"He did it; he did it!" Filch spat, his pouchy face purpling. "You saw what he wrote on the wall!"
"I never touched your cat!" Harry said loudly, uncomfortably aware of everyone looking at him, including all the Lockharts on the walls. "Rubbish!" snarled Filch.
"If I might speak, Headmaster," said Snape from the shadows, and Harry's sense of foreboding increased; he was sure nothing Snape had to say was going to do him any good.
"Potter may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said, a slight sneer curling his mouth as though he doubted it. "But we do have a set of suspicious circumstances here. Why was he in the upstairs corridor at all? Why wasn't he at the Halloween feast?"
Harry snarled back, "You already know the answer to that."
"But why go up to that corridor?" asked Snape, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight.
The others looked at Harry. "Because - because... " Harry said, his heart thumping very fast; something told him it would sound very far-fetched if he told them he had been led there by a bodiless voice no one but he could hear, "...because I wasn't tired enough but wanted to go to bed."
"Without any supper?" said Snape, a triumphant smile flickering across his gaunt face.
"I've had more than enough experience of going to bed hungry, Professor," replied Harry with a growl.
"I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful," said Snape. "It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel he should be taken off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team until he is ready to be honest." "Really, Professor Snape," said Harry sharply, "Do you feel I hit the cat over the head with a broomstick? You have no evidence I've done anything wrong. I just happened upon the scene before everyone else."
Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light-blue gaze made Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed.
Feeling the attempted Legilimency probe, Harry growled at the old man, "Get out of my bloody head!"
"Innocent until proven guilty, Severus," said Dumbledore firmly, ignoring the accusation.
Snape looked furious. So did Filch.
"My cat has been petrified!" he shrieked, his eyes popping. "I want to see some punishment!" "We will be able to cure her, Argus," said Dumbledore patiently. "Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Missus Norris."
"I'll make it," Lockhart butted in. "I must have done it a hundred times. I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep."
"Excuse me," said Snape icily. "But I believe I am the Potions Master at this school."
There was a very awkward pause.
"You may go," Dumbledore said to Harry and Daphne.
"Well, thank you ever so much, Headmaster," said Harry not a little sarcastically. "And, all of you, please be aware I do not take kindly to slander and libel levelled towards me."
They went, and were met outside the door by the other five. When they were far enough away from Lockhart's office, they turned into an empty classroom and closed the door quietly behind them.
Harry squinted at his friends' darkened faces. "Do you think I should have told them about that voice I've been hearing?"
"No," said Daphne, without hesitation. "Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world."
Something in Daphne's voice made Harry ask, "You do believe me, don't you?"
"'Of course I do," she said. "But, you must admit, it's quite odd."
"I know it's odd," said Harry. "The whole thing's just plain weird. What was that writing on the wall about? The chamber has been opened - What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know, it rings a sort of bell," said Tracey slowly. "I think someone told me a story about a secret chamber at Hogwarts once."
A clock chimed somewhere.
"Midnight," said Harry. "We'd better get to bed before Snape comes along and tries to frame me for something else."
For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs. Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he thought the attacker might come back. Harry had seen him scrubbing the message on the wall with Missus Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but to no effect; the words still gleamed as brightly as ever on the stone.
When Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like 'breathing loudly' and 'looking happy.'
"Stuff like this isn't supposed to happen at Hogwarts," said Susan. "They'll catch the maniac who did it and have him out of here in no time."
"I just hope he's got time to petrify Filch before he or she is expelled," said Neville before he raised his hand in mock surrender from the glares he got. "I'm only joking..."
The attack had also had an effect on Hermione. It was quite usual for Hermione to spend a lot of time reading, but she was now doing almost nothing else. Nor could Harry or the others get much response from her when they asked what she was up to, and not until the following Wednesday did they find out.
Harry had been held back in Potions, where Snape had made him stay behind to scrape tubeworms off the desks. After a hurried late lunch, he went upstairs to meet the others in the library, and saw Justin Finch-Fletchley, the Hufflepuff boy from Herbology, coming toward him. Harry had just opened his mouth to say hello when Justin caught sight of him, turned abruptly, and sped off in the opposite direction.
Harry found the others at the back of the library at their usual table. Some were working on their History of Magic homework. Professor Binns had asked for a three foot long composition on 'The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards.'
"I'm still three inches short," said Neville, sighing and letting go of his parchment. "And Hermione's done four feet seven inches and her writing's tiny."
"Where is she?" asked Harry, working on his own homework.
"Somewhere over there," said Neville, pointing along the shelves. "Looking for another book. I think she's trying to read the whole library before Christmas."
Harry told the others about Justin Finch-Fletchley running away from him.
"I don't know why you care. I thought he was a bit of an idiot," said Tracey, writing away. "All that junk about Lockhart being so great..."
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