Hermione had had a great summer. She owled with both Theo and Draco regularly and if her parents were slightly uncomfortable their daughter seemed to have mostly boys as friends they were largely successful in hiding their feelings. The sting of losing the House Cup faded a bit and by the time she got her book list she was ready to start a new year.
We're going to Diagon Alley on Wednesday to get my books. She wrote Draco. Can we meet up?
He grinned, the mean little grin she'd missed over the summer, when he saw her waiting to meet him at the ice cream shop before he put on his polite smile. "Hermione, this is my father. Father, Hermione Granger."
The aristocratic man peered down at her and she had a brief, sinking feeling that his opinion of her ancestry was less open-minded than Draco had led her to believe when he held his hand out and said, "Oh, yes. Miss Granger. The little girl in Slytherin who likes the cakes. I'm pleased to meet you at last."
"It's a pleasure to meet you too, sir," she said, taking his hand, and he smiled.
"Where are your parents, Miss Granger?" he asked and her smile faltered for a moment.
"They're Muggles, sir," she said. "I'm Muggle-born, and they find all this a little disconcerting so they just dropped me off and said they'd pick me up later."
"But that's terrible. You must allow Draco and I to escort you on your shopping trip."
"That's so kind," she said, stumbling over the words, "but I couldn't impose."
"The company of a beautiful girl is never an imposition," he corrected her. "Draco, offer her your arm. Before we tackle this appalling reading list you've been sent, I have to do a personal errand." He turned to Hermione. "You don't mind, do you Miss Granger? I promise I'll treat you both to sundaes when we're done to make it up to you both."
"I…. thank you," she said, shooting a quick look at Draco who looked grateful she'd acceded to his father's demands. She suspected very few people said no to this man.
Mr. Malfoy led them both down a dimly lit alley into a shop she'd never seen before. Borgin and Burkes she read, and the man leading them inside cautioned both her and Draco. "Touch nothing," he said. "Not everything in here is as sanitized as the little toys they give you at school."
"Yes, sir," Hermione said and he smiled at her before drumming his fingers on the counter. Draco had bent down and was looking at a bunch of skulls on a lower shelf.
"I want a racing broom," he told her. "Stupid Potter has that Nimbus 2000 and I want to try out this year."
She sighed. "Of course you do."
"He's not even good," Draco was going on and she could sense his father watching them both. "He's just famous. Stupid famous Potter. Everyone thinks he's so smart with his broom and his scar and his…"
"I don't," she said, pulling his arm away before he could pick up one of the skulls. "Would you stop? I haven't seen you all summer and you're already just droning on about that stupid boy."
"Children," Mr. Malfoy said, "let me remind you it's not prudent to seem… less than enamored of Harry Potter when most people see him as the hero who made the Dark Lord… ah, Mr. Borgin."
"I like her", he would say later to Narcissa. "I didn't expect to, Muggle-born and all. But she's got the right attitude about Potter and she seems to have some control over Draco."
Now he shooed the children away and Hermione watched him hand a list to the man who'd come out to speak to him. "What's that?" Draco asked her and she looked at the withered hand that had caught his eye.
"Hand of Glory," she said. "Stick a candle in it and it'll give light only to you. A thief's best friend."
"How do you know that, Miss Granger?" Mr. Malfoy asked her and she shuffled her feet and swallowed hard before answering.
"I like to read, sir."
"Indeed." He looked at Mr. Borgin who looked impressed at her easy identification of the hideous thing. "I somehow doubt the Hand of Glory was in your first year textbooks."
"No, sir," she admitted but didn't elaborate and he smiled again.
"I begin to see why the young lady has better grades than you do, Draco," he said and Draco flushed under his scrutiny.
"When you graduate, if you keep up with your 'reading'," Mr. Borgin said to Hermione, "please consider coming to see me for a position."
"I think the young lady has a brighter future ahead of her than life as an assistant in your shop," Mr. Malfoy said dismissively and now it was Borgin's turn to flush.
"He likes you," Draco whispered in awe. "I've never seen that before. The only one of my friends he likes is Theo and that's just because he's been friends with Theo's dad since forever."
Hermione rolled her eyes and turned to look at a gorgeous opal necklace. "It's cursed," Draco said and she snorted.
