a/n so here's another chapter! A little shorter than the last but I'll make up for it later!
disclaimer: you recognize anything it belongs to JK Rowling.
October 1992
"Remind me again: Why exactly are we going to a and I quote, a 'Deathday Party' instead of the Halloween feast?" Ascella asked Harry as he, Ron, Hermione, and her trudged their way past the Great Hall, where they could smell the scents of the annual Halloween feast drifting out to them through the open doors. Ron was gazing longingly in that direction and Ascella couldn't help but share his sentiment. Halloween was her favorite holiday and she always loved the feast, where even the food was prepared in a spooky manner, and she was determined that knowledge of what had happened to Harry's and her father all those years ago wouldn't affect her this year.
"Because I promised Nearly Headless Nick I'd go. He did persuade Peeves to make a ruckus near Filch's office, thereby getting me out of detention you know. Besides you said it would be a laugh!" Harry said to her.
"Yes, but that was before I smelled the roasted meats and baked potatoes," Ascella sniffed.
"Oh honestly, you're as bad as Ron," Hermione snipped, striding past her and resolutely following Harry down the stairs to the dungeons. Ascella exchanged a glance with Ron.
"Somebody's got her wand in a knot," she said to him. He laughed.
"Well I guess we'd best get this over with," Ron said unenthusiastically and throwing one more look at the Great Hall they both turned and followed their friends down the stairs.
Ascella warmed up soon enough when they reached their destination. And by warmed up she meant her mood not her body temperature as while the dungeons were generally always, cold this particular room was even more cold due to the plethora of ghosts gliding about in it. No Ascella was warmed up to the idea of being at the Deathday Party.
"Oh this is absolutely fascinating!" Ascella exclaimed looking about at all the ghosts, each of whom had different era dress on, but were still all gathered together in one place. Nick came over and said hello to them almost immediately upon entering the room. He looked right pleased to see them. He was especially flattered by Ascella's open enthusiasm at being there. The others looked at her ask-hence but she ignored them. Sure, she wasn't exactly thrilled to be missing the feast but this didn't seem so bad. Plus they had food!
The four of them made their way over to the table but quickly left as they discovered all the food was rotten. They soon learned that apparently it was this way so that the ghosts could sort of "taste" it by gliding through it.
Ascella made a disgusted face. "How incredibly sad!" she whispered to the others. "Imagine wanting to cling to life so badly that you became a ghost but then never really getting to experience life again? Surely the other option can't be as bad as that!" Hermione made a 'be nice' face at her but she didn't care. It was all just too sad, sure you still got to be on earth, but all your friends die and you aren't really alive as a ghost so what's the point if all the good parts about being alive were taken from you.
"But you know really, aside from the food this is rather entertaining, Oh! 'Mione hide I think I see Moaning Myrtle!" Ascella said ducking behind the taller than her Ron (Harry was still shorter than her much to her delight and his frustration). Hermione's eyes widened as she too scrambled to hide.
Harry and Ron for their part, looked at their friends in confusion.
"Who's Moaning -" Harry started to ask when the ghost in question came up to them. Hermione, being the nicer of the two girls, greeted her. Ascella had pointedly avoided Myrtle's toilet ever since last year when the ghost had startled her while she was relieving herself between classes. She hadn't taken it well ("Never again!" "Never again what Cella?" "Never again will I ever use that toilet, that's what Morag! I've just spent the past ten minutes first being yelled at for the indecency to not check if someone might already be in the stall, despite not thinking I'd need to check for a bloody dead girl, which I pointed out, and then trying to comfort said right crazy ghost only to have the dead girl jump in her toilet and soak me!"). Needless to say Ascella didn't say hi.
A short while later Ascella was decidedly less enthused about this Deathday party after having accidentally walked through her fair share of ghosts at the party. She was downright frozen, her teeth even beginning to chatter together. Now while Ascella had felt as bad for Nick as the others had when Sir Pompy something or other (Ascella hadn't really bothered to find out his exact name) began out showing Nick because he could actually take his head completely off, Nick wasn't her house ghost and as such she was quite ready to leave.
