A/N: MASSIVELY IMPORTANT CHAPTER! Pay attention it… well, it's hardly very subtle, so you don't need to pay that close attention. Anyway. Read it. Now.
Disclaimer: Get the idea into your head. I don't own it. Now move on.
The Letter P
Chapter Thirty-Three: P is for Professor Vander
A flailing hand struck her hard on the forearm, and she yelped in pain. "Ow!" She looked down at her hand, now wrapped around the source of the pain – her forearm. The pose was oddly familiar… It was identical to when their Mark burned as Lord Voldemort called them to him. That position on her arm was where the Dark Mark lay – and also, she remembered, where she had been sliced open by an anonymous attacker in the Chamber of Secrets, and then found by Riddle.
She gasped. Svenagli! Myrtle's murder! I totally forgot!
Nodding, and apologizing to the crowd of people waiting behind her, Ginny entered the room and found her seat. Dumbledore began a speech about Animagi, but the seventeen-year-old's thoughts were elsewhere. She would have an interesting evening tonight.
xxx
"Hey, aren't you coming to dinner?" asked Grace.
"Yeah!" Ginny lied. "I mean – well. No. But I will later. I have a detention. Sorry. I'll catch up with you later, okay?"
Grace made a sympathetic face. "Ouch. Who with?"
"Er. Vander."
"Okay. I'll see you in a while then," Grace said. "D'you want me to save you some chips? Just incase there aren't any left when you get there."
Just go, damnit. LEAVE!
"You don't have to, but thanks," said Ginny. "I really have to go, though," she lied. "Bye."
The brunette skipped down the stairs; Ginny waited until she was sure that she was gone before turning and hurrying in the opposite direction of Vander's office.
Praying that no-one saw her and inquired as to where she was going at dinner-time, she ran down the corridors towards Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
She smoothed her skirt; twisted the ends of her hair; entered.
"Hey!" she chirped, putting on a big false grin again, ready to be shallow again. "How are ya, girlfriend?"
"You can stop pretending to be a bimbo anytime you like, you know," said Myrtle dryly, sitting on a crumbling wall, her legs swinging down.
"Well, that's good," said Ginny, exhaling noisily with relief. "Sorry."
"What do you want?" asked Myrtle, scratching her nose and peering in the mirror.
Ginny took a deep breath. She needed an ally. And Myrtle might just be the damn best ally she could get.
"Someone's attacking the students," she said seriously. "I was attacked. I know that Tom Riddle was attacked. And I have a feeling that their will be more attacks – again and again."
"Oh," said Myrtle, as though what Ginny had told her was something as normal as the weather. She picked a spot on her chin. "Anything else?"
"Well, I did notice… neither Riddle or me are pure-blood. D'you think that could be anything to do with it?" Ginny asked nervously. She was, technically, a pure-blood, but hey – it hadn't stopped Voldie when she was eleven, so why not this attacker?
"Have you considered that the Chamber of Secrets might be opening?" asked Myrtle, not bothering to check if Ginny knew what that was.
"Yes, I have – but I know that it's not. Because I'm a Parselmouth, and I would have heard the Basilisk going about the school. Also, the gamekeeper's roosters are unharmed, and the spiders I've all seen are behaving normally," Ginny stated, calling back from memory what had happened in her first-year.
"Hm." Myrtle didn't respond at all to any of this very bizarre knowledge that, in theory, a transfer student shouldn't have known. "Good point."
"And," Ginny added frantically, "you can't tell anyone what I've told you!"
"I won't." Myrtle floated up from her seat and drifted across the room, humming tunelessly. It seemed to Ginny as though she had a rather short attention-span, though whenever the redhead spoke she did know what was going on.
Ginny waited for a moment to see if Myrtle had anything to say. Then, remembering something, she asked, "Myrtle… have you ever seen… this?" she raised her sleeve and showed the fifteen-year-old ghost the long scar on her arm from the Chamber of Secrets – she hadn't been to the Hospital Wing to have it fixed (Madam Royce would have asked questions) and so it had left scarring.
This captured Myrtle's attention entirely. "Yeah," she said. "I have. I've got one." She raised her own sleeve and brandished an identical scar.
Ginny's heart hammered in her chest.
Whoever is attacking me and Riddle… killed Myrtle. He or she is capable of murder. We could be next.
"Myrtle, do you know what this means?" Ginny asked slowly.
"Probably not," said the ghoul darkly. "I'm not very bright."
Wow, you're positive.
