Harry's throat ached from the hissing.
He'd spent the last hour in an abandoned classroom with a conjured garden snake—courtesy of Professor Flitwick, who'd been surprisingly accommodating once Harry explained he wanted to properly understand Parseltongue rather than fear it. The tiny grass snake had been patient with Harry's fumbling attempts at conversation, correcting his pronunciation with irritated flicks of its tongue.
"No, no," the snake had hissed. "The 's' sound curls more. Like thisssss. You're speaking it too flat, like a human pretending to be a snake rather than actually being one."
By the end of the session, Harry had managed a reasonably fluent conversation about the snake's preference for warm rocks and its disdain for mice that fought back.
It was oddly satisfying, learning a language that had initially terrified him.
Ethan would approve—turning fear into understanding through systematic study.
'Explaining to Dad that I've been having tea-time chats with snakes might require some careful phrasing,' Harry thought bemusely.
He was making his way back toward Gryffindor Tower, his satchel heavy with homework and his mind pleasantly tired from concentration, when he heard the sobbing.
It was coming from the girls' bathroom on the second floor—the one everyone avoided because of Moaning Myrtle. Harry hesitated he had heard the poor soul's story from Hermione. Still, He really didn't want to deal with Myrtle's dramatics, but something about the crying sounded different. More desperate. More real.
Against his better judgement, Harry pushed open the bathroom door.
"M-myrtle?"
The ghost shot up through a toilet, her face blotchy and transparent tears streaming down her spectral cheeks. "Oh, it's you! Harry Potter, come to mock poor Myrtle, have you? Come to laugh at the dead girl who lives in a toilet?"
"N-no, I just h-heard you crying and th-thought—"
"Thought what? That you could make it better? Nobody can make it better! I'm dead! I've been dead for fifty years and I'll be dead forever and nobody cares!" She wailed dramatically, diving back into her toilet with a splash that somehow managed to spray water despite her incorporeal state.
Harry sighed, preparing to leave, when something caught his eye. There, on the floor near the sinks, was a small black book.
It looked ordinary enough—leather-bound, slightly battered, the kind of diary you might buy in any stationer's shop. But it was lying in a puddle of water, and the pages looked oddly... pristine.
Harry bent down, curiosity overriding caution.
He picked up the diary carefully, turning it over in his hands. The leather was dry despite the puddle, and when he opened it, the pages were completely blank. Not a single word written anywhere.
Well, not quite blank. On the first page, in faded ink, was a name: T.M. Riddle.
'A student's diary?' Harry thought. 'But why would someone leave it here, in Myrtle's bathroom of all places?'
"What's that?" Myrtle had emerged from her toilet again, hovering over Harry's shoulder with unsettling interest.
"A diary, I th-think. Do you kn-know who left it here?"
"Someone threw it at me!" Myrtle shrieked indignantly. "Came right through the toilet! Right through my head! As if being dead wasn't bad enough, people throw things at me!"
"Wh-when was this?"
"I don't know! Time is meaningless when you're dead!" She swooped away, wailing about the injustices of the afterlife.
Harry tucked the diary into his satchel. 'I should probably give this to Professor McGonagall,' he thought. 'Or Headmaster Dumbledore. Found property and all that.'
But something about the diary intrigued him. T.M. Riddle. A student from... when? The diary looked old, certainly, but well-preserved. And that name seemed vaguely familiar, though Harry couldn't place why.
March 8th, 1993, Gryffindor Common Room, 6:23 PM
Harry sat in his favourite armchair by the fire, the diary open on his lap. He'd tried everything—holding it up to the light, checking for invisible ink with his wand, even attempting a simple Revelio. Nothing worked. The pages remained stubbornly blank.
'It's just an old diary,' Harry told himself. 'Someone's school diary from years ago. Nothing sinister about it.'
But Ethan's training whispered caution: Objects found in strange places, behaving in unusual ways, should be treated with suspicion.
