Unhappy Endings

32: The Chamber Opens

The next few days went off without many problems. Your new class was just as difficult to manage as last years' but you had a few new tricks up your sleeve. This year you would be incentivizing the students by having an entire case of chocolate frogs. Each time they got out of control, you would sit and eat a frog. That was then one less frog to be shared amongst them at the end of the month. And yes, perhaps you were feeling a bit ill on chocolate by the end of the third week, but it was beginning to work wonderfully.

Severus meanwhile, having escaped the mortal embarrassment of being caught pleasuring himself by your own jovial ignorance, went to bed with a headache nightly. If it wasn't Gilderoy setting free pixies and then exiting his room, it was that whiny brat Draco Malfoy asking for special privileges. If he hadn't been so well acquainted with his parents, Snape would have boxed the boy's ears by now. But instead, he wrote letters like 'I, Professor Severus Snape, do hereby give the Slytherin team permission to practice today, owing to the need to train their new Seeker.' The new Seeker being the blonde boy. He couldn't even imagine that he was the cousin to a woman as wonderful as you. He figured that that was the problem with pure-bloods. They get a little too inbred and you get pointy faced shrew boys like Draco.

He would never marry a muggle though. He was sure of it. Never would he subject himself or others to the pain he and his precious Lily had gone through. Muggles always got jealous of wizards and witches, and the house was never full of love. He had been lucky to be given any clothes at all amidst the arguing of his own parents. Nevermind fitting or matching clothes. He supposed that was why he wore black all the time now. Hard to mismatch black on black.

But now it was late at night and while Severus was in his bed, you were in your classroom, trying to set up the perfect experiment for learning about vampires. Suddenly, however, you heard splashing and a shriek.

You burst out of your room, only to find yourself in a puddle of water staring at the trio of children who were quickly garnering a lot of attention within Hogwarts: Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter.

"What are you three doing her-- Oh. OH! Oh, children please come with me, we need to get Minvera or Severus or--" You immediately sent a flying note to Dumbledore.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR... BEWARE. Had been scrawled in blood with Filch's poor kitty strung up next to it. Everyone felt the chill and even the spiders were attempting escape.

People can chattering down the hallway suddenly, as if all exiting from the same place. And who but your annoying cousin was the front of the line. "...Enemies of the heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

"Draco!" Your voice was strict and sharp. "You're sickening."

"And you're a black mark on my family's name."

"What's going on here? Go on now! Make way..." Filch saw the poor creature as Severus smacked the back of the brat's head so hard he thought he might have actually injured him. "Mrs. Norris!" He turned to Harry "You! You've murdered my cat! I'll kill you! I'll--"

"Argus." Finally Dumbledore had arrived.