Chapter Thirteen: Mrs. Norris
October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Her Pepperup potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. Ginny Weasley, who had been looking pale, was bullied into taking some by Percy. The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire. Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days on end; the lake rose, the flower beds turned into muddy streams, and Hagrid's pumpkins swelled to the size of garden sheds.
Gienah watched Ginny from the corner of her eye one October morning during breakfast. She sat alone writing in that diary of hers. The other first year Gryffindor's didn't give her a second glance. Except Colin and she couldn't blame her for not indulging that friendship. Luna and Ginny did spend time together but being of different houses it wasn't the same as what she had with Harry, Ron and Hermione.
"Ron." Gienah hissed at the boy inhaling his breakfast. "Aren't you worried about Ginny?"
"What about her?" Ron looked at his sister sitting a few seats away.
"Her only friend is Luna Lovegood!" Gienah said with exasperation.
"What business is that of mine?" He said.
"The welfare of your sister should be business of yours you great prat."
"Charming." Ron said. "I'll talk to her."
The four walked to the dungeons together. Gienah sat next to Hermione as usual.
"Today you will be given a number of ingredients without a single instruction." Snape waved his wand and each pair had a different combination of ingredients. "No additional ingredients may be used. You must create a potion by the end of the lesson. You may begin."
Hermione and Gienah looked at the ingredients before them.
"Dragon blood, griffin claw, porcupine quills, silverweed, crocodile heart and rose water." Hermione said as she passed her eye on each ingredient. "Anti-burns paste."
"Hermione he said create, not regurgitate potions from memory." Gienah rolled her eyes. "While one use of dragon blood is healing another is its extremely effective use in memory restoratives. Silverweed is also a powerful restorative potion often used as an alternative for mandrake leaves."
"Five points to Gryffindor" said a cool baritone voice. Gienah had spoken just as Snape glided by. Hermione stared at Gienah.
"Bloody hell" Ron muttered looking at Harry with bemusement.
"If you could power the griffin claw." Gienah asked Hermione as she lit her cauldron with a smug smile on her face. After handing in a successful potion Hermione breathed in deeply and looked at Gienah.
"I want you to tutor me." Hermione said quietly.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Grinned Gienah.
"Don't be an arse." Hermione grumbled as they entered History of Magic.
Half-way through the lesson Gienah whispered to Hermione "I've had enough of this" and raised her hand. "The International Warlock Convention had isolated Egypt despite the Sultan's notoriety of rule, and the country's wealth of minerals and resources. What influence had the Sardinian sorcerers to permit such an exclusion and what was their reason for excluding such an influential nation? Seeing as the point of discussion was the discovery of the fountain of youth in their neighbouring country."
The whole class stared at Gienah. Professor Binns looked at her as if he'd only just realized he had a class of twenty students before him.
"The Sardinian Sorcerers were at that time an influential clan of vampires. The view upon this ancient creature today is an attempt by wizard supremacists to assert their desired hierarchy. The Sudan had displeased the Sardinian Count in his decision to refuse sanctuary to vampires fleeing to Egypt pursued by an army of goblins."
"And the fountain of youth, it was destroyed?"
"Yes, the discovery of the fountain by muggles created much risk to the exposure of our kind. The entire mountain burnt in the largest fiendfyre incident since 12 B.C. It was contained by fifty two wizards and thirteen vampires. But let us return to section 29, paragraph 36 of the minutes from the target committee which has complete disregard to the International Law concerning the handling of muggles following a breach of secrecy-"
"But sir, the extract in question requires a full understanding of the forces in play."
"Why is the exclusion of Egypt of any bearing to the target committee?" Binn asked her, his lifeless eyes boring into hers.
"The handling of muggles following a breach of secrecy was brutal and unnecessary. A blind eye was turned to the violation of the International Law and an influential nation was excluded from the conversation. What does this tell us about the enforcement of international law in 1289? That it is completely de jure. That party politics took precedence. That this document is highly likely to be invalid."
"Yes well at first be must take a look at the official account of history Ms. Wetherby".
And the class fell back to sleep. Gienah had borrowed a book concerning the burning of the fountain of youth and made notes from the book instead. That night when Ron was copying her notes he had said he'd never made any sense of the notes but dates and names. Harry immediately copied Ron's. Hermione grabbed the notes from his hand and saw it was less to do with documents that events.
"What's wrong with my notes?" Hermione asked Harry hotly.
"Nothing." Harry returned Ron's notes quickly and decided to copy them later.
Gienah smirked and continued reading the latest find in the library concerned with the dark ages. she couldn't wait till they began learning of the legendary Merlin next year. Till then, there was nothing wrong with a bit of 'light reading' as Hermione would call it.
