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"What's going on here? What's going on?" Attracted, no doubt, by Aries's shout, Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. Then he saw Mrs. Norris and fell back, clutching his face in horror. "My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" He shrieked.
His eyes fell on the quartet, still frozen in shock in the middle of the corridor. He focused in on Hope, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
"You! You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll-."
"Argus!" Dumbledore had arrived on the scene, followed by a number of other teachers. In seconds, he had swept past Hope, Hermes, Cassie and Regina and detached Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket. "Come with me, Argus. You too, Potter, Granger, Malfoy, Weasley."
Lockhart stepped forward eagerly.
"My office is nearest, Headmaster, just upstairs. Please feel free."
"Thank you, Gilderoy." The silent crowd parted to let them pass. Lockhart, looking excited and important, hurried after Dumbledore; so did Filch and Professors McGonagall and Snape. The quartet of second-years followed numbly.
As they entered Lockhart's darkened office there was a flurry of movement across the walls; Harry saw several of the Lockharts in the pictures dodging out of sight, their hair in rollers. The real Lockhart lit the candles on his desk and stood back. Dumbledore laid Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. The four friends exchanged tense looks and then sank into chairs outside the pool of candlelight, watching. The tip of Dumbledore's long, crooked nose was barely an inch from Mrs. Norris's fur. He was looking at her closely through his half-moon spectacles, his long fingers gently prodding and poking.
Professor McGonagall was bent almost as close, her eyes narrowed. Snape loomed behind them, half in shadow, wearing a most peculiar expression: It was as though he was trying hard not to smile. And Lockhart was hovering around all of them, making suggestions.
"It was definitely a curse that killed her. Probably the Transmogrifian Torture.I've seen it used many times, so unlucky I wasn't there, I know the very countercurse that would have saved her..." Lockhart's comments were punctuated by Filch's dry, racking sobs. He was slumped in a chair by the desk, unable to look at Mrs. Norris, his face in his hands. As much as Hope detested Filch, she felt sorry for him. She, as a cat-lover herself, couldn't imagine if she had found Crookshanks hanging dead from a torch bracket.
Dumbledore was now muttering strange words under his breath and tapping Mrs. Norris with his wand but nothing happened: She continued to look as though she had been recently stuffed.
"I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadogou." Lockhart was still talking, oblivious to everyone else's disinterest. "A series of attacks, the full story's in my autobiography, I was able to provide the townsfolk with various amulets, which cleared the matter up at once..." The photographs of Lockhart on the walls were all nodding in agreement as he talked. One of them had forgotten to remove his hair net.
At last Dumbledore straightened up.
"She's not dead, Argus." He said softly. Lockhart stopped abruptly in the middle of counting the number of murders he had prevented.
"Not dead?" Filch choked out, looking through his fingers at Mrs. Norris. "But why's she all... all stiff and frozen?"
"She has been Petrified." Dumbledore reported.
"Ah! I thought so!" Lockhart agreed.
"But how, I cannot say..." Dumbledore continued, ignoring Lockhart.
"Ask her!" Filch shrieked, turning his blotched and tear-stained face to Hope.
"No second year could have done this. It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced-." Dumbledore began.
"She did it, she did it!" Filch spat, his pouchy face purpling. "You saw what she wrote on the wall! She found... in my office... she knows I'm a...I'm a... She knows I'm a Squib!"
"I never touched that cat! And I don't care that you're a squib. I don't care if you're working part-time as a clown at birthday parties!" Hope protested, jumping to her feet.
"If I might speak, Headmaster." Snape put in from the shadows and Hope knew them she was doomed. "Potter and her friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we do have a set of suspicious circumstances here. Why was she in the upstairs corridor at all? Why wasn't she at the Halloween feast?"
The four friends all launched into an explanation about the deathday party, talking over each other frantically.
"There were hundreds of ghosts, they'll tell you we were there-."
"But why not join the feast afterward?" Snape questioned, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight. "Why go up to that corridor?" The other three looked at Hope in the least subtle way possible. She didn't think it would be in her best interest to tell everyone that she had been hearing voices no one else could hear, so she lied to the best of her ability.
"Have you ever been to a deathday party? I was feeling especially sick; we were going to walk around and see if our stomachs settled before we went to eat." Her voice was smooth and she thought she'd succeeded in selling her lie. But Snape looked at her with a smile and she knew that she had failed, at least to convince him.
