lxvii. voices

It took Hermione and Elara longer to find her than Harriet had expected, but it was only a matter of time before they came rushing into the dormitory.

Elara needed only jerk aside the curtains to spot the bespectacled witch sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, pale and wide-eyed, and she nodded. "So you did see it, then?"

"Of course I saw it!" Harriet hissed, eyes darting about the room to ensure they were alone. "I might wear glasses, but I'm not blind."

"Why didn't you come back to the hall?" Hermione asked. "What if someone noticed you were gone?"

"I couldn't have returned to the hall. I looked like I'd seen—." A ghost, Harriet's mind supplied, but no, that was a Muggle euphemism, one that didn't make sense in the magical world. "—well, like I'd seen a dead cat hanging off the bloody wall! And I wasn't going to just stand there, like a loon."

"She's not dead," Hermione corrected, laying a comforting hand on Harriet's arm. "Professor Dumbledore said Mrs. Norris has been Petrified."

"Petrified? How?"

"He wasn't sure—."

"Or he just didn't say," Elara added, sitting at the foot of the bed.

"Or that, yes. But he did say she could be un-Petrified, eventually."

Eventually? "Do they know who did it?"

"No—did you see anything?"

Harriet glanced at the door again. "…no."

Just then, a loud bang struck the wood, and all three girls flinched. "Professor Slytherin wants us all in the common room in five minutes!" Prefect Farley shouted before moving off to the next dorm. They heard her repeat the message to the first years, her voice dwindling into the distance, trailed by footsteps and muffled muttering.

Harriet exchanged uneasy looks with the others. "Is it just me," she asked. "Or is this suspiciously like last Hallowe'en?"

"If Snape starts threatening us with detention, it'll be exactly like last Hallowe'en." Elara stood and tugged on her cuffs. She seemed unflappable, but Harriet saw the twitch in her restless fingers. "Let's get this over with."

The three said little else and exited the dorm, filtering into the common room with the rest of the Slytherins, who stood below the silver lanterns furiously whispering with one another like a bed of snakes curled under a heat lamp. Apparently, Filch had a near-breakdown in the hall when he saw his cat, only coming to his senses when Dumbledore arrived and reassured the caretaker. Harriet had little fondness in her heart for the man— "the Squib" as many upper-year Slytherins referred to him—or for his despicable feline, but that didn't mean she thought he or his pet should be attacked.

Who would do something like this? And what did their message mean?

Professor Slytherin entered the common room with Snape at his back, the latter dark and looming, stripped of his robes and cravat as if he'd been caught preparing for bed, while Professor Slytherin floated on a slowly simmering tide of his own ire, cold in his fury, the same look in his eyes Harriet had seen a second before he hexed her into Lavender's desk.

Harriet drew back farther into the shadows, resting her shoulders on the cold stone wall.

"Here we are again, another year—another Samhain wasted, squandered by some puerile fool's absurdity. Again, I am forced to waste my time," Slytherin hissed, teeth clicking hard on the elongated syllables. He took another step into the room, and those Slytherins nearest their Defense instructor edged away, leaning deeper into their seats, heads lowered. "I am unclear of the reasoning behind this pathetic display, but if you are the perpetrator of this…prank, you are going to want to listen very closely." Slytherin's voice dropped and nobody dared breathe. "This ceases now. If I discover who you are, there are far worse consequences to fear than mere expulsion." He met the gazes of his watching students one by one, and for the second his eyes flicked to Harriet's, she felt…chilled, like she was pressing her face into thick, frozen slush, the feeling pricking against her cheeks, her eyes, along her chin, down her neck—.

It lasted for only a second, then Professor Slytherin moved on, uninterested, and Harriet blinked. What was that?

He gave a few more scathing, carelessly veiled threats before re-numerating the House rules with heavy emphasis on curfew, while Snape did a silent headcount, thumb tapping a fingertip until all students were accounted for. "Any Slytherin caught out after curfew will suffer the consequences—unpleasant consequences. This will be your only warning."

He turned then and left the dorms, Snape following in his wake without uttering a single word. No one found their voice at first, sharing brief, furtive glances as if expecting the wizards to come back. Then, a seventh year—Sven Rustwing—broke the silence when he started to laugh.

"I never thought Slytherin would get so bent out of shape over a Squib's cat!"

Everyone started talking then, harsh laughs and squeaks of disbelief, outrage, amusement. It sounded like a flock of well-mannered, aristocratic birds flustered over their feathers to Harriet, but she ignored all this in favor of dragging both Hermione and Elara to their favored corner in the common room, the one farthest from the main hearth and its waiting, watchful serpent.

"What was that all about?" she asked, gesturing at the entrance. "And what's the—Chamber of Secrets?"

For once, Hermione didn't have an answer for Harriet, her mouth forming a tight-lipped moue as she scowled at the floor. "I'm sure I've read the name somewhere before, but I…. I know for certain it's in Hogwarts: A History, but I don't have my own copy—."

