Magic? || Years 1-5

Another Letter: Year 2

No one paid him any heed, and silence soon fell over the room yet again.

Finally, Professor Dumbledore pulled away.

"She's not dead, Argus," His voice was once again calm, but this time there was a hint of happiness.

"Not dead? But why's she all -- all stiff and frozen?" Filch croaked, his voice still raspy with tears as he looked up hesitantly.

"She has been Petrified. But how, I cannot say..." Professor Dumbledore replied, tapping his chin.

"Ask him!" Filch screeched, whirling around to face the sitting group.

Harry sat up suddenly, his eyes wide.

"No second year could have done this. It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced--" Dumbledore shook his head, his glasses slipping slightly.

"He did it, he did it! You saw what he wrote on the wall! He found -- in my office -- he knows I'm a -- I'm a -- He knows I'm a Squib!" Filch stumbled over his words, his face turning an unattractive shade of purple.

"I never touched Mrs. Norris! And I don't even know what a Squib is," Harry defended quickly, shifting underneath everyone's gazes.

"Rubbish! He saw my Kwikspell letter!" Filch snarled, his beady eyes narrowing to the point of which Amisty couldn't see them.

"If I might speak, Headmaster," Professor Snape spoke up from the corner of the room, coming into the candlelight. Amisty stiffened, no one hated Harry more than him. "Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we do have a set of suspicious circumstances here. Why was he in the upstairs corridor at all? Why wasn't he at the Halloween feast?"

"We were at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party!" Amisty protested, relieved to know that this wasn't a lie.

"There were hundred of ghosts..." Hermione added the second Amisty had finished her sentence.

"They'll tell you we were there!" Ron butted in, and they all interrupted themselves as the raced to explain.

"But why not join the feast afterward? Why go up to that corridor?" The Professor asked silkily.

Amisty, Hermione, and Ron all looked at Harry expectantly.

He was, after all, the one who ran up there in the first place.

"Because -- because -- because we were tired and wanted to go to bed," He lied, struggling to find the proper words.

"Without any supper? I didn't think ghosts provided food fit for living people at their parties," His inky black eyes glinted.

"We weren't hungry," Ron replied, his words useless as his stomach rumbled loudly.

They hadn't gotten any food that night.

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

Amisty nearly shot out of her chair, outraged, but Professor McGonagall beat her to it.

"Really, Severus. I see no reason to stop the boy playing Quidditch. This cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter has done anything wrong," She argued, her voice smothered with finality.

"Innocent until proven guilty, Severus," Dumbledore replied, his blue gaze scanning the four of them.

The reaction of Professor Snape was far from pleasant, as was Filch's. They both looked livid.