Chapter 97
Chapter 97
“What is it? What’s happened?”
Filch shouldered through the crowd, saw Mrs. Norris hanging from the wall, and staggered backwards, clutching his face.
“My cat!” he shrieked. “What have they done to my cat?”
His bloodshot eyes swept the students and fixed first upon Malfoy, who stood at the front.
“You!” A vulture-like hand reached towards him. “You killed my cat! I’ll kill you, I’ll–”
Malfoy retreated in terror.
“It wasn’t me!”
“Argus!”
Dumbledore arrived with several professors. The students squeezed aside.
He examined the wall carefully, waved his wand, and lowered Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket. After glancing at the shining words, he laid her on the floor and tapped her with several spells.
Nothing happened. She remained rigid as a specimen.
Dumbledore frowned.
“Who discovered this first?”
The students looked at one another, but nobody answered.
“It was him!” Filch pointed at Malfoy. “He killed her!”
“I arrived last, Headmaster,” Malfoy said frantically.
“She is not dead, Argus,” Dumbledore said quietly. “Come with me. We must examine her properly.”
“Use my office,” Lockhart volunteered. “It’s closest. During my travels, I saw similar magic. It may be the Transfigurative Torture Curse, and fortunately I know the counter-curse–”
“Thank you, Gilderoy,” Dumbledore interrupted. “Students, return to your dormitories. Leave this to us.”
Suer clearly felt Dumbledore’s gaze pause upon his part of the crowd.
The professors carried Mrs. Norris away. After a brief silence, excited whispers began. This was momentous news.
For days, the leading question was: who had killed Mrs. Norris?
Second came: what was the Chamber of Secrets, and did Hogwarts truly contain one?
Malfoy became talkative again.
“Slytherin, one of Hogwarts’s founders, left a secret chamber. One day it would open, and the great Slytherin’s monster would purge everyone of unworthy blood from the castle.”
Filch prowled constantly around the scene of the attack. When he was not pacing there, he hid in shadowy corridors, red eyes watching, then pounced upon unsuspecting students and invented reasons for detention.
“Filch has gone mad,” Ron complained as he entered the library. “He said we were breathing too loudly and grinning, then tried to give us detention.”
“What are you looking for?” Harry asked when he found Suer and Hermione searching the shelves.
“Hogwarts: A History,” Hermione answered without turning.
“Why?”
“For the same reason everyone wants it.” She stalked irritably towards their usual table. “To investigate the Chamber.”
“You don’t believe Malfoy’s ridiculous story?”
“I don’t know whether the story is true, but the place must exist.” Hermione tugged at her hair. “Did you find the book?”
Suer shook his head. “We should go. History of Magic starts soon.”
“Of course!” Hermione exclaimed, earning a warning look from Madam Pince. “Why search a book when we can ask Professor Binns? He’s been in the castle for ages.”
She hurried away. Harry followed, while Suer caught Ron’s shoulder and slowed him.
“How has your sister been?”
“Ginny? Fine. The attack frightened her, but I comforted her. She’s always liked cats–she’s forever holding Hermione’s great ginger one.”
“I see. Let’s go.”
Ron stared after him, then his expression changed.
Surely not.
Absolutely not. Suer already had Hermione.
Professor Binns disliked abandoning documented history for what he considered an absurd legend. Yet every face in the classroom watched him with such hunger for knowledge that he relented.
“Very well. Let me recall–the Chamber of Secrets…”
Hogwarts had been founded a thousand years ago by four witches and wizards who built the castle far from Muggle eyes, in an age when Muggles feared and persecuted magic.
For several years, the founders worked in harmony. As more students arrived, however, their principles diverged.
“What disagreement?” one student interrupted, drawing furious looks.
Professor Binns ignored him and continued.
Slytherin wished Hogwarts to admit only children of magical families. Gryffindor opposed him. Their dispute deepened until Slytherin left the castle.
“Reliable history tells us only that,” Professor Binns said. “Any claim that he left something behind is a ridiculous tale obscuring genuine fact.”
According to legend, however, Slytherin sealed a hidden chamber that none could open until his true heir arrived. The heir alone could pass his test, open the Chamber, release what lay within, and purge the school of those Slytherin considered unworthy to study magic.