Chapter Nine: The Bloody Baron
"Hush, Blaise," Harry scolded. "We've got to go meet the others near the Great Hall."She pouted, but quieted as they exited the common room, Theo and Ginny trailing behind them.
The four quickly and silently made their way to the entrance of the Great Hall, checking for Filch as they rounded corners. As they got closer, they noticed two silhouettes on the right side of the doors. Walking towards the shadows quickly, they noticed Hermione (whom had helped with the spells) and Mandy (whom Harry had invited).
"Is everything ready, Jeanie?" Harry asked Hermione. They had all decided on nicknames in case they were heard.
"Of course, James. Has Rilla spelled his tie?"
"Yes," Blaise answered. After more than a year in the Slytherin boys' dorm, Harry had noticed that Malfoy had an odd knack for losing his tie. This would be nothing new to him.
"Have you and Elizabeth fixed the spells on the closet?" Theo asked Hermione, or "Jeanie."
"And I'm guessing Molly's gotten the items we need to complete the spells?" Mandy, or "Elizabeth," asked Ginny.
"Of course." Ginny, or "Molly," grinned ferally.
They quickly made their way to the fourth floor to finish the spells on the closet for their prank on Malfoy.
oOoOo
As soon as Malfoy stepped into the closet, there was the sound of a lock clicking behind him, and he panicked.
Now, Harry and Blaise had spent a whole day preparing this closet, and it was ready for anything.
There was banging on the door, attracting quite a crowd. "Let me out, Potter! I know you did this!" Malfoy screamed.
"Banging on the door makes the lights go out," Blaise grinned, feral.
"Hey, that's not fair!" Malfoy yelled. There was a jiggle as he turned on the handle desperately.
"What does turning the handle do, Harry?" Ginny asked innocently.
"Turns on the water jet charms."
There was a shriek from inside the cupboard and the carpet under the door began to turn dark with the soaking of water. Sniggers began to rise from the crowd gathered around the door. Five seconds later, there was another, louder shriek.
"He must've gotten his wand out," Hermione stated. "Doesn't that replace the water with—?"
Blaise nodded. "Pond algae."
"Ugh! Alohamora!"
"Ouch, Alohamora already," Harry said, shocked.
"Wasn't that the one that releases the catches on the pixie cages?" Ginny asked ingenuously.
Blaise nodded.
"Ah! Get out of my robes, you little freaks! Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"
"Casting any other charm," Hermione narrated for the audience, "causes the nose to swell up and turn pink."
"Gut of! Gut of!" he cried. "Lut me out! Lut me out dis instunt! You nasty, fulthy bunch of little muggots! Argh!"
The prisoner's shouting ceased for a moment and the group outside the cupboard heard a faint hollow knocking of wood against wood.
"Oh, I hope that's him picking up a broom!" Blaise hissed, nearly foaming at the mouth in excitement.
"Makes feathers grow out of the ears," Hermione informed the crowd that was gathering.
Bang, bang, bang!
"Whereas banging the broom on the door produces straightforward boils to the face and hands," explained Harry.
"I hope he sits down on a tin of paint soon," Blaise added. "That's the one that puts troll mucus in your shoes."
"Which is the one that turns your hair into blue straw dreadlocks?" Ginny asked.
"Kicking a bucket in frustration," Harry told her.
"I wun't fuget dis! Yu'll ull be sowy! Dwaco Mowfoy wun't stand for dis kind of hoomiliashun!"
"Should we let him out soon?" Blaise asked, narrowing her eyes in thought.
"Yeah, go on then," Harry nodded, and the crowd shifted in excitement.
"Alohamora" Hermione commanded and the lock on the cupboard door clicked.
There was a loud bang as Malfoy made a mad rush to get out of the closet. As the door opened, he squinted at the light in the corridor. He felt and looked utterly ridiculous. The crowd assembled outside burst into thunderous laughter as Malfoy took stock of the damage. He was soaked through with water and a thick, faintly green, gooey substance. He was covered in algae and pond weeds and the bottom half of his vision was obstructed with the huge pinkness of his nose. The pixies still in the cupboard had a wad of his blonde hair between them and he was sure there were still two of them stuck in his robes. His hair was blue and made of straw, there were feathers coming out of his ears and boils on her face and hands. He cringed as some kind of goo squelched out of his shoes as he stumbled forwards out of the doorframe.
