"Are you okay?" Ron asked as Draco rushed over to him first from where Bulstrode and Ron had been distracting him with a game of chess
"It's not like the Aurors we're going to kill him or anything." Bulstrode snarked.
Harry nodded, "I'm fine, I have no idea why I was called though."
"Really?" Ron frowned, "That's strange , they asked a lot of really specific questions when they interrogated me?"
Draco nodded.
"You don't think... considering the article and everything, that they were trying to pin you with something, do you?"
"In Hogwarts?" Disbelief colored Bulstrode's voice.
Draco shook his head writing as quickly as he could, 'They wouldn't do it like this. Not where they would involve a lot of other powerful people by messing with Hogwarts when said people just declared that everything was settled.' he paused, looking uncomfortable, '...It's more likely that...' he hesitated again, this time his eyes glanced around the Slytherin dorm with newfound confusion and suspicion.
"Someone accused him." Ron stated quietly, his eyes wide with horror.
"You don't suspect it's one of us do you?" Bulstrode snapped.
'Not you, it would have to be someone with either considerable influence or evidence.'
"And I don't?" Bulstrode huffed.
Draco looked annoyed and glanced meaningfully at Ron to try and convey the message. Ron looked confused for only a short fraction of a second before it seemed to hit.
"Oh, ohh." Ron stared, he didn't seem to want to say it. Draco nodded solemnly, "It has to be one of us... doesn't it?" He asked sadly.
Draco nodded again.
"I... I wouldn't." Ron stuttered, "None of us would!" He scowled, glaring at Draco, "How do we know-" he stopped abruptly. Took a deep breath in, Ron tended to be on the more expressive side, but he knew the words that he would have carelessly said just a few months earlier were not ones he could take back, that the second one of them broke down and started accusations that really would be the end.
They would have to be careful, route out the spy bit by bit without offending anyone so deeply they could not go back to how things were before. The spy themselves, might not even realize it if memory spells had been used to make them forget what had made them turn. But they would make it through this. They had spent the past months watching each others backs in the dangerous halls of the school, and Harry had risked a lot to protect them from people who he had thought would be his friends.
Even when people from his own family no longer stood by his side. He couldn't lose his trust in the twins, the only family he had left, or his... his friends, he was sure he could call them that at this point, the only allies he had had to watch his back and to pass the long boring hours of common room confinement with.
He wouldn't doubt any of them now. "I'm sorry Bulstrode, I think the three of us and Theo have something's we need to figure out that we can't say right now, it's probably best for us to head back to our dorm, could you let Theo know when he returns?"
Bulstrode desperately seemed to want to ask what she had missed while she had been away, but she was cunning enough to know this was neither the time nor the place for such discussions to happen. Until this all blew over she was much safer in the dark, her ignorance would protect them more than knowing would. So instead she just nodded and sat down with the book she had borrowed from the library for when she knew she would get bored all by herself in her dorm later that evening, "Of course, have a good night, Weasley, Potter... Malfoy."
Harry had stayed silent for most of the conversation, but he couldn't help the amused snort at the smaller, but still noticeably there pause before she mentioned Draco, a slight snub. He nodded goodnight back. Draco huffed and faked glared at Harry marching up towards their dorm, Harry followed, Ron at his footsteps after a brief goodbye with Bulstrode as well.
No one spoke though, even after the door was closed.
"How do we know it's safe to talk here...?" Ron finally asked, his voice small and quiet.
'What's there even to say?' Draco's face was dark and sullen. 'One of us is trying to get Harry expelled at best?'
Silence reigned.
"I don't suspect either of you or Theo," Harry finally said deciding they had thought long enough and still failed to reach his conclusion, "Or the twins." He added seeing Ron's dawning look of horror. "Although they would of had the best shot at it. For one, none of us have left each other's sides in weeks, besides Theo's hospital visit, and-"
Theo entered the dorm then, the door swinging open to get out of the way of his hurried steps and swinging shut just as quickly, 'Draco, your dad has taught you advanced privacy spells hasn't he?' was the first thing which he wrote.
Draco paled, rapidly leaping to his feet ready to cast only to freeze upon realizing that he wouldn't be able to do it verbally. Draco's eyes immediately turned to Harry, while after a moment of hesitation, Theo nodded towards Harry and turned to Ron, both teaching a wide assortment of spells and how to cast them, how to know they worked, and all the other finer details they could all the while writing on nonverbal paper and insisting nothing be said allowed until both Harry and Ron were confident they could both cast through the list of spells without any flaws. Hours passed of Harry squinting at Draco's writing and trying to understand the contents before finally both were ready.
It was only after, when all checks for magic came back negative and two sets of barriers had been raised that Theo wrote on a paper that had been charmed to speak, 'Someone is trying to frame Harry'
Ron stared, "Frame...?"
'There's not a spy?' Draco looked lost.
Harry blinked, relatively unsurprised by this conclusion, it sort of made sense, more so than the spy; if you couldn't physically attack because of rules, than attack the other with rules. For once, Hogwarts seemed to be making more than a minimal amount of sense. He nodded for them to continue.
'From what I could gather there was an attack on Hermione and some Gryffindors who were with her late last night around when Malfoy got back from the hospital ward.' Theo commented, 'Two of them got paralyzed, the one who also got out uninjured is refusing to go anywhere near her claiming she's some sort of monster magnet.'