Still, curiosity won out. Harry pulled out his quill and a bottle of ink. Perhaps if he wrote something, the diary would reveal its contents. It seemed like the sort of magical object that might respond to interaction.
He dipped his quill and carefully wrote on the first blank page: My name is Harry Potter.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, impossibly, the ink was absorbed into the page, vanishing as though the paper had drunk it. Harry's breath caught.
Words began to appear, forming in elegant script across the pristine white surface:
Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?
Harry's hand tightened on the quill. A diary that wrote back. This was definitely magical, and possibly dangerous. He should close it, take it straight to McGonagall.
But he didn't.
Instead, with the sort of reckless curiosity that Ethan would have scolded him for, Harry wrote: I found it in a bathroom. Are you a student at Hogwarts?
I was. Fifty years ago.
Fifty years. That would make this diary from... 1943? Around the time of the last Chamber opening.
Harry's pulse quickened. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?
The words appeared almost eagerly: I know a great deal about it. I was the one who caught the person who opened it last time.
Harry felt a strange pulling sensation, like a hook behind his navel. The diary seemed to glow slightly, and before he could pull away, the common room dissolved around him.
March 8th, 1993, Memory—Hogwarts, Fifty Years Ago, Time Unknown
Harry found himself standing in what appeared to be a dungeon corridor, but not quite—everything had a strange, silvery quality, like watching events through gauze. A memory. He was inside a memory.
Two figures stood further down the corridor. One was a teenage boy, tall and dark-haired, with features that struck Harry as almost aristocratic. Handsome, but with something cold in his eyes. The other was...
"Hagrid?"
But not Hagrid as Harry knew him. This Hagrid was perhaps sixteen, gangly and enormous even then, with the same beetle-black eyes and wild hair. He looked terrified.
"I'm going to have to turn you in, Hagrid," the dark-haired boy—Tom Riddle, Harry realised—was saying. His voice was smooth, sympathetic, but something about it made Harry's skin crawl. "I don't want to, but with the girl who died, they'll close Hogwarts if the culprit isn't caught. You understand, don't you?"
"It wasn' him!" Young Hagrid protested desperately. "He wouldn' hurt anyone! He's just mis—"
"Come on, Hagrid. You've been keeping dangerous creatures. Everyone knows it. First the werewolf cub, then the three-headed dog, and now this... this monster you've been hiding. A girl is dead. They'll have to expel you, at minimum. Possibly send you to Azkaban."
"No! Ye don' understand! He's harmless, he is! He's my friend!"
Harry watched as Tom Riddle raised his wand. There was something theatrical about the gesture, something performative, as though Tom were acting out a role rather than genuinely confronting a threat.
And then Harry felt it—Ethan's Cogitation training kicking in almost instinctively. The mental discipline he'd been practicing, the stepping stone toward Occlumency that his father had been teaching him. His mind... cleared.
It was like a fog lifting. Harry suddenly realised he'd been watching the memory with a strange sort of acceptance, a willingness to believe whatever Tom showed him. But now, with his thoughts sharp and focused, he could see more clearly.
He could see the look in Tom Riddle's eyes.
It wasn't sympathy. It wasn't even anger or fear. It was calculation. Coldness. A predator's gaze, assessing prey. And underneath that, something else—triumph. Satisfaction.
'He's lying,' Harry thought with absolute certainty. 'Hagrid didn't open the Chamber. Tom did. And he's framing Hagrid for it.'
The intensity of Tom's gaze, even directed at someone else, even fifty years in the past, was palpable. Harry had felt enough malice in his short life to recognize it when he saw it. This wasn't justice. This was cruelty dressed up as duty.
The memory dissolved, and Harry found himself back in the common room, the diary still open on his lap. His heart was racing, and his scar prickled uncomfortably.
Words were forming on the page again: You see? Hagrid was expelled for opening the Chamber. He's the one you should be watching, Harry Potter. The half-giant groundskeeper is dangerous.
