Chapter 124

See here, Malfoy, if Dumbledore can't stop them," Fudge said trying to act like he was calm, whose upper lip was sweating now, "I mean to say, who can? I mean no offense to you, but you are not a good fighter, nor will your money help in this problem, unless you are willing to spend all of it to hire each and every magicians and witches from across the sea."

"That remains to be seen, after all, if the situation is as bad as I believe it is, then, by all means, I will hire the more prepared magicians and witches to deal with whatever creature Hagrid had brought into this very school's grounds." Mr. Malfoy said with a nasty smile looking at Hagrid. "But as all twelve of us have voted already on this matter…"

But he didn't manage to finish his words as Hagrid leaped to his feet, his shaggy black head grazing the ceiling.

"And how many did yeh have ter threaten an' blackmail before they agreed, Malfoy, eh?" Hagrid roared and if not for both Fudge and Dumbledore, Thomas knew that the giant would have grabbed the blonde man by the neck.

As friendly as Hagrid was, Thomas saw it with his own eyes that night in the forest when he almost died just how strong Hagrid could be if needs be.

"Dear, dear, you know, that temper of yours will lead you into trouble one of these days, Hagrid." Mr. Malfoy smirked in his direction, almost as if he was trying to taunt the groundkeeper. "I would advise you not to shout at the Azkaban guards like that. They won't like it at all."

"Yeh can' take Dumbledore!" Hagrid yelled, making Fang cower and whimper in his basket. "Take him away, and the Muggle-borns won' stand a chance! There'll be killin' next!"

"Calm yourself, Hagrid," Dumbledore said sharply while looking at Lucius Malfoy making the boys think that the old headmaster might act against Malfoy, alas that was just a wishful thought for now.

"If the governors want my removal, Lucius, I shall of course step aside, after all, what can this old man do against your powerful friends…"

"But …" stuttered Fudge.

"No!" growled Hagrid.

Yet as he spoke, Dumbledore had not taken his bright blue eyes off Lucius Malfoy's cold gray ones making the blonde man take a step back in fear.

"However, Lucius…" Dumbledore continued, speaking very slowly and clearly so that none of them could miss a word, "You will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it. And many times, from sources that… let's say you nor your friends will like or accept for various reasons."

As Dumbledore finished his words, Thomas felt a shiver run down his spine. Making him feel like the old man somehow knew that he and his friends were hiding in the corner of Hagrid's hut, with Harry and Ron under the invisibility cloak while he, Adam, and Michael were under his spell. Especially since the last part of his speech was clearly aimed at him and his rather overly friendly relationship with one of the four Satans, something that Thomas knew didn't stand quite right with the ministry. After all, considering that as a second-year student, he was already stronger than most students in their fifth year, chances are that he might just become a devil rather than stay in London and serve the ministry.

"Admirable sentiments," Malfoy gave a fake almost forced laugh as he was forced to bow. "We shall all miss your … er … highly individual way of running things, Albus, and only hope that your successor will manage to prevent any … ah … killings or at least point them in a way that none of the purebloods are falling as collateral victims."

After saying that, he strode to the cabin door, opened it, and bowed Dumbledore out. Fudge, fiddling with his bowler, waited for Hagrid to go ahead of him, but the half-giant stood his ground, making Fudge take a deep breath just as Hagrid spoke.

"If anyone wanted to find out some stuff, all they'd have ter do would be ter follow the spiders. That'd lead 'em right! That's all I'm sayin'."

Hearing that, Thomas and the others almost gasped, but thankfully for them, Hagrid spoke again covering their somewhat loud gasping.

"All right, I'm comin'!" Hagrid said, pulling on his moleskin overcoat. But as he was about to follow Fudge through the door, he stopped again. "An' someone'll need ter feed Fang while I'm away."

Not even a second later, the door was slammed and as soon as the boys were sure that other than them and Fang there was no one left in the hut, Harry took the cloak off him and Ron while Thomas canceled his spell, making him, Adam and Michael visible once again.

"We're in trouble now!" Harry said hoarsely. "No Dumbledore. They might as well close the school tonight. There'll be an attack a day with him gone."

As soon as he heard Harry's words, Thomas put a hand on Harry's shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile.

"Hey, don't lose hope, Harry. Dumbledore may be gone, but he's not gone for good. He'll be back, I'm sure of it. Dumbledore might be old, but he's far from being powerless, and by God, will the old man make Lucius pay for this."

He then looked around at the others, who nodded in agreement. Michael had gone to feed Fang, who was whimpering in his basket while Ron and Adam were peeking out of the window, watching the four men who had just left the hut.

"They're heading to the castle," Ron shouted back at them. "Looks like they're going to announce Dumbledore's departure to everyone."

"Great," Adam muttered. "Just what we need. More panic and chaos."

Thomas sighed, knowing very well that things were going to get worse before they got better. And just as he was thinking of what to do now, he heard Harry reciting what Hagrid said just before the half-giant left the hut.

"Follow the spiders," he repeated. "What do you guys think he meant by that?"

