Ch 63 – Marks on the Wall
"But sir," Seamus Finnigan spoke up. "If the Chamber can only be opened by Slytherin's true heir, no one else would be able to find it, would they?"
"Absolute nonsense, O'Flapherin." Binns didn't seem to hear Seamus' defeated, 'Finnigan...' and continued on. "If a long succession of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses haven't found the thing-"
"But sir," Parvati Patil intervened. "You'd probably have to use Dark Magic to open it-"
"Just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic, doesn't mean he can't, Miss Peethel." Professor Binns was getting a little aggravated now. "I repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore-"
"But maybe we've got to be related to Slytherin, so Dumbledore couldn't- Dean Thomas tried to say before he was interrupted by Binns.
"That will do, Mr Romulus! It is a myth! It does not exist! There is no shred of evidence that Slytherin ever built so much as a secret broom cupboard! I regret telling you such a foolish story! We will return, if you please, to history, to solid, believable, verifiable fact!"
Light snores started popping up around the room 5 minutes later.
________
"I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted old loony," Ron said to the three of them as they fought their way through the teeming corridors to Gryffindor Tower to drop off their bags before dinner.
“Although, I never knew it was him who started all this pure-blood stuff. I wouldn't be in his House if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I'd have got the train straight back home."
Hermione was nodding fervently, but Lucifer gave it some real thought, "If you take the Sorting Hat's words about Slytherin from First Year, it mentions nothing about that Blood Purity nonsense. From what I've seen, most of Slytherin House now barely fits the description the Hat gave them. Are any of them Cunning? Sure a lot of them are ambitious, but none of them show leadership skills and maybe a handful are resourceful.
Slytherin House is supposed to value those traits, but so few of them actually possess half of what I just listed.
And look at Crabbe and Goyle, both are the two biggest idiots in our Year, and Snape passed them into Second Year, they aren't Cunning, Ambitious, Resourceful, nor do they exhibit leadership skills, so it makes no sense why they are in Slytherin House at all.”
Lucifer said, all of this in one breath, causing Hermione to look at his face, trying to notice any weird colour.
“....When you put it that way, it does make little sense,” She now agreed with him.
But, Harry, however, looked like he was going to be sick, "You okay, mate?" Ron asked him, being a nice friend.
He looked up, "Yeah, I-I'll be alright..."
"Hiya, Harry!" They all heard the voice of Colin Creevey.
"Hello, Colin," Harry said as his automatic response.
They were busy moving along with the crowd, and Colin, because of how small he was, was having a hard time reaching Harry.
"Harry - Harry - a boy in my class has been saying you're-" his voice was drowned out by the buffer of many students hurrying him along back the other direction from where he was coming from, "See you, Harry!"
They heard him squeak before he was gone from sight.
"I wonder what a boy in his class is saying about you?" Hermione asked.
“That I'm the Heir of Slytherin, I expect," Harry said, looking even more uneasy.
"People here'll believe anything," Ron said in disgust.
The crowd started to thin, allowing them to climb the next staircase without difficulty.
Lucifer ever so briefly thought about how easy it would be to just force everyone aside with wandless magic.
"D'you really think there's a Chamber of Secrets?" Harry is now really being paranoid.
"I don't know..." Hermione said, frowning as she did, "Dumbledore couldn't cure Mrs. Norris... and that makes me think that whatever attacked her might not be... w-well..."
"Human," Lucifer finished for her.
"Yes... human..."
As they turned a corner, and found themselves at the end of the very corridor where the attack happened.
They stopped and looked around; the scene was just as it had been that night, except there was no stiff cat hanging from the torch bracket, and an empty chair stood against the wall that bore the message, 'The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened.'
"That's where Filch has been keeping guard," Ron muttered.
"I don't blame him for being angry because of what happened to his cat, but he needs to calm down," Harry said.
They all looked at each other and shrugged, "Can't hurt to have a poke around," Harry said.
The corridor was deserted, after all.
He dropped his bag and got onto his hands and knees so that he could crawl along, searching for clues. "Scorch marks! Here and here!"
Meanwhile, Lucifer placed his finger against the writing on the wall, they were almost the same width.
He traced it with his finger and realised that it was all written at a similar height.
Lucifer closed his eyes. Something was off about this writing, he could tell.
The spell that was on it was strong.
Not overwhelmingly so, but strong enough to preserve the writing despite the cleaning attempts.
But the enchantment was weak, almost as if the person casting it hadn't done it properly.
He traced the full section of writing again with his finger as he thought.
'Whoever did this wrote it as best they could on foot. No step ladder, no brush, used their finger to trace the writing.
If they were an older year, it should be higher up.
They also would have pulled off the spell, it's not that difficult....'
Lucifer focused on the enchantment again and felt something new.
Several threads, and many separate enchantments.
“It took several casts,” he muttered.
'They didn't know the spell. Only, trying to perfect it while casting...'
'A younger one then. Maybe a first year? Would make sense as to why it's only just started happening.
Possibly a second or third who just learnt some new magic and feels brave enough.'
“Come and look at this," Hermione said, letting out a quick chuckle, "This is funny."
Lucifer decided to walk over to her, even Harry was there a second later, running like crazy.
Hermione was pointing at the topmost window pane, where around twenty spiders were scuttling, apparently fighting to get through a small crack.
A long, silvery thread was dangling like a rope, as though they had all climbed it in their hurry to get outside.
"Have you ever seen spiders act like that?" Hermione asked them.
“Not so many at once”
“Same here, what about you, Ron?”
No response.
"Ron?" Harry asked again and looked over to see Ron standing roughly twenty feet back, looking as though he was fighting the impulse to run for the hills.
"What's up?" Harry asked him.
"I-don't-like-spiders," he said tensely.
"I never knew that," Harry said, looking at Ron in surprise, "You've used spiders in Potions loads of time before now."
"I don't mind them dead," Ron said, who was careful, but quite obviously, looking anywhere but at the window. "I-I just... I don't like the way they move..."
Hermione let out a series of giggles.
Ron, however, didn't appreciate that, "It's not funny!" He was shaking slightly with anger, but mainly fear, "If you must know... when I was three, Fred turned my - my teddy bear turned into a great big filthy spider because I broke his toy broomstick... You wouldn't like them either if you'd been holding your bear and it suddenly had too many legs and... a-and..."
“Try to sleep with your mouth closed from now on,” Lucifer told Ron with a very straight face.
This Red-haired broke off, shuddering at the mere thought it seemed.
Now, Hermione was trying her absolute hardest to not laugh.
_________
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