Myrtle Warren

TW: Bullying

It's just something I discovered throughout the books and the movies. Bullying in Hogwarts was something that persisted through literally decades. And this is just so tragic. Hogwarts definitely needs a school counsellor.

Let us trace things to the earlier incidents...

[SPOILER ALERT!]

Leta Lestrange was bullied by several students in her school years due to gossip and the awareness of her half brother's death. She was an outcast, and she responded with a dark charm once. She became the one to blame because she lashed out to defend herself. Points were taken from her house. The students told on her. I know some of Leta's actions were selfish, but the tragedy she suffered from left quite a mark on her. She always felt like if her hands were unclean.

And does anyone remember Myrtle Elizabeth Warren? A.K.A Moaning Myrtle? In her student years, she was teased because of her glasses and acne, Olive Hornby is one of them. She is also the one to find Myrtle's body when Myrtle was crying in the bathroom due to her teasing. The even darker fact was that Myrtle remarked, "Nobody missed me even when I was alive. Took them hours and hours to find my body — I know, I was sitting there waiting for them." Decades after, she was only known as the ghost who haunts the girls bathroom on the 1st floor, and students still had the nerve to throw books at her for a game which she did not find funny.

In the Marauders Era, bullying occurred between the Marauders and Severus Snape. (Not to mention, Lupin was a bystander. He was still a kind person but he only shot a sympathetic gaze at the victim and did not take action.) When they were humiliating Snape in the chapter Snape's Worst Memory, the students around them simply watched, some even cheering them on. I don't know if the professors did anything back then, but if they were bullying someone for 5 years (or more), the rules are just not effective enough.

James Potter matured and changed his ways of course, which was a good thing, but the damage is done. Whatever great deed he does, it does not excuse him from being a bully. As for Severus Snape, of course it is painful to see the person you love, fall in love with the one who bullied you throughout your school years. It's hard to say, but sometimes, what happened in the past just won't affect the bullies because their mindset is just like that, and they can continue their normal lives, even becoming successful...While those who were bullied were left with scars. However, it also does not excuse Professor Snape from bullying Neville Longbottom. See? The cycle repeats itself.

In the series, it's mostly the Golden Trio vs Draco Malfoy. And about Draco Malfoy, well...He also reformed in the end, and he's also a deep character like all the HP characters, but it does not excuse him from all the bullying he did for 6 years of his school life. Insulting muggleborn wizards? That's basically being racist in the wizarding world. I know he became a troubled individual in the 6th book, even Harry noticed that he doesn't even abuse his prefect powers anymore, but again, his actions are not justified. He is very much a coward, afraid to kill Dumbledore but also wants to kill him because it's Voldemort's orders, and even refusing Professor Snape's assistance.

And here's something I might also post separately:

Luna Lovegood was also bullied in the books, but this aspect was slightly neglected in the movies. Her housemates stole her possessions, she was judged just because of her quirks and beliefs. Before meeting the Golden Trio, Ginny Weasley was probably the only friend she had. But even Ginny calls her "Loony Lovegood" as a joke sometimes (Maybe Luna is okay with Ginny calling her that? In the movies, she seemed unaffected by how the other students perceive her, but in the books, she got annoyed when Hermione kept disregarding her beliefs, and won't let anyone insult her father's work. Despite being quite extraordinary, she is still very much a person with feelings, who can be lonely at times, and desires friendship.

To conclude (not meaning for this to sound like an essay, but...) Bullying in Hogwarts had been occurring for decades, yet most clashes were resolved hastily by professors, and there were many bystanders. Hogwarts should really hire a school counsellor, since not much bullying was actually dealt with and solved from the roots of the problem. Action was taken, but it was not enough. Doing a bit of calculation, then you can see that it's been almost a century. Almost a century of bullying. Bullying is mostly encouraged when no one reports, and there were many bystanders who just marvel at the show. Then they clap.

Title^ It would be about when she died in the bathrooms and then skip a chunk of time and talk about when she meets Harry and the others. Lmk if you want pings for this if I do it

NO OFFENSE INTENDED. SORRY IF ANYONE IS OFFENDED BY THIS.

You are free to disagree but I feel free to argue. Also, I know it isn't fair to put people into boxes but I was interested in doing it.

Hermione Granger - Tomboy

This was actually quite easy. While Hermione wasn't afraid of showing her feminine side, she was actually a big tomboy. The fact that if she wasn't with Harry and Ron she was completely alone, that she always stood with Neville, that she was willing to stand Seamus and Dean on multiple occasions, although as far as I know they weren't friends, the way she would try to understand something about Quidditch because of her friends even though she never cared for it, the rude way she treated Lavender through the years because of girly things - those are only some of the examples of Hermione's tomboyness. Of course, she cared about perfumes, looks and hairstyles but those were barely shown and as she said she wouldn't bother doing such things every day.

Ginny Weasley - More of a tomboy

We don't know that much of Ginny to be sure on this rating. We do know she was popular (suitable of both tomboy and girly girls), good at Quidditch (suitable of both tomboy and girly girls) and that she had a lot of friends, which actually never made an appearance but were just mentioned. However, the way she acted doesn't seem like the way a girly girl would act so I put her a tomboy.

Luna Lovegood - More of a girly girl

Sorry if I offended any nerds or tomboy Luna fans (such as myself) but we have more proof of girly Luna than ot tomboy Luna. Luna would spend lots of time on fashion and looks, enjoys spending time with girls both her age and older (Padma and Ginny as examples), even if they didn't always like her. She has a love of art and drawing, as well as of animals. Also the way she acts isn't best suited to a tomboy girl (although tomboy girls acting this way exist).

Parvati and Lavender - Girly girls

I don't think anyone doubts it. Parvati and Lavender are the stereotypical girly giggly gossiping girls. They barely ever showed anything tomboyish in them, esspecially Lavender. Would be interested in someone's arguments if they disagree though.

Moaning Myrtle - Girly girl

Myrtle likes giggling. Myrtle likes gossiping. Myrtle is very emotional. And Myrtle cares about looks (even if they aren't her own). She does seem like a girly girl and has a very strong feminine and kind side, shown in her relationships with Harry and Draco. She wasn't popular but you don't have to be popular to be girly or tomboy to be smart. Myrtle's character is that good because of these stereotypes it breaks. And the way she acts isn't very tomboyish.

Lily Evans - More of a girly girl

I am standing on the books right now. I know some fanfics show Lily as very tomboyish and others make her very girly. And yes, we don't know a lot of Maradeurs era. But Lily is shown to often spend time with the other girls, she seems to trust them enough so that they know about her relationship with Snape and he is the only boy, which Lily has a friendly relationship with. She managed improving her relationship with the others after dating James (which by the way is a bit of a stereotypical couple). But Lily shows that you can be girly and stand for your opinions, that you can be girly and smart.

Pansy Parkinson - Huge tie. Bit more of a girly girl though.

In some cases, people will say that if Hermione is tomboy, then Pansy is girly. Pansy likes gossiping, giggling, making fun of people. Also, she's very VERY determined to get with her crush, even getting in his friend group and getting some of his friends (like Blaise) trust her with secrets. She also had her own group of girls which she seemed to like being with. But Pansy wouldn't survive the way she did with so many boys if she was that girly. Her group of girls never got personality or that much appearance - they are even forgotten in fanfics, fanart and so on. She also sometimes acted very tomboyish. So yes, it is quite close but I think that the girly slightly overweights the tomboy here.

Anyway, what do you all think?

''IF YoU dIE doWn THeRe, YOu'rE WElcOmE tO sHaRe My ToİLeT <3''

Meanwhile Ron: 👁👄👁

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585181

Chapter 2: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585386

Chapter 3: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589099

Chapter 4: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589999

Chapter 5: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003590737

Chapter 6: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003592048

Chapter 7: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003593450

Chapter 8: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003594715

Chapter 9: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003595876

Chapter 10: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003596713

Chapter 11: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003597502

Chapter 12: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003598647

Chapter 13: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003600597

Chapter 14: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003602821

Chapter 15: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003605031

Chapter 16: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003605690

Chapter 17: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003607525

Chapter 18: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003607955

Chapter 19: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003608845

Chapter 20: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003609937

Chapter 21: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003612000

Tags: @MeowTasticCat @Bellatrisblack @Diantha Angelina Black @CatsAndRoblox @Kakaonut @Potatopanda2121

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Egg and The Eye

(Before I begin I just have to say that because in canon this character has very little Harry Potter interacting with people there isn't much I could change, so if you want to skip directly to the bottom where Harry is talking to "Moody" that is fine, although there is a couple changes before hand.)

As Harry had no idea how long a bath he would need to work out the secret of the golden egg, he decided to do it at night, when he would be able to take as much time as he wanted. Reluctant though he was to accept more favors from Cedric, he also decided to use the prefects’ bathroom; less than twenty students were allowed in there, so it was much less likely that he would be disturbed.

Harry planned his excursion carefully, because he had been caught out of bed and out-of-bounds by Filch the caretaker in the middle of the night once before, and had no desire to repeat the experience. The Invisibility Cloak would, of course, be essential, and as an added precaution, Harry thought he would take the Marauder’s Map, which, next to the cloak, was the most useful aid to rule-breaking Harry owned, an invention from his three fathers school days. The map showed the whole of Hogwarts, including its many shortcuts and secret passageways and, most important of all, it revealed the people inside the castle as minuscule, labeled dots, moving around the corridors, so that Harry would be forewarned if somebody was approaching the bathroom. On Thursday night, Harry sneaked up to bed, put on the cloak, crept back downstairs, and, just as he had done on the night when Hagrid had shown him the dragons, waited for no one to be looking at the enchanted wall before slipping through.

