SATURDAY AFTERNOON SEEMED, to melt away, and in what seemed like no time, it was five minutes to eight, and Coventina was dragging her feet
along the second-floor corridor to Lockhart's office.
She gritted his teeth and knocked.
The door flew open at once. Lockhart beamed down at him. "Ah, here's the scalawag!" he said.
"Come in, Coventina, come in -" Shining brightly on the walls by the light of many candles were countless framed photographs of Lockhart. He had even signed a few of them.
"Can't he leave my goddaughter alone?" Sirius growls lowly. "He should." James glares at the screen.
"Maybe we should help the Marauders in killing him off?" Rabastan asks Regulus. "Yes, we should." He answeres.
Another large pile lay on his desk. "You can address the envelopes!" Lockhart told her, as though this was a huge treat. "This first one's to Gladys Gudgeon, bless her - huge fan of mine -"
The minutes snailed by. Coventina let Lockhart's voice wash over her,
occasionally saying, "Mmm" and "Right" and "Yeah." Now and then
she caught a phrase like, "Fame's a fickle friend, Coventina," or "Celebrity is as celebrity does, remember that."
The candles burned lower and lower, making the light dance over the
many moving faces of Lockhart watching him.
And then she heard something - something quite apart from the
spitting of the dying candles and Lockhart's prattle about his fans.
It was a voice, a voice to chill the bone marrow, a voice of breathtaking, ice-cold venom.
"Come... come to me... Let me rip you... Let me tear you.... Let me kill you."
"Okay... WHAT THE FUCK!?" Sirius yells in disbelief.
"That voice.." Bellatrix shivers nervously.
"Is fucking creepy!!" Evans gulps.
"I wanna throw up." Barty frowns.
Coventina gave a huge jump and a large lilac blot appeared on Veronica
Smethley's street. "What?" She said loudly.
"I know!" said Lockhart. "Six solid months at the top of the bestseller
list! Broke all records!" "No," said Coventina frantically.
"That voice!" "Sorry?" said Lockhart, looking puzzled. "What voice?"
"That - that voice that said - didn't you hear it?" Lockhart was looking at her in high astonishment.
"What are you talking about, Coventina? Perhaps you're getting a litde drowsy? Great Scott - look at the time! We've been here nearly four
hours! Id never have believed it - the time's flown, hasn't it?" She didn't answer.
She quickly left, It was so late that the Gryffindor common room was almost empty. She waste no time and entered the room and close the door.
"Aamon." She hissed, the cobra slowly slithered behind her, "ʏᴇsss ᴍɪsᴛʀᴇssss," Hiss the cobra. "Have you hear the same voice as me?" She asked. "ʏᴇssss." Aamon hissed.
"Well at least she know that she is not crazy." Barty rassure.
"Not the times." Regulus scolds.
"Okay."
"Let's go to bed," She quickly get on her bed with her familiar.
October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students.
Her Pepperup potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. Ginny Weasley, who had been looking pale, was bullied into taking some by Percy.
"Poor girl!" Mama bear, Euphemia state.
The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire.
Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days on end; the lake rose, the flower beds turned into muddy streams, and Hagrid's pumpkins swelled to the size of garden sheds.
Oliver Wood's enthusiasm for
regular training sessions, however, was not dampened, which was why Coventina was to be found, late one stormy Saturday afternoon a few days before Halloween, returning to Gryffindor Tower, drenched to the skin and splattered with mud..which she quickly clean.
As Coventina squelched along the deserted corridor he came across somebody who looked just as preoccupied as she was.
Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring morosely out of a window, muttering under his breath, "...don't fulfill their requirements... half an inch, if that..."
"Hello, Nick," said Coventina.
"She talk more to ghosts then
humans." Andromeda points out.
"Because some people are worse than pests perhaps." Achilles replies without much interest.
"Ah," Andromeda nod slowly.
"Hello, hello," said Nearly Headless Nick, starting and looking round. He
wore a dashing, plumed hat on his long curly hair, and a tunic with a ruff, which concealed the fact that his neck was almost completely severed. He was pale as smoke, and Coventina could see right through him to the dark sky and torrential rain outside.
"You look troubled, young Potter," said Nick, folding a transparent letter ashe spoke and tucking it inside his doublet. "So do you," said Coventina.
"Ah," Nearly Headless Nick waved an elegant hand, "a matter of no
importance.. It's not as though I really wanted to join... Thought I'd
apply, but apparently I 'don't fulfill requirements' -" In spite of his airy tone, there was a look of great bitterness on his face.
"But you would think, wouldn't you," he erupted suddenly, pulling the letter back out of his pocket, "that getting hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe would qualify you to join the Headless Hunt?"
Coventina sighs.
