The days passed like a slow, dark tide, washing over Hogwarts with tension and unanswered questions. News of a third Petrification spread fast. A Hufflepuff second-year, caught near the Quidditch pitch, her body stiff as stone. Students now huddled together even during lessons, and whispers of the "Heir of Slytherin" took root in every corner.
Snape walked briskly through the halls, robes swirling like smoke. The anxiety was palpable. But he'd lived through worse—and he knew panic bred foolishness. He needed clarity.
He had begun cross-referencing his own observations with the notes he'd compiled from the restricted section. His mind circled one conclusion:
The Chamber had indeed been opened before.
And it was happening again.
---
In the Gryffindor common room, Harry sat alone by the fire, the flickering light painting gold on his glasses. He was pretending to read, but his thoughts were far from the page.
Draco had stopped sneering at him altogether. That was unnerving enough.
But it was the looks they shared in passing—tense, lingering, unfinished—that haunted him. It was like they were stuck in an echo, something on the verge of breaking open but never quite reaching the surface.
Ron plopped onto the arm of the sofa. "You're thinking about him again, aren't you?"
Harry blinked. "What? No."
"You didn't even hear me ask if you want the last treacle tart."
Hermione looked up from a pile of scrolls. "He's also been distracted all week. Something happened, didn't it? In the library."
Harry didn't answer. He remembered the silence, the weight of Draco's words. How he'd looked like he wanted to say more—to stay longer.
Ron sighed. "Mate, I know you think he's... different now. But he's still Malfoy."
Harry frowned. "He's not the same either. None of us are."
---
Draco sat in an empty classroom that evening, staring at a cracked tile on the wall. His reflection shimmered faintly in the window's glass, and he hated how tired he looked.
He thought about Harry more often than he cared to admit.
About the way his voice softened when he wasn't trying to be brave.
About how Ron looked at them like he was already preparing for disaster.
And about the dreams.
The ones where Draco wasn't sneering, wasn't lying, wasn't pretending to be someone he wasn't.
Just... standing beside Harry. Watching the storm pass, together.
He let out a breath and clenched his fists. He couldn't let this become something real. It wasn't safe. Not for either of them.
---
Snape moved through the faculty wing with a silence born of purpose. He had just returned from another inspection of the undercroft beneath the dungeons.
There were new markings on the walls. Serpentine. Ancient.
He had traced them with his wand, murmuring incantations long thought obsolete. Something pulsed within the stones—an echo. A whisper.
The creature was stirring. And it was watching.
He made a mental note to confront Dumbledore again.
They were running out of time.
Later, Snape stood before a bookshelf in his private quarters, eyes trailing over dusty spines. He pulled down a tome he'd once sworn never to open again: "Magical Bloodlines of the Founders."
He flipped through the yellowed pages, stopping at the House of Slytherin. There, scrawled in precise script, was a line connecting the Gaunts to a boy named Tom Riddle. A boy Snape had once thought clever. Broken, yes. But manageable.
Now, he wasn't so sure.
---
The next morning, a notice appeared in the Great Hall:
All students are to return to their dormitories by sunset. No exceptions.
Whispers erupted.
"Do you think there'll be another attack?"
"Maybe the professors know who it is."
"I heard it's someone in Slytherin."
Draco turned pale at that.
Harry met his eyes across the room, a question burning in his gaze.
Draco looked away first.
But not before Harry saw the fear.
And not before Snape, seated at the staff table, caught the exchange.
He folded his hands slowly.
So it begins, he thought.
---
That evening, Snape gathered with the other professors in the staff room. The air was tight with tension.
"We must consider canceling all extracurriculars," McGonagall said. "And Quidditch."
Sprout wrung her hands. "The students are terrified."
Snape's voice cut clean through the room. "Terror is useful. It makes them cautious. What we need is focus."
Dumbledore, silent until then, finally spoke. "We need answers. Not just caution. Severus?"
Snape hesitated, then said, "I believe the entrance to the Chamber lies in the plumbing."
Several heads turned.
"It would explain the mobility," Snape continued. "And the inconsistencies in sightings."
Flitwick looked stunned. "You think the creature moves through the walls?"
"Yes," Snape said. "And I think it listens."
---
That night, Harry stood once more in the hallway near Myrtle's bathroom. He placed his ear to the wall.
The voice was back.
Hissing.
Calling.
And this time, when he turned around, Draco was already there.
"You heard it too," Harry said.
Draco nodded slowly.
They didn't speak.
But they stood there, side by side, until the echo faded.