Atropos → george weasley

xxii. dueling and disagreements

Ernie tapped his quill against his jaw. "Wonder who they think they're fooling. Everyone knows the Chamber of Secrets is a myth."

Ottilie dropped her hands. "What do you mean? You've heard of it?"

"Well, it's Hogwarts lore that gets passed down through the generations," said Ernie. "I don't remember exactly how the story goes, but the gist is that when the founders were building Hogwarts castle, Slytherin—Salazar Slytherin—included a chamber he kept secret from the others. So, supposedly, he sealed some beast in the chamber, and it's been waiting since then to be released by Slytherin's true heir."

Justin's anger was replaced by fear. "What is the beast?"

"Dunno." Ernie shrugged. "Don't worry about it, Justin. It's only a story. Really, the whole Mrs. Norris thing and the writing on the wall was probably just some blood elitist Slytherin's stupid prank to scare everyone."

"No..." Ottilie said slowly. "Dumbledore told Filch that Petrifying Mrs. Norris like that requires extremely advanced Dark magic. How likely do you think it is there's someone at this school who has that kind of talent and would waste it on a prank?"

Again, Ernie shrugged. "A prejudiced but gifted seventh-year Slytherin who did it for sport to terrorize the Muggle-borns? I mean, it's a bit far-fetched, but not impossible."

"Why does it have to be a Slytherin, Ernie?" Ottilie snapped, and Ernie gave her an apologetic look. "No. I don't think so. Harry heard some voice that led us to find Mrs. Norris. Hermione, Ron, and I couldn't hear anything." Her eyebrows knit as she worked through something. "Do you think the voice he heard was Slytherin's beast?"

"What?" Ernie and Justin cried out together.

Ottilie frowned at them. "Don't tell anyone I said anything. I don't think Harry would like that I've told people."

"Well, that's the solution, is it not?" Justin said, eyes huge. "That means he's the Heir of Slytherin, right?"

Ottilie scoffed. "No, Justin, it is not. Harry isn't the heir."

"How can you be so sure? You yourself said you think he heard the beast in the Chamber of Secrets!"

"Because he was at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party with me long before he started to hear the voice, and we all happened upon the writing and the cat together."

Justin dropped the argument but did not seem convinced.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

An air of unease was ubiquitous within the castle.

Though the whispers about the Chamber of Secrets had died down, they never entirely went away. Students wore pensive looks in the corridors, flinching as they turned corners as if expecting to find another frozen feline.

Ottilie noticed that the library's history section was unusually busy as students searched for information about the Chamber.

She also spent time researching but couldn't find much more information than Ernie had originally offered her. The only other tidbit she managed to find was not comforting: Slytherin had apparently placed the creature there to purge the school of Muggle-born students.

She even asked Binns about the Chamber one evening.

Uncharacteristically, he heaved a great sigh. "Not you as well, Ottilie," he said, explaining that his students wouldn't stop derailing class to demand information on the Chamber.

"All those stories—they're apocryphal," he insisted but relented by offering the same old story. He didn't know what the beast was supposed to be either.