Metanoia • Harry Potter • Book I

Chapter Thirteen

Keziah woke up on Sunday to winter sunlight blazing through the Hospital Wing. Harry was clumsily eating a bowl of porridge left-handed and the bed where Colin was had been blocked off by high curtains.

Madam Pomfrey saw that she was awake too and came bustling over.

"Look, Miss Potter," she said. "I need you to leave now. You're perfectly fine and so is your brother."

"What happened to Colin?" Keziah asked. Harry choked on his food, the spoon clattering onto the floor. Madam Pomfrey absent-mindedly handed him a new one.

"He'll be fine," the matron replied shortly.

"The Chamber's really open, then?" Keziah continued. "I heard Dumbledore say so."

Madam Pomfrey's eyes flicked upwards as if she was praying before she replied.

"You should've been asleep," she sighed. "But yes. Now don't go spreading it around."

Despite Madam Pomfrey's warnings, Keziah immediately went to tell her friends. Since it was a Sunday, most of the school was sleeping in. When she got to the dormitories, everybody was still asleep apart from Millicent Bulstrode, who was scribbling down homework.

"There you are," she said. "Daphne was scared when you didn't come back. She thought you'd been petrified. I told her she was being silly. This whole Chamber business is stupid —"

Millie broke off at Keziah's face.

"Somebody else was petrified," Keziah sighed. There was no point beating around the bush. The whole school would know soon anyway. "Colin Creevey."

"The kid who keeps stalking you guys?" Millie asked.

Keziah nodded numbly. Millie put down her pen — she'd been reluctant at first but came to love the things — and looked over at a sleeping Lily Moon.

"That's... horrible," said Millie. "Nobody deserves that. Don't get me wrong... Muggle-borns are still weird but..."

Millie shook her head and left the dorms. Keziah stared at the place she'd been sitting. Most of the Slytherins existed in a weird limbo where they didn't hate muggle-borns but they didn't like them either. It all came down to a lack of understanding, in Keziah's opinion, but things weren't made better by the rest of the houses hating Slytherins as a whole. All it did was segregate them from views other than their own and it became a vicious cycle.

The division of the houses was stupid in general. Keziah punched the desk, swearing at the pain that shot up her fist.

Her voice woke up Daphne.

"Who's there?" she asked groggily.

"It's me, Keziah," she replied.

Daphne took a moment to process it but when she did, she leapt from her bed. Keziah barely prepared before Daphne threw her arms around her and nearly knocked her over.

"You scared us so badly last night," she said. "I thought you'd gotten hurt."

"I didn't," Keziah said. "But somebody else did."

She quickly recounted everything that had happened the previous night and Daphne looked stunned. The blonde sat down heavily, running her hands through her ratty hair.

"So it's for real then?" she said finally. "We've got to tell the boys. Go wake them up while I get ready."

Daphne said it all very quickly before rushing into the bathroom.

Keziah blinked and went off to follow her friend's orders. She'd never actually been inside the boys' dorm. She'd heard things worth horror stories from Pansy Parkinson, who'd accidentally gone inside on one occasion.