Bella and the Chamber (Book Two)

Chapter Eighteen

For a few days, the whole school could do nothing but talk about the attack on Mrs Norris. It didn't help when Filch kept in fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he thought the attacker might come back. Myself and Harry had seen him scrubbing the message on the wall with 'Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover', but to no effect, the words still gleamed brightly on the stone just like they had just been painted. When Filch wasn't guarding the scene the crime, he was sulking red-eyed through the corridors and handing out more detentions to the unsuspecting students. I even caught him giving detentions out for 'breathing loudly' and 'looking happy'.

Pathetic right?

Ginny, even though I didn't really care about her, seemed very disturbed by Mrs Norris's fate. According to Ron, she was a great cat-lover. I'm more of a dog-lover myself...

"But you hadn't really got to know Mrs Norris," Ron told her bracingly. "Honestly, we're much better off without her." Ginny's lip trembled and I rolled my eyes. Baby. "Stuff like this doesn't often happen at Hogwarts," Ron assured her. "They'll catch the nutter who did it and have him out of here in no time. I just hope he's got time to Petrify Filch before he's expelled. I'm only joking-" Ron added hastily, as Ginny blanched. 

She is sooo a baby.

The attack had also had an effect on Hermione. Which had me worried for my friend. It was quite usual for her to spend a lot of time reading, but she was doing almost nothing else. Neither me, Harry or Ron could get much response from her when we asked what she was up to, and not until the following Wednesday did we find out.

Snape still had it in for me and Harry. We got held back in Potions where Snape had made us stay behind to scrape the tubeworms off the desks. Yuck. After a hurried lunch, we went upstairs to meet Ron in the library, and saw Justin Finch-Fletchley, the Hufflepuff boy from Herbology, coming towards us. Harry had just opened his mouth to say hi when Justin caught sight of him, and turned around before speeding off in the opposite direction.

"What's his problem?" I wondered out loud. 

"People think it's us who attacked Mrs Norris,"

I scoffed. "No, we didn't. Dumbledore said it himself. That sort of magic couldn't be performed by second-years"

"Try telling them that"

We found Ron at the back of the library, measuring his History of Magic homework. Professor Binns had asked for a three-foot-long composition on 'The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards'.

"I don't believe it, I'm still eight inches short..." Ron said furiously, letting go of his parchment, which sprang back into a roll, "and Hermione's done four feet seven inches and her writing's tiny"

I smiled. "I've done mine. It's exactly three-foot-long"

"How?" Ron gaped at me. 

"It's easy," I shrugged.

Harry, looked around as he grabbed the tape measure and unrolling his own homework. 

"Where's Hermione?" he asked us.

"Somewhere over there," Ron said, pointing along the shelves, "looking for another book. I think she's trying to read the whole library before Christmas"

I chuckled. "Same old Hermione"

Harry then told Ron about Justin running away from us. 

"Dunno why you care, I thought he was a bit of an idiot," Ron said, scribbling away, making his writing as large as possible. I raised my eyebrow in amusement. "All that rubbish about Lockhart being so great-"