apparently me updating "soon" means the next day lol

hope you like the chapter :D

* ° * ° *

The Halloween Feast was a real treat.

Drew didn't know how Hogwarts could make dinner any better than it usually was, but she was always proven wrong when the holidays came.

Jack-o-lanterns floated above their heads, candles flickering inside them, and Dumbledore was donning a witch's hat that looked suspiciously like it'd been bought at the pound shop.

And the food. It was piled up even higher than before, with a distinct spooky and autumn spin.

Cakes were pumpkin orange, inky black, bloody red, and ghastly white. Pumpkins filled with candy lined each table. The roast chicken looked rotten but tasted divine, the rice resembled maggots, and the donuts had spider-shaped sprinkles that moved.

Cyndee loved the spiders, and she'd eat a whole mouthful and let her tongue fall out to show Drew the black sprinkles crawling around her tongue.

Drew laughed, "Ew, close your mouth, freak."

The other girl just giggled and helped herself to another donut.

Wilby was inhaling all the pumpkin-flavoured Butterbeer, and she could have sworn that he was getting drunk.

Did Butterbeer have any alcoholic content? It probably did, so she reached over to pluck his goblet out of his hand and drop it into a swirling grey soup.

He looked at her dismayed. "Butterbeer," he whined.

"Yes, I know," Drew rolled her eyes. "You should eat some eggs." She pushed towards him a plate of scrambled eggs with ketchup (?) in zigzags over it.

He stared at it for a long ten seconds before deciding, "Okay."

Draco Malfoy and his friends were also eating like pigs. At every few intervals, Malfoy would send either Crabbe or Goyle down the table to bring him any faraway dishes that looked fattening.

Drew snatched the roast chicken back from Goyle and shooed him off with a malicious glare. Nobody could touch her chicken, even if she was full and couldn't eat another bite.

Cyndee touched Drew's arm, "H-how long do we stay?"

"Few more minutes," she whispered back, careful not to let the normally attentive Wilby hear. "Let him finish his eggs."

When Wilby scraped up the last drop of ketchup on his finished plate, Drew stood up, tugging Cyndee up with her. "C'mon Wilby, time to go."

He tried to fish his goblet out of the soup without staining his sleeve, "Okay, just wait a minute—"

She threw her spoon at him, "Now, Wilby."

Obediently he stood up and walked with them. Drew casually swept a candy-filled pumpkin off the end of the table to the outrage of the girl sitting across from Xavier. He tried to grab it back for her, but the three were already rushing out the door, on their way to the Slytherin Dungeons.

"Uh, where are we going?" Wilby asked, and Drew shushed him.

It was half past eleven, and Wilby seemed to not remember what day it was, because when he walked into the common room his mouth dropped open.

A beautiful blue banner saying happy birthday dimwad was floating over the fireplace, and Drew waved her wand, white fireworks shooting out. Jinx came bounding over, a tiny blue party hat on her head, not meowing with complaint for once.

Then Drew sighed, waving her wand again. The old gramophone she'd stolen from Filch started playing Taylor Swift's Red album, and Wilby squealed.

He looked back at his two friends, who both now had presents in their hands.

"We're half an hour early," Drew admitted, "since by midnight we figured this place would be crowded, but who doesn't like an early birthday, right Will?"

Wilby went pink. "Wow — I can't believe this...you're both so nice. And pretty," he added randomly.

Drew scoffed, "I think you're just seeing two Cyndees."

"I'm not drunk," he insisted. "But really, thank you. This is so nice."

"We'll have a-an actual cake tomorrow!" Cyndee said proudly. "It'll be vanilla with strawberries all over it. Or...was it blueberries? I-I forgot."

"Blueberries," Drew reminded her.

"Blueberries!"

"Yum," Wilby said, and then probably because he was tipsy, he asked, "can I hug you guys?"

Cyndee obliged, and once they pulled apart Wilby smiled all too innocently at Drew.

"Just because it's your birthday," Drew grumbled, and he immediately fell into her arms.

Seconds later he pulled away, and Cyndee offered her present. He opened it, revealing a card with glitter all over it and an elegant metallic quill.

"So it won't break and spill ink into your mouth when you chew on it," she explained.

He blinked, "Thanks...do I do it that often?"

"Yes," Drew sighed, giving him her gift. "Honestly, the amount of times I've seen you with a black tongue is uncountable."

He looked embarrassed, and quickly unwrapped the box, thanking Cyndee and promising to read her card later as he did.

He held up a potion the size of the gold goblets in the Great Hall. It was filled with a clear liquid, with grey swirling in it.

"It's a developing potion," Drew grinned, knowing that Wilby was absolutely terrible with Potions. "I bought it in Diagon Alley. It makes pictures move, and I thought, well..." she grimaced, because what she said next was going to be really cheesy, "I thought it'd be nice if that photo you have of your mom could move."

Tears filled his eyes, and he leapt forward, hugging her again.

"Oh God," she snarked, arms pressed at her sides.

At the exact moment, the Clock Tower struck midnight. It was officially November 1st, and the two girls chorused, "Happy birthday."

"Thank you," he murmured quietly and clearly, and Drew belatedly realized he was not as drunk as he'd made himself seem.

The bastard.

* ° * ° *

The three were talking about school and what they planned to do for Christmas break, when the common room door was flung open and a flood of students came in, all chatting animatedly.

"Took you guys a while," Drew commented. "It's like, twelve-thirty."

Pansy was biting her black-painted nails, "Something's happened to Mrs. Norris. And what is this music?"

"Taylor Swift," Wilby informed her.

"Never heard of her."

"And there's writing on the walls!" Xavier added, looking affronted at their unconcern.

Drew raised an eyebrow, "Pranks and vandalism? Doesn't sound like anything new for Halloween Night."