Luckily Harry, Hermione, and Ron were also ready to leave and so while the rest of the ghosts were distracted by the Headless Hunt they ducked out and hurried away. When they reached the landing onto the first floor Ascella was glad to say she'd started to get some feelings back into her toes and fingers.
"Sure is nice being able to feel my hands again," Ascella announced to Harry but she noticed he was no longer walking beside her. "Harry?" she asked turning. Ron and Hermione turned as well. Harry had gone pale and looked like he was listening intently to something.
"Harry, what's wrong?" Ascella asked concerned.
"Don't you hear that?" he asked not meeting her gaze but staring at the wall.
"Hear what?" Hermione asked cautiously.
"That voice! It wants to kill! Come on!" Harry took off at a sprint. The others exchanged looks, eyes wide, before running after him. They might think he was crazy, even if he'd heard some weird voice before after his last Lockhart detention, but they weren't going to let him discover whatever it was on his own.
What they found made them stop dead, the trio a few paces behind Harry. Written on the wall in what looked like blood were the words 'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.' and at the base of the words a large puddle. It was then that Ascella noticed what was dangling from one of the torch brackets on the wall; Mrs. Norris was hanging by her tail, unmoving, as if frozen her eyes open and staring.
Ascella stood, barely comprehending what she was seeing, when they heard the chorus and excited chatter of students and teachers climbing the stairs and walking along the corridor. The feast must have just ended.
"Of all the luck..." Ascella muttered. "Why are we always at the scene of the crime?" Hermione didn't even have a chance to throw her a scathing look before they were surrounded by the students, who all stopped talking right quick when they realized what was going on.
Everyone was silent until, Draco-bloody-Malfoy shouted out, "'Enemies of the Heir, beware!' You'll be next, Mudbloods!"Ascella barely had time to think 'what a little shithead' before all hell broke loose. First the whispering and then Filch had pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He took one look at Mrs. Norris and began shouting at Harry about how he'd killed his cat.
Ascella didn't take well to that unfounded accusation and angrily stepped forward to stand at her friend's side ready to defend him. She'd barely had her mouth open to retort to Filch when the four of them were ushered by Professor Dumbledore into Lockhart's office ,which was nearby, accompanied by Filch, and Professors Lockhart, Snape, McGonagall, and Flitwick. Ascella had a moment to feel bad for Flitwick, always having to get dragged into these meetings because one of his students (her) had been stupid enough to befriend Harry Potter, she doubted whether any of his other students caused him this much trouble, before Dumbledore began speaking.
He calmly assured Filch that his cat wasn't dead, merely petrified (though this hadn't sounded encouraging to Ascella). Filch still insisted that it was Harry, citing that Harry knew he was a squib. If the situation hadn't been so serious Ascella might have snorted in amusement and laughed but as it was her lips didn't even twitch upward.
Then Snape spoke up. "Perhaps Professor," he said. "Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time." Ascella felt her jaw drop. Snape, defending them? But then he cleared up his motives when he asked why they weren't at the feast.
Harry explained about the Deathday party and about how hundreds of ghosts had seen them there. Then Snape, nuisance that he was, had to be a wise guy and ask why they hadn't attended the feast after. Ascella closed her eyes and hoped Harry had the good sense not to tell them that he'd been hearing voices. He at least knew that much but his excuse of being not hungry was weak. Luckily Dumbledore seemed to be on their side.
"Innocent until proven guilty Severus." He then proceeded to promise Filch that once the Mandrakes Professor Sprout had were old enough, a restorative potion would be made that would restore Mrs. Norris to as good as new. They were then allowed to leave but Ascella wasn't allowed to go with the others as McGonagall suggested Flitwick escort her back to her tower, no doubt knowing she still spent more time in the Gryffindor common room than her own, but saying it under the guise that no student should be wandering the halls alone. Ascella made a pained expression behind Flitwick's back at Harry before dutifully following her head of house.
Truth be told she didn't mind having Flitwick take her to the tower, at least this way she knew she'd get in. She was going to miss getting to talk to the others about what was going on though but she figured she'd catch up with them on the morrow. At the knocker Flitwick wished her a goodnight and she entered her common room.
