chosen - harry potter

Chapter 8 - Petrified

"What's going on here? What's going on?"

Angrily pushing his way through the crowd, Filch noticed his cat and stumbled backward, clutching his face.

"My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" he shrieked.

His eyes popping furiously, he stared down at Harry.

"You!" he screeched, stepping toward Harry and getting excessively close to his face. "You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll-"

"Argus!"

Dumbledore, accompanied by several other teachers, arrived on the scene. He quickly approached the torch bracket, detaching from it the stiff Mrs. Norris.

"Come with me, Argus," Dumbledore said calmly. "You, too, Mr. Potter, Miss Bright, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger."

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

The quartet, after sitting in uncomfortably as Dumbledore discovered that Mrs. Norris was not dead (but, rather, petrified) and being dismissed shortly after, dipped quickly into an empty classroom to discuss the events they had just witnessed.

"Should we have told them about the voice that I-" Cassia cut herself off, "that we keep hearing?"

"No," Ron said quickly. "Hearing voices no one but yourselves can hear isn't a good sign," he looked at Harry, "even in the wizarding world."

"It's all so odd," Hermione murmured inquisitively.

"The whole thing's odd," Harry said. "What was that writing on the wall about? The Chamber Has Been Opened...What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know, it rings a sort of bell," said Ron slowly. "I think someone told me a story about a secret chamber at Hogwarts once...might've been Bill..."

"And what on earth's a Squib?" Harry said.

Ron stifled a laugh, but Cassia interjected.

"It's someone born into a magical family with no magical powers. The inverse of Muggle-borns, really. If Filch was trying to learn magic from a Kwikspell course, he's likely a Squib."

"It'd explain a lot; like how he hates students so much," Ron said, smiling satisfactorily. "He's bitter."

A clock chimed loudly.

"Midnight," Harry said.

"We should get to bed...before we almost get framed for something else," Cassia joked.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

As the next few days passed, the halls buzzed with conversation about the attack on Mrs. Norris. The glimmering words remained on the wall, despite Filch's fruitless attempts to scrub them off.

Ginny seemed rather rattled by the attack, appearing pale every time Cassia saw her.

Hermione was also different; she was constantly reading. She did little of anything else, including speaking to Cassia.

While the attack had certainly been odd and made her concerned, Cassia wasn't as affected as the two other girls. She felt an odd sense of guilt as if she should be as panicked as they seemed.

Cassia sat in the back of the library next to Ron, waiting for him to finish his History of Magic homework.

"Can you help me?" Ron whined.

"No, I cannot. I'm busy, actually," Cassia said, nonchalantly picking at her nail.

"I still need eight more inches," he grumbled, and they noticed Harry approaching their shared table. "Hermione's already done four feet seven inches and her writing's tiny!"