My first day ends eventually and I find myself limping towards the library after dinner nursing a few Herbology induced scratches. We'd kicked off the year tending to the Fanged Geraniums, which had been somewhat neglected over the summer and as a result were in a foul temper. My only talent when it comes to Herbology lies in my ability to kill everything, even if it does put up a good fight. Professor Longbottom views me as a bit of a challenge, I think, and he's so sincere I sometimes find myself beginning to care, but right now I wouldn't mind if all Fanged Geraniums caught a deadly disease and shriveled up overnight.

Wondering if I couldn't procure such results by slipping all of those in greenhouse four a dodgy potion, I walk into the library and head towards my favourite corner as far away from the Librarian, Mr. Drummond, as it's possible to get. Mr. Drummond is a small man, who's shaped like a series of balls. He has no hair on his smooth, round head, and over his shirt and tie he wears red v-neck jumpers which stretch across the vast expanse of his stomach, making him look like the planet Mars. This little man orbits the library with a very unpredictable frequency of rotation, and considering his size and implicit weight, he moves as if he exists at zero gravity. These qualities combine to make a very disconcerting person indeed, because you never expect a fat man in a bright red jumper to be able to creep up on you, but he can and he does.

I collapse into my favourite high-backed chair and pull my Transfiguration book towards me. Fifth years have to write an essay on turning inanimate objects into living organisms, the objects focused on are our own choice, the deadline of one week isn't. A few minutes later Emery Benson appears, swiftly followed by Alexis Graham and Marisa Zalvidar, fourth years from Slytherin house. Eventually there's a group of eight of us sitting around the circular table at the back of the library. Books are out, parchment and quills. Titles are written, the pretense of a large homework party is established, and we mutter together. I pass James's letter around and everyone reads the orders with knotted brows.

"Who's the 'little'un'?" Alexis Graham asks from halfway down the table. She's a tall, thin, girl with flaming red hair that looks, frankly, stunning against her green robes. If it wasn't for the hollows under her eyes that suggest an addiction of some kind, i'll have to keep an eye on that, she'd be a very beautiful girl.

"Vincent Hevoret. I'm his mentor, he's a first year." I say.

"And he's here." Says a defiant little voice. All heads turn as he walks stiffly forwards and plonks himself down in a chair next to Marisa Zalvidar.

"Good first day?" Marisa asks, a smile creeping across her round face. She's a beater on the Slytherin team, the first female beater in about thirty years actually so I have some respect for her.

"Yup. Potions was fun." Everyone laughs quietly as he brings out a side of parchment, a quill and inkwell and then pauses, "so where are we going to do this?"

"That's what we're trying to decide."

"How about the room of rewards?" Says Alexis. This room is behind the portrait of Vindictus Veridian on the main staircase.

"I don't want to set up there if we don't have to. It's right in the middle of things, someone will see someone getting in and everything will be discovered, and you heard Vector, that spells a span in Azkaban."

Some of the others nod. "What if we take an invisibility potion?" Asks John Faraway, a sixth year Gryffindor.

"If you want to be bumping into people and causing accidents around expensive and dangerous potions, be my guest, but it won't be as part of my organisation." I say. I'd thought of invisibility draught as an option on several occasions, but the cons always outweighed the pros in my opinion.

"What about the room behind the TV in the muggle studies classroom?" Suggests Alexis. This room was discovered by some of the crew from Ollie Mason's era when they were searching for new premises, but was passed up in favour of the Shack.

"The entrance is in a classroom that's in use every single day." I say, shaking my head. "It's just not practical."

"Does someone have Advanced Potion Making?" Faraway says suddenly and a little louder than we'd been whispering. We all go quiet and someone asks a question related to summoning charms. Mr. Drummond floats past the end of the shelves casting his beady eyes in our direction. We keep up the study-talk for a while, and then continue as we were.

"What about the Chamber of Secrets?" Vincent speaks from halfway down the table and there's a pause. The ideal location that has been on everyone's mind ever since they joined the operation. Located within the castle, concealed, and perfect. I sigh.

