The nice thing about their detention being the result of having come to Hermione's defence was that Hermione did her best to distract Harry and Ron from thinking about it for the rest of the day. It would have been very in-character of her to support their getting into trouble for breaking the rules, but there was no hint of that from their best friend. She somehow even managed to convince Ron to let her paint his fingernails while Susan did the same for Harry. With a Puddlemere match coming up, Harry requested blue and gold, giving Susan artistic license with any kind of pattern.
"Erm… I guess whatever you like," Ron told Hermione when she asked if he had any preferences, and they all shared a look conveying their knowledge that Ron was likely going to scrape it all off the first moment he got. Determined to still do her best, Hermione clearly tried to appease Ron's stylistic sensibilities, using only black and white paint and somehow managing to create a more masculine look than Harry would have thought possible, although his own nails did the job as well.
At a few minutes to eight, Harry wished Ron good luck and watched him walk away towards McGonagall's office, little specks of black and white cascading from him as he disappeared around the corner. Harry dragged his feet along the second-floor corridor leading to Lockhart's office, the door of which opened the moment Harry knocked, Lockhart beaming down at him.
"Ah, here's the scalawag!" he said. "Come in, Harry, come in —"
Shining brightly on the walls by the light of many candles were countless framed photographs of Lockhart. He had even signed a few of them. Another large pile lay on his desk.
"You can address the envelopes!" Lockhart told Harry, as though this was a huge treat. "This first one's to Gladys Gudgeon, bless her — huge fan of mine —"
The minutes snailed by. Harry let Lockhart's voice wash over him, occasionally saying, "Mmm" and "Right" and "Yeah." Now and then he caught a phrase like, "Fame's a fickle friend, Harry," or "Celebrity is as celebrity does, remember that."
The candles burned lower and lower, making the light dance over the many moving faces of Lockhart watching him. Harry moved his aching hand over what felt like the thousandth envelope, writing out Veronica Smethley's address. It must be nearly time to leave, Harry thought miserably, please let it be nearly time…
And then he heard something — something quite apart from the spitting of the dying candles and Lockhart's prattle about his fans. It was a voice, a voice to chill the bone marrow, a voice of breathtaking, ice-cold venom.
"Come… come to me… Let me rip you… Let me tear you… Let me kill you…"
Harry shot up from his seat, knocking over the inkwell and drowning Veronica Smethley's address in a pool of blue ink.
"Careful now — don't let the excitement get to you!" Lockhart said at once, working to manage the ink continuing to spill across the desk.
Harry's hearing was on full alert, and it did not take long before he had to reach out and clasp a hand on top of Lockhart's, stilling his noisy movements so that Harry could listen better. After a few seconds of no further sign of the voice, during which Lockhart attempted in vain to extricate his hands from under Harry's vice-like grip, Harry relented and let him go.
"What was that voice?" Harry asked, looking around for any sign of where it had come from.
Lockhart was looking at Harry in high astonishment.
"What are you talking about, Harry? Perhaps you're getting a little drowsy? Great Scott — look at the time! We've been here nearly four hours! I'd never have believed it — the time's flown, hasn't it?"
Harry didn't answer. He was still straining his ears to hear the voice again, but there were no unexpected sounds now except for Lockhart telling him he mustn't expect a treat like this every time he got detention. As the man went on about the late hour and began showing Harry out of the office, Harry continued to try to listen for the voice. When a clearly disturbed Lockhart finally managed to practically push Harry into the hallway and close the door in his face, Harry stood in silence for a full minute before giving up on the voice returning.
If it had been a benign message being communicated through whatever means this had been, Harry would have still been curious for some time, but would not have considered it urgent. But with the violent nature of the words, and their unknown origin, Harry knew he should go to Dumbledore about it. He started walking quickly to get to the staircase, already composing exactly what he would say, before he stopped. He had promised to go through his head of house, Professor McGonagall, the next time he needed to talk to Dumbledore.
With a sigh of resignation, Harry spun on the spot and began moving towards McGonagall's office instead, managing to keep himself from running despite his urge to do so, and continuing to try and listen for the voice, which did not return by the time Harry found himself outside McGonagall's door. He knocked.
When Professor McGonagall opened the door and saw Harry, she at first adopted an annoyed expression before apparently noticing his distress.
"Potter — what's wrong? Come inside."
Harry obeyed, McGonagall peering into the corridor to look for any sign of what was clearly bothering Harry. He walked past her to see Ron at a tea table, his wand out and trained on what appeared to be a Quidditch board game Harry had seen advertised but had never seen in person. On the table was a small replica of a Quidditch pitch, complete with players, balls, and a scoreboard, which read that the "Ron's" were losing to the "McGonagalls" 210-40.
Behind Ron, on a shelf, were several dessert trays which had clearly been eaten from.
"This was your detention?" Harry could not stop himself from asking.
Clearly confused at Harry's appearance, Ron's expression changed to one of apprehended mischief, a meek smile playing through. He shrugged.
"Yeah, but she's destroying me," Ron said, gesturing to the scoreboard.
"Potter, what is this about?" McGonagall asked as she closed the door and walked back in.
Harry spun around. "Please, Professor — the headmaster asked that I come to you if anything else happened regarding all that stuff with Dobby this year and… something happened just now."
"Which is what?" McGonagall asked at once.
Harry, calculating that it would take just as long to simply tell her as it would have to argue that he wanted to wait for Dumbledore, reported on what he had heard. After listening, McGonagall looked at him for a moment before crossing the room to peer up at a small portrait.
