Chapter 145. Petrification
As Harry, Ron, and Hermione were heading for the Great Hall,
Harry suddenly stopped.
"What is it?" Ron, who was in the lead, noticed something was off. He turned and asked, puzzled, "Is something wrong?"
"Did you hear anything?" Harry shook his head a couple of times and asked in a low voice.
Ron and Hermione looked at each other.
The corridor was silent, save for the hubbub drifting from the distant Great Hall.
"Nothing," Hermione said, shaking her head.
Ron shrugged and told Harry, "I didn't hear anything either. Maybe when those ghosts went through your head they broke it, and now you're hearing things."
"Really?" Harry cast a suspicious glance over his shoulder. The whispering had come from that direction just now.
Perhaps he really had misheard.
Just as Harry was about to continue towards the Great Hall—
"Rip you…
Hungry… for so long…" A clear, faint, rasping mutter floated from the direction of the courtyard, and Harry stopped short again.
The voice went on.
"…Kill… kill you… no… don't…
Danger… don't like… this place—"
The voice cut off there.
But it was enough; Harry had fixed the direction it had come from.
"Quick," he told his two companions at once. "Stick close to me."
With that, without waiting for Ron and Hermione to respond, Harry wheeled round and sprinted for the doors.
Ron and Hermione exchanged a glance and saw the same baffled look on each other's faces. Even so, though completely at a loss, they followed.
They ran through several corridors and past more than a few doors.
At last, they stopped in the corridor by the Hogwarts courtyard.
"Harry, what on earth is it?" Hermione asked, out of breath.
Ron looked just as lost.
"The voice I heard came from this way," Harry said, carefully scanning their surroundings as he spoke.
Moonlight was veiled by cloud, and all around was dim; only a few lamps along the corridor were lit.
"There's no one here at all…" Ron muttered under his breath.
At that moment, Hermione seemed to notice something amiss.
"Wait!"
She stepped out from the corridor into the courtyard and drew her wand.
"Lumos!"
A bright white light burst from the tip of Hermione's wand, illuminating the far reaches of the courtyard.
In its glow, they saw a huge, grey-white sculpture.
Only when they came closer did they make out the whole of it.
It was a Thunderbird statue, about as tall as they were, but its posture was odd: wings half-spread, head stretched out at a slant, eyes opened a fraction too wide.
"Hey," Ron said with a laugh, pointing at it, "when did they put up a Thunderbird statue here? Ah… it looks a lot like Professor Wesson's Rai."
Harry and Hermione, however, couldn't laugh.
Because they had noticed that on the ground beside the Thunderbird statue there was a line of blood-red writing: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware!
Harry edged closer and gingerly touched the statue's wing—still warm.
In an instant, his heart plummeted—what had happened was already plain.
"It's Rai," Harry said, his face set.
Ron's grin froze, and Hermione drew in a sharp breath; the light from her wand wobbled violently. "Merlin… what turned it into this?"
Harry's hand still rested on Rai's feathers. The lingering warmth was slowly ebbing away, which meant the petrification had happened not long ago.
He was sure this incident had everything to do with those faint voices he'd heard.
"What do we do?" Ron said in a panic.
Just as Harry was about to answer, a familiar voice came from behind them.
"What are you doing out here on such a festive evening, my students?"
Harry turned and saw Lockhart approaching at an easy pace with a smile.
In the Great Hall, the students had already all filed out, and some of the professors had left as well.
Dumbledore was at the High Table eating a little skull-shaped cake; Professor McGonagall was dealing with the bats flying to and fro.
Wesson had just seen off the members of the skeleton dance troupe.
He had even received a skull model from them as a gift, neatly inscribed: Looking forward to your next invitation. It really was a peaceful Hallowe'en.
So thinking, Wesson returned to his seat, sat back in comfort, and took a sip of pumpkin juice.
Last Hallowe'en, after all, he hadn't had time to enjoy himself before Quirrell ruined it.
In fact, if you went by the original story, almost every Hallowe'en at Hogwarts something happened.
But this year, because he'd already destroyed the diary, he was confident nothing would happen…
Right?
Just then, the doors of the Great Hall were flung open. Lockhart stumbled in, hair slightly mussed, a leaf stuck to the top of his head.
"Terrible news!" Lockhart waved both arms theatrically and shouted, "Someone's turned Professor Wesson's bird to stone!"
"Bang!"
Wesson slammed his pumpkin-juice goblet hard onto the table, and amber liquid sloshed over the rim.
He shot to his feet; his chair scraped a shrill line across the floor.
For a heartbeat, the Great Hall fell utterly silent.
"Where?" Wesson's voice was terrifyingly low, and the temperature in the hall seemed to drop a few degrees with it.
Startled by the force of it, Lockhart took a step back. "E–east… the east courtyard, and there are three students there…"
Before he could finish, Wesson had already bolted from the Great Hall.
Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall saw this and immediately followed.
When Wesson reached the courtyard, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were gathered round Rai's stone form.
Seeing him arrive, the three hurried up to him.
Moments later, Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and Lockhart reached the scene as well.
Wesson stared, his face dark, at petrified Rai. He didn't need to think—this had to be a basilisk's work.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione, faced with Wesson's thunderous expression, didn't know what to say.
Lockhart, however, had been prattling from the moment he arrived. "Don't worry, Professor Wesson, it's nothing to fret about. I know a certain charm that can save your pet…"
"Be quiet, Professor Lockhart," Wesson said coldly, without looking round.
Lockhart's smile froze. He edged half a step back in embarrassment.
Harry had never seen Professor Wesson so shaken; the eyes that were always gentle were now frighteningly cold.
Dumbledore crouched and examined Rai's stone form carefully with his wand. "It seems to be some sort of powerful petrifying effect, but there is something odd…"
At that moment he caught sight of the red letters on the ground beside the statue and paused.
"The Heir…" he murmured.
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