The quiet solemnity of their meal in the kitchens was a world away from the boisterous celebration happening in the Great Hall above. They spoke little, but the silence was filled with a comfortable, shared understanding. Harry, for the first time, felt he could properly mourn on the anniversary of his parents' death, supported by friends who expected nothing from him but his presence. When they finally left the warmth of the kitchens, a sense of quiet peace had settled over him.
Their route back to Gryffindor Tower was intended to be a direct one, but as they ascended the grand staircase, they began to notice something was wrong. The usual ambient hum of the castle was gone, replaced by an eerie, unnatural silence. The portraits on the walls were whispering nervously, their painted occupants huddled together in frightened groups.
"What's going on?" Hermione whispered, her hand instinctively going to her wand.
As they reached the second floor, the reason for the silence became apparent. The corridor was flooded. A sheet of water, inches deep, covered the flagstones, shimmering in the torchlight. And at the far end of the corridor, clustered around the entrance to the girls' lavatory, was a huge, silent crowd of students. They were all staring at something on the wall, their faces a mixture of fascination and horror.
Ariana's senses went on high alert. This was it. The catalyst. The opening move. But something was wrong. The timing was right, but the location felt… premature. She had expected the first attack to be more dramatic, more public.
She, Harry, and Hermione moved forward, their footsteps splashing in the shallow water. The crowd parted for them, their faces pale and anxious. They finally saw what everyone was looking at, and they froze.
Hanging by its tail from a torch bracket was Mrs. Norris, Argus Filch's scrawny, dust-coloured cat. Her body was stiff, her eyes wide and staring, as if she had been flash-frozen in a moment of terror. And on the wall beside her, painted in glistening, foot-high letters, were the words:
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
A wave of shock rippled through Ariana, so profound it was almost physical. It was not shock at the sight itself—she had known this was coming. It was shock at the fact that it was happening at all. Her mind, a fortress of logic and foresight, was suddenly faced with an impossible, terrifying anomaly. The diary—Tom Riddle's Horcrux, the instrument for opening the Chamber—was safely locked away in her trunk. It was protected by a series of interwoven charms and theoretical wards so complex that not even Dumbledore could have opened the trunk without her knowledge. She had neutralized the primary threat before it could ever be deployed.
And yet… here it was. The Chamber had been opened anyway. For the first time since her arrival in this world, Ariana was truly, deeply questioning herself. Her entire strategy had been predicated on her knowledge of the original story, on a predictable sequence of events she could subtly manipulate. But this… this was a deviation. A catastrophic one. It meant there was another key. Another method of opening the Chamber. Another player on the board she had not accounted for. Her carefully constructed understanding of the world had just been shattered. Who? How?
Her internal turmoil was masked by her usual serene expression, but inside, her mind was a whirlwind of frantic recalculation. While she was processing this new, dangerous variable, the scene devolved into its predictable chaos.
"Enemies of the Heir, beware?" Draco Malfoy's voice, full of a smug, malicious glee, cut through the horrified silence. "You'll be next, Mudbloods!" He shot a venomous look at Hermione. Filch arrived then, pushing through the crowd. He saw his petrified cat and let out a raw, griefstricken howl of rage. His bulging, mad eyes landed on Harry. "You!" he shrieked, his face contorted. "You've murdered my cat! I'll kill you! I'll—"
"Argus!" Dumbledore's voice, calm but powerful, silenced the caretaker's tirade. He had arrived with a contingent of other teachers, including McGonagall and Snape. They took in the scene, their faces grim. Dumbledore gently detached Mrs. Norris from the bracket, his expression unreadable. "She is not dead, Argus," he said softly. "She has been Petrified. But how, I do not yet know."
Lockhart then pushed forward, all preening self-importance. "I must have been in my office! If I'd been here, I could have—"
"What is needed now," Dumbledore said, cutting him off coolly, "is for all students to return to their dormitories. Immediately."
As the crowd began to disperse, Snape's black, probing eyes swept over the scene. They lingered on the writing, then on the petrified cat, and finally, they settled on the trio of Gryffindors standing at the front. His gaze was sharp, analytical, and full of suspicion.
"Perhaps," he said, his voice a low, silky drawl that carried across the corridor, "we should ask Potter and his friends why they were not at the feast with everyone else?"
All eyes turned to them. It was a pointed, dangerous question. Harry and Hermione looked panicked, unsure how to answer without incriminating themselves in some new, unforeseen way. Ariana stepped forward slightly, her composure absolute despite the raging storm in her mind. Her periwinkle eyes met Snape's black ones, her gaze as cool and unyielding as a winter lake.
"We were not celebrating," she said, her voice quiet but ringing with an unassailable, sorrowful truth. "We were in the kitchens. Today is the anniversary of the night Lord Voldemort murdered Lily Evans. We were mourning her."
The effect of her words was devastating. She had not just said 'Harry's parents'. She had used Snape's own long-lost love's name, a name he surely never expected to hear from the lips of a child. She had invoked the one memory that held a power over him greater than any dark magic.
A flicker of something—raw, agonizing pain—flashed deep in Snape's eyes. It was there and gone in an instant, so quickly that only someone watching for it would have seen it. His face, already pale, seemed to lose another shade of colour. The sneer on his lips vanished, replaced by a tight, rigid mask. He had been so intent on cornering Potter that he had stumbled headfirst into the one memory that could shatter his own composure.
He said nothing. He simply turned, his black robes billowing, and stalked away down the corridor, his retreat a silent admission of defeat.
Dumbledore looked at Ariana, a profound, heavy understanding in his eyes. He knew exactly what she had done, and why. He gave a single, somber nod. "A worthy reason to be absent. Go to your dormitory, all of you."
As they walked back to Gryffindor Tower, surrounded by the frightened whispers of their
housemates, Hermione and Harry were buzzing with questions and theories about the Chamber, the Heir, and the attack.
But Ariana was silent. Her mind was not on the immediate drama. It was racing, sifting through possibilities, analyzing the new, terrifying equation. The diary was inert. And yet, the Chamber was open. This was no longer the story she knew. It was a new, more dangerous version, and she was no longer a step ahead of it. She was, for the very first time, completely in the dark.