But Harry's mind was clear now, the diary's enchantment broken by his mental discipline. He could feel the wrongness radiating from the object, could sense the manipulation in every elegant word.
'This is a bewitched artefact,' Harry thought, his stomach churning. 'And a dangerous one.'
He snapped the diary shut with shaking hands and shoved it deep into his trunk. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he'd take it straight to Professor McGonagall or Dumbledore. He wasn't equipped to deal with Dark artefacts, no matter what the diary claimed to know.
March 8th, 1993, Hogwarts's hallway, 8:15 PM
"You found a what?" Hermione's voice went up several octaves.
Harry had gathered his friends in a quiet corner of a hallway right outside the painting—Ron, Hermione, Draco as well as Luna, who had drifted down from Ravenclaw Tower, summoned by Hermione's owl, and now sat cross-legged on the floor, her dreamy expression more focused than usual.
"A diary," Harry repeated. "In Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. It belonged to someone called Tom Riddle, and it... it showed me a memory. Of Hagrid being accused of opening the Chamber fifty years ago."
"Tom Riddle?" Hermione's eyes lit up with recognition. "I've seen that name! He got a special award for services to the school, it's in one of the trophy cases."
"Special award for framing innocent people, more like," Harry said darkly. "The memory felt wrong. Like it was trying to convince me Hagrid was guilty, but I could tell, I could feel, that Tom was lying. He was the one who opened the Chamber. I'm sure of it."
Draco leaned forward, his grey eyes sharp. "A diary that shows memories and tries to manipulate you? That's advanced Dark magic, Harry. Possibly a bewitched artefact. You shouldn't have written in it at all."
"I kn-know that now," Harry said defensively. "But at the time, it just seemed like a normal diary. I was c-curious."
"Curiosity and Dark artefacts are a dangerous combination," Draco said, though his tone was more concerned than condescending. "My father has a few such objects in his study. They're designed to seem harmless, to draw people in. The fact that you resisted its influence at all is remarkable."
"The Cogitation training helped," Harry explained. "The mental discipline Dad's been teaching me. It cleared my head, made me see past the enchantment."
Luna tilted her head, her blonde hair falling across one shoulder. "The diary wants something. Objects like that always want something. They don't just exist to be helpful."
"I'm t-taking it to Professor McGonagall tomorrow," Harry said firmly. "Or Dumbledore. Whoever I can find first."
"Good," Hermione said. "That's absolutely the right decision, Harry. We should also look up this Tom Riddle in the school archives. If he was here fifty years ago, there must be records."
"I'll help," Ron offered. "Sounds more interesting than Lockhart's essay on defeating vampires with good dental hygiene."
They were still discussing strategies for researching Tom Riddle when Neville burst through the portrait hole, his face flushed and his eyes wide with panic.
"Harry! Ron! You need to come quickly! The dormitory—someone's been in it! Everything's been thrown everywhere!"
Harry and Ron exchanged horrified glances and bolted for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Behind them, they could hear Hermione, Draco, and Luna following using the chaos.
The dormitory was indeed ransacked. Mattresses had been pulled off beds, trunks overturned, belongings scattered across the floor like the aftermath of a tornado. Feathers from torn pillows drifted through the air like snow.
"My books!" Seamus wailed from somewhere in the chaos.
"My chocolate frogs!" Dean moaned.
But Harry barely heard them. He was already digging through his own trunk, his hands shaking as he pushed aside robes and school supplies, searching desperately for one thing.
It was gone.
"No, no, no," Harry muttered, checking under his bed, in his nightstand, everywhere he could think of. "No, it can't be—"
"What's missing, mate?" Ron asked, surveying his own demolished possessions with dismay.
"The diary. Tom Riddle's diary. I left it in my satchel, and now—" Harry's voice trailed off as the implications sank in. "Someone knew I had it. Someone wanted it back badly enough to ransack the entire dormitory."
Ron's freckled face went pale. "But how would anyone even know you'd found it?"
