Disclaimer: Harry Potter is a subset of the integrated output of JK Rowling.
Chapter 29
"A deathday party?" said Hermione. "That sounds fascinating. I've been reading up on ghosts lately. They have an entire division at the Ministry of Magic, but there's really not that much written about them."
"Maybe 'cause they can't write," Ron joked. Hermione gave him an annoyed look.
Nearly-Headless Nick had apparently roped Harry into attending his five hundredth deathday party after saving him from Filch. Why ghosts would want to celebrate deathdays instead of birthdays, even in the afterlife, she didn't know. Maybe it was a cultural thing. The one downside was that it was during the Halloween Feast, but still, a cultural experience like that (especially a five-hundredth) probably didn't come around very often.
"They can write, though," Harry said. That headless ghost wrote a letter to Nick.
"He did?" Hermione said in surprise. "Was it a regular letter or a…ghost letter?"
"A ghost letter, I guess. Nick had it in his pocket."
"But…but how? If ghosts only have what they had on them when they died, how do they get quills, ink, and parchment to write ghost letters with?"
Harry shrugged. Of course, he was muggled-raised and wouldn't know, and Ron didn't seem interested.
"Well, anyway, it'll be really interesting to see how ghosts live…or, erm…after-live?"
"I doubt it," Ron countered. "Sounds dead depressing to me."
Hermione groaned: "Maybe you should leave the jokes to Fred and George, Ron. I'm serious. No one bothers to look into how the house elves live, and yet they have a whole society of their own. I wonder if it's the same for ghosts."
"Well, I guess we're gonna find out, like it or not."
For the boys, it turned out to be closer to "not". On Halloween, Hermione was starting to think she'd rather go to the feast herself, but a promise was a promise, and she insisted on making sure Harry got down to the dungeons for his promised visit to Nick's party.
Hermione's first impression of what she took to be the ghost "culture" was not a good one. It seemed to be focused on being as eerie as possible and as dreary as possible at the same time. The presence of so many ghosts by itself gave an icy chill to the dungeon, and Hermione mentally kicked herself for not thinking to wear her cloak. The tall, black candles burning with blue fire (possibly the cool bluebell flames) did nothing to warm it, but just gave a disturbingly ghostly pallor even to the faces of the living. There was an "orchestra" consisting of thirty ghosts, all playing musical saws—and not playing them very well, she thought. You would think they would be better, having Merlin knew how many years to practice—unless they were trying to make it sound like a ghostly wail…which they probably were. Either way, most of the hundreds of ghosts in attendance had no problem waltzing to the dreadful sound.
Harry suggested they keep moving in order to keep warm, which seemed like a good idea. They wandered the large dungeon, weaving in between the ghosts both out of courtesy and to avoid their icy "touch". All three of them started to think coming here had been a mistake when they saw the food, even if Hermione hadn't been expecting much to start with.
"I thought they might have something edible," she said when she saw, or rather smelled, the table that was laid out. "You know, for the living guests."
"What living guests?" Ron said. "We're it."
It almost seemed like a pantomime of a party for the living, trying to "relive" the old days instead of finding something new to do. The meat and vegetables were obviously left out to rot since September, maybe even August, and the cakes looked like they'd been set on fire for a while, all to give them a flavour strong enough that the ghosts could "almost" taste it.
The most interesting part of the party was meeting all the ghosts from outside the castle, like the Wailing Widow from Kent, even though a lot of them acted clinically depressed. Of course, Hermione was starting to feel depressed herself in this atmosphere. They were still making the rounds when the ghost of a glum-looking girl with thick glasses and lanky hair hiding her face glided over to them.
"Oh, hello, Myrtle," Hermione called to her. "How are you? It's nice to see you out of your toilet."
Myrtle sniffed morosely.
"Harry, Ron, this is Myrtle…er, I don't think I got your last name. She haunts the girls bathroom on the second floor."
"You haunt a bathroom?" Ron blurted out.
Myrtle started keening softly and said, "It's none of your business where I haunt."
"Don't upset her, Ron," Hermione told him. "She likes her privacy. No one ever goes in that bathroom."
"Because she keeps flooding it!" an obnoxious voice cackled, and Peeves the poltergeist swooped in on the conversation dressed all in bright orange. In fact, he was probably the brightest thing in the room.
"Peeves, don't," Hermione said.
"Oh ho? Finally made a friend, have you, Myrtle. You like Moaning Myrtle, do you?" Peeves said, gliding up in Hermione's face.
