giant snakes? in my magical boarding school? it's more likely than you think
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"Yeah..."

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Shrug. "She might've just been fighting with her friends."

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"Could be, yeah."

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"I'll keep an eye to see if she keeps doing weird stuff, I guess."

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Nod.

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Onward with the holiday, then.

Anathema's down about Scarlet - and they find Professor Reynolds in the Hospital Wing sitting by them a lot. But other than some brief gossip the school as a whole doesn't seem really affected by what happened; people have pretty much decided it's just a prank from someone trying to be edgy. Poor cat, but most people don't really care.

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That's because they don't know Scarlet.

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Yeah.

But - the investigation doesn't get anywhere quickly. There's no leads. None of the portraits saw anyone at all enter the area while Scarlet was there, or before without leaving after. The writing was in conjured chicken blood, and they're not sure where from. The petrification on Scarlet is strange enough that Saint Mungo's doesn't have a specific remedy in stock, and they're going to need to brew something (and the ingredients themselves need to be fresh, but are out of season) or reach out to other, probably international, partners... Which there isn't much momentum to do, for a kneazle. No one can get a trace of what beings passed through that catches anyone not known to have been there.

Anathema's unhappy for a lot of it. Professor Reynolds seems frequently stressed. But, as November wears on, everyone but them seems to forget just about...

Until, midway through November, caretaker Filch stumbles across a fourth year student in the middle of the night, petrified just as Scarlet had been, expression terrified. She'd been frozen standing, leaning against a wall and looking out a window. No writing anywhere near her. No calling cards. Ellie and Anathema hadn't heard any voices, but they also hadn't been near the scene of the crime.

The gossip rather explodes after that.

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Typical. There's probably still no actual information, though.

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Not really. People are less sure it was a prank, now, but no one has any leads. The professors are investigating a lot more in depth, but they don't seem to have much to go on.

People do start taking the rumors of the Chamber of Secrets more seriously. It's still not something people know a lot about, but a few students start looking into the library -

And in their next class after, Professor Reynolds says they'll be pausing before covering what was on the schedule last time.

"I know you all have a lot of questions about the Chamber of Secrets and what's happened," she says, leaning against her desk and looking exhausted. "I can answer some of them, I hope."

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"What is the Chamber of Secrets, Professor?"

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"The myth is that it is a section of the castle that Salazar Slytherin built and sealed off from the rest of Hogwarts. No one really agrees on why, or if it even exists. The rumors about it were fairly sparse for the first eight hundred years after Hogwarts was built. Back then it was usually called 'The Serpent Chamber,' and not really considered very interesting, since most supposed it was just one of many of Hogwarts' secret rooms and passages, even assuming it wasn't a misinterpretation of Ravenclaw's letters, which spoke of Slytherin spending a lot of time in 'his chamber.' A rumor grew in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that it was part of the defensive network the Founders created around Hogwarts' grounds. However, Headmasters usually have access to Hogwarts' defensive measures - and they couldn't find this one."

"The rumors turned in the nineteenth century to claims Slytherin had built the Chamber with the specific goal that his heir would someday open it, purging either Hogwarts or all of the British Isles of 'Slytherin's enemies.' That claim was mostly pushed by the Gaunts, the only family who claimed provable decent from Slytherin himself."

She pauses, and another student says they heard the Chamber was opened before. Professor Reynolds nods, sighing. "Or at least someone pretending to have opened it."

"In the 1940s there were a rash of petrifications of muggleborns linked to someone claiming to be the Heir of Slytherin. There were a large number of suspects at the time, which eventually started narrowing down to one student, Tom Riddle, a fifth year. No one could actually find any evidence, though, and the Ministry of the time had far more stringent standards for criminal trials than our current one."

"In the midst of that, a student named Myrtle Lowe was murdered. The Ministry investigators concluded her murderer had used the Killing Curse. There was disagreement about whether this was linked to the petrifications directly, or someone else just being opportunistic."

"Riddle, in the furor after Lowe's death, accused another student, Rubeus Hagrid. He claimed Hagrid had bred an acromantula to petrify its victims, rather than paralyze them. Riddle did not actually report this to the authorities until after he had decided to do a citizen's arrest of Hagrid, causing the acromantula in question to escape. Hagrid's roommates confirmed that Hagrid had at the time been raising an acromantula, but that he had found it as a child, rather than breeding it, and that it was more inclined to hide than to attack."

"The Ministry charged Hagrid with illegal possession of a restricted creature, which at his age just amounted to a warning, but the government felt the evidence that Hagrid had been involved in the attacks was effectively nonexistent, especially since he had reliable alibis for most. They did not bring any additional charges, though some of the dark-aligned media at the time latched onto Hagrid as the perpetrator. Hagrid's mother removed him from the school to homeschool him in the face of harassment."

"No one actually was charged with any of it - all of the students' and professors' wands were checked, and none of them had ever cast the Killing Curse. None of the suspects had used unknown spells or spells associated with petrification while they were being monitored and while the petrifications were ongoing. And, when the petrified students were cured, none of them remembered seeing anyone or anything except 'a flash of yellow.'"

"The petrifications stopped after Lowe's death, though, and the castle was swept top to bottom. No one found any evidence of unknown secret passages, or of existing danger, and none of the Aurors were targeted. The school was cautiously reopened, and the attacks didn't start back up."

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Ellie notes down the key points.

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There's a few more questions, but not a lot of new information about the Chamber. They just don't know a lot. 

They're planning to take a fairly proactive approach about safety, though - they're already recommending people travel in pairs or groups when feasible, and that people try to stay in parts of the castle overseen by portraits. Headmaster Dumbledore is spreading out their current portraits to cover as much of the castle as possible, and the house elves are keeping closer eyes on the students. They haven't settled everything they'll do if petrifications continue. Headmaster Dumbledore is looking into a secondary location for schooling, in case they conclude the threat is something within the school itself, rather than a student. 

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Well. That's something, at least.

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People still seem worried, but a bit less so now.

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People are crazy. The threat has gotten worse, not better.

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Professor Reynolds seems to agree. She's certainly not getting any less stressed.

And she impresses on them very, very heavily the importance of taking this seriously. Of keeping curfew, and traveling with others, and letting people know where you're going and when you expect to be back. She runs them through thought exercises, a sort of verbal drill - dangers they could encounter, which actions would or would not help, how to make sure help could be coming.

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At least Professor Reynolds is taking this seriously.

She's a good teacher.

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Hopefully it'll be enough. Anathema doesn't really want to get moved to somewhere not Hogwarts to learn...

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Yeah. Ellie likes it here. The castle has... character.

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Yeah.

Maybe they can help the investigations some...

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As long as they're going around in groups of two or more.

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"Me and you are a group."

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"A pretty effective one at that."

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