The New Trio and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 11: Hagrid's Story

Notes: I am so sorry I missed my update day! To be honest, the only excuses I have are deciding that it would be a good idea to stay up until 6 a.m. reading a newly discovered fic, then sleeping until 3 p.m., then having to work on an assignment. Then, when I would have uploaded it, we had a power outage until 8 p.m. Today, I've been working on my assignment again, and I've handed it in, finally, so now I can give you guys this!

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By Monday, the entire school had heard about Colin's Petrification, and the Hogwarts rumour mill was now pumping overtime as the castle's inhabitants became increasingly suspicious of one another. The first-years were the most affected, and could be seen only moving about the castle in large, tightly-knit groups, as though scared they would be attacked if they ventured outside of their common rooms alone. Ginny and Luna, who sat with Colin in Charms, were quite upset, and reported to the others that all their classes were quite tense and filled with apologetic looks toward them.

Blaise, their only contact in Slytherin, looked more tired and stressed than he had the last time they'd met up, and during a quiet moment alone with Draco, was able to inform him that his common room was basically a war zone; fights were breaking out in a frenzied attempt to narrow down who this mysterious Heir was. It seemed as though now that it was an actual person that had been Petrified, blood purity didn't matter to them, and all they wanted to do was neutralise the threat as soon as possible.

Harry had spoken to Enya, who liked to roam about the castle and grounds, Disillusioned, whenever Harry had class, about if she'd heard anything unusual when the attack had happened. She told him, :No, I heard nothing, snakelet. However, I did sense an extremely large serpentine presence, one bigger than your dorm room. The unusual thing was that I felt it was inside the wall, which is impossible and most disconcerting.: Harry relayed this to his friends, and they were all just as nonplussed as he was about the information.

Meanwhile, an almost black-market trade for talismans, amulets, and other protective devices had started. The teachers seemed blind to it, and it was only when the twins started selling slips of parchment with the incantations for the Disillusionment Charm and three variations of the Shield Charm written on it, that the trade slowed down. Instead, it was now common to find groups of students of all ages hunkered down in a corner, swishing their wands and muttering, trying to master spells that were actually helpful in protecting them. Fred and George found themselves with mixed feelings when the number of inter-house hexing incidents lessened substantially due to almost everyone knowing how to protect themselves. Now they were harder-pressed to successfully execute pranks on people, which was slightly irritating their status as Prank Masters. On the other hand, House unity was increasing, slowly but steadily, as people started to hear rumours of how hard the Slytherins were trying to prove that they weren't the cause of the problem.

There had even been talk of a Duelling Club starting up in the third week of December, due to the amount of people hoping to learn more defensive spells. However, as it was only the first week of December at the moment, the Duelling Club was a while away for the twelve-to-fourteen year-olds, and it was made moot when the Recruits were informed by Professor Snape that the one in charge of the club was none other than Lockhart himself. They all ended up simultaneously deciding that they wouldn't be there, and instead they'd managed to convince Remus to teach them some duelling techniques, and they were positive they'd learn much more in their lesson than what the rest of the school would from Lockhart (as had already been proven during their previous lessons with the werewolf). Besides, the end of term exams were coming up, and the Recruits were all being encouraged to study by Hermione who, although she'd calmed down a lot since meeting Harry, Draco, and Neville, was still determined to make sure that each of her friends passed any and all tests with flying colours.