She looked down and found himself gazinginto a pair of lamp-like yellow eyes. It was Mrs. Norris, the skeletal gray cat who was used by the caretaker, Argus Filch, as a sort of deputy in his endless battle against students.
"You'd better get out of here, Potter," said Nick quickly. "Filch isn't in a good mood - he's got the flu and some third years accidentally plastered frog brains all over the ceiling in dungeon five. He's been cleaning all morning,"
Coventina nods and left.
"He is always helping us to get away from that damn cat! Thank you." Sirius smiles.
"You like that he help you in your pranks." Remina rolls her eyes.
"A little but?" "Sirius." "Fine."
Coventina was quickly joined by Aelora and Anastacius walking
next to her and then And then she heard it. "... rip... tear... kill... "
It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice she had heard in
Lockhart's office. She stumbled to a halt, clutching at the stone wall, listening with all his might, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway.
"That voice fucking scare the living shit out of me!" Sirius hide his face in Remina's neck. "What a baby." She state.
"You love that baby." Peter shrugs stating fact.
"What was that?" James asks Achilles still ignoring Lily. "How am I supose to know?" Achilles chuckles. "Bastard."
"My parents are married, Malachi." He says not taking the insult seriously since James was still angry at him.
"Venti, what are you -?" "It's that voice again - shut up a minute -"
"...soo hungry... for so long..." "Listen!" Coventina muttered, and Aelora and Anastacius froze, watching her.
"..kill ..time to kill..." The voice was growing fainter. Coventina was sure it was moving away - moving upward. A mixture of confusion excitement gripped her as she stared at the dark ceiling.
"Excitement? Really!?" Lily exclaims in disbelief. "Low down." Achilles rolls his eyes.
"I can talk how high I want!" She says, "Talk to me in that tone again and I will get rid of you, mudblood." Achilles gritted his teeth.
"Enough you two." James sighs softly, he feel bad for Lily being calling the M word but he also know that Achilles is not the one to take disrespect lightly or let alone being shout at.
"What? Yoy are defending him?" Lily scoffs. "I-" James try to talk only to be cut out. "Shut up." Lily tsk.
"Lily you filthy bitch-!" Sirius glares at her and was about to go to her but Remina did it first.
"Watch it Lily, we may be friends but I won't allow you to talk like this to my brother!" Remina growls.
"How dare she shut my son!" Euphemia clenchs her hand. "Don't worry," Achilles smiles at Euphemia which make her return it back.
"You are so sweet! Perfect for my
son." She murmured the last four words.
"This way," she shouted, and she began to run, up the stairs, into the entrancevhall. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, the babble of talk from the Halloween feast was echoing out of the Great Hall.
Coventina sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, Aelora and Anastacius clattering behind her.
"Venti, what're we -"
"Shhh!"
Coventina strained his ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, he heard the voice: "I smell blood... I SMELL BLOOD!" Her stomach lurched -
"It's going to kill someone!" She said, and she ran up the next flight of steps three at a time, trying to listen over her own pounding footsteps -
Coventina hurtled around the whole of the second floor, Aelora and Anastacius following behind her, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.
"Venti, what was that all about?" said Aelora, confused. "I couldn't hear anything..."
But next to them, Weasley and Granger who followed gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor.
"Look!" Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached slowly,
squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches.
the chamber of secrets has been opened. enemies of the heir, beware.
"What? But that nothing but a story right!?" Evans asks.
"We don't know yet.." Regulus watchs with widen eyes.
"It finally open." Pandora thought as her eyes shine.
"What's that thing - hanging underneath?" said Weasley, a slight quiver in his voice.
As they edged nearer, Coventina almost slipped - there was a large puddle of water on the floor. Eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. All five of them realized what it was at once, and leapt backward with a splash..Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.
"I am sorry but...SHE IS DEAD!" Sirius sighs relievely.
"Sirius! At leasy act like you are sympathic!" Remina scoffs.
"Sorry Moony! Oh poor cat!" He sobs dramatically.
"Sirius.." Narcissa controls her laugher.
For a few seconds, they didn't move. Then Weasley said, "Let's get out of here." "Shouldn't we try and help -" Granger began awkwardly.
"Trust me," said Weasley. "We don't want to be found here." But it was too late. A rumble, as though of distant thunder, told them that the feast had just ended.
From either end of the corridor where they stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people; next moment, students were crashing into the passage from both ends.
The chatter, the bustle, the noise died suddenly as the people in front spotted the hanging cat. As silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to seecthe grisly sight.
Then someone shouted through the quiet. "Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Blood traitors!" It was Pansy Parkinson. She had pushed to the front of the crowd, her cold eyes
alive, her usually bloodless face flushed, as she grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.
"Your daughter is annoying." Dorcas told Heir Parkinson who sighs.
"Like father like daughter." Barty snickers.
"You too mudblood." Draco smirks.
Oh, how interesting.
"Oh...noo.."