A Halliwell at Hogwarts: The Chamber of Secrets

XIV - Salazar Slytherin's Pet

"So you think Myrtle is the girl who was killed by the monster of the Chamber?" said Persephone at breakfast the next morning, after Harry had told her his suspicions. Apparently, last night he had had a sudden revelation just a second before falling asleep.

"All those times we were in that bathroom, and she was just three toilets away," said Ron bitterly, "and we could've asked her, and 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 as 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."

Persephone didn't have any complain about the exams coming the next week, but she had to admit that the general mood that reigned in the castle didn't exactly induce people to study.

"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."

Persephone sighed thinking again about Hermione and with a distracted swing of wand, she turned the pair of white rabbits on her desk into slippers.

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 Persephone and Harry, holding up his wand, which had just started whistling loudly.

Three days before their first exam, Professor McGonagall made another announcement at breakfast.

"I have good news," she said, and the Great Hall, instead of falling silent, erupted. "Dumbledore's coming back!" several people yelled joyfully.

"You've caught the Heir of Slytherin!" squealed a girl at the Ravenclaw table. "Quidditch matches are back on!" roared Wood excitedly.

When the hubbub had subsided, Professor McGonagall said, "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 dreadful year will end with our catching the culprit."

There was an explosion of cheering. Persephone looked over at the Slytherin table and wasn't surprised at all to see that Draco Malfoy hadn't joined in, but she didn't care. Hermione was going to be back! Ron was looking happier than he'd looked in days, and a big smile appeared on Harry's face.

"It won't matter that we never asked Myrtle, then!" Ron said to Persephone and Harry. "Hermione'll probably have all the answers when they wake her up! Mind you, she'll go crazy when she finds out we've got exams in three days' time. She hasn't studied. It might be kinder to leave her where she is till they're over."

Just then, Ginny came over and sat down next to Persephone. She looked tense and nervous, and Persephone noticed that her hands were twisting in her lap.