"I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful. It might be a good idea if she were deprived of certain privileges until she is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel she should be taken off the Quidditch team until she is ready to be honest."
"Really, Severus." Professor McGonagall said sharply, "I see no reason to stop the girl playing Quidditch, on your own team no less. This cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter has done anything wrong."
Dumbledore was giving Hope a searching look. His twinkling light-blue gaze made her feel as though she were being X-rayed.
"Innocent until proven guilty, Severus." He said firmly. Snape looked furious. So did Filch.
"My cat has been Petrified!" He shrieked, his eyes popping. "I want to see some punishment!"
"We will be able to cure her, Argus." Dumbledore soothed him patiently. "Professer Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris."
"I'll make it." Lockhart butted in. "I must have done it a hundred times. I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep-.""
"Excuse me." Snape interrupted icily. "But I believe I am the Potions master at this school." There was a very awkward pause after that.
"You may go," Dumbledore said to the quartet. They went, as quickly as they could without actually running.
When they were a floor up from Lockhart's office, they turned into an empty classroom and closed the door quietly behind them. Hope collasped ontop of a desk and squinted at her friends' darkened faces, all staring at her.
"D'you think I should have told them about that voice I heard?"
"No." Regina told her without hesitation. "Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world." Something in Regina's voice made Hope ask:
"You do believe me, don't you?"
"Of course we do." Cassie put in quickly, sounding as though she thought she was talking to a mental patient. Hope rolled her eyes and looked imploringly at Hermes.
"It's a bit strange..." He began.
"I know it's strange. The whole thing is strange. What was that writing on the wall about? 'The Chamber Has Been Opened'. What's that supposed to mean? Besides a chamber being opened somewhere, I mean."
"You know, it sort of rings a bell." Regina admitted. "I think someone told me about a secret chamber at Hogwarts. It might've been Bill..."
A clock chimed somewhere.
"Midnight." Hope reported after counting the chimes. "We'd better go before Snape finds another crime to pin on us."
For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs. Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he thought the attacker might come back. Hope had seen him scrubbing the message on the wall with Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but to no effect; the words still gleamed as brightly as ever on the stone. And, when Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like 'breathing loudly' and 'looking happy'.
Gavin Weasley seemed very disturbed by Mrs. Norris's fate. According to Regina, he was an avid animal lover.
"But you haven't gotten to know Mrs. Norris. Honestly, we're much better off without her." Regina told him in an attempt at comfort. Gavin still didn't look like he felt any better so Regina continued: "Stuff like this doesn't happen often at Hogwarts." That was a lie, considering what had happened last year. "They'll catch the maniac that did it and get him out of here in no time. I just hope he's got time to petrify Filch before he's expelled. I'm only joking, Gav!" She added hurriedly, as her brother looked ready to bolt.
The attack had also had an effect on Hermes. It was quite usual for Hermes to spend a lot of time reading, but he was now doing almost nothing else. Nor could Hope, Cassie and Regina get much response from her when they asked what she was up to, and not until the following Wednesday did they find out.
Hope had been held back in Potions, where Snape made her stay back and scrape tubeworms off the desks. After a hurried lunch, she went upstairs to meet her friends in the library. A Hufflepuff boy saw her, turned and sped off in the opposite direction.
Hope found Cassie and Regina at the back of the library. Cassie was staring blankly at a textbook, braiding her hair with more attentiveness than she was giving the book, while Regina was measuring her History of Magic Homework. Professor Binns had asked for a three-foot-long composition on 'The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards'.
"I don't believe it, I'm still eight inches short." Regina huffed furiously, letting go of her parchment, which sprang back into a roll. "And Hermes's done four feet seven inches and his writing's tiny."
"Where is he?" Hope questioned. Cassie pointed along the shelves.
"In his happy place. I think he's trying to read the whole library before the holidays."
Hope told them about the Hufflepuff that had not-so-subtly avoided her. Neither girl seemed very concerned with it.
"Hufflepuff are strange. Mother says they're so good at Herbology because they like to experiment with herbs, if you know what I mean." Cassie told them in a hushed tone.
Hermes emerged from the shelves, looking irritable but finally ready to talk to them.
"All the copies of Hogwarts: A History have been taken out." He complained as he sank into a seat next to Hope. "And there's a two-week waiting list. I wish I hadn't left my copy at home, but I couldn't fit it in my trunk with all those silly little Lockhart books that were required."
"Why do you want it again?" Hope asked.
"The same reason everyone else wants it. To read up on the legend of the Chamber of Secrets."