"Avery," she said to the portrait, and the wizard painted within perked up at once from the newspaper he had been reading. "Please inform Professor Dumbledore that I must speak with him at once."
"Aye, Minerva," Avery said loudly, and got up from his chair with no small amount of difficulty and bounded out of frame.
Harry had known about portraits and the magic with which the best of them were imbued, capturing the personality and memories of their subjects, and allowing for movement from one picture frame to another, if the portraits of the same subject were properly created and linked, which was no small feat. Creating such a portrait required just as much talent and skill, if not more, than it took for Muggle artists to create what would be considered an artistic masterpiece. It was not until just this moment that Harry began to think about how the magic might also be used to improve the speed with which witches and wizards could communicate with one another, outside of being able to commission a pair of portraits.
"Potter!"
Harry had become distracted by his thoughts, which had begun calculating and planning the methods and magic he had started to envision. He blinked, finding both McGonagall and Ron looking at him with some concern. He thought back what had been said during the last few seconds.
"Sorry. Got distracted. All right, then," he said, agreeing to use McGonagall's fireplace to Floo to Dumbledore's office while McGonagall escorted Ron back to the Gryffindor common room. All common rooms had just been locked down, out of caution.
He took a handful of Floo Powder and tossed it into the fireplace, the flames erupting into green. Harry stepped in and turned around, seeing McGonagall looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Headmaster's office!" Harry said, and felt himself being twisting away. It was a far shorter trip than usual; Harry knew there were select Fireplaces at Hogwarts connected to the official Floo Network, but now wondered if there was also a self-contained network within the castle — something he had never read about. As he was expunged out of Dumbledore's fireplace, Harry focused his attention on the here and now, not wanting to allow himself to become distracted again.
Dumbledore was walking across the office as Harry arrived. He did not break stride, but acknowledged Harry's arrival with a welcoming gesture towards his desk. After their tutoring sessions, Dumbledore by now knew that Harry sometimes preferred to be on his feet to think, and this was definitely one of those times. The headmaster sat in his chair, while Harry stood behind the offered armchair, gripping the back of it with his hands.
"Tell me what happened," Dumbledore said, his tone revealing a hint of concern, in Harry's opinion.
Harry repeated what he had told McGonagall, leaving no detail out. When he was done, Dumbledore continued looking at him for several seconds, his mind clearly elsewhere.
"Thinking back," Dumbledore eventually said, "Can you determine the source of the voice, by which I mean the location in relation to Professor Lockhart's office?"
Harry considered the question, placing himself back into the memory and attempting to ascertain as much.
"It… It doesn't seem to make much sense, sir," Harry said. "It wasn't just randomly in my head…" Harry tapped the side of his head, and then shook it. He had at first thought of the voice as something akin to his visions, which he normally experienced across all of his senses. This voice, he now realized, had been solely auditory, with none of his other senses having picked up anything. "It seemed as though it was coming from… the walls… as if it was coming from the castle itself…"
Dumbledore continued looking at him for a while, seemingly perplexed. Harry had no further explanation, and so did not try to offer any. After looking at Harry for a few more seconds, Dumbledore stood up and walked directly to a black cabinet in the corner of the office. He opened it and returned to his desk, placing upon it a shallow stone basin with odd carvings around the edge: runes and symbols that Harry recognized but had never seen in such configurations.
"This is something of my own invention, which I call a Pensieve," Dumbledore explained. "It allows a witch or wizard to place into it any memories they wish to examine, un-tethered from the burdens and attachments of their other thoughts."
For a moment, Harry marvelled at the Pensieve, thinking about how useful such a thing would be to him, ironically distracting him from his attention to the current moment. He sat down in the chair now and doubled his efforts to stay focused as Dumbledore continued talking.
"One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form."
Harry nodded, and watched as Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it — but then Harry saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of a strange silvery-white substance. Dumbledore placed what Harry surmised was likely a thought into the basin, only to see the surface of the liquid in the Pensieve shimmer until there was an image of his own face swimming around the surface of the bowl, clearly showing the moment that Harry had entered this office just a few minutes earlier. Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side of the Pensieve and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would pan for fragments of gold. The memory responded accordingly, warping and rippling and eventually clearing until it ran its course within the basin, leading to the Harry in the Pensieve grabbing onto the chair, then eventually fading away.
"It is completely harmless and non-intrusive to any other memories or thoughts," Dumbledore told Harry. "One only has to —"
The headmaster stopped talking when Harry drew his wand and pointed the tip at his temple. He had felt the magic that Dumbledore had called upon when he had extracted his own memory, and did as much now with the memory of the voice from Lockhart's office. After a few seconds, he managed to pull away a similar-looking but not identical strand of silver-white… something from his own mind. If he had done it correctly, this should be his memory of the voice. It clung to his wand tip as though connected by static cling, but when he moved his wand towards the Pensieve, it was pulled into it as though magnetized. Lowering his wand, Harry saw enough on the surface of the basin to know that he had transferred the memory successfully.
For a moment, Professor Dumbledore was silent, watching Harry's memory swirl and settle within the Pensieve; then he looked up into Harry's eyes with a most inquisitive expression. After a few seconds, his head gave the slightest of shakes and he seemed to refocus.
"Do I have your permission to view this memory?" he asked Harry.
"Yes sir," Harry said after a brief hesitation, realizing that he had jumped into this rather blindly. He thought back on what Dumbledore had said about other memories being separate from whatever was placed into the Pensieve. "It's… it's just the memory I selected that you can see, sir?" He felt awkward even asking, but Dumbledore's expression seemed to show that he understood Harry's concern.