"I can read the sign, Draco." They continued to tease and bicker as he pointed out one peculiar item after another until Mr. Malfoy announced he was done and pointed towards the door. Draco transformed from her chum to a faintly nervous young man and offered her his arm very formally and led her from the shop into the dodgy looking street.
"Come with me," Mr. Malfoy commanded and they followed him down the street and back towards Flourish and Blotts.
The bookstore was mobbed because of a book signing. Hermione wrinkled her nose and pushed through the crowds, gathering her books and groaning at the weight. "Draco," she heard his father say, "Go help your friend. I'll meet you both at the counter."
"I can carry my own stuff," she hissed but Draco yanked the books out of her hands.
"If I've been told to carry them and I don't, he'll lecture me all night on courtesy and what's due a young witch of position and on and on. Just let me do it." Draco sounded sullen and she winced.
"But, Draco," she said, trying to tug the books back out of his hands with no success, "I'm not a young witch of position. I'm me." But he refused to relinquish the books. She finally gave up and just let him hold them while she piled more books for both of them onto the stack. They'd dumped one pile on the counter and gone back for more – the book list really was long this year – when they stopped and stared at the author signing books. The man had his arm around Harry Potter, of all people, and was posing for a photograph.
He was nattering on about how he was going to be Harry Potter's teacher this year, that he'd taken a position at Hogwarts. Hermione looked over at Draco; he had his snake-mean smile in place and was watching Potter try to squirm away from the older man with obvious pleasure.
"Bet you loved that, didn't you Potter?" he drawled once their classmate had extricated himself and dumped a pile of books into some little girl's cauldron. Potter flushed.
"Of course he did," Hermione chimed in. "Famous Harry Potter causes a commotion even in a bookstore.
"Leave him alone," the little girl said, glaring at Draco and Hermione. "He didn't want any of that."
"A girlfriend," Draco said. "Look, Hermione, Potter's got a girlfriend."
"She's a bit young, isn't she?" Hermione asked, eyeing the diminutive ginger girl with curiosity. "Is she even old enough to go to Hogwarts?"
"I start this year," the girl said, tossing her head. She eyed Hermione's Slytherin t-shirt with a sneer of her own. "I won't be in that House, though. I'd sooner die."
"That could be arranged," Draco muttered and Hermione gave him what she hoped was a quelling look.
"Who're you talking to, Ginny?" Ron Weasley came over and the family resemblance between him and the little girl in front of them was unmistakable. The boy looked at Hermione and Draco with disgust. "Stay away from these gits, Gin. They're nothing but trouble." He shoved his hands in his pockets and smirked at them both. "Bet you're surprised to see Harry here."
"Why would we be?" Hermione asked, rolling her eyes. "He needs to get books too."
"Hadn't given Potter's shopping needs much thought, to be honest," Draco said. "Kind of surprised to see you though, Weasley. Does your family go without food for a month to be able to afford books for you, your brothers, and the tiny red one here?"
Ron Weasley lunged towards Draco, but Harry Potter grabbed onto his jacket and pulled him back.
"Ron!" A portly red-haired man came over, breathing hard as he fought his way through the crowds. "What are you doing?"
Hermione had the sudden, natural fear of a child caught mid-skirmish by an adult until she felt a hand on her shoulder and, glancing behind her, saw Mr. Malfoy, who had one hand resting on her and another on Draco. She turned back to the clan in front of her, confident smile back on her face. "Mr. Weasley," Draco's father drawled. "I'm surprised you have time to take your lot shopping what with how busy it's been at the Ministry. All those raids. I do hope they're paying you overtime."
He left one hand on Hermione but took the other off his son to reach down into Ginny Weasley's cauldron of books. Pulling out a battered textbook he raised his eyebrows and said, "Obviously not," he sighed. "If you're going to be a disgrace to wizardry you ought to at least be well-compensated for it."
"We have very different ideas of what it means to be a disgrace," Arthur Weasley choked out.
"Apparently." Mr. Malfoy regarded the book with what seemed to be genuine pity before dropping it back into the girl's cauldron. "Come, children. Let's purchase your books and then, I believe, we need to pick up a broom for Draco and I promised you both ice cream." He paused. "Miss Granger, would you like a broom as well? I would be happy to make some recommendations and treat you to a..."
