October
Holly finished A Beginners Guide To Healing Potions And Spells in early October (along with her first two Potions books and Voyages With Vampires - a stupid book, she thought) and went up to the hospital wing to return it and tell Madam Pomfrey what she’d thought. Except, when she got there, the hospital wing was teaming with coughing and sneezing students with only Madam Pomfrey and an older boy from Hufflepuff to treat all of them. Even so, when the healer saw her, standing awkwardly in the doorway with the book, she gestured for Holly to come over.
Holly crossed the room nervously, not wanting to distract from the students who clearly needed a pick-me-up potion. “I can come back later if-”
“Grab that bottle, would you?” the Hufflepuff boy told her, waving his hand loosely at the cart she was standing by, just a few feet out of the frey. It read Pepperup on the label, and looked to be already half empty. Holly set her book down on the cart and brought the potion over. “Fill those, then pass them out.” he told her, pointing to several small cups on a nearby table.
“Are you done with classes for the day?” Madam Pmfrey checked, without looking completely away from what she was doing.
“Er- yes. Am I in the way?”
“Not so long as you do your part. Fill those cups and pass them out.” Madam Pomfrey told her, sternly.
Holly shrugged to herself and did as she was told, filling tiny goblets and handing them off to sick students. Towards the end of her second round of cup-passing-outing she found herself handing a cup to Ginny, who looked pale, but mostly fine otherwise. She had her nose buried in her diary right up until she was handed the potion. She almost didn’t see Holly at all, except for Holly thinking that if she didn’t take that book away for a few seconds, she wasn’t going to take the potion at all.
“Hey!” Ginny cried, when the diary was snatched away. Then she saw Holly and stared, uncomprehendingly at her for a moment.
Holly smiled at her friend and pushed the potion into her hands. “I’ll give it back once you drink.” she promised. Ginny drank her potion, instantly causing steam to blow out her ears (that had happened to everyone so far), jumped up, snatched back her diary and fled the hospital wing. “See you later, then.” Holly called after her.
Holly spent the next several hours passing out goblets, until finally, Madam Pomfrey sent her and the Hufflepuff off to dinner. “How did you like helping today?” he asked her, as they walked to the great hall.
Holly shrugged. “It was nice to be able to help, I guess. I just didn’t expect it.”
The Hufflepuff nodded understandingly. “My first day I had to help her heal a shattered leg. Quidditch accident. It was rather harrowing. Anyway, you did well.”
“Um… thanks.” Holly said, awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name..?”
The Hufflepuff laughed. “Sorry,” he said, lightly, “I’m Rolf. Rolf Scamander. I mostly help out in the hospital wing for extra credit, but it’s good to learn skills like that, you know?”
Holly nodded along, still a little overwhelmed. Luckily, Rolf was happy to keep babbling on about all the things she’d learn if she chose to come back and help again all the way down to dinner. She was more than grateful for it, and happy also, to leave him for her own table, where mountains of food awaited her.
“Where on earth have you been?” Tracey wondered, when Holly sat down beside her and immediately began scarfing down the chicken noodle soup and rolls set out for her.
“Hospital wing. Didn’t Ginny tell you?” They both looked over at Ginny, steam still pouring out her ears with her nose buried in her diary again. That thing was sort of creepy, Holly thought. Her scar always ached when it was around and Ginny always seemed like she was too far away to reach when she had it.
Tracey reached across the table and gently pulled the book out of Ginny’s hands, closed it, and set it down beside Ginny’s bowl. “You need to eat, girl, you already skipped lunch…” Tracey told her.
Beside Ginny, Isolde, looking nervous, placed a delicate hand over the diary. “If you aren’t feeling well, the soup should help,” she added, hopefully.
Ginny looked down at her soup murderously, but ate.
The next several weeks went by much the same. Holly went to her study groups, worked on her project with Tracey, read whatever and whenever she could in hopes of finding something on wands and taking a note when she did. And when she wasn’t reading, she was in the hospital wing, helping.
Before she knew it, it was Halloween again. Or, Samhain as some of those from magickal families called it. She had read that it was the old pagan origin of Halloween - an innately magickal holiday, which actually made a grate deal of sense to her.
She was excited to actually get to enjoy it this year, too. Last year, a troll had been set loose in the castle by their DADA professor who was actually Voldemort in disguise and it nearly killed her and all her friends in a bathroom. She was resolute that that would not be repeated this year!
After helping with the last few sick students in the hospital wing, Holly made her way down to the feast. Rolf hadn’t been there today. He wasn’t actually there very often, she had noticed. But she hardly minded walking alone, though, she did wish she’d left a little earlier. The feast was definitely well underway by the time she headed down.
She was almost there. A few passages away. She could hear the chattering of the students in the great hall, and smell the feast… but she heard something else, too. A sort of whisper all around her. She couldn’t make out what it was saying at first, but it gave her chills, hearing it.
And then she recognized the word it was saying.
I smell blood! I… SMELL BLOOD!
Holly didn’t know what to do. She didn’t have the chance to decide, either, before her brother and his two best friends collided with her. “Holly!” Harry grunted, startled. “It’s going to kill someone!” He cried, taking her wrist and pulling her in the direction of the voice.
