บท 54: HALLOWEEN

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The dreaded day of Halloween was finally upon us once again.

This was the day when the monster of Slytherin will take its first victim after fifty years and warn the rest that the heir to the great Salazar Slytherin had returned to Hogwarts once again and the time for cleansing the castle has arrived. Blah Blah Blah nonsense.

Now that I thought about it carefully, if it would have been me in control of a thousand-year snake with a will to destroy all my enemies, I would certainly not publicly announce its presence. I mean wasn't that the reason that Salazar Slytherin never revealed the chamber to anyone. According to legends, Salazar had left the beast in the castle as a protection against those who wished Hogwarts harm.

It was only the twisted thoughts of the later generations that had decide to twist his words such that it was his will that he had placed the beast to rid Hogwarts of those not pure of blood. The only thing that made it worse was a manipulated, twisted and deranged heir that had been led on a path of corruption by the greatest light magician of this era. It had after all costed a life before he stopped the madness the first time around.

While we gathered for breakfast in the great hall for Halloween, Luna suddenly came to our table and for the first time she spoke with me since starting over. " The big snake is confused and hungry so do not be angry with him" Luna said. Then she hoped back towards her own house table, as if she had done nothing.

I was so shocked that I chocked on the food that I was eating. I certainly knew that she was speaking about the Basilisk that would have been freed this morning and instructed by ginny (possessed by Voldemort, obviously) to once again begin the work of purging Hogwarts. Hermione looked strangely towards me for an explanation about what Luna just told. I shrugged her off and ran after Luna.

After bringing Luna aside, I confronted her on how she knew about the hungry snake. I was genuinely afraid that she might go to speak with the thing seeing its sadness. Though I remembered clearly that nothing had ever happened to Luna in our second year, I could not take the risk of things changing due to the alterations I had made this time around.

She told me that the she saw it in the walls and that the snake was very confused as her thoughts were all in disarray. Luna had found it odd considering that the snake was certainly very old and should be very smart. She was stating all this with a straight face as if she herself could not hear her own brilliance of being able to communicate with the minds of animals directly or seeing through the magical castle itself.

She explained that most animals, be it magical or muggle, are not developed enough to have a straight line of thought even within their own minds and this was only the second animal that she had seen or sensed that was so advanced and that was the reason she felt pity towards seeing it in such state.

She also told me that once she saw it, she tried to explain it to professor Flitwick that there was a big snake inside the castle walls but he had just consoled her and asked to rest while he will inform the students to stop bullying her. When she was arriving for breakfast this morning, she saw the snake once again but this time she could sense that she was under someone's control and was going to harm someone in the castle. She hurriedly explained that it was not at all the snake's intention to harm, but the damage to her mind coupled with her hunger had her prone to the orders.

I gave a long hug to Luna to calm her down. I told her that I believed in her and that she should no longer worry or look for the creature again. I warned her that even if she sees the snake once again, she should run away and hide in her dormitory and place her trust in me. She nodded her head cutely and went back to have her breakfast.

When I returned, Hermione was waiting with a questioning look. I explained to her that Luna had a nightmare regarding a big snake and instead of being afraid of the snake she was afraid for the snake. This caused a cheerful laughter from Hermione.

As it was Halloween, there were no classes, so me and Hermione proceeded to move towards the infirmary. We had been having regular classes with madam Pomphrey now that we were specially exempted by the defence against the dark arts professor from attending his classes. We were happy with our progress and so was madam Pomphrey.

The Halloween feast was one the four grand feasts held inside the castle. The decorations were just as magnificent as every other year. The feast was cheerful and there was no scared professor rushing into the great hall to warn the students about a terrifying magical beast that was strolling leisurely in the castle, or so everyone thought.

In the middle of the feast the door to the great hall was opened abruptly and as if it was a Deja vu, there was a panicking and angry Argus Filch standing in the middle of the hall shouting MURDER.

The older students suddenly had the memory of trolls from last year and the entire hall began panicking. The first years too had heard about the incident, but the thing that had them panicking was the word MURDER. It was a bit too much for eleven years to handle.

It took a loud SILENCE from Dumble's to stop the madness of the great hall. After everyone calmed down, he asked Filch to calmly elaborate on whose murder he had witnessed. Filch was beyond angry and started sobbing right in the middle of the hall about Mrs. Norris being the best companion he had. Every student had a look of disbelief that all this commotion was about the death of a cat.

The faculty however were greatly surprised because they all understood how important the cat had been to Filch and if it had been murdered than they will have to investigate in order to give a satisfactory answer to Filch, considering his years of service to the school.

Dumbledore asked the students to continue the feast while he along with the faculty went along with Filch to the site of said murder. But the curiosity among the students would not let them sit still, so they too followed the teachers.

What came into their view was a hanged cat on a door which had something written in red and water flowing throughout the corridor.

The text read "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir... beware".