Magic (5sos/l.h. Hogwarts AU)

Chapter 21

~A/N~ I'm so scared that I'm going to get hammered and act like an idiot tomorrow but I'm also scared for mocks
Enjoy the chapter!
Leila xx

The next few days I was almost living in the library, trying desperately to find out about the chamber of secrets. It seemed that now, when I needed information more than ever, it was going to prove to be impossible to get any. The closest I had come to finding out about the chamber of secrets was reading a very strange, disturbing book about a Chamber Pot Of Secrets.

There are not many things I wish I could unread, but that was one of them.

Calum had helped me at first, but after a short while he had decided that my thirst for knowledge was much too stressful for him, so I resolved to sit with Hermione instead, poring over books in almost complete silence.

But still we were getting nowhere, and I was starting to feel like I was abandoning my friends to run to the library between lessons. So, it seemed, were the boys.

"You need to stop spending so much time in the library," Calum said to me during History of Magic one day. "We've barely seen you this week, and you need to be here for Ginny. She's terribly upset about all this, seems to think Harry, Ron and Hermione are going to be expelled. She keeps bursting into tears. I'm worried about her."

This made me reconsider what I was doing. If Calum was worried about Ginny, it meant something was seriously wrong with her - he wasn't the type to worry for no reason.

However, now I was at a difficult decision. I could cut down on my time spent in the library and potentially never find out about the Chamber of Secrets but have love from my friends, or not have human company or even friends for a while until I found out about the Chamber. Fortunately, this decision didn't take long to make as Hermione put up her hand in the middle of one of Professor Binns' long lectures about the International Warlock Convention of 1289. When the teacher noticed her, he seemed amazed.

"Miss, er-"

"Granger, Professor. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets," said Hermione in a loud, clear voice. This grabbed everyone's attention. Luke's head snapped up from where it was resting on the desk, Ashton's mouth fell open, Michael dropped the paper aeroplane he was about to charm, and Calum and I were jerked out of our conversation.

Professor Binns blinked.

"My subject is History of Magic," he said in an exasperated tone. "I deal with facts, Miss Granger, not myths and legends." He cleared his throat with a sound like a chalk snapping, then continued. "In September of that year, a sub-committee of Sardinian sorcerers-"

The ghost stuttered to a halt. Hermione's hand was waving in the air again.

"Miss Grant?"

"Please sir, don't legends always have a basis in fact?"

I had never had a History of Magic lesson this interesting - it was clear no one had interrupted Professor Binns before, alive or dead. Michael sat up straighter, noticing the teacher thawing slightly.

"Well," he said slowly, "yes, one might argue that, I suppose." He peered at Hermione as though he had never seen a student before (despite being a teacher all his life - and death). "However, the legend of which you speak is such a very sensational, even ludicrous tale..."

But for the first time, the whole class was hanging onto his every word. Noticing the rapt interest everyone was showing, Professor Binns began to give in, seemingly thrown by this much attention on him.

"Oh, very well," he said. "Let me see... the Chamber of Secrets..."

And then he explained the story of how the four founders had built Hogwarts together in harmony, then Slytherin wished to teach only pure-bloods so had argued with Gryffindor and left the school, but not without building a Chamber that contained horrors that could wipe out those not of pure blood at the school when his true heir arrived to open the chamber.