Hermione quickly said, "Thank you, sir, but you've already been too generous with your time and your offer of ice cream. A broom is too much and I couldn't…"
"Hermione hates flying," Draco cut in. "She'd never use it."
"Any sensible person would hate flying if she were forced to use those school brooms," Lucius Malfoy had turned away from the Weasley's as though he had wiped them from his mind. "They're a disgrace and dangerous to boot. No, no, child. If I let you return to that school without a decent broom my own wife would never forgive me for putting Draco's friend at risk."
"You can't just buy her a broom," Ron Weasley blurted out and Mr. Malfoy turned to look at the child with a politely curious look on his face.
"Why on earth not?"
"She's Muggle-born," Ron said with vicious pleasure, clearly expecting Draco's father to end his obvious patronage of the girl when he heard this bit of news. Mr. Malfoy blinked a few times and then looked at Mr. Weasley.
"I had no idea you had inculcated such prejudice in your offspring, Arthur. Fascinating. Just when I thought you could sink no lower." Mr. Malfoy turned away from the Weasleys again and, leading both his charges to the counter, continued to insist Hermione would quite like flying if she would simply try a decent broom. Not a racing broom, no, nothing like what Draco wanted, but a good, well-made broom. She continued to object that it was just too much all the way to the broom store where the man bought Draco two brooms: a racing broom and a simpler broom, 'in case you need to loan one to a friend.'
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione grabbed Daphne by one hand and Pansy by another and dragged them into a compartment and the three of them flopped onto seats.
"Did you bring them?" Pansy demanded and Hermione nodded and began pulling Muggle fashion magazines out of her bag.
"Merlin, I love these," Daphne leaned back and started flipping through a British Vogue with a sigh of pleasure. "I wish my mother would let me have them."
"If my parents caught me with these I'd be grounded until I was married," Pansy said with a groan, "but look at this." She held up a picture of a woman in a dress with an embroidered top and a short skirt made almost wholly of feathers; the woman had a coat flung over her shoulder, gloves that reached above her elbow and a hat that could only be described as 'jaunty'. "I want it."
"Where would you wear it?" Hermione asked.
"So boringly practical," Daphne muttered.
The door to the compartment opened and the three girls shoved their magazines into their bags with quick, guilty thrusts as Theo stuck his head in.
"What are you three up to?" he asked, studying their faces.
"Nothing," Pansy said. "How was your summer, Theo?"
. . . . . . . . . .
Draco passed Hermione a copy of the Evening Prophet.
"They flew a magical car? People saw them?" She asked him in horror. "That's why they weren't on the train? That may be the stupidest, most ridiculous… please tell me they've been expelled."
She looked at his face and sighed.
"They haven't been expelled, have they?"
"Fucking Potter," Draco said and she nodded in agreement.
. . . . . . . . .
Listening to the Howler Weasley's mother sent him about the car incident cheered both of them up. "Still," Hermione said, the proverbial dog with a bone. "They should have been expelled."
. . . . . . . . .
"What class do we have next," Theo asked as they stood in the courtyard, squinting at his schedule with dismay.
"Defense against the Dark Arts," Hermione said, and he looked over at her paper.
"Hermione," he asked, "Why do you have Lockhart's lesson plans outlined in little hearts?"
She snatched the paper away from him and muttered something unintelligible before shoving it down into her bag. "What's going on?" she asked, trying to distract him by pointing out some tiny boy who was taking a picture of Potter.
"I'm much more interested in your hearts," Theo said, reaching towards her bag but Draco's attention had been caught by the skirmish in front of them and, with a sigh, Theo straightened up and trailed after Draco as he strolled over to Potter. The tiny boy was asking Potter if he could have a picture taken with his hero and have Potter sign it. Draco started to laugh.
"Giving out signed pictures now, are you Potter?" he asked. His voice was loud and echoed around the courtyard. Hermione snickered and Greg came hurrying over to join them eyeing Potter's red face with a sneer. Theo just sighed. "Hey, everybody," Draco raised his voice even more. "Harry Potter's giving out photos to his fans."
