Chapter 4 - Simply Petrified
October arrived with little to say. After supposably hearing the voice calling for death during his detention, Harry escorted back to his dorm and Cornelius searched high and low near his office for any sign of who would have apparently said it. However, he found nothing and just as much happened during the rest of September and October.
Today was October 31st and for the past week a heavy rain had thundered the castle grounds. Children caught colds and Hagrid's pumpkins grew to a rather impressive size.
Today was also Halloween and most of the students were looking forward to the Halloween feast taking place that night. The holiday held many similarities to Festival of the Lost, enough so that Cornelius could confidently say that the festival was based on Halloween traditions. Regarding this, while the rest of the castle enjoyed festive candies and decorations, the Warlock considered himself much more tame in comparison.
His classroom was only decorated with purple candles, ones that gave off a whitish purple flame. Some were even given the shape of engrams. The students gave them curious looks throughout the day, but said nothing of it. Nothing negative at least.
They learned pretty quickly that detention with him, if earned, was more exhausting than Filch's.
The classes were done for the day and the feast was beginning soon. Cornelius, however, would not be found in the Great Hall. Not yet anyway. Tonight he observed the original tradition of FotL, that being to honor the dead.
The Warlock sat crossed legged in the middle of a circle of unlit candles in the middle of his classroom. The tables and chairs had been pushed to the side to give him room. An empty book was in front of him, opened to the first blank page that would be used for this year's Book of the Forgotten. He had done this ritual with the Unspeakables the year before to honor the lives of Targe, Zavala's ghost, the reanimated Light of Cayde-6, who sacrificed himself once again, and all of the Guardians and Ghosts who died to the Witness.
He dedicated the first page to his fireteam leader, "I cast honor onto the life of Lance Nightshade, whether or not he still lives. May the Void keep him enshrouded, and his soul be kept unbound."
The first candle in the circle lit up with the purplish fire and words scrawled themselves onto the first pages of the book. The words depicted Nightshade's deeds and story, if shortened to fit within the pages.
"I cast honor onto the life of Reginald-3, whether or not he still lives. May the Void guard his soul and keep his being unbound." The next candle and pages were dedicated to his other fireteam member.
No one else was close enough to him to have a dedicated segment, not in this world or the last, so he didn't have much else to say, "May the lost lives of all those who have fallen, civilian or protector, be honored within these pages." The pages rapidly filled with the stories of those who had died, scrawling them down to be kept for generations as tradition dictated.
As the last of the candles lit, the Warlock continued to meditate in the silence of burning candles.
He didn't know how long he sat there, he never did during these rituals, but when he opened his eyes once more the candles were halfway burnt out and the night sky had completely darkened.
He sighed as he picked up the book and made it disappear in a flash, "I suppose I should check if the feast is still in session."
'If it is, it won't be for long,' Particle spoke up, 'It's nearly nine.'
He hummed and stood from his place on the floor. The candles flickered ominously in the moonlight as he left the classroom without a word. The hallways too were quiet, the eerie sort of quiet that plagued the castle on dark nights like this.
The silence could never last forever though, and as Cornelius made his way through the second floor corridor he heard the unmistakable voice of the Malfoy heir, "... next, mudbloods!"
The Warlock's sigh was full of disappointment as he quickened his pace to the crowd of students coming from the feast. What a derogatory phrase.
Students silently parted before him as he moved to the front of the crowd, "Mr Malfoy, haven't we discu…" His voice trailed off as he made it to the front of the student crowd.
Mr Potter and his friends Mr Weasley and Ms Granger were in the small clearing, as was the aforementioned Mr Malfoy, having apparently pushed his way up front. What made the Warlock stop however was the messy, red scrawling on the wall.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE
Right next to it, hanging from a torch bracket placed on the wall, was a still and seemingly lifeless cat.
'What the…' Particle stated slowly, taking the scene in.
Cornelius's eyes hardened, along with his tone as he addressed the situation then the students, "Prefects, get your houses to their common rooms, now. Don't break apart. Mr Potter," He turned to the boy, "You, Mr Weasley and Ms Granger-"
"What's going on here? What's going on?" A voice shouted, revealed to be Filch as he shouldered his way through the crowd. The man stopped at the sight of the cat and clutched his face in horror, "My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs Norris?" The man's eyes fell on the first person they could, Mr Potter, and he started yelling once more, "You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll-"
"Argus!" Cornelius stopped his march dead in its tracks, "Get a hold of yourself or I'll remove you from the situation entirely."