"Damn you all!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Blaise smiled evilly at the disgusting monstrosity that staggered out of the cupboard. Dealing out justice where it was due felt very, very good. Silently, she reached her hand into her robes, grabbing the camera she had borrowed from one of the Gryffindor first years.
"Aw, Malfoy, go on. Give us a smile!" Harry said from by her side.
"Yes, Malfoy," Blaise said raising Colin Creevey's camera to her face. "Smile for the camera."
Malfoy grimaced as the flash went.
oOoOo
"Oh, that was ingenious. Thank you, Harry, for being my partner-in-crime," Blaise exclaimed dramatically.
"You're such a drama queen, but you're welcome."
"I am not a drama queen!"
"Don't argue with me, Blaise. You won't win."
"Oh, I won't win, will I?"
Harry shook his head.
"We'll see about that. . . ."
Harry snorted.
Blaise huffed and started to ignore him.
Ten seconds later she stated, "So, about our next prank . . ."
oOoOo
"Shh, be quiet, Blaise!"
"Sorry. . . ."
Lockhart came past, whistling a merry tune and stopping to check his hair in the reflection of one of the many mirrors lining the walls of Hogwarts. He continued on his way, whistling all the way.
"Come on, come on. . . ." Harry murmured.
Yes! Lockhart stepped over their trap, tripping dramatically over "seemingly" his own two feet. The prank was elementary, but it would help get the ponce on edge for their next series of attacks.
Uh-oh. He was looking around the corridor, suspiciously at that. Harry and Blaise ducked back so they were covered by the suit of armor they were behind.
The sounds of footfalls fading down the hall and around a corner reached their ears, and they came out from behind the suit of armor.
"Oh, look at this, my sweet, two Slytherins slinking about in the halls. . . . You two are coming to my office."
It was Filch.
Damn.
They were screwed.
oOoOo
Filch was muttering . . . angrily. It scared them.
"Dung, great sizzling dragon bogies, frog brains, rat intestines. . . . I've had enough out it . . . students sneaking around in corridors . . . make an example. Where's the form . . . ? Yes. . . ."
Blaise gulped inaudibly.
"Names . . . Harry Potter and Blaise Zabini. Crime . . ."
"We were only hiding behind a suit of armor!" exclaimed Blaise.
"It's only hiding to you, girl, but to me it's a way of making a man paranoid!" Filch shouted. "Crime . . . prowling the castle . . . Suggested sentence . . ."
Filch squinted unpleasantly at them, and they waited with bated breath for their sentence to fall.
But as Filch lowered his quill, there was a great BANG! on the ceiling of the office, which made the oil lamp rattle.
"PEEVES!" roared Filch, flinging down his quill in a transport of rage. "I'll have you this time, I'll have you!"
And without a backward glance at Harry and Blaise, Filch ran flat-footed from the office, Mrs. Norris streaking alongside him.
"Is he gone?" Blaise whispered.
"I think," answered Harry. He was looking curiously at a large, glossy, purple envelope with silver lettering on the front. Blaise, seeing where his eyes where, ordered, "No, we're leaving. Don't look at that thing, Harry, we don't care." Blaise pulled on his arm hard.
"Ow! Don't do that. I was only looking."
"Sure you were. Another moment and you'd have read the thing!"
"Wouldn't have."
"Yes, you would."
"No, I wouldn't."
Shuffling footsteps were heard outside, stopping their argument.
"You have your Cloak?" Blaise whispered.
"Always." Harry pulled it from his bag and they stood closer together so he could put it on, watching as it settled, covering them in invisibility.
Just in time.
They slipped through the door quietly while Filch was talking to Mrs. Norris.
"That vanishing cabinet was extremely valuable! We'll have Peeves out this time, my sweet—"
His eyes fell on the empty office, darting around his office suspiciously.
