Justin nudged Tobias with an elbow as they clustered near the heavy dungeon door.
“Bet Snape’s got something *special* planned for Halloween,” he muttered, grinning.
The corridor smelled of damp stone and the faintest tang of pickled eels from last week’s lesson.
Hannah wrinkled her nose.
“I just hope he doesn’t make us brew with eyeballs again.” Ernie adjusted his robes, glancing at the trickle of Slytherins sauntering past.
“As long as he ignores us like last time.” Tobias exhaled through his nose, watching his breath fog slightly in the chill.
His fingers flexed around his wand—holly, ten and three-quarter inches—as if checking it was still there.
The hole in his chest didn’t ache, but sometimes, in the dungeons, the cold seeped deeper.
The door creaked open.
Snape stood there, black robes pooling like ink.
His gaze swept over them, lingered a fraction too long on Tobias, then slid away.
“Inside,” he said, monotone.
“Before you *waste* more of my time.” The Hufflepuff afternoon was double Potions down in the dungeons.
The Shrinking Solution was delicate and easy to ruin.
Tobias read the instructions on the board twice—chopped daisy roots, shredded caterpillars, precisely five drops of leech juice—before touching his knife.
Hannah’s elbow bumped his as she reached for her mortar; her potion already smelled sharper than his, though they’d added ingredients in the same order.
By the third stir counterclockwise, his solution had gone murky.
Justin’s across the table was a vibrant acid green, bubbling merrily.
Tobias frowned at his own pale, sickly hue.
He added another shredded caterpillar, but the color didn’t shift.
Snape swept past their table, robes billowing.
His eyes flicked to Justin’s cauldron, then away.
He didn’t so much as glance at Tobias’s failed attempt, though it was visibly wrong.
Instead, he paused behind Neville Longbottom, whose potion had congealed into something resembling moldy pudding.
“*Pathetic,*” Snape said, almost bored.
“Five points from Gryffindor.” The hour dragged.
The bell rang.
Tobias filled his sample vial—pale green, barely passable—and scrubbed his cauldron in icy water until his fingers numbed.
The corridors were already strung with cobwebs when they came up from the dungeons.”Thought we’d see more decorations by now,” Justin said, nudging a fake spiderweb with his toe.
The castle corridors were dimmer than usual, shadows pooling in the corners where the floating candles didn’t reach.
Hannah shivered.
“Filch must be saving the good ones for the feast.” The Great Hall doors loomed ahead, already propped open.
Inside, the ceiling roiled with enchanted storm clouds, flickering with silent lightning.
Jack-o’-lanterns drifted lazily at table height, their carved grins bobbing like drunken specters.
The Hufflepuff table groaned under trays of roast turkey, pumpkin pasties, and dishes Tobias didn’t remember from last year—something glistening and violet that pulsed faintly.
He slid into his usual spot, halfway down the bench.
Hannah sat across from him, her cheeks pink from the dungeons’ chill.
Ernie elbowed in beside Tobias, already reaching for the mashed potatoes.
Justin dropped down opposite, one seat to Hannah’s left, and immediately speared a sausage with more force than necessary.
At the far end of the table, Cedric Diggory leaned toward a seventh-year Tobias didn’t recognize, their heads bent close over a charmed coin spinning between them.
Two seats down, Tonks—hair currently a violent orange—juggled three roast potatoes in midair while the fifth-years around her groaned.
Their laughter didn’t carry far enough for Tobias to catch the joke.
He piled his plate methodically: one slice of turkey, two roast potatoes, a careful spoonful of peas.
Last year, he’d taken thirds of everything, stomach tight with the novelty of magic food that replenished itself.
Now, he chewed slowly, watching a jack-o’-lantern drift too close to Ernie’s hair.
Hannah giggled when Ernie batted it away.
“Bet they charmed them to follow the first-years.” Justin snorted gravy through his nose.
Tobias didn’t eat as much as last year because he was not as new.
The feast ended with Dumbledore standing to make some brief remarks—something about vigilance and unity, Tobias didn’t quite catch it—before the tables began clearing themselves.
“Library?” Justin asked, stretching.
Hannah shook her head.
“Too full for books.” Ernie was already halfway to standing.
“Common room, then.” They drifted with the crowd out into the corridor, the chatter around them dissolving into murmurs as students branched off toward their respective houses.
The second-floor corridor was the one most were using to get back—wider than the others, its torches guttering low enough that shadows licked at their heels.
Tobias walked slightly behind Justin, hands in his pockets.
The hole in his chest didn’t ache, but sometimes, when the castle grew quiet like this, he imagined he could feel air whistling through it.
They rounded the corner.
The corridor ahead was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with students, all motionless.
No one spoke.
The silence pressed against Tobias’s eardrums like cotton.
Hannah grabbed Ernie’s sleeve.
They edged forward.
The crowd shifted by chance—someone stepped aside to adjust a robe, another leaned to whisper—and the wall came into view.
Filch stood rigid in front of it, his face purpling.
Above him, Mrs.
Norris hung stiff from a torch-bracket, her tail coiled unnaturally straight.
The torchlight flickered across the stone behind her, illuminating words written in something dark and gleaming: *THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.* Dumbledore arrived within the minute, his robes sweeping the floor like a second shadow.