"Yes, Harry. Purely the experience, with no part of any inner-monologue you might have had during it. Consider it a home video of sorts, for wizards."
Harry looked at the Pensieve, understanding the headmaster's reference and finding himself impressed that the man was in touch enough with Muggle technology to make it. He nodded.
"All right," he said.
Dumbledore mirrored Harry's nod and positioned the Pensieve so that it was directly between the two of them on the desk.
"It is possible, with the Pensieve, to project the memory above the surface, but I find it a much more immersive experience to delve headfirst into the moment. All one has to do it make physical contact with the liquid. After you…"
He gestured towards the surface of the silvery liquid within the Pensieve. After only a moment of hesitation, Harry reached his hand out, looking to Dumbledore for approval at his method and, upon seeing it, tapped his fingertip upon the surface.
At once, Harry felt himself flipping forwards, even as he knew that his physical body was stationary within Dumbledore's office. Once he had differentiated between his mind and body, he allowed himself to fully experience the reality the Pensieve was showing him. It was as if he were standing in the corner of Lockhart's office during his detention, observing himself sitting across from Lockhart, working to write out Veronica Smethley's address onto an envelope. Harry did not notice when Dumbledore appeared, but he was present nonetheless.
"Come… come to me… Let me rip you… Let me tear you… Let me kill you…"
The voice was exactly as Harry remembered it, but… shallower. The Pensieve offered an exact recreation of the memory, but not precisely the entirety of what Harry had felt during it. It was odd. Harry turned to Dumbledore to see his reaction to it, and was shocked to see Dumbledore's mouth hanging open. The headmaster drew his wand and moved it through the air to make the memory rewind itself and play forward again once, twice, then three times. During each pass, Harry worked to find any new information, but gained none. Nothing about the memory told him anything new. He looked up at the phantom Dumbledore experiencing this with him, only to find the headmaster's expression revealing the opposite of what Harry felt. Clearly, something about this had a profound meaning to Dumbledore, who now reached out to Harry's elbow.
"That will do."
Harry felt his awareness being pulled back to Dumbledore's office; he took in a sharp breath of air and continued breathing deeply until he recognized the psychosomatic nature of the response and stopped. Across the desk, Dumbledore was still looking at the Pensieve as if it were still providing information, despite its surface being black and featureless. After a few moments of silence, he lowered his fingers from his face and spoke.
"The voice you heard… in what language would you say it was speaking?"
Harry furrowed his brow, confused by the question. Granted, he had learned several languages, before he even knew of magic and after, but the voice in the memory —
"Oh my god," Harry said, suddenly shocked. "It was… it was Parseltongue!"
He had not noticed anything which would lead him to this conclusion until Dumbledore had pointed it out. Reviewing the memory now, Harry wanted to slap himself. It was so obvious. The voice he had heard had not been speaking in English, but rather the language of snakes, which Harry had been able to understand for as long as he could remember. It was not unlike his ability to communicate with all living creatures, but was relegated solely to snakes and their physical hissing sounds, which he was able to interpret and respond to in kind. The first time he had noticed it was at Dudley's fifth birthday party, which Aunt Petunia had arranged to take place at Bradgate Park. An adder had wandered into their picnic area, and Harry had heard it say something about it being annoyed at their presence scaring away the mice in the area. Harry had responded to the snake, suggesting it check for mice in the underbrush nearby in which Harry had seen movement, when Aunt Petunia had freaked out, pulling everyone away from their location and setting Harry upon a swing for the rest of the party.
"It was a snake," Harry said now, looking at Dumbledore, who nodded.
"Most assuredly," Dumbledore said. "It took even me a moment to recognize it, so please do not feel inadequate in that regard."
It was a perfect thing to say, as Harry was feeling exactly inadequate at not having recognized as much.
"Okay… so… so is it not… a problem?" Harry asked. It seemed reasonable that snakes would find their way into Hogwarts, and might actually contribute to the castle's control of any pests.
Dumbledore wiggled his head in an infuriatingly indecisive motion.
"As headmaster of Hogwarts, I am privy to every aspect of the castle's security, including its infestations and the responses of such, all predetermined and thought of by witches and wizards who lived generations before I was even born. The general notion of a snake, such as it is, was thought of and dealt with hundreds of years before you or I stepped foot in this castle. To be blunt, there should not be one single creature present at Hogwarts unless a certified staff member brought it into the castle. The revelation that there clearly is as much is… concerning."
Harry sat back in his chair, taking that in. He had come to Dumbledore to share information and potentially find answers. To hear that the headmaster was disturbed by what he presented was not encouraging.
"Parseltongue, as I imagine you already know, is an unusual skill. I have only managed to understand the basics of the language, but cannot speak it. To be fluent in the language is something of a rarity amongst wizardkind."
Harry slumped in his chair. "Oh," he said. "I… erm… I actually didn't know that."
For a while, Dumbledore looked at him. There were moments when the headmaster looked around his office at some of the strange and likely self-made magical equipment around the room, and Harry got the impression that Dumbledore wanted to use some of it, but refrained from doing so. He did this now before refocusing on Harry.
"I am extremely grateful that you have brought this to my attention," Dumbledore said, standing up. "I will investigate this occurrence and will ascertain its significance. Your forthrightness does not go unnoticed. Fifty points are awarded to Gryffindor. I believe Professor McGonagall is waiting outside to escort you back to your common room."