"Aw, you're bright…" Ginny tried. "You're quite clever-"
"Not clever enough to stop me from being killed!" Myrtle howled, and dived into the nearest toilet with a loud, gurgling splash.
Ginny despaired. She needed Myrtle! "No," she called pleadingly. "Myrtle – Myrtle, I didn't mean it that way – please come back – Myrtle – hello – come back, please-"
There was only a silence that greeted her.
"Myrtle?" she called hopefully.
Nothing.
With a groan, the seventeen-year-old crossed to the wall, leant heavily against it, and slid down to the ground. She sighed.
Great. It was going so well, too!
For a while, she sat there in silence. As she was considering going to dinner and telling Grace and Alden that her detention had been cancelled, there came a slight bubbling noise, and two morose-looking bespectacled eyes peered out over the toilet rim.
Heart soaring with hope, Ginny leapt to her feet. "Myrtle," she said hurriedly, "I didn't mean to offend you. I just meant that you were clever – just rather unlucky. Not that being a bad thing, I mean. Look at me! Screw walking across the path of a black cat – I kicked one!"
Myrtle (or, at least, what little of her face was visible) didn't look impressed. From within the toilet, she pointed out, "Crossing the path of a black cat is good luck."
Growing increasingly annoyed with the ghost's uncooperative attitude, she rolled hazel eyes and said, "Whatever. Just come out please?"
"Don't you whatever me," said Myrtle, sounding very much like a teacher, though she did (begrudgingly) come out of the toilet. "What did you want to tell me?"
"What I wanted to say was that you and I have the same scars – from being attacked!" Ginny said excitedly. She was so close to uncovering the truth. "That means that my attacker is probably the same person as your killer. So if you could remember who killed you… then, then – then I could catch the culprit!"
She paused.
"Can you remember who it was?"
"Remember?" Myrtle snorted. "I see his face everyday, whenever I try to relax…"
Heartbeat growing faster and faster…
"Who?"
Myrtle opened her mouth, but the sound was cut off by a high, terrible, blood-curdling scream.
Ginny panicked. "I have to go!" she shouted. "Tell me later."
"No!" Myrtle cried. "That's – that's the scream!"
"I don't understand, Myrtle – I have to go – someone's in trouble!" Ginny said. "Tell me another time!"
"The scream!" Myrtle said frantically. "When you were attacked, did you scream? Was it a … was it a 'ah'? Or was it an all-out," she shrieked loudly, "like that one just then!"
"I don't see where you're getting with this," said Ginny, shaking her head. "Later!"
"Ginny-"
"Not now!"
Myrtle said something desperately, but, again, silenced by a scream.
This time, a scream: "HELP!"
"Later!!" Ginny shouted one final time, before barrelling through the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and sprinting down the corridor.
"HELP! OH GOD, HELP ME!"
Ginny ran faster, her legs pounding so that she thought the muscles might break, already panicking with the prospect of what she might find. "Hold on!" she yelled as loudly as she could, in the hope that the person might hear her and be comforted by the fact that someone knew that she was in trouble; that someone was coming to help her.
If he or she is still alive, that is.
Don't think about that!
She pushed herself that little bit faster, though it felt that her knees would give, and whirled around a tight corner, almost hitting the other wall. Her heart was hammering, buffeting, battering a scar onto the inside of her ribcage.
Fear drenching though her, she slammed through a wooden door, and sprinted around another corner. She came to an abrupt halt, skidding, as the scene unfolded at her feet.
A girl – a second-year, maybe younger – screaming – so loud that it scratched even Ginny's eardrums – tears etched onto her pale face – hands curled into claws – unharmed.
And then, what caused the young female's grief.
A bloody, disfigured mess in a pool of spreading crimson that Ginny recognized vaguely as a person – someone who had, until recently, been alive and well. There was no chance that the mess retained life now. She couldn't see who it was – who it had been – but the girl was pulling at her dark curls and sobbing breathlessly, "P-P-Pro-Prof-Profess-V-V-Vand-er-"
Ginny's stomach lurched. Now that the thought had entered her mind, the bloody mess did, indeed, hold the shape of what used to be the Charms teacher.
Too many deaths.
Another one.
Bile rose in her throat and tears stung her eyes.
Blood –
Pain –
Panic –
The vision! She suddenly remembered what she had predicted in her water charm – ironically, in Vander's class.
Blood spreading out in a pool, gathering at her feet.
Ginny couldn't breathe. She ran to the young girl, still screaming, and grabbed her shoulders. "Calm down!" she shouted. "It's okay – well – it's not – but – don't panic – don't panic!"
