Chaos and Order - A Multiverse Fanfic

Turned out, Dolores Umbridge was a great lover of cats.

Such a great lover that the intensity with which she kept fuming at the boys even surpassed Filch, to whom the cat belonged.

The boys, and the girls, for the first time, realized that they preferred the toad-like smirk on her face over the red, blazing eyes.

Sure enough, all hell erupted when Umbridge demanded to send the students to Azkaban.

In Lockhart's office, they all looked at her, gobsmacked.

"Now, now," Lockhart smiled. "That's an extreme punishment for a cat…" he saw Umbridge looking at him, and added, "… I meant, I am sure only one of the boys did it. Three of them are still innocents."

Lockhart, not hiding who he declared as the criminal, blatantly looked at Black.

"They all did it!" Umbridge snapped before Filch could say the same. The grieving Squib just listlessly looked at the Director, finding a goddess inside her.

"They wanted to get back at me!" Umbridge added.

"…"

"…"

"…"

Darcie and Daphne shared a glance.

Hermione looked left and right, questioning her existence in this place.

"Please hold yourself together, Dolores," Professor Dumbledore finally said after examining the cat. "The cat's not dead. It's merely petrified. Professor Sprout has been working on Mandrakes. We will get her back to full health soon, Filch."

"Headmaster, if I may…" Snape stepped in, a sly smirk dancing on his lips. "I think, the boys were merely at the wrong place at the wrong time…"

Harry and others' mouths fell open, doubting that Snape was taking their sides.

However, the sly smirk proves its intentions soon enough.

"But…" Snape drawled, taking one more step forward toward Harry. "… the question remains. What were four students like yourselves doing in the corridor while the entire school was in the Grand Hall for the Halloween Feast?"

"Ah, ha!" Filch punched toward the roof, tears stuck to his face.

Umbridge's red eyes had gone almost blue in anger. She didn't care what they were doing or why they weren't in the Grand Hall. All she knew was that these four needed to be punished.

Harry, Ron, Black, and Draco exchanged looks.

They had already discussed the strange hissing words Harry and Black could hear slithering within the Hogwarts' walls.

Just when they were heading toward the Halloween Feast, they had again heard those hisses.

It was going to kill someone, the hisses said.

With them already going through all the strange events, becoming Hallows of the Cult of Scion of Death, the boys had believed it was nothing but side effects of their strange Spells.

That's why they didn't tell about the hisses to anyone, which would have been an obvious choice given the world's circumstances.

What if none heard the hisses, except for Harry and Black?

Wouldn't the matter of the Hallows be revealed then?

So, the boys had decided to unearth this mystery by themselves, which also didn't seem like such a good idea now.

However, they were a little too late to go back and redo things.

"We weren't hungry…" Ron said, stuttering.

"Weren't hungry…" Snape repeated, his smile widening. "… Weren't hungry on Halloween Feast all four of you together?"

"Yes," Black said, smiling.

Harry, Ron, and Draco's hearts skipped a beat seeing the smile on Black's face. Oh, no! He's doing it again…

"… you see, we all have developed this strange distaste…" Black added, looking at Darcie, "… that we can't eat anything when she's in the same place as us…"

Draco closed his eyes. I am her brother, you Mudblood!

He cursed Black within but could say nothing in defense. So, like Harry and Ron, whose faces had gone red in shame, he, too, nodded, looking away.

Darcie's mouth twitched. Could these idiots be any more obvious?!

"Innocents until proven guilty, Severus," Dumbledore said, putting an end to this. "Till we solve this mystery, I will caution…"

Umbridge wasn't ready to let it go, though.

"Detention!" she shrieked in between, almost jumping on her fat toes. "I have decided their detention…"

…

In the next few days, strange rumors had begun taking over the School.

The Intra-School Competitions were going on with full passion, however, even that couldn't help but shy a little compared to the rumors.

The rumors were, of course, about the Chamber of Secrets.

Soon, some through Professor Binns of History of Magic and some through Professor McGonagall learned the myth surrounding the Chamber and the monster it held.

The words got out and spread like wildfire.

So, the rumors about the Chamber of Secrets suddenly became the rumors about the Heir of Slytherin.

The very first target of these rumors was, unsurprisingly, Darcie Malfoy.

Most of her fans took it as a matter of pride, blatantly claiming her to be the greatest Slytherin after Salazar himself.

The only thing that kept Darcie from acting out was that none knew about her being a Parselmouth yet.

There was one more candidate—Harry Potter.

Draco Malfoy became the black mark on Slytherin's name the day he became a Gryffindor.

However, the boys had something too great to worry about than stupid rumors.

"Does she want to kill you three?!" Draco hissed in Gryffindor's Common Room, seeing the parchment stuck to the notice board.

Umbridge had finally revealed what the detention was, and there was not one Gryffindor who hadn't cursed her already.

Ron's face paled. "She wants us to…"

Harry and Black looked at the notice, too. "… hold back the Cursed Ice from spreading for one night…"

Ever since the Cursed Vault of Ice had been broken, releasing the Cursed Ice on the School grounds, a team of wizards, hired by the ministry, were stationed there.

They only had one job — Keep firing Fire Spells at the Cursed Ice to keep it from spreading further.

However, the rate of Cursed Ice spreading was just too great to be countered by a few Fire Spells.

Almost every 5–6 weeks, they kept hearing how a wizard came into contact with the ice and got frozen. None had died yet, but those who touched the ice couldn't wake up even after months.

Darcie and Black had been the first victims of the Cursed Ice.

Both had been out of School for months and admitted to the hospital.

"She doesn't want to kill us…" Black said, realizing the trickery.

Harry nodded. "She wants us to miss the duels…"

Ron and Draco's eyes widened.

Black had already gone through his duel. However, in the rare case he were to get selected in the top 10 and his total points tied with someone, then he would need to fight again.

If he wasn't in the School at that time, then…

"She must know how many points you got," Draco pointed out. "You can always trust the Toad…"

Suddenly, the doors of the Common Room opened, and Professor McGonagall walked in.

Her mouth was pressed in a thin line, as if she had just come back from a duel; defeated.

As the students in the Common Room greeted her, she approached the boys, saw the notice board, and the thin mouth became thinner.

"Harry, Ron," she called out, looking at them. "Come with me. You need to practice."

Then she looked at the third unlucky student. "Professor Dumbledore is asking for you. Go to his office first."

Saying goodbye to Harry and Ron, Black walked toward the Headmaster's office, plastering a nonchalant smile on his face.

However, inside, alarm bells were ringing mightier than ever, the Ad Infinitum beeping out a red alert.

After gaining an initial mastery over the Ancient Magical Script, Black had been expecting this call.

Still, the Lucky Intuitions were going haywire recently. Whenever it came to Dumbledore, they just didn't work. With his Luck, this shouldn't have been possible.

Black lifted his hand to knock, but the door opened up by itself.

And the moment he entered, he found Professor Dumbledore smiling at him. It was just…

… this Dumbledore was wearing black robes, everything about him blurring imperceptibly into blackness.

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