THE WRITING ON THE WALL
“I never touched Mrs. Norris!” Harry said loudly, uncomfortably
aware of everyone looking at him, including all the Lockharts on
the walls. “And I don’t even know what a Squib is.”
“Rubbish!” snarled Filch. “He saw my Kwikspell letter!”
“If I might speak, Headmaster,” said Snape from the shadows,
and Harry’s sense of foreboding increased; he was sure nothing
Snape had to say was going to do him any good.
“Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place
at the wrong time,” he said, a slight sneer curling his mouth as
though he doubted it. “But we do have a set of suspicious circum-
stances here. Why was he in the upstairs corridor at all? Why wasn’t
he at the Halloween feast?”
Harry, Ron and Hermione all launched into an explanation
about the deathday party. “. . . there were hundreds of ghosts,
they’ll tell you we were there —”
“But why not join the feast afterward?” said Snape, his black eyes
glittering in the candlelight. “Why go up to that corridor?”
Ron and Hermione looked at Harry.
“Because — because —” Harry said, his heart thumping very
fast; something told hi