𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝; 𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐡.𝐩

𝓨𝓮𝓪𝓻 2, 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 9: 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓦𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓸𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓦𝓪𝓵𝓵

"Ask them!" shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tearstained face to Harry and Y/N.

"No second years could have done this," said Dumbledore firmly. "It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced—"

"They did it, they did it!" Filch spat, his pouchy face purpling. "You saw what they wrote on the wall! They found—in my office—they know I'm a—I'm a—" Filch's face worked horribly. "They know I'm a Squib!" he finished.

"Hold up, we never touched Mrs. Norris!" Harry said loudly, uncomfortably aware of everyone looking at him and Y/N, including all the Lockharts on the walls. "And we don't even know what a Squib is."

"Rubbish!" snarled Filch. "They saw my Kwikspell letter!"

"If I might speak, Headmaster," said Snape from the shadows, and Y/N's sense of foreboding increased; she was sure nothing Snape had to say was going to do her and Harry any good.

"Potter, Black and their friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said, a slight sneer curling his mouth as though he doubted it. "But we do have a set of suspicious circumstances here. Why were Potter and Black in the upstairs corridor at all? Why weren't they at the Halloween feast?"

Y/N, Harry, Ron, and Hermione all launched into an explanation about the deathday party. "...there were hundreds of ghosts, they'll tell you we were there—"

"But why not join the feast afterward?" said Snape, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight. "Why go up to that corridor?"

Ron and Hermione stared at Harry and Y/N.

"Because—" Y/N stammered. "Because—"

Her heart was thumping very fast. Something told her that it would sound very far-fetched if she or Harry told them they had been led there by a bodiless voice no one but they could hear.

"Because we were tired and wanted to go to bed," Harry jumped in.

"Without any supper?" said Snape, a triumphant smile flickering across his gaunt face. "I didn't think ghosts provided food fit for living people at their parties."

"They don't," Y/N said firmly.

"But we weren't hungry," said Ron loudly as his stomach gave a huge rumble.

'Perfect timing,' Y/N thought, rolling her eyes as Snape's nasty smile widened.

"I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter and Black are not being entirely truthful," he said. "It might be a good idea if they were deprived of certain privileges until they are ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel they should be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team until they are ready to be honest."

Harry opened his mouth to say that he doubted Mrs. Norris had been hit over the head with a broomstick, but Professor McGonagall beat him to it.

"Really, Severus," she said sharply, "I see no reason to stop the boy and girl playing Quidditch. This cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter and Black have done anything wrong."

Dumbledore was giving Harry and Y/N a searching look. His twinkling light-blue gaze made Harry feel as though he and Y/N were being X-rayed.

"Innocent until proven guilty, Severus," he said firmly.

Snape looked furious. So did Filch.

"My cat has been Petrified!" he shrieked, his eyes popping. "I want to see some punishment!"

"We will be able to cure her, Argus," said Dumbledore patiently. "Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris."