Chapter 37: Halloween Was No Fun
Chapter 37: Halloween Was No Fun
"Jia, Justin!"
Ron looked at the boy's face and exclaimed in shock.
Hermione hurriedly ran to Justin's fallen body, extending her trembling fingers to probe his nose.
"He! He! He's dead!"
Hermione struggled to utter these words, then fell weakly to the floor.
Harry, using the light from the torch, saw the last expression of fear frozen on Justin's face. He instinctively swallowed hard, feeling a chill run through his body.
The boy lying on the ground was Justin Finch-Fletchley, a second-year student like Harry, but from Hufflepuff House.
They had no idea why Justin would be in this place during the Halloween feast, or who had killed him.
But Ron already felt uneasy.
"Let's get out of here."
"Shouldn't we try to help—?" Harry said hesitantly.
"Listen to me", Ron said, "we don't want to be found here!"
But it was too late.
A commotion of footsteps echoed from the third-floor staircase, and soon students began to ascend to the third floor, spotting Harry and his friends.
The previously cheerful students fell silent at the sight.
Everyone stared at the grim scene, with Harry, Ron, and Hermione standing in the spotlight, next to Justin's seemingly lifeless "corpse."
"Enemies of the Heir, beware! Next will be you, Mudblood!"
It was Malfoy, his face twisted into a cold sneer as he read the message on the wall and added his own unforgivable remark, which no one had the heart to pay attention to at that moment.
Or rather, there was one person who did.
"Slytherin, twenty points deducted, Mr. Malfoy. It seems the last punishment wasn't enough. Extend your toilet-cleaning duty until January 1st."
A calm voice sounded from behind the students.
Malfoy's smile froze on his face, and he glared resentfully at Sherlock.
But Sherlock ignored him, as the students had already cleared a path for him to examine the situation.
Harry and his friends noticed Sherlock's arrival and began to explain frantically, as if they had found a savior.
"Professor, we found Justin lying here when we arrived!"
"We didn't do it! We were the first to discover him!"
"Is he still alive, Professor?"
Sherlock raised his hand, signaling for them to quiet down, then drew his wand and knelt beside Justin.
All the students held their breath, watching as Sherlock lightly tapped Justin's stiff body with his wand.
Although Sherlock's magical skills were not yet as advanced as the original owner's, they were far from the half-hearted efforts of two months ago.
After a quick examination and a check of Justin's condition, he spoke softly.
"He's not dead."
Harry and his friends breathed a collective sigh of relief, and the tension among the onlookers began to ease.
"But his condition is not good."
An elderly voice spoke, and Dumbledore, accompanied by other professors, had arrived.
"Take Justin to your office, Sherlock. I remember it's on the third floor. Harry, you three come along as well."
Professor Mcgonagall dismissed the students, urging them to return to their dorms, and instructed Filch to clean the wall of the offensive message that night.
Sherlock used the Levitation Charm on Justin, who appeared like a statue, making his body float in mid-air. He then guided him, along with Professor Dumbledore, the other professors, and Harry and his friends, to his office.
His office was quite simple, containing only the essential furniture and a bookshelf brimming with books.
Dumbledore directed Sherlock to place Justin on the sofa and then personally examined his condition.
Harry and his friends became tense again as Snape began to question their involvement, wondering why they hadn't attended the Halloween feast.
They anxiously explained that they had gone to Nick's Deathday Party, which is why they were absent from the Great Hall.
Dumbledore, having determined Justin's condition more clearly, shook his head to clear Harry and his friends of suspicion.
"Whatever petrified Justin is an extremely powerful form of dark magic, not something a second-year student could manage."
But Snape remained relentless, pressing them on why they hadn't returned to the Great Hall after leaving the Deathday Party.
Harry and his friends didn't mention that they had heard a strange voice and gone to the third floor because they felt it wasn't a convincing reason and it wouldn't be good if it got out.
Sherlock, standing by and staring at Justin's stiff body, wasn't paying much attention to Snape's interrogation of Harry and his friends.
The petrified Justin stirred something in his memory.
The basilisk released from the Chamber of Secrets had the ability to petrify. But why did his first memory of a victim involve a cat?
How did it end up being this boy instead?
At that moment, Professor Mcgonagall had already brought over the Hufflepuff students who had been dining with Justin at the Halloween feast to ask why he had left early.
Justin's two friends chattered nervously, saying that Justin had felt unwell since the morning. He had gone to the hospital wing in the morning, where Madam Pomfrey diagnosed him with a cold and gave him a potion.
By the afternoon, it seemed he had eaten something unclean, and he started having diarrhea.
He left the feast early, intending to return to his dormitory to rest.
It was in the corridor on the third floor that he was attacked.
Dumbledore and the others found no clues, but Sherlock was still contemplating when the story had started to deviate from the original.
Ever since he discovered he was in Harry Potter's world, especially after finding out he would be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts, Sherlock hadn't expected the plot to follow the original trajectory.
After all, each Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was a crucial character in their respective years, and with a new person in the role this year, the future was bound to be different.
But now, even the first victim had changed. So when did everything start to diverge from the original story?
Just as he was struggling to find an answer, Dumbledore concluded his investigation of the evening's events.
He had Justin taken to Madam Pomfrey and announced that Professor Sprout was currently cultivating a batch of mandrakes. Once the plants were ready, they would be used to make a potion to cure him. When Justin woke up, they would know the true culprit.
The attack that night was thus temporarily unresolved.
(End of Chapter)
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