𝟏.| ✬ 𝒟ℯ𝒶𝓇 ℬ𝒾𝓁𝓁, ✬ {ℬ. 𝒲ℯ𝒶𝓈𝓁ℯ𝓎}

\ℯ𝓁ℯ𝓋ℯ𝓃\

~

"What's going on here? What's going on?" Filch pushed his way through the crowd, almost knocking Lee over. Eleanora put an arm out to help him, but she was the one who needed the stability of another person when Filch shrieked, "My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" right in her ear. Lee patted her hand awkwardly as she tensed up at the noise. "You!" Filch roared, pointing at Harry. "You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll-"

"Argus!"

Dumbledore had arrived, followed by a number of other teachers. Eleanora shifted over to make room for him to approach the three second years. He surveyed the scene and then detached Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket. "Come with me, Argus." He said to Filch. "You too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger."

"My office is nearest, Headmaster," Lockhart said, stepping forward eagerly. "Just upstairs- please feel free-"

"Thank you, Gilderoy," said Dumbledore. The crowd parted yet again to let them pass, and then there was a long moment of silence, broken only by Percy.

"Well, no need to stick around. Gryffindors, follow me!" He strode back through the crowd towards a staircase.

The majority of the crowd followed. Fred and George stayed, staring at the corridor Ron had disappeared down. Eleanora exchanged a worried glance with Lee, and then took hold of Fred's arm and pulled him away. "Come on, there's nothing you can do about it now."

On the way up to the common room, Eleanora was, for once, appreciative of Percy's bossiness. He kept the Gryffindors under control when they got to the common room, allowing her the room to think. She sat down on her armchair and tucked her legs under herself. The twins and Lee were discussing in hurried, hushed voices possible explanations for the scene they'd just witnessed.

"It wasn't any of them," Eleanora said quietly. "None of them had blood on themselves."

"How do you know it was blood?" George asked in a higher voice than usual.

"It... was." Eleanora didn't have a sound explanation aside from the fact that she had plenty of experience with blood. The twins didn't pressure her for details. Everyone was fairly shaken at what they'd seen, and ended up going to bed early that night.

The next morning at breakfast, everyone was buzzing about the Chamber of Secrets. The only problem seemed to be that everybody had a different version of the story. Eleanora heard at least seven renditions before cutting Cedric Diggory off in the middle of his. He'd come to sit at the Gryffindor table for a minute to see if she had any information he didn't.

"Ced- I grew up in a muggle house, I don't-"

"But you always know about everything!" Cedric interjected, making her smile.

"I don't know about this," she said, her smile fading. "But it feels as if it's on the tip of my tongue, you know?"

"Yes, exactly! That's what everyone's been saying." Cedric stood up, stealing a biscuit off of Eleanora's plate and walking backwards back towards his table. "Let me know if you think of anything."

She smiled at him and turned back to the table just in time to see the post coming. She'd completely forgotten about Bill's letter in all the excitement. Circe swooped down and stuck out her leg, to which an envelope was attached. Eleanora grabbed it and ripped it open, ignoring her owl, who was looking exhausted from the long trip. Lee leaned over and fed Circe a piece of bacon as Eleanora scanned the letter.

Eleanora-
I need you to brace yourself before reading this next paragraph. There's some information I found that you might find disturbing. Things went down exactly as planned on Halloween, and you were right about everything. Cillian brought two bottles of Inncilcotis poison, which were successfully intercepted by our middle-man (or woman, in this case), and switched out for an identical, but entirely harmless, substance. When the poison was intercepted, our middle-woman immediately brought it to the auror office and explained everything to Alastor Moody, who jumped into action. Long story short, they arrested your dad and brought him in for questioning. I believe that's where he'll still be when you receive this. Don't get too worried about it, though, they have every reason to believe your dad was under the imperious curse. Now they're just trying to figure out who was controlling him. I'm sure everything will be fine. You really just saved the Minister, Eleanora. You should be so proud of yourself, I know I'm really, really proud of you.
I'll tell you if I get anymore information on what's happening with your dad now, but I think he'll be alright. Something dark is definitely stirring, but for now it's not something to focus on. Just enjoy your time at school, focus on your O.W.L.s and quidditch. I've been so slammed with work recently, I almost miss Hogwarts. Write me soon and take care of yourself.
Bill

~

Eleanora sat in the library with Percy later that week, pouring over Lockhart's books. "These aren't helping" she said, slamming shut Gadding With Ghouls so hard Percy jumped.

"I know, he's an idiot. You know, the other day I asked him the difference between a werewolf and an animagus and he just stared at me." Percy shook his head in disgust and stood up to scan the shelves for a useful book. "You'll be fine with Potions at least, I've been hearing about how good you are in Snape's class since you got to Hogwarts."

"I'm not that good," Eleanora muttered, blushing slightly.

Percy snorted. "Don't be ridiculous, you're the only non-Slytherin Snape actually likes." He pulled a book about ghouls down from the shelf and set it on the table harder than usual.

"Are you alright, Percy? You seem like you're in a bad mood." She slid Gadding With Ghouls across the table and opened a different book on counter-curses.

"I'm fine, it's just this whole Chamber of Secrets business. It's driving everyone mad. I caught Ron coming out of the girls bathroom the other day."

Eleanora choked. "What?" she said, hardly covering up her laughter.

"You heard me. Him and Harry and Hermione, all just casually hanging out in the girls bathroom. Said he was 'just having a look around." He frowned at Eleanora, who couldn't contain her smile as hard as she tried. "It's not funny! He's already a suspect and now he's acting all suspicious. You know, Ginny's convinced he's going to be expelled."

At this Eleanora's smile dropped. "I know, I'm worried about her. She was really affected by the whole Mrs. Norris thing, poor kid."

"She likes cats, but it doesn't just seem like that. It's concerning." Eleanora nodded in agreement and they went back to studying together in silence.