Who Killed Chloe Beaudelaire?

Anna led Harry over to a large cluster of Ravenclaws.

“Look like you belong,” she whispered, before disappearing into a clique of fifth year Ravenclaw girls.

Anna began to chat animatedly with the group of girls, who seemed to recognize Anna, and welcomed her into their conversation with open arms. Harry attempted to follow Anna’s lead when he spotted his good friend, Luna Lovegood, standing amongst the other Ravenclaws.

“Hey Luna,” Harry called out as he slid into the cluster of students.

“Hello Harry. Why aren’t you with the other Gryffindors?” Luna asked in the dreamy, mystical voice Harry had grown so accustomed to.

“Um… Anna is going to lend me her History of Magic notes. I fell asleep during Professor Binns’ last lecture and need to get caught up on my notes,” Harry answered with a smirk, proud of himself for coming up with a plausible back story so quickly.

“Mm, okay,” Luna said, toying with her strange feather earrings.

Harry could tell she didn’t believe a word of his fake story, but that didn’t matter, Luna wasn’t the type of person to foil one of Harry’s plans.

“She’s strange, Anna,” Luna piped up, her doe like eyes locking straight ahead on Anna’s flame red hair.

Harry stifled a laugh at Luna’s comment. If the legendary “Looney Lovegood” thought you were strange, then there really was something wrong with you.

“How so?” Harry asked, after choking back a laugh.

“She was always in our common room with that girl, Chloe, the one that died. She never said anything to any of the other Ravenclaws… and her robes always smelled like…like…”

“Soup?”

“Yes,” Luna said with a small smile.

“So, did you ever talk to Chloe Beaudelaire?” Harry asked with growing curiosity.

“I did for a bit during our third year, but she seemed to grow very distant from most of us Ravenclaws last year. She was always studying, or in her room reading… and she constantly had this look of fright on her face. I think she had a bad case of paranoia. My daddy makes an excellent home remedy for calming ones nerves, using a bit of saliva from a Crumple Horned Snorkack, I offered her some, but she insisted that it wouldn’t help her. Strange.”

Harry didn’t bother replying to Luna’s story, as they had just entered the Ravenclaw common room. Harry gave Luna a weak farewell wave before sliding through the students over to where Anna stood, beside a life size statue of Rowena Ravenclaw.

“Told you I could sneak us in here,” Anna said with a triumphant smile.

“But boys can’t go up to the girls dormitories. How do you expect to get me up there?”

“That’s just a minor set back, I can handle it,” Anna said, with another triumphant smile.

Anna reached into the sleeve of her robe, pulled out her wand and patted Harry on the top of the head, smugly.

“Watch and learn Potter.”

Anna approached the spiral staircase that led to the girls’ dormitories, made sure no one was looking in her direction, and began to mutter an enchantment under her breath. After roughly a minute of chanting, Anna stowed her wand back inside her robes and walked back over to Harry.

“Problem solved, let’s go,” Anna said, beckoning for him to follow her up to the dormitory.

Harry sucked in a deep breath, and walked up the stairs to the girl’s dormitory. To Harry’s surprise, the dormitory was strikingly similar to the Gryffinor boy’s dormitory. The only major difference was that this dormitory was neater… much neater. Harry reached out to touch a strange silver orb contraption on one of the four poster beds, but Anna smacked his hand away.

“Don’t touch anything, we don’t want anyone to know you were here,” she scolded.

Anna approached the bed all the way at the end of the dormitory. A mountain of assorted sugary sweets, toys, photos, flowers and trinkets was piled up on the bed, Chloe’s bed.

“People have been leaving these here since the day she died, some kind of tribute. What do they expect her to do with these things, she’s dead.” Anna picked up a chocolate frog from the pile and crushed it in her hand, her knuckles turning a haunting chalk white.

With her free hand, Anna brushed a couple of stray tears from her eyes, and tossed the crushed frog back onto the pile. Harry remained silent as he watched Anna attempt to hide her tears of mourning. Harry was never good at comforting people; he had an emotional IQ of 0. Anna made a strange guttural noise before speaking again, her voice was shaking, her composure threatening to crack any second.

“Dumbeldore gave me the job of cleaning out Chloe’s things. Her parents want to bring her things back home with them.”

Harry nodded, feeling bad for Anna. No one should have to clean up after their dead best friend. Anna knelt down and pulled a large trunk from under the bed. She cleared the candies and flowers from the bed and threw the trunk in its place.

“She kept everything she loved in here. No one was ever allowed to look inside of it. Not even me.”