"Erm…" she backed away from the poltergeist. "I just think she needs a little help."
"Oy! You hear that, Myrtle? You're the charity case!" Peeves yelled.
"No! That's not what I meant!"
But Myrtle was sobbing, now, "I don't need your help," she cried. "I know when I'm not wanted."
"Myrtle, don't listen to Peeves. He's like that to everyone."
"But everyone else is the same. Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Moaning Myrtle!"
"You forgot pimply!" Peeves cackled.
Myrtle gave a loud wail that made the Wailing Widow blush and fled from the dungeon with Peeves zooming behind her.
"Oh dear. She really deserves better," Hermione told Ron and Harry. "She was bullied for being muggle-born when she was alive, and now she has to put up with Peeves."
"Yeah, well, so do the rest of us," Ron said.
The party didn't get any better from there. Nearly-Headless Nick was just about to give his speech when the Headless Hunt rode in on a dozen ghostly horses. Nick's resentment of the properly-beheaded ghosts was clear, and Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore looked like he was loving it. To add insult to…well, injury, they completely ignored Nick's speech and played Head Hockey the entire time. Apparently, even ghosts had bullies.
By then, Ron and Harry had had enough, and Hermione had to agree, so they made a quick exit.
"Honestly, I don't understand why he keeps trying," Hermione said once they were out of earshot. "I mean I know he'd very much like to join, but it's a sporting club that he's not physically capable of participating in—or, I mean…you know what I mean. You'd think that after five hundred years, he'd find something else."
"Eh, who knows? I didn't understand anything they were doing," said Ron.
"And where do the ghost horses come from, anyway?" she continued. "Horses aren't magical creatures."
But Ron and Harry didn't know any more about ghosts than she did. She'd have to look it up later.
"Feast is probably over by now," Ron said glumly.
"Come on, we'll going to the kitchens," Hermione said. "When I realised the party was at the same time as the feast, I went up and asked Sonya to save our food for us—EEK!" She squealed as Ron grabbed her in a hug.
"You're brilliant, Hermione!" he said.
"Thank you," she said primly. "Only took you a year to notice."
"Hey! Did not."
They turned in the direction of the kitchens, but suddenly, Harry stopped and started looking around fearfully.
"Harry, what is it?" Hermione said.
"Quiet, it's that voice again," he whispered. "Listen…"
She did. "I don't hear—"
"Shut up a minute…" he cut her off rudely. Then, he started running for the stairs. "This way!" he yelled.
Hermione and Ron had no choice but to follow. They didn't know what had got into Harry, but Hermione, at least, hadn't forgotten what happened the last time her friend had gone this crazy. She had her wand at the ready. Harry sprinted past the Entrance Hall and up to the first floor with his friends struggling to keep up.
"Harry, what's going—" Ron started.
"SHH!" Harry hissed. "It's going to kill someone!"
"What!" Hermione yelled, but Harry didn't hear her. He sprinted up the next flight and clear around the second floor. Hermione had a brief vision of what had happened last Halloween and how Quirrell had tried to kill someone then—namely her. Was it happening again? Was Professor Lockhart evil, too, maybe, Merlin forbid?
They turned into a dead end. The last passage ended with no sign of whatever murderous thing Harry had been chasing. The only thing down there was Myrtle's bathroom, and…
"Look!" Hermione yelled. There on the wall, in crimson, foot-high letters, was written:
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN
OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
"What's that?" Ron said nervously.
For a moment, Hermione thought he meant the large puddle of water on the floor, but as they walked closer, Hermione realised it was something else: Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, was hanging motionless by her tail from a torch bracket, stiff as a board.
"We gotta get out of here," Ron hissed.
"But can't we help her?" said Harry.
"And get caught by Filch? No way!"
But it was too late. The feast had just let out, and half the school was coming up to this corridor from the Great Hall. In seconds, the trio was surrounded.
Suddenly, there was a commotion, and Draco Malfoy pushed to the front of the crowd, his face flushed. He took one look at the message and the frozen cat, and then he grinned evilly and pointed directly at Hermione saying, "Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, mudbloods!"
Hermione stared at Malfoy like a deer in headlamps and tried to keep her breathing even. She had a sudden urge to run away, but she was cornered by Filch and then by several teachers. The next few minutes were something of a blur. She barely registered Filch threatening to kill Harry, Professor Dumbledore arriving and leading them to Professor Lockhart's office, and Professor Lockhart sounding suspiciously like he was bluffing about knowing what was going on. Her mind was spinning, trying to figure out what Malfoy meant and how he was involved. She was coming up empty. The Chamber of Secrets bit sounded familiar, though.
