Pennelope and the Chamber (Harry Potter love story) book 2

The Chamber of Secrets

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

Argus Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. He took one look at his cat and fell back in horror.

"My cat! My cat! What happened to Mrs. Norris?" He shrieked, his eyes landing on Harry. "You!" He screeched. "You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll -"

"Argus!"

Dumbldore arrived on the scene, followed by a number of other teachers. He 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. Jone, and Miss Granger."

Lockhart then stepped forward eagerly.

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

"Thank you, Gilderoy," Dumbledore said.

The crowd parted and let us pass. Lockhart looked oddly excited.

As we entered Lockhart's darkened office, followed by McGonagall and Snape. Dumbledore lay Mrs. Norris down on a polished desk.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and I exchanged a tense look and sank into the shadows, watching to see what was happening.

"It was defiantly a curse that killed her - probably the transmorifian 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 said as they examined her.

I felt a little bad for filch. U stood up and walked over to filch and started rubbing his back, he is not the person you want to be on a bad side with.

". . . I remember somthing very similar happening in Ouagadougou," Lockhart said. "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 at once . . ."

"She's not dead, Argus," Dumbledore said softly as he stood up.

"Not dead?" Filch choked, "But why's she all - all stiff and frozen?"

"She has been petrified," I said.

All the teachers looked at me.

"How did you know that?" Snape asked.

"Well, if she's not dead, then she's petrified," I said still rubbing Filch's back.

"Very well, Pennelope. But how, I cannot say . . . "

"Ask him!" Filch shrieked, turning his tearstained face to Harry.

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

"He did it, he did it!" Filch spat. "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!"

"I never touched Mrs. Norris!" Harry said loudly and uncomfortably as we all stared at him. "And I don't even know what a Squib is." He defended.

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

"If I might speak, Headmaster," Snape said, emerging from the shadows. "Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 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, Ron and Hermione all launched into and explanation about the Deathday party, and they even added me in it. " . . . There were hundreds of ghosts, they'll tell you we were there-"