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SIYE Time:5:59 on 29th March 2024
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Gods Bless Accidental Magic!
By Dopeydo

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Category: Alternate Universe
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Ron Weasley
Genres: Action/Adventure, Crossover, Humor, Romance
Warnings: Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Spouse/Adult/Child Abuse, Violence, Violence/Physical Abuse
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 306
Summary: Everybody has their limits. As Harry finds his reason to live, he will break many of them… and not all intentionally. As Harry finds his reason to live, he will learn what it means to be broken in turn. There is a great power in friendship, but there is just as great a power in fear. (Crossover occurs late in the story.)

Note: Picks up from halfway through chapter six of PS. Abuse warnings are limited to pre-Hogwarts experiences. Rating is mainly for language.
Hitcount: Story Total: 200334; Chapter Total: 3658
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
My sincerest apologies for skipping an update. It's entirely on me. As such, this one is unbeta'd as it would be unfair to ask Arnel and BobVosh to rush it out the door and I've kept you all waiting too long already.
There should only be a couple more chapters after this that are very similar to canon so please bear with.




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September passed in a haze. Lockhart was still an incredible annoyance, but at least he didn’t try any practical class work after the horror show of the pixies. Rather, he interspersed retelling his grand and glorious adventures with tidbits of relevant information that few paid enough attention to grasp. Hermione was one of them, growing more starry eyed with every lesson.


Harry had initially thought to get her a pixie for her birthday. Unfortunately, Ginny wouldn’t let him, somehow convincing him to get a signed photo of Lockhart for Hermione instead. Harry wasn’t best pleased to have to ask Lockhart for it. The way that the man had grinned had made Harry want to break every one of his perfect white teeth. And somehow, Hermione’s happiness at receiving it just irritated Harry. From the barely restrained joy on Hermione’s face, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was keeping it under her pillow.


But in spite of the birthday celebrations, tensions began to rise as they moved into October. Surprisingly, it had nothing to do with Harry apparently having heard voices in his head.


Ginny wasn’t inviting him to talk to the diary as often. Harry didn’t mind too much - lately, he hadn’t felt much need to talk to Riddle. But regardless of what he did or didn’t want, Ginny was slowly becoming more reclusive, and without her it fell to Harry and Neville to keep Ron and Hermione’s regular arguments from becoming something much worse. Neville bore the brunt of this in the end, because ultimately Harry was getting quite tired of the bickering. Why should they be burdened with it? If Ron and Hermione wanted to tear each other apart, let them have at it and perhaps they might be satisfied when they are done.


Furthermore, Luna seemed directly affected by Ginny’s low spirits. Her normally vacant expression had morphed into a vaguely troubled one, though she would not say what was the matter. This doubled back on Ginny in a vicious cycle with no end in sight.


A moment of relief came when Percy, convinced that her issues stemmed from an infection that was circulating, finally persuaded Ginny to take one of Madam Pomfrey’s Pepperup Potions. It did restore some colour to her cheeks, but the steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire. Harry managed, with some effort, to sell to her the idea that it was a flattering look on her, and thought that she gave him the first genuine Ginny grin he’d seen in about three weeks. He certainly hadn’t seen it since.


Raindrops the size of bullets 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. Oliver Wood’s enthusiasm for regular training sessions, however, was not dampened.


“Eight o’clock sharp on Saturday, everyone,” said Wood. “We’re cannot give them one inch!”


Even aside from the rain and wind it hadn’t been a happy practice session. Fred and George, who had been spying on the Slytherin team, had seen for themselves the speed of those new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. They reported that the Slytherin team was no more than seven greenish blurs, shooting through the air like missiles.


The rest of the team hit the showers, not even sparing their captain a sideways glance. Harry headed straight back up to the castle. The rain weighed on his already low mood, but so long as he was fighting through it, he didn’t feel like collapsing on the muddied path. It was with a heavy sigh of relief that he breached the castle walls, and a heavier sigh still that he realised how many flights of stairs he would be dragging himself up to reach his dorm showers.


‘Why did I leave my Nimbus in the broom shed?’ he thought despondently.


As Harry squelched along the deserted corridor he came across somebody who looked just as preoccupied as he was. Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring morosely out of a window, muttering under his breath, “...don’t fulfill their requirements... half an inch, if that...”


“Hello, Nick,” said Harry.