Harry nodded, standing up and walking to the door.
"Goodnight, sir," he said, turning his head with his hand on the door handle. His eye caught the Sorting Hat, sitting on its shelf behind the headmaster's desk. For whatever reason, that image set off a vision, something Harry had not experienced in months.
It was blurry around the edges, and less vibrant overall than his visions usually were, but he saw the Sorting Hat, a bird of some kind flying away from him, and then… he could not see it, but felt in his hands something metallic. It seemed absurd, but it felt like a sword handle. Looking down at his hand in the vision, he saw the briefest flash of silver and jewels before the vision vanished entirely.
Dumbledore had gotten up as Harry was leaving, his attention now on one of the instruments Harry had noticed him eyeing earlier. He showed no sign of having noticed Harry's momentary vision.
"Goodnight, Harry," Dumbledore said, and Harry left.
October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the parts of the castle Harry had not yet reinforced with Comfort Runes. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Her Pepperup Potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. Ginny Weasley, who had been looking pale, was bullied into taking some by Percy one morning at the Gryffindor breakfast table. The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire.
Somewhat entranced by the image, Harry watched her for a while, thinking that Ginny's pale complexion and overall demeanour could be more serious than a common cold.
"Is everything going all right, Ginny?" Harry asked her.
Ginny, who had been quiet until now, looked at Harry with wide eyes before responding.
"Yes! I'm just still getting used to everything!"
Her response was so loud that it captured the attention of the entire Gryffindor table, its occupants nodding and muttering understandingly until Harry did the same, turning his attention back to his friends.
"Are you still on for Puddlemere, tonight?" Hermione asked Harry, selecting and placing fresh croissants onto hers, Harry's, and Ron's plates.
"Yeah," Harry said, buttering the croissant she had given him. "I won't be back until… well, I was going to say late in the evening but who knows — it could end up being late tomorrow morning!"
Hermione nodded. "Well, we'll all be with you in spirit," she said.
Harry gave her an appreciative smile. At first, Harry missed having his friends in the stands to root for him when he was playing for Puddlemere, but he quickly became a favourite with Puddlemere Uni fans, and soon there were even more people cheering him on than he ever heard flying for Gryffindor.
They were set to play the Falmouth Fledglings tonight, and the odds were currently against Puddlemere, despite their record thus far. Falmouth was a cut above the other teams in the league this year, the majority of their starting players coming into the season at sixteen years of age. It was good news for this year, but Harry (and the coaches, and the fans, and the sponsors, and the players) recognized the coming disaster for the team next year, when they would essentially have to start from scratch with new players. Gemma had already been approached by one of the Falmouth recruiters, reporting that it had been a very casual conversation, but everyone on the team agreed that he had been trying to groom her for a switch to the Fledglings.
"Win or don't come back," Ron said now to Harry, stealing three sausage links from his plate.
Harry looked at him, grinning. "I'll try," he said, disappointed in himself for not having enough confidence to promise anything else.
By the time the match was over that evening, Harry was quite glad to have kept Ron's expectations low, and that everyone was asleep by the time it was over. Ron had told Harry that he was going to set up his Wireless Wall in the common room so all of Gryffindor could watch, and after losing 360-40, Harry had no interest in hearing anyone's thoughts on the match, sympathetic as they might be.
He had Apparated as soon as he could, shoving his equipment into his bag and sending it home with a wave of his wand. He had seen Toory and Zeely before the match, but knew he was in no mood they would enjoy seeing now, Apparating directly back to Hogwarts without even saying goodbye to his teammates, who were just as silent and disappointed as he was.
Four different times, Harry had seen the Snitch and felt he could have captured it, but Uni had been down by more than 150 points each time, so Harry had waited. By the end of the match, he was quite beside himself with frustration at having only one strategy left to try and help his team, which was to keep the Falmouth Seeker from finding the Snitch.
Now walking from the Hogwarts gates to the castle, raindrops the size of bullets thundering around him and into him, Harry welcomed the sensation, and felt he deserved as much after failing at his one job, and letting Atul Patel capture the Snitch. He reached the castle drenched to the skin and splattered with mud.
As Harry squelched along a deserted corridor, he came across somebody who looked just as preoccupied as he was. Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring morosely out of a window, muttering under his breath, "…don't fulfil their requirements… half an inch, if that…"
"Hi, Nick," said Harry, thinking it far too rude to just pass him by without saying as much.
"Hello, hello," said Nearly Headless Nick, starting and looking round. He wore a dashing, plumed hat on his long curly hair, and a tunic with a ruff, which concealed the fact that his neck was almost completely severed. He was pale as smoke, and Harry could see right through him to the dark sky and torrential rain outside.
"You look troubled, young Potter," said Nick, folding a transparent letter as he spoke and tucking it inside his doublet.
"So do you," said Harry.
"Ah," Nearly Headless Nick waved an elegant hand, "a matter of no importance… It's not as though I really wanted to join… Thought I'd apply, but apparently I 'don't fulfil requirements' —"
In spite of his airy tone, there was a look of great bitterness on his face.
"But you would think, wouldn't you," he erupted suddenly, pulling the letter back out of his pocket, "that getting hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe would qualify you to join the Headless Hunt?"
"Oh — yes," said Harry, who was obviously supposed to agree.
