Harry Potter and the Heart of Darkness

Chapter Five: Heart of Darkness

Ron had gone to bed that night after the meeting grumbling over the issue of Draco Malfoy as a prefect, and the following morning, when Harry sat down next to Hermione at the Gryffindor table for breakfast, he found that the tirade was still far from over. He helped himself to fried potatoes and sausages as he listened to Hermione say rather sensibly in his opinion, that Professor Dumbledore must have had his reasons for the choices he made, even if she shared Ron's personal feelings that Draco wasn't the best choice in the school.

"Oh come on Hermione, you know it ruins all the fun we could have had. 'Five points from Slytherin, Malfoy'...doesn't it sound good? And now he can just get back whatever we take away." To emphasize his point, Ron pounded his fist on the table, and sloshed a pitcher of pumpkin juice in the process.

"Being a prefect isn't just about being able to take points Ron!" Hermione said, giving him a haughty sniff as Professor McGonagall silenced whatever retort Ron was about to give her by coming around with their new timetables.

"Ohhh..." Harry groaned, looking at his. "Double Potions with the Slytherins first thing today. And right after that, Divination. Oh man, how I hate Mondays."

"It's not that bad," Ron said, obviously forgetting that he had been the one grousing for nearly 24 hours about Draco, "...we have Care of Magical Creatures with the Ravenclaws now...and Herbology this afternoon...and tons of spare periods."

"And tomorrow, we start the day with Defense Against the Dark Arts...with Professor Lupin," Harry added, adopting this new, positive attitude that certainly served to lighten his attitude considerably.

Just before breakfast ended, the mail arrived and Hedwig had with her a message from Hagrid, telling Harry to meet him in the great hall this evening after dinner with his friends -- he had something important to show all three of them. This made the start to their day considerably more entertaining, and they descended the steps to Snape's creepy dungeon after breakfast with far less of a sense of foreboding than usual.

The cheerfulness didn't last too long, as Snape himself burst in, stalked to the front of the room and fixed the students with his glittering black eyes. To Harry, he looked as though he was struggling to hold himself upright, but as Snape's gaze landed on him, he assumed that he must be looking too happy, so he instead fixed his face into something he hoped resembled the most respectful looking one he could muster.

None of the other students dared to speak as the Professor pointed his wand at the board, conjuring up a list of incredibly complicated instructions, with the words "Strength Solution" at the top.

"Strength solution," Snape began, fingering his wand, and pacing back and forth in front of the rows of students. Harry figured he must have imagined earlier because there seemed to be no sign of anything strange now -- the Potions Professor was back in top form. "Just one drop will enhance your strength a thousand fold. We will be testing each one by the end of this lesson, so therefore, you must be done by the end...or else, zero marks." He fixed Neville Longbottom with a piercing gaze. "Pair up."

As Harry went to sit beside Ron and Hermione automatically moved the next table over, next to Neville, Snape's voice rang out once more. "No no Miss Granger. Today, you will partner Mr. Finnegan. Mr. Thomas, you will partner Longbottom. There will be none of this whispering directions today."

Neville gulped and looked desperately at Hermione, but she had already packed up her cauldron and moved next to Seamus. Over at the station next to them, Dean was looking as though he was praying for salvation...and salvation did come in fact, in the form of still-tiny Colin Creevey, bursting through the door with a look of abject terror fixed on his face.

Snape looked up sharply and leered down at Colin with the look he usually reserved solely for Harry. "What is it now? Potter have another press cutting you have to take him to?" he asked silkily. Harry prayed that whatever Colin had to say was earth-shatteringly important, because if it wasn't, he was almost as good as dead.

"No Sir..." Colin squeaked quickly, "...all of the students are out in the hall, and it's important that you come see too Professor...and all of your class."

"I do not have time to go gallivanting about on some frivolous student crusade," Snape spat. "My class has a particularly complicated potion to brew this morning, and we have already wasted valuable time!"

"...but Sir!" Colin stammered. "Professor Dumbledore said that we all had to."

Snape's expression didn't change a bit, but he did stand, and motioned to the class to follow him. With Colin in the lead, the Slytherin and Gryffindor 5^th years moved out into the great hall, where a massive throng of students was simply crowded around what Harry could only assume was Professor Dumbledore -- owing to the top of a purple spangled hat poking just mere inches above everyone's heads. All the voices of the crowd were speaking exactly what was on Harry's mind. "What happened."