“Hello, hello,” said Nearly Headless Nick, starting and looking round.


Harry sighed, looking at the torrential rain through his House Ghost’s head. Though he was no longer at its mercy, the damage was done. A shiver passed down his spine as more water dripped from his hair onto the back of his neck and down his back. Nick, wearing his customary medieval garb, offered Harry a sympathetic wince.


“So you feel the rain, Sir Nick?” said Harry.


“I remember it, I think,” said Nick wistfully, folding a transparent letter as he spoke and tucking it inside his doublet. “But you look troubled, young Potter.”


“So do you,” said Harry.


“Ah,” Nearly Headless Nick waved an elegant hand, “a matter of no importance... It’s not as though I really wanted to join... Thought I’d apply, but apparently I ‘don’t fulfill requirements’.”


In spite of his airy tone, there was a look of great bitterness on his face.


“But you would think, wouldn’t you,” he erupted suddenly, pulling the letter back out of his pocket, “that getting hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe would qualify you to join the Headless Hunt?”


“Oh, yes,” said Harry.


“I mean, nobody wishes more than I do that it had all been quick and clean, and my head had come off properly, I mean, it would have saved me a great deal of pain and ridicule. However...” Nearly Headless Nick shook his letter open and read furiously:


“‘We can only accept huntsmen whose heads have parted company with their bodies. You will appreciate that it would be impossible otherwise for members to participate in hunt activities such as Horseback Head-Juggling and Head Polo. It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must inform you that you do not fulfill our requirements. With very best wishes, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore.’”


Fuming, Nearly Headless Nick stuffed the letter away. “Half an inch of skin and sinew holding my neck on, Harry! Most people would think that’s good and beheaded, but oh, no, it’s not enough for Sir Properly Decapitated-Podmore.” Nearly Headless Nick took several deep breaths and then said, in a far calmer tone, “So, what’s bothering you? Anything I can do?”


“No,” said Harry. “Not unless you know where we can get seven free Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones for our match against Sly-”


The rest of Harry’s sentence was drowned out by a high-pitched mewling from somewhere near his ankles. He looked down and found himself gazing into a pair of lamp-like yellow eyes. It was Mrs. Norris, the skeletal gray cat who was used by the caretaker, Argus Filch, as a sort of deputy in his endless battle against students.


“You’d better get out of here, Harry,” said Nick quickly. “Filch isn’t in a good mood – he’s got the flu and some third years accidentally plastered frog brains all over the ceiling in dungeon five. He’s been cleaning all morning, and if he sees you dripping mud all over the place...”


“Right,” said Harry, reaching for his invisibility cloak and realising with a pang of despair that he had left it in Gryffindor tower.


Drawn to the spot by the mysterious power that seemed to connect him with his foul cat, Argus Filch burst suddenly through a tapestry to Harry’s right, wheezing and looking wildly about for the rule-breaker. There was a thick tartan scarf bound around his head, and his nose was unusually purple.


“Filth!” he shouted, his jowls aquiver, his eyes popping alarmingly as he pointed at the muddy puddle that had dripped from Harry’s Quidditch robes. “Mess and muck everywhere! I’ve had enough of it, I tell you! Follow me, Potter!”


So Harry waved a gloomy good-bye to Nearly Headless Nick and followed Filch back downstairs, doubling the number of muddy footprints on the floor. Harry had never been inside Filch’s office before; it was a place most students avoided. The room was dingy and windowless, lit by a single oil lamp dangling from the low ceiling. A faint smell of fried fish lingered about the place. Wooden filing cabinets stood around the walls; from their labels, Harry could see that they contained details of every pupil Filch had ever punished. Fred and George had an entire drawer to themselves. A highly polished collection of chains and manacles hung on the wall behind Filch’s desk. It was common knowledge that he was always begging Dumbledore to let him suspend students by their ankles from the ceiling.


Filch grabbed a quill from a pot on his desk and began shuffling around looking for parchment.


“Dung,” he muttered furiously, “great sizzling dragon bogies... frog brains... rat intestines... I’ve had enough of it... make an example... where’s the form... yes...”


He retrieved a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and stretched it out in front of him, dipping his long black quill into the ink pot. “Name... Harry Potter. Crime...”


“It was only a bit of mud!” said Harry.


“It’s only a bit of mud to you, boy, but to me it’s an extra hour scrubbing!” shouted Filch, a drip shivering unpleasantly at the end of his bulbous nose. “Crime... befouling the castle... suggested sentence...”