"I mean, nobody wishes more than I do that it had all been quick and clean and my head had come off properly. I mean, it would have saved me a great deal of pain and ridicule. However—"
Nearly Headless Nick shook his letter open and read somewhat furiously:
"'We can only accept huntsmen whose heads have parted company with their bodies. You will appreciate that it would be impossible otherwise for members to participate in hunt activities such as Horseback Head- Juggling and Head Polo. It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must inform you that you do not fulfill our requirements.
With very best wishes, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore.'"
Fuming, Nearly Headless Nick stuffed the letter away.
"Half an inch of skin and sinew holding my neck on, Harry! Most people would think that's good and beheaded, but oh, no, it's not enough for Sir Properly Decapitated-Podmore."
Nearly Headless Nick took several deep breaths and then said, in a far calmer tone, "So — what's bothering you? Anything I can do?"
Harry took a deep breath and sighed loudly. "No, I'm just pouting about Quidditch. Nothing as important as all that." He gestured to the letter in Nick's pocket, feeling a little embarrassed at feeling sorry for himself when Nick's troubles seemed to be far worse. He was about to inquire more about Nick's situation when there was a high-pitched mewling from somewhere near his ankles. He looked down and found himself gazing into a pair of lamp-like yellow eyes. It was Mrs. Norris, the skeletal gray cat who was used by the caretaker, Argus Filch, as a sort of early warning system in his endless battle against students.
"You'd better get out of here, Harry," Nick said at once. "Filch isn't in a good mood — he's got a cold and some third years accidentally plastered frog brains all over the ceiling in dungeon five. He's been cleaning all evening, and if he sees you dripping mud all over the place…"
"Right," said Harry, backing away from the accusing stare of Mrs. Norris, but not quickly enough. Drawn to the spot by the mysterious power that seemed to connect him with his cat, Argus Filch burst suddenly through a tapestry to Harry's right, wheezing and looking wildly about for the rule-breaker. There was a thick tartan scarf bound around his head, and his nose was unusually purple.
"Filth!" he shouted, his jowls aquiver, his eyes popping alarmingly as he pointed at the muddy puddle that had dripped from Harry's robes. "Mess and muck everywhere! I've had enough of it, I tell you! Follow me, Potter!"
Harry waved a gloomy good-bye to Nearly Headless Nick and followed Filch back downstairs, doubling the number of muddy footprints on the floor and mentally kicking himself for making a mess in the first place.
Harry had never been inside Filch's office before; it was a place most students avoided. The room was dingy and windowless, lit by a single oil lamp dangling from the low ceiling. A faint smell of fried fish lingered about the place. Wooden filing cabinets stood around the walls; from their labels, Harry could see that they contained details of every pupil Filch had ever punished. Fred and George Weasley had an entire drawer to themselves. A highly polished collection of chains and manacles hung on the wall behind Filch's desk. It was common knowledge that he was always begging Dumbledore to let him suspend students by their ankles from the ceiling.
Filch grabbed a quill from a pot on his desk and began shuffling around looking for parchment.
"Dung," he muttered furiously, "great sizzling dragon bogies… frog brains… rat intestines… I've had enough of it… make an example… where's the form… yes…"
He retrieved a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and stretched it out in front of him, dipping his long black quill into the ink pot.
"Name… Harry Potter. Crime…"
"I don't think mud is considered a crime," said Harry.
"It's only a bit of mud to you, boy, but to me it's an extra hour scrubbing!" shouted Filch, a drip shivering unpleasantly at the end of his bulbous nose. "Crime… befouling the castle… suggested sentence…"
Dabbing at his streaming nose, Filch squinted unpleasantly at Harry, who looked back at him with no expression, just wanting him to finish so he could head upstairs to feel sorry for himself.
But as Filch lowered his quill, there was a great BANG! on the ceiling of the office, which made the oil lamp rattle.
"PEEVES!" Filch roared, flinging down his quill in a transport of rage. "I'll have you this time, I'll have you!"
And without a backward glance at Harry, Filch ran flat-footed from the office, Mrs. Norris streaking alongside him.
Peeves was the school poltergeist, a grinning, airborne menace who lived to cause havoc and distress. Harry didn't much like Peeves, but couldn't help feeling grateful for his timing. Hopefully, whatever Peeves had done (and it sounded as though he had wrecked something very big this time) would distract Filch from Harry.
Thinking that he should probably wait for Filch to come back, lest he get into even more trouble, Harry sank into a moth-eaten chair next to the desk. There was only one thing on it apart from his half-completed form: a large, glossy, purple envelope with silver lettering on the front. With a quick glance at the door to check that Filch wasn't on his way back, Harry stood and turned his head around so he could read the envelope right-side-up:
K WIKSPELL
A Correspondence Course in Beginners' Magic
Harry grimaced. He had thought the envelope might simply be something mildly interesting to look at while waiting. If he had known it would be something this personal, he would not have read any of it. Kwikspell, Harry knew, was a mail-away course offering to build the skills of anyone struggling to use magic. Harry also knew that the program was a complete sham, preying upon those whose magical abilities were simply not as strong as the average witch or wizard, or those who had been born Squibs, which was like the opposite of a Muggle-born, being someone born to wizarding parents but with no discernible magical ability. If Filch was unqualified enough with magic to try a Kwikspell course, it would explain a lot about his methods for maintaining the castle, which Harry had never seen include any use of magic outside of pre-prepared cleaning supplies.
The shuffling sound of footsteps outside the office gave Harry just enough warning to get back around the desk and into his seat, which he fell into just as the door opened.
Filch was looking triumphant.