With that, Anna opened the trunk in the blink of an eye. Anna’s heart quickly melted at the sight of the trinkets in the trunk. Anna’s heart was hungry for any form of her best friend, anything that would fill the sickening voice Anna felt in her heart, mind and memories. The trunk fell open to reveal a neat and organized collection of photos, drawings and books. Harry’s stomach plummeted as he suddenly felt sick to his stomach, as if the stench of fresh death wafted into his nostrils. He felt like a traitor, a grave robber. Everything Chloe kept in this trunk was supposed to be private, never to be seen by unworthy eyes. How would she feel if someone she barely knew was looking at her most intimate, private possessions?

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Harry asked reluctantly, taking a hesitant step away from the trunk.

“She would’ve wanted this. She would’ve wanted for you to know her story,” Anna said, picking up a withered stack of parchment.

“She loved to draw, and she was a damn fine artist, I have to say,” she said passing one of the pieces of parchment over to Harry.

Harry took the frail parchment into his hands with the utmost care. The paper was so thin and worn; it threatened to crumple into a pile of dust, just like the now fading memory of Chloe Beaudelaire. The drawing was a rough sketch of the Forbidden Forrest.

“This is great. Did she ever take any drawing classes?”

“Not a single one. Her family was always traveling around the world; she loved drawing all the different exotic things she saw. Over time her drawings became better and better. Here’s one I think you’ll like.” Anna smiled as she allowed a tear to roll down her cheek. Harry glanced at the drawing Anna held out to him.

It was a charcoal drawing of Harry, standing atop a mountain of jagged rocks, holding the Triwizard cup high over his head. Harry couldn’t help but let out a light laugh as he smiled at the wonderful drawing. The drawing was a perfect likeness of Harry. Every single detail, from the layered, unruly tufts of his jet black hair, to his olive green eyes, was drawn to absolute perfection.

“This is brilliant! Why didn’t she ever show this to me?” Harry ran his thumb lightly over Chloe’s signature in the corner of the drawing.

“She barely knew you!”

“That doesn’t matter; I would’ve loved to see this.”

“You can’t blame her for not showing it you. Wouldn’t it seem a bit creepy if someone you barely knew came up to you and gave you drawing they did of you?”

Harry remained silent, he knew Anna was right. During the Triwizard Tournament two years ago, Harry had his fair share of admirer’s, along with an even greater amount of students that hated him. On a couple of rare occasions a nervous first year, or bold sixth year, would come up to Harry and give him a token of their admiration. Each gift would be tossed carelessly into Harry’s trunk, where it would lay forgotten until he came across it while unpacking when he returned to Number Four Privet Drive.

Harry’s brief reminiscing was interrupted by Anna finally releasing a loud sob. She held a picture in one hand, and covered her quivering mouth with the other hand. She sucked in a deep, mangled breath before the explaining the reason for her sudden overflow of emotion.

“We took this picture last year during the summer holiday. Her family took us down to their grandparent’s lake house for the weekend,” Anna said with a sniffle before handing the photo over to Harry.

Harry noticed that something was strange about the photo, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The photo was of a much younger looking Anna, Chloe and an unfamiliar brunette boy standing on the edge of a glistening lake, arm in arm and flashing radiant smiles for the camera. Finally, Harry realized what was so odd about the picture.

“The picture isn’t moving.”

“Yeah, Chloe’s parents are Muggles.”

“So, Chloe and her sisters are-.”

“Mudbloods? Yes, they are,” Anna said bitterly.

Harry nodded his head, glanced at the photo again and pointed at it in confusion.

“Who is this?” he asked, pointing to the brunette boy in the picture.

“That’s Cameron Johnston, we grew up with him. He and Chloe dated for a couple of months this summer, but broke up during the beginning of this term.”

“Why?”

“Eh, they were only meant to be friends, they never felt anything but a friendly love for each other.” Anna shrugged, removing her glasses and brushing a couple of straggling tears from the tips of her eyelashes. “If you want to know more about Chloe, I would recommend talking to Cameron, if anyone knew Chloe better then me, it was Cameron.”

“What house is he in?”

“Slytherin. We never really understood why he was sorted into Slytherin though; he’s such a nice guy. Anyway, the Slytherin common room is in the dungeons, you can probably find him wandering around down there.”

“I will,” Harry said, setting down the photo and walking over to the dormitory exit.

Before walking out of the dormitory, Harry turned back to Anna and smiled.

“Thank you for showing me all of this, Anna,” he thanked her.

Anna let out a laugh, combined with a sob and wiped her eyes again with the sleeve of her robes.

“It’s no problem. It’s strange, while I was talking to you… I felt… I felt as if Chloe was… Whispering in my ear or something, telling me what to say and what to do. She told me to trust you, that your intentions were pure,” Anna said, a smile playing at her lips.

“Really?” Harry had never heard of the dead being able to communicate with the living, even in the wizarding world.