"Well," Hermione said, "he is a celebrity."
"I thought you liked those," Theo needled her and she glared at him.
"I am not," Potter muttered, holding his book bag closer to himself.
"You're just jealous," the camera-toting boy snapped and Hermione's laugh rang out, genuine and delighted.
"Of what?" she asked and then, with a sweet tone she began to twist the knife. "Of having my mother die so I could survive, knowing every day of my life I'm the reason my parents are dead? Of being famous for just not dying?"
"It's the scar, I think," Draco said. "Girls like scars."
"I think it's ugly," Hermione said with a shrug.
"Eat slugs, Granger," Weasley hissed and Draco Malfoy narrowed his eyes.
"Be careful," he said. "You wouldn't want to get another note from your mummy. 'If you put another toe out of line'," he mimicked, his voice high and shrill.
A group of older Slytherins laughed at this and Weasley flushed.
"Why don't you give Weasley a picture," Draco suggested. "He could sell it and double his family's income for the month."
With a shout of inchoate rage, Weasley pulled out a wand and pointed it at Draco.
"Why is that wand taped together," Hermione asked, cocking her head to the side and quietly pulling out her own as if to examine it. "Do they still work that way?"
"Not very well," Theo said with a smug grin. "Most people would just buy another one."
"Why doesn't he?" she asked.
"Oh, he can't afford it," Theo said with a shrug as Weasley turned redder and redder.
"Pity," Hermione said. "Mine works fine. Put your wand away, Weasley, before I start to think you're threatening my friend and overreact."
"What's going on here?" Gilderoy Lockhart, who was indeed their new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, bustled over and Hermione smoothly slipped her wand back into her bag.
"Pictures!" The man exclaimed with delight. "I'll take one with you for your friend here, Harry, and then we'll both sign it. How does that sound?"
Draco snickered and he, Greg, Theo, and Hermione drifted away towards class as Potter squirmed.
"Remind me never to get on your bad side," Greg said, poking at Hermione. "'You're the reason your parents are dead.' Ouch."
"She's brilliant," Draco said and Theo laughed.
"Yeah, as long as she's on our side she's brilliant. Be careful she never decides she hates you, Draco."
"Not gonna happen," the boy said. "Race you slugs to class." The four kids tore off across the courtyard, shrieking with simple joy as they ran.
. . . . . . . . .
"Hermione." Theo nudged a first year out of the spot next to her on the couch and yanked her book out of her hand. "I have a question for you."
She sighed, a long-suffering, much-put-upon sigh and waited for him to go on.
"I know," he said, "that you're an unbelievable swot, and that you color code your notes using different colored highlighters to track something or other. I know you keep index cards to drill yourself on facts for class as you walk. I know…"
"Get on with it," she muttered.
"And I was very impressed at how you froze all those pixies after Lockhart fled leaving you, me, and Draco to clean up his mess. Not what I would have expected from a man with so much, err, experience."
"Do you plan to get to your point before dinner?"
"What I don't understand," he said, voice completely innocent, "is how you knew Lockhart's big dream is to market his own line of hair care products."
Blaise and Pansy both started to laugh and even Draco looked up with a grin on his face as Hermione glared at Theo, snatched her copy of Wanderings with Werewolves out of his hand, and gathering all her things, began to stomp off towards her room.
"In all fairness," Blaise said, voice raised, "she did get us ten points with her little crush."
Hermione slammed her door.
. . . . . . . . .
"Explain to me why I have to watch the team practice?" Hermione whined as Draco dragged her towards the Quidditch pitch.
"Because you love me?" he proposed and she snorted.
"Get Pansy or Millie if you want someone to coo over you," she suggested and then stopped. "Why are they here?"
The Gryffindor team was already on the field and having an argument with Flint. "Oh," Draco said in the innocent voice that meant he was up to something, "they'd already booked the field but we got special permission to share from Snape because the team needs extra time to train the new Seeker."
"I still don't see why you want me to watch… wait." She stopped walking and looked at him. "Draco? Are you the new Seeker?"
When he nodded looking both smug and nervous at the same time she flung herself forward into his arms and squealed as she hugged him. "I'll come to every game," she promised. "I'm so happy for you! Draco, that's great! You must be thrilled."