"I didn't touch Mrs. Norris!" Hermione snapped out of it when Harry spoke up for the first time. She had barely caught that Mrs. Norris had not been killed, but petrified by some dark magic unknown. "And what's a squib, anyway?"
"You know! You saw my Kwikspell letter!" Filch snarled.
Wait, Filch is a squib? Hermione thought. She knew all about the blood purity categories from her reading. That would explain a few things. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the wheels of her mind started turning…
"…but the circumstances are most suspicious." It was Professor Snape, stepping out from the shadows, his robes billowing behind him, even in the still air. (How did he do that? Hermione wondered absently.) "Why weren't the three of you at the Halloween Feast?"
They explained about the deathday party and that there were hundreds of witnesses to where they were, albeit none of them living. "…we were heading to the kitchens to get some real food when…" Ron started, but Harry elbowed him in the side.
"The kitchens?" Snape said triumphantly. "Then why were you on the second floor?"
"Because…because…" Harry grasped for an explanation.
"Because it was freezing in that dungeon, and we went for a walk to warm up," Hermione jumped in, wiping the grin off Snape's face.
Snape frowned and tried a few other tactics to get them in trouble, but Dumbledore let them go soon after that, with an assurance that a draught made from Professor Sprout's mandrakes could cure Mrs. Norris, although it would have to wait until spring.
"Come on, curfew's late tonight," Hermione said. "We still have time to get dinner."
"D'you think I should have told them about the voice?" Harry whispered along the way.
"No," said Ron. "Even in the wizarding world, hearing voices isn't a good sign."
"But you believe me, don't you?"
"Of course we do, Harry," Hermione said soothingly. "You were right last year, weren't you? It must have something to do with whoever did that to Mrs. Norris. It's the only thing that makes sense."
"And what on earth is a Squib?"
"The opposite of a muggle-born," Hermione explained. "A person from a wizarding family with no magic."
Ron started sniggering: "Yeah, I reckon Filch must be a squib if he's trying to learn magic from Kwikspell. Explains why he hates the students so much and always makes us clean stuff without magic."
"It's too bad," Hermione said. "He really seems to like that cat."
"Too bad for us, you mean," Ron countered. "He'll be even worse than usual, now."
Hermione sighed and gave it up. They reached the kitchens, and she tickled the pear in the painting of the bowl of fruit to open the door.
"Oh, hello, sirs and miss," squeaked the first elf they saw. "Sonnitt, they is here! They is here!"
"Miss Hermione Granger! And Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, sirs," Sonya squeaked, running over to them. "We has your food ready for you. It is being over here." She led them to the duplicate high table.
"Thank you, Sonya," Hermione said as she sat down at her plate.
"Yeah, thanks, Sonya," Ron barely had time to say before he dug in.
"You is being very late, sirs and miss. Was you enjoying the ghosties' party?"
"No, the party was pretty dreadful, honestly," Hermione said. "We got held up afterwards. Something…something bad happened."
Sonya's large eyes grew wider than usual. "Is this the bad thing you was warning us about, Miss Hermione Granger?"
"It might be," Harry said, remembering Dobby's warning. "Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, got…petrified, somehow. Filch and Snape thought we did it, but we didn't. And…and there was a message on the wall. It said, 'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware.'"
Most of the elves within earshot gasped. A few of them even dropped their cleaning implements. They all started whispering to each other, "The Chamber of Secrets! The Chamber of Secrets!"
"The message is saying the Chamber of Secrets?" Sonya asked. Hermione wasn't sure she had ever seen the little elf more frightened, except maybe when she mentioned freeing the elves when they first met.
"Yes. Do you know anything about that? I think I remember reading something about it in Hogwarts, a History."
"It is being an old story for elves, and wizards, too, miss. Sonya's grandmama knows it best. Sonya will gets Grandmama Tilly." And she popped away.
The children stared at each other. "Well, something's got them riled up," Ron said.
About a minute later, Sonya popped back down to the kitchens with Tilly in tow. Even the normally-calm Tilly looked disturbed, and she ran up to the table and said, "Harry Potter, sir, is the message really saying the Chamber of Secrets has been opened?"
"Uh, yeah, that's what it said. What is the Chamber of Secrets?"
"Oh, it is being a long story, sir," Tilly said.
