A/N: yall getting fed today >:3 (and it's totally not cuz I missed 2 weeks and feel bad...
Summer was creeping over the grounds around the castle; sky and lake alike turned periwinkle blue and flowers large as cabbages burst into bloom in the greenhouses. But with no Hagrid visible from the castle windows, striding the grounds with Fang at his heels, the scene didn't look right to Aly; no better, in fact, than the inside of the castle, where things were so horribly wrong.
Harry and Ron had tried to visit Hermione, and Aly, Madi, and Kim tried to visit Noia, but visitors were now barred from the hospital wing.
"We're taking no more chances," Madam Pomfrey told them severely through a crack in the infirmary door. "No, I'm sorry, there's every chance the attacker might come back to finish these people off."
With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before, so that the sun warming the castle walls outside seemed to stop at the mullioned windows. There was barely a face to be seen in the school that didn't look worried and tense, and any laughter that rang through the corridors sounded shrill and unnatural and was quickly stifled.
Aly constantly repeated Dumbledore's final words to herself "I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me... Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it." But what good were these words? Who exactly were they supposed to ask for help, when everyone was just as confused and scared as they were?
Hagrid's hint about the spiders was far easier to understand. The trouble was, there didn't seem to be a single spider left in the castle to follow. Aly felt as though she needed to sit this mission out. She hated spiders, and not only that — Kim had an even worse fear than Rom. And she's been distraught ever since Noia got petrified. Aly decided she would let Madi, Harry, and Ron figure this one out while Aly stayed and kept Kim company.
"Thanks for staying with me," she said quietly one afternoon in the library. They were studying for — or well, Kim was studying and Aly was drawing on her textbook pages.
"Of course! I'm always here for you Kim," she smiled genuinely.
The Noia and Hermione was taking on more of a toll on her than she let on. But she had to stay strong for her friends.
The next morning and Kim and Aly were sitting at the Gryffindor table together, waiting for Madi to wake up, when suddenly the doors bursted open and in walked Madi, Harry, and Ron.
"All those times we were in that bathroom, and she was just three toilets away," said Ron bitterly as the three of them sat with Kim and Aly, "and we could've asked her, and now..."
"What happened? Are you guys alright?" Kim asked worried.
The three Gryffindors shared a look.
"Technically we're okay... but that was so scary," Ron whined.
"You're just a baby," Madi rolled her eyes.
Harry explained all that happened while Madi and Ron kept arguing back and forth. Including the fact that they needed to see Myrtle later.
But something happened in their first lesson, Transfiguration, that drove the Chamber of Secrets out of their minds for the tirst 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 Draco Malfoy. "We're still getting exams?"
"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 Aly 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."
