Leave No Loose Ends

"What do you mean, he's gone?" Gavin asked in disbelief.

"When Minerva and I went down to check this morning, Fake Lockhart was gone."

Gavin frowned. "Was this some student's prank?"

The Gryffindor Twins were his first thought, but he dismissed it just as quickly. They wouldn't go so far as to play with a corpse.

Unless some professor had taken it away for an anatomy experiment?

A suspect came to mind.

"I'm afraid not." Dumbledore shook his head gravely. "Judging by the footprints and blood left at the scene, the corpse got up and walked out on its own."

"It walked out on its own?" Gavin could hardly believe his ears.

That corpse had been like a heap of rags. How could it still move?

It sounded like a ghost story.

"Did Professor McGonagall and Snape—Professor Snape seal off the scene?"

Professor McGonagall had said yesterday that she would handle it, so Gavin had left first.

They had left the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets open so they could come and go.

"Oh, of course. There was a Basilisk inside, after all. Minerva and Severus worked together to seal the Stone Face you mentioned."

"And that was all?"

"They came back out afterward. Before leaving, they sealed the bathroom door and told Filch to watch it."

Gavin's mouth twitched. Having Filch guard the door was almost the same as leaving it unguarded. He couldn't even handle the more troublesome students.

"They didn't deal with the corpse?"

"They intended to leave the scene as it was until I or the Aurors could examine it."

Gavin fell silent.

He, Professor McGonagall, and Snape had all confirmed it was a corpse. He had no idea how it could have got up and run away.

"This morning, several professors and I searched