At once, a hand holding a wand raised above the crowd, and drew a four legged stool in the air. Pulling it down, there was a slight scuffling, and suddenly, Professor Dumbledore's head, shoulders and chest appeared. A hush fell over the crowd of students.

"My colleagues and students. It is my sad duty to inform you that one of our students has just died." A brief silence followed this statement, followed by whispered queries of, "Who?"

"Her name is..."

"The Chamber of Secrets!" blurted one of the third years, completely losing himself.

"I assure you it is not the Chamber of Secrets," Dumbledore told him, "But I will not lie to you when I tell you that it is dark magic."

Everyone looked around, quite horrified. Their Defense against the Dark Arts teacher was Professor Lupin. The Hufflepuffs clustered around him proved that there was no possible way that he could have been anywhere but in his class, and further more that he was the real thing -- they'd been standing there over an hour now. Every teacher was there, every student. Nobody was missing, and yet dark magic had been performed.

"One of You-Know-Who's servants must have somehow gotten into the castle!" Professor Berendoyl exclaimed, looking around as if she expected to see one of them now.

"Don't be a fool Florence," Snape snapped back at her. "There's no possible way for anyone to get in or out of this castle without one of us spotting him. The person who did this must already be inside."

"Yeah..." Ron growled into Harry's ear. "...Snape knows it's one of his students. Probably Malfoy."

"Your classes will resume as normal," Dumbledore promised all of them, "However, I am sure I need not remind you that an incident like this is not to be taken lightly. Try to travel in pairs and remain in safe places like the Library, your classrooms or common rooms whenever possible. Please excuse me, I need to get Miss Berkley to the hospital wing."

The crowd parted, and Harry, finding himself at the front, caught a glimpse of the child that Dumbledore carried out. He found, with a spark of horror brewing in his chest, that he knew her. A tiny girl, no bigger than Colin Creevey, sporting straight-cut blonde hair, dangled limply from the headmaster's arms. She bore no sign that she had ever been attacked, except that...and this was no trick of the light -- there was a black hole, right over where her heart should have been. Harry looked closer...deeper...he strained to get a peek...the darkness swirled, a blotch that obscured her Hogwarts crest...and it was fathomless...

The crowd jostled him along and pulled him out of his trance, so he pulled his eyes away and let the sea of people move him along to the end of the corridor where he descended the steps once more towards the dungeons. Once everyone was back in class, Snape strode once more to the front of the room, wand in hand.

"As we have now lost the first hour of our class time, take out your quills and parchment."

They spent the next few hours making notes on strength solutions, though the students were extremely restless. Nobody spoke out of turn of course, for fear of catching Snape's attentions -- yet the same question was on everyone's mind: "How."

Finally, the bell rang and the entire potions classroom burst into a dark chatter as they began to clean up. Ron, Harry had noticed -- had been looking a little disturbed by the whole thing. He wondered if maybe the other had seen the disturbing-looking black hole on the girls' chest, and proceeded to ask him so.

"I'll tell you what the problem is," drawled a voice behind them, and Harry suddenly had a very strange urge to hit himself around the head with his Cauldron. They had managed to avoid Malfoy ever since last night's meeting, and really had been hoping to continue to do so for as long as possible. Now it seemed that they were in for an argument or two, as the Slytherins, and Draco in particular never missed a chance to burn them.

"What Malfoy? Becoming an expert on the Dark Arts now? I suppose Daddy's taught you a few things hasn't he?" Harry spat back.

"No no, not at all...though it wouldn't be any of your business if he had. I just mean that Weasley now knows what a horrible prefect he makes. Imagine, one of his precious Gryffindor firsties getting killed off first day back...terrible isn't it?" Draco's tone made it sound like it wasn't terrible at all.

Fumbling with his sleeve, Harry prepared to leap forward and curse Malfoy to kingdom come, but it was Ron who held him back.

"He's right y'know Harry..." and off he went, in the opposite direction, toward the Divination tower.

Between finishing Draco off and going after Ron, Harry wisely chose following Ron, as Snape's eyes were definitely on him. He only caught up with the other at the tower steps, but he refused to talk about it, and Harry decided to lay the issue to rest until Ron was ready to discuss it on his own terms

They ended up with plenty of Divination homework, as once again, Professor Trelawney had managed to see grievous death in her crystal ball -- and Ron couldn't help reminding her that someone had only died just last period. Naturally, he had been rather self-deprecating in his mention of the incident but Harry suspected that Professor Trelawney was so used to them by now that she'd taken it in stride and punished them for their insolence.