"I am," he said, then said, nerves coloring his voice. "My father bought new broomsticks for the team but… I still had to try out. He bought them after I got on, I swear Hermione. I didn't…"
"Of course you didn't," she hugged him again. "I'm so proud of you, Draco."
They reached the arguing teams, Draco's arm slung around her shoulders, right as Weasley, looking from an array of glorious new brooms to Draco, said, "Well, I guess we know why he's the Seeker. At least you didn't have to buy your way on our team, Harry."
"Draco got on the team because he's an amazing flyer," Hermione said, her eyes flashing. "And no one had to bend any rules for him unlike for your precious Harry Potter."
"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood," Weasley snapped and there was a sudden hush that lasted until Draco yanked out his wand.
Marcus Flint shoved the younger boy out of the way and blocked his access to Weasley. "He's not worth it," the older boy hissed. "How dare you!" Adrian Pucey was yelling as Draco screamed, "You'll pay for that, Weasley." He was trying to wriggle his way around Flint, wand still out and Weasley pulled out his own broken wand and cast a hex towards Draco.
The hex backfired and hit Weasley himself who started to cough. He stared in horror as he hacked out first one slug, then another, then still more. He kept choking up fat slugs as the Slytherin team stopped holding Draco back and started to laugh. Even Hermione, who'd been blinking back angry tears, started to laugh. Draco tucked his wand away and wrapped his arms around the girl, glaring over her shoulder at the boy who continued to spit up slugs. "I'll get him for this," he vowed, his voice muffled by her hair. "Slugs aren't enough. I'll get him, don't worry, Hermione."
"We'll get him," she corrected as she wiped at her eyes and hiccoughed a couple of times.
Later she said, "I know some of the… some of our Housemates, they…"
"You're one of us," Draco said, handing her one of the little cakes he'd saved from his last box. "House trumps blood."
"You've called people Mudblood," she said, quietly, nibbling at the slightly stale treat.
"Not Slytherins," he said, "and not you." He poked her, trying to nudge a smile out of her. "Besides, it's total shite for Weasley to claim to be all 'let's protect the Muggle-born' while calling you that."
"He is an arse," she agreed then sagged against the back of her seat. "I wish there weren't blood prejudice."
Draco snorted. "It's really just people who've hated each other forever. My father's a 'blood purist' and he likes you but wouldn't give the Longbottoms more than a sneer. The Weasley's are blood traitors and, well, you heard that git today. Even if blood went away we'd all still hate each other."
"So it's just picking a side," she said, leaning her head up against him.
"Hat picked your side," he said. "Gave you to us."
"I don't like having my fate decided by a hat," she muttered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione, Theo, and Draco were walking through the hall, shoving and laughing as Hermione tried to keep Theo from checking her books for hearts around Lockhart's name, when Theo suddenly stopped and said, his voice choked, "What's that?"
Written on the wall in foot high letters were the words
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE
"What…"
Draco looked paler than usual and grabbed Hermione and turned her away from the sight but not before she saw the cat hanging, stiff as a board, from a torch bracket to the side of the writing.
"Draco," she said, her voice tiny, "shouldn't we do something?"
"We do not want to be found here," he said, "trust me."
But before they could escape a rushing stream of students poured into the hall. As each student came across the note and the apparently frozen cat, they froze too until the growing cluster of shocked students was pushed aside by the castle caretaker who came forward, demanding to know what was going on, until he saw the cat – his cat - and spun to stare at the gathered crowd.
"Who did this?" he demanded. Spotting Harry Potter, the man pointed a gnarled, shaking finger and said, "You – YOU did this to my cat! You've killed her, and I'll kill you, you little…."
"Argus," Dumbledore appeared from somewhere and calmed the hysterical man. "Get your cat and we'll go and I'll take a look at her. Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, please come with us."
Draco was slowly edging Hermione away from the crowd, Theo close on their heels and, as soon as Dumbledore and Filch disappeared with the Gryffindor prats, the three of them headed for the dungeons. "Draco," Hermione said, "what was that? What's the Chamber of Secrets? Who's the Heir?"