"The diary," Draco said from the doorway, her expression grim. "If it's as sophisticated a bewitched artefact as it sounds, it could have alerted its owner somehow. Or..." He paused, looking troubled. "Or whoever threw it away in the first place came looking for it and realised it was gone."
Hermione gripped Harry's arm. "Harry, whoever took that diary is dangerous. They've been in our dormitory, they know where we sleep, they—"
"They're probably the Heir of Slytherin," Luna said quietly. Everyone turned to stare at her. She blinked slowly, her expression as dreamy as ever. "Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? A fifty-year-old diary connected to the last Chamber opening, hidden in a bathroom, then stolen back? The pattern suggests the diary is important to whoever's opening the Chamber now."
The horror of that realization settled over them like a shroud. Somewhere in Hogwarts, someone was using Tom Riddle's diary. Someone who had access to Gryffindor Tower. Someone who might be controlling the monster that had already petrified four students.
March 13th, 1993, Hogwarts Grounds, 2:34 PM
The Quidditch pitch stretched before them, emerald green and inviting under the pale March sun. Harry walked beside Luna, both of them bundled in warm cloaks against the lingering chill. Students streamed toward the pitch in excited clusters, their voices rising in anticipation of the match.
"I still can't believe it's come down to this," Harry was saying. "Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff for the Cup. Ron's been practicing constantly. Wood's been absolutely mad with the training schedule."
"Oliver Wood does seem to take Quidditch very seriously," Luna agreed. "Last week I saw him tackle a first-year who'd suggested that maybe winning wasn't everything. It was quite dramatic."
Harry laughed despite the lingering anxiety from the diary incident. They'd spent the last few days searching for any information on Tom Riddle, but the school archives had been frustratingly sparse. He'd won his award in the 1940s, had been Head Boy, had received Special Services to the School... but nothing about what those services actually were.
They were halfway to the pitch when they saw Professor McGonagall striding across the grounds, her expression thunderous. She was headed directly for the pitch entrance, moving with such purpose that students scattered out of her way.
"That doesn't look good," Harry muttered.
It wasn't.
They arrived just in time to hear McGonagall's magically amplified voice boom across the grounds: "The Quidditch match is cancelled. All students are to return to their House common rooms immediately. I repeat, the match is cancelled."
The collective groan from the crowd was deafening. Harry spotted Oliver Wood near the changing rooms, his face going through an impressive spectrum of emotions—disbelief, horror, rage, despair—in the span of about three seconds.
"CANCELLED?" Wood's roar carried even without magical amplification. "The Cup match? The FINAL? We've trained for months! We're ready! The team is in peak condition! How can you—"
"Mr. Wood, control yourself," McGonagall snapped. "This is not a discussion."
Ron appeared at Harry's elbow, still in his Quidditch robes, his face white. "Mate, she can't be serious. The Cup match? We were so close!"
For once, Harry had to agree with Wood's outrage. Canceling the Cup final on match day itself suggested something truly terrible had happened.
The awful feeling in Harry's gut intensified as McGonagall's eyes swept the crowd and landed on him and Ron.
"Mr. Potter. Mr. Weasley. Come with me. Now."
Luna reached out and squeezed Harry's hand briefly, her grey eyes worried. Then Harry and Ron were following McGonagall across the grounds, their footsteps crunching on the gravel path, neither daring to ask what had happened.
They already knew it would be bad.
March 13th, 1993, Hospital Wing, 2:52 PM
The Hospital Wing doors swung open with a bang that made Madam Pomfrey jump. McGonagall ushered Harry and Ron inside, her lips pressed into such a thin line they'd practically disappeared.
Two beds were occupied.
In one lay Hermione, her bushy hair spread across the pillow, her eyes wide open and completely unseeing. Her skin had that same greyish, stone-like quality as the other petrified victims. She looked terrified, her mouth slightly open as though she'd been caught mid-scream.
In the other bed was a girl Harry realize—older, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with long dark hair, a Ravenclaw. It was Penelope Clearwater.
