This chapter is in dear celebration of the fact that I've reached 200 reviews on Book One… thanks to you all!!

Chapter 36, The Chamber of Secrets

October arrived, chilling the grounds and the castle, and making it too cold for Harry to fly often. A spread of colds among the students and the staff kept many of the students inside. But Madam Pomfrey's Pepperup potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours.

The Quidditch season had long since started. Draco made keeper for Slytherin, because the old one graduated, and was playing well. His father even supplied the whole team with Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones, except Harry, who happened to feel comfortable on and like his Nimbus Two Thousand.

All in all, his classes and schoolwork teamed up with Quidditch sufficiently pushed the bone-chilling voice out of Harry's mind. He hadn't heard it since, and hadn't told anyone of it for lack of a good reason to.

And October droned on, unexciting, bringing the winter weather with it, until finally Halloween came. The school was happily anticipating the Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with live bats, Hagrid had grown gigantic pumpkins and had them carved them into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in, and Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons. The Hall was glittering with gold plates and candles, and the entire school packed themselves in for the house elves' remarkable feast.

"Where are the ghosts?" Vanella asked, once they had packed themselves between some of the Slytherin table's occupants.

Harry shrugged. "Ron said something about Nearly Headless Nick having a deathday party."

"A deathday party?" said Draco.

Vanella gave Harry an inquiring glance before stacking roast ham on her plate and bobbing her head to the music the skeletons were dancing to. "He's celebrating his death? Sounds kind of dark and depressing to me."

Harry shrugged again, putting turkey and mashed potatoes on his own plate. "I bet it is. But he's been depressed about some Headless Hunt lately and having a bunch of ghost friends may cheer him up again."

Draco began eating chicken with barbecue sauce. Between mouthfuls, he asked, "How do you know so much about the Gryffindor ghost? You're Slytherin. Feed us with facts about the Bloody Baron."

"Ron and Hermione have told me about the Gryffindor ghost. And, no offense, but the Bloody Baron's not someone I really want to know much about. He's kind of…"

"Creepy," Vanella finished.

Harry nodded. "Exactly. Creepy."

They watched the dancing skeletons for a few minutes while they ate. The skeletons waved around canes and swept around their black top hats, marching around during their routine.

Eventually Harry yawned. This tore Vanella's attention of the skeletons. "Harry?"

He looked at her. "Yea?"

"Where you the one that cursed Lockhart's quills to run around the room screaming when he tried to use them?"

Harry grinned mischievously. "Maybe."

Draco looked over. "That was you?" He ate a biscuit. "Now that I think about it, it's really not all that surprising."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really. They had 'Harry did it' written all over them."

"Did they?"

"Yes."

"How is that?"

"Who else can do that? Only the seventh years, and they haven't been messing with Lockhart since you started."

Harry shrugged. "I haven't done all of that, you know. A lot of the seventh years have been pulling pranks because they know that I'll take the blame."

Vanella raised an eyebrow. "You haven't done everything?" She looked at Draco. "I guess we're giving more credit to him than he deserves."

Harry grinned. "Lockhart's too afraid to blame me, anyway. He's afraid I'll get out of hand during Sunday night practices and curse him."

"Why does Dumbledore keep him if he's so incredibly incompetent?" asked Vanella.

"No one else really wants the job," Harry said.

"'Cept Snape," said Draco, scooping pudding into a shiny bowl, "but Snape's already got the Potions position, and finding a teacher that knows that much about Potions is harder than finding a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

The others nodded and turned their attention back to the dancing skeletons.

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Half an hour later, before the feast even ended, the three began traipsing back to the Slytherin dorms, with plans of a good game of Wizard's Chess.

Suddenly Harry heard it again.

"…rip…tear…kill…"

The same cold, murderous voice he'd heard on his way to the dungeons weeks ago.

His eyes widened and he asked, "Could you guys hear that, too?"

Draco tilted his head in confusion, but Vanella nodded, a look of fear on her face.

