Over the next week, things got more serious at Hogwarts. We had always known that Professor Ctheiz was old, really old, but we'd never really thought of him dying before. Soon he stopped appearing at the head table for breakfast, and then dinner. By early December he had all but disappeared from the school. No one explicitly told us what was going on, but we all guessed he was ill and was probably not going to recover.
This didn't upset me as much as it could. After the events of this awful school year so far, I wasn't sure my emotions could handle being sad about another person's death.
However, there was the issue of who would become Headmaster after him.
It was no secret that Professor Vonich had his eyes on Ctheiz's desk. There was also no particular reason why he shouldn't become Headmaster after him; he was one of the senior teachers of the school and had always been on Ctheiz's good side.
Not that this particularly mattered to me. I hadn't ever liked Vonich, and he scared me a bit to be honest, but I didn't really care anymore.
Other students did, though, and I was grateful for the change of topic in conversation. It meant that at least I did not feature in rumours anymore. Almost.
There were still the odd looks when I sat down for breakfast. I'd still sit next to Davies whenever he was around, but today Amelia was sitting on her own so I plonked myself down next to her.
"Good morning," I yawned, reaching for the jam.
"Morning," she replied a little stiffly, not diverting her gaze from the toast in front of her.
This wasn't new behaviour to me, she hadn't really been around much since it happened. I had a suspicion that she was dealing with the same demons I had, in that her friend had been accused of murder.
There was somewhat of an awkward silence.
"D'you think he would really do it?" she asked suddenly, frowning and staring down into her toast.
This was one of the first times she had even brought the topic of Sherlock Holmes and Jacob Black up with me. I was somewhat surprised but tried not to act it.
"I don't know," I replied carefully, half honestly. I was suddenly scared that she was talking about something else. "You mean Holmes?"
She nodded, still avoiding my gaze. "He was many things but he wasn't a killer," she added, somewhat shakily.
Killer. Hearing that word out loud made it seem absurd.
I thought about that for a moment. I still wasn't sure how well Amelia had actually known him, but she spoke quite fondly of him and he seemed to have trusted her. Suddenly, I wondered if she'd been questioned by the Aurors who had come to the school the week it had happened.
"D'you have any idea where he's gone?" I asked suddenly.
"Sherlock?" Amelia finally looked at me, with eyebrows raised. "No, I have no idea. I don't know why he's hiding, he's innocent."
"Why did you ask me? If he'd do it or not. You seem pretty sure," I frowned, wiping the knife on the side of my plate.
"I just wanted to hear your opinion," she shrugged. "He took a liking to you, I still don't know why. I thought maybe it was because you trusted him. Evidently not."
I stared, dumbfounded, into my plate. I recalled a certain conversation with a certain tall dark haired Ravenclaw a few months ago. I hadn't really seen him around since, and still had no idea who he was. He had said something about Sherlock Holmes taking a liking to me as well. Something is going on here.
"Can you do me a favour?" Amelia put her cutlery down and looked at me.
I glanced at her warily. "Depends?"
"Can you come with me to his room?" she asked nervously.
"Who's room?" I asked, confused.
"Sherlock's."
"He had a room?" I replied blankly.
"Apparently some of the Slytherins have rooms to themselves. I want to see his one." Amelia had that determined look on her face. But she'd never asked me to come with her on any of her adventures before, even though I'd always tag along of my own accord. Is she scared? Amelia, scared? This hasn't happened before.
"Haven't they cleared it out or anything? And how are you going to even get in there?" I frowned doubtfully.
"I talked to Gabriel, he told me where it is. And the password." I noticed a faint red flush to her cheeks.
"You talked to a Slytherin? And he just happened to give you the password?" I crossed my arms.
She scowled. "Well you know he's had a crush on me for years. I let him kiss me a bit."
"You let him kiss you a bit?" I hissed incredulously. "Did you kiss him back?"
"That doesn't matter," she snapped. "Whatever, I'll do it without you-"
"No, no, I want to come," I instinctively reached for her arm as she stood, looking irritated. "When d'you want to go?"
"Now," she shrugged, glancing at me with doubt as if she still didn't trust me.
"Okay, let's go," I stood hastily, and she smirked and strode back down towards the massive oak doors at the end of the Hall. I stumbled on my robes as I followed her, ignoring the giggles from the Hufflepuff table and the smirks from the Slytherins.
