Halloween Petrification Incident (I)

The noise and merriment of Halloween seemed to have been shut away behind an invisible wall.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione left the Great Hall with the crowded throng. The air still held the cloying sweetness of pumpkin pie and the acrid smell of firework sulfur. They had just witnessed Nearly Headless Nick's eerie yet lively five-hundredth deathday party, and their minds were still immersed in the strange atmosphere of ghosts playing bone instruments and moldy cakes.

Just as they stepped onto the marble staircase leading to Gryffindor Tower, the voice came again.

Cold, slick, and filled with bone-piercing malice, it slipped directly into Harry's mind, as though a snake were hissing in his ear: "Kill... eat... tear apart..."

Harry came to an abrupt stop. His face went deathly pale, his heart gripped by an icy hand, making it hard even to breathe. He instinctively clutched his forehead as a sharp pain shot through his lightning-bolt scar, filling his vision with sparks.

"Harry?" Ron turned back and looked at him in confusion. "Why do you look so awful? Like you ate a Dungbomb."

"It... it came again!" Harry panted with difficulty, his chest heaving as his gaze urgently swept the dim corridor, as if trying to catch something invisible. "That voice! It spoke again! Didn't you hear it...?"

Hermione and Ron quickly exchanged worried looks. Hermione listened closely, her brows tightly furrowed. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "I didn't hear anything, Harry. Nothing but the wind and the pipes."

"No! It's nearby!" Harry said firmly, his voice carrying an almost obsessive certainty. The hissing lingered in his mind like a parasite clinging to bone, bearing an irresistible lure. It seemed to guide him in a direction, yet also sounded like the low growl of some predator.

Ignoring his