Magic? || Years 1-5

Looking For Clues: Year 2

"That's where Filch has been keeping guard," Ron commented, looking around the empty corridor as well as the rest of them.

"Can't hurt to have a poke around," Harry announced, placing his bag on the floor and scanning the stone for clues. "Scorch marks! Here -- and here -- "

The other three followed suit.

Ron looked around the walls, Hermione headed off toward the window, and Amisty kept her ears pricked for the slightest hint of noise.

"Come and look at this! This is funny..." Hermione waved them over, pointing up at the window pane.

Amisty squinted up, the sun shining in her eyes. She could barely make out the small, dark silhouettes of spiders crawling out of a crack in the wall.

They had never really bothered her, as she had almost always been in contact with bugs, but there was something strange in the way they were scurrying along.

As if they were afraid.

"Have you ever seen spiders act like that?" Hermione asked, getting up on her tiptoes to get a better view.

"No, have you, Ron?" Harry replied, turning around when his redheaded friend hadn't replied. "Ron?"

The boy in question was standing quite tensely in the hallway, far from the wall where the spiders were.

"What's up?" Harry asked, his confusion evident in his tone and his bright green eyes.

"I -- don't -- like -- spiders," Ron forced out, fidgeting as he struggled not to sprint out of the corridor.

"I never knew that. You've used spiders in Potions loads of times..." Hermione pointed out, surprised.

"I don't mind them dead. I just don't like the way they move..." He replied, shivering slightly. Amisty and Hermione traded amused glances and Hermione couldn't help but laugh quietly. "It's not funny! If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my -- my teddy bear into a great big filthy spider because I broke his toy broomstick... You wouldn't like them either if you'd been holding your bear and suddenly it had too many legs and..."

Amisty turned away, biting her lip to keep from laughing.

Hermione was doing the same, though she was doing a much better job.

"Remember all that water on the floor? Where did that come from? Someone's mopped it up," Harry interjected, taking the focus off of Ron's newfound fear of spiders.

"It was about here. Level with this door," Ron, thankful at the change of subject, walked over to the girls restroom, his hand reaching for the doorknob until he withdrew it quickly.

"What's the matter?" Harry asked, starting toward him.

"Can't go in there. That's a girls' toilet," Ron shifted his weight from foot to foot, standing awkwardly outside the door.

Amisty rolled her eyes, "Come on, Ron, no one's going to be in there. It's Moaning Myrtle's place."

She opened the worn wooden door with a loud creak, revealing the sad looking bathroom to the boys.

Hermione was just behind her, not happy with having to deal with Myrtle. Their reflections stared back at them through the cracked, dirty mirror, with the chipped sinks below it dripping.

The floor was, as usual, covered in a thin sheen of water, the dim glow of the few short candles reflecting off of it.

Hermione took charge, holding her finger to her lips to warn them to be quiet and then walking toward the last stall. Myrtle's stall.