Five minutes later we were in the deepest bowels of the castle, hurrying (I wasn't sure why we were hurrying) down a long dank corridor, our shoes slapping uncomfortably loudly on the stagnant layer of water on the stone floor. My heartbeat was no longer in time with my running, as it was beating also uncomfortably loudly against my chest.
I had never even thought about Sherlock being in Slytherin. I hadn't wondered if he'd made any friends, where his dormitory was. I was sure he had never even slept during his brief stay at Hogwarts. Now, though, I was striving with curiosity.
"Are you sure no one has cleaned it out or anything?" I panted as we skidded to a stop outside an unpleasant looking mahogany door.
Amelia shook her head. "The Aurors had a quick look but they didn't find anything important," she replied hoarsely.
"What makes you think you will, then?" I frowned.
She didn't answer. "Stoermer Vonich," she said to the door, and it swung open inwards.
I raised my eyebrows. "Is he seriously that arrogant? Giving his own name as the password?"
Amelia shrugged as she ducked under the low overhang and entered the Slytherin common room. "Apparently it was the Slytherin's way of voting for who they thought should become Headmaster."
I was relieved to see that the common room was empty- it was a surprisingly beautiful room, actually. It was underneath the lake, it seemed, and massive floor to ceiling windows allowed everything to be bathed in an eerie emerald glow. I could see small shoals of silvery fish scatter past the windows, and as I walked up to the glass, I shivered as I caught sight of my own reflection. It was stunningly peaceful down here, gazing up at the shimmering surface of the lake through the windows. All the furniture was neatly ordered into small booths on the left wall, and dark bottle green leather arm chairs lay dotted about in circles around the large space in the middle of the room.
"They must all be down at breakfast," I mused. Amelia nodded but didn't reply, heading straight for another arched doorway to the right.
"Lumos," I whispered as we left the emerald lit room and proceeded down what I presumed was one of the dormitory corridors. It was a gloomier place than the actual common room, with dim, murkier green faint glows from the strange candles on the walls and a distinct prison feel to it.
"This must be it," she murmured, stopping at one of the doors. There was a small piece of parchment stuck just above the handle and I peered to see what was written on it. SH. Do not enter.
"I guess so." Suddenly I really, really didn't want to go in. I wasn't sure what I was expecting- maybe a few more dead bodies- but I knew that this could possibly prove whether he was innocent or not.
Surely the Aurors would have found anything important by now. There will be nothing in there.
"It's locked," Amelia frowned as she tried the handle. "Alohomora." The door didn't budge.
However, Amelia as always was very resourceful, and wasn't going to give up easily. Taking a pin out of her hair, she set to work the Muggle way.
Eventually she nodded, satisfied, as there was a resounding click and the door swung open. My heart was thumping against my chest.
For a few moments I was terrified that there were dead bodies on the bed- but they were just piles of bed covers. Relieved, I took a few quick glances around the small room.
The ceiling was quite high; like in all of the Slytherin areas we had been in, and the walls were a sort of morbid grey and the floor just the bare stonework. As for the furniture, there was a large mahogany book case on the back wall, a sort of pale sofa in the alcove on the right and the bed on the left wall. The book case was left empty, but it was clear where all the books had gone- they were strewn around the small room, acting as a kind of carpet. Torn out pages littered everywhere, and stacks of parchments and scrolls lay piled on top of the bed covers. The fireplace had been covered up with piles and piles of books and papers. I reeled back in shock as I looked up to face a human skull on the mantelpiece.
"Is it real?" I asked shakily. Amelia had been looking in the other corner of the room and came over to see what I was talking about. She nodded, not seeming surprised.
She didn't seem that concerned about a human skull being on the mantelpiece of a suspected killer.
I motioned towards it, not being able to find the words to express my fear.
"Oh no, he's had that for years," she said hastily. "I think that's what he made the deal with my brother about. I'm not sure."
"How come the Aurors didn't take it then?" I narrowed my eyes at the skull as if it had done me a personal wrongdoing.
"I don't know. It's not important, probably," she said, almost sarcastically. Again, I wondered why she'd even brought me here.
"I wonder what all these books were for," I said, bending down to pick one up. I leafed through it. My heart skipped a beat as I realised what the book was. "Look," I said shakily. "It's about poisons."
She grabbed it off me and stared at the cover and swallowed. While she was stood gazing at it as if she'd never seen a book before, I walked back over to the mantelpiece.