"Damn kids," he cursed, crumpling up the parchment he was arresting them with and chunking it into a rubbish bin so he could write up Peeves' report.
oOoOo
Amazed at their luck, Harry and Blaise sped out of the office, up the corridor, and back to their suit of armor, whipping off the cloak when they were sure Filch wouldn't be able to see them.
"Did it work?" The Bloody Baron came gliding out of a classroom regally, his eyes on Harry and Blaise. "It was you two in Filch's office, correct?"
Neither Harry nor Blaise had ever spoken to the Baron before. "Yes, it was. What did you do?" Blaise said.
"Why, I simply ordered Peeves to drop that vanishing lacquer cabinet on the floor above Filch's office. I really do hate it when Slytherins get in trouble, even if they're the Troublesome Two."
"You know our nickname?" Harry asked, shocked.
"Of course, I do. Any true Slytherin has heard of what you call yourselves. However, I would advise you to change it to something more . . . original."
"Like what?" asked Blaise, racking her brain.
A name popped into Harry's mind; he didn't know why, but it stuck. "How about the New Marauders?" he questioned the Baron.
For some reason the Baron's eyes lit up. "That would be a perfect name, but like I said: Be more original."
Harry was puzzled, but then Blaise added, "We'll think about it, okay?"
The Baron started a new topic of conversation. "Anyway, I've been hiding from a friend of mine. He's been quite the planner for his upcoming deathday party. I understand how grand deathday parties are, but I think he's getting a bit too excited. However, he is a Gryffindor."
"What's a deathday party?" Harry asked. It seemed they were forever asking the Baron questions.
"Think about it, young Potter. That was an unnecessary question."
"It's a party ghosts have on the day they died?" he asked.
The Baron nodded.
"My own deathday is on Christmas, but I rarely celebrate it. Nick is much more flamboyant and extravagant. Ghosts will be coming from everywhere."
"Nick as in Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost?" inquired Blaise.
"Why, of course. What other ghost did you think I was talking about when I mentioned he was a Gryffindor?" the Baron asked, appalled.
"I-I didn't know," Blaise stuttered.
"Well, as it is, Nick has been planning night and day for this party, and I'm sure he'd like to have humans attend. It would be quite the sight to see, I assure you. Humans—and the Troublesome Two, at that—at a deathday party! But Nick would love to have you come, and you seem like a decent bunch."
"Us come to a deathday party?" Harry blinked.
"Why not?" the Baron asked.
"When is it?" Blaise asked.
"Halloween. The party will be down in one of the roomier dungeons, and Nick would be honored if you would like to come."
"Could we bring someone else with us?" Blaise asked, thinking of Theo.
"Why, of course! 'The more the merrier,' Nick said."
"We'll think about it," Harry answered.
"Quite alright, young Potter. Now, if you excuse me, I have some business to conduct with the Lady."
oOoOo
"Absolutely not."
"Aw, come on, Theo! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!" Blaise whined.
"No. I refuse to miss the Halloween feast for something so trivial."
"But it'll probably be really cool. . . ." Harry argued weakly. He wanted to go to the feast himself.
Blaise glared at her friend. She really wanted to go. It would be cool! They'd possibly get to meet all kinds of wicked ghosts! She then glared at Theo, who was unwavering in his decision.
"You can't scare me with that glare, Blaise. It's overused," Theo said cheekily.
Blaise pouted.
"You're not going to give up, are you?" a moody Theo asked.
Blaise shook her head, still pouting. Theo growled deep in his throat.
"Fine, I'll come, but if it sucks, I'm warning you, it'll be your entire fault."
Blaise grinned smugly.
oOoOo
When Halloween arrived, Theo appeared to be in one of his moods, grumbling unintelligibly to himself all day. The rest of the school was happily anticipating the Halloween feast, with all the decorations and rumors of the entertainment Dumbledore would be getting for it.
Blaise went through the day in a happy mood, and Harry was somewhere between miserable and excited. It would be fun to go to a deathday party (he doubted many humans had before them), but would there be anything to eat there? Ghosts didn't have to eat, after all. . . . He decided to find out when they got there.