"Hermione," Ron breathed, all the color draining from his face. He stumbled forward, reaching the bedside in two long strides. "No, no, not Hermione. She was with us this morning, she was fine, she—"
"Miss Granger and Miss Clearwater were found an hour ago," McGonagall said, her voice tight with controlled emotion. "Petrified. Both of them."
"Clearwater?" A voice from across the room was raw with anguish. Percy Weasley stood beside the second bed, his hands clenched into fists, his face a mask of fury and fear. His perfect prefect composure had shattered completely. "Penelope was... she was just... we were supposed to study together today..."
Harry had never seen Percy look so devastated. The anger and fear warred visibly across his features, though anger seemed to be winning. His knuckles were white where he gripped the bedframe.
"Who did this?" Percy demanded, turning to McGonagall. "Who attacked them?"
"We don't know yet, Mr. Weasley. But rest assured—"
"Rest assured?" Percy's voice cracked. "A prefect has been attacked! If a prefect isn't safe, if Penelope—" He stopped, seeming to realize he was revealing more emotion than his carefully cultivated image typically allowed. He turned back to the bed, his jaw working.
Harry approached Hermione's bed slowly, his chest tight. She looked so small, so vulnerable. In her hand was a small mirror, the kind witches used for applying makeup.
The room fell into dreadful silence before...
"We need to talk to Hagrid," Ron said suddenly. "If there really was a Chamber opening fifty years ago, and Hagrid was accused, he might know something."
McGonagall hesitated, then nodded curtly. "Very well. But quickly, and then straight back to Gryffindor Tower. Both of you. No wandering, no investigating on your own. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Professor," Harry and Ron chorused.
As they left the Hospital Wing, Harry cast one last look at Hermione. His brilliant, brave friend, frozen in stone because she'd been trying to solve the mystery. Because she'd been trying to help.
'I'll fix this,' Harry promised silently. 'Whatever it takes, I'll stop this monster and whoever's controlling it.'
Shortly after their departure, Luna slipped into the Hospital Wing with Astoria Greengrass trailing behind her. The younger Greengrass girl looked shaken but determined.
As Luna approached Hermione's bed, seeing her friend in a state like this, Astoria saw that pain was visible in her greys.
It was then Luna something caught her eyes. Clutched tightly in her other hand was a crumpled piece of parchment.
"What's that?" Astoria pointed as she followed Luna's gaze.
Madam Pomfrey frowned. "I tried to remove it, but her grip is quite strong despite the petrification. I didn't want to risk damaging her hand by forcing it."
Before McGonagall could stop her, Luna carefully pried the parchment from Hermione's stiff fingers. It was old, clearly torn from a library book—the kind of thing Hermione would normally never do. Her brilliant friend must have realized the information was too important to wait.
On the page was text about basilisks.
Luna's blood ran cold as he read. A basilisk—a serpent of immense size, bred by Dark wizards, capable of living for hundreds of years. Its gaze was deadly; anyone who looked directly into its eyes would die instantly. Indirect viewing caused petrification.
And there, scrawled in Hermione's handwriting at the bottom of the page, was a single word: PIPES.
"The basilisk travels through the pipes," Luna whispered. "That's why Harry must have been hearing the voice in the walls. That's why no one else can hear it... it's speaking Parseltongue."
McGonagall's face went very still. "Ms Lovegood, are you certain?"
"Hermione was. Look... she and Penelope must have been using mirrors to check around corners. They saw the basilisk reflected and got petrified instead of killed." Luna calmly pointed out. "It all makes sense now. Mrs. Norris saw it in the water on the floor. Colin saw it through his camera. Justin saw it through Nearly Headless Nick, who's already dead so he just got petrified too. And now Hermione and Penelope saw it in mirrors."
Astoria's visage darken, if that were possible. "A basilisk. There's a giant deadly snake in the castle."
"And Harry can speak to it," Percy said slowly, turning from Penelope's bed. His expression was complicated—not accusatory, but certainly wary. "Could he control it? Stop it?"
