Chapter 13
By the time Halloween arrived, Calypso had almost forgotten about the Death Day Party until the Slytherin ghost came up to them. "Ready to go?" he asked gruffly.
Daphne nodded miserably. "Yeah"
"That's the SPIRT!" then he led us down towards the dungeons. The passageway leading to the Deathday party had been lined with candles, 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 they neared the entrance, Calypso could hear a horrific noise that sounded like a thousand nails being dragged across a chalkboard.
"Is that supposed to be music?" Daphne feverishly whispered. Theo shrugged and followed the ghost into the room. 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. Even colder than Snape's classroom in the winter.
At once when they entered, Daphne pointed to a table of rotting food. "I think I'm going to throw up"
Theo cringed. "That'll just make the smell worse. Where did the Baron go?"
Calypso looked around and pointed to the lone ghost that everyone else was giving a wide berth. "There. What are we even supposed to do here anyway?"
"Don't know...but look!"
She looked in the direction of Theo's gaze and watched as a long line of headless horsemen rode in. The horses galloped into the middle of the dance floor and halted, rearing and plunging. 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 leaped 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. "Nick!" he roared. "How are you? Head still hanging in there?"
Calypso couldn't hear the response, but she could tell it wasn't too pleasant. "Live 'uns!" said Sir Patrick finally, pointing at them, Potter, Weasley, and the mudblood, the last three who had just emerged from behind the feast table. 'Sir Patrick' gave a huge, fake jump of astonishment so that his head fell off again (the crowd howled with laughter).
The Gryffindor ghost didn't look too happy and called out loudly. "If I could have everyone's attention, it's time for my speech!" said Nearly Headless Nick loudly, striding toward the podium and climbing into an icy blue spotlight. "My late lamented lords, ladies, and gentlemen, it is my great sorrow . . ."
But nobody heard much more. Sir Patrick and the rest of the Headless Hunt had just started a game of Head Hockey and the crowd was turning to watch. Nearly Headless Nick tried vainly to recapture his audience, but gave up as Sir Patrick's head went sailing past him to loud cheers.
Daphne shivered, "Can we- can we p-please leave?" she asked, her teeth chattering.
Calypso nodded in agreement, "Are you not cold?" she grabbed Theo's hand which was ice cold.
"Not really" he shrugged, then seeing their raised eyebrows, "What? It's been colder…but look they're leaving" he pointed to the trio.
Daphne frowned, "Where're they going?"
"Let's follow them" suggested Calypso. She much rather follows them than stay here. "Don't think the Baron will mind, they've already left so we should too" she added, casting a meaningful glance at the Slytherin ghost.
"Fuck what he thinks, they've disappeared," said Theo impatiently.
Calypso glared at him for a second before glancing around and saw that the trio was in fact not there anymore.
Daphne shrugged. "Let's get back to the feast then"
"Sure" agreed Theo absentmindedly. "But don't you hear a hissing sound from the walls?"
I put my finger to my lips. "Shhh…"
But I couldn't hear anything except for the awful music coming from the party.
"Go up another floor" suggested Theo.
Daphne shrugged and walked to the stairs, us following.
On the next floor, I could hear a faint hissing. "Are they speaking?"
"Yeah...Parseltongue I think."
"How do you know?" demanded Daphne.
Theo shrugged. "Because it sounds like a snake that's hissing?"
"Whatever...can you guys still hear it?"
Calypso nodded, "I think it's going higher?" she pointed to the grey ceiling above them. "Go up"
They climbed another set of stairs, they were now on the second floor. Calypso listened for a moment. She could hear hissing in the far right. "Uh...down the corridor I think?"
"Look!" Daphne pointed, 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?" asked Daphne nervously. ,
As they edged nearer, Calypso almost slipped but thankfully, Daphne caught her hand. "Watch it!"— there was a large puddle of water on the floor;
Theo drew his wand, as they inched toward the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. All three of them realized what it was at once, and leaped 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.
"What are you three doing here?" demanded a voice from behind them.
Theo spun around, and Calypso followed, it was the annoying trio. "We just got here Potter" spat Calypso.
"But Harry heard a voice- did you guys hear it?" asked the mudblood, almost worriedly.
Daphne glared at her, "Quiet mudblood. They-" she pointed to us, "-heard faint hissing, and because they're idiots trying to get us killed, WE FOLLOWED THE NOISES!"
Weasley grabbed his wand and pointed it out Theo's. "You three did it!"
Calypso rolled her eyes. "If I had control over the monster that's doing all this, you three would be dead already"
Weasley started a spell- but Theo easily blocked it, and just as well since he was the only one with his wand out at the moment.
"Don't give me him a reason to curse you" Daphne warned darkly.
Theo shrugged, "I don't need a reason-" he traced his wand in a motion that resembled an eye, and suddenly, Weasley's eyes swelled shut.
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" demanded a voice from behind them. It was the professors and students that had just come back from the feast with McGonagall at the front.
"Oh, shit" Theo cursed and hastily put his pine wand in his bag.
"What is the meaning of this ?" demanded McGonagall angrily.
Theo's eyes slowly looked around, "...Well, there's something suspicious happening here, look-"
And for the first time, McGonagall noticed the cat, as stiff as aboard. "Wha-" her thin eyes widened at the message underneath it. Silence fell, as all the students looked at the cat.
Then, of course, someone broke the silence, Draco Malfoy to be exact. "Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!" He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his usually white face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.
What's going on here? What's going on?" Attracted no doubt by Draco and McGonagall's shouts, Argus 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.
And his popping eyes fell on Potter. "You!" he screeched. "You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll —"
"Argus!" Dumbly had arrived on the scene late, no doubt to make a grand entrance.
