Goddess

How she was blamed

Persephone sat on the hospital bed clutching her face. She had been helping Crabbe practice a hex and it had gone wrong. Hence her face face gone an unhealthy green and she thought she looked like the Wicked Witch of the West except without the nose and warts.

Madame Pomfrey insisted she stay in the Hospital Wing until the hex wore off so that's what she did. She asked Madame Pomfrey to not let a single person see her.

That evening after it had worn off she was walking towards the Great Hall, she heard a commotion.

"What the hell's going on?" Persephone whispered to Rosella, but apparently she was a bit too loud because everyone stared at her, and whispers arouse. 

'Maybe she did it.' and 'She did miss class all day and she is the heir of Slytherin.'

Rosella hissed, "Look at the wall." 

And then everything became clear for written upon the wall in red in a scrawl were the words :

 THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THEHEIR, BEWARE.

"Oh, Merlin no. It certainly wasn't me. I was in the Hospital wing all day." Persephone said.

She however went along with the Golden Quartet to Lockhart's office when asked. 

As they entered Lockhart's darkened office there was a flurry of movement across the walls; Persephone saw several of the Lockharts in the pictures dodging out of sight, their hair in rollers. 

The real Lockhart lit the candles on his desk and stood back. Dumbledore laid Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Harry, Ron, Aries and Hermione exchanged tense looks and sank into chairs outside the pool of candlelight, watching. Perse was too nervous to sit however. 

She started fidgeting with her locket, Harry noticed, like she always did when she was nervous. 

The tip of Dumbledore's long, crooked nose was barely an inch from Mrs. Norris's fur. He was looking at her closely through his half-moon spectacles, his long fingers gently prodding and poking. Professor McGonagall was bent almost as close, her eyes narrowed. Snape loomed behind them, half in shadow, wearing a most peculiar expression: It was as though he was trying hard not to smile. 

And Lockhart was hovering around all of them, making suggestions. "It was definitely a curse that killed her — probably the Transmogrifian Torture — I've seen it used many times, so unlucky I wasn't there, I know the very countercurse that would have saved her. . . ." Lockhart's comments were punctuated by Filch's dry, racking sobs. He was slumped in a chair by the desk, unable to look at Mrs. Norris, his face in his hands. Much as he detested Filch, Harry couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for him, though not nearly as sorry as he felt for himself. 

If Dumbledore believed Filch, he would be expelled for sure. Dumbledore was now muttering strange words under his breath and tapping Mrs. Norris with his wand, but nothing happened: She continued to look as though she had been recently stuffed. 

". . . I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadogou," said Lockhart, "a series of attacks, the full story's in my autobiography, I was able to provide the townsfolk with various amulets, which cleared the matter up at once. . . ." The photographs of Lockhart on the walls were all nodding in agreement as he talked. One of them had forgotten to remove his hair net. 

At last Dumbledore straightened up. "She's not dead, Argus," he said softly. 

Lockhart stopped abruptly in the middle of counting the number of murders he had prevented.