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Harry Potter/Granger and the Chamber of Secrets
As was only to be expected, the double attack on Justin and Nick turned the previous nervousness into genuine panic, with Nick's fate attracting the most concern; the question of what could do something like that to someone that was already dead had attracted a not insignificant amount of questions that even Hermione's best research had been unable to answer so far.
Harry and Hermione were just grateful that they hadn't managed to get around to getting their parents a subscription to the Daily Prophet yet; it was hard enough claiming that they were unable to attend this year's family Christmas celebrations due to an ongoing research project- even if it was technically the truth, albeit with the research project being a private matter rather than a school one- without dealing with their attempts to deflect any inquiries about the latest news regarding attacks on the school.
As it was, the current panic about the Chamber meant that Harry and Hermione were basically left with only the Weasleys for company in Gryffindor, along with a couple of casual acquaintances in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, the only bright spot about Hogwarts's dwindling population later in the year being the sight of Malfoy's continually-growing frustration whenever they saw him walking through the corridors. Ron attributed it to Malfoy being desperate to reveal his role in events, but Harry couldn't help but wonder if it was more to do with the current lack of activity from the Heir rather than any personal desire to take credit...
In the end, however, with the castle predominately empty and little actual work to keep them occupied, Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys generally found themselves enjoying the relative peace and quiet. As an added bonus, the lack of people in the tower, coupled with the fact that they were still at Hogwarts, made it easier for them to practise duelling without anyone else bothering them. The twins were able to show them a couple of spells that the younger students hadn't covered yet, and even Percy offered a couple of suggestions for practise even if he didn't participate much himself, preferring to spend time apparently wandering the castle, although Ginny still tended to keep to herself working on something despite Hermione's efforts to include her (Given that she was the only one who could actually enter Ginny's dormitory; the stairs turned into a slide if anyone else tried to go up them due to some old rule of the Founders that nobody could or would fix, and Harry didn't think that he or Ron could make enough of an impact to Ginny's mood to make it worth the effort to try and use his broom to navigate the stairs instead).
Finally, Christmas morning dawned at last, Harry waking up to find Hermione casually sitting on the edge of his bed, smiling at him as she held their usual presents from home in her hands.
"Late riser as ever, eh, Harry?" she asked, a slightly teasing smile on her face as she looked at her brother.
"You know me; any excuse to snooze over the holiday," Harry replied, stretching as he sat up in bed to take his present from his sister, glancing over at Ron just in time to see his friend sit up in bed only to automatically retreat back under the covers as he saw Hermione.
"Hold on; you're not supposed to be in here-!" he said.
"Merry Christmas to you too, Ron," Hermione said with a casual smile, tossing his present to him as she spoke. "Just thought I'd let you both know that the potion's ready- I added the last lacewings about an hour ago-, so if we're going to do this, it has to be soon,"
"Don't worry; I don't want to leave this for longer than we have to," Harry replied, before he nodded grimly. "OK, we've got everything together, and we're as ready as we'll ever be; all we need now is to get samples from whoever we're going to change into..."
Conversation was temporarily interrupted when Hedwig flew into the room, carrying a bag in her talons that she dropped on Harry's bed before landing on his shoulder, giving his ear a brief affectionate nibble as she landed.
"Hey, Hedwig," Harry said, smiling at his owl before he opened the bag provided and began to pass the presents inside between him and Hermione; their parents hadn't entirely accepted their explanation about the research project, but evidently it hadn't stopped them from sending their childrens' presents home via owl post.
Hedwig might be a 'private' pet in that nobody outside their immediate family could know about her- an owl might be nice, but it would have attracted too many questions about just how a normal owl could be as well-trained as she was if her existence became public-, but the Grangers were always willing to accept her visits, and Jane had mentioned to Harry more than once that she rather liked the owl anyway.
"Any news from home?" Hermione asked, as Harry pulled out a note that had been inside the bag and studied it.
"Just the usual, although they received that copy of A History of Magic we sent home; Mum says she'll slip it to Natalie as soon as she gets a moment," Harry replied, smiling reassuringly back at her.
"Who's Nat- oh yeah, that's your cousin, right?" Ron asked, as he rolled his eyes slightly at his mother's traditional sweater before turning his attention back to his friends. "How's she coping with... well, with learning about all this?"