It was awkward moving under the cloak tonight, because Harry had the heavy egg under one arm and the map held in front of his nose with the other. However, the moonlit corridors were empty and silent, and by checking the map at strategic intervals, Harry was able to ensure that he wouldn’t run into anyone he wanted to avoid. When he reached the statue of Boris the Bewildered, a lost-looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands, he located the right door, leaned close to it, and muttered the password, ‘Pine fresh,’ just as Cedric had told him, and hoped that he hadn’t been pranked.

The door creaked open to Harry’s relief. Harry slipped inside, bolted the door behind him, and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, looking around. His immediate reaction was that it would be worth becoming a prefect just to be able to use this bathroom. It was softly lit by a splendid candle-filled chandelier, and everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor. About a hundred golden taps stood all around the pool’s edges, each with a differently colored jewel set into its handle. There was also a diving board. Long white linen curtains hung at the windows; a large pile of fluffy white towels sat in a corner, and there was a single golden-framed painting on the wall. It featured a blonde mermaid who was fast asleep on a rock, her long hair over her face. It fluttered every time she snored.

Harry moved forward, looking around, his footsteps echoing off the walls. Magnificent though the bathroom was—and quite keen though he was to try out a few of those taps—now he was here he couldn’t quite suppress the feeling that Cedric might have been having him on. How on earth was this supposed to help solve the mystery of the egg? Nevertheless, he put one of the fluffy towels, the cloak, the map, and the egg at the side of the swimming-pool-sized bath, then knelt down and turned on a few of the taps.

He could tell at once that they carried different sorts of bubble bath mixed with the water, though it wasn’t bubble bath as Harry had ever experienced it. One tap gushed pink and blue bubbles the size of footballs; another poured ice-white foam so thick that Harry thought it would have supported his weight if he’d cared to test it; a third sent heavily perfumed purple clouds hovering over the surface of the water. Harry amused himself for a while turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs. Then, when the deep pool was full of hot water, foam, and bubbles, which took a very short time considering its size, Harry turned off all the taps, pulled off his pajamas, slippers, and dressing gown, and slid into the water.

It was so deep that his feet barely touched the bottom, and he actually did a couple of lengths before swimming back to the side and treading water, staring at the egg. Highly enjoyable though it was to swim in hot and foamy water with clouds of different-colored steam wafting all around him, no stroke of brilliance came to him, no sudden burst of understanding.

Harry stretched out his arms, lifted the egg in his wet hands, and opened it. The wailing, screeching sound filled the bathroom, echoing and reverberating off the marble walls, but it sounded just as incomprehensible as ever, if not more so with all the echoes. He snapped it shut again, worried that the sound would attract Filch, wondering whether that hadn’t been Cedric’s plan—and then, making him jump so badly that he dropped the egg, which clattered away across the bathroom floor, someone spoke.

‘I’d try putting it in the water, if I were you.’

Harry had swallowed a considerable amount of bubbles in shock. He stood up, sputtering, and saw the ghost of a very glum looking girl sitting cross-legged on top of one of the taps. It was Moaning Myrtle, who was usually to be heard sobbing in the S-bend of a toilet on the second floor.

‘Myrtle!’ Harry said in outrage, ‘I’m—I’m not wearing anything!’

The foam was so dense that this hardly mattered, but he had a nasty feeling that Myrtle had been spying on him from out of one of the taps ever since he had arrived.

‘I closed my eyes when you got in,’ she said, blinking at him through her thick spectacles. ‘You haven’t been to see me for ages.’

‘Yeah...well...’ said Harry, bending his knees slightly, just to make absolutely sure Myrtle couldn’t see anything but his head, ‘I’m not supposed to come into your bathroom, am I? It’s a girls’ one.’

‘You didn’t used to care,’ said Myrtle miserably. ‘You used to be

in there all the time.’

This was true, though only because Harry, Theodore, Allison, and Tracey had found Myrtle’s out-of-order toilets a convenient place to brew Polyjuice Potion in secret—a forbidden potion that had turned him, Allison, and Theodore into living replicas of Crabbe, Pansy, and Goyle for an hour, so that they could interrogate Malfoy about the Chamber of Secrets.

‘It became to risky, and I had gotten caught,’ said Harry, which was somewhat true; Percy Weasley had once caught Allison and Tracey leaving Myrtle’s bathroom and just barely missed Harry and Theodore. ‘I didn’t want to risk expulsion so I didn’t come back, sorry about that.’

‘Oh...I see...’ said Myrtle, picking at a spot on her chin in a morose sort of way. ‘Well...anyway...I’d try the egg in the water. That’s what Cedric Diggory did.’

‘Have you been spying on him too?’ said Harry indignantly. ‘What d’you do, float up here in the evenings to watch the prefects take baths?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Myrtle, rather slyly, ‘but I’ve never come out to speak to anyone before.’

'I’m honored,’ said Harry darkly to the peeping tom ghost. ‘You keep your eyes shut!’

He made sure Myrtle had her glasses well covered before hoisting himself out of the bath, wrapping the towel firmly around his waist, and going to retrieve the egg. Once he was back in the water, Myrtle peered through her fingers and said, ‘Go on, then...open it under the water!’

Harry lowered the egg beneath the foamy surface and opened it...and this time, it did not wail. A gurgling song was coming out of it, a song whose words he couldn’t distinguish through the water.

‘You need to put your head under too,’ said Myrtle, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying bossing him around. ‘Go on!’

Harry took a great breath and slid under the surface—and now, sitting on the marble bottom of the bubble-filled bath, he heard a chorus of eerie voices singing to him from the open egg in his hands:

‘Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you’re searching ponder this:

We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,

An hour long you’ll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour—the prospect’s black,

Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.’

Harry let himself float back upward and broke the bubbly surface, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

‘Hear it?’ said Myrtle.

‘Yeah...‘Come seek us where our voices sound...’ and if I need persuading...hang on, I need to listen again...’

He sank back beneath the water. It took three more underwater renditions of the egg’s song before Harry had it memorized; then he trod water for a while, thinking hard, while Myrtle sat and watched him.

‘I’ve got to go and look for people who can’t use their voices above the ground...’ he said slowly. ‘Some kind of ground dwelling creatures...?’

‘Slow, aren’t you?’

He had never seen Moaning Myrtle so cheerful, apart from the day when a dose of Polyjuice Potion had given Tracey a furry face and tail of a cat. Harry stared around the bathroom, thinking...if the voices could only be heard underwater, then it made sense for them to belong to underwater creatures. He ran this theory past Myrtle, who smirked at him.

‘Well, that’s what Diggory thought,’ she said. ‘He lay there talking to himself for ages about it. Ages and ages...nearly all the bubbles had gone...’

‘Underwater...’ Harry said slowly. ‘Myrtle...what lives in the lake, apart from the giant squid?’

‘Oh all sorts of creatures,’ she said. ‘I sometimes go down there...sometimes don’t have any choice, if someone flushes my toilet when I’m not expecting it...’

Trying not to think about Moaning Myrtle zooming down a pipe to the lake with the contents of a toilet, Harry said, ‘Well, does anything in there have a humanoid voice? Hang on—‘

Harry’s eyes had fallen on the picture of the snoozing mermaid on the wall. We had only thought the lived in the ocean, he never considered freshwater merpeople existed.

‘Myrtle, there aren’t merpeople in there, are there?’

‘Oooh, very good,’ she said, her thick glasses twinkling, ‘it took Diggory much longer than that! And that was with her awake too’—Myrtle jerked her head toward the mermaid with an expression of great dislike on her glum face—‘giggling and showing off and flashing her fins...’

‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ said Harry excitedly. ‘The second task’s to go and find the merpeople in the lake and...and...’

But he suddenly realized what he was saying, and he felt the excitement drain out of him as though someone had just pulled a plug in his stomach. He wasn’t a very good swimmer; he’d never had much practice. There wasn’t a lake near Mould-on-the-Wold Cottage, nor had the Dursley’s given him lessons during his summers there. A couple of lengths of this bath were all very well, but that lake was very large, and very deep...and merpeople would surely live right at the bottom...

‘Myrtle,’ Harry said slowly, ‘how am I supposed to breathe?’

At this, Myrtle’s eyes filled with sudden tears again.

‘Tactless!’ she muttered, groping in her robes for a handkerchief.

‘What’s tactless?’ said Harry, bewildered.

‘Talking about breathing in front of me!’ she said shrilly, and her voice echoed loudly around the bathroom. ‘When I can’t...when I haven’t...not for over fifty years...’

She buried her face in her handkerchief and sniffed loudly. Harry remembered how touchy Myrtle had always been about being dead, but none of the other ghosts he knew made such a fuss about it.

‘Sorry,’ he said impatiently. ‘I didn’t mean—I just forgot...’

