"Come with me..."
That voice, it was haunting me. Worse than Pansy Parkinson's voice, if I may add. And no one seemed to hear it besides me.
"Blood... I smell blood..."
I had been hearing it ever since last night, when I woke up abruptly in the middle of my sleep. It was like a snake, with all the hissing and whispering, but I was pretty sure there was no snake in the castle. I spoke parseltongue, I had spoken to a python before, so I knew.
"Let me rip you... Let me kill you..."
And it was everywhere this morning. Everywhere I went, everywhere I stood, everywhere I sat, I heard that whispering voice in my ears. I asked Juliette when we were having breakfast, but she looked at me as if I was going mad because of all the homework.
"You know, skip some classes, talk to Madam Pomfrey, it can help." That was what she told me.
And she called herself my best friend.
I was walking back to the common room that evening, my head aching because of hearing the voice all day, though I did try to block it out of my ears, I found Hermione, Ron and Harry. Yes, I started calling them by their names since they became my friends. And I decided to approach them.
"Hear what?" I heard Ron asked when I was close enough to them.
"That... voice." Harry said.
"Voice? What voice?" Hermione asked.
"I heard it too." I spoke up as I stood next to Hermione "All day since last night."
"Oh hey Nov." Harry smiled.
"Hey Harry." I nodded.
"What do you think it is?" He asked.
"I think of a snake, actually. I'm a parselmouth, I heard something like that came out of the mouth of a snake or a python." I told him.
"I heard it first in Lockhart's office and then again, just..."
And we heard it again.
"... Kill... Time to kill."
"It's moving." I said.
"I think it's going to kill." Harry said.
Like we understood what each other was thinking, we both bolted to the same direction, leaving Hermione and Ron behind with confusion splashed on their faces before starting to follow. Harry was a boy and also a year older than me, so he was a bit ahead, taking three steps at once down the marble stairs as I was right behind him, trying to catch up. We rushed through the archway and Harry stopped abruptly, causing me to slam into his back and fell backwards.
Water was oozing out all over the floor, surrounding our feet. The hissing voice was gone, to my relief, as my head had been aching all day because of it. And reflected in the shimmering water on the ground was something red. Words.
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened.
Enemies of the heir... Beware.
"What's the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry asked "And is that...?"
"Filch's cat." I breathed "I heard that the Chamber of Secrets was Slytherin's, but no one actually knows where it is."
"Harry, November, what are you doing?" Finally, Ron and Hermione had caught up.
Harry and I were still staring at the words written by blood on the wall. He pointed at it for the other two to read. And of course, they wouldn't know anything about the Chamber of Secrets, even most Slytherins didn't know the story. The two also noticed Filch's cat, Mrs.Norris hanging under the words, dead or not, we didn't know.
Under the window pane were spiders moving in line, all fought to get through the crack on the window and get out. They looked like they were fleeing from something threatening to them.
"Have you ever seen spiders act like that? Ron...? Hermione asked.
"I...don't...like...spiders." Ron backed up slowly from the window, his face paled at the mention of it.
Then, the stairways and hallways were alive with voices and footsteps, and seconds later, students came into the scene, chatting and murmuring until they noticed the four kids in the middle, that was when silence fell upon them. At the corner of my eye, I spotted Malfoy pushed his way to the front of the Slytherins as Juliette ran to me.
"I was looking everywhere for you, are you alright?" She asked me.
"I'm okay, really." I told her.
"Enemies of the heir, beware!" Malfoy read from the wall "You'll be next, Mudbloods."
His eyes looked directly at Hermione, his lips tilted up in an arrogant smirk. Hermione looked angry, but she tried to calm herself down. Me? It was hard to anger me, but when it did, don't ever expect me to calm down.
"Shut it, will you?" I sneered "You're a pure-blood, but that doesn't mean you're everything."
"And after her is you, blood traitor." He spat.
"What's going on here? Go on now! Make way..." Filch appeared at the right time to stop me from lunging at Malfoy's throat, but the wrong time to see his cat probably dead "Mrs.Norris..."
And then, there came the part when he falsely accused Harry.
"You! You've murdered my cat." He growled "I'll kill you. I'll..."
"Argus!"
The teachers had come, interrupting Filch who was probably going to kill Harry, the boy whose face had already paled. Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall observed the wall and the cat, and I caught Snape's eyes on me. I looked at him, nodding to tell him that I was okay, and he nodded back in relief.
