The castle woke to sunlight.
May had arrived in full bloom, and with it came the kind of day Hogwarts hadn't seen in months — golden, windless, almost impossibly calm. The banners had been unfurled overnight, streaks of crimson and yellow fluttering from every window. Somewhere down by the lake, a student's enchanted trumpet blared a triumphant fanfare, earning a chorus of laughter from passing prefects.
The air smelled of grass, breakfast, and nervous excitement.
Even the roosters seemed to sense the shift, strutting proudly through the courtyard as if they too had house loyalties.
The Great Hall was alive.
Every table shimmered with the colors of their champions — scarlet for Gryffindor, sunshine yellow for Hufflepuff.
Roman had claimed a seat at the end of the Ravenclaw table beside Cassian, despite the glares from a few prefects. Shya sat nearby with Talora, Padma, and Lisa, all leaning over steaming mugs of tea. Luna was there too, sketching a lion and a badger shaking hands — or possibly fighting — no one could tell.
"You can practically taste the adrenaline," Roman said, buttering his toast.
Padma grinned. "You mean the stress."
"Same thing," he said.
Cassian glanced up from his parchment. "Potter's team's been training at dawn every day. He'll fly like a madman."
"He'll fall like one too," Shya muttered. "That boy's luck has an expiration date."
Talora smirked. "You say that every match."
"And I'm never wrong," Shya said, sipping her tea.
Their laughter mingled with the noise of the Hall — clattering plates, the shouts of Gryffindors chanting "Weasley Is Our King," and Hufflepuffs drumming on the table in reply. Even the professors looked mildly amused for once.
It was almost easy to forget the months of fear that had preceded it. Almost.
The moment shattered like glass.
It began with a sound — faint, distant, impossible to place. A sudden, shrill chime that echoed down the corridors, cutting through the laughter.
Students froze mid-sentence.
The sound grew — clear, high, resonant — the unmistakable tone of the castle's Ancient Ward Alarm.
Every prefect in the Hall shot to their feet at once.
"Safe zones!" someone shouted. "Everyone stay in the Hall!"
Chairs scraped. Conversations died. The banners rippled in a sudden, cold draft that swept through the room.
Professor McGonagall was the first to move, her tartan robes flaring as she strode toward the doors. Flitwick and Sprout followed, wands already drawn.
Dumbledore stood at the staff table, face grave, eyes far away — as if listening to something only he could hear.
The chime faded… then stopped.
In the silence that followed, even the candles flickered.
Ten minutes later, the Heads of House returned.
The air was thick, waiting.
McGonagall's expression was carved from stone. She stepped forward to the center of the Hall.
"Students," she began, her voice tight but steady. "There has been another attack."
A single, collective gasp rippled through the Hall.
"This morning," she continued, "two students were found petrified — Miss Hermione Granger, of Gryffindor, and Miss Penelope Clearwater, Ravenclaw Prefect."
For a heartbeat, no one breathed.
Talora's hand froze around her teacup. Padma's quill fell from her grasp and rolled across the table. Luna's drawing fluttered to the floor.
Shya's voice came quiet, almost disbelieving. "Two."
Beside her, Cassian's eyes darkened. "That's escalation."
McGonagall's voice rose, filling the stunned silence.
"All classes and extracurricular activities — including Quidditch — are hereby suspended. Effective immediately."
The words landed like a blow.
She turned to the teachers. "Staff, please escort your students to their common rooms. No one is to leave until further notice."
Dumbledore's voice joined hers, quiet but unyielding. "The safety measures we discussed will be reinstated at once. The wards have not failed — they have simply awakened to warn us again. And we will listen."
He met the sea of faces before him — frightened, angry, confused. "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the wisdom to act despite it. We will find the source of this darkness, and we will end it."
But even as he spoke, the room seemed to tremble faintly, a whisper in the stones — the castle's magic pulsing deep below.
The students were ushered out under tight watch. The corridors glowed faintly with the returning blue pulse of the wards. Professors and prefects lined every hall, herding the waves of students back toward safety.
In the flow of movement, the group kept close — Shya and Talora shoulder to shoulder, Luna tucked between them, Roman and Cassian flanking from behind.
No one spoke.
Outside, the banners still fluttered in the sunlight, forgotten.
The pitch was ready, the stands full of color — but the game would never begin.
By the time the castle doors sealed and the wards locked again, Hogwarts had fallen silent.
The morning that should have been filled with cheers ended in whispers — and the soft, hollow echo of a castle holding its breath once more.
The day began like any other — and ended in chaos.
By May's, Hogwarts no longer felt like a school. The corridors were watched, patrols doubled, and every hallway echoed with the sound of footsteps and whispered roll calls. Professors walked in pairs now; prefects carried mirrors enchanted to signal the staff if anything stirred in the shadows.