The caretaker's gaze fell to him, "You-"
"Listen to him, Argus." Dumbledore stated as he and several other teachers arrived on the scene. In seconds, he swept past the students and carefully took Mrs Norris down from the torch bracket, "Come with me Argus. You too Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, Ms Granger. Do you mind if we take up your office Cornelius?"
The Warlock nodded, "I'll be with you in a minute." He turned to the writing on the wall, "I'll take care of this." Dumbledore took a look at the glistening red words and nodded, grimly aware of what it could be.
The old wizard left with his party of Snape, McGonagall, Filch and the three students. The other professors, like Sprout and Flitwick, corralled the students and started to return them to their common rooms.
Meanwhile, walked up to the wall and dabbed the letters with a gauntlet covered finger. A red smudge was left on his finger.
'This is blood,' Cornelius thought, 'But Mrs Norris's fur was clean. Where did it come from?' He mentally sighed, 'You're turn then.'
A flash of light appeared in front of the Warlock, revealing Particle to the world. A few of the retreating students and staff looked on in curiosity but continued on their way to their common rooms.
A small wave of light shot out from Particle's black shell as he started to scan the writing. It didn't take long for him to have an answer, "It's avian, chicken or rooster if I had to say. It's also got a… preservation enchantment I think. To keep it from being erased."
"Mark it down for later, picture and scan." The Ghost did so and with the all clear Cornelius overpowered the enchantment and vanished the writing from the wall with a flash of purple. With the wall clear he headed back to his office, Particle floating over his shoulder.
"I might be able to reverse trace the magical signature given time." His ghost stated, calculations running through his system as he said it, "Find out who casted it."
Cornelius nodded, "Good. The sooner the better."
When he arrived back at his classroom/office he found that they had moved some of the desks back and placed the cat on the surface of one of them. Dumbledore's face was an inch away from the cat and McGonagall was not far behind. Snape stood off to the side, watching, while Filch and the children were off to the side. Filch had his head in his hands, sobbing over his pet.
Snape's head turned in Cornelius's direction at his entrance, eyebrow raising at his Ghost over his shoulder. The students did too, eyeing the Ghost with curiosity.
Dumbledore had taken out his wand and was now muttering in latin, no doubt casting detection spells over the shock still cat. So still in fact…
"Hmm…" Cornelius got close to the still cat as well, noticing how even the fur didn't move as Dumbledore's wand passed over it. It was as if the cat was made of stone.
It seemed that Particle caught on as well, as the Ghost drifted to Mrs Norris and started his own scan. Only once the small wave of light hit the cat did Dumbledore and McGonagall look up.
Dumbledore looked at the Ghost curiously, "What is that?"
"My familiar." Cornelius stated matter-of-factly, "He can do deep scans, so he helps me with things like this."
The old wizard hummed, "I've never seen a creature like that before." He muttered.
"With all due respect, Headmaster, we have more pressing concerns at the moment." Cornelius stated with a look.
"Ah, quite right. Quite right." The headmaster turned to the others in the room, specifically Filch, "She's not dead Argus."
"Not dead?" The caretaker choked, "but then why is she all stiff and frozen?"
"She's been petrified." Cornelius answered, letting his Ghost continue his scan, "Wholly and completely, but I can't see how."
"Ask him!" Filch shrieked, turning to Mr Potter.
Dumbledore shook his head firmly, "No second year could have done this. It would take advanced dark magic-"
"He did it, he did it!" Filch spat, his face purpling, "You saw what he wrote on the wall! He found… in my office… he knows I'm a… I'm a…" Filch stuttered with mixed emotions, "He knows I'm a Squib!" He finally finished.
"I never touched Mrs Norris!" Harry stated loudly, "And I don't even know what a Squib is."
"I doubt Mr Potter was the one to write that message." Cornelius stated, "Even if he could get all the blood off of his hands that quickly, I doubt Ms Granger and Mr Weasley would be comfortable or willing to help gather the amount needed to coat the wall so thoroughly."
The others looked alarmed at his words, "Blood? All of that was blood?" McGonagall questioned.
Cornelius nodded, "Chicken blood, but blood all the same."