"Can you speak Parseltongue, Vincent?"

"Ron Weasley couldn't speak Parseltongue, but he got in during the Last Battle." He retorts. I frown at this. At what point did Vincent get so knowledgeable about the Last Battle? Shelving this question, I say instead,

"But he'd heard someone, he mimicked the sound."

"And you're telling me there's no book in this library about magical languages?" I stare at him for a few moments. Up and down the table people are either looking at him or at me.

"Ok, it's day one of finding new premises." I say with a grimace. "We have until Wednesday next week to have found somewhere new, which will give us until Friday to kit it out, with the weekend to work overtime getting potions underway. Obviously, ideally we'll have found somewhere sooner than that, but i'm working on realistic time scales. I don't know about anyone else, but I want to get into that chamber." I pause, everyone nods. "We make finding a way in there our main objective, and I don't want any clumsiness here, no one's going in that bathroom and asking Moaning Myrtle how it's done." A few people laugh at this. "Ok, we all know the score. We will crack this."

Everyone nods. John Faraway begins to pack up his things and so does Grace Walters, they're the only Gryffindors in the organisation and Grace is a seventh year. A large proportion of those present stay and make a dent in whatever homework they were pretending to do. Vincent gets up, leaving his stuff at the table, and disappears amongst the shelves. He's gone to find a book on Parseltongue no doubt and I stifle a snort. He's surprisingly brilliant in some ways, but incredibly simple and direct in others. As a first year he hasn't quite grasped the fact that not all books in Hogwarts are kept in the library, or are available to students. If there's a book on Parseltongue in this school it will either be in the Restricted Section, or it will be in Professor Vector's office. I know where i'd rather it is, and I honestly don't think it will be there.

Subconsciously I start developing a strategy to get in there. It would be difficult, but not impossible. Vector's often away from the castle doing work abroad or attending meetings in London at the Ministry. Still, I shudder to think that's what we might be reduced to. I don't fancy thieving from the headmistress of Hogwarts.

About an hour goes by and I get about a ten inches of my essay done before Drummond floats into view again. "I'm closing the library." He says and then stands watching us. I'd forgotten the directness in his approach. I gather up my things, everyone else is scuttling off between the shelves, apart from Emery, who's hanging back so that we can walk up to Ravenclaw tower together. As I approach the end of the table I realise that Vincent still hasn't got back.

"There's a first year here you might have missed. I'll go and get him." Drummond's eyes narrow as I walk past him, leaving he and Emery standing together in an awkward silence. Vincent's sitting on the floor at the foot of a large book case with an enormous book propped against his legs.

"What you reading?" I ask, not troubling to keep my voice down this time. Silently he lifts the book to reveal elaborate gold lettering that reads, A Concise Compendium of Wizarding Languages. I smile. "That doesn't look very concise. Come on, the library's closing."

"It closes?" He asks blankly.

"Yes, Vincent, it closes. Now get a move on." He scowls and scrambles up off the ground. "You making friends?" I ask.

"Yes." He says. I roll my eyes.

"Wow, Vincent, stop with the details already, people will think I care."

"You do care, clearly." He says. Little sh*t.

"Yer, well, good luck finding your common room." I retort, and walk out of the library with Benson at my heels.

"You ok Astrid?" He asks when we've got a decent way along the corridor.

"Yup." I say. "Just working out who to bribe for a signed note."

"For the Restricted Section?" He says, "You really think you'd have to bribe Professor Pucey?"

I smile. No I wouldn't, but he'd ask questions so i'd need to think of a solid reason. We wend our way upwards, a concealed staircase here, jumping a trip step there, and finally we start the tight ascent that leads to the common room and come to the Eagle in the door.

"What is it that no man ever yet sees, which never was, but always will be?"

We look at one another. "Say it again?" Says Emery. She does, and waits patiently.

"Like all things I think the most significant segment is the last. What is always to be?" I muse.

"Tomorrow?" He asks.

"Correct." Says the Eagle, and the door swings open.