The Halloween feast proceeded with its usual spectacular flair. The food piled high on the tables was just as magnificent and abundant as ever.
As Maurise casually chewed on a piece of savory beef pie, the massive oak doors of the Great Hall suddenly swung open. A rush of cold wind swept through the room, causing the thousands of floating candles to flicker wildly.
Immediately following the gust, a procession marched into the hall with synchronized, clicking footsteps.
They were skeletons.
Simultaneously, a lively, slightly eerie waltz began to play from unseen instruments.
"I cannot believe Headmaster Dumbledore actually hired a skeleton dance troupe!" Cho Chang whispered excitedly beside Maurise.
Dumbledore stood up from the Head Table, his amplified voice echoing clearly over the murmuring crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, please offer a warm Hogwarts welcome to the Danse Macabre Dance Troupe!"
A hesitant smattering of applause broke out, quickly growing into enthusiastic cheering.
The music shifted gears, adopting a far more complex, rapid rhythm. The skeletal members scattered seamlessly, taking up perfectly spaced positions across the aisles of the Great Hall and beginning their routine.
Maurise watched in quiet bewilderment.
Well. How to put this politely? The choreography looked less like a graceful waltz and more like a bizarre, chaotic, esoteric ritual. Calling it a literal "dance of demons" would not be entirely inaccurate.
Still, it was precisely what he expected. A wizard's sense of aesthetics had always been entirely alien compared to ordinary Muggles.
However, even if the actual choreography was a bit difficult to appreciate, the performers themselves were undeniably well-maintained. Their polished bones gleamed with a warm, pearlescent luster under the candlelight. From a purely structural standpoint, Maurise found them quite beautiful.
Throughout the performance, Maurise actively scanned the dancers, trying to spot Madam Caroline. Unfortunately, without skin or distinct clothing, the vast majority of the skeletons looked practically identical to him.
Fifteen minutes later, the music crescendoed and stopped on a final, flourishing note.
The skeletons froze simultaneously in dramatic poses. They turned as one entity toward the four House tables and bowed deeply.
Thunderous applause erupted from the student body.
The dancers straightened up, turned toward the Head Table to offer a final bow to Dumbledore, and then slowly retreated toward the Great Hall doors, maintaining their perfect formation.
As the troupe filed past the Ravenclaw table, Maurise noticed the skeleton leading the procession subtly turn its skull toward him and offer a distinct, deliberate nod.
It was Madam Caroline. He had finally recognized her.
"That was remarkably impressive," Cho commented, clapping enthusiastically. "What did you think, Maurise?"
"Indeed," Maurise replied. He picked up a frosted sugar cookie and asked casually, "Any idea exactly how much Headmaster Dumbledore paid to book a troupe like this?"
"Oh, I know!"
Kyle leaned over from across the table, proudly rattling off a staggeringly large sum of Galleons.
Maurise blinked, slowly setting the cookie back down on his plate. His mind immediately began running calculations, seriously considering the financial viability of founding his own skeleton dance troupe. If he was short on performers, he figured he could just throw on a black cloak and join the routine himself.
---
The feast concluded in a chaotic, joyful uproar. Students poured out of the Great Hall, their excited chatter echoing loudly down the stone corridors.
"Did you see that spin?! I cannot believe her ribs did not fly off!"
"Such a shame they were all female skeletons..."
Maurise moved slowly with the flow of the crowd, casually tossing a few eyeball-shaped gummy candies into his mouth. The enchanted irises squirmed slightly as he chewed.
For some inexplicable reason, a faint, nagging sense of unease had settled over him since the feast ended.
That unease was very quickly validated.
As he reached a corridor on the second floor, a sharp, collective gasp rippled through the front of the crowd, followed instantly by a suffocating, terrifying silence.
Without hesitation, Maurise aggressively pushed his way to the front of the pack.
The sight before him caused his eyes to narrow into sharp slits.
Smeared across the stone wall between two large windows, glowing ominously in the flickering torchlight, were words written in what looked suspiciously like drying blood.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
However, the threatening message was not what had paralyzed the crowd.
Standing a few feet away from the wall were Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Suspended in the air just above their heads, hanging rigidly from a torch bracket, were two completely stiff, motionless cats.
One was Argus Filch's beloved pet, Mrs. Norris.
The other... was Maurise's undead familiar, Tin.
---
Surrounded by a dense wall of staring students, Harry felt a cold sweat break out across his scalp.
He could feel the heavy weight of their gazes. The stares were a suffocating mix of morbid curiosity, raw terror, and intense, accusatory suspicion, stabbing into him like physical needles.
Just moments ago, he, Ron, and Hermione had been walking back from Nearly Headless Nick's five-hundredth Deathday Party in the dungeons. On their way to the feast, Harry had heard an incredibly sinister, disembodied voice echoing through the walls. They had followed the voice, only to stumble directly into this horrifying scene.
Harry truly did not know what to feel. He had instantly recognized both cats.
He honestly could not care less about Mrs. Norris. She was a menace, and the school was probably better off without her.
It was the other cat that terrified him. That was Maurise's pet!
Harry snapped his head around, frantically scanning the sea of faces. He found his target almost immediately.
Maurise was standing at the very front of the crowd. He was perfectly still, his face completely devoid of expression, his silver-grey eyes locked onto the rigid form of his cat.
For some inexplicable reason, seeing that utterly calm, dead-eyed stare made Harry's heart pound violently against his ribs.
In the suffocating silence, a harsh, inappropriate voice suddenly rang out.
Draco Malfoy.
"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You will be next, Mudbloods!"
Draco stared up at the two hanging cats, a vicious, cruel smirk twisting his pale face.
A split second later, Draco felt a hand clap down firmly on his shoulder. The grip was not crushing, but it was uncomfortably heavy.
He whipped his head around and instantly collided with a pair of chilling silver eyes.
"Malfoy," Maurise's voice was low, perfectly level, and entirely devoid of emotion. "Did you do this?"
Draco violently flinched, scrambling backward so fast he nearly tripped over his own robes. "What... what do you want, Black?!"
The memory of the suffocating, roaring wall of fire from just a few days ago flashed vividly in his mind. The absolute last thing he wanted was to provoke the Ravenclaw right now.
Staring at Draco's pathetic, darting eyes, Maurise forced himself to calm down. He was acting too hastily.
It took less than a second of logical thought to realize Draco Malfoy could not possibly be the culprit. Currently, Maurise wanted nothing more than to find the actual perpetrator and force-feed them an endless buffet of Agony Curses.
Attacking his cat was an incredibly foolish, fatal mistake.
Ignoring Draco entirely, Maurise raised his wand and gave it a sharp flick.
Tin's rigid body detached from the torch bracket, floating gently down to rest securely in Maurise's arms.
After a rapid, thorough inspection, Maurise let out a tiny, silent sigh of relief.
The cat's body was completely petrified, stiff as a wooden board, but it was not dead. Naturally, it could not die. As long as the soul and magical core remained intact, an undead creature could never truly be killed. Tin's current state was closer to an involuntary, magical coma.
Maurise pointed his wand at the cat's chest and muttered the counter-spell, Finite Incantatem. Nothing happened.
"What is going on here?!"
Argus Filch violently shoved his way through the crowd. The moment his bulging eyes landed on the stiff form of Mrs. Norris hanging from the bracket, he let out a high-pitched, agonizing shriek.
"My cat! What have you done to my cat?!"
Immediately following the caretaker's screams, Albus Dumbledore arrived on the scene, flanked by several professors. Taking one look at the bloody message and the petrified animals, the Headmaster swiftly ordered everyone involved into Gilderoy Lockhart's nearby office.