So at seven o'clock, Harry, Blaise, and Theo, instead of heading up the stairs to the Great Hall, headed deeper into the dungeons. The passageway leading to the party had been lined with candles, all a long, jet-black taper that burned a bright blue. The effect was a dim, ghostly light even over their living faces. The temperature got even colder as they went farther down into the castle.
As they neared their destination, they could hear what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard. Theo flinched and Blaise gave a whimper, covering her ears. Harry decided to cover his own ears.
"Is that supposed to be music?" Theo whispered, turning to his covered-eared friends. They turned a corner and saw Nick standing at a doorway hung with black velvet drapes.
"My dear friends," he said mournfully. "Welcome, welcome . . . so pleased you could come. . . ."
He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside.
It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was filled with hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, who were either drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the sound of thirty musical saws, or talking mournfully to someone they thought they knew from somewhere.
Harry noticed his breath and his friends' breath rising in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer.
"Should we have a look around?" he suggested, wanting to warm up his feet.
"Careful not to walk through anyone," Theo said, jumping as a long-dead witch's petticoats brushed his arm.
They set off around the edge of the dance floor, passing a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. They weren't surprised to see the Bloody Baron, who was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts, and waved cheerfully at him. He waved back.
"Oh, no," Blaise said, stopping abruptly. "Turn back, now. I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle—"
"Who?" Harry asked as they quickly backtracked.
"She haunts one of the toilets in the girls' bathroom on the first floor."
"She haunts a toilet?" asked Theo incredulously.
"Yes. It's been out-of-order for years because she keeps having tantrums and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to have a pee with her wailing and ranting at you—"
Blaise stopped her rant when Harry and Theo blanched.
"What?"
"Oh, look—food!" Harry said, desperately changing the subject.
On the other side of the dungeon was a large table, also covered in black velvet. They approached it eagerly but next moment had stopped in their tracks, horrified. The smell was quite disgusting. Large, rotten fish were laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mold, and, in pride of place, an enormous gray cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words:
Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington
died 31st October, 1492
Harry watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched low, and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through one of the stinking salmon.
"Can you taste it if you walk through it?" Blaise asked him.
"Almost," the ghost said sadly, and he drifted away.
"I expect they've let it rot to give it flavor," Theo said knowledgably, pinching his nose at the smell.
"Can we move?" Blaise begged. "I'm feeling queasy."
They had barely turned, however, when Peeves appeared in front of them.
"Nibbles?" he said sweetly, offering them a bowl of peanuts covered in fungus.
"No, thanks," Blaise said, going a bit green.
"Heard you talking about poor Myrtle," said Peeves, his eyes dancing mischieviously. "Rude, you was, about poor Myrtle." He took a deep breath and bellowed, "OY! MYRTLE!"
"Oh, no, Peeves, don't tell her what I said, she'll be really upset," Blaise whispered frantically. "I didn't mean it, I don't mind her—er, hello, Myrtle."
The squat ghost of a girl had glided over. She had the glummest face Harry had ever seen, half-hidden behind lank hair and thick, pearly glasses.
"What?" she sulked.
"How are you, Myrtle?" Blaise said in a fake bright voice. "It's nice to see you out of the toilet."
Myrtle sniffed.
"Miss Zabini was just talking about you—" said Peeves slyly into Myrtle's ear.
"Just saying . . . how charming you look tonight," Blaise said, glaring at Peeves.
"You're making fun of me," she said, silver tears welling in her see-through eyes.
"No—honestly—didn't I just say how nice Myrtle's looking?" said Blaise, nudging Harry and Theo painfully in the ribs and glaring at them.
"Oh, yeah—"
"She did—"
Myrtle eyed Blaise suspiciously, but decided to take that as an acceptable answer when she spotted Harry. Her eyes got a . . . dangerous . . . glint in them.
"So," she simpered, sidling up to Harry, not noticing him gulp and back away, "are you enjoying the party?"
"Oh, yeah—yeah, I am," he stuttered nervously.
"That's good, I would hate for you to be uncomfortable." She smiled shyly at him and giggled.
Theo snickered.
"I knew it! I knew you were lying to me!" Myrtle gasped, tears now flooding down her face, while Peeves chuckled happily. "D'you think I don't know what people call me behind my back? Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle!"