‘Oh yes, very easy to forget Myrtle’s dead,’ said Myrtle, gulping, looking at him out of swollen eyes. ‘Nobody missed me even when I was alive. Took them hours and hours to find my body—I know, I was sitting there waiting for them. Olive Hornby came into the bathroom—‘Are you in here again, sulking, Myrtle?’ she said, ‘because Professor Dippet asked me to look for you—’ And then she saw my body...ooooh, she didn’t forget it until her dying day, I made sure of that...followed her around and reminded her, I did. I remember at her brother’s wedding—‘

But Harry wasn’t listening; he was thinking about the merpeople’s song again. ‘We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss.’ That sounded as though they were going to steal something of his, something he had to get back. What were they going to take?

‘—and then, of course, she went to the Ministry of Magic to stop me stalking her, so I had to come back here and live in my toilet.’

‘Good,’ said Harry vaguely. ‘Well, I’m a lot further on than I was...Shut your noisy eyes again, will you? I’m getting out.’

He retrieved the egg from the bottom of the bath, climbed out, dried himself, and pulled on his pajamas and dressing gown again.

‘Will you come and visit me in my bathroom again sometime?’ Moaning Myrtle asked mournfully as Harry picked up the Invisibility Cloak.

‘Er...I’ll try,’ Harry said, though privately thinking the only

way he’d be visiting Myrtle’s bathroom again was if every other toilet in the castle got blocked. ‘See you, Myrtle...thanks for your help.’

‘’Bye, ’bye,” she said gloomily, and as Harry put on the Invisibility Cloak he saw her zoom back up the tap.

Out in the dark corridor, Harry examined the Marauder’s Map to check that the coast was still clear. Yes, the dots belonging to Filch and his cat, Mrs. Norris, were safely in their office...nothing else seemed to be moving apart from Peeves, though he was bouncing around the trophy room on the floor above...Harry had taken his first step back toward Slytherin Dungeon when something else on the map caught his eye...something distinctly odd.

Peeves was not the only thing that was moving. A single dot was flitting around a room in the bottom left-hand corner—Snape’s office. But the dot wasn’t labeled “Severus Snape”...it was Bartemius Crouch.

Harry stared at the dot. Mr Crouch was supposed to be too ill to go to work or to come to the Yule Ball—so what was he doing, sneaking into Hogwarts at one o’clock in the morning? Harry watched closely as the dot moved around and around the room, pausing here and there...

Harry hesitated, thinking...and then his curiosity got the better of him. As he approached the staircase to the Dungeons he decided to find out what Crouch was up to instead of going straight to bed.

Harry walked down the stairs as quietly as possible, though the faces in some of the portraits still turned curiously at the squeak of a floorboard, the rustle of his pajamas. He crept along the corridor below, pushed aside a tapestry about halfway along, and proceeded down a narrower staircase, a shortcut that would take him down two floors. He kept glancing down at the map, wondering...It just didn’t seem in character, somehow, for correct, law-abiding Mr Crouch to be sneaking around somebody else’s office this late at night...

And then, halfway down the staircase, not thinking about what he was doing, not concentrating on anything but the peculiar behaviour of Mr Crouch, Harry’s leg suddenly sank right through the trick step even second years knew to avoid. He gave an ungainly wobble, and the golden egg, still damp from the bath, slipped from under his arm. He lurched forward to try and catch it, but too late; the egg fell down the long staircase with a bang as loud as a bass drum on every step—the Invisibility Cloak slipped—Harry snatched at it, and the Marauder’s Map fluttered out of his hand and slid down six stairs, where, sunk in the step to above his knee, he couldn’t reach it.

The golden egg fell through the tapestry at the bottom of the staircase, burst open, and began wailing loudly in the corridor below. Harry pulled out his wand and struggled to touch the Marauder’s Map, to wipe it blank, but it was too far away to reach—

Pulling the cloak back over himself Harry straightened up, listening hard with his eyes screwed up with fear...and, almost immediately—

‘PEEVES!’

It was the unmistakable hunting cry of Filch the caretaker. Harry could hear his rapid, shuffling footsteps coming nearer and nearer, his wheezy voice raised in fury.

‘What’s this racket? Wake up the whole castle, will you? I’ll have you, Peeves, I’ll have you, you’ll...and what is this?’

Filch’s footsteps halted; there was a clink of metal on metal and the wailing stopped—Filch had picked up the egg and closed it. Harry stood very still, one leg still jammed tightly in the magical step, listening. Any moment now, Filch was going to pull aside the tapestry, expecting to see Peeves...and there would be no Peeves...but if he came up the stairs, he would spot the Marauder’s Map...and Invisibility Cloak or not, the map would show “Harry Potter” standing exactly where he was.

‘Egg?’ Filch said quietly at the foot of the stairs. ‘My sweet!’— Mrs Norris was obviously with him—‘This is a Triwizard clue! This belongs to a school champion!’

Harry felt sick; his heart was hammering very fast—‘PEEVES!’ Filch roared gleefully. ‘You’ve been stealing!’

He ripped back the tapestry below, and Harry saw his horrible, pouchy face and bulging, pale eyes staring up the dark and (to Filch) deserted staircase.

‘Hiding, are you?’ he said softly. ‘I’m coming to get you, Peeves...You’ve gone and stolen a Triwizard clue, Peeves...Dumbledore’ll have you out of here for this, you filthy, pilfering poltergeist...’

Filch started to climb the stairs, his scrawny, dust-colored cat at his heels. Mrs Norris’s lamp-like eyes, so very like her master’s, were fixed directly upon Harry. He had had occasion before now to wonder whether the Invisibility Cloak worked fully on cats...Sick with apprehension, he watched Filch drawing nearer and nearer in his old flannel dressing gown—he tried desperately to pull his trapped leg free, but it merely sank a few more inches—any second now, Filch was going to spot the map or walk right into him—

‘Filch? What’s going on?’

Filch stopped a few steps below Harry and turned. At the foot of the stairs stood the only person who could make Harry’s situation worse: Snape. He was wearing a long gray nightshirt and he looked livid.

‘It’s Peeves, Professor,’ Filch whispered malevolently. ‘He threw this egg down the stairs.’

Snape climbed up the stairs quickly and stopped beside Filch. Harry gritted his teeth, convinced his loudly thumping heart would give him away at any second...

‘Peeves?’ said Snape softly, staring at the egg in Filch’s hands. ‘But Peeves couldn’t get into my office...’

‘This egg was in your office, Professor?’

‘Of course not,’ Snape snapped. ‘I heard banging and wailing—‘

‘Yes, Professor, that was the egg—‘

‘—I was coming to investigate—‘

‘—Peeves threw it, Professor—‘

‘—and when I passed my office, I saw that the torches were lit

and a cupboard door was ajar! Somebody has been searching it!’

‘But Peeves couldn’t—‘

‘I know he couldn’t, Filch!’ Snape snapped again. ‘I now seal my office with a spell none but a wizard could break!’ Snape looked up the stairs, straight through Harry, and then down into the corridor below. ‘I want you to come and help me search for the intruder, Filch.’

‘I—yes, Professor—but—‘

Filch looked yearningly up the stairs, right through Harry, who could see that he was very reluctant to forgo the chance of cornering Peeves. Go, Harry pleaded with him silently, go with Snape...go...Mrs Norris was peering around Filch’s legs...Harry had the distinct impression that she could smell or hear him....Why had he filled that bath with so much perfumed foam? Why did his heart beat so loud?

‘The thing is, Professor,’ said Filch plaintively, ‘the headmaster will have to listen to me this time. Peeves has been stealing from a student, it might be my chance to get him thrown out of the castle once and for all—‘

‘Filch, I don’t give a damn about that wretched poltergeist; it’s my office that’s—‘

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

Snape stopped talking very abruptly. He and Filch both looked down at the foot of the stairs. Harry saw Mad-Eye Moody limp into sight through the narrow gap between their heads. Moody was wearing his old traveling cloak over his nightshirt and leaning on his staff as usual.

‘Pajama party, is it?’ he growled up the stairs.

‘Professor Snape and I heard noises, Professor,’ said Filch at once. ‘Peeves the Poltergeist, throwing things around as usual—and then Professor Snape discovered that someone had broken into his off—‘

‘Shut up!’ Snape hissed to Filch.

Moody took a step closer to the foot of the stairs. Harry saw Moody’s magical eye travel over Snape, and then, unmistakably, onto himself.

Harry’s heart gave a horrible jolt. Moody could see through Invisibility Cloaks...he alone could see the full strangeness of the scene: Snape in his nightshirt, Filch clutching the egg, and he, Harry, trapped in the stairs behind them. Moody’s lopsided gash of a mouth opened in surprise. For a few seconds, he and Harry stared straight into each other’s eyes. Then Moody closed his mouth and turned his blue eye upon Snape again.

‘Did I hear that correctly, Snape?’ he asked slowly. ‘Someone broke into your office?’

‘It is unimportant,’ said Snape coldly.

‘On the contrary,’ growled Moody, ‘it is very important. Who’d want to break into your office?’

‘A student, I daresay,’ said Snape. Harry could see a vein flickering horribly on Snape’s greasy temple. ‘It has happened before. Potion ingredients have gone missing from my private store cupboard...students attempting illicit mixtures, no doubt...’

‘Reckon they were after potion ingredients, eh?’ said Moody. ‘Not hiding anything else in your office, are you?’

Harry saw the edge of Snape’s sallow face turn a nasty brick color, the vein in his temple pulsing more rapidly.

