"My late lamented lords, ladies, and gentlemen, it is my great sorrow-" but no one heard much more after that. Sir Patrick and the rest of the Headless Hunt had just started a game of Head Hockey and the crowd was turning to watch that instead.
Nick tried in vain to get the crowd back to him, but gave up and floated off, "Yeah, I agree with Hermione, let's just go," Harry said and they quickly hurried out of there.
"Pudding might not be finished yet..." Ron said, his hope was waning with every step they took.
He was leading the way when Harry stopped suddenly, like he was trying his best to listen to something.
Even clutched the stone wall, "Harry, what're you-"
"It's that voice again - shut up a minute!" Harry said to them.
"Huh, but I don't hear anything?!" But, Hermione didn't like his way of talking, even gave back a retort.
She then looked towards Lucifer, who also closed his eyes, hearing a very dark, and chilling whispers in the wall.
"Rip... tear... kill..."
"Kill... time to kill..."
"I smell blood... I SMELL BLOOD!!"
"Listen!" Harry said urgently to them.
This time it was really loud, both Harry and even Lucifer were surprised that the other two people couldn't hear. It was so clear to them.
Harry yelled again, "This way!" And he began to run up the stairs and into the Entrance Hall.
He then sprinted up the marble staircase to the First Floor, with the other three clattering behind him, while Hermione thinking he'd gone completely bonkers.
"Harry, what're we-" She started to ask, girl didn't try much exercise at home.
"SHH!" Harry shushed her. "It's going to kill someone!" He shouted, ignoring the bewildered faces of his two friends.
Lucifer, Hermione, and Ron all chased after him up the next flight of stairs, making great strides.
It was a little while of running, with Ron and Hermione being out of shape and panting when they came to stop Harry.
Lucifer was in more shape than his two friends, "Harry, what was that all about?" Ron asked, wiping sweat off his face, "I couldn't hear anything..."
But Hermione suddenly gasped, pointing down the corridor, "Look!"
Something was shining on the wall ahead of them. They approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Words that were three feet off the ground had heen dauhed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flame torches.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
Lucifer had studied the history of the 'First-Class Order of Merlin'. Outside the politicians, nearly all true recipients had been honored for saving countless lives.
Take Tilly Toke, who had shielded hundreds of Muggles during the Ilfracombe Incident of 1932. Or Hephaestus Gore, who used a simple 'Repair Charm' to restore the Colosseum, preventing exposure of the magical world.
If anyone wanted the highest class of honor, you needed a grand spectacle-a world-shaking event.
And did an idiot think writing at the wall with blood would grant you such a thing?
They were all curious as to what it could mean. "Enemies of the Heir, Beware?" Lucifer asked aloud.
"Wh-What's that thing - h-hanging underneath?" Ron asked, stuttering a little bit. As they all edged nearer to get a look because of how dark it was, Harry almost slipped. There was a large puddle of water on the floor; thankfully.
Lucifer had grabbed him, otherwise Harry would've fallen forward onto his face. They carefully inched closer to the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it.
All four of them realized what it was at once, and leapt backward with a splash except one very curious boy.
Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.
Lucifer edged closer to it and reached out his hand.
"What are you doing!?" Hermione whisper yelled. He looked back at her, then faced the paralyzed cat, and poked it.
Mrs Norris wobbled but didn't fall and stayed in the same position.
Hermione put her hands on her hips and tilted her head questioningly at Lucifer, "Really? Was that necessary?!"
"Yes?"
"Can we leave? I don't want to stick around longer than we have to..." It was Ron who opened his mouth, a very bad habit of interrupting.
"Shouldn't we try and - I dunno, help?" Harry asked awkwardly.
"Trust me, we don't want to be found here!" But, Ron said urgently.
Lucifer put Mrs. Norris down, and move towards Hermione, standing beside her. Suddenly a rumble, as though of distant thunder, told them the feast had just ended. Students would be piling in any second.
"Come on, if we hurry we can get out of here!" Ron was seriously panicked at the moment.
"It won't matter now," Lucifer tried to explain, "if we are seen running from this corridor, it'll only be worse for us..."
He was, unfortunately, right.
From either end of the corridor where they stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people.
Next moment, students were crashing into the corridor from both ends.
The chatter, the bustle, the noise died suddenly as the people in front spotted the hanging cat.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Lucifer stood alone in the middle of the corridor, as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight.
Then a familiar and hated voice shouted through the quiet, "Enemies of the Heir, Beware!" Draco Malfoy yelled as he stepped forward and smirked, "You'll be next mu---"
Lucifer's eyes blazed with fury, raising his palm immediately, halfway about breaking Malfoy's spine, but Hermione put her fingers on his forearm, and turned around, "If you attack him now," she whispered into his ear, "it'll only look worse for you..."
He knew she was right, Lucifer reluctantly put his hand down. But if this happens again, damn the rule of not killing mortals. Exceptions could be made for special cases.
They all stared at Malfoy who looked sheepish, his cold eyes and usually bloodless face flushed with color, as he grimaced at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.
It seemed he had bitten his tongue hard not to utter that word out of some childhood habit, and was guessing his own thoughts.
H was just being dramatic, but his voice cracked halfway through. Sweat ran cold down his neck as he glanced around the hall.
Only when he confirmed that Lucifer didn't look to be that angry, did he relax, releasing a shaky breath.
'The other Slytherins' shifted uncomfortably. Merlin's beard... since when had Mudblood become a forbidden word in Slytherin?
The irony of it all tugged at Dumbledore's lips who had heard it from afar, as he walked slowly. He masked it quickly, but inwardly, he marveled at the turn of fate-how theatrical the change had been.