All of the boys looked at Harry, not exactly keen on getting an answer to this question, but alas as strange and disgusting as it sounded, Thomas knew that right now this could be their only clue to finding the Chamber of Secrets.

"I think I have an idea," Thomas said slowly. "But I'm not sure you're going to like it."

Nor will I, Thomas thought as he waited for his friends to realize what he wanted to do next.

"Are you insane, Tom?" Adam cursed out loud. "You want us to follow those creepy crawlers into the forest? Do you have any idea what kind of creatures lurk in there? Not to mention the spiders themselves, they're the size of a car!"

"Adam has a point, Tom," Michael agreed. "This is too risky, even for us. We don't know what we're dealing with here. Maybe Hagrid was just rambling, or trying to throw us off the track. Maybe he doesn't know anything at all. Bloody hell maybe he said that to Dumbledore and not to us."

"Or maybe he knows more than he's letting on," Thomas countered. "Think about it, guys. Hagrid has a soft spot for all kinds of magical beasts, even the dangerous ones. For God's sake, he's been keeping a dragon in his hut. Don't you remember the thing I saw in the diary? About Hagrid having that big spider, double the size of anything I've ever seen."

"I don't know about that Thomas…" Harry looked at his friend, unsure of what to do.

"Or maybe he's just a madman who likes to play with fire," Ron muttered. "No offense, to Hagrid, but he's not exactly the most sensible person in the world."

"Well, for now, we should return to the castle. As much as I will want to go and find that damned Chamber, I'm more than sure that if someone realizes we are missing, we might follow Dumbledore out of the school now that he's no longer in charge."

Time passed by somewhat uneventfully to the next day, of course, if you don't count the fact that Albus many names Dumbledore was no longer the headmaster and that the gentle half-giant was also nowhere to be seen early in the morning alongside his faithful companion.

If things weren't already wrong, when Thomas, Harry, Ron, Adam, and Michael tried to visit their friends in the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey almost jumped to scare them away from the infirmary wing, not letting anyone near it.

"We're taking no more chances, now that our headmaster is no longer the headmaster." Madam Pomfrey told them severely through a crack in the infirmary door. "I know that you boys want to visit your friends but, I'm sorry, there's every chance the attacker might come back to finish these people off and because of that we can't take any chances."

At the same time, 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. No matter where Thomas went, every single student looked like they were going to die in the next moment and frankly, that was slowly but definitely starting to affect him as well.

Not fearing was what a fool would think, but for someone like Thomas who had felt how it is to die multiple times while training with Bahamut, he could to some degree understand how all of the students were feeling after learning that their all-powerful headmaster was dismissed for no good reason.

And so, for the next two weeks, his life became so monotone and lifeless that at some point, he no longer cared about the taunts the Slytherin were throwing at him or his friends. Something that Adam, Michael, Harry, and Ron noticed and started to worry about. No matter how dumb or young the four boys were they knew better than anyone just how much Daphne and especially Hermione met for Thomas and now that the two of them were petrified, his already hard life became even harder with Thomas only reading, going to classes and punishing himself by training all night long in the common room.

At some point, even Flitwick started to worry about his student and while the professor tried to talk Thomas out of that state, truth be told there was nothing he could do to force Thomas to stop training and learning.

As for Harry… his life was already bad enough, but now that the headmaster and Hagrid were no longer at Hogwarts, he too felt not quite so good. Not to mention that right now he was in the potion class, the very same one that the Slytherins were having with them.

"I always thought Father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," Draco suddenly said, not troubled to keep his voice down or maybe it was aimed at Harry. "I told you he thinks Dumbledore's the worst headmaster the school has 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 for the time being."

Just as he said that Snape swept past Harry, not commenting on the empty seats and cauldrons.

"Sir," Malfoy said loudly, trying his best to catch Snape's attention. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?"

"Now, now, Malfoy," Snape said, though he couldn't suppress a thin-lipped smile. "Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he'll be back with us soon enough."

"Yeah, right," Malfoy rolled his eyes while smirking. "I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job … I'll tell Father you're the best teacher here, sir …"

Snape smirked as he swept off around the dungeon, fortunately not spotting Seamus Finnigan, who was pretending to vomit into his cauldron.

"I'm quite surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now," Malfoy went on. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger, Greengrass, or that mudblood Davis …"

Before he could even finish his sentence, Snape, who was now at his desk, spoke loudly enough to frighten the blonde boy.

"Malfoy, no matter how much you hate certain people in this school, I have to remind you that there is a certain someone in your year that for better or worse is a really good friend of Miss Granger, Miss Greengrass, and Miss Davis. And as your professor, I have the duty to inform you that as of right now, the only able people to stop that certain someone are the students from year six and above as well as the school's staff." Snape loudly explained to a now pale Draco, who remembered who that certain someone was and what he could do to him.

At the same time, for some reason, clearly not having anything to do with what he just heard, Harry felt like maybe just maybe he could at least try a little bit harder in his potion class, after it didn't hurt to know a tiny bit more, right?

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