Chapter 8: The Monster Strikes

Unfortunately, Andromeda’s threat of the return of Slytherin’s Heir did have a grain of truth behind it, and Rebecca found that out very painfully on her first Friday at Hogwarts. The morning started out quite innocently for Rebecca. Entering the common room rather early that morning, she noticed Fenella, a second-year girl, had a very interesting pet. She had a snake coiled on her lap, and it seemed like she was speaking to it in a strange, hissing voice. Rebecca gasped in excited surprise.

“Are you like Dr. Doolittle?! Can you talk to all animals like that?!” she shrieked.

“No, just snakes,” Fenella replied, reverting to her regular, Welsh-accented voice, though it was in a whisper, almost as if she didn’t want anyone else to hear her, and she did look rather frightened to see Rebecca. “I’m a Parselmouth. It’s a very rare ability that some wizards and witches have, and a lot of people think it’s a Dark Art. It’s really not, I would never tell my Edward to hurt anyone, but please don’t go shouting about it. A few other people know, but I don’t want to be accused of practicing the Dark Arts.”

“That’s stupid if they’d hate you for it. I think they’re just jealous, that’s a really cool ability!” Rebecca exclaimed, “That’s just like my stupid muggle relatives who’re scared of me because I’m a witch.”

“You can’t always blame muggles for fearing us,” Cupcake said gently. She had come into the room while Rebecca and Fenella were talking. “There have been some pretty bad wizards and witches who have done nasty things to muggles.”

“If those muggles were anything like my relatives, then they probably deserved it,” Rebecca argued. Cupcake shook her head sadly.

“That’s not necessarily the case. In most cases, muggle victims of wizards using the Dark Arts are innocents who did not deserve to be harmed in that way. And there are some wizards, like Lord Voldemort, who wanted to enslave all muggles. Would you want that to happen?” she challenged, “I understand if you have relatives that don’t understand you, but I’m sure you met some very nice muggles elsewhere who you would be horrified to see hurt or dead, especially by a method they wouldn’t even be able to see coming.” Rebecca shook her head in disbelief. Magic was a wonderful, amazing thing! There was no way it could be used in such an evil way! She was sure that her Uncle Harry had eliminated all the evil in the wizarding world when he killed Lord Voldemort!

“You’re just trying to scare me away! You don’t want me to learn magic! You want me to think it’s evil! I thought you were on my side!” Rebecca shouted, suddenly lashing out at Cupcake.

“I don’t want you to leave at all! I’m just trying to warn you that sometimes people use magic to do bad things!” Cupcake pleaded, unsure why Rebecca had turned on her like that.

“You can’t make me fear magic! I can see through you! You’re just like Andromeda!” Rebecca retorted, and then she punched Cupcake’s startled face and ran off towards the Great Hall. No one’s going to stop me from learning magic! I’ll become a powerful witch and show them all, Rebecca thought angrily to herself as she entered the Great Hall. She felt even more eager for Potions class, which she hadn’t attended yet, especially since she heard that Professor Sprite had muggle parents too. Maybe she’ll understand what it’s like to feel superior to stupid non-magical relatives, Rebecca told herself as she ate her breakfast, having made sure to pick a seat that was far away from Andromeda or her sister Libra. In Potions class, she ended up pairing up with Severus Prince, who she had met on the train. The class went well for her, though she still made a few mistakes, and Severus invited her to play a game with him and James Potter in the Hogwarts Recreation Room after lunch. Unfortunately, her day took a turn for the worse when she and Severus left the classroom. As she went down the hallway, something struck her in the face, knocking her to the ground.

“Who did that?! Who just hit me?!” she yelped, sitting up and looking around frantically for the invisible assailant. She was hit again, this time in the stomach, and Severus ran in front of her. He pulled out his wand but was knocked back into Rebecca. As the attack continued, Bianca, who was heading to the Slytherin Common Room to get a textbook, saw Rebecca and Severus being beaten up, though she could not see the attacker either. She screamed and ran back towards the stairs, crying for Professor Quigley. As she ran towards the Great Hall, she nearly crashed into Amber McAngus, who was coming the opposite way.

“Please! I need to find Professor Quigley! There’s an invisible person attacking two students!” she gasped out.

“Is there, now? Sounds like a Slytherin trick to me. Let me guess, is the ‘invisible person’ right behind you and are you going to have them attack me, too?” Amber sneered.

“No! It’s real! I don’t even know what the invisible thing is, just that it was attacking Severus Prince and Rebecca Dursley!” Bianca protested, completely confused as to why Amber wasn’t helping. Pansy also came along, and she shook her head at Amber.

