𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝; 𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐡.𝐩

𝓨𝓮𝓪𝓻 2, 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 15: Aragog

~ chapter fifteen: aragog ~

Summer was creeping over the grounds around the castle; sky and lake alike turned periwinkle blue and flowers as 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 Y/N; no better, in fact, than the inside of the castle, where things where so horribly wrong.

She, Harry, and Ron had tried to visit Hermione, 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.

Y/N was regretting not telling Dumbledore about the paranoia she had been feeling sooner—she doubted he'd be able to do anything, seeing as how little information she had about the feeling itself, but still, it would have been nice to tell an adult—an adult she could actually trust, that was—about how paranoid she felt. Now with Dumbledore gone, it was like that paranoia was multiplied by one hundred.

She was glad Harry stuck by her side. He knew how she felt; how, she didn't know, but he did, and he tried to make her feel better about the whole situation. Every time she felt like she was going to do something drastic, he always promised her by saying things like, "We're going to find out who the Heir of Slytherin is, I promise" and "Hermione's going to be okay." He seemed so confident that they were going to find out who the Heir of Slytherin was, and Y/N knew that they had to. She—technically—had a home to go to, but it wasn't a very good one.

She 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 clue was far easier to pick up on—the problem was, there didn't seem to be a single spider left in the castle to follow. She and Harry searched everywhere they went, helped (rather reluctantly) by Ron. They were hampered, of course, by the fact they they weren't allowed to wander off on their own but had to move around the castle in a pack with the other Gryffindors. Most of their fellow students seemed glad ta they were being shepherded from class to class by teachers, but Y/N found it very irksome.

One person, however, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of terror and suspicion. Draco Malfoy was strutting around the school as though he had just been appointed Head Boy. Y/N didn't realize what he was so pleased about until the Potions lesson about two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid had left, when, sitting right behind Malfoy, she heard him gloating to Crabbe, Goyle, and Parkinson.

"I always thought Father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," he said, not troubling to keep his voice down. "I told you he thinks Dumbledore's the worst headmaster the school's ever had. Maybe we'll get a decent headmaster now. Someone who won't want the Chamber of Secrets closed. McGonagall won't last long, she's only filling in....:"

Snape swept past Y/N and Harry, making no comment about Hermione's empty seat and cauldron.

"Sir," said Malfoy loudly. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?"