Harry looked confused, "So does that mean it was a snake attack or that it had something to do with them being muggleborns?"
Now they all looked surprised. "Why would you think that?" Ron asked.
"There was a large snake in the walls hunting while Draco was walking back," he commented watching as all off their faces, Draco's especially, paled, "And the Auror brought muggleborns up rather specifically."
'Slytherin's monster' Theo wrote with a shaky hand. 'Someone reopened the Chamber of Secrets'.
Harry blinked, confused, this was probably going to open a whole separate, overly complicated bag of Hogwarts and wizarding backstory which Theo claimed he should know but he didn't really care about anyway. He sighed. If the snake was Slytherin's and he was part of Slytherin then did that mean he wouldn't get the chance to fight it. Relief and disappointment flowed in equal parts as Theo began a tale from when his grandfather was in Hogwarts, which Harry didn't pay much attention to. Only, this unnameable dark lord who everyone was really concerned about had opened up a secret part of Hogwarts and killed somebody many years ago, framing a half breed student- Hagrid- to get away with it.
Harry paused, so was he the scapegoat this time? Interesting. But also... Hagrid hadn't been framed because he was strong... Harry paused, horror dawning. Was he seen as the dumbest runt of the year this time. He... it couldn't be...?
Things would have to change quickly. He was a hunter even amongst hunters, he refused to be seen as the prey in this weak rule filled castle of all places.
The discussion droned on for most of the night though, and they all dragged themselves to bed, exhausted, after removing the secrecy spells except for Harry who sprung up to join Chipped Fang on the canopy.
'When are we going to go hunting again?' Chipped Fang asked, tail swishing unhappily. 'All there is these days is endless talk.'
'I don't know,' Harry sighed, 'We're being watched'
'And?' The cat asked, 'That's not unusual.' They were right, from the huddled prey animals peering from burrows and nests to the scavengers and birds looking on from a safe distance away to see if they could snag a bite of the kill, there were always eyes watching. 'You're starting to think too much like them, let them try and watch, see if they could spot us.'
'It's dangerous, the other students are one thing, even the teachers, but these humans know how to fight and detect. You can see it in their movements, it's ingrained in their instincts.'
Chipped Fang fell silent for a long moment, discontent. 'I miss before. I even Miss Chippy.'
Harry sighed, 'So do I...' the thought pained him, but he couldn't not suggest it either, 'You don't have to stay, you can go back and join Chippy and I will find you when I can leave.'
Chipped Fang was silent, contemplative, for a long moment, 'I will stay. Someone has to keep an eye out for the sickly one and the nervous prey.'
Harry snorted at the nicknames for Theo and Draco, 'Okay.' He purred his gratitude curling closer to Chipped Fang the other returning the warm sentiment as they both settled down to get some sleep.
"Everyone should be prepared to leave at any time, after breakfast pack your trunks, make sure you have all of your belongings, and then return to the common room with your book bags to work on homework." The refrain was called by the prefects as they descended down for breakfast.
As expected it was met with a sense of chaos, no answers had been given this time on why they had been confined to the common room again, and now they were being told that they might all have to evacuate Hogwarts for good this time after all the weeks of being told that Hogwarts was perfectly safe and being made safer.
"I don't have all the details, apparently some Ravenclaws were attacked last night while on the way back from the Hospital Wing, Nasty piece of work done on them; dark magic according to the healers." One of the prefects said.
Harry blinked, not the snake again after all, maybe it never had been. Either way, he joined the fearful and confused Slytherin first years and second years at one of the tables which now sat spread throughout the cleared out common room.
"Just when I had convinced my Grandfather to let me come back too." Bulstrode groused.
"Your grandfather?" Ron asked confused, "I thought you lived with your parents."
"Yes," Bulstrode frowned, gearing up for another conversation on etiquette and tradition that would doubtlessly become another bickering match between the too, "But he's still the head of family, so of course-"
The common room doors swept open and Mcgonagall swept into the common room a troupe of Aurors behind her. "Mr. Potter," she stated with a sort of forced calm, "I'm going to need you to come with me. Right away please."
Harry stood up again from the table, making his way towards the common room entrance, there was genuine worry in all of the first years' eyes as he left them. Once more he was flanked by the Aurors, Mcgonagall taking up the rear, only this time they all had a discreet but firm grasp upon their wands. It was different this time. Two of the Aurors stayed behind.
"For now until otherwise stated, no one may enter the first year boys' dorm nor remove anything from it, we will be conducting a search." He heard as the wall slid shut behind them dulling the murmurs that answered that announcement.
"Mr. Potter?" Mcgonagall said, the first to speak as they reentered the interrogation room, she looked much older and frailer than she ever had before, "You looked so much like your parents when you were younger... I... but I can't say that you remind me of them much anymore." She sighed, sitting down in one of the chairs and gestured for him to have a seat as well.
He moved to do so, curious of where this attempt would lead into a line of questioning only to abruptly be hit in the back by a silently cast spell without even a shift in her eyes to give it away either, she hadn't even been aware of when it would happen. It had been a diversion.
He didn't even have time to react before his world spun and went dark.