"The writing was in blood," Millicent said, and the three of them jolted.

"B-B-Blood?" Cyndee sputtered, terrified.

Drew patted her shoulder, then looked back at Millicent for more information.

The Slytherin wrung her hands, "It said 'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.' And we don't know what happened to Mrs. Norris! She looked...dead. Dumbledore said something about being Petrified?"

"Professor Snape said he was going to make a Mandrake drought to cure her," Eliza said delicately, and Drew wanted to barf just hearing her talk.

"Of course Filch was wailing like a heartbroken banshee," Pansy snorted, picking at her nails now, "and Lockhart was talking like he knew what was going on. Apparently, Potter and his friends found her; I bet they did something."

"Oh please," Malfoy argued, "the Boy Who Lived is too good to write something like that.

Blaise nodded, crossing his brown arms, "He doesn't even know what it means, I reckon."

"What does it mean?" Xavier asked him.

"Makes sense that you wouldn't know, Muggle-born," Malfoy snipped back.

Xavier's eyes flashed, "I'm half-blood, you idiot. And I'm also prefect, so I suggest you don't speak to me like that again."

"I don't know what the Heir part means, either," Goyle said slowly. Crabbe nodded his agreement.

"Yeah Draco," Pansy whined, tugging at his arm, "tell me who the Heir is."

"I'm not going to tell any of you," Malfoy sneered self-importantly. "My father told me all about it, and I will not reveal what he'd said."

Then he spun on his heels and marched into the boy's dormitory, his two thugs trailing after him.

Xavier bit out something nasty and unfitting for a prefect to say, and went to bed too. The sixth-year prefect, Quentin Stuart, hopped after him and said goodnight to Carolina, his female counterpart.

It was getting late — or rather, it'd been late for a long time — and they decided to go to bed. Wilby gave them a chipper wave as he retreated to the boy's hallway, and Cyndee and Drew walked to their room, plopping into their beds.

Isabell and Millicent were in there already, the latter dead asleep and snoring.

Drew found Jinx huddled underneath her covers, and picked her up. She slid under the blankets and placed her wand under the pillow and her cat on her chest, stroking her silky green fur.

There was a shift in another bed, and she opened one eye to see Cyndee staring at her nervously, "Do y-you think it was real blood?"

"No," Drew snorted adamantly, "where could they have gotten that much blood? It's just paint. A Halloween prank, most likely. Do you know what the Chamber of Secrets is?"

"Morfinus told me that story," she said softly. "Supposedly Salazar got mad that the other founders were letting in Muggle-borns and Half-bloods, so he created a m-monster that he hid at Hogwarts in a secret chamber. Only the Heir of Slytherin can unseal it, and free a monster trained to kill people he thought were...unworthy to learn here."

Jinx purred, and Drew watched her fur turn from green to black once asleep, "Like me, huh? Salazar was a jerk, but that's just a legend."

"Nobody ever found it," Cyndee agreed. "Jinx is so cute, by the way."

"Malfoy probably did it," Isabell cut in.

"Why?" Drew snapped, instantly in a bad mood upon hearing her voice. It was also especially maddening that she happened to interrupt when the conversation was about to turn to cats.

Isabell sniffed, "When I got there, I heard him say, 'Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!' "

Drew wrinkled her nose, "What a grand statement. He's got to stop throwing that insult around."

"I don't know," Isabell murmured, as if to herself. "If you keep saying it, it loses its power, doesn't it?"

Drew went silent, thoughtfully turning her words over. "You have a great point, for once."

"It's what my dad told me," she admitted. "He wondered why we always refer to You-Know-Who as You-Know-Who."

"Voldemort," Drew tried. Cyndee sucked in her breath. The air seemed to go cold, and Millicent shifted in her sleep. "I don't know," she said eventually. "It's weird saying it."

"Please don't say it," Cyndee whimpered.

"Alright alright," Drew said. She closed her eyes, hands still petting her cat. "Goodnight Cyndee."

"Goodnight Drew."

* ° * ° *

A week later, Drew and her two friends were walking to the kitchens, wanting to grab a snack before heading back to the dungeons. Harry Potter had had his bones magically removed from his arm today by that idiotic Lockhart, and it reminded her of noodles, which made her hungry.

She was watching Cyndee read The Daily Prophet when Wilby cried out.

"What?" Drew asked, then saw it.

A kid was standing in the middle of the hall, uncharacteristically still, arms raised. They could only see the back of him, and they moved closer.

Drew recognized him immediately. In fact, it was probably the camera that jolted her memory rather than the face hidden behind it. It was that first year who was always chasing after Potter. "Colin Creevey," she whispered.

Wilby softly touched Colin's hand, face worried, "Feels like rock. Definitely Petrification again."

"W-we've got to get someone," Cyndee murmured, her skin paling.

"Snape," Drew decided, taking lead, "his office is the closest."

Wilby stayed behind, and the girls found their Head of House in his office. He was annoyed at first, saying that he was busy with the mandrake poison, but at the words "another Petrified student" he was rushing out, telling the girls to get the Headmaster and Madam Pomfrey.

And though she wouldn't admit it, Colin's frozen face had freaked Drew out. As they were running around, they met Ari and her friend Sylvia coming out of the library.

Coming to a stop, Drew grabbed her sister by the arm. "Are you okay?" Drew asked her without thinking.

Her sister looked surprised, and her eyes slid down to the hand gripping her tightly. Finally, she answered, "Yes, I'm fine. Er, are you?"

Drew released her grasp, "Yes. The uh, monster — the one that got Mrs. Norris? — it got Creevey. It's definitely targeting Muggle-borns. So just — please be careful."

Aurora's eyes softened, and she shuffled one hand out from under her pile of books to lay it on Drew's shoulder. "I will. You be careful too."