Even after all that, it was still an excited little group that met Hagrid in the Great Hall after dinner that night. Harry had an unfortunate feeling that whatever they were about to see was going to be very cool indeed, but knowing Hagrid -- also potentially dangerous. Nevertheless, after the events of the day they all could have used a good dose of some more positive excitement.

"Took some gettin' used to meself..." Hagrid was saying, "But then I says, if Dumbledore thoughts I co' handle i', then who'm I t' correc' 'im? Great man, Dumbledore..."

There was a furtive glancing around between the other three. Dumbledore was in on this too?

"Well," said Hagrid, stopping in front of his cabin, "Here we are." And he threw open the door.

Harry, Ron and Hermione crowded eagerly inside...but nothing to them looked any more different than it normally did. Fang the boarhound lay on the bed, and the table was set with tea for two...there was a few new racks of cured meats hanging from the ceiling, and Fang lay on the floor next to the table.

It was Harry that noticed it first. "You have...two..." but it finally hit him that one of the dogs was definitely not Fang. Rushing over to the dog near the table, he yelled "Sirius!" just as Hermione began to say "Honestly, use your eyes you two!"

Within a second, Sirius had transformed into a man. Rubbing his eyes, Hagrid shook his head. "Takes som' gettin' used to" he repeated. "I wouldna believed it if I hadn' seen i' w' my own eyes."

'Nobody,' Harry thought furtively as he hugged his godfather and beamed at Hagrid simultaneously over his shoulder 'nobody but Hagrid would have taken Sirius in like this for Dumbledore.'

"Sit down," Hagrid motioned them all into chairs and poured some tea, after making sure the curtains were tightly closed over each and every window.

"Hagrid was telling me," said Sirius, suddenly adopting a very grave tone of voice, "That something extremely bad happened up at the castle this afternoon."

"A student was killed," Harry said tentatively, after a quick glance at Ron who had become very absorbed in his teacup. Harry decided it was best not to say it was a Gryffindor and hurt Ron's pride. "It was really strange, she had this funny swirling black hole over her chest."

Sirius frowned. "I'm afraid I don't know what to make of it. Remus...Professor Lupin...was down here earlier and...he wasn't sure either. It wasn't something that ever came up back when Voldemort was in power."

"We have a new teacher," Hermione spoke up cautiously. "Professor Berendoyl. Ron's the only one taking Muggle studies...and he hasn't had her yet."

This time, Sirius became interested. "Berendoyl...you don't mean...perhaps, Florence Berendoyl do you?"

Harry thought back to this afternoon. Snape HAD called Professor Berendoyl "Florence." "Yes...that's her name," he said.

To his surprise, Sirius began to laugh. "Ha...Florence Berendoyl...I remember her." He elaborated. "She was this girl in our year...in Slytherin. She was a good friend of Snape's for awhile." The way he said it, Harry got the impression that the reason Professor Berendoyl and Professor Snape had only been friends for "awhile" had had something to do with Sirius. "Like most Slytherins, she couldn't take a joke for the life of her. There was this one time that I sent Snape into the girls showers after a Quidditch game, and she was in there...well...never mind. As far as I know, she never had any connections with Voldemort at all. All of the trials were taken in Azkaban, and she never came through at all. I was there -- I remember everyone."

"I think it's Malfoy," Hermione said loudly.

The conversation that followed was certainly not bereft of guesses of who it could have been -- mainly Slytherins came to mind. Later Hagrid, Harry and even Ron joined in on a short discussion of what to expect in Care of Magical Creatures this year (Ron was especially pleased to note that no Blast Ended Skrewts would wind up in the curriculum) while Hermione pumped Sirius for any information he'd ever found out about Godric Gryffindor for the essay contest.

When it came time to leave, Sirius's face grew unnaturally hard.

"Harry, I don't want you sneaking down here to visit me at all unless Hagrid gives you special permission. None of the other students can possibly know I'm here -- so I will be in my Animagus form at any and all times you have classes. My name of course is 'Snuffles' if you should by chance see me around the grounds at any point."

"And if I do come down?" Harry asked, feeling defiant. Why shouldn't he see his Godfather when he wanted to. He never could normally, so now that he was here...

"You won't," said Sirius, looking almost angry. "Believe me, there's nothing worse than something large and potentially rabid chasing you across the field in the middle of the night."

Something made Harry to laugh at that, but he didn't dare. Instead, he said goodnight, hugged his Godfather one final time and headed back to the castle. He could only hope that there would be no deaths in the castle tomorrow.