Melancholy || Harry Potter's twin brother

2: chapter nineteen

Sirius sat in their dormitory with Justin, Ernie had advised them both to stay put and he wasn't in the mood for an arguement.

"Did you talk to Harry?" Justin broke the slightly awkward silence with his question, Sirius, who was on the floor down the side of his bed with his legs in the air and a textbook resting on his face looked at his friend and shook his head, having the first real conversation they had had since he had stormed out of the common room.

"No, I met Aro though." He replied, Justin sat up, he had been lying on his back on his bed.

"What happened?"

"We had a chat. Apparently the heir has to be a born heir, so it's not Harry." Sitiud replied.

"So how does your brother know Parsletongue?" Justin frowned, Sirius shrugged as best he could from his position.

"I don't know, probably the same reason you know who tried to kill him." Sirius sighed. "Why does everything have to be complicated?"

"We should tell the others." Justin decided, getting up and moving to the door.

"Justin wait!" Sirius called but his friend had already gone, leaving him to catch up.

He wasn't fast enough, and as he made it into the main part of the castle, he heard Peeves the poltergeist screaming at the top of his lungs: "ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTACK!"

Fearing the worst Sirius sprinted down the corridor and entered a sea of people who had heard the poltergeists call. He could see Justin lying on the floor and felt sick. Harry was stood off to the side and quickly putting two and two together, Sitius pushed his way to his friends side. McGonagall came to stand beside him after she had sent everyone back to their classes.

"Professor what happened to him?" Sirius asked, he reached out to touch his friends hand, recoiling at the empty feeling it gave him. "Is he dead?"

"No Sirius, just petrified." She said gently, Sirius tried hard to fight back the tears, but seeing Justin lying like a statue had shaken him to his core.

"Is he going to be okay?" He asked, as Ernie rushed onto the scene.

"Caught in the act!" He announced, pointing grandly at Harry, who was still backed in a corner.

"Enough Macmillan." McGonagall said sharply, she had an arm around Sirius who was shaking.

"Ernie I was just talking to him..." Sirius muttered. He felt weak, useless, pathetic.

"Hey, Madam Pomfrey will fix him up." He said gently, he knew how close the two were, closer perhaps then the rest of their group and could see the state his friend was in. Ernie forced professor McGonagall to allow the two to carry Justin to the hospital wing, so that Sirius could see that Justin was going to be okay. He then took his friend back to their dorm.

"Sirius did you see anything?" He asked slowly and carefully.

Sirius shook his head, he felt numb, no one had come for his friends before and he didn't know how to handle it.

"Harry was there Sirius, you can't deny that he must have done something." Ernie said, he was trying to be delicate before Hannah entered in a world wind of anti-Harry feeling.

"But he's not the heir, he can't be." Sirius said, before filling Ernie in on his talk with Aro.

"But he could be working with him, maybe that's how he can talk to snakes." Ernie philosophised.

"But he's a gryffindor?"

"House doesn't mean that much if you have power and want to be a dark wizard." Ernie shrugged. "Dark wizards come from any house."

"Ernie I'm scared." Sirius confessed.

"Nothings going to happen to you, we're going to keep you far away from him." Ernie promised, although he wasn't sure how he would keep said promise.

^^^
The Christmas holidays soon descended and the group, despite staying in Hogwarts so thet could visit Justin, were in foul moods. They didn't know how to celebrate when one of their friends was so lifeless in the hospital wing.

So to take their minds off being helpless, they went in search of the chamber of secrets.

They checked every secret passage, every nook and cranny, every loose floorboard and even climbed into the rafters and checked where the mirror of erised had been hidden at the end of the previous school year, and found nothing.

"I mean where else could he have hidden it, it's not like we can just waltz down and check the catacombs." Hannah sighed, sitting down on a window ledge with a defeated sigh.

"Maybe the blue prints for the castle are in the library, we can always say we're doing a history of magic project." Sirius suggested, he was only thinking out loud, but his friends nodded.

"It won't be on the blue prints, but there might be like a space the chamber could be on it." Ernie agreed. "Let's go."

"But I'm hungry." Sirius complained, his mood getting low again as he realised that Justin wasn't there to back him up.

"We'll get a snack first then." Hannah sighed, leading the way into the kitchen, where Sirius promptly collected another piece of information. It took him by surprise, and appeared different then before.

"It was him last time. He opened the chamber of secrets!" Sirius screamed.

"What?" Ernie asked, as quickly as the episode had appeared it was gone, leaving Sirius to look at him blankly.

"What?" He asked back.

"You just said he opened the chamber of secrets, who is he?" Hannah questioned him.

"I did?" Sirius frowned, he must have blacked out for a moment, how else could he not remember the information he had just collected.

"Yes, Sirius has this happened before, momentarily shutting down when you collect info?" Hannah asked, she seemed worried, and no one blamed her, she didn't want another of 'her boys' in the hospital wing.

"No, I didn't even know it had happened until now." He replied with a shrug. "Weird huh."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Ernie asked gently, as Hannah instructed the house elves on what they wanted.

Sirius nodded. "I'm fine, didn't even feel whatever that was."

"Alright." Ernie said, he had been in high alert since the duelling club and wasn't going to take any chances.

"Honestly, I am fine."