Dabbing at his streaming nose, Filch squinted unpleasantly at Harry, who waited with bated breath for his sentence to fall. But as Filch lowered his quill, there was a great BANG! on the ceiling of the office, which made the oil lamp rattle.


“PEEVES!” Filch roared, flinging down his quill in a transport of rage. “I’ll have you this time, I’ll have you!”


And without a backward glance at Harry, Filch ran flat-footed from the office, Mrs. Norris streaking alongside him. Harry had never much liked Peeves, but he couldn’t help feeling grateful for the poltergeist’s timing. Hopefully, whatever Peeves had done (and it sounded as though he’d wrecked something very big this time) would distract Filch from Harry.


Thinking that he should probably wait for Filch to come back, Harry sank into a moth-eaten chair next to the desk. There was only one thing on it apart from his half-completed form: a large, glossy, purple envelope with silver lettering on the front. With a quick glance at the door to check that Filch wasn’t on his way back, Harry picked up the envelope and read:


KWIKSPELL

A Correspondence Course in Beginners’ Magic


Intrigued, Harry flicked the envelope open and pulled out the sheaf of parchment inside. More curly silver writing on the front page said:


Feel out of step in the world of modern magic? Find yourself making excuses not to perform simple spells? Ever been taunted for your woeful wandwork?

There is an answer!


Kwikspell is an all-new, fail-safe, quick-result, easy-learn course. Hundreds of witches and wizards have benefited from the Kwikspell method!


Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes:

“I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke! Now, after a Kwikspell course, I am the center of attention at parties and friends beg for the recipe of my Scintillation Solution!”


Warlock D. J. Prod of Didsbury says:

“My wife used to sneer at my feeble charms, but one month into your fabulous Kwikspell course and I succeeded in turning her into a yak! Thank you, Kwikspell!”


Fascinated, Harry thumbed through the rest of the envelope’s contents. Why on earth did Filch want a Kwikspell course? Did this mean he wasn’t a proper wizard? Harry had never seen him holding a wand, let alone casting spells - all the work Filch did seemed limited to elbow grease. In retrospect, this seemed rather cruel. Any of the teachers could clean up any sort of a mess with nary a thought. And yet, Filch didn’t seem to have trouble keeping up with the workload most of the time, and in a castle of this size...


Harry was just reading “Lesson One: Holding Your Wand (Some Useful Tips)” when shuffling footsteps outside told him Filch was coming back. Stuffing the parchment back into the envelope, Harry threw it back onto the desk just as the door opened. Filch was looking triumphant.


“That vanishing cabinet was extremely valuable!” he was saying gleefully to Mrs. Norris. “We’ll have Peeves out this time, my sweet...”


His eyes fell on Harry and then darted to the Kwikspell envelope, which, Harry realized too late, was lying two feet away from where it had started. Filch’s pasty face went brick red. Harry braced himself for a tidal wave of fury. Filch hobbled across to his desk, snatched up the envelope, and threw it into a drawer.


“Have you... did you read...?” he sputtered.


“No,” Harry lied quickly.


Filch’s knobbly hands were twisting together. “If I thought you’d read my private – not that it’s mine – for a friend – be that as it may – however...”


Harry was staring at him, alarmed; Filch had never looked madder. His eyes were popping, a tic was going in one of his pouchy cheeks, and the tartan scarf didn’t help.


“Very well. Go... and don’t breathe a word – not that – however, if you didn’t read – go now, I have to write up Peeves’ report – go...”


Amazed at his luck, Harry sped out of the office, up the corridor, and back upstairs. To escape from Filch’s office without punishment was probably some kind of school record.


“Harry! Harry! Did it work?”


Nearly Headless Nick came gliding out of a classroom. Behind him, Harry could see the wreckage of a large black-and-gold cabinet that appeared to have been dropped from a great height.


“I persuaded Peeves to crash it right over Filch’s office,” said Nick eagerly. “Thought it might distract him...”


“Was that you?” said Harry gratefully. “Yeah, it worked, I didn’t even get detention. Thanks, Nick!”


They set off up the corridor together. Nearly Headless Nick, Harry noticed, was still holding Sir Patrick’s rejection letter.


“I wish there was something I could do for you about the Headless Hunt,” Harry said.