Above the shelf on the mirror was a sort of collage of bits of papers, maps and seemingly random paragraphs of different books, all stuck to the mirror with small pieces of a malleable blue substance. I took a piece off the mirror curiously.
"That's blue tac," Amelia said, looking relieved at an excuse to put the poisons book down. "It's what Muggles use to hang things up on walls."
I looked back up to all the papers stuck to the mirror. "What d'you think this is all about?"
"It looks like he was on one of his cases," Amelia said thoughtfully.
"Cases?" I was confused.
She met my gaze. "Didn't he tell you about them? He solves things."
Well actually, that's what I've been trying to tell everyone, we only had about three conversations, which wasn't really enough time to tell each other anything.
"Like what?"
She hesitated. "He used to do it a lot in Durmstrang. Whenever someone beat up someone else, or hurt someone, or stole anything, or damaged something, the teachers would ask Sherlock to find out who the culprit was. He was very good at it."
I thought back to our conversation at breakfast.
"My methods aren't what you call… conventional."
It took me a few moments to realise what Sherlock had said. "Conventional? What do you mean, methods?" I replied nervously, swiping the knife across my toast again.
"Well, you might get in trouble, that's all," he said, in a matter of fact way.
And back to the conversation with the strange Ravenclaw.
"Try and make sure he doesn't get into trouble again," he frowned and stood, twirling a dark umbrella by his side that seemed to have come from nowhere. "I really am worried about him. He hasn't even…" he hesitated. "John, I'm not quite sure you are aware of exactly who he is yet."
Well I think I had a better idea of who he was now. I stared angrily at the poison book in Amelia's hands.
"Isn't that your book?" Amelia exclaimed, sounding shocked. She was pointing at the mantelpiece.
My second year Book of Potions was indeed sat on the shelf above the fire, atop an ungraceful pile of papers. I reached for it, stunned.
It looked different. In a hurried looking scrawl, the word 'Potions' from the title had been scribbled out, replaced with the word 'IDEAS'.
"Book of Ideas," Amelia read out, dumbfounded. "What was he doing with your book? I thought you'd thrown this away."
"I'd left it in the dungeons," I flipped the book over in my hands, confused.
"And your Potions book is under the scales cabinet in the dungeons," he called lazily over his shoulder.
I flicked through the pages. My thoughts jumbled together and I couldn't piece it all together anymore.
"I remember this," Amelia suddenly smirked. "You used it as a sort of diary, didn't you?Until you burnt right through it with Draught of Living Death."
"Yeah," I said absently. "But what's he doing with it? Why would he want it?"
He had obviously used it quite a bit, the pages being ruffled and some torn. Inbetween the lines of text I'd written little notes on what had happened that day, yeah, sort of like a diary. I wasn't in to keeping formal diaries but the start of our second year had been quite emotionally eventful so it was nice to write short thoughts down on things that had happened. I think I'd presumed no one would ever be interested in looking at a second year's Potions book.
I felt suddenly violated, as if he was now able to read my thoughts. As I read through the little notes I'd jotted down, I became more and more uncomfortable in knowing that he'd read them. It was things like
Davies was being irritating today, he was picking on Jacob again. I wish he'd give him a break, it's not his fault his parents can't afford new robes for him.
And
Vonich is such an awful teacher. I know Potions teachers are never supposed to be very nice but he takes it to another level. He 'accidentally' nudged Gabriel today so he knocked over Amelia's cauldron. Her almost finished potion went all over the floor and he made her clean it up.
And perhaps more embarrassingly,
We had our first Care of Magical Creatures lesson today, a year early! I really like the teacher, Professor Heartley, she's so nice. I was talking to her for a few minutes at the end and she was telling me about how she wants to become a hot air balloon pilot. That's so cool. I hope she stays at Hogwarts.
The hurried scrawl was back on the pages again, circling and underlining certain notes and words. I flicked further on in the book, and got to the page on Aconite.
Also known as Wolfsbane, I'd written down next to the title. Poisonous.
I saw a scribbled sentence next to my own notes that chilled me to the bone.
Enough to kill a human?
"Look," I croaked, gesturing the book to Amelia, and she stared at it.
I didn't want to read anymore. My heart didn't feel like it was beating anymore. I looked at Amelia helplessly. The poisons books, the notes in this, him asking for aconite. It all adds up.
"I'm going for a walk," I muttered hoarsely, blindly stumbling out of the door of Sherlock's room and back into the corridor. Amelia didn't follow.