With wide, tear-filled brown eyes, the girl stared at her for a second, her pale pink lower lip trembling like a 7.4 on the Richter scale. Then she burst into loud sobs of "P-P-Professor-Prof-Pr-Van-Vander!"
"Stop panicking!" Ginny fought to keep her voice from shaking. "I said, don't panic!"
The girl drew a long, rattling gasp, and nodded, her tears flowing silently now.
Ginny turned back to where Professor Vander lay – or what was left of him.
"Hermione? Mione, did you hear the news? Harry got a-" the words were never finished because Ginny ran into her best friend's room –
She was numb with shock. Her Charms Professor. Dead.
-- and came to see the bushy-haired Muggleborn on her bedroom floor, red and sticky and somehow a lot smaller than Ginny ever remembered, because her arms were in the corner --
What was she supposed to do? How could she fix this?
-- and her legs were mutilated, and her head was GONE and her best friend was in pieces, and she was screaming, screaming, screaming –
"HELP! HELP US! SOMEONE!" Ginny screamed, as loud as she could, tears threatening the corners of her hazel eyes.
"What?" sobbed the first-year beside her. "I thought you said not to panic!"
"OPEN YOUR EYES!" Ginny yelled, hysterical. "A Professor has been murdered! All over the floor! IS THAT NORMAL FOR YOU?! OF COURSE WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BLOODY PANIC!"
"Is that you, Ginny?"
"I thought I heard you!"
Grace and Alden were coming running down the corridor, followed by a small crowd of people.
"What's going on-"
"What happened-"
Grace froze. "Ohmigod," she whispered. "Is that… is that… a person?"
The young student who had found the Professor answered this question by wailing, "P-Professor Vander!"
"Professor Vander?" echoed Alden in horror.
Grace gave a small cry and buried her head into Alden's shoulder, her shoulders quivering.
"What's going on here?" boomed the voice of Professor Slughorn, and he marched forwards, followed by the majority of the other teachers.
"Horace – Horace, is that – Cadwygawn?" shrieked Professor Ornella, the Italian Herbology Professor.
"Oh, Merlin," whispered Gladwyn, clutching at Slughorn's fat arm.
"What's happened?" asked the soft voice of Eleanor Fionn, pushing through the crowd.
"Who's that other one?"
"Which other one?"
"That one!"
Someone else? Someone elsewas attacked?
Fearing the worst, Ginny turned. Indeed, she had missed to see that there was, a few metres away, another body lying in the blood. This body wasn't mutilated, as Vander was. However, it was as equally lifeless and terrifying to see. This sight chilled Ginny more than the sight of Professor Vander did, and, with no regard towards the people around her, screamed.
"RIDDLE!"
xxx
A/N: -GASP- REVIEW AND I'LL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM! Thanks to my beta SilvanXan.
Xxx
KyraThePoop: -gasp- Not the three-headed monkey! Ooh, thank you! There might be some other contests coming up. I think there is. But it's in a while, so you have to wait. Haha.
creative-writing-girl13: Thank you!
Josephine Sawyer: Thanks! Yeah, I just thought it would be the sort of thing that he'd have read cover to cover. Thank you, I love your constructive reviews. D'you think I covered the reason why she got detentions enough?
Saene: Aw. Your cat sounds cute. One of my dogs has these massive tremble-spasms when she meets new people, she just goes shiver shiver shiver shiver. It's sad but kind of cute. In a weird way. Thank you!
SiRiUsLyInLuV71: Nah, it's fun to think up new words starting with P.
BDSanta2001: I'm going to admit that I didn't understand a word of that. I don't work with the sciencey bits. I just do the horror, the adventure, the romance and the drama. I don't like science much.
The-Quoi: Thanks. I do try. AH! BACK, VILE BEAST! I warn you, I have a protractor! –stab stabby stab stab-
chimis: Lol, don't we all?
Faye8222: Evil, moi? Lmao. Thanks!
XxRandomHeartxX: I love donuts. And Brendon Urie. And the exclamation mark in PATD. Yeah, I'm skiving my maths homework to post this chapter. Who likes maths anyway?
Pyrexiophobia: Thank you, and by the way I LOVE your pen-name. What does it mean? I'm thanatophobic. Lol.
KayRose: Thank you, I'm glad you liked it. They're not very friendly, but don't worry. They'll be friends again.
Xxx
Hi! I have a random urge to tell the word that I'm thanatophobic and also ichthyophobic! You get a hug from a Dark Lord if you know what that means!!
And no using a search-engine. That's cheating.