"I don't know," Luna shook her head. "Maybe? If Harry could find it. But still the possibility was—"
"I know." Percy's voice was flat.
"Professor," Luna said urgently, "we need to tell Headmaster. Search the pipes, find where the basilisk is hiding, stop it before—"
"Dumbledore has been removed as Headmaster," McGonagall said heavily. "The Board of Governors felt he'd lost control of the situation. He left this morning."
The floor seemed to drop out from beneath every one's feet. "What? But he's—he's Dumbledore! He's the greatest wizard—" even Astoria was dumbfounded, breaking her cool.
"The Board has spoken." McGonagall's expression suggested she agreed with Luna's assessment, but her hands were tied. "Which means I am now Acting Headmistress, and I will not have any more students falling victim to this monster. All students will return to their dormitories and remain there under guard until we've resolved this situation." With that said the old witch left the Hospitable Wing with a long sigh.
She looked at Astoria. "We should tell the boys as well as other professors, as it seems Professor McGonagall's hand fulled."
Astoria nodded. "Professor Flitwick first. He'll listen, and he'll know what to do with the information."
The two girls hurried from the Hospital Wing, the precious evidence clutched in Luna's hands.
March 13th, 1993, Hagrid's Hut, 3:47 PM
Hagrid's hut stood at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, smoke curling from its chimney in lazy spirals. Harry, Ron, and Draco—who'd insisted on coming once he heard what happened—approached cautiously. The door was slightly ajar, which was unusual. Hagrid always kept it firmly shut to prevent his various creatures from escaping.
"Hagrid?" Harry called, pushing the door open. "Are you—"
He stopped short.
Hagrid was packing. A massive trunk lay open on the floor, half-filled with enormous clothes and various creature-care supplies. The half-giant's face was blotchy, his eyes red-rimmed. Fang the boarhound whimpered from his basket in the corner.
"Harry? What're yeh doin' here? Yeh should be in yer common room!"
"We needed to ask you about—"
The sound of voices outside cut Harry off. Official voices. Important voices.
"Oh no," Hagrid breathed. "They're early. Harry, yeh need ter—"
But before anyone could move, the door burst open. Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, strode in wearing lime-green robes that clashed spectacularly with his lime-green bowler hat. Behind him, tall and cold and infinitely more dangerous, came Lucius Malfoy.
"Hagrid," Fudge said, trying for authoritative and achieving something closer to apologetic. "I'm afraid I have some bad news. The Board of Governors has decided—given the circumstances—well, it's been decided that you're to be taken into custody. Just temporarily, you understand. Until this business with the Chamber is sorted out."
"Yeh can't!" Hagrid protested. "I didn' open no Chamber! I never did fifty years ago and I certainly haven't now!"
"Nevertheless," Lucius drawled, his cold grey eyes sweeping the hut with undisguised distaste, "the Ministry feels it's... prudent... to remove potential threats. Your history speaks for itself, Hagrid. Expelled for endangering students. Harboring dangerous creatures. And now, with the Chamber opened again..." He smiled thinly. "Well. Patterns do tend to repeat."
Harry saw Draco stiffen beside him. The younger Malfoy was staring at his father with an expression Harry couldn't quite read—not fear, not admiration, but something complicated and uncomfortable.
"Father," Draco said quietly, too quietly for Lucius to hear.
Harry's mind raced. They couldn't just let Hagrid be taken. But three second-year students against the Minister for Magic and Lucius Malfoy? They needed a plan. They needed—
His hand found the Invisibility Cloak in his satchel. Ethan's gift. His most precious possession.
Moving as subtly as he could, Harry pulled the silvery fabric out and, with a gesture to Ron and Draco, spread it over all three of them. The cloak was just barely large enough to cover them if they pressed close together and didn't breathe too deeply.
They froze, hidden, as Fudge and Lucius continued their work.
