Certain Dark Things || Book Two

xxvii. voices

It took Hermione and Elara longer to find her than Harriet had expected, but it was only a matter of time before they came rushing into the dormitory.

Elara needed only jerk aside the curtains to spot the bespectacled witch sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, pale and wide-eyed, and she nodded. "So you did see it, then?"

"Of course I saw it!" Harriet hissed, eyes darting about the room to ensure they were alone. "I might wear glasses, but I'm not blind."

"Why didn't you come back to the hall?" Hermione asked. "What if someone noticed you were gone?"

"I couldn't have returned to the hall. I looked like I'd seen—." A ghost, Harriet's mind supplied, but no, that was a Muggle euphemism, one that didn't make sense in the magical world. "—well, like I'd seen a dead cat hanging off the bloody wall! And I wasn't going to just stand there, like a loon."

"She's not dead," Hermione corrected, laying a comforting hand on Harriet's arm. "Professor Dumbledore said Mrs. Norris has been Petrified."

"Petrified? How?"

"He wasn't sure—."

"Or he just didn't say," Elara added, sitting at the foot of the bed.

"Or that, yes. But he did say she could be un-Petrified, eventually."

Eventually? "Do they know who did it?"

"No—did you see anything?"

Harriet glanced at the door again. "...no."

Just then, a loud bang struck the wood, and all three girls flinched. "Professor Slytherin wants us all in the common room in five minutes!" Prefect Farley shouted before moving off to the next dorm. They heard her repeat the message to the first years, her voice dwindling into the distance, trailed by footsteps and muffled muttering.

Harriet exchanged uneasy looks with the others. "Is it just me," she asked. "Or is this suspiciously like last Hallowe'en?"

"If Snape starts threatening us with detention, it'll be exactly like last Hallowe'en." Elara stood and tugged on her cuffs. She seemed unflappable, but Harriet saw the twitch in her restless fingers. "Let's get this over with."

The three said little else and exited the dorm, filtering into the common room with the rest of the Slytherins, who stood below the silver lanterns furiously whispering with one another like a bed of snakes curled under a heat lamp. Apparently, Filch had a near-breakdown in the hall when he saw his cat, only coming to his senses when Dumbledore arrived and reassured the caretaker. Harriet had little fondness in her heart for the man— "the Squib" as many upper-year Slytherins referred to him—or for his despicable feline, but that didn't mean she thought he or his pet should be attacked.

Who would do something like this? And what did their message mean?

Professor Slytherin entered the common room with Snape at his back, the latter dark and looming, stripped of his robes and cravat as if he'd been caught preparing for bed, while Professor Slytherin floated on a slowly simmering tide of his own ire, cold in his fury, the same look in his eyes Harriet had seen a second before he hexed her into Lavender's desk.

Harriet drew back farther into the shadows, resting her shoulders on the cold stone wall.

"Here we are again, another year—another Samhain wasted, squandered by some puerile fool's absurdity. Again, I am forced to waste my time," Slytherin hissed, teeth clicking hard on the elongated syllables. He took another step into the room, and those Slytherins nearest their Defense instructor edged away, leaning deeper into their seats, heads lowered. "I am unclear of the reasoning behind this pathetic display, but if you are the perpetrator of this...prank, you are going to want to listen very closely." Slytherin's voice dropped and nobody dared breathe. "This ceases now. If I discover who you are, there are far worse consequences to fear than mere expulsion." He met the gazes of his watching students one by one, and for the second his eyes flicked to Harriet's, she felt...chilled, like she was pressing her face into thick, frozen slush, the feeling pricking against her cheeks, her eyes, along her chin, down her neck—.