Harry looked around, seeking out the speaker as Vanella did the same and Draco stood stupidly, confused. "Hear what?" he asked.

"Shut up a minute," Harry whispered, listening.

"…soo hungry… for soo long…"

He turned to Vanella. "You're hearing it, too?"

She nodded, the fear still apparent.

"…kill…time to kill…"

The voice was growing fainter, and it seemed to be moving upward. How could it be moving upward? Could it go through ceilings? Walls? Was it some sort of phantom? Why could Vanella and he hear it while Draco couldn't?

"Come on!" Vanella shouted, and they began to run back up the stairs, into the entrance hall. Harry sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, Vanella and Draco hot on his heels.

"What're we—"

"SHH!"

Harry and Vanella strained their ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and still growing fainter, they could hear the voice: "…I sssmell blood….I SMELL BLOOD!"

Harry's stomach lurched—

"It's going to kill someone!" he yelled. They ran up another flight of stairs three at a time, Draco still confused, but realizing the urgency. They strained to hear over their own pounding hearts and footsteps.

They ran around the whole of the second floor, panting, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.

"What's going on?" asked Draco. "I didn't hear anything… what's killing what?"

But Vanella interrupted them with a small gasp. "Look, up there!" she said, pointing down the corridor.

Something was shining on the wall ahead. They edged closer for a better view. Foot-high words had been written on the wall between the windows, letters shining bright red in the light of the torches.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

"What's that—hanging underneath, there?" Draco asked.

As they edged closer, Harry almost slipped. There was a large puddle of water on the floor. Draco and Vanella grabbed him, and they inched towards the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. All three 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 Vanella said, "Come on, let's get out of here."

"Shouldn't we try and help—" Harry began.

"Trust me," Draco said, steering him around, "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. The next moment, students were crashing into the passageway from both ends.

The chatter, the bustle, the noise died suddenly as the people in front spotted the hanging cat. Harry, Draco, and Vanella stood alone, in the middle of the corridor, as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware? What's all this?" came a shouting voice through the quiet.

It was Gilderoy Lockhart, who had pushed his way to the front to see what had stopped such an animated crowd.

"What's going on here? What's going on?"

Attracted by Lockhart's shout over a silent, massive crowd, Argus Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. Then he caught sight of Mrs. Norris and fell back, clutching his face in horror.

"My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" he shrieked. His popping eyes fell on Harry.

"You!" he screeched. "You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed Mrs. Norris! 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 Harry, Draco, and Vanella and detached Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket.

"Come with me, Argus," he said to Filch. "You, too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Incendie."

Lockhart stepped forward eagerly. "My office is nearest, Headmaster—just upstairs—please feel free—"

"Thank you, Gilderoy," said Dumbledore.

The silent crowd parted to let them pass. Lockhart, looking excited and important, hurried after Dumbledore; so did Professors McGonagall and Snape.

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 lay Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Harry, Draco, and Vanella exchanged tense looks and 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 an amusing look: 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. Harry couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him.

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," 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. One 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?" choked Filch, looking though 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 him!" shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tearstained face to Harry.

"No second year could have done this," said Dumbledore firmly. "Even Harry. It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced—"

"He did it, he did it!" Filch spat, his pouchy face purpling. "He wants to get back at me! Because of—because of what happened—what happened last year."

"I never touched Mrs. Norris!" Harry said loudly, uncomfortably aware of everyone looking at him, including all the Lockharts on the walls. "And I know that last year wasn't your fault."

"Rubbish!" snarled Filch. "Why else would you kill my cat?"

"I didn't—"

"If I may speak, Headmaster," Minerva said, from her spot next to Albus. "Harry and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time." Her lips tightened in disapproval. Though she had taken a bit of a liking to Harry, the evidence was against him, and she didn't like students to walk aimlessly around the corridors at night. "But we do have some suspicious circumstances here. Why was he in that corridor at all? No classes are going on right now, and the Slytherin dormitories are down in the dungeons, not the second floor."