"That vanishing cabinet was extremely valuable!" he was saying gleefully to Mrs. Norris. "We'll have Peeves out this time, my sweet —"
His eyes fell on Harry and then darted to the Kwikspell envelope, which Harry knew he was doing a terrible job of not looking at with any kind of nonchalance.
Filch's pasty face went brick red. Harry braced himself for a tidal wave of fury. Filch hobbled across to his desk, snatched up the envelope, and threw it into a drawer.
"Have you — did you read —?" he sputtered.
"No," Harry lied quickly.
Filch's knobbly hands were twisting together.
"If I thought you'd read my private — not that it's mine — for a friend — be that as it may — however —"
Harry was staring at him, alarmed; Filch had never looked madder. His eyes were popping, a tic was going in one of his pouchy cheeks, and the tartan scarf didn't help.
"Very well — go — and don't breathe a word — not that — however, if you didn't read — go now, I have to write up Peeves's report — go —"
Harry paused for the briefest of moments, contemplating whether or not he should offer to clean up the muddy footprints he had left everywhere. It would take him no time at all, using magic. Looking into Filch's twitching face, he abandoned the idea and sped out of the office without another word, up the corridor, and back upstairs to the entrance hall.
"Harry! Harry! Did it work?"
Nearly Headless Nick came gliding out of a classroom. Behind him, Harry could see the wreckage of a large black-and-gold cabinet that appeared to have been dropped from a great height.
"I persuaded Peeves to crash it right over Filch's office," said Nick eagerly. "Thought it might distract him —"
"That was you?" said Harry gratefully. "It worked perfectly; I didn't even get detention. Thanks, Nick!"
They set off up the corridor together. Nearly Headless Nick, Harry noticed, was now holding Sir Patrick's rejection letter again.
"I wish there was something I could do for you about the Headless Hunt," Harry said.
Nearly Headless Nick stopped in his tracks and Harry walked right through him. He had never done this with a ghost before; it was like stepping through an icy shower. He almost wanted to try it again, but refrained.
"But there is something you could do for me," said Nick excitedly. "Harry — would I be asking too much — but no, you wouldn't want —"
"What is it?" said Harry.
"Well, this Halloween will be my five hundredth deathday," said Nearly Headless Nick, drawing himself up and looking dignified.
"Oh," said Harry, not sure whether he should look sorry or happy about this. "Right."
"I'm holding a party down in one of the roomier dungeons. Friends will be coming from all over the country. It would be such an honor if you would attend. Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger would be most welcome, too, of course — but I daresay you'd rather go to the school feast?" He watched Harry on tenterhooks.
"No," said Harry quickly, "I'd be happy to come. Five hundred! That's really something!"
"My dear boy! Harry Potter, at my deathday party! And…" He hesitated, looking excited. "…do you think you could possibly mention to Sir Patrick how very frightening and impressive you find me?"
"Of — of course," said Harry.
Nearly Headless Nick beamed at him.
By the time Halloween arrived, Harry had researched deathday parties (Hermione had been genuinely angry with him for doing so without her but calmed down once she had joined in). He made it clear that neither Hermione nor Ron were under any obligation to miss out on the Halloween feast to attend the party with him, but they both insisted they would. This was after Harry had seen them in whispered conversation with each other, which he suspected might have had something to do with him and his connection to Halloween. Like Nearly Headless Nick, Harry's parents had also been killed on Halloween, which led him to not enjoy the holiday as much as the average wizard. Harry's heart was warmed by their gesture to stick with him tonight.
The rest of the school was happily anticipating the Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with the usual live bats, Hagrid's vast pumpkins had been carved into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in, and there were rumours that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment.
At seven o'clock, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and directed their steps instead toward the dungeons.
The passageway leading to Nearly Headless Nick's party had been lined with candles, too, though the effect was far from cheerful: These were long, thin, jet-black tapers, all burning bright blue, casting a dim, ghostly light even over their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step they took. Having known this would be an issue, the three of them were wearing thick winter cloaks, which Hermione drew tighter around herself as they walked. Harry had assumed he would not actually need his cloak and was wearing it purely for show, but found that the supernatural cold was able to affect him as well, which was an interesting surprise.
Against the backdrop of freezing temperatures and the music, which sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard, they continued on, eventually turning a corner to see Nearly Headless Nick standing at a doorway hung with black velvet drapes.
"My dear friends," he said mournfully. "Welcome, welcome… so pleased you could come…"
He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside.
The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform. A chandelier overhead blazed midnight-blue with a thousand more black candles. Their breath rose in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer, the collection of ghosts sucking the majority of the warmth from the room.
"All right. Half an hour of mingling and mentioning Nick's foreboding presence amongst the living, and then we go to the feast," Harry whispered to Ron and Hermione. This particular point on how long they would stay had been debated but left undecided until now. After actually being in the situation, Ron and Hermione nodded in immediate agreement.
They walked around, if for no other reason than to keep their feet warm, passing various ghosts whose appearance Harry found interesting, as it offered clues about the time period in which they had lived, as well as the circumstances in which they might have died. The Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. Harry wasn't surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts.
"Oh, no," said Hermione, stopping abruptly. "Turn back, turn back, I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle —"
"Who?" said Harry as they backtracked quickly.
"She haunts one of the toilets in the girls' bathroom on the first floor," said Hermione.
"She haunts a toilet?" Ron practically shouted.
"Shh!" Hermione scolded. "Yes. It's been out-of-order all year because she keeps having tantrums and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to have a pee with her wailing at you."