"What's going on here?" The voice of the caretaker himself came first.
"What's going on here?" He shouldered his way through crowd, falling backwards upon seeing his cat, clutching his face in horror.
"My Cat! My Cat!' What happened to Mrs. Norris!?" He shrieked in pain, while scanning the crowd, his eyes fell upon Harry.
"You!" He screeched, glaring hatefully at this boy, "You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you-"
"Argus!"
At Dumbledore's voice, students parted to let him forward. Several other teachers were behind him. In seconds, he had swept past Harry, Ron, Lucifer, Hermione and detached Mrs. Norris from the 'torch bracket.'
Harry felt that his luck had truly hit rock bottom. Day after day of grueling Quidditch practice had left him sore and exhausted.
To make matters worse, he'd been caught by Filch for tracking mud into the castle after training---only to stumble across one of the caretaker's shameful 'little secrets.'
If not for Nearly Headless Nick's timely intervention, he might not have escaped punishment. And to repay Nick, Harry had agreed to attend the ghost's 'Deathday Party...'
It was, without a doubt, the most dreadful dinner he had ever attended in his life.
The hall was crowded with hundreds of translucent ghosts. Each time one drifted through his body, it felt as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped over him, leaving his skin clammy and bones aching from chill.
The "food" was even worse-rotting, moldy, and utterly inedible. Not that Harry dared touch it anyway.
By the time he managed to endure the evening, he'd been half-dead from hunger, planning to sneak away for a bite before the feast ended... only to walk straight into something far more terrifying.
Filch's beloved cat--'appeared to be dead.'
And of course, Filch immediately decided it was all Harry's fault.
"Come with me Argus. You too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger," he paused looking at Lucifer, "Mr. Morningstar."
Lockhart stepped forward eagerly, "My office is nearest, Headmaster- just upstairs--please feel free---"
"Thank you, Gilderoy," Dumbledore said and swept past him as well, on his way to Lockhart's office with the quartet trailing behind him.
Lockhart, looking excited and important, followed along as well, with McGonagall and Snape also close behind.
_________
As they entered Lockhart's darkened office, there was a flurry of movement across the walls.
Hermione saw several of Lockhart's in the pictures on his wall dodge out of sight, their hair filled with rollers.
She scoffed at the disgusting sight.
The real Lockhart lit some candles on his desk and stepped back.
Dumbledore laid Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged tense looks, but when they looked at Lucifer, he was looking closely at Mrs. Norris as well, but he was unmoved from his spot. They sank into some nearby chairs outside the pool of candlelight, watching.
The tip of Dumbledore's long, crooked nose was barely an inch from her fur.
He was looking at her closely through his 'half-moon spectacles', his long fingers gently prodding and poking.
Professor McGonagall was bent over, almost as close and her eyes narrowed. Professor Snape loomed somewhere behind them, half in the shadows, wearing a most peculiar expression.
It was as though he was trying his best to not smile or smirk at the situation. Lockhart, on the other hand, was hovering around them all, making ridiculous suggestions.
"It was definitely a curse that killed her--probably the Transmogrifian Torture---I've seen it used many times, so unlucky 'I wasn't there', I know the very counter-curse that would have saved her," he said smirking.
"Says the man who couldn't even handle 'Cornish Pixies," Hermione said without changing expression, looking over at Lockhart with cold eyes.
"Besides, she's not dead, she's merely petrified---" Lucifer tried to correct the Squib who looked devastated.
"Sounds like a 'confession to me!" Argus Filch said angrily.
"I do believe I know what I'm talking about, since I am the professional here---" Lockhart started to say.
"Mr. Morningstar is right. She is petrified, Argus, not 'dead," Dumbledore said, cutting off Lockhart without any way to answer back.
"It still sounds like a confession of guilt! He knew it, I say he did it! Potter probably put him up to it, he knows I---" Argus stopped yelling a moment, "He knows I'm a Squib!"
"I cannot say how she became Petrified, though," Dumbledore explained.
"Ask any of them!" Filch yelled, pointing at the four students.
"I trust every one of my students," Dumbledore said serenely. "And besides--'this curse' is of a level no child could possibly wield. We will know the truth when those petrified awaken."
Lucifer gave a little scoff, his tone laced with mock indignation, "Oh, come now, Professor. Don't underestimate us... It's a petrification curse, 'after all. Give me a little time, point me at a target, and I could knock them stiff in an instant."
The professors stared at him. The students shivered.
And Harry? He wasn't sure if Lucifer had just cleared his name... or made everything ten times worse!
Dumbledore sighed softly. Every witch and wizard present felt their eyelids twitch.
'Merlin's beard, not now!' Was Lucifer seriously boasting about mastering 'curses-here and in front of the headmaster? This was hardly the time to flex.
But his reasoning was simple. Curses were efficient. They killed swiftly and invisibly, as both the 'Defence Against the Dark Arts' professors could attest.
Dumbledore's smile held a trace of weariness, "Mr. Morningstar, what we require now is not more petrifying curses--'but a cure."
"The Restorative Draught?" Lucifer raised his brows, "Don't tell me our esteemed 'Head of Slytherin' can't brew something so basic?"
"Morningstar!" Snape snapped, his expression thunderous. "Do not insult me with beginner's concoctions. The Restorative Draught is hardly beyond me.... What we lack are the necessary ingredients. The school's mandrakes are still immature."
"Ah... so it's the ingredients you're missing..." Lucifer stopped at that, since he wasn't in hand with it either, Scamander's wife had grown a patch which she'd already sold over to a pharmacy for herbs, and used up.
All of the Lockhart portraits dove out of the way expecting something dangerous to befall them.
___________
Author's Note
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