Harry, Draco, and Vanella were somewhat speechless. Harry and Vanella shot each other worried looks.

"Well?" Snape asked, also waiting for this explanation.

Harry bit his lip. "We heard something—and—and we were following it."

Dumbledore stared at him with searching, twinkling eyes. "Heard something?"

"A voice, sir," said Vanella quietly. "There was a voice—it seemed to be in the walls or something—we were following it—it was saying—it was saying—"

"—that it was going to kill someone," Harry finished.

"It was saying it was going to kill someone," Snape repeated blankly.

"Well—it wasn't saying exactly that, it was more of a—a nasty, threatening sort of voice, talking about ripping, and—and tearing, a-and killing," Vanella said hastily.

Dumbledore turned his searching eyes to Draco. "Did you hear this voice, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco shook his head. "Just them. I just followed."

Vanella cracked her knuckles. "I think that it may—it may have been Parseltongue, sir."

The four professors turned to her. "Why would you think that, Miss Incendie?" Dumbledore asked.

She swallowed. "Well—it was more—more hissing than—than normal talk," she said. "Right, Harry?"

He thought back, and nodded. "Sounded like Vitesse, only colder, and meaner, and more masculine."

"Vitesse? Who's Vitesse?" asked Lockhart.

Everyone ignored him.

"Parseltongue?" McGonagall asked. "I wasn't aware you two were Parselmouths."

"Vitesse is the only snake living in the castle, Harry," Dumbledore stated. "And Vitesse is not murderous."

"I know that," Harry said, exasperated.

"Then there is no explanation for this voice."

"Sir, it's not just me, so I'm not imagining it," Harry pleaded.

Vanella nodded. "We both heard it. We're not going crazy together."

Headmaster Dumbledore smiled sadly. "Your going crazy isn't the problem."

Vanella and Harry looked at each other.

"And we don't think you Petrified Mrs. Norris, either."

Filch snorted. "Speak for yourself! My cat has been Petrified! I want to see some punishment!"

Dumbledore looked at him harshly. "Innocent until proven guilty, Argus."

Harry and Vanella and Draco brightened considerably.

"My cat! These students Petrified my cat!"

"There is no proof of that. And 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—"

"Excuse me," said Snape icily, "but I believe I am the Potions master at this school."

There was an awkward pause.

"You may go," Dumbledore said to Harry, Draco, and Vanella.

Harry looked at all the professors in turn. "But what about the writing on the wall? The Chamber of Secrets?"

If the room's silence could have gotten more awkward, Lockhart wasn't a giant fake.

"That doesn't concern you right now, Harry. You may go."

With a frown, the three left for the Slytherin dorms.

"We have to find out about the Chamber of Secrets."

Vanella and Draco agreed.

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Author's Note: Yay! The plot thickens! I really like my portrayal of Lockhart-the-idiot; it's loads of fun…. Anyways, sorry if this was too close to the book; I'll put another chapter up in a day or two to satisfy the hunger for something more different.

I have to respond to Loony Lisa Lovegood:

Though I personally would love to be in this alternate reality of J.K.R's books, I would never go so far as to actually write myself into it. Vanella is loosely based on a merging of mine and a few other people's personalities, including one I made up in a different fiction story, and though, in some forms of the word, could technically be considered a "Mary Sue", she is not an image of me. I have made characters that are an image of me, but not in this specific story, (though they are Harry Potter), because I didn't want Vanella to be accused of "Mary Sue"-dom. Hey, no one's stopping you from writing naughty little stories of Severus, I just wouldn't post them…. And don't worry, I'll never let the flamers get to me. By the way, hope you enjoyed the newest update…

As for all the opinions on Ginny… they're helpful. And even more would be even more so. I can't give any hints on how I'm dealing with the situation because I want it to be a surprise, but I do want you all to know that I'm taking your opinions to mind, and if you want to be heard you have to review….

'Til next time, peoples…