Climbing out of the Shadows [1D-5SOS-HP]

fourteen.

"Could I have your attention, please?" McGonagall attempted to quiet down her noisy classroom of second years. "Right. Now, today, we will be transforming animals into water goblets. Like so," She turned to the owl that was perched up on her desk, tapping the air above the creature as she counted off. "One, two, three. Vera Verto."

What was once an owl, now sat a beautifully polished water goblet. Hope sat up in her seat with a smile, it would never stop to amaze her what the beauty of magic could do. When she was a kid, she just assumed magic was really used for cleaning and jokes, she never understood the many possibilities that came with it till she started at Hogwarts. 

"Now it's your turn. Who would like to go first?" McGonagall looked around her classroom to see which student was going to volunteer for practicing this first, without knowing it. "Ah, Mister Weasley. One, two, three. Vera Verto."

Ron nodded his head confidently, looking at Scabbers sat on his desk. He coughed into his hand, before counting the numbers in his head- mouthing them though- as he tapped the air like his teacher had done. "Vera Verto."

What sat there was nothing like his teacher's example. It was a hair goblet, with a tail hanging out of it. And the poor rat was still squeaking through everything going on. 

"That wand needs replacing, Mister Weasley," McGonagall gave him a pat on the shoulder before she spotted a hand being raised high in the air. "Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Professor, I was wondering if you could tell us... about the Chamber of Secrets," Hermione was never one to just ask a silly question that did not pray tell to the current lesson they were being taught. But this was just something on her mind that she could not find the answer for in a book. She tried, believe her, she tried. 

McGonagall looked around the rest of her classroom, seeing them looking back at her with much curiosity. "Very well. Well, you all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. Now, three of the founders coexisted quite harmoniously. One did not."

"Three guesses who," Ron chuckled a bit about the obvious. 

"Salazar Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts," McGonagall explained to her class. "He believed magical learning should be kept within all-magical families. In other words, pure-bloods. Unable to sway the others, he decided to leave the school. Now, according to legend, Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in this castle know as the Chamber of Secrets. Well, shortly before departing, he sealed it, until that time when hi own true Heir returned to the school. The Heir alone would be able to open the Chamber and unleash the horror within, and by so doing, purge the school of all those who, In Slytherin's view, were unworthy to study magic. 

"Muggle-borns," Hermione said. 

McGonagall sadly nodded her head, a hand popping up right next to Hermione. "Yes, Miss Stylinson?"