Nearly Headless Nick stopped in his tracks and Harry walked right through him. He wished he hadn’t; it was like stepping through an icy shower, and Harry was cold enough already.


“But there is something you could do for me,” said Nick excitedly. “Harry – would I be asking too much – but no, you wouldn’t want –”


“What is it?” said Harry.


“Well, this Halloween will be my five hundredth deathday,” said Nearly Headless Nick, drawing himself up and looking dignified.


“Oh,” said Harry, not sure whether he should look sorry or happy about this. “Right.”


“I’m holding a party down in one of the roomier dungeons. Friends will be coming from all over the country. It would be such an honor if you would attend. Your friends would be most welcome, too, of course – but I daresay you’d rather go to the school feast?”


He watched Harry on tenterhooks.


“No,” said Harry quickly, “I’ll come –”


“My dear boy! Harry Potter, at my deathday party! And–” he hesitated, looking excited. “Do you think you could possibly mention to Sir Patrick how very frightening and impressive you find me?”


“Of... of course,” said Harry.


Nearly Headless Nick beamed at him.


“A deathday party?” said Hermione keenly when Harry had changed at last and joined everyone in the common room. “I bet there aren’t many living people who can say they’ve been to one of those – it’ll be fascinating!”


“Why would anyone want to celebrate the day they died?” said Ron, who was halfway through his Potions homework and grumpy. “Sounds dead depressing to me...”


Rain was still lashing the windows, which were now inky black, but inside all looked bright and cheerful. The firelight glowed over the countless squashy armchairs where people sat reading, talking, doing homework or, in the case of Fred and George Weasley, trying to find out what would happen if you fed a Filibuster firework to a salamander. Fred had “rescued” the brilliant orange, fire-dwelling lizard from a Care of Magical Creatures class and it was now smoldering gently on a table surrounded by a knot of curious people.


Harry was at the point of explaining what had happened with Filch and the Kwikspell course when the salamander suddenly whizzed into the air, emitting loud sparks and bangs as it whirled wildly round the room. The background of a cheering crowd, Percy biting his tongue and watching patiently from the stairs, the spectacular display of tangerine stars showering from the salamander’s mouth, and its escape into the fire, with accompanying explosions, drove both Filch and the Kwikspell envelope from Harry’s mind.




The following day, Harry found Luna playing gobstones with a couple of her classmates. Upon seeing him, the others nudged each other and stared at him, but Luna kept her attention fixed on her gobstone, which she calmly flicked into the ring. It knocked quite bodily into her friend’s, sending it careening into the central pit, and yet still managed to nudge a precariously placed second gobstone. The translucent green sphere worried at the edge for a moment, before dropping in with a plunk.


“Harry Potter,” said Luna. “This is Aracel Smythe...”


The freckled boy with wavy brown hair stumbled out a greeting, blue eyes fixed on Harry’s tie.


“... and Fiora Greengrass.”


A blonde girl who didn’t even manage words. She tried to meet his eyes, but blushed and went for a little wave instead.


“She’s a distant cousin of Daphne Greengrass,” Luna explained.


“Nice to meet you both,” said Harry, feeling only a little awkward. “Luna, could I have a word?”


“Lateral,” said Luna. “Unless you were looking for ownership of the word, in which case I wouldn’t be of much help. However, they are experimenting with thought-stealing magic in the Department of Mysteries that could hold an entire idea hostage. They plan to use it to force the centaurs to serve them in the secret war with the goblins.”


Harry blinked, trying to reconcile what Luna was saying with his now scattered thought processes. Her classmates were blushing furiously, glancing nervously at Harry.


“Uh, no thanks, Luna,” said Harry. “I just wanted to talk to you in private for a moment. If you two don’t mind?”


They looked confused, but hurried off all the same.


“They’re a little odd, aren’t they?” said Luna. “That’s okay though. I like odd. Odd means interesting. I had to pretend not to be odd at muggle school, so things weren’t very interesting.”


“Yeah,” said Harry. “What was that like, anyway? Knowing about magic, but still...?”


“Living with people who thought it a fantasy?” said Luna. “Muggle children believe in a lot of things, Harry Potter. You might know. It was not too much bother to keep the secret safe. It was only... lonely. But I had Daddy, and Mummy and... and Ginny.”


Harry was silent for a moment, watching Luna gaze vacantly at a tree. “Are you very keen on going to the Halloween feast, Luna?”


