It wasn't until Halloween that things got really bad.
Hallow's Eve is perhaps one of the most sacred holidays to a witch, the point when magic supposedly is at its strongest. For muggles it was a day of misfortune and fear. Among witches and wizards, we knew it as a night of revelry and wonder.
Lucy had particularly loved the Halloween celebrations. It was hard to see the floating candles and pumpkins without her there, to see the Turkish Delight the house elves made that Edmund loved, to not steal a glance at Peter from across the room and smile at the kids' antics, and that for once we were safe.
Now they would never be safe again.
Perhaps that is why I chose to skip my last Halloween feast at Hogwarts.
I couldn't bear to think of it with all of them gone. It was better for the tradition to go un-marred, for my last memory of the Hogwarts tradition to e the feast from the year before. When Peter was in his seventh-year, and Edmund in his fourth, Lu in her third.
She hadn't even gotten to her O.W.L.s yet. Neither had Eustace or his friend in Slytherin.
Perhaps it was also my studies, which I allowed to consume me in place of my grief. N.E.W.T.s and marks were far easier to track and focus on, rather than faking a smile and socializing. I had once been able to do that with ease.
I had been able to do that at Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta's with ease.
The castle was too strange, too wrong without my brothers and sister.
Which I suppose circled back to the first reason I did not go to the feast on Halloween.
Instead, I stayed in the library until the librarian threw me out so that we could both enjoy the feast, according to her.
Instead of going to the feast, however, I started on my way back to Ravenclaw Tower. I wasn't hungry and I couldn't bear to waste food that I would not eat.
I remember that I had gotten off on the wrong staircase. Rather than wait for them to shift, I decided to try and navigate the corridors to find one of the few stationary spiral staircases tucked away into the walls.
But as soon as I entered that corridor, I knew something was wrong. I wrinkled my nose—the stench of sewage washed over me, putrid and making every hair on my body stand on end.
How could the pipes burst?
Indeed, I saw rock and brick broken away, and sewage water standing still in the hallway.
I squinted—at the end of the hallway, only illuminated by torchlight were two figures. I reached for my wand, in its special pocket in my robes. Something did not quite feel right about his situation.
As I drew nearer, I recognized the two people there—Caspian del Rey and Marjorie Jorkins. But Marjorie Jorkins had been turned to stone.
"She's Petrified," I said before I could stop myself.
Caspian turned his head towards me. "I found her like this—and a message on the walls."
He pointed to blood staining the walls.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS IS OPEN. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE!
My throat tightened—there wasn't a student at Hogwarts who hadn't heard of the legend of Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, his last revenge on the muggle-horn pupils of Hogwarts.
No one knew for sure what sort of monster had been left within the Chamber, or if it was even real.
Now we knew—it was real, and it had already turned a student to sone.
We should be so lucky that the monster did not eat her, but merely turned her to stone.
"Ugh, what is the source of that smell—Pevensie?"
I turned to see Professor Merrythought heading towards us, wand pointed at us.
"I was on my way back to Ravenclaw Tower since I wasn't hungry and—" I faltered, looking back at poor, poor Marjorie Jorkins.
Perhaps it's best that Lucy isn't here to see this.
"Marjorie Jorkins, petrified. Hmph." Professor Merrythought spared the girl a glance before pointing her wand at Caspian. "And what about you, boy?"
"I came across her—it was an accident."
"Likely story." She eyed him suspiciously. "Not sure Headmaster Dippet will believe that. There's been whispers about you, boy. Whispers are that you're one of Grindelwald's boys, or worse. Some say you must come from an old line of wizards, to end up here."
"I can assure you, whatever you might think, I am innocent—"
His eyes flicked to mine, and I knew that he was innocent—just as well as I knew my own name.
"I'm sorry, Professor Merrythought, I thought it was implied—" I smacked my hand against my head, acting the part of the stupid pretty party girl—a role I knew all too well. "Caspian was escorting me back to the tower, as a gentleman should—before we came across Marjorie Jorkins."
"Is that true, boy?"
He nodded, quick on the uptake.
Good boy.
"I shall have to take you to the Headmaster's office and inform him at once of what is happening. You two will have to wait there while I retrieve him from the feast."
While we were alone and waiting for Headmaster Dippet to arrive, that was when I spoke to him.
"I'll help you find the real culprit."
"Thank you, Susana."
That was a name I hadn't heard in a long time. I'd ignore it—for now.
"We'll need to look for possibilities as to Slytherin's monster, if we want to stop the thing and keep other students from Petrified."
"She'll live, then?" There was relief in his features.
"Yes, second-years grow mandrakes in the greenhouses every year." I considered a moment. "Our resident Healer will be able to set her right. But that means nothing if we don't know what the monster is and what else it might be capable of."
"Forgive me, but what is Slytherin's monster?"
"You know of the founder of the house of the same name, correct?"
He nodded.
"There is a legend that he left in a rage after the other Founders decided that muggleborns, students whose parents were not witches or wizards, would come and attend Hogwarts," I explained. "He supposedly left the Chamber of Secrets, a hidden room in the castle holding a monster only he and his descendants could control to eradicate the muggleborns."
"How horrible!" He paled significantly. "They think I—"
"Yes, unfortunately." I took his hand into mine."But we'll discover the truth. Together."
He hesitated. "Why? Why would you do this for me?"
My throat tightened again, along with the flood of things I did not want to remember.
"Because I know you're innocent, and it's the right thing to do."
Nothing more, nothing less.