Chapter 88: Mrs. Norris
Edward left his supervised Charms practice later than usual. Flitwick had kept him until he could repeat the candle exercise without letting irritation widen the flame, and by the time Edward reached the main staircase the corridors had thinned to prefects, ghosts, and students hurrying before curfew.
His right hand still felt warm from the lesson. When a brief spark jumped between two fingers, he stopped beneath a torch and closed his fist.
That was not a warning from the castle. It was tired magic after repeated fire work.
Edward waited until the heat settled, then continued downward.
A shout echoed through the stone passage ahead.
"My cat! Mrs. Norris!"
Filch's voice cracked on the name.
Edward ran toward it. Several students reached the junction before him, forming an uneven ring around something on the floor. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood near the wall, pale and wet from whatever trouble had delayed them. Ron held his own damaged wand. Filch knelt beneath a torch bracket with Mrs. Norris rigid in his arms.
The cat was alive. Edward could see that only after crouching at the edge of the crowd and watching her chest for several seconds. Her eyes remained fixed and unresponsive. Her body had gone so stiff that Filch held her as if she were carved from wood.
"You," Filch said when he saw Harry. Grief turned the word into an accusation. "You were here."
"We found her like this," Harry replied.
"Liar."
Hermione stepped forward. "Mr. Filch, we did not touch her."
Filch barely seemed to hear. He clutched Mrs. Norris closer and demanded that someone fetch Dumbledore.
Professor McGonagall arrived first, with Snape only a few steps behind. The crowd opened for them. McGonagall made Filch set the cat on a folded cloak and checked for breathing before Snape examined her with several diagnostic charms.
"Alive," McGonagall said. "But unresponsive."
Filch sank against the wall.
Snape's wand passed over Mrs. Norris from ears to tail. "Not a Body-Bind."
That caught Edward's attention. The difference matched something he had read at Grimmauld Place: ordinary immobilizing spells stopped movement but did not usually leave this glassy, suspended quality.
He kept silent while the professors worked.
Snape asked Harry, Ron, and Hermione where they had been. Their explanation came in pieces and earned a hard look from McGonagall, but nothing in it placed a spell on the cat. Harry had no wand damage. Ron's broken wand remained in Ron's hand, where it belonged, and Hermione had not cast on Mrs. Norris.
Then a student farther down the corridor pointed above them.
Words had been written on the wall.
The Chamber of Secrets had been opened. Enemies of the Heir were warned.
The message altered the crowd at once. Students who had been frightened by an injured cat now began repeating an old school legend. Some backed away from Harry simply because he happened to be standing closest to the writing.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
"Enough," McGonagall said. "No one leaves until the corridor has been examined."
Snape studied the wall, then the floor and torch brackets. Edward watched him rather than the message. The professor checked for residue, hidden mechanisms, tracks, and anything that might explain how Mrs. Norris had been attacked. His expression revealed nothing.
Edward finally raised a hand.
"Professor?"
McGonagall looked at him. "Yes, Mr. Black?"
"I have read about injuries that resemble this, but I do not know whether any apply here."
That phrasing made Snape glance at him with less irritation than he might have earned by announcing a solution.
"Which injuries?" McGonagall asked.
"Certain magical creatures can leave a victim rigid without using a Body-Bind. Some books group them under petrifying effects. The details are inconsistent."
Hermione turned toward him immediately.
"A Basilisk?" someone whispered.
Edward shook his head. "That is one possibility people will find in old creature books. It is not a conclusion. The same books say a Basilisk's direct gaze kills. Mrs. Norris is alive. If a Basilisk were involved, something would have to explain why the effect was indirect or incomplete."
The corridor quieted enough for Filch's breathing to be heard.
Snape's eyes narrowed. "Better."
Edward waited.
"You began with the limitation rather than the legend," Snape said. "Continue."
"There are other creatures associated with paralysis or petrification, and curses can imitate parts of the effect. I would need to compare reliable references."
Professor McGonagall nodded once. "Then you will do so during library hours, not by hunting the castle."
"Yes, Professor."
Hermione looked from Mrs. Norris to the wall. "The writing mentions the Chamber. If the legend about Slytherin is connected, a serpent would make sense."
"It would make a story," Snape replied. "Our task is to determine whether it makes evidence."
That distinction stopped several whispered claims before they could grow.
Dumbledore arrived with Madam Pomfrey. The Headmaster examined Mrs. Norris and agreed that she had been petrified in some unusual sense, though he did not name a cause. Madam Pomfrey said the mature Mandrakes being raised by Professor Sprout might provide a restorative draught once ready. Until then, the cat would remain under observation.
Filch asked whether she would recover.
"We have reason to hope so," Dumbledore said.
The caretaker closed both hands around the edge of the cloak and nodded without looking at the students.
Harry shifted beside Ron. Edward noticed how many eyes followed the movement. The Dueling Club was already shaping what people saw. Harry could speak Parseltongue. The message referred to Slytherin. A cat had been petrified. Three separate facts were becoming one accusation because fear preferred a straight line.
McGonagall ordered the houses back to their common rooms under prefect escort. No student was to travel alone after curfew. Remote corridors were restricted until staff completed their search.
As Slytherin gathered, Draco moved beside Edward.
"You really think it could be a Basilisk?"
"I think I named one possibility and three reasons not to treat it as settled."
"But the Chamber, the snake language, Potter..."
Edward stopped walking. "Mrs. Norris is alive. Remember that before you build the rest."
Draco looked dissatisfied but fell silent.
At the dungeon entrance, Edward glanced once at his palm. The earlier warmth had vanished completely. Whatever attacked Mrs. Norris had not announced itself through his fire. He had simply been tired after practice and happened to hear Filch at the right moment.
That mattered because another version of the story was already forming in his own mind: unusual magic, sudden heat, a cry in the corridor. It would have been easy to call the sequence instinct or a warning and grant himself a sense he did not possess.
Edward refused the temptation.
Before the common room door closed, Snape arrived behind the last escort group. He asked Edward for the titles he had been thinking of when he mentioned petrifying creatures. Edward named the two Black family references he remembered and admitted that neither was recent.
"Bring the citations tomorrow," Snape said. "Not the books. A family library is not exempt from bad scholarship because the shelves are old."
"Understood."
Draco waited until Snape left. "He thinks you might be wrong."
"So do I."
"You said Basilisk in front of everyone."
"I said it was one possibility. If that distinction disappears by breakfast, repeat it."
Draco groaned, but Edward made him repeat the important part anyway: direct sight was described as fatal, Mrs. Norris had survived, and no student had permission to test a theory. By the time Draco could say it without adding Potter's name, the common room had heard a less dramatic version of the story.
He had enough unanswered questions without inventing an ability to answer them.