‘You know I’m hiding nothing, Moody,’ he said in a soft and dangerous voice, ‘as you’ve searched my office pretty thoroughly yourself.’

Moody’s face twisted into a smile. ‘Auror’s privilege, Snape. Dumbledore told me to keep an eye—‘

‘Dumbledore happens to trust me,’ said Snape through clenched teeth. ‘I refuse to believe that he gave you orders to search my office!’

‘’Course Dumbledore trusts you,’ growled Moody. ‘He’s a trusting man, isn’t he? Believes in second chances. But me—I say there are spots that don’t come off, Snape. Spots that never come off, d’you know what I mean?’

Snape suddenly did something very strange. He seized his left forearm convulsively with his right hand, as though something on it had hurt him.

Moody laughed. ‘Get back to bed, Snape.’

‘You don’t have the authority to send me anywhere!’ Snape hissed, letting go of his arm as though angry with himself. ‘I have as much right to prowl this school after dark as you do!’

‘Prowl away,’ said Moody, but his voice was full of menace. ‘I look forward to meeting you in a dark corridor some time...You’ve dropped something, by the way...’

With a stab of horror, Harry saw Moody point at the Marauder’s Map, still lying on the staircase six steps below him. As Snape and Filch both turned to look at it, Harry threw caution to the winds; he raised his arms under the cloak and waved furiously at Moody to attract his attention, mouthing ‘It’s mine! Mine!’

Snape had reached out for it, a horrible expression of dawning comprehension on his face—

‘Accio Parchment!’

The map flew up into the air, slipped through Snape’s outstretched fingers, and soared down the stairs into Moody’s hand.

‘My mistake,’ Moody said calmly. ‘It’s mine—must’ve dropped it earlier—‘

But Snape’s black eyes were darting from the egg in Filch’s arms to the map in Moody’s hand, and Harry could tell he was putting two and two together, as only Snape could...

‘Potter,’ he said quietly.

‘What’s that?’ said Moody calmly, folding up the map and pocketing it.

‘Potter!’ Snape snarled, and he actually turned his head and stared right at the place where Harry was, as though he could suddenly see him. ‘That egg is Potter’s egg. That piece of parchment belongs to Potter. I have seen it before, I recognize it! Potter is here! Potter, in his Invisibility Cloak!’

Snape stretched out his hands like a blind man and began to move up the stairs; Harry could have sworn his over-large nostrils were dilating, trying to sniff Harry out—trapped, Harry leaned backward, trying to avoid Snape’s fingertips, but any moment now—

‘There’s nothing there, Snape!’ barked Moody, ‘but I’ll be happy to tell the headmaster how quickly your mind jumped to Harry Potter! One of your own!’

‘Meaning what?’ Snape turned again to look at Moody, his hands still outstretched, inches from Harry’s chest.

‘Meaning that Dumbledore’s very interested to know who’s got it in for that boy!’ said Moody, limping nearer still to the foot of the stairs.

‘And so am I, Snape...very interested...’

The torch-light flickered across his mangled face, so that the scars, and the chunk missing from his nose, looked deeper and darker than ever.

Snape was looking down at Moody, and Harry couldn’t see the expression on his face. For a moment, nobody moved or said anything. Then Snape slowly lowered his hands.

‘I merely thought,’ said Snape, in a voice of forced calm, ‘that if Potter was wandering around after hours again...it’s an unfortunate habit of his...he should be stopped. For—for his own safety.’

‘Ah, I see,’ said Moody softly. ‘Got Potter’s best interests at heart, have you? Looking out for a fellow Slytherin?’

There was a pause. Snape and Moody were still staring at each other. Mrs Norris gave a loud meow, still peering around Filch’s legs, looking for the source of Harry’s bubble-bath smell.

‘I think I will go back to bed,’ Snape said curtly.

‘Best idea you’ve had all night,’ said Moody. ‘Now, Filch, if you’ll just give me that egg—‘

‘No!’ said Filch, clutching the egg as though it were his first-born son. ‘Professor Moody, this is evidence of Peeves’ treachery!’

‘It’s the property of the champion he stole it from,’ said Moody. ‘Hand it over, now.’

Snape swept downstairs and passed Moody without another

word. Filch made a chirruping noise to Mrs Norris, who stared blankly at Harry for a few more seconds before turning and following her master. Still breathing very fast, Harry heard Snape walking away down the corridor; Filch handed Moody the egg and disappeared from view too, muttering to Mrs Norris. ‘Never mind, my sweet...we’ll see Dumbledore in the morning...tell him what Peeves was up to...’

A door slammed. Harry was left staring down at Moody, who placed his staff on the bottommost stair and started to climb laboriously toward him, a dull clunk on every other step.

‘Close shave, Potter,’ he muttered.

‘Yeah...I—er...thanks Professor,’ said Harry weakly.

‘What is this thing?’ said Moody, drawing the Marauders Map out of his pocket and unfolding it.

‘Map of Hogwarts,’ said Harry, hoping Moody was going to pull him out of the staircase soon; his leg was really hurting him. ‘Made by my father and my two adoptive fathers.’

‘Merlin’s beard,’ Moody whispered, staring at the map, his magical eye going haywire. ‘This...this is some map, Potter!’

‘Yeah, it’s...quite useful,’ Harry said. His eyes were starting to water from the pain. ‘Er—Professor Moody, d’you think you could help me—?’

‘What? Oh! Yes...yes, of course...’

Moody took hold of Harry’s arms and pulled; Harry’s leg came free of the trick step, and he climbed onto the one above it. Moody was still gazing at the map.

‘Potter...’ he said slowly, ‘you didn’t happen, by any chance, to see who broke into Snape’s office, did you? On this map, I mean?’

‘Er...yeah, I did...' Harry admitted. 'I don't know how, but it was Mr Crouch.'

Moody’s magical eye whizzed over the entire surface of the map. He looked suddenly alarmed.

'Crouch?' he said. 'You’re—you’re sure, Potter?'

'Positive,' said Harry.

'Well, he’s not here anymore,' said Moody, his eye still whizzing over the map. 'Crouch...that’s very—very interesting...'

He said nothing for almost a minute, still staring at the map. Harry could tell that this news meant something to Moody and very much wanted to know what it was. He wondered whether he dared ask. Even though Moody knew Remus, Harry was still scared him slightly...yet Moody had just helped him avoid an awful lot of trouble...

'Er...Professor Moody...why d’you reckon Mr Crouch wanted to look around Snape’s office?'

Moody’s magical eye left the map and fixed, quivering, upon Harry. It was a penetrating glare, and Harry had the impression that Moody was sizing him up, wondering whether to answer or not, or how much to tell him.

'Put it this way, Potter,' Moody muttered finally, 'they say old Mad-Eye’s obsessed with catching Dark wizards...but I’m nothing—nothing—compared to Barty Crouch.'

He continued to stare at the map. Harry was burning to know more.

'Professor Moody?' he said again. 'D’you think...could this have anything to do with...maybe Mr Crouch thinks there’s something going on...like with the tournament...'

'Like what?' said Moody sharply.

Harry wondered how much he dare say. He didn’t want Moody to guess that his parents were telling him things he probably shouldn't know.

'I don’t know,' Harry muttered, 'odd stuff’s been happening lately, hasn’t it? It’s been in the Daily Prophet...the Dark Mark at the World Cup, and the Death Eaters returning, and my name being entered...'

Both of Moody’s mismatched eyes widened.

'You’re a sharp boy, Potter,' he said. His magical eye roved back to the Marauder’s Map. 'Crouch could be thinking along those lines,' he said slowly. 'Very possible...there have been some funny rumors flying around lately—helped along by Rita Skeeter, of course. It’s making a lot of people nervous, I reckon.' A grim smile twisted his lopsided mouth.

'Oh if there’s one thing I hate,” he muttered, more to himself than to Harry, and his magical eye was fixed on the left-hand corner of the map, 'it’s a Death Eater who walked free...'

Harry stared at him. Could Moody possibly mean what Harry thought he meant?

'And now I want to ask you a question, Potter,' said Moody in a more businesslike tone.

Harry’s heart sank; he had thought this was coming. Moody was going to ask what he was doing up so late, or why he was in possession of the likely illegal Marauder's Map. Moody might have saved him from expulsion by Snape and Filch, but Harry knew he wasn't getting away without some punishment—

'Can I borrow this?'

'Oh!' said Harry, very surprised.

He was very fond of his map, but on the other hand, he was extremely relieved that Moody wasn’t giving him detention, and there was no doubt that he owed Moody a favor.

'Yeah, okay.'

'Good boy,' growled Moody. 'I can make good use of this...this might be exactly what I’ve been looking for...Right, bed, Potter, come on, now...'

Moody escorted him to the bottom of the stairs, he was still examining the map as though it was a treasure the like of which he had never seen before. They walked in silence to the enchanted wall, where he stopped and looked up at Harry.

'You ever thought of a career as an Auror, Potter?'

'No,' said Harry, taken aback. But after a moment it didn't feel like such a shock, Remus had been an amazing auror before he was found out, and his cousin Nymphadora was one as well, heroic auror's were part of his family and it might be nice to be one too.

'You want to consider it,' said Moody, nodding and looking at Harry thoughtfully. 'Yes, indeed...and incidentally...I’m guessing you weren’t just taking that egg for a walk tonight?'

'Er—no,' said Harry, grinning. 'I’ve been working out the clue.'

