"I can't be sure how it was done," Dumbledore said. "This is dark magic."
"Ask them who did it," Filch said. He looked as though he was going to make an accusation, but he glanced at Steven, who hadn't stopped staring at the cat with a sad expression on his face. "They were there before anyone else. They had to have seen something."
"I'd be interested in knowing why they were in the upstairs corridor," Snape said. He'd slipped into the room while no one was looking. "Instead of at the feast with everyone else."
"We went Nearly headless Nick's deathday party," Hermione said. "Amethyst saw us there, and a lot of the ghosts."
"That corridor is a good ways away from the dungeons," Snape said. "Why not go to the feast, or perhaps back to your rooms."
"Tell them," Steven said without looking at Harry. "It's important."
Harry flushed. No one would believe him if he told the truth, but now Steven had put him on the spot.
"I heard a voice," he said. "It said it was going to kill someone."
"Did anyone else hear this voice?" Snape asked, leaning forward.
Everyone reluctantly shook their heads.
"We were with Harry all afternoon," Ron said. "He wouldn't have been able to do anything to Mrs. Norris."
"The voice lead us directly to her though," Steven said. "that means it has to be real, not just Harry being crazy."
"I've heard it before," Harry said. "Once when I was in Professor Lockhart's office."
The headmaster and Snape glanced at each other for a moment. Dumbledore said, "If you should hear this voice again, you must inform one of the teachers at once."
Harry nodded. It surprised him that even Snape seemed to be taking him seriously, and he was glad that he'd told. It was hard for him to trust adults, especially given his upbringing with the Dursley's. Bringing a problem to one of them would just have meant a beating.
Being independent was second nature when it was beaten into you.
Steven seemed to trust authority much more, and having seen how he interacted with Amethyst, his "aunt", Harry could see why.
Hopefully, this would all be taken care of soon enough. School was hard enough without homicidal voices running around petrifying people.
"Maybe it's something special about Harry," Amethyst said.
Hermione had been researching like mad over the past few days, while the rest of the school had gossiped about Mrs. Norris petrification.
She'd researched everything she could about mysterious voices, starting with malevolent ghosts, phantoms, phantasms and haunts. Then she'd moved onto creatures that petrified others; gorgons, medusas and the like, but nothing seemed to fit.
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked. She'd been irritated that Hermione insisted on spending time with her, especially after she'd caught her trying to eat a book.
"Well, nobody else could hear it. Maybe Harry's got a special power? We gems have a lot of the same powers, but we also got our own special thing."
Hermione frowned. "There are a few powers that are unusual, only possessed by certain wizards, but they are either the result of extensive training, like being an animagus, or incredibly rare, like being a metamorphmagus."
"Hey Harry...can you talk to anything weird?" Amethyst asked.
"I think I'm doing that right now," Harry said, looking up from his book.
"Like can you see ghosts that other people can't, or talk to rocks or something."
He frowned. "I talked to a snake once at the zoo, but that's something everybody can do, right?"
Hermione gasped. "No it's not, Harry."
"You're a parseltongue?" Ron asked. He stared at Harry. "That's dark, mate, real dark."
"Why is it any darker talking to snakes than...badgers, or squirrels?"
"I can talk to squirrels," Amethyst said. At their look she shrugged. "Can't understand a thing they have to say though. They act like they don't know what I'm saying, but..."
Ignoring her, Ron said, "It's what Salazar Slytherin was able to do...it's why the snake is the slytherin symbol."
"You-know-who could do it too," Hermione said. She frowned. "You'd better not let anybody know about this, or the whole school will think you're the heir of slytherin."
Harry frowned, then nodded. He already had enough problems without adding to the rumor mill.
Hermione sat in the stands, waiting impatiently for the game to begin. She'd been working long hours on the polyjuice potions, which had involved ducking away from Steven for long periods. Luckily he was more involved with Amethyst and Hagrid these days, and Quiddich was taking more and more of his time, but he was beginning to get suspicious.
It wasn't that she didn't think that he'd be willing to help in their mission to infiltrate Slytherin, but she wasn't entirely sure how the potion would interact with his unique physiology. She didn't know how to modify the potion to take into account that he was partially made of light.
Of course, if he was anything like Amethyst it might work even better on him than on a normal human. Amethyst changed her shape at the drop of a hat.
