The Little Pureblood [1]

Chapter 31: The Revelation

The next morning I stood in front of Hermione's bedside, looking down in horror at the girl's frozen, glossy look of shock plastered on her otherwise absent expression. It took all of my energy and determination to not burst into nervous hysterics over how I felt.

It wasn't like Hermione and I were close friends, but we were close enough to know each other by name and to have chatted seriously the day of the accident. I had seen her hours before she was petrified and there was nothing that I could have done to stop it. Nothing anyone could have done to stop it.

It just crept out of nowhere.

"That's two Gryffindors down, not counting Nearly Headless Nick, alongside one Hufflepuff and one Ravenclaw. See how our house hasn't been touched? The Heir must be loyal to our house. We Slytherins will always be safe..."The voice of Draco Malfoy lingered in my head from the night before, filling me with that sick sense of fleeting relief, understanding that I would never be in the state that Hermione was in right now, and yet... the horror of seeing her like this made the threat to Hogwarts that much more real to me.

It made the warning Hermione gave me in the beginning of spring term about stopping the search to investigate the heir that much more tempting. Dropping the cause just to save my skin, live another day, be less likely to face the monster that is causing these attacks...

But no, I couldn't do that. Seeing Hermione frozen in her bed made me feel more than just shock and horror, it also made me feel angry over the whole situation. How dare Hogwarts let loose a monster onto their own students, and especially during my first year at the school. Why did the monster have to go after the kinder students? Why not hit Pansy, Malfoy, some of those snotty Ravenclaw girls and maybe even Lockhart?

I only had to recount the blood statuses of the students hidden behind the white curtain to understand the reasoning.

Blood Status.

I knew that I had to speak to Harry and Ron about what their plan was now that Hermione was out of commission, but with the growing rules over students activity outside of the classroom, it was becoming more and more difficult to reach the boys. Not to mention the atmosphere at Hogwarts drastically changed. Even with summer lingering close in hand, students were becoming more hushed and suspicious around the school, all sparked with fear. There were even horrible rumors spreading around about both Hagrid and Dumbledore leaving the school.

And while Lockhart was annoying as ever in class describing how he always knew Hagrid was the main culprit, something all the students in his class had a hard time believing, the all-time most difficult person to be around during this time of suspicion and fear was Draco Malfoy.

That boy was reveling in the darkened atmosphere of Hogwarts, probably because he knew no danger was coming for him. Or at least, so I thought. It wasn't until I caught up to Ron and Harry after dinner one evening that I got the real story.

"Wait the pair of you went to see Hagrid?" I exclaimed, taking a step closer with curiosity as both boys nodded.

"So you boys were there when Hagrid was taken away? Surely you must have a clearer reason as to how it happened compared to Lockhart's proposal, right?" I asked in almost a beg. "Lockhart made it seem like Hagrid was some evil mastermind the whole time under Dumbledore's orders!" Ron looked disgusted at that news but it was Harry that returned the conversation to the important parts.

"Dumbledore and Hagrid are both innocent! It's Malfoy's father who's behind all of this. We saw him give Dumbledore a list of all the seats on the Hogwarts council asking for Dumbledore's immediate removal."

"And prime minster Fudge took Hagrid to Azkaban because of the rumors over the last time the chamber was opened," Ron filled in, but his words had little effect as I was still processing what Harry said about Malfoy's father.