Moody winked at him, his magical eye going haywire again. 'Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas, Potter...See you in the morning...'

He turned around and headed back towards the stairs while staring down at the Marauder’s Map again.

Harry entered the common room than sat down in one of the stone chairs, lost in thought about Snape, and Crouch, and what it all meant...Why was Crouch pretending to be ill, if he could manage to get to Hogwarts when he wanted to? What did he think Snape was concealing in his office?

And Moody thought he, Harry, ought to be an Auror! An interesting idea he'd have to think about...but for now Harry's mind was stuck on the clue from the egg, how could he find the merpeople if he couldn't even hold his breath for a minute.

Blood trickled into the green-and-silver blanket as Draco tried to fall asleep, tears trickling out of the corners of his tightly shut eyes. His arm was red and scratched, bleeding into the blanket. He could still see the dark, writhing skull and snake etched onto his arm. I’ve failed. Dumbledore’s going to find out--and kill me--or Father--or him-- He sat up, looking around at the shadowed dormitory. The room was filled with people, not one bed empty, but he still felt all alone.

He slid out of bed, brushing the tears from his face with the back of his hand, and snuck out of the Slytherin common room, walking quickly through the moonlit hallways. He opened the door of the second-floor girls’ bathroom, crumpling against the sinks. “Myrtle,” he said quietly, unconsciously scratching at his left forearm. “Who is--oh, hello, Draco,” Myrtle said, her tone changing pleasantly once she recognized him. He didn’t reply, crying silently into the darkness.

Draco woke up on the floor of the bathroom, sunlight sparkling through the windows. He stood up, unfastening his tight cloak. I’m failing, he’ll kill me, he’ll kill Mother, and Father-- Draco splashed a handful of water on his Dark Mark. Myrtle came sailing out of one of the cubicles. “What’s wrong? I could help you…” she inquired. “No--no one can help me, I have to do it alone, he’ll kill me, he’ll kill my whole family…” Draco said, his voice shaking.

“Don’t… don’t… tell me what’s wrong… I can help you…” Myrtle offered again. “No one can help me. I can’t do it… I can’t… it won’t work… and unless I do it soon… he says he’ll kill me…” He looked up and saw Pottah standing in the doorway. What’s he doing here? Spying, isn’t he? Trying to find out what I’m up to. Not that I’m up to much… not anything that works, anyway. He spun around and shot a hex at Pottah, but missed, smashing a lamp. Pottah flicked his wand, but Draco blocked it. Myrtle was screaming at him to stop, but he couldn’t, his hatred blinded him, forgetting about even his Dark Mark for a moment.

Everything was exploding, jets of light were going everywhere and Myrtle had turned on the taps, making the floor slippery and hard to grip. His hand shaking, Draco pointed his wand at Pottah and said the first curse that came to his mind: “Cruci--”

Pottah yelled an incantation Draco had never heard before, a moment later, pain shot through his chest and face. Blood was everywhere, and Draco fell to the floor, his hands clawing at his wounds. Pottah was saying something, but Draco wasn’t listening, he was shaking with pain. There was a faint scream of “Murder!” but whether by Pottah or Myrtle or another student Draco didn’t know.

Footsteps splashed into the bathroom. Draco felt a wand at his chest and the pain eased a bit, the blood subsiding. After a minute--or maybe an hour, the time was all blurring together--Draco stood up, supported by Professor Snape to the hospital wing. He slumped into a bed and Madam Pomfrey ran over, carefully administering the essence of dittany to his wounds. “What’s this?” she asked, tracing a finger over his ravaged arm. “Nothing,” Draco said instantly, yanking his arm away. It pulled him back into his horror story of a life, one where he was forced to kill someone and was desperately failing.

This was fun to write

Especially "Pottah" hehe

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003542001

Chapter 2: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003544638

Chapter 3: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003545843

Chapter 4: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003547854

Chapter 5: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003549721

Chapter 6: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003559703

Chapter 7: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003560187

Chapter 8: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003561978

Chapter 9: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003564964

Tags: @MeowTasticCat @Bellatrisblack @ShadowDragonfireWolffang @HRRYPTTERFN234

Chapter Ten: The Writing on the Wall

‘What’s going on here? What’s going on?’

Most likely from hearing Malfoy’s shout, Argus Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. Then he saw Mrs Norris and fell back, clutching his face in horror.

‘My cat! My cat! What’s happened to Mrs Norris?’ he shrieked.

And his popping eyes fell on Harry and Allison.

‘You!’ he screeched, ‘You! You’ve murdered my cat! You’ve killed her! I’ll kill you both! I’ll–’

‘Argus!’

Dumbledore had arrived on the scene, followed by a number of other teachers. In a matter of seconds, he had swept past Harry, and his friends, and detached Mrs Norris from the torch bracket.

‘Come with me, Argus,’ he said to Filch calmly but seriously. ‘You too, Mr Potter, Mr Nott, Miss Runcorn, and Miss Davis.’

Lockhart stepped forward eagerly.

‘My office is nearest, Headmaster-just upstairs–please feel free–’

‘Thank you, Gilderoy,’ said Dumbledore.

The silent crowd parted to let them pass. Lockhart, looking excited and important, hurried after Dumbledore; so did Professors McGonagall and Snape.

As they entered Lockhart’s darkened office there was a flurry of movement across the walls; Harry saw several of the Lockharts in the pictures dodging out of sight, their hair in rollers. The real Lockhart lit the candles on his desk and stood back to watch the drama unfold. Dumbledore laid Mrs Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Harry, and friends exchanged tense looks and sank into chairs outside the pool of candlelight, watching. Allison sank most of all as she was still recovering from the retching she had done.

The tip of Dumbledore’s long, crooked nose was barely an inch from Mrs Norris’s fur. He was looking at her closely through his half-moon spectacles, his long fingers gently prodding and poking. Professor McGonagall was bent almost as close, her eyes narrowed. Snape loomed behind them, half in shadow, wearing a most peculiar expression: it was as though he was trying hard not to smile. And Lockhart was hovering around all of them, making in Harry’s opinion rather dim-witted suggestions.

‘It was definitely a curse that killed her–probably the Transmogrifian Torture. I’ve seen it used many times, so unlucky I wasn’t there, I know the very counter-curse that would have saved her...’

Lockhart’s comments were punctuated by Filch’s dry, racking sobs. He was slumped in a chair by the desk, unable to look at Mrs Norris, his face in his hands. As much as he detested Filch, Harry couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for his situation, though not nearly as sorry as he felt for himself. If Dumbledore believed Filch, he and Allison, perhaps Tracey and Theodore too, would be expelled for sure.

Dumbledore was now muttering strange words under his breath and tapping Mrs Norris with his wand, but nothing happened: she continued to look as though she had been recently taxidermized.

‘...I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadougou,’ said Lockhart, ‘a series of attacks, the full story’s in my autobiography. I was able to provide the townsfolk with various amulets which cleared the matter up at once...’

The photographs of Lockhart on the walls were all nodding in agreement as he talked. As the minutes ticked on Harry was getting less and less hopeful that this would have a positive outcome for him and his friends.

At last Dumbledore straightened up.

‘She’s not dead, Argus,’ he said softly.

Lockhart stopped abruptly in the middle of counting the number of murders he had prevented. Harry breathed a sigh of relief himself.

‘Not dead?’ choked Filch, looking through his fingers at Mrs Norris. ‘But why’s she all–all stiff and frozen?’

‘She has been Petrified,’ said Dumbledore (‘Ah! I thought so!’ said Lockhart). ‘But how, I cannot say...’

‘Ask them!’ shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tear-stained face to Harry and Allison.

‘No second-year could have done this,’ said Dumbledore firmly. ‘It would take Dark magic of the

most advanced –’

‘They did it, they did it!’ Filch spat, his blotchy face purpling. ‘You saw what they wrote on the wall! They found–in my office–they knows I’m a–I’m a–’ Filch’s face twisted up horribly. ‘They know I’m a Squib!’ he finished.

‘I never touched Mrs Norris!’ Harry said loudly, uncomfortably aware of everyone looking at him, including all the Lockharts on the walls. ‘Allison didn’t either, she was overwhelmingly nauseated at the time. That and we didn’t know the letter meant you were a Squib, I just thought you were bad at magic.’

‘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 circumstances here. Why were they in the upstairs corridor at all? Why weren’t they at the Hallowe’en feast or down in their common rooms?’

Harry, Tracey, Theodore, and especially Allison all launched into an explanation about the Deathday Party, ‘...several ghosts saw us, the ones from the castle that saw us were Myrtle, Sir Nick, and Peeves the poltergeist, they will all tell you we were their almost all evening–’ Allison said, sounding like a detective from those muggle things called movies.

‘But why not join the feast afterwards?’ said Snape, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight. ‘Why go up to that corridor?’

All three looked at Harry, they knew only Harry knew why they were in that corridor.

‘Because–because–’ Harry said, his heart thumping very fast; something told him it would sound very far-fetched if he told them he had been led there by a bodiless voice no one but he could hear, ‘because we had insulted Myrtle and wanted to try and apologize, but when we got to her floor I thought I heard a ruckus and my curiosity got the better of me,’ he said.

‘Why not do this after supper? Myrtle wasn’t going anywhere’ said Snape, a triumphant smile flickering across his gaunt face. ‘I didn’t think ghosts provided food fit for living people at their parties, you must have been starving.’

