You can hinder me, but you'll never stop me

The Chamber of Secrets

After Christmas, the year seemed to pick up the pace. Before the students knew it, eastern had passed and the final exams were looming close. Neville was helping Jay understand Herbology better, while Jay helped him with the various hexes and jinxes they were supposed to know for the exams. Of course, Charlie and Ronald were currently doing anything and everything except for studying. Obviously.

At the moment, the group of two was huddled up in the common room, much like the year before. Only now the trio was down to a duo. When Granger had been discovered as one of the paralyzed victims, Charlie had proven to be inconsolable. Him and Ronald seemed dead set on finding who was responsible for the attacks.

For weeks there was nothing, but now with the excitement almost physically manifesting around them, Jay knew they knew something. She casted a disillusion charm on herself and Neville and stepped behind them.

"-I swear Ron, there is no other thing it could be! The spiders-" Charlie was whispering excitedly to his companion, who seemed to blanch at the mere mention of spiders. Why were they covered in dirt like that? "And now this?" He waved a torn page of parchment around and Jay was struggling to see what was on it. "It has to be a basilisk! Hermione, she figured it out."

Ron shook his head. "It can't be. I mean, no one has ever survived looking at a basilisk."

Charlie sighed, before perking up, "But what if they didn't look directly at it? 'Moine was found with a mirror,"

"When Collin was found, he was still looking through his camera!"

"And on the night Mrs Noris was found, there was water on the ground. If only the teachers would listen to the theory and not just sent us away. What are we going to do?" Jay and Neville cast a glance at one another eyes wide. She mentioned for Nev to follow her, and they quickly exited the room for a secret place behind the pineapple wall.

"Holy shit." Neville forced out.

Jay just nodded. "I mean... Holy shit! Why is the school not evacuated yet?!"

"I don't know?! Because the wizarding world is about as backwards as it gets when it comes to logic?!" She starts walking up and down the room. "It makes so much sense as well. It, dear Merlin-"

She stops, spins around. "What? What could make it any worse now?" Neville laughs a bit hysterically. Then he sees Jay's look, "Oh god I was joking-"

Jay sits on a table, one of the few that were still sturdy enough to hold her weight. "Earlier this year, remember when I was found, rather hysterical with the mirror shard?"

Nev shrugs, "Uh yeah. It was kind of hard to forget. What does it have to do with anything though?"

"Remember that I heard a voice?" She looks up and dead in the eye, "It was inside the walls."

"Are you telling me, that there is one of the most deadly creatures known to wizarding kind, in the castle, inside the bloody walls, and could very well pop up, at any given time, anywhere?"

"Basically." Jay drops her head in her hands.

"Okay. Okay." Neville resumes his pacing. "But, this thing has to be huge. There will only be a few places where it could emerge."

Jay looks up questioningly. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, all attacks were close together. When you look at it, the corridors, the library exit..."

Thinking hard, they try to come up with the possible place it could emerge from. "The only place I could think of is the second floor's bathrooms." And realization hit her. She grabs Nev by the arm.