“I shouldn’t like to miss my first one,” said Luna. “I’ve heard that they are quite delightful.”


“It was good last year,” Harry admitted, not glad to be reminded of his internal conflict. “But I might have something better. A deathday party.”


“Interesting,” said Luna. “Are you inviting me to the Gryffindor House Ghost’s deathday party, Harry Potter?”


“That... is what I’m doing, yes,” Harry frowned. “How did you know whose deathday it was?”


“I know of only one Hogwarts ghost that died on Halloween,” said Luna. “It was an educated guess.”


“Oh,” Harry said. “Well, yeah, we’re all going - would you like to come?”


“I would love to, thank you Harry,” said Luna. “I am assuming that we do not have to be dead to attend.”


“I should bloody hope so,” Harry grinned.


Luna’s lips twitched.




By the time Halloween arrived, Harry was regretting his rash promise to go to the deathday party. The rest of the school was happily anticipating their Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with the usual live bats, Hagrid’s vast pumpkins had been carved into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in, and there were rumors that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment.


“A promise is a promise,” Hermione reminded Harry bossily. “You said you’d go to the deathday party.”


“I’m not going back on it,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “Maybe we’ll catch the end of the feast.”


At seven o’clock, Harry and his five friends walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and directed their steps instead toward the dungeons. The passageway leading to Nearly Headless Nick’s party had been lined with candles, too, though the effect was far from cheerful: These were long, thin, jet-black tapers, all burning bright blue, casting a dim, ghostly light even over their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step they took. As Harry shivered and drew his robes tightly around him, he heard what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard.


“Is that supposed to be music?” Ron whispered. They turned a corner and saw Nearly Headless Nick standing at a doorway hung with black velvet drapes.


“My dear friends,” he said mournfully. “Welcome, welcome... so pleased you could come...”


He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside.


It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform. A chandelier overhead blazed midnight-blue with a thousand more black candles. Their breath rose in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer.


“Shall we have a look around?” Harry suggested, wanting to warm up his feet.


“Careful not to walk through anyone,” said Ron nervously, and they set off around the edge of the dance floor.


They passed a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. Harry wasn’t surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts.


“Oh, no,” said Hermione, stopping abruptly. “Turn back, turn back, I don’t want to talk to Moaning Myrtle –”


“Who?” said Harry as they backtracked quickly.


“She haunts one of the toilets in the girls’ bathroom on the first floor,” said Ginny.


“She haunts a toilet?” said Neville.


“Yes,” Hermione sighed. “It’s been out-of-order all year because she keeps having tantrums and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it’s awful trying to have a pee with her wailing at you–”


“Look, food!” said Ron.


On the other side of the dungeon was a long table, also covered in black velvet. Ron hurried ahead, lead as ever by his stomach.


“I don’t think Myrtle is so bad,” said Luna. “She has suffered a lot.”


“We’ve all got our problems,” said Hermione. “It doesn’t mean she-”


Hermione stopped abruptly as she narrowly avoided Ron. Their ginger friend looked horrified. It didn’t take the rest of them long to figure out what had upset him. The smell alone was enough to make Harry nauseous.


Large, rotten fish were laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mold and, in pride of place, an enormous gray cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words,


Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington

died 31st October, 1492


Harry watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched low, and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through one of the stinking salmon.


“Can you taste it if you walk through it?” Harry asked him.


“Almost,” said the ghost sadly, and he drifted away.


“I expect they’ve let it rot to give it a stronger flavor,” said Hermione knowledgeably, pinching her nose and leaning closer to look at the putrid haggis.


“Can we move? I feel sick,” said Ron.


“I think I should go to the toilet,” Ginny muttered.


They had barely turned around, however, when a little man swooped suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in midair before them.


“Hello, Peeves,” said Harry cautiously.


Unlike the ghosts around them, Peeves the Poltergeist was the very reverse of pale and transparent. He was wearing a bright orange party hat, a revolving bow tie, and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face.


“Nibbles?” he said sweetly, offering them a bowl of peanuts covered in fungus.


“No thanks,” said Hermione.


“Heard you talking about poor Myrtle,” said Peeves, his eyes dancing. “Rude you was about poor Myrtle.”


He took a deep breath, only to be interrupted by an irritated Ginny. “Get out of the way Peeves, or I’ll show you your insides.”