“Shouldn’t you be rushing to the rescue of your precious little Gryffindor and that mudblood? How unGryffindor of you to not jump to the rescue,” Pansy commented.

“How dare you use that word! I’m sure you’re behind it! Slytherins are always causing trouble at Hogwarts!” Amber snarled, turning on Pansy. Luckily, both Professor Quigley and Headmistress Rain appeared, but Amber spoke before Bianca could.

“The Slytherins are causing trouble again, I’m sure of it, Samantha. The mini-Slytherin here is trying to trick me into walking into a so-called “invisible attack,” and then Pansy called me a...it’s not even repeatable!” Amber ranted, “But you know what they think of people like us!”

“I’m NOT trying to trick anyone! There really is an invisible attacker near the Potions classroom! It was beating up two first-year students! You have to come help them!” Bianca sobbed, still not understanding why Amber thought she was trying to pull a trick.

“I understand. Thank you for telling me, Bianca. Let’s all go down there together and see what’s going on,” Samantha agreed.

“With all due respect, Headmistress, that girl is a Slytherin, and as such, can’t be trusted. What if she just wants to attack you, just because your parents weren’t magical?” Amber asked.

“I’ll take that chance, Amber. Remember, we are supposed to be encouraging interhouse cooperation, and that kind of attitude is not helping the students learn to get along with each other,” Samantha reminded her. She, Bianca and Amanda set off for the dungeons, leaving Amber and Pansy behind.

“I’m coming too! I’ll prove to you the Slytherins are behind it!” Amber called, chasing after them. Meanwhile, Amethyst, who had been cleaning up in the Potions classroom, came out for lunch. It was then she saw Severus and Rebecca’s battered, unconscious bodies on the floor, and horrible words written on the wall in what looked like blood.

“No...it can’t be happening again,” Amethyst whimpered to herself, before she, too, fainted right there in the hallway. Samantha, Amber, Bianca and Amanda arrived in the hallway. They saw the two students who had been attacked and Amethyst, who was starting to wake up again. And then Samantha and Amanda both looked at the words and gasped.

“The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Death to Mudbloods,” Amber read aloud, spitting the last word, “Now tell me your Slytherins aren’t behind this, Quigley. That Chamber was created by your precious house’s founder.”

“The monster in the Chamber, which was a basilisk, was killed 25 years ago, by Harry Potter. Also, Mr. Prince and Miss Dursley aren’t petrified or dead, someone or some creature obviously attacked and beat them up. And don’t think for a minute that I wanted this to happen. Whoever did this, when they are found, that person is going to punished severely. That person will be lucky if they’re not expelled,” Amanda retorted coldly.

“It’s still probably someone in your house. Certainly no Gryffindor would do such a thing,” Amber asserted.

“Actually, last time, it was a Gryffindor who opened the Chamber, although she was being controlled by Lord Voldemort’s old diary. So we don’t want to rule out any students based on what house they’re in,” Samantha pointed out, “And as Amanda said, this is obviously not the work of a basilisk. Either there is some other creature in the Chamber that Harry missed, or someone put a new monster in. Or else the perpetrator is purposely trying to frighten people by attacking with an invisibility cloak or spell and then just writing ominous messages on the wall.”

As one might expect, when Bianca went back to the Great Hall for lunch, the mysterious attacks were a popular topic of conversation for the students. Some of them felt that they knew what might have happened to poor Rebecca and Severus, and Libra Elm had a specific perpetrator in mind.

“It has to be Fenella Oak,” she stated, “She’s a Parselmouth. The Chamber of Secrets can only be opened by a Parselmouth.”

“It’s more likely to be you than her! She’s never showed any hatred of muggleborns, whereas you and your bratty little sister parade it around like you’re proud to be bigots!” Cupcake snapped.

“Did you see who did it, Bianca?” Serena asked, rolling her eyes at Libra’s foolish accusations. She had never heard Fenella say anything that pointed to potential anti-muggle or muggleborn beliefs. Also, she trusted that Bianca wasn’t lying about what happened to Rebecca and Severus, and if what she said was true, then it was obviously the work of something other than a basilisk.

“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry. It looked like bruises were just appearing on their bodies for no reason and that the air was making them fall down. But I know it had to be some invisible creature or person who was hitting them,” Bianca whimpered, and she began to cry. “I’m afraid you’ll be attacked too, since you’re a muggleborn. And you won’t even be able to see it coming!” Serena nodded, she wasn’t sure what to say to reassure Bianca. Because the way it was, it didn’t seem like there WAS a way to avoid being attacked. Danger had come to Hogwarts once again, even though Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters were all either dead or in Azkaban.