"Everyone will proceed to their dormitories immediately." Professor Dumbledore said "Everyone except you four."
Juliette looked between me and the Professor, obviously meant she didn't want to leave me here with all Gryffindors, but I pushed her a little, telling her to go first. She nodded hesitantly before following our fellow Slytherins back to the dormitory. Malfoy gave me the last glare before turning his back and walked away. Soon, there were only us and the Professors left in the corridor. Professor Dumbledore gently removed Mrs.Norris from the torch bracket.
"It was definitely a curse that killed her." Lockhart began his gibberish "Probably the Transmogrifian Torture. Encountered it myself once, in Ouagadougou. The full story's in my autobiography..."
"She's not dead, Argus." Professor Dumbledore didn't really listen to his rambling and comforted Filch instead "She's been petrified."
"Precisely! So unlucky I wasn't there." Lockhart continued "I know the very countercurse that could have spared her."
"But how she's petrified, I cannot say." Professor Dumbledore said.
"Ask him!" Filch pointed at Harry "It's him that's done it. You saw what he wrote on the wall. Besides, he knows I'm-- I'm a Squib."
"He didn't do it, Sir." I stood in front of Harry, looking up at Filch "She was already here when Harry and I came, and do you really think a boy who just figured out he was a wizard a year ago knows what a Squib is?"
"Miss Avery!" Snape called "May I have a word with you?"
I left Harry to explain to the other Professors as I walked over to the other side. He grabbed my shoulder and bent down to reach my height, his cold eyes stared into mine.
"What happened?" He asked.
"I met Harry, Hermione and Ron, then I heard something. Some type of voice, I think." I said "I think Harry heard it too. So we followed it and here we are. Do you think the Chamber is really opened, Severus?"
"I'm afraid so." He said "It will be disastrous."
"We must be careful then." I said and he nodded.
I returned to my friends and Snape interrupted the other teachers.
"What were you two talking about?" Hermione asked.
"He just needed to make sure Harry wasn't the one causing this." I shouldn't have lied, but I knew what was best for all of us at this moment.
"If I might, Headmaster..." Snape said, all eyes on him "Perhaps Potter and his friends were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, the circumstances are suspicious. I, for one, don't recall seeing Potter at dinner."
That sounded like Severus Snape, the Potions teacher who always gave Gryffindors a hard time, especially Harry and his friends. Luckily, I'm a Slytherin and an excellent student in Potions.
"I'm afraid that's my doing." Lockhart said "Severus, you see, Harry was helping me answer my fan mail."
We were all disgusted, some hid it pretty well, some just plainly showed it on the face. Take me and Snape as an example, our lips both curled up disgustedly at his words, mine added a simply eye roll to spice things up a bit. Or Hermione, who subtly leaped in to stop him from ranting about his popularity and fan mail.
"That's why Ron and I went looking for him, Professor." She said "We'd just found him when Harry said..."
"Yes, Miss Granger?" Snape raised his eyebrow.
"When I said I wasn't hungry." And it was Harry's turn to lie "We were heading back to the common room... And found Mrs.Norris."
Both the Headmaster and the Potions teacher studied him, but I already knew that Snape knew he wasn't telling the truth. But for our sake, he dropped the topic.
"Innocent until proven guilty." Professor Dumbledore said as we all sighed in relief.
"My cat has been petrified!" Filch argued "I want to see some punishment!"
"We will be able to cure her, Argus." Professor Dumbledore comforted him "As I understand it, Madam Sprout has a very healthy growth of Mandrakes. When they have matured, a potion will be made which will revive Mrs.Norris. In the meantime, I advise caution. To all."
With that, we were dismissed. Harry, Hermione and Ron returned to the Gryffindor's common room and I walked down the corridor to the Slytherin's common room. I spoke the password to dungeon wall and walked in to find Parkinson fawning over Malfoy on the couch as his cronies sat near there. Their eyes stared at me as I made my way in.
"Got in trouble, little Avery?" Parkinson said with her sickening voice.
"No, sorry for disappointing you lot." I smirked and went to my shared room with Juliette.
As soon as I opened the door, she sprung from her sitting position on the bed to me and tackled me with a bear hug, as if we hadn't seen each other for ages.
"Are you okay? What did they say? Are you in trouble? Do you have detention?"
"Woah, slow down, Jules." I chuckled "I'm perfectly fine. They didn't say anything important, and I'm not in trouble or anything."
"Good, I'm glad." She smiled.
"Great. I'm tired, let's get some rest." I said.