"Can you have a seat?" Hermione asked, patting the table beside her. Tilly hesitantly climbed up and sat on the table so that she could speak to them at eye level. Sonya followed suit and sat beside her.
"You is knowing about the Founders of Hogwarts, sirs and miss," Tilly began, "Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. Gryffindor was being a most powerful warlock and was being friends with Hufflepuff, who was a great healer. Ravenclaw and Slytherin was the greatest enchanters of their age. Gryffindor and Slytherin was not liking each other much, but they was working together to protect wizards from dark lords and witch-hunting muggles.
"The Founders was not starting a school at first. They each was having their own special magic, and they each gathered apprentices to teach them their magic. But then, the Dark Lord Foul came and tried to take over all magical Europe, and they was needing a castle to protect themselves and their apprentices. They was choosing here in Scotland to build the castle because there is more magic here than anywhere else in Europe, except in Russia—or Tilly is thinking it was Russia. It might be in one of the new countries. But Lord Foul was wanting this place, and they was not wanting him to get it.
"The Founders worked together to build Hogwarts Castle. Ravenclaw and Slytherin made the best stone circle in the world to build the foundations and tap the earth magic, and Gryffindor was designing the battlements, and Hufflepuff was designing the living space. At first, it was just being the West Wing, but Helga Hufflepuff was buying many house elves from masters who…did not treat them well…to work at the castle, and she made her own elf, Hooky, the Head Elf.
"The Founders was fighting Lord Foul for many years, and he was besieging the castle, but they was keeping him out, and Slytherin was knowing the most about Lord Foul's dark magic and defeated him. After Lord Foul was defeated, the Founders stayed at the castle. They was learning from their apprentices that many young witches and wizards was orphans from the war, and many more was needing a safe place to learn magic, far away from witch-hunters, so the Founders started teaching all the children who was needing it, and soon, there was so many children that they decided to turn the castle into a school for all the witches and wizards in Britain and Ireland, and they built the East Wing for all the classrooms, and that is being Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"Yah, this is all real fascinating," Ron said, "but what's it got to do with the Chamber of Secrets?"
Tilly shrunk back timidly and said, "Tilly will explain, Ronald Weasley, sir. Salazar Slytherin was disagreeing with the other Founders from the start. Slytherin was not liking muggle-born witches and wizards. He was worrying they were loyal to their muggle families and was not trusting them. He never picked them for his apprentices or students, and he was thinking the other Founders should not, either, but Godric Gryffindor was saying they should, and Slytherin let him for many years, until 1058."
"1058?" Hermione said in surprise.
"Yes, Miss Hermione Granger."
"What's so special about 1058?" asked Ron.
"That's the year after Macbeth died, when Malcolm III became King of Scots."
Harry and Ron gave her blank looks.
"Don't you read Shakespeare in the wizarding world? Macbeth was aided in taking Malcolm's rightful throne by three witches, and I'm sure Malcolm didn't like that."
"Ohhh," the boys said.
"That is being right, Miss Hermione Granger," Tilly continued. "The witch hunts grew much worse under King Malcolm, and Slytherin was wanting to expel all the muggle-borns from Hogwarts so they could not tell their families about it. Gryffindor was not wanting to. He said purebloods should be friends with muggle-borns, and then they would be loyal. They could not agree, and at the end, they duelled over it. They was old men, then, as old as Professor Dumbledore. Rowena Ravenclaw was dead, and Helga Hufflepuff was sick and could not duel anymore, but Gryffindor and Slytherin duelled like Professor Dumbledore. The whole castle and grounds was shaking, and Slytherin was using dark magic. They duelled so hard that they knocked down the first Astronomy Tower."
The children gasped. What kind of duel would that have been like?
"Gryffindor fought Slytherin to the edge of the wards because Gryffindor wanted to expel Slytherin from the grounds. But they was stopped there, and he could not do it. But then Helga Hufflepuff sent Hooky to help, and Hooky pushed Slytherin out of the wards when he wasn't looking, and he was banned from Hogwarts forever."
"Good for Hooky," Hermione said.
"That still doesn't explain about the Chamber of Secrets," said Harry.
Now, Tilly lowered her voice a little: "That is being the legend of Slytherin, Harry Potter, sir. The stories says that Salazar Slytherin was knowing for years that the witch-hunters would come, and that Godric Gryffindor would ban him from the castle. So Slytherin built a secret chamber deep under the castle without telling the other Founders, and he put something inside to purge all the muggle-borns from the castle."