They turned around and headed in a different direction. After a few failed attempts to engage any of the ghosts in conversation, Harry was starting to wonder if they would have any success at all in hyping up Nick amidst the morose atmosphere that was clearly the standard for deathday parties, when Nearly Headless Nick drifted toward them through the crowd.
"Enjoying yourselves?"
"Oh, yes," they lied.
"Not a bad turnout," said Nearly Headless Nick proudly. "The Wailing Widow came all the way up from Kent… It's nearly time for my speech, I'd better go and warn the orchestra…"
The orchestra, however, stopped playing at that very moment. They, and everyone else in the dungeon, fell silent, looking around in excitement, as a hunting horn sounded.
"Oh, here we go," said Nearly Headless Nick bitterly.
Through the dungeon wall burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by a headless horseman. The assembly clapped wildly; Harry started to clap, too, but stopped quickly at the sight of Nick's face.
The horses galloped into the middle of the dance floor and halted, rearing and plunging. At the front of the pack was a large ghost who held his bearded head under his arm, from which position he was blowing the horn. The ghost leapt down, lifted his head high in the air so he could see over the crowd (everyone laughed), and strode over to Nearly Headless Nick, squashing his head back onto his neck.
"Nick!" he roared. "How are you? Head still hanging in there?"
He gave a hearty guffaw and clapped Nearly Headless Nick on the shoulder.
"Welcome, Patrick," said Nick stiffly.
"Live 'uns!" said Sir Patrick, spotting Harry, Ron, and Hermione and giving a huge, fake jump of astonishment, so that his head fell off again (the crowd howled with laughter).
"Very amusing," said Nearly Headless Nick darkly.
"Don't mind Nick!" shouted Sir Patrick's head from the floor. "Still upset we won't let him join the Hunt! But I mean to say — look at the fellow —"
"You know," Harry started. "One of the things about being alive is the amount of reaction your brain goes into when it encounters something unknown — a mystery, or a sound we can hear but not see the source of, or an unexplainable vision — we're wired to react strongly to things like that. I mean all of this is entertaining, of course — even amusing…"
He gestured around at the other headless horsemen, who had begun a ragtag game of Head Hockey on the dance floor, laughter issuing from those watching.
"But it's not really scary, is it? It's just so…"
"In your face," Ron said, nodding along with the idea.
"Aggressively intrusive," Hermione offered.
"That's the same thing!" Ron argued, then looked to Harry and got himself back into character. "It just feels like you're trying so hard," he said to Patrick, whose expression was wilting. "No offense!" Ron added quickly.
"I mean, you can't help it," Hermione said almost consolingly to Patrick. "It is what it is, which is clearly well-enjoyed!" She looked to the Head Hockey game, in which it appeared that the owner of the head they were using had just scored a goal, which was apparently not allowed and had led to boisterous arguing amongst the players, to the delight of the onlookers. "It's all very entertaining. Nick just has more of a… a rather startling modus operandi."
"My sister screamed her own head nearly off the first time she saw Nick's head almost fly off without warning. You remember that?" Ron said, looking now to Nick.
Harry saw what an impact this conversation was having on Nick, who was now smiling, quite opposite the look currently on Patrick's face.
"I do remember," Nick said. "I still feel bad about that."
"You couldn't help it," Harry said consolingly. "You're just… scary." He shrugged as if this was just a fact of life — or rather death — that was pointless to dispute.
A few seconds of uncomfortable silence went by before Nick excused himself to make his speech. Feeling as though they had accomplished what they had come here to do, Harry, Ron and Hermione shared the same look of understanding and used the backdrop of Nick's speech to slowly make their way across the dungeon, where they were able to extricate themselves from the deathday party unnoticed. A minute later were hurrying back up the passageway full of black candles.
"That went loads better, and quicker, than I thought it would," said Ron, leading the way toward the steps to the entrance hall.
Hermione and Harry agreed, and all three of them began chatting about the feast, which even Harry was looking forward to now.
And then, he heard it.
"…rip …tear …kill…"
"Shit." It was the same, cold voice he had heard in Lockhart's office.
Ron and Hermione stopped along with Harry, looking at him.
"What is it?" Hermione asked, concerned.
"Listen!" Harry told them. "It'll probably sound like hissing. See if you can hear it."
"…soo hungry …for so long . . ."
Harry looked to the others to try and gauge if they had heard anything, but they were both just looking around, tilting their heads slightly.
"…kill …time to kill…"
The voice was growing fainter. Harry was sure it was moving away — moving upward.
"Oh no," Harry said, and he began to run up the stairs into the entrance hall. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, the babble of talk from the Halloween feast was echoing out of the Great Hall. Harry continued sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, Ron and Hermione trying to keep up behind him.
"Harry, what're we —"
"SHH!"
Harry strained his ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, he heard the voice: "… I smell blood… I SMELL BLOOD!"
His stomach lurched —
"It's going to kill someone!" he breathed, and ignoring Ron's and Hermione's bewildered faces, he ran up the next flight of steps five at a time, trying to listen over his own pounding footsteps.
Harry sprinted around the whole of the second floor, Ron and Hermione panting behind him, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.
"Harry, what was that all about?" said Ron, wiping sweat off his face. "I couldn't hear anything."
But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor.
"Look!"
Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN
OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
"What's that thing — hanging underneath?" said Ron, a slight quiver in his voice.
As Harry stepped over a large puddle of water on the floor, he thought he knew exactly what was hanging under the words, but they inched toward the message, eyes fixed on the dark shadow beneath it. Ron and Hermione seemed to realize what it was together, and leapt backward with a splash.