The three students went green at the thought.
"If I may speak." Snape spoke from the back of the room, stepping carefully around the ring of candles on the floor, "Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time." A slight sneer crossed his face, "But it is suspicious, don't you think. Why were they in the upstairs corridor at all? Why weren't they at the Halloween feast?"
That piqued the Warlock's interest. They weren't at the feast?
The trio started to explain that they were apparently at Sir Nickolas's Deathday Party, but Snape interjected at the end, "But why not join the feast after? Why go to that corridor?"
Ms Granger and Mr Weasley looked to Mr Potter as he started to stutter out and explanation, "Because…" He paused, as if thinking of an excuse, "We were tired and wanted to go to bed."
"Without any supper?" Snape said, a triumphant smile flickering across his face, "I didn't think ghosts provided food fit for living people at their parties."
"We weren't hungry," Mr Weasley retorted loudly, followed by his stomach giving a huge rumble.
Snape's smile widened, "I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful. It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel he should be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team until he is ready to be honest."
"Really, Severus." McGonagall followed sharply, "I see no reason to stop the boy playing Quidditch. This cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter has done anything wrong."
Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look before speaking, "Innocent until proven guilty, Severus." He said firmly.
"Be that as it may," Cornelius stated, "I do agree that Mr Potter is hiding something." The boy shrank at Cornelius's gaze, "But it would probably be best to take care of that later."
Snape looked furious. So did Filch.
"My cat has been Petrified!" The caretaker shrieked, "I want to see some punishment!"
"We will be able to cure her, Argus." Dumbledore said patiently, "Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made which will revive Mrs Norris."
Cornelius turned to his Ghost, "What do you say, Particle? Anything?"
"Well," The Ghost started, all gazes turning to him, "From what I've picked up, Mrs Norris here is, well, petrified. More specifically though, it seems as if every cell in her body has been targeted. It's not just her body that's frozen, it's as if every cell and atom has been locked in stasis by a localized field of magic. Not even cell death is occurring. It's almost like she has been trapped in a temporal lock of some kind."
Cornelius hummed as he stepped closer to his Ghost, ignoring the gazes of the others, "And the integrity of said field?"
"Solid, but not the strongest we've seen."
"Chances of successful suppression?"
"If you target the magic around the head it should be enough to collapse the entire spell structure, so about 95% chance of success" Particle answered back and Cornelius hovered his hand over the cat's head.
"Now Cornelius-" Dumbledore, figuring out he was attempting something, tried to stop him but the headmaster spoke a second too late.
A very light wave of purple washed over the cat, just barely concentrated to not cause any unintentional damage. Cornelius felt the Void energy collide with opposing energy and met a second of resistance before it was swept away and devoured.
To the surprise of all in the room besides the Guardian and his Ghost, Mrs Norris suddenly came to life in a scramble of legs and hissing. She flailed for a second before running to her master who sobbed at her sudden life.
"Incredible." Dumbledore muttered, "I've never seen magic quite like that."
"Family magic." Cornelius gave the answer to the unspoken question, and Dumbledore hummed in answer. The Warlock felt that the headmaster would question him more later though.
"Well then," The headmaster stated, "With that concern out of the way, I think it best to send these three off to bed."
And so the students and staff slowly split apart too, each one tense with the knowledge that this was probably far from over. For now at the very least, it was time to do some research.
Just what exactly was the 'Chamber of Secrets'?
\-/
The Chamber, as it turns out, was a sort of myth of the castle. A legend from the funding of Hogwarts pertaining to a secret chamber made by Salazar Slytherin that held some sort of beast that only his heir could release/control.
Even after all this time, it had still not been found. If it was real that is.
It was rumored that the chamber was actually opened to a similar manner as it was fifty years ago, in 1942. Several students had been petrified and one, a Myrtle Warren, had been killed.
That name felt familiar for some odd reason, but he couldn't quite place it.
In the end, Hagrid had been convicted of the crime, but with no evidence and only the word of a student, Tom Riddle, Hagrid served no time in Azkaban. He did, however, get his wand snapped.
With Cornelius being able to unpetrify Mrs Norris and the writing on the wall gone, the school seemed only a little tense and soon most put the incident behind them. The teachers and a select few students, however, did not relax.