Hermione froze, her eyes wide. "Purge?" she squeaked.
"Yes, miss."
"What's in the Chamber?" asked Harry.
"The stories says it is being a monster, sir, that can be preserved for many centuries and that only the Heir of Slytherin can control it."
"Enemies of the Heir beware," Hermione whispered. "Tilly, is the Chamber of Secrets real?"
"None of we elves has ever seen it," Tilly said. "And no Headmaster has ever found it. But Hogwarts is always having more secrets. Salazar Slytherin would not have wanted elves or Headmasters to gets in, only his heirs. The Chamber of Secrets could be here somewhere still."
Hermione lost her grip on her knife and fork with a clatter.
"Is you okay, Miss Hermione Granger?" Sonya asked worriedly.
Hermione realised her hands were shaking: "It was Malfoy…He said…'You'll be next, mudbloods.' And muggle-borns are the enemies of the Heir."
"Malfoy," Ron breathed. "You think he's the Heir?"
"I don't know. It seems too obvious. He's from a well-known and well-documented family, but…Harry, Dobby said there was a plot, right?"
"Yeah."
"So maybe Malfoy's in on it. Maybe he knows something."
"Yeah, I bet he does," Ron chimed in. "Who else thinks muggle-borns are scum as much as he does? So what do you want to do about him?"
Hermione sank back in her seat: "I don't know."
The sounds of conversation in the kitchen ceased, leaving only the scrubbing of pans and the mopping of floors.
Finally, Harry said, "Say, Tilly, when Dobby came to my relatives' house, he didn't look like he was being treated very well by his masters. Is there anything we can do to help him?"
Tilly frowned as curious whispers broke out among the other elves. "Sometimes wizards is buying elves who is not treated well, like Helga Hufflepuff, but some wizards is not selling their elves so they cannot reveal their secrets."
"I bet Dobby's masters wouldn't sell him, then," Harry said. "He had to punish himself when he almost revealed their secrets." Several of the younger elves, including Sonya, whined in surprise at that, but Tilly and many of the older elves nodded knowingly. Apparently, that wasn't unheard of.
Finally, they finished dinner and said good night to the elves. They had just enough time to get back up to the tower before curfew. Hermione tried to hide the fact that her hands were still trembling.
"Wow, I never knew Slytherin was the one who started all this pureblood junk," Ron said as they walked.
"Right," Hermione replied uneasily. "The funny part is he wasn't like Malfoy, just thinking the purebloods were better. He was worried about the witch-hunters."
"Yeah, but it's still his fault. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I would've just got back on the train and went home."
Hermione didn't respond to that, but she saw a very uncomfortable, maybe even scared look cross Harry's face, and she remembered a certain conversation she'd had over a year ago. "Harry…" she started, but he just shook his head.
"What? You okay mate?" Ron asked.
Hermione shot him an ugly look.
"What? What'd I say?"
Harry seemed to shrink into himself even further.
"Harry, I told you then it's okay," Hermione said, cautiously putting an arm around his shoulders. "You're nothing like them."
"Huh?" Ron said.
Harry looked up and faced his friend nervously: "Ron…the Sorting Hat did try to put me in Slytherin."
"What?!" Ron bellowed. "What happened? Why didn't it?"
"'Cause I told it I wanted to go anywhere but Slytherin, and it put me in Gryffindor. I didn't even know about the pureblood stuff. I just knew Voldemort and a bunch of dark wizards were from there, and Malfoy was there."
"And you didn't want to be anything like them," Hermione assured him.
"But sometimes I still wonder…" he started.
"You're not, Harry," she said fiercely. "You proved you're a Gryffindor one year ago tonight when you saved me from a mountain troll. And you've proved it again and again since then—you almost got yourself killed four times last year, and those are just the ones I know about."
And then, to both Harry's and Hermione's relief, Ron broke into a smile: "Yeah, Harry, can you imagine Malfoy taking on a troll? He'd probably wet himself."
Harry started laughing: "Yeah, I guess you're right. Thanks, guys."
The next few days were some of the most unpleasant Hermione had had in quite some time. Everything seemed to be falling apart again. She never thought she would be one to go paranoid, but she found herself looking over her shoulder frequently, in case Malfoy should show his face. She wasn't the only one, either. Justin Finch-Fletchley seemed to be scared of Harry all of a sudden. Being found at the scene of the crime, some people were starting to think he was the Heir of Slytherin, as absurd as that was. Also, Ginny was looking more pale and nervous than before her cold (Ron claimed she was a great cat lover), and Fred's, George's, and Ron's attempts to cheer her up fell flat.