"What's the legend?" Hope asked quickly.
"That's just it. I can't remember and I can't find the legend anywhere else." Hermes told her, biting his lip.
"Hermes, let me read your composition." Regina begged.
"No, I won't." Hermes snapped, suddenly severe. "You've had ten days to finish it-."
"I only need another two inches, come on-." The bell rang.
Ravenclaws and Slytherins had once again been paired up for a class, so they said goodbye to a begging Regina and then Hope, Cassie and Hermes headed off to History of Magic.
History of Magic was the dullest subject on their schedule. Professor Binns, who taught it, was their only ghost teacher, and the most exciting thing that ever happened in his classes was his entering the room through the blackboard. Ancient and shriveled, many people said he hadn't noticed he was dead. He had simply got up to teach one day and left his body behind him in an armchair in front of the staffroom fire. His routine had not varied in the slightest since.
That day was as boring as ever. Professor Binns opened his notes and began to read in a flat drone like an old vacuum cleaner until nearly everyone in the class was in a deep stupor, occasionally coming to long enough to copy down a name or date, then falling asleep again. He had been speaking for half an hour when something happened that had never happened before: Hermes put up his hand. Professor Binns, glancing up in the middle of a deadly dull lecture on the International Warlock Convention of 1289, looked amazed.
"Mr... Er..."
"Granger, Professor. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets."
Blaise Zabini, who had been sitting with his mouth hanging open, gazing out of the window, jerked out of his trance. Sally Smith's head came up off her arms and Terry Boot's elbow slipped off his desk. Professor Binns blinked.
"My subject is History of Magic. I deal with, facts, Mr. Granger, not myths and legends." He cleared his throat with a small noise like chalk snapping and continued: "In September of that year, a subcommittee of Sardinian sorcerers-." He stuttered to a halt. Hermes's hand was waving in the air again.
"Mr. Grant?"
"Please, sir, don't legends always have a basis in fact?" Professor Binns was looking at him in such amazement that Hope was sure no student had ever interrupted him before, alive or dead.
"Well... Yes, one could argue that, I suppose." He peered at Hermes as though he had never seen a student properly before. "However, the legend of which you speak is such a very sensational, even ludicrous tale-."
But the whole class was now hanging on Professor Binns's every word, eyes wide and leaning forward in anticipation. He looked dimly at them all, every face turned to his. It seemed he was completely thrown by such an unusual show of interest.
"Oh, very well. Let me see... the Chamber of Secrets... You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago, the precise date is uncertain, by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school Houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution." He paused, gazed blearily around the room and continued: "For a few years, the founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them. A rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school. Reliable historical sources tell us this much. But these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. The story goes that Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing. Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic."
There was silence as he finished telling the story, but it wasn't the usual, sleepy silence that filled Professor Binns's classes. There was unease in the air as everyone continued to watch him, hoping for more. Professor Binns looked faintly annoyed.
"The whole thing is arrant nonsense, of course. Naturally, the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by the most learned witches and wizards. It does not exist. A tale told to frighten the gullible." Hermes's hand was back in the air.
"Sir, what exactly do you mean by the 'horror within' the Chamber?"
"That is believed to be some sort of monster, which the Heir of Slytherin alone can control." The class exchanged nervous looks. Hope looked over at Cassie; it was no wonder the Slytherin house had a bad name. First Voldemort came from Slytherin, now there was some sort of monster that could only be controlled by a special Slytherin. "I tell you, the thing does not exist. There is no Chamber and no monster."
"But, sir." Sally Smith began, chewing on the end of her dark plait nervously. "If the Chamber can only be opened by Slytherin's true heir, no one else would be able to find it, would they?"
"Nonsense, Smythe." Professor Binns told her in an aggravated tone. "If a long succession of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses haven't found the thing-."
"But, Professor." Padma Patil began eagerly. "You'd probably have to use Dark Magic to open it-."
"Just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic doesn't mean he can't, Miss Pennyfeather." Professor Binns snapped. "I repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore-."
"But maybe you've got to be related to Slytherin, so Dumbledore couldn't-." Terry Boot started, but Professor Binns had had enough.
"That will do! It is a myth! It does not exist! There is not a shred of evidence that Slytherin ever built so much as a secret broom cupboard! I regret telling you such a foolish story! We will return, if you please, to history, to solid, believable, verifiable fact!"
And within five minutes, the class had sunk back into its usual torpor.