"You'll have a hearing, of course," Fudge was saying, though he didn't sound convinced. "Once we've... ah... once we've determined the full extent of—"
"This is a travesty," Hagrid said, his voice breaking. "I've served this school fer decades! Dumbledore trusts me! Where is Dumbledore?"
"The Headmaster has been suspended," Lucius said smoothly. "The Board felt his... leniency... had allowed this situation to escalate. Rest assured, Hagrid, we're acting in the school's best interests."
'Liar,' Harry thought venomously.
Under the cloak, he felt Draco tense further. The younger Malfoy was watching his father manipulate the situation with the same cold calculation Lucius had undoubtedly taught him, but there was no admiration in Draco's expression now. Only something that looked disturbingly like shame.
Hagrid was being led toward the door when he suddenly stopped, turning to look directly at where Harry, Ron, and Draco stood hidden.
"If anyone wanted ter find out some stuff," Hagrid said loudly, clearly, "all they'd have ter do is follow the spiders. That'd lead 'em right, that would. That's all I'm sayin'."
"What?" Fudge looked confused.
"Spiders," Hagrid repeated. "Yeh'll find what yeh need if yeh follow the spiders. Now, if yeh've got ter take me, let's get on with it."
Lucius's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Moments later, the hut was empty except for Fang's whimpering and three boys hidden under an Invisibility Cloak.
Harry waited until the sound of footsteps had faded completely before pulling off the cloak. All three of them gasped for air.
"Follow the spiders," Ron repeated, his voice slightly strangled. "Why did it have to be spiders?"
"Because Hagrid's trying to help us," Harry said firmly. "He knows something about the Chamber, about the monster. The spiders will lead us to answers."
Draco was still staring at the door, his expression troubled. "My father," he said slowly, "just helped imprison an innocent man. He knows Hagrid didn't open the Chamber. But he did it anyway."
"Your father's been helping orchestrate this whole thing," Ron said bluntly. "Getting Dumbledore suspended, Hagrid arrested as if... he wants Hogwarts under his control."
"I know," Draco said quietly. There was no defense in his voice, no argument. Just weary acknowledgment of an uncomfortable truth.
Harry squeezed his shoulder briefly. "We'll figure this out. But first, we need to follow Hagrid's clue."
They looked around the hut. Sure enough, spiders were streaming across the floor in an unnaturally orderly line, heading toward the door, then outside toward the Forbidden Forest.
Ron made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan. "The Forest. Of course it's the Forest. Why wouldn't it be the Forest?"
"We'll need Fang," Harry said, moving toward the boarhound's basket. The enormous dog looked up at him with mournful eyes. "Come on, boy. We need your help."
Fang seemed to understand. He rose from his basket, shook himself, and padded over to Harry with a loyalty that made Harry's throat tight.
The three boys stood at the hut's entrance, looking out at the Forbidden Forest. The sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows between the trees. The spiders continued their march, disappearing into the darkness between the towering trunks.
"This is insane," Ron muttered. "We're second-years. We shouldn't be doing this."
"Hermione's petrified," Harry said simply. "Hagrid's been arrested. Dumbledore's gone. If we don't figure this out, who will?"
Draco pulled his wand out, checking the grip. "Harry's right. Besides, we're not completely helpless. We've been training. We've got magic. We've got—" he glanced at Harry's satchel, where the Invisibility Cloak was stowed, "—resources."
Ron took a deep breath, visibly steeling himself. "Right. Okay. Follow the spiders into the Forbidden Forest at dusk. What could possibly go wrong?"
Everything, Harry thought. But Hermione was frozen in stone. Hagrid was being sent to Azkaban. And somewhere in Hogwarts, the Heir of Slytherin was controlling a monster that had already hurt too many innocent people.
They had to try.
Harry, Ron, and Draco stepped out of Hagrid's hut, Fang at their heels, and began following the stream of spiders into the darkness of the Forbidden Forest.
Behind them, the last light of day faded from the sky, and the castle loomed against the twilight like a promise or a threat—or perhaps both at once.