‘We were hungry before we arrived at the party, but the food you mentioned turned our stomachs pretty quick,’ said Allison, who was starting to get quite annoyed.

Snape’s nasty smile widened.

‘I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful,’ he said. ‘It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel he should be taken off the Slytherin Quidditch team until he is ready to be honest, I know a student who can replace him.’

‘Really, Severus,’ said Professor McGonagall sharply, ‘I see no reason to stop the boy playing Quidditch. I agree they are hiding something, but I don’t think it is that they are guilty. They were found with no blood on their hand or wands out, so if we ask the ghosts what time they all left I have a feeling we’ll find that there was no way they could get upstairs, petrify Mrs Norris, paint the message, and clean up before the rest of the students arrived. There is no evidence at all that Potter or his friends have done anything wrong.’

Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light blue gaze made Harry feel as though he was being X-rayed.

‘Innocent until proven guilty, Severus,’ he said firmly.

Snape looked furious. So did Filch.

‘My cat has been Petrified!’ he shrieked, his eyes popping. ‘I want to see some punishment!’

‘We will be able to cure her, Argus,’ said Dumbledore patiently. ‘Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made which will revive Mrs Norris.’

‘I’ll make it,’ Lockhart butted in. ‘I must have done it a hundred times, I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep–’

‘Excuse me,’ said Snape icily, ‘but I believe I am the Potions master at this school.’ There was a very awkward pause.

‘You may go,’ Dumbledore said to Harry, Tracey, Allison, and Theodore.

They went, as quickly as they could without actually running. When they were a floor down from Lockhart’s office, they turned into an empty classroom and closed the door quietly behind them. Harry squinted at his friends’ darkened faces.

‘D’you think I should have told them about that voice I heard?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Theodore, without hesitation.

‘Harry until we figure out what it is you heard we can’t tell the teachers, otherwise you’ll look even more suspicious. For now Dumbledore is right, you are innocent because they have no proof otherwise, don’t give them anything that’ll look incriminating.’

Something in her voice made Harry ask, ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ said Allison quickly. ‘Theodore mentioned this happened before I don’t think you are making it up. However – from what I’ve learned from my father this situation doesn’t look good for you unless evidence that backs up your story appears. And hearing weird voices no one else can isn’t going to help your case...’

‘I know it sounds weird,’ said Harry. ‘The whole thing’s weird. What was that writing on the wall about? The Chamber has been opened...what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I believe I have heard my father mention it once,’ said Ron slowly. ‘I remember him talking about it when talking about his school days, but I don’t remember what he said about it.’

Tracey finally piped up,‘ And can someone explain to me what a Squib is, I never have heard my mother say that before?’

Knowing Allison or Theodore might say something offensive without meaning too Harry decided to answer Tracey’s question. ‘A Squib is a person who was born into a wizarding family but doesn’t have any magic powers. Most Muggle-born wizards and witches are descendants of Squibs. But I think Filch is trying to do something impossible, no amount of magic courses can teach you something you don’t have. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I feel sorry for him, he’s probably just trying to find a way to keep up with all us magical students.’

‘I don’t,’ said Allison, ‘If he had magic I don’t there would be a student in hogwarts not constantly in detention.’

A clock chimed somewhere.

‘Midnight,’ said Harry. ‘We’d better get to bed before Snape comes along and tries to frame us for something else.’

For the following couple of days, the two hundred and eighty students could only seem to talk about the attack on Mrs Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone’s minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he thought the attacker might come back. One morning Harry had seen him scrubbing the message on the wall with “Mrs Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover” but to no effect; the words still gleamed as brightly as ever on the stone, meaning they probably had some kind of enchantment mixed in with them. In the rare moment Filch wasn’t guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like breathing loudly and looking happy.

A lot of students were also upset by the attack. A first year Ella Wilkins who’s hogwarts pet was a pet kept trying to come up with excuses for her to be with her in class to keep her close, Justin Finch-Fletchley kept randomly hyperventilating, and Hermione Granger was not her eager to please self, often keeping quiet in class and no longer instantly answered questions when asked. The attack really was making everyone a little on edge.

Harry also found that students were starting to act oddly around him. Theodore, one of his closest friends, suddenly started spending almost all of his time either in the library or the owlery. One Monday Snape held him back after Potions class to scrape tubeworms off the desks, and afterwards on his way to the library he saw Justin Finch-Fletchley, coming towards him. However just as Harry had opened his mouth to say hello Justin caught sight of him, turned abruptly and sped off in the opposite direction.

Harry found Tracey and Allison near the back of the library, measuring their History of Magic homework. Professor Binns had asked for a three-foot long composition on "The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards".

‘This is brutal, no matter how many words I add I still come up short, I still need three inches...’ said Tracey very frustrated.

'That's nothing, I have all I can possibly say written down and I am still almost a foot short,' Allison complained, letting go of her parchment, which sprang back into a roll, ‘and some how perfect Theodore is already done with several inches extra. Where does he find the time?’

‘Where is he?’ asked Harry, grabbing the tape measure and unrolling his own homework.

‘I think in the history section,’ said Tracey helpfully, pointing along the shelves, ‘looking for a specific book and failing. He's getting pretty obsessed with whatever it is.’

Harry then told the girls about Justin Finch-Fletchley running away from him.

‘Don't think to much about it Harry, you barely know Justin, he's probably just intimidated by Slytherins he doesn't know,' said Ron, scribbling away, trying to cram as many words in as possible.

Surprisingly Theodore then emerged from between the bookshelves. He looked very irritated, Harry was hesitant to talk to him in fear it would set him off. He didn't have to worry though as Theodore himself started the conversation.

‘It is completely ridiculous, every single copy of "Hogwarts: A History" have all been checked out,’ he said, sitting down next to Harry and Allison. ‘And it will be weeks before one is available as there is now a long waiting list. I sent a letter home asking for my copy to be sent along, but so far no luck.’

‘Why do you want it?’ said Harry.

‘I am guessing it is the same reason other students wants it,’ said Theodore, ‘to learn about the Chamber of Secrets.’

‘The message on the wall? I never heard of any chamber until the attack, what is it?’ said Harry quickly.

‘I don't really know, like I said my father isn't answering my letters, but I had heard him mention it before,’ said Theodore, becoming really frustrated. ‘But I have racked my brain and I think I remember something, he said that in his third year the chamber was opened and that someone was murdered, that is all I recall however.’

Harry wanted to hear more about this, but Allison, struggling with this particular assignment, changed the subject.

‘Hey Theo, can you lend my your paper so I can look over it,’ she asked desperately.

‘What? No, I am not in a position to be caught helping someone cheat,’ said Theodore rather harshly. ‘Besides, you have had over a week to work on it.’

‘Most of that time I’ve been at Quidditch practice, we got an extra week thanks to that lightning storm and so we need to practice extra hard for Saturday’s game. That and I am not asking to copy what you wrote, I just need to know I am going in the right direction.’

There final class for the day was at two o’clock and all four of them made their way to the History of Magic classroom, Allison and Theodore arguing educational ethics the whole way there.

History of Magic was the dullest subject on their timetable. Professor Binns, who taught it, was their only ghost teacher, and the only interesting thing that ever happened in his classes was when he occasionally entered the classroom by emerging through the blackboard. Ancient and shriveled, the popular rumour was that he didn’t know he had died for years. He had simply got up to teach one day and left his body behind him in an armchair in front of the staff- room fire; his course content and text book requirements had not varied in the slightest since.

Today’s class was just as boring as ever. Professor Binns opened his notes and began to read in a flat drone like an old vacuum cleaner until nearly everyone in the class was in a deep stupor, occasionally coming round long enough to copy down a name or date, then falling asleep again. He had been speaking for half an hour and Harry could barely keep his eyes open when he was awoken by a voice other than the long deceased Professor Binns.

‘Professor? I have a Hogwarts history question.’

The voice had come from none other than Justin Finch-Fletchley, who Harry could not believe was taking the risk of interrupting Professor Binns.

But Professor Binns, glancing up in the middle of his deadly dull lecture on the International Warlock Convention of 1289, looked amazed, not mad.

‘Mr–er–?’

‘Finch-Fletchley, Sir. I thought that you out of any of my teachers may have the answer, what is the history of about the Chamber of Secrets,’ asked Justin in a hesitant voice.

Suddenly everyone was awake and paying attention, Draco nearly hurt his head from the whiplash; Harry’s old friend Susan Bones dropped her quill and was frantically trying to pick it up so she could write down his response, and Theodore was now staring at Binns like what was about to come out of his ghostly mouth was the holy grail.

Professor Binns blinked. ‘My subject is History of Magic,’ he said in his dry, wheezy voice. ‘I deal with facts, Mr Finch-Fletchley, not myths and legends.’ He cleared his throat with a small noise like chalk snapping and tried to continue his beyond boring lecture, ‘In September of that year, a sub-committee of Sardinian sorcerers–’

He stuttered to a halt. Theodore has risen his hand to ask a question.

‘Mr Nott?’

‘Please Professor, sir, it isn’t entirely a legend, I heard it was a big deal in the forties, but it also must have been mentioned in Hogwarts history before than?’

Professor Binns was looking at him in such amazement, Harry was sure no student had ever interrupted him before, alive or dead.