Late one stormy Saturday evening a few days before Halloween, returning to Gryffindor Tower, Gienah was drenched to the skin and splattered with mud. Gienah spent so long in the shower Fay Dunbar came in to check she hadn't drowned. Feeling drowsy she walked down to the common room with a blanket and a flask of berry tea and a box of homemade chocolates and macaroons Lupin had sent that morning. Harry, Ron and Hermione were extremely grateful.
Rain was still lashing the windows, which were now inky black, but inside all looked bright and cheerful. The firelight glowed over the countless squashy armchairs where people sat reading, talking, doing homework or, in the case of Fred and George Weasley, trying to find out what would happen if you fed a Filibuster firework to a salamander. Fred had "rescued" the brilliant orange, fire-dwelling lizard from a Care of Magical Creatures class and it was now smouldering gently on a table surrounded by a knot of curious people.
On Halloween morning Gienah and Harry went into the owlery to send off a birthday card to Sirius. Hagrid had helped them repair his old motorbike and had assured them he would get the bike to him that evening. The entire school was happily anticipating their Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with the usual live bats, Hagrid's vast pumpkins had been carved into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in, and there were rumors that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment.
Meanwhile Harry had promised Nearly Headless Nick to attend his deathday party and was regretting it. Gienah was somehow roped into going with him.
"A promise is a promise," Hermione reminded Harry bossily. "You said you'd go to the deathday party."
So at seven o'clock, Harry, Gienah, Ron, and Hermione walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and directed their steps instead toward the dungeons.
The passageway leading to Nearly Headless Nick's party had been lined with candles, too, though the effect was far from cheerful: These were long, thin, jet-black tapers, all burning bright blue, casting a dim, ghostly light even over their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step they took. As Gienah shivered and drew her robes tightly around him, she heard what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard.
"Is that supposed to be music?" Ron whispered. They turned a corner and saw Nearly Headless Nick standing at a doorway hung with black velvet drapes.
"My dear friends," he said mournfully. "Welcome, welcome... so pleased you could come..."
He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside.
It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform. A chandelier overhead blazed midnight-blue with a thousand more black candles. Their breath rose in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer.
"Shall we have a look around?" Harry suggested, wanting to warm up his feet.
"Careful not to walk through anyone," said Ron nervously, and they set off around the edge of the dance floor. They passed a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. Gienah wasn't surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts.
"Oh, no," said Hermione, stopping abruptly. "Turn back, turn back, I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle-"
"Who?" said Harry as they backtracked quickly.
"She haunts one of the toilets in the girls bathroom on the first floor," said Hermione.
"She haunts a toilet?"
"Yes. It's been out-of-order all year because she keeps having tantrums and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to have a pee with her wailing at you-"
"Look, food!" said Ron.
On the other side of the dungeon was a long table, also covered in black velvet. They approached it eagerly but next moment had stopped in their tracks, horrified. The smell was quite disgusting. Large, rotten fish were laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mold and, in pride of place, an enormous gray cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words,
SIR NICHOLAS DE MIMSY-PORPINGTON
DIED 31ST OCTOBER, 1492
Gienah watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched low, and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through one of the stinking salmon.
"Can you taste it if you walk through it?" Harry asked him.
"Almost," said the ghost sadly, and he drifted away.
"I expect they've let it rot to give it a stronger flavor," said Hermione knowledgeably, pinching her nose and leaning closer to look at the putrid haggis.
"Can we move? I feel sick," said Ron.
They had barely turned around, however, when a little man swooped suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in midair before them.
"Hello, Peeves," said Harry cautiously.
Unlike the ghosts around them, Peeves the Poltergeist was the very reverse of pale and transparent. He was wearing a bright orange party hat, a revolving bow tie, and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face.
"Nibbles?" he said sweetly, offering them a bowl of peanuts covered in fungus.
"No thanks," said Hermione.
"Heard you talking about poor Myrtle," said Peeves, his eyes dancing. " Rude you was about poor Myrtle." He took a deep breath and bellowed, "OY! MYRTLE!"
"Oh, no, Peeves, don't tell her what I said, she'll be really upset," Hermione whispered frantically. "I didn't mean it, I don't mind her - er, hello, Myrtle."
The squat ghost of a girl had glided over. She had the glummest face half-hidden behind lank hair and thick, pearly spectacles.
"What?" she said sulkily.
"How are you, Myrtle?" said Hermione in a falsely bright voice. "It's nice to see you out of the toilet."
Myrtle sniffed.
"Miss Granger was just talking about you -" said Peeves slyly in Myrtle's ear. "Just saying-"
"Just saying - saying - how nice you look tonight," said Hermione, glaring at Peeves.