"Harriet does."

Hermione blinked, clearly surprised. "You do? Have you read it?"

Harriet didn't know if she should be insulted Hermione sounded so astonished. "Yes, most of it. Bit dry."

"A bit dry?! But it's so fascinating—!"

They hurried back into their dorm, Pansy, Daphne, and Katherine already inside, deep in their own speculations. Harriet strode up to her trunk and unlocked the top, bypassing the higher drawers in favor of the lower compartment she didn't have a chance to use very often. The trunk's innards were replaced with a rickety wood ladder leading down into a dark hole.

Neither Hermione nor Elara made a move to enter.

Sighing, Harriet took out her wand and muttered, "Lumos," holding it between her teeth as she threw one leg over the trunk's lip.

"What—what are you doing, Potter?" Pansy—having glanced up to sneer when they entered—saw Harriet standing on the top rung of her ladder inside her trunk, and Harriet—mouth full—threw the other girl a rude hand gesture before continuing down.

"You're such a bloody gremlin, Potter, seriously—and aren't Extension Charms illegal?"

"Not on family heirlooms," Elara breezily replied. "You'd know that if the Parkinsons had anything worth saving."

Whatever Pansy's remark was, Harriet didn't hear it, the witch's voice distorted once Harriet dropped the last few feet into the trunk's bottom. Her friends followed, and Elara shut the lid after, sealing them inside the stuffy, semi-darkness permeating the trunk's extra room.

Harriet spat out her wand. "Err, lemme find—."

She fumbled for the lantern sitting on the worktop, tapping her finger against the base to ignite the magical light. It was by no means a large space; the expanded room held little more than a half-dozen shelves above a chipped counter, a worktop varnished in aged patina, and an old cabinet with the Potter crest fashioned on the doors. Harriet kept the books she wasn't using often—like Hogwarts: A History—on the shelves, making for a tidy, if modest, library.

"I didn't know you had this place," Elara said, glancing at the paneled walls stained by spots where frames once hung long before Harriet's birth. "Pansy can't lock us in here, can she?"

"No. It can't be locked with people inside." Harriet tugged a step out from under the worktop, using it to kneel on the counter and reach the higher shelf.

"Is that—is that a terrarium?" Hermione, puzzled, glanced over the glass tank where it sat on the floor by the cabinet.

"It's Livi's."

"Why is he always under your bed if he has a tank?"

"Because he's snooty, Hermione, and he doesn't like going in unless he has to. Here, help me with this…." Hermione lifted her arms to brace Harriet as she tugged the thick volume free and lowered it with a loud thud. "D'you remember where the bit about the Chamber would be?"

"I think so, yes. Oh, this is the collector's edition! I heard it's has a whole extra chapter about—but never mind that right now. Bring the light closer, please? Yes, just like that…."

Hermione flipped through the sections, scrutinizing the title pages, muttering under her breath as her finger trailed down the paragraphs. Waiting, Harriet sat on the counter and kicked her feet, while Elara peered into the empty terrarium and at the little chipped teacup Kevin enjoyed napping in.

"Here it is: 'the Chamber of Secrets is the most enigmatic of all tales concerning the establishing of Hogwarts. It is said to be the parting legacy of the founder, Salazar Slytherin, a powerful wizard famous for his dislike of Muggle-borns. Slytherin left the school after arguing with his fellow founders, and the legend of the Chamber arises in its eponymous secrecy, for Slytherin never shared its location with another. That hasn't stopped the student body from carrying on the Chamber's rumor for centuries, stating only Slytherin's alleged 'true heir' could open the Chamber and use what magic lies within to purge Hogwarts of its Muggle-born population. Exhaustive searches have never discovered such a place, and it is believed most likely fictional.' That's it?" Hermione glowered at the book as if it'd let her down. "But that doesn't give us any information!"

"It does explain why Draco shouted, 'You're next, Mudbloods!' before the Headmaster arrived. How does he know about the Chamber?"

"That prat said what—?!"

"His father knows everything," Hermione said, flinching at the inadvertent compliment paid to Mr. Malfoy. "He's very informed, I should say. This is exactly the kind of thing he'd make it his business to know."

"Malfoy's juvenile, but do you believe him capable of Petrifying Mrs. Norris?"

"No…Draco's a wretched little beast most of the time, but not—malicious enough, or clever enough, to come up with a plan like this. Besides, he was at the feast…."

As Hermione and Elara spoke, Harriet reread the passage—just a paragraph really, listed among other far-flung memories and urban legends, cursed vaults and hidden Ravenclaw libraries, a singing toilet and long-lost reliquaries. "That's why Slytherin is so angry, isn't it? It basically says Slytherin's heir would come and kill all the students with non-magical parents. He's the Heir of Slytherin."

"Well, him or Minister Gaunt," Hermione corrected. "Neither have children and both claim to be Slytherin's final living heir—and it's like Rustwing said, Professor Slytherin reacted rather…oddly, considering."