Ascella was met by the startled faces of her fellow second year Ravenclaws. All of them were strangely silent and she knew they'd been talking before she got there. She slumped down on a coach next to Terry, her head falling into her hand, ignoring all of their expectant faces.
"Well?" Padma finally demanded.
"Well what?" Ascella said suspiciously.
"Well, are you going to tell us what's going on or what?" Padma clarified.
"I know about as much as you." Ascella sighed. Turpin snorted in disbelief. Ascella's eyes narrowed as she turned to look at the girl.
"Have a problem do you?" Ascella said coldly. Turpin met Ascella's cold gray eyes with her boring brown ones.
"Oh please. Don't act so innocent. You were there when it was discovered. Of course you know more than us. Especially seeing as how Potter was involved." Ascella felt her anger spike.
"If you are implying that we somehow had something to do with it, then you can just get out." Turpin sneered, but she rose to leave anyway. Ascella continued to glare at her until she disappeared through the door to the girls dorms.
"Why is she so awful?" Ascella asked the group not caring that Mandy, Turpin's best friend, was in the group.
"Well she does sort of have a point..." Goldstein hesitantly said. Ascella turned disbelieving to him. Goldstein shrank away from her. He'd always been a bit intimidated by Ascella. "Not saying it was you but it was suspicious! I mean why else would Dumbledore have pulled you four away?"
"I'll have you know Dumbledore doesn't suspect us at all," Ascella hotly replied.
"He's not saying that he does," Corner said quickly coming to his friend's defense. "Just that the whole thing is a bit unsettling." Ascella had opened her mouth to retort but she was cut off by Terry.
"Ascella, why don't you just tell us what did happen." She turned and met his warm brown eyes and felt herself calm down a little. He was right. Besides she'd wanted to talk about this anyway, might as well be with the smartest kids in school.
She took a deep breath and began, careful to not mention Harry hearing voices no one else could hear. "I honestly don't know what's going on. The four of us were just heading back from the Gryffindor ghosts Deathday party in the dungeons when we stumbled upon the words and Mrs. Norris. We'd barely been there before the rest of you showed up. And that's about it." Ascella looked at the group. They all looked a bit frightened and then began speaking all at once.
"Was she dead?" (Mandy).
"What did that stuff about the Chamber of Secrets mean?" (Goldstein).
"Who's the heir of Slytherin?" (Padma).
"What did Dumbledore want?" (Aaron).
"Did you get in trouble?" (Kevin).
Ascella held up a hand and they all stopped.
"No, she's not dead. Petrified. Apparently they will be able to revive her with some potion once the Mandrakes are old enough. Dumbledore just wanted to know how we'd found her, if we'd seen anything. Snape was the one who wanted to know where we'd been. And as for the rest? I don't know. It's a bit weird though even the teachers were acting frightened. And now that I think about it, it was a bit weird Dumbledore didn't suspect us, it was almost like he knew it couldn't be us."
The group all sat back thinking.
"Maybe he can use Legilimency?" Beth Vance suggested.
"Yeah but he wouldn't use it on a student," Corner answered.
"Petrified?" Entwhistle asked. "What's that mean?" Sometimes Ascella forgot Kevin didn't know stuff like that being muggleborn.
"Basically like being frozen," Aaron answered him. "Or stunned for an extended period of time. Unlike being stunned though you can only be revived by a Potion. It's pretty advanced magic. I've heard some magical creatures have the ability to cause it as well." Ascella had also forgotten that about certain subjects Morag was like an encyclopedia for them. One of those subjects happened to be magical creatures and ailments.
"But what's the Chamber of Secrets?" Padma asked. "And who's the heir of Slytherin?"
No one had any idea. They all sat around for a bit longer throwing ideas out there but around midnight, when it became clear they weren't any closer to an answer, they decided to all head to bed. As Ascella crawled bleary eyed into her fourposter, she could only hope that Harry and the others had better luck brainstorming than she and her Ravenclaw friends.