“Do you know what he’s on about?” Ron wondered, following along dutifully.
Holly shivered. “The… voice…” they had stopped in the middle of a passageway not far from where she came. On the wall there was a horrible message written in blood, dripping down, still fresh.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
“What’s that thing - hanging underneath?” Ron wondered, voice shaking a little.
Harry pulled Holly forward, still holding her wrist tightly, and almost pulling her down when he slipped on a large puddle of water on the floor. Ron and Hermione caught them, and then they all inched further forward.
Holly screamed when she saw what it was, and the others lept backwards into the puddle. She was glued in place though, staring at the cat hanging from the torch bracket.
Silence followed for several moments, before Ron finally said, “let's get out of here.”
“Shouldn’t we try and help-“ Harry wondered, from somewhere a little behind Holly.
“Trust me, we don’t want to be found here.” Ron told him, and someone grabbed Holly’s shoulder but it was already too late. The thundering of footsteps and murrmering students began to fill the air at that very moment - the feast had ended. They were coming.
It was as though the whole school had converged on them at once and Holly was standing closest to the crime scene, frozen.
“Enemies of the heir beware!” Draco read, and it seemed to unfreeze Holly enough to at least turn and look at where her fellow slytherins were standing, staring at her. Draco looked flushed and alight, but she couldn’t quite make sense of it now… and Tracey. Tracey was staring at Holly in a way that scared her more. Like she thought Holly had done this.
Pansy pushed through to the front and grinned. “Ha!” She said, horribly, “watch out mudbloods. You’ll be next!” Holly stared at her. Her hair had begun to grow back into an offensively pretty pixie cut and her black-eye was long since healed by now. She looked smug and prim and-
“What’s going on here? What’s going on?” Argus filch, the school caretaker, summoned by the commotion, had wound his way through the crowd and was now staring at the cat - his cat, Holly realized. He fell back upon seeing the poor thing strung up like that, clutching at his face in a horrified sort of way. “My cat! My cat! What’s happened to Mrs. Norris?” He shrieked. Then he saw Holly, standing there. “You! You! You’ve murdered my cat! You’ve killed her! I’ll kill you! I’ll-“
“Argus!” Dumbledore’s voice rang through the passage, silencing the caretaker. Several of the other teachers followed behind him, looking grim. He swept passed the four of them, unhooking poor Mrs. Norris swiftly. “Come with me, Argus. You too, Miss Potter, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger.”
“My office is nearest, headmaster-” said Professor Lockheart, eagerly. “Just upstairs - please feel free -“
“Thank you, Gilderoy.” Dumbledore said, and began to lead them in that direction.
Holly felt far away. She barely heard Lockheart’s tale about a similar killing curse and amulets he gave to townsfolk or whatever. She barely felt Harry clutching her hand. She was barely aware of anything at all except the dead cat in the headmasters hands, and its eyes - staring lifelessly at her.
“… she’s not dead, Argus.” Dumbledore said. Holly blinked, tearing her gaze from the cat to the headmaster.
“Not dead? But why’s she all- all stiff and frozen?” Filch asked, hopefully.
“She has been petrified-” said Dumbledore.
“Ah! Thought so!” said Lockheart, pompously.
“But how, I cannot say…” Dumbledore finished.
Filch turned on her again. “Ask her!” he shrieked, pointing.
“No second year could have done this,” Dumbledore said calmly. “It would take dark magic of the most advanced-”
“She did it! She did it! You saw what she wrote on the wall! It was her!” Filch screamed.
“No it wasn’t!” Harry yelled back, squeezing her hand.
“He’s right, Professor,” said Madam Pomfrey. Holly had not even realized she was there, but she supposed that even healers needed to eat too and she probably hadn’t been far behind Holly. “She was in the hospital wing, helping me, not ten minutes ago. She could not have done such a thing in that short a time.”
“Indeed,” Snape drawled from his usual perch in the shadows. Holly was actually starting to think the man might be a vampire. “I believe Potter was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, although…” he suddenly cast his gaze upon Harry, Ron, and Hermione, “I do wonder what you three were doing so far from the feast? It is certainly… suspicious.”
“We had gone to Sir Nicholas’ Death-Day party but the food was all rotten, you see, and after his speech we were all feeling a bit sick from the smell so we decided to skip the feast and go up to bed. We ran into Holly part way there and then…” Hermione looked over to the rest of them for help.
“And then I heard a splash and we went to go see what it was but all we found was… will she be okay?” Holly had finally managed to fully shake herself out of her shock, but the sight of the unnaturally still cat kept drawing her eye.
Dumbledore relaxed a little, accepting their story. “She will be fine,” he assured, holding Holly’s gaze for a moment, and then Filch’s. “Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris.”
“I’ll make it! I must’ve done it a hundred times. I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep-” Lockheart insisted, no less pompously than before.
“Excuse me,” Snape kind of snapped, “but I believe I am the Potions master at this school.”
A long, uncomfortable pause followed, and then Dumbledore told the four of them, “you may go.”