"With our luck, it's Potter," Theo muttered and she jerked her head around to look at him.
"Heir to Slytherin," Draco explained as they pushed their way into their common room.
"You three." A seventh year stopped them. "Don't go anywhere. House meeting."
. . . . . . . . . . .
"So, let's start with the basics." The whole of Slytherin House was packed into their common room. As mere second years, Hermione and her friends were shoved up against a wall, pushed off the furniture by older students looking for places to sit. Between Draco and Theo someone had been holding on to her since they'd found the sign and she'd gone from finding it annoying to being afraid, a fear she'd controlled by drilling herself on History of Magic facts. Now Draco tweaked the book out of her hand and poked her to get her to pay attention to the seventh year girl standing at the front of the room.
"Anyone here think he's the Heir to Slytherin?"
A nervous laugh greeted her question and some wag called back, "Could be a girl."
"Or she?" the girl added with a roll of her eyes.
"What's the heir to Slytherin?" Hermione hissed at Draco. It was Theo, though, who answered her. "Descendent of Salazar Slytherin. Kind of a myth, really. I'm pretty sure the whole family died out generations ago, but the idea is the person would have the same powers Slytherin did."
"Like what?"
"Parseltongue, general dislike of mud… Muggle-borns."
The girl leading the meeting was talking again. "Anyone think it would be cute to leave that message on the wall?"
"People hate us enough," a boy balanced on the arm of one of the couches – Hermione thought he was a sixth year – muttered. "Fucking professors take points if we look at them funny and that business with the House Cup last year? Who'd be stupid enough to try to make people like us even less?"
"This is my O.W.L. year," a girl said, her voice tinged with hysteria. "I don't have time for Heirs and Chambers and – "
"Anyone have some kind of problem with Muggle-borns?"
"Not so long as they're in our House," someone muttered.
"Muggle Studies is a fucking waste of time," someone else said to a general rumble of agreement. "I have a problem with that."
Draco gave Hermione a vaguely apologetic look and she shook her head. "What? He's right."
"See?" A student near her said. "Even Hermione, our resident Muggle-born, thinks that class is a waste."
"That's because she's not an idiot," someone said and a wave of laughter swept the room.
"Any Parseltongues in the House?" the girl leading the meeting asked and there was another round of laughter.
"What's Parseltongue?" Hermione hissed to Theo who said, as quietly as he could, "The ability to talk to snakes. Salazar Slytherin had it. The Dark Lord had it. It's… it's not generally considered a good quality, it's not something people talk about. It's something the Heir would have."
"What do we do about this?" Marcus Flint asked. "You know everyone will blame us."
"Don't get caught talking to snakes?" One wag suggested.
"I don't know what we can do," the girl leading the meeting admitted. "Keep our heads down, look out for each other – "
"Same old, same old," someone said bitterly. "If something goes wrong, has to be one of us."
"If the Dark Lord were still here…" someone began but was quickly hushed by the people near him.
. . . . . . . . .
Over the next week, all the students could talk about was the Chamber and the Heir. Speculations ran rampant as to who the mysterious Heir had to be, with people divided between Harry Potter ("Well, he did vanquish You-Know-Who.") and some Slytherin ("Well, it would have to be one of those snakes, wouldn't it?") Hermione spent most of her time researching, shoving even Theo away when he tried to pry her from her books. Finally, he and Greg staged what they called an "intervention."
"You have to stop," Greg said. "You're going to make yourself crazy. What are you even looking for?"
"Every copy of Hogwarts: A History has been checked out," Hermione said with frustration, "And I left my copy at home."
"Since that's the only book more boring than the Wizarding Social Register I'm horrified you even own a copy," Theo said. "What you are trying to do? Kill yourself with boredom?"
"No, you jerk," she said, tugging on the book he had in his hand. "I'm trying to figure out what the Chamber is. I know it was in there, I can remember the name, but I can't remember what it was."
She got her chance to find out in History of Magic. The class was widely regarded as painfully dull; it was the only class taught by a ghost and Professor Binns apparently believed that the pedagogical techniques that had been good enough for the seventeenth century were good enough for today.
"Professor!" She waved her hand in the air and Theo let his head fall to his desk with a dramatic and audible thump.
