CHAPTER EIGHT
“This way,” he shouted, and he began to run, up the stairs, into
the entrance hall. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, the
babble of talk from the Halloween feast was echoing out of the
Great Hall. Harry sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor,
Ron and Hermione clattering behind him.
“Harry, what’re we —”
“SHH!”
Harry strained his ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and
growing fainter still, he heard the voice: “. . . I smell blood. . . . I
SMELL BLOOD!”
His stomach lurched —
“It’s going to kill someone!” he shouted, and ignoring Ron’s and
Hermione’s bewildered faces, he ran up the next flight of steps
three at a time, trying to listen over his own pounding footsteps —
Harry hurtled around the whole of the second floor, Ron and
Hermione panting behind him, not stopping until they turned a
corner into the last, deserted passage.
“Harry, what was that all about?” said Ron, wiping sweat off his
face. “I couldn’t hear anything. . . .”
But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor.
“Look!”
Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached
slowly, squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been
daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light
cast by the flaming torches.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN
OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
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