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Chapter 77: The Writing on the Wall
🕑 Added 2025-10-13 13:29:31 +0000 UTC"Yes, yes, of course Harry was teasing you," Hermione said, her voice dripping with a false, placating sweetness. She gave Lockhart a reassuring pat on the arm, a gesture that was both comforting and deeply condescending.
"You see?" Lockhart said to Harry, his bravado returning. "Just a joke." But his eyes were still darting nervously into the shadowed corners of his own office. "Right, well, it's late. Time for bed!" He practically sprinted from the room, leaving a cloud of expensive perfume in his wake.
The moment the door slammed shut, Harry spun on Hermione, his face pale with a frantic urgency. "I wasn't joking, Hermione! I heard it! A voice, in the walls. You have to believe me."
Hermione let out a long, weary sigh. "I don't think you're lying, Harry," she said, her tone shifting from playful to serious. "But you need to think strategically. You're Harry Potter. You're already famous for surviving a dark wizard and speaking to snakes. If you start telling people you're hearing disembodied voices that want to kill people, they're not going to think you're a hero. They're going to think you're going mad. Or worse."
She knew exactly what he had heard. A creature that "talks," lives in the walls, and can only be understood by a Parselmouth? It was Slytherin's Basilisk, plain and simple. It was an annoying, oversized snake with a bad attitude, but revealing its existence now would be… inconvenient.
Harry opened his mouth to argue, but then he went rigid, his eyes wide with a fresh wave of terror. "It's talking again," he whispered, his voice trembling. "It said… blood… I smell blood… let me rip… let me kill…" He looked at her, his green eyes pleading. "It's going to kill someone, Hermione!"
Such a drama queen, Hermione thought, rolling her eyes. The Basilisk had been slithering through those pipes for a thousand years. It was probably just bored. "Maybe it lost at wizard's chess and is just venting," she said with a dismissive shrug. "Honestly, Harry. Ignore it. It's just a noise."
But Harry looked unconvinced, a deep, primal unease settling over him that he couldn't shake.
The next morning, Hermione was ripped from a pleasant dream by the frantic shaking of her bed curtains. "Hermione! Wake up! It's Ron! He says it's an emergency!" Lavender Brown's voice was high with panic.
Hermione groaned and rolled out of bed. She found Ron pacing frantically outside the girls' dormitory, his face pale.
"Hermione, you have to come, now!" he said, grabbing her arm. "Something's happened. Harry… he thinks it's because of the voice from last night!"
So the drama queen finally made its move, she thought. She followed Ron as he ran, her mind already calculating the possibilities. They rounded a corner on the second floor and skidded to a halt.
Harry was standing there, in a corridor that was suddenly crowded with silent, whispering students. The first thing she saw was the writing on the wall. Scrawled in huge, glistening, blood-red letters were the words:
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
"Well," Hermione said, her voice a cool, analytical note in the horrified silence. "That's thoughtful. At least they left a warning."
Harry and Ron just stared at her.
Then they saw it. Hanging by its tail from a torch bracket, as stiff and lifeless as a taxidermy exhibit, was a cat. Its fur was matted, its eyes wide with a terror that had been frozen in time.
"It's Mrs. Norris," Harry breathed. "Filch's cat."
Before he could say another word, a choked, grief-stricken cry echoed down the corridor. "My cat! What have you done to my cat?!"
Argus Filch, the school's cantankerous caretaker, burst through the crowd. He saw the stiff body of Mrs. Norris, and his face, already a mask of perpetual misery, crumpled in on itself. His gaze fell on Harry, the closest person to the crime scene, and his grief instantly curdled into a wave of pure, irrational rage.
"You!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. "You murdered my cat! I'll kill you! I'LL KILL YOU!" He lunged forward and grabbed Harry by the collar of his robes, his whole body shaking with a terrible, lonely fury.
The commotion had now drawn a massive crowd. Whispers turned into loud accusations.
"What happened?" "It's Filch's cat… looks dead." "Potter did it! He was standing right there!" "Look at the wall! The Chamber of Secrets… what's that mean?"
From the back of the crowd, a familiar, sneering voice cut through the noise. "It means you're next, Mudbloods." Draco Malfoy said, a look of triumphant, ugly glee on his face. He puffed out his chest, enjoying the fear his words caused in the nearby Muggle-born students. Then, his gaze swept the crowd and landed on Hermione, who was watching him with a cold, dead-eyed expression.
He froze. The triumphant smirk vanished from his face, replaced by a look of pure, PTSD-fueled terror. Oh, no. She heard me. It's over. My life is over. His legs began to shake, and he nearly collapsed, saved only by Crabbe and Goyle propping him up. He waited for the inevitable, terrifying retribution, but to his profound, disbelieving relief, she just… looked away, as if he were too insignificant to even acknowledge.
The conflict between Harry and Filch, meanwhile, was escalating. "It wasn't me!" Harry yelled, struggling against the caretaker's iron grip.
"Liar! Murderer!" Filch screamed, his face contorted with grief.
Hermione just watched the scene, a small, cynical smile on her face. Classic rookie mistake, Potter, she thought. Never linger at the scene of the crime. The first person to find the body is always the first suspect. You're not Sherlock Holmes.
Just as Filch was about to throttle Harry, a powerful, commanding voice silenced the entire corridor. "Argus! Let him go."
Albus Dumbledore had arrived, his presence instantly calming the chaotic scene. He took one look at the bloody words on the wall, and his ancient face became grim and heavy. The other professors, including a preening Gilderoy Lockhart who clearly had no idea what was going on, appeared behind him.
"Everyone, return to your dormitories immediately," Dumbledore commanded. He gently but firmly removed Filch's hands from Harry's robes. "We do not yet know who is responsible, Argus. We must be patient."
Just as the crowd was beginning to disperse, a clear, confident voice cut through the murmuring.
"Actually, Headmaster," Hermione said, stepping forward from the crowd. "I do."
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