“Ooooohhhoohoohooo!” said Peeves in an annoying, sing-song voice as Ginny pushed past. “Feeling testy, are we?”


“I warned you,” said Ginny darkly, not even looking around.


Peeves let out a strangled whimper. “Stop it!”


“I can do whatever I like, Peeves,” Ginny called. “Remember that.”


Harry wanted to feel proud. By all rights it seemed like he should. Yet, something had felt just a little bit off about the whole encounter. He shared a concerned look with Luna, who was being strangely expressive today. Everything was odd lately.


Nearly Headless Nick now drifted toward them through the crowd. “Enjoying yourselves?”


“Oh, yes,” they lied.


“Not a bad turnout,” said Nearly Headless Nick proudly. “The Wailing Widow came all the way up from Kent... It’s nearly time for my speech, I’d better go and warn the orchestra...”


The orchestra, however, stopped playing at that very moment. They, and everyone else in the dungeon, fell silent, looking around in excitement, as a hunting horn sounded.


“Oh, here we go,” said Nearly Headless Nick bitterly.


Through the dungeon wall burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by a headless horseman. The assembly clapped wildly; Harry started to clap, too, but stopped quickly at the sight of Nick’s face.


The horses galloped into the middle of the dance floor and halted, rearing and plunging. At the front of the pack was a large ghost who held his bearded head under his arm, from which position he was blowing the horn. The ghost leapt down, lifted his head high in the air so he could see over the crowd, who were laughing uproariously at his antics, and strode over to Nearly Headless Nick, squashing his head back onto his neck.


“Nick!” he roared. “How are you? Head still hanging in there?”


He gave a hearty guffaw and clapped Nearly Headless Nick on the shoulder.


“Welcome, Patrick,” said Nick stiffly.


“Live ‘uns!” said Sir Patrick, spotting Harry and his friends and giving a huge, fake jump of astonishment, so that his head fell off again. The crowd howled with laughter.


“Very amusing,” said Nearly Headless Nick darkly.


“Don’t mind Nick!” shouted Sir Patrick’s head from the floor. “Still upset we won’t let him join the Hunt! But I mean to say – look at the fellow...”


“Yes, do,” said Neville. “It is his deathday.”


“Perhaps we went to the wrong place,” said Hermione.


“Why would the Ghost of Gryffindor Tower be upset over you not wanting him?” said Luna with vague curiosity. “He holds his position in the honour of Godric Gryffindor himself, looking after generations of the best magical talent in the country, and keeps company with other ghosts in similar positions. As far as I can tell, you are a... group of entertainers?”


Luna being Luna, her tone was neither flattering not offensive, but she had had a marked effect on everyone in the room. Nick was certainly holding himself with greater pride than he had been, and Patrick didn’t look quite so pleased with himself. The crowd seemed rather amused, although perhaps that was little change in their demeanour.


“Yes, entertainers,” said Sir Patrick, rolling his head across his shoulders from one arm to the other and balancing it on a finger. “A band of the beheaded who got together to make this existence a little less dreary. Something dear Sir Nick clearly wanted to be a part of!”


“Is that you, Nick?” said Harry quietly. “You’re a great Gryffindor ghost. Would you be a great... show-off, or whatever that would make you?”


“It would have been a nice thing to try, I admit,” said Nick. “But I had no intention of abandoning my post here!”


“Then perhaps this was for the best, old chap!” said Sir Patrick. “Headless Hockey!”


The crowd, who had largely been watching proceedings with mild interest, grew rather more energetic as the group set up and began knocking one of their heads around. The head in question remarked on nearly every hit it took, putting some of the onlookers in stitches.


“For centuries I have stood here,” said Nick wistfully. “Ever since I took over from King Harold.”


At this, Hermione’s eyes went wide as saucers, and she made a funny little noise as she spun around to stare at a knight with an arrow protruding from his helmet.


Nick sighed. “Is it so wrong to wish to do something frivolous with my death? At least for a while?”


“No,” said Harry. “But Podmore seems like a bit of a...”


“Prick,” said Ron.


Harry winced. “It might be a bit harsh. But if you were fully decapitated, would you want to go around with that guy?”


“You may have a point,” said Nick. “He probably wouldn’t make the most pleasant of friends. And I wouldn’t have been able to participate, I know that. I just wanted a change of pace... of scenery.”


