There's a deadly Snake downstairs! (rewrite)

A reason to listen to your own advice.

The door flew open at once. Lockhart beamed down at her. Harriet briefly debated leaving.

"Ah, here's the scalawag!" he said, grinning brightly. "Come in, Harriet, come in -"

He practically dragged her into the office.

Shining brightly on the walls by the light of many candles were countless framed photographs of Lockhart. He had even signed a few of them. Another large pile lay on his desk. Harriet felt like gagging. She would rather take a months worth of detention with McGonagall rather than this.

"You can address the envelopes!" Lockhart told Harriet, as though this was a huge treat. "This first one's to Gladys Gudgeon, bless her - huge fan of mine -"

The minutes dragged on. Harriet let Lockhart's voice rumble in the background, occasionally saying, "Mmm" and "Right" and "Yeah". Now and then she caught a phrase like, "Fame's a fickle friend, Harriet," or "Celebrity is as celebrity does, remember that".

She was waiting for the whole "back in my day..." to start but, considering how many adresses she was copying onto envelopes it was probably still Lockharts day.

Unfortunately.

The candles had melted down to stumps. Harriet moved her aching hand over what felt like the thousandth envelope, writing out Veronica Smethley's address. It must be nearly time to leave, Harriet thought miserably, please let it be nearly time...

And then she heard something - something quite apart from the spitting of the dying candles and Lockhart's prattle about his fans.

It was a voice, a voice to chill the bone marrow, a voice of breathtaking, ice-cold venom.

"Come ... come to me.... Let me rip you.... Let me tear you .... Let me kill you . . . ."

Harriet gave a huge jump and a large lilac blot appeared on Veronica Smethley's street.

"What?" She said loudly.

"I know!" said Lockhart. "Six solid months at the top of the best- seller list! Broke all records!"

Harriet who had Acctually meant the voice decided to play it cool. 

"That's amazing!" She said.

Then she let Lockhart babble on and went back to writing adresses.  Then finally, finally, she was released from this hell. 

"Great Scott - look at the time! We've been here nearly four hours! Id never have believed it - the time's flown, hasn't it?" Lockhart exclaimed.

Harriet didn't answer. She was straining her ears to hear the voice again, but there was no sound now except for Lockhart telling her  she mustn't expect a treat like this every time he got detention. Feeling dazed and nodding, Harriet left.

It was so late that the Slytherin common room was almost empty, aside from some fith-years who were cracking open something that smelled suspiciously like whiskey. 

Harriet ignored them and went straight up to the dormitory. In a quiet voice that was almost a whisper she told Pansy, who was miraculously still awake, what had happened. Pansy looked shocked when she got to the voice, but then put on a straight face and told Harriet to blame Peeves the Poltergeist.

It was a simple enough answer and a fairly logical conclusion. Still, Harriet lay awake thinking and came to the conclusion that it had not, in fact, been Peeves. Something strange was afoot in Hogwarts again and she would find out what it was, despite her better judgement.

October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. The kind that seeped into your clothes and followed you everywhere. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Her Pepperup potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. Some of the older Slytherins started running a successful black market on cold healing potions.

Harriet was fairly sure Snape was secretley supervising the production.

Raindrops thundered on the castle windows for days on end. The lake rose, the flower beds turned into muddy streams, and Hagrid's pumpkins swelled to the size of garden sheds.

Draco, Pansy and Harriet were walking along a corridor on the second floor, when they came across a flooded area. It kind of stank.

"Did someone leave the windows open too long?" Pansy asked.

"Smells more like someone blew up the toilets." Draco wrinkled his nose.

Harriet chuckled. "We'd know what that smells like," she muttered.

And then she heard it.

". . . rip . . . tear . . . kill . . ."

It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice she had heard in Lockhart's office.

'Don't follow it,' she told herself, 'This is going to be dangerous.'

Ever adept at following her own advice, she sprinted after it.

"This way," she shouted, to her friends.

"Harriet, what're we -"

"SHH!"

Harriet strained her ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, she heard it.

 ". . . I smell blood. . . . I SMELL BLOOD!"

Harriet hurtled around the whole of the second floor, Draco  and Pansy panting behind her, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage. Harriet pulled out her wand and stepped forward through the ankle deep water.

"Harriet, what was that all about?" said Draco, wiping sweat off his face. "I couldn't hear anything. . . ."

But Pansy gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor.

"Look!"

Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches:
The chamber of secrets has been opened again. Enemies of the heir, beware.

"Not the best poetry." Harriet commented dryly.

"What's that thing - hanging underneath?" said Pansy , she looked ready to faint.

They inched toward the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. All three of them realized what it was at once, and leapt backward with a splash. Mrs. Norris,the caretaker's cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.

Looking closer, Harriet realised that the message had been written in something red. Was it blood?

For a few seconds, nobody moved. Pansy seemed to be holding her breath. 

Then Draco said, "Let's get out of here."

"Good idea." Pansy said, grabbing Harriets arm and dragging her away from the scene.

Later they found out that Mrs. Norris had been petrified, the news spreadkng like wildfire regardless of how the teachers tried to keep it under wraps.

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Another long chapter...
Well, hope you enjoyed it!
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Thanks to all my readers.
XOXO Drachma.