd already put on his best innocent face that he had.
It was enough to make her turn around and face the situation at hand.
"You four may go back to your dormitories tonight," Dumbledore said. "I wouldn't want to keep you here for longer when it'll be rather boring for you all."
"Thank you, Professor," they chorused.
"I'll go with them, and make sure that Mr di Angelo gets to his dormitory safely," McGonagall offered.
"Thank you, Minerva."
The four of them followed their Transfiguration teacher through the halls and down past the kitchens. She walked right up to the barrels, where Sprout was waiting.
"Go in, Mr di Angelo," she said.
"Yes, Professor." He turned to his friends. "Night."
He entered the common room.
"What happened to the cat?" Someone asked him.
"She was petrified, though the mandrakes that are growing in the greenhouses should bring her back once they're ready for use," he said.
"Is it bad that I kind of want his cat to be dead?" A fifth year asked. A first year made a noise of protest. "Listen, his cat's always right where you are and will snitch on you to him, and he'll give you detention for whatever she says. Many of us want to kick her from time to time." Nico let them talk.
"Are you okay?"
"GAH! Dawn! What the Hades?" Nico hissed. Dawn just blinked at him.
"Oh. Sorry. I just want to know if you're alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just, confused," Nico replied.
"You seem to be feeling more than that. Anyway, how was the party?" The ease with which Dawn switched would have given Nico whiplash if it hadn't been their main way of talking about stuff they didn't want overheard.
"It was fine. Mostly just formalities, but they had food for living people there," Nico replied with the same ease that his friend had used. Dawn nodded.
"Good. Now, I'm going to sleep cause I'm tired, so, goodnight!" And with that, she was off, going to her dormitory.
That was the part of their conversations that gave Nico whiplash, honestly. The ease with which she ended a conversation abruptly.
Nico stared at where she'd disappeared for a few moments before shrugging and going to his own dorm.
This night had given him a lot to think about. It kind of hurt his head.
"So much for a normal year."
_______________________________________
Everyone had questions about what had happened the next day. Nico just pushed past anyone wanting to come near him, scowling at them and giving them his death glare. It worked like a charm.
Dumbledore addressed the situation at breakfast. It caused a wave of questions.
"I am sure you all have questions. If you do, then please, go to your head of house." There was then a wave of students going up to their head of house and asking questions. They had to put a system in place on the spot to be able to handle all of them.
"Oh, yay. He's left them to deal with the mess," Draco muttered.
"Am I rubbing off on you?" Dawn asked him.
"Maybe?"
"Love the cluelessness," Nico commented as he grabbed his remaining breakfast and leaving so that he could get to class on time. Dawn followed him.
They reconvened with their friends later that day.
"I asked Professor Binns about it," Hermione said, "the Chamber is said to hold a monster that Slytherin could control."
"That's what it was about!" Nico said.
"What?" Harry was watching him, brows furrowed.
"Come on, I need to tell you guys something," he said instead of answering. He led them back to the corridor where the incident had happened.
"Filch has been keeping watch here," Ron said, a grimace on his face. "We should be fast about this."
"Spiders are climbing out of the window," Dawn commented. Nico backtracked and looked at the window that she was staring at. Spiders stood out like a sore thumb on the clear glass. They crawled all over each other, fighting over who got out first. None of them spared a glance to Hermione or Draco.
"What's doing this?" Harry asked.
"I dunno, but if I'm right, aren't spiders supposed to be Her enemy?" Ron asked. He was right.
Arachne's children had sworn to make the lives of Athena's children living hell.
"Anything that makes them ignore the both of us must be extremely dangerous," Draco said.
"Another clue for us. Lives in the walls, wants blood, and spiders are terrified of it," Dawn listed. She looked away from the window. "Filch's coming. Let's go."
They left, and went to drop off their bags before dinner. They ate quickly, needing to hear what Nico had to say.
They went to the library with their Potions homework. Nico would never stop whining about the workload that Snape gave them. At least he had some extra time to work on it because of his ADHD and Dyslexia.
"So, what is it?"
"I had a dream about a month ago now? I don't really remember how long it's been, but I know that it was from the past. The founders were arguing about something, which I think is Slytherin's monster. None of them wanted it to stay here, but Hecate came by and ordered them to build a chamber under the school for the monster to live, with a special lock or something that's in it's language. She said that it'd be good to have to defend the school from mortals that don't appreciate the gift that she gives us witches and wizards," he said, staying as quiet as possible.
"So it's meant as a layer of protection?" Ron asked.
"But history has warped Slytherin's character, even within the house itself, so whoever can speak its tongue can use it for whatever they want, and it doesn't have to be for protection," Draco whispered, almost feverently.
"This keeps getting deeper," Hermione said. The rest of them nodded in agreement and tried to bury themselves in their homework.
Safe to say, it barely worked. Nico's mind was occupied with thoughts and questions about what was going on, what Slytherin's monster was and who the hell was letting it escape into the castle? And why couldn't he just have a year of peace at this school?!
That was one of the reasons why he even bothered to go all the way over to England!
The first of Dawn and Colin Creevey's newspaper included a story on the sighting, with a story of the perceived story of the Chamber.
It sold out across the entire school within minutes.
That's how uneasy everyone was.