“Something will come along,” said Neville.


“I’m glad you think so,” Nick smiled. “Perhaps you’d best be going. We’ve an unfortunate lack of suitable food for you - I do apologise.”


“Don’t worry about it,” Harry grinned, pleased that he would get his belly filled soon. “Peeves would’ve just mixed it up with all the rotten stuff anyway.”


Bidding Sir Nicholas farewell, they were about to leave when they realised that Hermione had disappeared. It took only a few seconds to find her. Looking rather solemn, she was deep in conversation with a knight who had an arrow embedded in his helmet. Less easy to find was Ginny, who had apparently really needed the toilet.


“Do you know who that was?!” Hermione gushed as they left the dungeon-level room. “King Harold Godwinson! The last Anglo-Saxon King of England!”


Harry and Ron stared at her blankly, but Neville did a double take. “The guy with the arrow in his... How did I not see that?”


Luna was smiling absently off into space. Harry wasn’t entirely sure why he had noticed - that was essentially her ground state.


“Who is this, exactly?” said Harry.


“You’ve heard of the Battle of Hastings?” said Hermione. “1066? The Norman Invasion?”


“It rings a bell...” Harry muttered, frowning.


“He’s the one who was supposed to have died from an arrow in the eye?” Hermione pressed. “The Bayeux Tapestry??”


“Sounds familiar but I don’t remember anything about it,” said Harry, shrugging.


“How are you not excited about this?” said Hermione.


“I don’t know if I can think about much other than food right now, to be honest,” Harry grimaced.


“Pudding might not be finished yet,” said Ron hopefully, leading the way toward the steps to the entrance hall.


And then Harry heard it.


“... Rip... Tear... Kill...”


It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice he had heard on his way up to the common room more than a month prior. It felt like yesterday. He stumbled to a halt, clutching at the stone wall, listening with all his might, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway.


“Harry, what’re you – ?” said Neville.


“It’s that voice again, shut up a minute...”


“... soo hungry... for so long...”


“Listen!” said Harry urgently, and they all froze, watching him.


“... Kill... Time to kill...”


The voice was growing fainter. Harry was sure it was moving away – moving upward. A mixture of fear and excitement gripped him as he stared at the dark ceiling; how could it be moving upward? Was it a phantom, to whom stone ceilings didn’t matter?


“This way,” he shouted, and he began to run, up the stairs, into the entrance hall.


It was no good hoping to hear anything here, with the babble of talk from the Halloween feast echoing out of the Great Hall. Harry sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, the others hurrying along behind him.


“Harry, what’re we –”


“SHH!” Harry strained his ears.


Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, he heard the voice: “... I smell blood... I SMELL BLOOD!”


His stomach lurched.


“It’s going to kill someone!” Harry shouted, and ignoring Ron’s, Neville’s and Hermione’s bewildered faces, he ran up the next flight of steps three at a time, trying to listen over his own pounding footsteps. Harry hurtled around the whole of the second floor, his friends panting behind him, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.


“Harry, what was that all about?” said Ron, wiping sweat off his face. “I couldn’t hear anything...”


But Hermione 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 a dark, blood red in the light cast by the flaming torches.


THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.


“What’s that thing – hanging underneath?” said Ron, a slight quiver in his voice.


“We should leave this place,” said Luna.


“You might be right,” Hermione said. “This feels like a crime scene.”


The girls went unheeded, however. As they edged nearer, Harry almost slipped – there was a large puddle of water on the floor. Ron and Neville grabbed him, and 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.


For a few seconds, they didn’t move. Then Ron said, “Let’s get out of here.”


“Shouldn’t we try and help –” Harry began awkwardly.


“Trust me,” said Ron. “We don’t want to be found here.”


But it was too late. A rumble, as though of distant thunder, told them that the feast had just ended.


“I didn’t bring the cloak!” said Harry.


The anxious, urgent expression on Neville’s face turned to resignation. “At least Ginny’s puking her guts out somewhere.”


From either end of the corridor where they stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people. In the next moment, students were crashing into the passage from both ends. The chatter, the bustle, the noise... it all died instantaneously as the people in front spotted the hanging cat. The five of them stood alone, in the middle of the corridor, as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight. Then someone shouted through the quiet.


“Enemies of the Heir, beware! You’ll be next, Mudbloods!”


It was Draco Malfoy. He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his usually bloodless face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.

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