Tobias didn’t see him push through the crowd—one moment the space in front of Filch was empty, the next, the headmaster was there, his half-moon glasses reflecting the torchlight as he studied the wall.
Filch made a sound like a teakettle boiling over.
“She’s—my—” Justin’s elbow dug into Tobias’s ribs as they pressed closer.
Hannah’s breath hitched.
Ernie’s mouth moved soundlessly.
Tobias’s fingers found the edge of his wand in his pocket.
The holly wood was warm.
Mrs.
Norris’s eyes were wide open, unblinking.
The red letters dripped.
Drip.
Hannah’s fingers curled into the fabric of Tobias’s sleeve.
Her grip trembled.
Around them, whispers began—sharp, urgent things that cut through the silence like knives through parchment.
“Who would—” “—cat’s not dead, look at her—” “—heard the Heir of Slytherin—” A sixth-year Ravenclaw near the front turned, eyes wide behind round spectacles.
“It’s petrification,” she said, too loud.
“See how stiff she is?
That’s Basilisk venom.” The word rippled outward.
Basilisk.
Chamber.
Secrets.
Dumbledore’s hand lifted, just slightly, and the murmurs died.
He didn’t raise his voice.
“Argus,” he said, “we will take her to Madam Pomfrey.” His gaze swept the crowd, lingering nowhere, but the air thickened under it.
“Prefects, please escort your housemates back to your common rooms.
The feast is over.” Movement resumed in jerks and starts.
Ernie exhaled sharply, as if he’d been holding his breath.
Justin’s shoulder bumped Tobias’s as they turned—too close, too sudden.
The walk back to the common room was slower than usual.
The Hufflepuffs clumped together without discussion, first-years pressing between older students like ducklings herded to water.
No one joked about Filch’s face.
No one mentioned the writing on the wall.
The Hufflepuff common room half an hour later was already loud with speculation.
Tobias sank onto the sofa nearest the hearth, its cushions worn soft by years of use.
Hannah collapsed beside him, her knees knocking against his.
The firelight caught the gold in her hair, turning it copper where it escaped her braid.
Across the room, a group of sixth-years had commandeered the rug.
A girl with a long plait down her back—Megan, maybe, or Eleanor—was gesturing emphatically at a circle of wide-eyed first-years.
“Salazar Slytherin built the Chamber *centuries* ago,” she said, voice carrying.
“Legend says he hid a monster inside, something only his true heir can control.” One of the first-years squeaked.
Tonks appeared at the foot of the staircase, her hair now a deep, bruised purple.
She scanned the room, gaze skipping over the clusters of students until it landed on Tobias and Hannah.
Her mouth flattened into something that wasn’t quite a frown.
She crossed to them in three strides and dropped onto the sofa armrest nearest Tobias, her weight tipping the cushions.
“You two okay?” Hannah nodded too quickly.
Tobias flexed his fingers against his knees.
Tonks didn’t press.
She leaned forward, elbows on her thighs, and watched the fire instead.
“Weird night,” she said, finally.
The sixth-year on the rug was explaining how no one knew where the Chamber was, only that it had been opened once before, fifty years ago.
A boy at the edge of the circle gasped.
Tonks exhaled through her nose.
“They’re not wrong,” she muttered.
“But they’re not helping either.” She turned, just enough to catch Tobias’s eye.
“Don’t wander alone, yeah?
Especially not near the second floor.” Hannah twisted her robe hem between her fingers.
“Do you think—” “Don’t know.” Tonks shrugged, but the movement was tight, shoulders stiff under her robes.
“But Filch’s cat wasn’t random.
And that writing?
Someone wanted it seen.” The fire popped.
A log settled, sending up a spray of sparks.
Tonks did not have answers either but told them to be careful.
The common room buzzed around them—half-baked theories, nervous laughter, the occasional muffled gasp as someone remembered Mrs.
Norris’s stiffened limbs.
Tobias pressed his palms into his knees until the bones ached.
He understood, in broad strokes, what this year would bring.
The half-memory stirred against the present like a sleeper turning in bed—Justin petrified later, Hannah frightened, himself untouched because Hufflepuffs weren’t targets.
Ernie appeared at the sofa arm, cheeks flushed from arguing with a fourth-year near the honey barrels.
“Dormitory?” he muttered, jerking his chin toward the stairs.
Justin trailed them up, unusually quiet.
The dormitory was darker than the common room, its windows letting in thin slivers of moonlight.
Two of the other second-years were already in bed, curtains drawn.
Tobias undressed with his back to the room, layered shirts peeling away one by one until only the thin undershirt remained.
He waited until Justin was rummaging in his trunk before sliding it off, quick and practiced, the hole in his chest briefly exposed to the chill air.
He pulled on his pajamas, drew the curtains halfway, then climbed into bed.
The mattress creaked under him.
He stared up at the canopy, listening to Justin’s muffled yawn, Ernie’s sock hitting the floor with a soft thump.
This was the second half-remembered event—the one that would put people he knew in the hospital wing.
There was nothing he could do that wouldn’t unravel everything else he’d carefully left undisturbed.
He turned over and tried to sleep.
If Hollow at Hogwarts has caught your eye and you’d like to keep going, the full story lives on the usual site under TransmigratorTales, alongside my other ongoing serial.
More on the way, and I’m really glad you’re here reading this.