The roosters were everywhere — perched on tables, napping under window sills, clucking softly in the courtyards. A strange comfort, those birds. Loud, absurd, and alive.
The group had grown quiet with the tension. The laughter of spring had vanished again.
It was just after breakfast when the screaming started.
A Hufflepuff first-year came tearing up the marble staircase, pale and shaking.
"Something — something's written on the wall!"
Within minutes, the castle erupted.
Students and staff poured into the corridor outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Professors forced their way through the crush of bodies, silencing the noise with a single, thunderous command from McGonagall.
The words gleamed wetly against the stone, large and uneven — crimson letters that seemed to pulse faintly in the torchlight:
HER SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER.
Gasps broke through the air. Someone began to cry. The scent of iron and damp filled the corridor.
Shya stood still among the crowd, her heartbeat loud in her ears. Talora's hand brushed hers, cold.
"Who's missing?" she whispered.
The answer came in a trembling voice from a prefect. "Ginny Weasley. She's gone."
McGonagall's shout carried like a whip crack. "All students — back to your common rooms! Now! Prefects, lead your houses!"
The students were herded away, their confusion echoing down the halls.
But as the last of them vanished, the professors remained.
When the doors sealed behind the departing students, the corridor fell utterly still.
Only the drip of water from the ceiling disturbed the silence.
Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick, and Sprout stood before the message, their faces pale and drawn. Fawkes, perched on the Headmaster's shoulder, gave a low, uneasy trill — the sound of a creature who felt the wrongness in the air.
"Albus," McGonagall said softly, her voice trembling despite herself, "this… this cannot continue. The governors—"
"The governors can do nothing if the castle itself cannot breathe," Dumbledore replied, his tone even but heavy. His gaze slid from the message to the door of Myrtle's bathroom. "It came from here. Again."
Sprout swallowed. "Do you think—?"
"I know," Snape interrupted, voice low, cold, but unsteady at the edges. "The girl is still alive, or the wards would have broken completely. But something ancient is moving beneath us."
Flitwick stepped closer to the door, muttering detection charms under his breath. The air shimmered faintly, disturbed by invisible power.
"There's old magic here," he whispered. "Older than the castle's foundations. Look."
He pointed toward the line of sinks. One of them was cracked — and upon the tap was a faintly engraved serpent.
The professors stared in silence.
McGonagall's voice came out hushed, disbelieving. "Merlin's mercy…"
Snape crouched beside it, fingertips hovering a fraction of an inch from the carving. "It's not merely a symbol. There's spell residue embedded in the metal — Parseltongue, most likely. A vocal trigger. The creature enters and exits through here."
Flitwick paled. "Then the entrance is—"
"Under our feet," Snape finished grimly.
Sprout took a half-step back. "A thousand years… that thing has lived a thousand years?"
Dumbledore's blue eyes were distant, shadowed with understanding. "And the Chamber has remained sealed since Salazar's departure. Until now."
For a long, terrible moment, no one spoke. The only sound was Myrtle's faint, hiccuping sob from somewhere near the ceiling.
"What do we do?" McGonagall asked finally, her composure fraying. "How do we reach her? None of us can—"
"—speak the tongue," Snape said, finishing the thought with a hiss of frustration. "No one can open it."
"Not no one," Dumbledore said quietly, almost to himself. "Just… no one we trust."
The weight of that sentence settled over them like a stormcloud.
Fawkes ruffled his feathers and let out another uneasy sound. Dumbledore stroked the phoenix's head absently, gaze still fixed on the engraved serpent.
"Seal the floor," he ordered at last. "Double the patrols. Lock every entrance and ward the corridors twice over. The creature won't escape again. Not tonight."
"And the girl?" McGonagall's voice cracked.
Dumbledore turned toward her, his expression unreadable. "She is alive. For now."
By evening, whispers had spread like wildfire — half-truths, speculation, and fear filling the void the professors' silence left behind.
"Something under the castle."
"A message in blood."
"They say it's the Chamber again."
The group sat together in the Ravenclaw common room, the fire casting long shadows over their faces.
"Do you think it's true?" Padma whispered.
Shya's reply was quiet, sharp-edged. "It doesn't matter if it's true. It's happening."
Talora looked toward the window, where the roosters outside the tower walls paced in uneasy circles. "If she's alive, we have to hope the teachers find her."
Cassian leaned forward, voice steady but grim. "Hope's not enough. If the castle's old wards are stirring, it means the magic itself feels threatened. That… shouldn't be possible."
Roman exhaled through his nose. "This place has survived a thousand years. It'll survive a few Gryffindor heroics."
No one laughed.
Outside, the wind howled across the towers — a sound like breath drawn deep beneath the earth