A Hogwarts Legend: Round Two [2]

Chapter Twenty Eight

Unedited

Chapter Twenty Eight - "Were you fucking in a classroom?"

"All those times we were in that bathroom, and she was just three toilets away," says Ron bitterly at breakfast next day, "and we could've asked her, and now ..."

It was hard enough trying to look for spiders. Escaping the teachers long enough to sneak into an abandoned girls' bathroom, the bathroom right next to the scene of the first attach, is going to be almost impossible.

But something happens in our first lesson, Transfiguration, which drives the Chamber of Secrets out of our minds for the first time in weeks. Ten minutes into the class, Professor McGonagall tells us that our exams will start on the first of June, one week from today.

"Exams?" howls Seamus. "We're still getting exams?"

There's a loud bang behind me as Neville's wand slips, vanishing one of the legs on his desk. Professor McGonagall restores it with a wave of her own wand, and turns, frowning, to Seamus.

"The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education," she says sternly. "The exams will therefore take place as usual, and I trust you are all revising hard."

Revising hard! Pfttt, yeah, of course ..... not at all.

There's a great deal of mutinous muttering around the room, which makes Professor McGonagall scowl more darkly.

"Professor Dumbledore's instructions were to keep the school running as normally as possible," she says. "And that, I need hardly point out, means finding out how much you have learned this year."

I look down at the pair of slippers I've just turned my rabbits into. I least I'm not too fucked.

Ron looks as though he's just been told he has to go and live in the Forbidden Forest.

"Can you imagine me taking exams with this?" he asks holding up his wand, which has just started whistling loudly.

"Hermione is going to be so pissed," I mutter. "She's been revising for these exams for the last two months. What's the chance that the first thing she's gonna ask is if she can still talk them?"

"High," Harry says, staring at his rabbits. "Very high."

*

Three days before our first exam, Professor McGonagall makes another announcement at breakfast.

"I have good news," she says, and the Great Hall, instead of falling silent, erupts.

"Dumbledore's coming back!" several people yell joyfully.

"You've caught the heir of Slytherin!" squeals a girl on the Ravenclaw table.

"Quidditch matches are back on!" roars Wood excitedly.

Wow, priorities right there.

When the hubbub subsides, Professor McGonagall says, "Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last. Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been Petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what, attacked them. I am hopeful that this year will end with our catching the culprit."