In seconds, he had swept past all of the faculty and detached Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket. "Come with me, Argus," he said to Filch. "You, too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, Miss Greengrass, Mr. Nott, and Miss Lestrange as well."
Lockhart stepped forward eagerly. "My office is nearest, Headmaster — just upstairs — please feel free —" Calypso rolled her eyes.
"Thank you, Gilderoy," said Dumbly.
The silent crowd parted to let them pass. Lockhart, looking excited and important, hurried after Dumbledore; so did McGonagall and Professor Snape.
As they entered Lockhart's darkened office there was a flurry of movement across the walls; Calypso saw that the egotistical owner had hung hundreds of Lockhart pictures in the office, covering every inch of wall.
The real fraud himself lit the candles on his desk and stood back.
Dumbledore laid Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Calypso exchanged tense looks with the golden trio (but Weasley, his eyes were still swollen) before they all sank into chairs outside the pool of candlelight, watching. Daphne, however, was entertaining herself by poking the Lockhart pictures in places where it hurt, causing each one to scurry out of the frame. She had just gotten rid of all of them on the first wall before Lockhart decided to start making stupid suggestions. Theo was just staring and glaring at everyone before he joined in with Daphne.
"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. . . ."
Calypso highly doubted that she had read through all kinds of books that her mum (who was practically the queen at torturing people) had recommended, and the- whatever he had said- was not in any of them. And Calypso also highly doubted that someone as eager to torture people as her mother would have missed such an important spell. But maybe she thought freezing them took the fun out of it, Calypso could never be too sure.
She hadn't even gotten far into wondering when her thoughts were interrupted by Filch's loud, dry, sobs. He was slumped in a chair by the desk, unable to look at Mrs. Norris, his face in his hands.
But Lockhart ignored them and continued his useless rambling, ". . . I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadougou," said Lockhart, "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. Some had even fearfully poked their head back into the frame before one was jabbed in the eyeball by Daphne's wand. Perhaps it was the unicorn core that hurt the portraits so much since Theo's wand only seemed to annoy them, (it took him a few jabs to get each portrait away).
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. Though in Calypso's mind, he was somewhere at negative 10325.
"Not dead?" choked Filch, looking through his fingers at Mrs. Norris. "But why's she all — all stiff and frozen?"
"She has been Petrified," said Dumbledore
("Ah! I thought so!" said Lockhart).
"But how, I cannot say. . . ."
"Ask them!" shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tearstained face to the second years. Two of which abruptly sat down from there 'hurt the portrait' game.
"No second year could have done this," said Dumbledore firmly. "It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced —"
"Potter did it, Potter did it!" Filch spat, his pouchy face purpling. "You saw what he wrote on the wall! He found — in my office — he knows I'm a — I'm a —" Filch's face worked horribly. "He knows I'm a Squib!" he finished.
"I never touched Mrs. Norris!" protested Potter loudly, "And I don't even know what a Squib is."
Calypso rolled her eyes and started speaking VERY slowly. "A….squib…is…a...person….of….magical...descent...who...cannot…or…is…not…able…to…produce...magic"
"Shut up" snarled Filch. "Potter saw my Kwikspell letter!"
"If I might speak, Headmaster," said Professor Snape from the shadows, "Miss Calypso and her friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Potter….I can not say," he said, a slight sneer curling his mouth. "But we do have a set of suspicious circumstances here. Miss Calypso, why were you in the upstairs corridor?"
"Because we were at the Deathday Party, then Theo and I, heard a hissing sound and so we followed it. And before you ask, no, Daphne did not hear it for some reason"
Daphne frowned, "...I thought it was just my imagination...my mother says that-"
"And Potter?" interrupted Snape.
Daphne huffed and sat back down as Potter and his friends launched into a rambling explanation.
"But why not join the feast afterward?" said Snape, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight. "Why go up to that corridor?" Everyone looked at Potter.
"Because — because —" Potter stuttered, "because we were tired and wanted to go to bed," he said.
"Without any supper?" said Snape, a triumphant smile flickering across his gaunt face. "I didn't think ghosts provided food fit for living people at their parties."
"We weren't hungry," said Ron loudly as his stomach gave a huge rumble.
Snape's nasty smile widened.
"I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful," he said. "It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel he should be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team until he is ready, to be honest." Up until now, I had almost forgotten that Potter was back on the team as a seeker this year.
"Really, Severus," said McGonagall sharply, "I see no reason to stop the boy playing Quidditch. This cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter has done anything wrong." I had to agree with her on this one, Professor Snape really should have thought his arguments through.
Dumbledore stared at his two bickering colleagues and then looked at Potter. "Innocent until proven guilty Severus"
Professor 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," said Dumbledore patiently. "Professor 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 —"
"Yet you thought the cat suffered from a Transylvania Transfiguration Charm" muttered Theo boringly.
"My boy-" started Lockhart furiously.
"Excuse me," said Snape icily. "But I believe I am the Potions master at this school."
There was a very awkward pause before Daphne started clapping.
"You may go," Dumbledore said to them after Daphne had stopped clapping and Calypso had stopped grinning.
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.
Everyone 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. When Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was sulking 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."
Most of the Slytherins seemed unbothered, however, and some like Draco had even taken it to themselves to celebrate the 'future mudblood clean school'.
Neither Theo nor Daphne seemed to care at all about the attack either, though Calypso suspected that Theo had an idea of who was behind it after she had seen him looking through, 'Hogwarts: A History' on the chapter of the Chamber of Secrets. It seemed like many people had the same idea as well since all of the copies in the library had been taken out.
Soon, rumors had spread that Potter was Slytherin's heir, which was absolutely ridiculous, how could the 'boy who lived' be the heir of the greatest wizard to ever live?