‘Well,’ said Professor Binns slowly, ‘yes, one could argue that it has been mentioned in this school’s history many times before, I suppose.’ He peered at the class as though he had never truly noticed they were there before. ‘However, the legend of which you speak is such a very sensational, even ludicrous tale ...’

But the whole class was now hanging on Professor Binns’s every word. He looked dimly at them all, every face turned to his. Harry could tell he was completely thrown by such an unusual show of interest.

‘Oh, very well,’ he said slowly. ‘Let me see...the Chamber of Secrets...You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago–the precise date is uncertain–by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution.’

He paused, gazed blearily around the room, and continued, ‘For a few years, the founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them. A rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school.’

Professor Binns paused again, pursing his lips, looking like a wrinkled old tortoise.

‘Reliable historical sources tell us this much,’ he said, ‘but these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. The story goes that Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing. Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic.’

There was silence in his class as he finished telling the story, but it wasn’t the usual, sleepy silence that filled Professor Binns’ classroom. There was unease in the air as everyone continued to watch him, hoping for more. However Professor Binns looked faintly annoyed.

‘The whole thing is arrant nonsense, of course,’ he said. ‘Naturally, the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by the most learned witches and wizards. It does not exist. A tale told to frighten the gullible.’

But the class wasn’t satisfied with his answer. Justin Finch-Fletchley immediately asked a new question.

‘Sir, what do the legends say the ‘horror within’ the Chamber is exactly?’

‘That is believed to be some sort of monster, which the heir of Slytherin alone can control,’ said Professor Binns in his dry, reedy voice.

The class exchanged nervous looks.

‘I tell you, the Chamber does not exist,’ said Professor Binns, shuffling his notes. ‘There is no Chamber and no monster.’

‘Sir?’ Asked Theodore nervously, ‘there is a flaw in your logic. If only Slytherin’s true heir can open it then there is no way those that searched for it could find it, could they?’

‘Nonsense, Nott,’ said Professor Binns in an aggravated tone. ‘If a long succession of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses haven’t found the thing–’

‘But, Professor,’ piped up Allison, ‘No headmaster could find it as they would probably need Dark Magic to open it –’

‘Just because a wizard doesn’t use Dark Magic, doesn’t mean he can’t, Miss Runhome,’ snapped Professor Binns. ‘I repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore–’

‘But the legend clearly states you must be related to Slytherin, so Dumbledore could never–’ began Tracey Davis, but Professor Binns had had enough.

‘That will do,’ he said sharply. ‘It is a myth! It does not exist! There is not a shred of evidence that Slytherin ever built so much as a secret broom cupboard! I regret telling you such a foolish story! We will return, if you please, to history, to solid, believable, verifiable fact!’

And within five minutes, the class had fallen back into a collective near catatonic state.

'Why did it have too be Salazar Slytherin,' Tracey told the others after class as they fought their way through the teeming corridors at the end of the lesson to drop off their bags before dinner. ‘All four founders were medieval witches and wizards, and yet it had to be Salazar who made a death chamber. The other students are going to hate us even more now.'

'Well technically medieval times didn't start for about seventy-five years after Hogwarts was founded, but I understand what you are saying,' Theodore concluded. 'And clearly he did not get his wish as even his house only has a handful of pure-bloods and is mostly half-bloods.'

'Yeah,' said Allison, agreeing with what Theodore just said, 'We all had a choice on what house we wanted to be in.'

Theodore and Tracey nodded in agreement, but Harry didn’t say anything. His stomach had just dropped unpleasantly with the secret he had been hiding from them since his first day the previous year.

Harry had never told his friends that he had begged the Sorting Hat to put him into Gryffindor, because that was the house his whole family was in, as well as his childhood friends the Weasley's, but it wasn't to be. He could remember, as though it was yesterday, the small voice that had spoken in his ear when he’d placed the Hat on his head a year before.

'You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that-yes?' The hat had said.

But Harry, who had grown up hearing of Slytherin house’s reputation for turning out dark wizards, had thought desperately, ‘Not Slytherin!’ but the Hat had made up its mind and said, ‘Better be SLYTHERIN!’

As they were shunted along in the throng, Colin Creevey went past. ‘Hiya, Harry!’

‘Hello, Colin,’ said Harry automatically.

‘Harry–Harry–a boy in my class has been saying you’re–’

But Colin was so small he couldn’t fight against the tide of people bearing him towards the Great Hall; they heard him squeak, ‘See you, Harry!’ and he was gone.

‘Who is that tiny kid and what was he saying to you?’ Theodore questioned.

'That was Colin Creevey, he was the Gryffindor kid who kept wanting to take pictures of me, remember? My guess would be that his friend is spreading a rumour that I am the heir of Slytherin,’ said Harry, his stomach dropping another inch or so, as he suddenly remembered the way Justin Finch-Fletchley had run away from him at lunchtime.

‘Well he is probably wrong,’ said Theodore in disgust. 'The Potter's come from a long line of Gryffindor's, and you mother was the first in her line, it is highly unprobable that you would be Slytherin's heir.'

The crowd thinned and they were able to climb the next staircase without difficulty.

‘Do you really think that there is a Chamber of Secrets Theo?’ Tracey asked.

‘I do, my father is many things but he doesn't tell stories, so what I heard him say must have actually happened,’ he said with a frown. ‘That and Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards ever couldn’t cure Mrs Norris and is the only one who didn't dispute the existence of the chamber, and that makes me think that whatever attacked her was much more powerful than a single human.’

As he spoke, Harry finally realised they were no longer heading in the direction of the Dungeons, but of the floor of the attack.

'Theo, where are we going?'

'I saw Filch patrolling downstairs, which means he isn't guarding here. I want a closer look.'

They turned a corner and found themselves at the end of the very corridor where the attack had happened. They stopped and looked. The scene was just as it had been that night, except that there was no stiff cat hanging from the torch bracket, and an empty chair stood against the wall bearing the message ‘The Chamber has been opened.’ They looked at each other. The corridor was deserted.

‘Can’t hurt to have a poke around,’ said Harry, dropping his bag and getting to his hands and knees so that he could crawl along, searching for clues.

‘Scorch marks!’ he said. ‘Here–and here –’

‘Now this is strange!’ said Allison. ‘Harry, come look...’

Harry got up and crossed to the window next to the message on the wall. Allison was pointing at the topmost pane, where around twenty spiders were scuttling, apparently fighting to get through a small crack in the glass. A long, silvery thread was dangling like a rope, as though they had all climbed it in their hurry to get outside. Harry beckoned the other two to take a look.

‘This is rather odd behaviour for spiders,’ said Theodore curiously. 'Its November so usually the opposite should be happening.'

They got back to looking around. Harry couldn't really see anything else, but then he realised there was something he wasn't seeing.

‘Remember all that water on the floor? Where did that come from? Someone’s mopped it up.’

‘I remember it being about here,’ said Theodore pointing at a spot on the floor. ‘Just about level with that door.’

He reached for the brass doorknob but suddenly withdrew his hand and his cheeks flushed a little.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Harry.

‘Mate,’ said Theodore embarrassed, ‘it’s a girls’ toilet.’

‘Oh, Theo, I know where we are now,’ said Allison looking around. ‘That’s Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Harry your lie to get us out of trouble was more believable than we thought.'

'Come on,' said Tracey opening the door, 'It'll only be Myrtle in their. W should have a look around inside.’

And ignoring the large ‘Out of Order’ sign, she opened the door.

It was the gloomiest, most depressing bathroom Harry had ever set foot in. Under a large, cracked and spotted mirror were a row of chipped, stone sinks. The floor was damp and reflected the dull light given off by the stubs of a few candles, burning low in their holders; the wooden doors to the cubicles were flaking and scratched and one of them was dangling off its hinges.

Tracey whispered for the boys to be quiet and set off towards the end cubicle. When she reached it she said, ‘Good evening, Myrtle, how are you today?’

Harry and Theodore however got curious and went to look. Moaning Myrtle was floating on the cistern of the toilet, picking a spot on her chin.

‘This is a girls’ bathroom,’ she said, eyeing Theodore and Harry suspiciously. ‘They’re not girls.’

‘They aren't,’ Tracey agreed. ‘But they aren't doing anything, they just wanted to admire-er-the retro design of this room.’

She waved vaguely at the dirty old stone sinks and the damp floor.

‘Ask her if she saw anything,’ Harry mouthed at Tracey.

‘What are you whispering?’ said Myrtle, staring at him.

‘Nothing,’ said Harry quickly. ‘We just wanted to ask–’

‘I wish people would stop talking behind my back!’ said Myrtle, in a voice choked with tears. ‘I do have feelings, you know, even if I am dead.’

‘Myrtle, that's not why we are here,’ said Tracey. ‘Were are here to–’

‘Not why you're here! That’s a good one!’ howled Myrtle. ‘My life was nothing but misery at this place and now people come along ruining my death!’

‘We wanted to ask if you had seen anything out of the ordinary lately,’ said Allison, breaking her silence, ‘because there was an attack on Hallowe'en just outside your door.’

‘Did you see anyone near here that night?’ said Harry.

‘I wasn’t paying attention,’ said Myrtle dramatically. ‘Peeves upset me so much I came in here and tried to kill myself. Then, of course, I remembered that I’m–that I’m–’

‘A ghost,’ said Theodore sarcastically.

