People Watching.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Harry, Ron, and Cho were led up to the infirmary during breakfast. They were all growing nervous due to the fact that the only thing all three of them had in common was sharing a friend: (Y/n).

"She was found in front of a window early morning," Professor McGonagall told them miserably as she led them to a bed where (Y/n) lay, Petrified. 
Cho made a sound of horror and rushed to (Y/n)'s side, crouching down beside her. Harry and Ron froze where they stood, staring down at (Y/n)'s statue-like appearance.
Her face was frozen in horror and she looked to be in the action of trying to run away. She had failed obviously. Professor McGonagall had been the one to find her due to the girl's cat, Effie, gaining her attention and leading her straight to (Y/n). The cat was currently curled into (Y/n)'s side and would occasionally walk all over her, curling up in different places, and pawing at her in an attempt to get her owner to move.
Ron and Harry were miserable. (Y/n) had obviously just been out of the safety of anyone who was patrolling the halls. If they had pushed for her to wait until morning, she would have been fine, and they would be closer to cracking the case and closing the Chamber of Secrets.
"If any of you know anything, it would be very helpful to hear," Professor McGonagall spoke, breaking the silence.

"She— She—" Cho wept. "She had been do-doing a load of Magic-c-cal Creature research," she managed to get out. "I reckon-on that she— she found out what it was but only too late!"
Professor McGonagall put a hand on Cho's shoulder.

"Thank you, Miss Chang," Professor McGonagall. "This gives us a clue as to just what she was doing out so late."

Within the mere hour, they had for breakfast, the whole school knew of the most recent attack on (Y/n). It was collectively decided by a majority of students that Dumbledore leaving was the worst thing that could have happened right now. (Y/n) was proof enough that Hagrid was innocent and the expulsion of Dumbledore was a bad choice.
"All those times we were in that bathroom, and she was just three toilets away," said Ron bitterly at breakfast, "and we could have asked her by now..."
It had been hard enough trying to look for spiders. Escaping their teachers long enough to sneak into a girls' bathroom, the girls' bathroom, moreover, right next to the scene of the first attack, was going to be almost impossible.
But something happened in their first lesson, Transfiguration, that drove the Chamber of Secrets out of their minds for the first time in weeks. Ten minutes into the class, Professor McGonagall told them that their exams would start on the first of June, one week from today.

"Exams?" howled Seamus Finnigan. "We're still getting exams?"
There was a loud bang behind Harry and Neville Longbottom's wand slipped, vanishing one of the legs on his desk. Professor McGonagall restored it with a wave of her own wand, and turned, frowning, to Seamus.

"The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education," she said sternly. "The exams will therefore take place as usual, and I trust you are all studying hard."
Studying hard! It had never occurred to Harry that there would be exams with the castle in this state. There was a great deal of mutinous muttering around the room, which made Professor McGonagall scowl even more darkly.
"Professor Dumbledore's instructions were to keep the school running as normally as possible," she said. "And that, I need hardly point out, means finding out how much you have learned this year."
Harry looked down at the pair of white rabbits he was supposed to be turning into slippers. What had he learned so far this year? He couldn't seem to think of anything that would be useful in an exam.

Ron looked as though he'd just been told he had to go and live in the Forbidden Forest.
"Can you imagine me taking exams with this?" he asked Harry, holding up his wand, which had just started whistling loudly.