Myrtle eyed Hermione suspiciously.
"You're making fun of me," she said, silver tears welling rapidly in her small, see-through eyes.
"No - honestly - didn't I just say how nice Myrtle's looking?" said Hermione, nudging Harry and Ron painfully in the ribs.
"Oh, yeah-"
"She did-"
"Don't lie to me," Myrtle gasped, tears now flooding down her face, while Peeves chuckled happily over her shoulder. "D'you think I don't know what people call me behind my back? Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle!"
"You've forgotten pimply," Peeves hissed in her ear.
Moaning Myrtle burst into anguished sobs and fled from the dungeon. Peeves shot after her, pelting her with moldy peanuts, yelling, " Pimply! Pimply! "
"Oh, dear," said Hermione sadly.
Nearly Headless Nick now drifted toward them through the crowd.
"Enjoying yourselves?"
"Oh, yes," they lied.
"Not a bad turnout," said Nearly Headless Nick proudly. "The Wailing Widow came all the way up from Kent... It's nearly time for my speech, I'd better go and warn the orchestra..."
The orchestra, however, stopped playing at that very moment. They, and everyone else in the dungeon, fell silent, looking around in excitement, as a hunting horn sounded.
"Oh, here we go," said Nearly Headless Nick bitterly.
Through the dungeon wall burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by a headless horseman. The assembly clapped wildly. At the front of the pack was a large ghost who held his bearded head under his arm, from which position he was blowing the horn. The ghost leapt down, lifted his head high in the air so he could see over the crowd (everyone laughed), and strode over to Nearly Headless Nick, squashing his head back onto his neck.
The Headless Hunt were celebrity in the ghost world and following their entrance they were introduced to Sir Patrick. Stomachs grumbling, teeth chattering and ears bleeding Gienah was deeply regretting accompanying Harry to his death wish.
"I can't stand much more of this," Ron muttered, his teeth chattering, as the orchestra ground back into action and the ghosts swept back onto the dance floor.
"Let's go," Harry agreed.
They backed toward the door, nodding and beaming at anyone who looked at them, and a minute later were hurrying back up the passageway full of black candles.
"Pudding might not be finished yet," said Ron hopefully, leading the way toward the steps to the entrance hall.
And then Gienah heard it.
"... rip... tear... kill..."
It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice she had heard weeks ago.
Gienah saw Harry stumbled to a halt, clutching at the stone wall, listening with all his might, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway.
"Harry, what're you -?"
"It's that voice again - shut up a minute-"
"... soo hungry... for so long..."
"Listen!" said Harry and Gienah urgently, and Ron and Hermione froze.
"... kill... time to kill..."
The voice was growing fainter. Gienah was sure it was moving away - moving upward. A mixture of fear and excitement gripped her as she stared at the dark ceiling; how could it be moving upward? Was it a phantom, to whom stone ceilings didn't matter?
"This way," Harry shouted, and he began to run, up the stairs, into the entrance hall. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, the babble of talk from the Halloween feast was echoing out of the Great Hall. Harry sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, Gienah, Ron and Hermione clattering behind him.
"What're we-"
"SHH!"
Gienah strained her ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, she heard the voice: "... I smell blood... I SMELL BLOOD!"
Her stomach lurched-
"It's going to kill someone!" Harry shouted, and ignoring Ron's and Hermione's bewildered faces, he ran up the next flight of steps three at a time, trying to listen over his own pounding footsteps - Harry hurtled around the whole of the second floor, Gienah, Ron and Hermione panting behind him, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.
"Harry, what was that all about?" said Ron, wiping sweat off his face. "I couldn't hear anything..."
But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor.
"Look! "
Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE
"What's that thing - hanging underneath?" said Ron, a slight quiver in his voice.
As they edged nearer, Harry almost slipped - there was a large puddle of water on the floor; Gienah and Hermione grabbed him, and they inched toward the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. All four of them realized what it was at once, and leapt backward with a splash.
Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.
For a few seconds, they didn't move. Then Ron said, "Let's get out of here."
"Shouldn't we try and help -" Harry began awkwardly.
"Trust me," said Ron. "We don't want to be found here."
But it was too late. A rumble, as though of distant thunder, told them that the feast had just ended. From either end of the corridor where they stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people; next moment, students were crashing into the passage from both ends.
The chatter, the bustle, the noise died suddenly as the people in front spotted the hanging cat. Harry, Gienah, Ron, and Hermione stood alone, in the middle of the corridor, as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight.
Then someone shouted through the quiet.
"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"
It was Draco Malfoy. He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his usually bloodless face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.