Myrtle gave a tragic sob, rose up in the air, turned over and dived head first into the toilet, splashing water all over them and vanishing from sight; from the direction of her muffled sobs, she had come to rest somewhere in the U-bend.

Harry and Ron stood with their mouths open, but Tracey looked somewhat satisfied, ‘Honestly, that was the most I ever heard Myrtle talk before breaking down in tears.’

'Let's get out of here, this place makes me uncomfortable.' said Allison, first to the door.

Before the others could make it to the door themselves Allison slammed the door behind her. They were about to shout at her when her reasoning became clear. They heard her in a loud voice say, 'Weasley, what are you doing here?'

'I am a Prefect on patrol, but that bathroom is out of order, what were you doing in their Slytherin?' It was Percy, Ron's older brother and a stickler for the rules. If he finds Harry and Theodore in the restricted girls bathroom right across from where the attack happened they would be expelled for sure.

'I desperately had to pee, this was the only bathroom near by.'

'I heard other voices. Who else is in there with you?'

'Well,' Allison said, trying to hide the panic in her voice, 'Their is Moaning Myrtle, and my friend Tracey who also had to pee.'

Allison then called out them, 'Trace? Are you done washing your hands yet!'

'Yes, I am coming.'

Harry and Theodore quickly hid behind the door as Tracey exited the bathroom. After a moment the door closed once more and he heard Percy ask one more question.

'Why are their four bags here instead of two?'

'Have you never had Mr Binns? We gives so much work. That and Lockhart made us buy eight books. We need two bags each.'

'Very well,' Percy finally said, 'but it is getting late. Have supper and go to your common room.'

The two boys then listened to the sound of two people walking away. Knowing Percy was probably waiting for them to show their faces they waited silently. Over the next twenty minutes they heard several people walking by, including one that sounded like a girl crying, but even once it was again quiet on the other side of the door they did not leave. Finally Allison knocked on the door.

'He is gone. It is safe to leave now.'

The two boys exited and the three of them quickly made their way down stairs.

'That was brilliant quick thinking Allison,' Harry complimented. 'You probably saved me and Theo's necks.'

'You're welcome, just don't put me in that position again. Promise?'

'I'll try my best.'

'Good. Now we brought your bags downstairs and while I went to liberate you Tracey went to collect food before deserts were brought out so we'll be eating in the common room.'

When they reached the Slytherin common room and finished eating they all decided to at least attempt to get some of their homework completed. Allison and Theodore threw themselves into their potions homework that dealt with calculating the correct amount of ingredients for an upcoming assignment based on the amount of wolfsbane in it. Harry and Tracey however were less focused, they were still high off of the rush of adrenaline from their small discoveries and daring escape. Finally Tracey had enough and slammed her text book down. To Harry’s surprise, Theodore followed suit.

‘So who do you think is the Heir of Slytherin,’ she asked in a quiet voice, continuing the conversation they had been discussing after History of Magic.

‘It might not be the heir of Slytherin, just someone trying to use the fear that comes with the title,’ Theodore said, equally silently, ‘Someone who is willing to kill for their beliefs.’

‘Well I am not sure about kill yet, but they definitely seem to want all the Squibs and Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts. Who in today’s society still cares that much about blood purity?’ Said Allison, but she was met with an immediate irritated response.

‘I do,’ said a grumpy Theodore. ‘The wizarding race is in danger of dying out because of all the watering down of muggles in our gene pool. I think there should definitely be more emphasis on magic folk only marrying magic folk, but unlike the attacker I am not going to hurt someone over my beliefs.’

Harry did not like these words coming out of his friends lips. He would not have been born if his father hadn’t married his Muggle-Born mother, nor would Remus if his dad hadn’t married his muggle wife. It was Tracey though who this really hurt, her father is a muggle and because of hers families fear of blood purists she’s not even allowed to tell anyone she has a brother. She shouted at Theodore.

‘Oh yeah! If you truly care about a persons lineage and not the person themselves how can we know you aren’t Slytherin’s heir?! Unlike Harry you come from a long line of Slytherins.’

Allison put a hand on Tracey’s shoulder and she calmed down a little. Despite all the yelling Theodore answered the question straight.

‘Use some logic Tracey, I was with you, Harry, and Allison the whole time at the Deathday party, and Harry saw me both times he heard that voice that seems to be connected to this somehow, so it obviously wasn’t me doing the voice. I do however have a theory as to who it is.’

‘Well, spit it out.’ Said Harry, still a bit mad at Theodore.

‘Use your brain,’ said Theodore in mock puzzlement. ‘Who do we all know is a Pure-Blood, blood purist, descendent of a longline of Slytherins, who said “You’ll be next, Mudbloods” the moment he saw the message on the wall?’

‘Malfoy.’ The rest of them whispered when he finished speaking.

But Harry wasn’t fully convinced, ‘I want to be clear I am not defending him, but I don’t think it could be Malfoy. He is all bark and no bite, we know this, that and he was definitely asleep when I first heard the voices.’

‘But unlike what you and Theodore believe, I don’t think the voice and the attacker are guaranteed to be connected,’ Allison stated,’ and unlike the four of us we have no proof as too his location when the attack happened.

Harry then chimed in, ‘Even if Draco isn’t evil, his father almost certainly is, my fathers has told me a lot of wicked things about him, so he could be having Draco doing his bidding.’

‘Yeah, and if their is a Chamber then his father could’ve handed him the key,’ said Allison. ‘But their is no way to prove it...’

‘Well,’ said Theodore cautiously, ‘There might be a way. We just ask him.’

‘What? Theo I am really starting to judge your sanity.’ Tracey said with a slight laugh, ‘He wouldn’t tell us in a million years.’

‘We won’t be us. But I still don’t think it’s a good idea. It would be really hard to pull off, and if we fail all four of us would certainly be expelled.’

‘Just spill it Theo.’ Harry begged.

Theodore grinned a devilish grin. ‘All we need to do is brew some Polyjuice Potion.’

‘What’s that?’ said Harry, Tracey, and Allison all together.

‘Snape mentioned it in a lecture two weeks ago–’

‘Do you think we’re all in love with Snape as much as you are?’ Allison half joked, ‘We just pay attention to the stuff that’ll give us a passing mark.’

‘One, I resent that comment about Professor Snape, I just really like potions, second it’s a transformation potion.’

‘Wait, really?’ Asked Harry, very impressed.

‘It is, so just consider this. We could change into, I don’t know, maybe Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy...and...um...oh, Millicent. No one would know it was us. Malfoy would then tell us anything we ask, he loves to brag. He’s probably talking about it with Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini upstairs right now. If only the door to our dorm didn’t have a sound proofing charm.’

‘This sounds a bit good to be true,’ said Tracey, suspiciously. ‘I don’t remember seeing any transformation potions in our text book?’

‘Well,’ said Theodore, turning a little red in the ears, ‘that is the one problem, the only copies of the book are in the Restricted Section. And not even Snape would believe me if I said I wanted to just take a look. Maybe we could manipulate another teacher?’

‘No need,’ Allison said, looking almost proud of herself, ‘I’ll have copy sent to us right away.’

‘What? How are you so confident,’ Theodore asked, ‘What makes you so sure you’re parents will give it to you.’

‘Because,’ she said with a chuckle, ‘My dad has been trying to get me to read dark books for ages to prepare me to be an Auror. The book will be yours Theo within a fortnight.’

I want to try a weekly game. (Let me know if you like it) It is like kiss, Marry, kill but with the 3 Unforgivable Curses.

NOTE: YOUR IMPERIO IS TO CONTROL THEM TO MARRY YOU OR KISS

Here is how to play:

So basically I give 3 characters. You will first put YOUR opinion. Then you get 2 chances to guess how I put mine in order. If your Opinion And Guess is correct you get to chose the next 3 characters. First to get it correct is the winner.

Anyway, Here are the 3 characters:

• Moaning Myrtle

• Professor Trelawney

• Dean Thomas

@CHT64 @MeowTasticCat @Bellatrisblack @ShadowDragonfireWolffang @HRRYPTTERFN234

I just finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as well as rewatched the film and I have hit a snag. I know how the re-write of my book ends, I have that planned in great detail, but I have run into a roadblock with the middle. In the cannon version Harry Potter and Ron go to see Aragog, then Aragog reveals he plans to eat the two of them and they barely escape due to the help of the flying car. My issue is in my story Harry does not take the flying car with Ron to get to Hogwarts, he uses his broom and invisibility cloak, so I have come to two possibilities.

1) I take a lot of time and effort and come up with a similar to canon way for Harry to find out that a girl died in a bathroom 50 years previous and that Hagrid is innocents.

2) I come up with another ex machina way for Harry to be saved from the spiders.

I am leaning towards option two and that is where I was hoping you guys could help, I need ideas. One that has already been suggested is the centaurs, however I can't think of a reasonable explanation as to why they would be their or if they would risk themselves to save him. Another way could be which ever friend I pare him up with has a way, I haven't decided which yet. Allison is strong, a Quidditch beater and good strategist, Theodore has a near photographic memory and is a potions expert, and Tracey has a knack for knowing random spells. Another is Hagrid actually gives them a way to deal with them, but what?

Any ideas or opinions would be very helpful.

@TsundereGrl , You requested me to do Myrtle on Picrew, so here it is:

There, what do you guys think?