"Miss - err?" Binns seemed startled to have been interrupted in his discourse on the Warlock Convention of 1289.
"Granger, sir. And I'm sorry to interrupt but I was wondering what you could tell us about the Chamber of Secrets."
People around the room stopped doodling and looked up at her question.
"Miss Granger." The ghost looked almost petulant at her question. "This is a history class. If you'd like to study myth and folklore I suggest you try the library." He paused. "Or perhaps Headmaster Dumbledore."
A titter ran through the Slytherins in the room at that last comment.
"But sir," she persisted, "surely most myth was originally based in fact. Just last week when you talked about the primary documents we should use to look at history you acknowledged that…" she started flipping through her papers and Binns looked somewhat astonished that she'd taken any notes in his class, much less the volume clearly evident before her.
"Yes, well." He stopped her search. "You are quite right. It's just that it's such a lurid and sensational story and…." He looked up at the room of rapt faces and blinked a few times. "Very well. But this will not be on the next quiz. This is not part of the curriculum.
"As you surely know, Hogwarts was founded by four people, one of whom was Salazar Slytherin. He and his fellow founders had differing views on who should be offered a magical education in that he felt Muggle-borns should be excluded from the school. Eventually he left the school over these differences but, according to rumor, left behind a secret chamber that only his true Heir could open." The ghost looked around the room. "It's nonsense, of course. People have looked for the Chamber for hundreds of years."
"What's the big deal about a secret room?" Lavender Brown, one of the less intelligent Gryffindor girls asked. "This place is filled with rooms no one uses."
"There is," Binns said, frowning at the girl, "a monster in the Chamber. Again, total nonsense, of course, but the legend has it that the true Heir will be able to control the monster and it will rid the school of all the Muggle-borns."
"I knew Slytherin was vile," Weasley drawled, "but I didn't know they'd started all the pure-blood supremacy stuff. I wouldn't be in that House if you paid me. I swear, if the hat had tried to put me in Slytherin I'd have gotten right back on the train and demanded to go home."
"That's nonsense," Hermione said, putting down her quill and glaring at Weasley. "I'm Muggle-born and I've not had any problems in Slytherin."
"Not yet," Weasley grinned at her. "But now that the Heir has opened that Chamber it's just a matter of time before one of your loving Housemates gets rid of you and all that bushy, awful hair."
"No loss," Potter muttered and Hermione turned to glare at him as well.
"It's illogical and stupid," Hermione said loudly. "If Salazar Slytherin wanted Muggle-borns gone so much why leave a monster in a chamber to come out and get them at some later date? Why not just kill them all himself?"
"Miss Granger does hit upon one the problems with the legend," Binns said. "When, as historians, we look at sources such as these it's of paramount importance that we – "
"And," she pressed on, "when the school was founded weren't Muggles still killing witches and wizards?"
"Indeed they were," Binns was trying to wrest control of the class away from Hermione but she just plowed on.
"Salazar Slytherin had a good reason to keep Muggle-borns out in 990. Those reasons aren't even relevant a thousand years later." She settled back smugly into her seat. "The only people who've been nasty to me about being Muggle-born are people like you, Weasley. Slytherin House has moved on; it's too bad you apparently haven't."
"Have I told you lately that you're brilliant?" Draco asked as they walked out of class and she grinned at him.
"Nope."
"Wanna go flying?"
She shuddered. "No."
"Theo?"
"You're on." The two boys ran off and she stuck her tongue out at their retreating backs before heading to the library to see if anyone had returned a copy of Hogwarts: A History. She had a niggling feeling there was something else about the Chamber she couldn't quite remember.
. . . . . . . . . .
The debate on whether or not Harry Potter was the Heir continued on and you could track who believed it by which students avoided him in the halls and wouldn't sit with him at meals.
Not that Hermione cared, but Draco had decided that Potter must be the Heir and was on the verge of keeping an actual journal tracking the git's movements and she had to hear a lot of speculation about where the boy went and what he did.
"He went into the girl's bathroom," Draco said one day, voice filled with glee.
"Which one," Hermione asked idly.
"Why do you care?"
"So I can make sure to never use that one," she said, grinning at him.