"Or not oddly at all."

"What do you mean, Elara?"

The taller witch crossed her arms and leaned a hip on the worktop. "Supposing the Chamber is rubbish, someone still attacked Filch's cat and said 'beware the Heir.' Everyone knows, or thinks, that's Professor Slytherin. It could possibly be someone trying to.…" She flipped a hand, searching for the right word. "Please him? Get his attention? He does earn a lot of fanatic regard from a few of the upperclassmen. Maybe they thought this would make him happy."

"You're right. Hmm…do you think it was an upperclassman, then? Maybe Rustwing. He was quick to express disbelief in Professor Slytherin's reaction…."

Harriet carefully closed Hogwarts: A History and took it in her arms, holding the thick book to her chest. "I…." She had to tell them. No matter how mad they thought her, Harriet needed to tell her friends what had happened in the Great Hall. "I, um, heard something. At the Feast."

"What do you mean? Is that why you left so suddenly?"

"Yes." She ran her fingers along the book's edges, then sighed. "I heard a…voice." An inadequate summary, in Harriet's opinion; she couldn't describe how the words had crawled through her ears, how it felt like…like madness, all that bloodlust and hatred and need—.

A furrow appeared between Hermione's brows. "Whose?"

"I don't know."

"Given we were sitting with over two hundred other people, what was different about this particular voice?" Her mouth popped open. "Oh! Were they talking about what was going to happen to Mr. Filch's cat?"

"Not exactly?" Harriet returned the hefty tome to its proper shelf, turning her back on the other witches, attempting to order her thoughts. The lantern flickered, and she thought she saw Set moving on the wall behind Elara, but her friends didn't notice. "They…they said it's 'time to kill' and something about 'blood.' They didn't mention Mrs. Norris." She faced the others again, not missing their disturbed expressions. "Did either of you hear anything?"

Mute, Elara and Hermione shook their heads. Having expected as much, Harriet shut her eyes.

"Harriet…."

"I'm not mad."

Hermione huffed. "I wasn't going to say you were," she snapped. "But it's been a very long day for you—for all of us. Is it possible you misheard? Or perhaps picked up on one of the others talking? Like Professor Slytherin pointed out, it is Samhain, and some older students—like the Weasley twins—always use it as an excuse to scare the younger years."

Of course, it was possible; Harriet had to acknowledge the feasibility of Hermione's suggestion because it had been a long day and she was rather exhausted. Anything was possible, and the more time that passed, the more intangible the words became, muddled and fuzzy, distant from that cramped trunk smelling of cinnamon and cloves. It seemed as if hours and hours had passed since Harriet sat eating supper.

"I didn't mishear," she said, decisive. "Because I heard it before, when I had detention with Snape."

"Professor Snape?"

"And no, before you ask, he didn't hear anything either. He was in the storeroom."

Hermione suddenly looked uncertain, biting her lower lip and fiddling with her hair. "…Professor Snape did leave early this evening…."

"So?" Harriet frowned—and then considered Hermione's words, a breathless snort escaping her. "Come off it. You don't really think Snape's—?"

"I don't know what to think, now do I?" Hermione interrupted, eyes bright. "You said yourself, you've encountered this voice twice—once while alone in his company, and then again when he serendipitously left the feast early. Whoever attacked Mrs. Norris couldn't have been in the Great Hall, and they needed an understanding of Dark magic to Petrify her. Professor Snape is an ideal suspect."

Harriet scoffed again, ready to argue—when Elara shook her head. "No. Harriet's right."

"No? Elara, you hate Professor Snape more than either of us!"

"Hating the man has no bearing on his status as a suspect. After spending half a summer trapped in the same house as him, I can honestly say it's doubtful Snape would do something like this."

Seeing Harriet bob her head in agreement, Hermione demanded Elara explain what she meant.

"He thrives on solitude and quiet. On the days he was meant to mind us, he sequestered himself in the potions lab and we wouldn't see him until dinner time. It's the same reason he's always going after us to obey the rules; surly as he is, Snape just wants order."

Harriet nodded again. "He's a bit…high-strung for all this."

"Exactly," Elara said. "I wouldn't write Slytherin off, despite everything he said. I think it's a student, but Slytherin usually enjoys games like this."

"It's not a game," Hermione replied. Her eyes fell to the floor, the lantern's light touching upon their glassy surface. "Especially not at the expense of Muggle-borns."

"I didn't mean it like that, Hermione."

"I know, I know."

With nothing left to say, the three witches climbed from the trunk, and were greeted by Pansy's ill-spirited taunts and Millicent's loud, unbothered snores. Harriet got ready for bed, and as she slid between her cool sheets, she tried to make sense of what she'd seen, and what she'd heard, wondering what would drive a person to paint that kind of madness on a wall. The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.

Who did it? Why? And what was going to happen now?

Harriet had no answers to any of these questions. She buried her anxious, tired head in her pillows, and tried to get some sleep.