She'd considered simply asking Amethyst to help, once she'd realized how complicated and work intensive the polyjuice potion was, but Amethyst was technically a member of the castle staff. Hermione didn't think that she'd tell anyone but Harry hadn't trusted her. Besides, she wasn't sure what spells she could use to turn Amethyst into a normal colored version of whatever she turned into.
The one time she'd brought up the subject of shapechanging to Steven, though, he'd begun to sweat and change the subject.
She'd tried to ask Amethyst, who'd just made some sort of obscure reference to something called catfingers, which Hermione supposed might be some kind of American food like Buffalo wings. Ron had been excited about those until she'd explained that they weren't made of actual buffalo, which even in the wizarding world did not have wings.
After all, Steven's world had foods her own didn't, like cookie cats and lion lickers. Of course, it was possible that those existed here in America and she simply hadn't heard of them. It wasn't like there was some sort of library book about obscure American brand names.
The noise of the crowd changed, and Hermione forced herself to pay attention. This was the first game of the season; it had originally been scheduled between Gryffindor and Slytherin but there had been a last minute change.
Hufflepuff was up.
From the satisfied smirk on Snape's face, Hermione suspected that he'd had something to do with the substitution. No matter what happened, he'd win. Either Steven would win, which would mean that Harry lost, or Harry would win and the reverse would be true.
She wouldn't be surprised if he secretly hoped that Steven would somehow injure Harry.
The game began normally enough. Hufflepuff was much better this year than they had been the year before, although it was clear to Hermione that her house was better trained.
Steven was amazing. Seekers were generally the smallest and lightest players on the team. It helped them to fly faster and be more agile. As a result, they tended to get fouled more by the other players, who tended to be bigger and stronger.
That strategy wouldn't work at all with Steven. Despite his apparent girth, he was very small for his age, However, he was also very solid. He was hit in the shoulder by a flying bludger and barely seemed to notice.
The players knew better than to try to run into him. He'd once beaten a troll unconscious with a bathroom door. No one wanted to risk getting close to him for fear he'd accidentally hurt them.
While Hermione knew that Steven would never willingly hurt anyone, his team ruthlessly exploited this vulnerability.
Rather than seek out the snitch, Steven would fly in and disrupt plays the Gryffindores were attempting, even as he kept looking for the elusive object.
Harry, on the other hand seemed to be so busy fleeing from a bludger that he didn't have time to look for the snitch.
Hermione frowned. Bludgers were supposed to be opportunistic, going after everyone on the field more of less equally. This one had been following Harry pretty exclusively for a while now.
A moment later she realized that Harry was in trouble as he hung upside down to avoid the bludger.
She felt a moment of deja vu. Quirrell had tried to kill Harry last year during a quidditch game.
Hermione looked around, but she didn't see anyone trying to hex the bludger, not openly at least.
His teammates closed in, trying to stop the bludger, but it kept on coming.
She could see the moment when Steven realized what was happening. He stiffened on his broom, and a moment later he was rocketing through the air.
Harry dived to avoid the bludger even as Steven soared. For a moment it looked as though they were going to crash, but a moment before the bludger would have hit Harry in the arm, Steven caught it.
"SKILLZ!"
Before the game could be temporarily stopped to deal with the bludger, both seekers caught sight of the snitch.
A moment later they were both off, with Steven having the added handicap of having a bludger in his left hand. It should have been moving around in all directions, but instead it didn't even move at all.
Harry was ahead of Steven for a moment, but Steven jumped off his broom, diving for the snitch while hanging onto the bludger, using it's own buoyancy to slow his fall.
Harry and Steven smashed into one another as they hit the ground with a sickening smack.
A moment later they both sat up, their hands both on the snitch.
It took several minutes for the judges to make a decision; in the end they decided to award the points to both teams.
Gryffindor was ten points ahead due to superior gameplay, but the Hufflepuffs had proven that they were no longer the team everyone could dismiss as being an automatic win.
The Hufflepuffs seemed almost as excited by their defeat as Hermione's housemates were by their victory. The points from this game might make the difference; Hufflepuff had been in last place for the past thirty years.
Of course, none of the other houses wanted to be behind them.
Still, for the moment everyone seemed to be fairly happy, with the sole exception of Snape, who had a sour look on his face as he stared at the inert bludger in his hand.