“Yeah… huh. Now quit gawking and go find Cameron!” Anna said with a laugh.

Harry gave Anna a small parting smile before stepping out of the dormitory. Harry made sure to keep his head down as he descended the stairs to the Ravenclaw common room. He moved quickly as he darted in and out between large crowds of Ravenclaws until he finally reached the common room exit. To Harry’s great relief, he managed to escape from the Ravenclaw common room without attracting too many stares. A small clique of girls giggled as he walked past them, but that was all. Once he was free of the crowded common room, he began to sprint down to the dungeons, in hopes of catching Cameron before he went into the Slytherin common room. Harry pushed his way past a large group of chattering Hufflepuffs and a mischievous pair of first year Gryffindors, and finally arrived at the dungeons. The first person Harry spotted was Chloe’s older sister, Cara.

Cara had graduated from Hogwarts three years ago, and it was rumored that she was now studying to become an Auror. Cara had built up quite a reputation during her time at Hogwarts. Cara was a notoriously well known Slytherin, who spent most of her time either telling off a teacher, or serving a detention for telling off a teacher. Cara was also known for having her fair share of snogging sessions with various boys in some of the abandoned corridors of Hogwarts or in the crowded pubs in Hogsmeade.

Cara seemed to be having a conversation with someone further down the hall. Cara let out a raspy laugh, when another person appeared in the hallway, Cameron. Harry breathed a sigh of relief and began to approach Cara and Cameron. Harry hoped that maybe he could get a bit of information about Chloe from Cara too. Before Harry could confront them, Cara turned to face him and snorted.

“Well, if it isn’t the great Harry Potter,” she said with a smirk, taking a deep drag from the cigarette she held in between her fingers.

“Are you Cara Beaudelaire?” Harry asked nervously.

“Yes I am, and you’re the reason I’m here today.”

Harry looked taken aback by Cara’s statement. Cara merely blew a puff of smoke into the air and flicked a bit of ash to the dungeon floor.

“You’re the reason my sonuvabitch sister is dead. I wouldn’t be here if my mum hadn’t forced me to this funeral.”

Harry looked down at his shoes, a toxic mixture of anger and guilt began to build up inside of him. His fists clenched tightly and his teeth ground together.

“I’m not the reason she’s dead,” he murmured through gritted teeth.

Cara’s eyes narrowed into slits as she glared down Harry. She threw her cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the toe of her designer leather boot.

“Last I checked, Lord Voldemort wasn’t after my sister.”

With that she shoved Harry in the shoulder as she stormed out of the dungeons. Meanwhile, Cameron was blushing a deep shade of scarlet.

“Sorry about that, Cara is just really upset about Chloe’s death,” Cameron said sheepishly.

“She doesn’t seem to really care that Chloe is gone,” Harry replied bitterly.

“Well, yeah, she’s not. She’s more upset about the fact that her parents have been so busy with the funeral preparations that they didn’t congratulate her on passing the aptitude portion of her Auror training.”

Harry’s blood boiled in rage at Ramona’s statement. It seemed that those closest to Chloe were not mourning her death, but resenting the fact that she had died instead.

“It’s selfish of her, I know; but Cara and Chloe never had a very good relationship to begin with, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that Cara could care less about Chloe’s death. I’m Cameron by the way.”

“I’m Harry. You’re Chloe’s ex-boyfriend right?”

Cameron glanced down at his shoes, his blush growing three times darker. Cameron clenched his fists and bit down on his lip as he struggled to repress old haunting memories.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. Why do you ask?” Cameron said in no more then a whisper.

“I…I just want to know more about Chloe, so I can mourn her properly.”

Cameron gulped as he choked back a throat full of tears.

“Chloe was a beautiful person, inside and out. She loved all people, even… those who hurt her. She died at the hands of Lord Voldemort protecting you, protecting Hogwarts. She didn’t deserve to die. She was innocent, and I still can’t comprehend why she had to be taken from this world so soon. That’s all you need to know.” With that, Cameron turned on his heels and walked away from Harry, allowing the tears he’d struggled to contain to flow freely down his rosy cheeks.

Begrudgingly, Harry gave up on his search to learn more about Chloe and began to walk back to the Gryffindor common room. At the end of the day, Harry still knew little about Chloe, but he felt he could now mourn her properly, because she was no longer a stranger.

Harry knew that Chloe Beaudelaire loved to draw. Harry knew that Chloe Beaudelaire had two strange best friends, Anna McNulty and Cameron Johnston. Harry knew that Chloe Beaudelaire had an unhealthy relationship with her sister, Cara. Chloe Beaudelaire was innocent. And most importantly, Harry knew that Chloe Beaudelaire didn’t deserve to die.