THE WITCHING HOUR ➸ h. potter

24 - confrontations

"What's going on here? What's going on?"

Argus Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. Then he saw Mrs. Norris and fell back, clutching his face in horror. Strangely enough, I felt terrible for him, being able to completely sympathize with how he must feel.

"My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" he shrieked.

His eyes fell on Harry, causing Hermione and I to instinctively move in front of him, forming a sort of pathetic human shield.

"You!" he screeched. "You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll—"

"Argus!"

Dumbledore had arrived, followed by a number of other teachers. In seconds, he had swept past the four of us and detached Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket.

"Come with me, Argus," he said to Filch. "You, too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Walker, Miss Granger."

Lockhart stepped forward eagerly.

"My office is nearest, Headmaster—just upstairs—please feel free—"

"Thank you, Gilderoy," said Dumbledore, as I couldn't help roll my eyes in disgust at the first mans words.

Lockhart, had an almost smug and excited look that I would have loved to punch right off his face as we hurried after Dumbledore; so did Professors McGonagall and Snape.

As we entered Lockhart's darkened office there was a flurry of movement across the walls, but I wasn't playing attention to that - choosingto watch the headmaster instead. Dumbledore lay Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Hermione and I exchanged tense looks as we sank into chairs outside the pool of candlelight, watching.

Dumbledore was looking at the cat closely, his long fingers gently prodding and poking. Professor McGonagall was bent almost as close, her eyes narrowed. Snape loomed behind us, half in shadow.

"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 counter curse 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. As much as I had hated him before, something about the whole scene made my eyes burn, causing me to blink any trace of tears away furiously.

I couldn't bring myself to look at the stiff cat on the table, instead focusing my eyes on the floor. Probably noticing my discomfort, Harry took one of my cold hands in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. He pulled away seconds later, though, seeing Snape's piercing gaze on us.

Dumbledore started muttering strange words in almost a whisper and tapping Mrs. Norris with his wand but nothing happened.

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

"Not dead?" choked Filch, looking through his fingers at Mrs. Norris. "But why's she all—all stiff and frozen?"

"She has been Petrified," said Dumbledore. "But how, I cannot say..."

"Ask him!" shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tearstained face to Harry. I sat up a little straighter in my chair, ready to jump to his defence if needed, but Dumbledore seemed to have it covered just fine.

"No second year could have done this," said Dumbledore firmly. "it would take Dark Magic of the most advanced—"

"He did it, he did it!" Filch spat, his face purpling. "You saw what he wrote on the wall! He found—in my office—he knows I'm a—I'm a—He knows I'm a Squib!" he finished.

"I never touched Mrs. Norris!" Harry said loudly - he seemed very much aware of the fact that everyone in the room was looking at him. "And I don't even know what a Squib is."

"Rubbish!" snarled Filch. "He saw my Kwikspell letter!"

I had no idea what was going on, the only thing keeping my curiosity in check the fact everyone else in the room seemed just as lost as I felt.

"If I might speak, Headmaster," said Snape, causing a strange sense of dread to wash over me. "Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said, a tone of sarcasm clear in his voice. "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 launched into an explanation about the deathday party. "...there were hundreds of ghosts, they'll tell you we were there—"

"But why not join the feast afterward?" said Snape, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight. "Why go up to that corridor?"

I glanced at Harry, unsure how to proceed from there. Knowing him - there was no way he's want us to tell the others in the room about the strange happenings which had taken place earlier.

"Because—because—" Harry stammered, I winced, knowing 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,