"You've forgotten pimply," Peeves hissed into her ear.
Moaning Myrtle burst into anguished sobs and fled from the dungeon. Peeves shot after her, pelting her with moldy peanuts and yelling, "Pimply! Pimply!"
Harry noticed the terrifying glare Blaise was giving Myrtle, hearing her mutter a bit under her breath. She seemed to be mad, for some odd reason.
Her antics caused Theo to snicker again.
Blaise bared her teeth, and Theo couldn't help but gulp at the wild look in her eyes.
Theo cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I can't stand much more of this," he whispered so only Harry and Blaise could hear him.
"Right, let's go," Harry agreed.
They quietly snuck away from the party as a group of new ghosts came in and the audience clapped happily. They hurried back up the passageway full of black candles.
"Come on, you guys, I'm starving. If we hurry, the pudding might not be finished," Blaise said hopefully leading the way toward the steps to the entrance hall.
And then Harry heard it.
". . . rip . . . tear . . . kill . . ."
It was the same voice, the same snake, and Harry couldn't help it: He stopped to listen.
". . . so hungry . . . for so long . . ."
Blaise and Theo had noticed his absence and realized the seriousness of the situation. They waited for Harry patiently.
". . . kill . . . time to kill . . ."
Harry jerked his head upward. The voice was getting fainter, moving away—moving upward. But how could it be moving upward? Was it a phantom, to whom stone ceilings and walls didn't matter?
"This way!" he shouted to Blaise and Theo urgently, and he began to run, up the stairs, into the entrance hall. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, as the babble from the Halloween feast was blocking it out. Harry sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, Blaise and Theo coming in right behind him.
Harry strained his ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, he heard the voice again: ". . . I smell blood. . . . I SMELL BLOOD!"
His stomach lurched, like he was going to vomit—
"It's going to kill someone!" he yelled, and ignoring Blaise's and Theo's horrified faces, he ran up the next flight of steps three at a time, trying to listen over his own pounding footsteps—
Harry hurtled around the whole of the second floor, the other two panting behind him, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.
"Harry?" Theo asked nervously, wiping sweat off his face.
But Blaise gave a sudden gasp and pointed down the corridor.
"Look!"
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 flickering torches that were positioned on the walls.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN
OPENED. EMEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
Blaise shuddered. "Look—beneath it," she said, tears forming in her eyes and a quiver heard in her voice.
As they got closer, they could see a large puddle of water—and floating in it were . . . dead spiders?—reflecting the light from the torches. Looking farther back, they could see a long shadow cast by something, and squinting harder in the dark, a flicker of light helped them see.
The first thing they made out was a mop—a mop halfway through sopping up the puddle. Then they saw the hands closed around it which caused the mop to be suspended. A greater flicker of light cast higher let them see the person's face—Filch. He seemed to be frozen in time, no motion being noted. His eyes were glazed and unseeing, yet frightened in their own right.
"Let's get out of here," Harry spoke urgently.
"Yeah, we don't want to be found here," Blaise agreed.
But they were too late. A rumble, as though of distant thunder, told them that the feast had ended. From either end of the corridor where they stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people; next moment, students were crashing into the passage from both ends.
The chatter, the bustle—all noise died suddenly as the people in the crowd slowly noticed their caretaker seemingly suspended in time. Harry, Blaise, and Theo stood alone, in the middle of the corridor, as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight for themselves.
Then someone shouted, breaking through the quiet.
"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods! The Squib came first, apparently."
It was Malfoy. He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold grey eyes alive and dancing, his usually bloodless face flushed as he grinned at the sight of the immobile caretaker.
"Damn," Harry said so only Blaise and Theo could hear him.
They quite agreed.
oOoOo
Authoress's Note: Special thanks to koonelli for allowing me to use the prank scene from her story, The Beautiful Game.
Also, in the first scene, I used their middle names, or versions of them.
James - Harry
Rilla - Blaise (her middle name is Cyrilla)
Jeanie - Hermione (her middle name is Jean, as confirmed by Deathly Hallows)
Molly - Ginny (Molly is her middle name...)
Elizabeth - Mandy
I hope that clears a few things up if you were confused.