Loki Odinson and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 7; Trouble

    (Told from Harry's point of view)

Loki was a preposterous boy. Helpful to have around, but unpredictable. I'd consider us friends, but he didn't seem to think that I was worth his time. Maybe he saw it differently in his eyes, but I wondered why he seemed so nice to me, and so arrogant at the same time.

Malfoy's yelling had attracted Filch, who fought his way to the front of the crowd, demanding that people move out of the way. The nice thing about having Loki as a friend was that he was a master of honeyed words, and for being the most mysterious person in the entire school, he was very good at gaining the teacher's favor. I hoped that Loki would be able to worm our way out of this mess.

Filch's eyes fell on Mrs. Norris, hanging petrified on the bracket. "My cat! What's happened to her?"

His eyes darted toward me. "It's him! You killed my cat!" His eyes dart in between me and Mrs. Norris.

"No one killed anything!" Loki accounts. Filch's eyes dart over to him. Loki leans over toward Malfoy, and whispers, "you speak for a moment, the next you're on the floor writhing in pain."

Loki starts to walk toward Filch, but I hear a voice yell over the crowd.

"Argus!" Dumbledore emerges from the horde of students, followed closely by Professors McGonagall, Snape and Lockhart.

"What's going on?" Lockhart asks.

"My cat has been killed!" Filch announces. "And these students—" he gestures to Loki, Ron, Hermione and I, "are the culprits!"

Dumbledore walks forward to examine the cat, while Lockhart mutters to himself about curses and counter curses to do with the cat.

"She is not dead." Dumbledore says finally. "She is only petrified."

"So she's just stuck in that position because she got scared to death?" Loki says, very obviously trying not to laugh. "Seems a pretty sad way to die."

"This is no joking matter." Dumbledore says, examining the lettering on the wall.

"Yeah, yeah." Loki agrees, looking disappointed.

"My cat has been petrified!" Filch shouts, losing it. "I'd like to see some punishment!"

"Innocent until proven guilty." Dumbledore says. "Lockhart, we'll need to use your office. Follow me, you four."

Loki, Hermione, Ron and I all follow McGonagall, Dumbledore, Lockhart, Snape and Filch to Lockhart's office. No one says a word.

We enter Lockhart's office and he turns on the lights, and we all take a seat.

"If I may speak first—" Loki starts.

"Please explain why you were not at the Halloween feast." Dumbledore asks.

All of us seemed to be thinking the same thing— leave the explaining to Loki. When we stayed silent, Loki gave us a "smart move" sort of expression. He explained to Dumbledore that we were at the deathday party that I so rashly made a promise to go to. Then we went back up to the common room to sleep, and we ran into this on the way there.

"Without anything to eat?" Snape interrupted at this point. "Surely food for ghosts is not suitable for living people."

"We were more tired than hungry." Loki said stubbornly. Ron's stomach growled at that moment, and Loki pursed his lips. "Most of us." He added.

"I think we ought to take away this boy's Quidditch privileges until his friends decide to be honest." Snape says, gesturing to me.

"I'm sorry, but he didn't say a word, did he?" Loki says, slightly miffed. "I think it would make more sense to take something away from me, don't you think?"