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.
For a few seconds, they didn't move. Then Ron said, "Let's get out of here."
"Too late —" Harry said and, thinking quickly, drew his wand and conjured two stone walls to encompass the scene, closing this part hallway off at both ends to essentially create a room within the hallway.
He had heard footsteps climbing the stairs on either side of the hallway — one pair from above them, and one from below. Harry listened, wondering if he would be able to tell who it was from only auditory clues.
"Well what're we supposed to do now?" Ron asked somewhat defiantly, apparently not a fan of Harry's reaction.
Harry thought, trying to not notice how panicked Hermione looked. Maybe he should not have conjured the walls. He had just reacted on instinct.
"Oh wait," he whispered, reaching behind his back. "Under here!" he ordered, pulling from his hidden pocket his father's Invisibility Cloak, and throwing it over all three of them.
Harry needed to crouch a bit to keep their feet from showing, also needing to put one arm around Hermione's waist and one across Ron's shoulders to stay tightly packed enough for the cloak to cover them all. They pressed themselves against one of the hallway's original walls, flattening into it as much as they could manage. Listening even harder to be sure neither approacher was close enough to have seen the walls yet, Harry vanished them just in time before the person coming from below made her way up the staircase.
It was Professor McGonagall, which is who Harry had surmised it was based on the sounds of her footsteps, which were quite unique in the castle, and quickened when she caught sight of the writing on the wall. She made her way to stand only feet away from them as she examined the wall, her wand appearing in her hand without Harry noticing. She spun on the spot, clearly looking for any sign of the perpetrator of this rather disturbing scene. Not finding any, she moved closer to Mrs. Norris and spoke over her shoulder.
"Montgomery!" she trilled.
"Yes, m'lady?" a voice boomed from directly behind the three of them under the cloak, causing all three of them to jump wildly.
Harry craned his head around to see a portrait of a potions salesman on the wall against which they were flattened, standing in the countryside with bulbous pair of pantaloons, next to a little cart on two wheels filled with a variety of bottles.
"Tell the headmaster to meet me here at once," McGonagall said without turning around, which Harry felt was lucky as the three of them had nearly thrown the Invisibility Cloak off of themselves and were only now managing to get it right again.
Not daring to even whisper in their ears, Harry began leading Ron and Hermione towards the opposite staircase from which McGonagall had come, not wanting to pass Dumbledore, who Harry felt might be able to detect them under the cloak, even if he could not see them.
"Mrs. Norris?"
Harry could hear Filch's call a few flights above them, but knew that Hermione and Ron would not yet be able to. Regardless, Filch was on course to eventually find his beloved cat, dead — or at least from his perspective dead. Despite the short amount of time they had to observe her, Harry had seen enough to suspect that Mrs. Norris was merely Petrified, but Filch would not know that, and Harry had no interest in being present when he arrived.
"So listen," Harry whispered urgently as the three of them attempted to walk down the stairs without cartwheeling to their doom. "We left the deathday party, then we all decided to use the loo. I think McGonagall might have been coming to check on us and found that we were gone and made to look for us. So we'll just say we were in the bathrooms —"
"On the first floor," Hermione cut in. "We came up from the dungeons and stopped on the first floor, then decided to wash up before the feast."
Harry nodded, grabbing onto Hermione as she nearly tripped on the end of the cloak. They really had nothing to hide, all things considered, but if they could avoid a fiasco at their absence from the feast coinciding with McGonagall's discovery of whatever that was in the hallway, all the better.
Navigating through a few hidden passageways and shortcuts, they were able to make their way into the entrance hall, going as far as to stow the Invisibility Cloak and visit the bathrooms, eventually walking together into the Great Hall and sitting at the Gryffindor table as though having nothing to hide. While never focusing his vision on the High Table, Harry was able to see through his peripheral vision that Dumbledore was not there, presumably having answered McGonagall's summons.
"So how was the party?" Neville asked Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
They had told their friends about their invitation so they would know why they were late to the feast. Harry, at Hermione's suggestion, had informed Professor McGonagall as well, so that she would not wonder why three of her Gryffindors had decided to skip the feast.
"Cold!" Ron responded to Neville's question, grasping an entire hen from a platter, and slapping it onto Harry's plate, then repeating the gesture for Hermione and himself.
For some reason, Harry found this incredibly amusing, despite the bizarre nature of the evening thus far. He laughed, and then joined Ron in his ministrations by grabbing a loaf of bread and pulling it apart, dividing it between the three of them. Hermione smiled and spent some time taking bowlfuls of vegetables and dividing portions between herself, Ron, and Harry.
For some time, Harry allowed himself to just enjoy the feast, even as he knew that McGonagall and Dumbledore were encountering and evaluating the scene that he, Ron, and Hermione had already viewed. It was Dumbledore who returned to the Great Hall first, whispering responses to whatever Professor Flitwick had asked upon his arrival, of which Harry did not try to hide his scrutiny. He wanted Dumbledore to notice… there.
The headmaster had nodded to whatever Professor Flitwick was saying, and then moved his gaze to the Gryffindor table, eventually making eye contact with Harry. There was an instant understanding in Harry's mind. He now knew that the headmaster wanted to talk to him, and Harry was sure that Dumbledore also knew that Harry wanted the same. And so, while Harry continued behaving as he normally would, as did Dumbledore, enjoying the food and entertainment of the Halloween feast, they both knew that there was, once again, much to discuss.