Hermione didn't tell her parents about Mrs. Norris in her letter that week. She felt a little guilty about that, but she pushed it off by writing, Something strange happened, but things are mostly fine, now. I'll tell you more when I know what's going on. That should be good enough for the short term.
She spent all of her spare time the rest of the weekend in the library, followed by reading in the Common Room until the wee hours of the morning. As per her own advice, Lavender and Parvati had tried to make her come to bed, but she actually told them off this time. She was trying to find out what kind of horrible spell or monster or demon could petrify a cat like that, but as always, finding anything obscure in the Hogwarts library was like looking for a needle in a haystack. In the meantime, she noticed a lot of people putting their names down on a waiting list for Hogwarts, A History, and she thanked her lucky stars for Tilly. She'd had to leave that book at home to make room for Lockhart's tomes and would have been most unhappy that she couldn't get hold of it.
Remembering that they'd found Mrs. Norris near Myrtle's bathroom, Hermione asked Myrtle if she'd seen anything, but the distraught ghost had been crying too much to pay attention to anything at the time. The one other odd thing the trio noticed was that the spiders were behaving very strangely (and that Ron was arachnophobic), almost as if they were leaving the castle en masse, despite the approaching winter. What that could have to do with anything they didn't know, but Hermione mentally filed it away for future reference.
It was in this high-strung and sleep-deprived state that she sat down with her Arithmancy study group on Tuesday afternoon.
"Alright, properties of triangles, everyone," Roger Davies said as he joined the table in the library.
"Right, simple enough," Hermione said, and immediately regretted it. For the most part, she had curtailed the urge to say things like that around her classmates, but as she presently was trying to make her brain focus enough to understand triple integrals on the side, it slipped out.
"Yes, well…do triangles get used that much in spellcrafting?" Roger asked.
"Not so much directly, but trigonometry does," Hermione replied, absently leaning her head on her hand.
"Say, you don't look so good, Hermione," Alicia Spinnet said. "Are you feeling alright?"
Hermione was about to brush it off and say she was fine, but she decided at the last moment that she really ought to be honest: "No, it's this whole Chamber of Secrets business."
"Oh, that. Are you worried about it?"
"Yes. Did you hear what Malfoy said?"
Alicia growled softly: "Yes, practically everybody heard what he said. You think he's involved."
"I think he might know something."
"What is the Chamber of Secrets, anyway?" Roger asked.
Hermione briefly summarised the story Tilly had told her. "…And, supposedly, the Heir of Slytherin will come back someday and purge all the muggle-borns from the school."
"Wow, that's a pretty nasty story," said Cedric Diggory. "But I wouldn't worry about Malfoy too much. He's probably just posturing, like always."
"Maybe, but Cedric, something happened to Mrs. Norris, and even Professor Dumbledore couldn't fix her."
"Yeah, um, about that—So you were with Harry the entire time on Halloween?" Cedric asked nervously.
"Yes," she said firmly. "We didn't know anything had happened until we stumbled on Mrs. Norris, and she was already petrified."
"Okay, well, I'll try to make Justin understand. He's been really worried thinking Harry is the Heir of Slytherin, but I really didn't think he would do something like that."
"No, he wouldn't. But apparently, there's someone around here who would. I don't like it…I'm worried. It's like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I just wish I could do something."
"Like what?" asked Alicia.
"I don't know. I need more information, really—better information. But only the Slytherins would have a chance of that."
"Well, good luck getting anything out of them," said Roger. "Slytherin's all about secrets and lies."
"I know, I…oh, let's just get to work. Triangles, right?"
"Well, I was thinking maybe we should skip down to the part about breaking down the arithmantic components of the Softening Charm," Cedric suggested. He smiled at Hermione. That was a little more up her alley. She smiled weakly in return and helped them through the procedure.
Hermione's mind was taken off the recent events for a little while, but no longer. The stress was getting to her pretty badly, but as she lay awake in her bed that night, things changed. Something that Professor Snape, of all people, had said in an offhand remark a few weeks ago came back to her, and a plan started to form in her mind—an insane plan. An impossible plan. There were at least three things she needed to get hold of to have even a chance of making it work. But then again, as she thought about it, none of them seemed insurmountable. Even so, it was dangerous, desperate, and very against the school rules, if not outright illegal.
And right now, she was too worried about the Heir of Slytherin to care.