"The one by where the… where we found the… you know. There's a big 'Out of Order' sign on the door."
"Oh, that one's haunted." Hermione looked back at her book. "Moaning Myrtle. She died back in the 40s or something and she's constantly flooding the place."
"I bet Potter was in there figuring out how to release the monster," Draco said to her and she sighed.
"Does Potter speak Parseltongue?" she demanded and at Draco's grimace she muttered, "Get back to me about how he's the Heir when he can speak to snakes. Until then, take your boring obsession and talk to Millie about it."
. . . . . . . .
"I've never seen you so excited to go to a Quidditch match," Blaise said as Hermione hovered by the door of the common room.
"I think she's excited to see Draco play," Greg said, wrapping a scarf around his neck. "Why is the weather always crap on match days?"
"Can't be that," Blaise said. "Our little Hermione is saving all her love for Professor Lockhart."
"Shut up, Blaise," she muttered as he grinned at her.
"Who wants to bet if we pull out her notes there will be little hearts around 'Hermione Lockhart' all over the place," he teased and she flushed a deep red and grabbed Greg's hand.
"Let's go," she said. "I want to get a good seat."
Five minutes into the match she'd already begun to regret her promise to watch all the games. Not, of course, that she really had much choice. It was just so boring to watch everyone fly around and the game seemed really dangerous with the bludgers flying all over the place. Well, maybe not all over the place.
"Greg," she asked, "is that one bludger fixated on Potter?"
The boy looked over and narrowed his eyes. Greg wasn't the best student ever, but he loved Quidditch – loved it – and the idea of someone rigging one of the balls clearly didn't thrill him. "If they did," he muttered, "no one will believe it wasn't us. Even if we win…"
"People will assume it's because we cheated," she said, getting angry. "And we didn't. We didn't!"
"But no one will believe that," Greg said, voice so low as to be barely audible under the roars of the crowd. "This sucks."
The Gryffindors called a timeout and Hermione clutched at Greg's arm as they watched the other side confer while their own team, up sixty to nothing, jeered. "They're trying to decide what to do," she said and he nodded.
"If they call the game off, demand an inquiry, we win by default," he said. "They'll never do that."
"This game is idiotic," she said and Greg shot her an annoyed look.
"No one's even hurt yet."
"Yet," she muttered, gripping him more tightly as play resumed and Draco soared back into the sky. She could see the Snitch hovering right above his ear, but he was so busy taunting Potter he didn't see it; she tried yelling his name but her voice was lost in the general uproar and she stomped her foot with frustration.
"Look who's getting into the game," Blaise teased.
She gasped as the possessed bludger slammed into Harry Potter and then buried her face into Greg's shoulder as the other team's seeker began to fly at Draco as fast as he could, leading that violent ball right towards her friend.
"Damn it!" she heard Greg say and she looked up to see Potter in the dirt. "Little prick caught the Snitch again," Greg added.
"We lost," Blaise added glumly.
"I hate this game," Hermione muttered.
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N – As I mentioned to a lot of you in PMs, I'm REALLY astonished at the response to this, and flattered, and fangirling a bit over some reviewers because OMG you're reading this!
Year Two worked out to about 13K words so I've split it into two chapters to avoid being completely overwhelming.
Much love and thanks to my beta, Shealone, who cheerleads AND corrects my commas. She has an amazing epic, Debt of Time, that I recommend.
One question a LOT of people raised that I wanted to address: Parvati I was genuinely shocked how many people recoiled in horror from her being the third person who helped find the mirror. A lot of people seemed to wonder how a girl who wasn't exactly logical managed that. Since that maze was set up by Dumbledore to play to the strengths of the children he was manipulating I'm fairly sure he could have made a "test" that Parvati could handle. Of course, the amount of thought I went into making her the third was, "Huh. Need a third person for that little adventure. It's always Lavender. I'm so sick of Lavender. Who else is there? Which Patil twin is in Gryff? *googlegoogle* Parvati it is." Don't expect to see her constantly around, though I did add one reference to her in the second part of Year Two.
I know we aren't supposed to admit that reviews can be a driving force in writing but, honestly, the reason I got this out so quickly was that I was carried along on the wave of your enthusiasm. So… thank you!