With the only witness being a cat, he couldn't exactly do a proper investigation, and Mr Potter was still being tight lipped about whatever he was hiding that night. He earned himself a detention for it, but not much else could be done.
The blood, they found out the next morning, had come from Hagrid's flock of roosters and chickens. Again, no witnesses and the tracks were covered well.
So the days passed by with no leads, but also no further incidents. Cornelius made sure to include proper warnings to his students about not traveling alone, but without proper cause there was no reason to inflict any restrictions across the student body.
Soon, it was the first Saturday of November that the Slytherin and Gryffindor Quidditch teams faced off against each other.
When Cornelius suggested the game be put on hold due to the weather, a surprisingly passionate McGonagall vetoed it. Apparently, it just wasn't done, no matter the weather.
So here he was, sat in the teacher's section of the bleachers on a no doubt soon to be rainy day.
The crowd cheered and booed in equal measure as the teams stepped out onto the field. The two captains shook hands in a rough manner and the game started. The Warlock half listened to the announcer, Lee Jordan, call out plays and passes and kept his eyes watching the field in a lazy manner. The only reason he was really here was because it was apparently mandatory.
He never was one for sports.
The game quickly picked up, however, as one of the Bludgers started to chase Mr Potter high above the field. The first pass gave no indication something was wrong, but when it turned around sharply and made another pass, some of the teachers started muttering. By the fifth time it made an attempt at Harry's head Cornelius was ready to spring.
"Someone's rigged it." Particle, now out in the open more often than not, stated as he tracked the ball.
"He just can't seem to avoid trouble, now can't he." Cornelius stated as he stood, only to be stopped by Snape of all people.
"Do not interfere with the match." The Potions Master stated.
Cornelius merely raised an eyebrow in a are-you-serious manner, "You do realize that thing is trying to kill him right?"
"I am aware, and so is Dumbledore." Snape responded, "The answer is still the same. We will step in if necessary."
The Warlock shook his head in astonishment and headed down to the field anyway, "Then I won't interfere. I'll just be there for when he falls."
And fall he did.
After a quick time out and more of the game played through the now raining sky, the rogue Bludger managed to finally hit Mr Potter in the arm, clearly breaking it. As the ball came around for another hit, the boy entered a semi-controlled dive, passing the Malfoy heir and lashing out with his good hand. He saw the flash of gold as Mr Jordan announced the catch.
With a wave of magic, Cornelius slowed Mr Potter's fall to a crawl. As he touched the ground, the Bludger close behind, the Warlock got in between the ball and the boy and intercepted it with a palm strike.
The Bludger, in response, shattered into a thousand pieces around the pitch.
The Gryffindor team landed around them as Cornelius and Particle started to go over the injury. The only words out of Harry's mouth before he fainted being, "Ah, we've won."
The rest was quick work. Getting Mr Potter to the hospital wing, mending his arm with a quick spell, and sending him along with the other Gryffindor team members to bed.
Though he was sure they planned to spend the night celebrating Mr Potter catching the Snitch.
An investigation into who cursed the Bludger was launched, but it went nowhere fast. He probably shouldn't have destroyed the ball.
Cornelius found himself awake late into the night, standing in front of a board set up in his office adjacent to his classroom. Covering the board were notes and a few images pertaining to what he knew about the Heir of Slytherin, the Chamber of Secrets, and the past petrifications. Things like the writing on the wall, the killed roosters, how it had only happened when the students were alone those fifty years ago.
Patrols of the castle, searching high and low revealed some secret passages but none near the scene of Mrs Norris's petrification. Certainly nothing pertaining to an unknown creature was found.
If it was actually the chamber like it was being made out to be, and the heir of the Slytherin line was the one responsible, then what could that mean? Would it be cliche to say it was the work of a serpent like creature in that case? If that was the case, then the range of suspect creatures was incredibly small, less than a handful really.
In fact, if he took into account the small flood, more of a water spill than anything else, than he could probably count indirect looks into the occasion if he assumed the petrification happened on sight. Could it really be that though? Those creatures were supposed to be massive…
A knock rapped on his classroom door, surprising the Warlock.
'Just who would be up at this hour?'
An unpleasant feeling came over him as he made it to the door. This couldn't be anything good.
Sure enough, the headmaster was on the other side of the door in his dressing gown and nightcap with bad news, "A student has been petrified."