"Sounds like she's fine, anyway; apparently she's been writing to Mum and Dad for some ideas about what she should expect when she starts here," Hermione replied with a smile. "She's definitely interested in watching a Quidditch match or two, but she doesn't think she'd like to actually participate; it sounds like she's worried about her reflexes in a high-intensity situation."
"Drops stuff, huh?" Ron asked.
"She's a bit like me in that regard; she tends to overthink things when she's on the spot and takes too long to take action, even if she can plan out answers like nobody's business," Hermione clarified, before she sighed and turned back to the present, putting the new books from home aside. "Anyway, we'd better get on with things; we've got to work out how we're going to get samples of Crabbe and Goyle for you two to get into the common room, and then-"
"Hold on; who said you were coming?" Harry interjected.
"What?" Hermione asked, looking sharply at her brother. "But-"
"Look, Hermione, no offence, but you said yourself that you're not the best when it comes to on-the-spot improvisation; whoever you posed as, you might slip up if you're asked the wrong question, and that's before you take into account the fact that we're going into a house that's practically bred to consider you scum just because of who Mum and Dad are," Harry clarified, looking resolutely at her. "Besides, we're taking enough of a risk trying to pass ourselves off as Crabbe and Goyle, and we know that they spend enough time with Malfoy for it to make sense that they'd be asking him these kind of questions; add in the fact that we don't exactly know which of the remaining Slytherin girls spends enough time with Malfoy to make it convincing enough for her to be asking the kind of questions we want to ask, and you coming along makes no sense."
After staring in frustration at Harry for a few moments, Hermione sighed and nodded.
"Hard to argue with that kind of logic, really..." she said, groaning as she looked at her brother in exasperation. "We both watched too much Star Trek at times, didn't we?"
"It's an interesting series; that it indirectly teaches the value of logical thinking is just a nice bonus, really," Harry said with a shrug, before he turned the conversation back to their immediate concerns. "Look, let's just enjoy the feast; we can worry about the potion and infiltration later on."
"Shouldn't be too hard, anyway," Ron noted with a slight smile. "All we need to do is drug Crabbe and Goyle, grab some hairs, and then get to the common-room; simple and effective, innit?"
"So long as we can find somewhere secure to put them while we're working, the logic sounds fine to me," Harry confirmed, nodding in approval at his friend's neat summary of the situation; evidently spending time with two brains was rubbing off on the redhead.
Their plan might still need a bit of fine-tuning, but so far everything seemed to be going fairly well...
As he sat in the hall later on, Harry had to admit that the teachers did an excellent job when it came to attending to their work. There were around a dozen frost-covered Christmas trees standing around the hall, along with thick streamers of holly and mistletoe crisscrossing the ceiling, to say nothing of enchanted, warm, dry snow falling from above. Dumbledore's occasional carols were slightly unusual, and Hagrid's voice began to reach almost uncomfortably loud levels as he drank more and more eggnog, but minor details like Percy's unawareness of his prefect badge now saying 'Pinhead' helped to make up for that.
Talking of the Weasleys, Harry was surprised when he noticed Ginny sitting at the end of the table on her own, slightly removed from the rest of her family; Fred and George were apparently otherwise occupied at preventing Percy registering the changes in his badge and Ron and Hermione had sneaked off earlier to make a last check of the Polyjuice potion while Harry finished his cake.
Ignoring Malfoy's attempts to insult his sweater as the Slytherin left the great hall, Harry walked over to sit down beside the youngest Weasley, smiling slightly at her as she glanced up at him in surprise.
"Hey," he said, as she looked up at him before lowering her head again, blushing furiously. "First Christmas away from home, huh?"
Ginny simply nodded awkwardly in response, her face concealed by her long hair, which was trailing over what remained of her food.
"Yeah, I know how you feel; it's my first Christmas away from my family- well, my adopted family, but they're the only family I really remember- too," Harry said, smiling encouragingly at Ginny as she brushed a lock of hair away from her face to look slightly uncertainly at him. "I mean, it's easier because Hermione's here, and Mum and Dad know that I'd like to be home if we didn't need to do stuff here, but that doesn't mean I don't wish that I could see them."
"Yeah..." Ginny said, her voice low as she nodded awkwardly in response to Harry's statement, smiling uncertainly over at him. "I spent all year with Mum and Dad last year..."
"And now they're gone and you're here on the edge, right?" Harry said, nodding sympathetically at her. "Look at it this way; at least you know you have a family who cares. I spent my first Christmas- that I can remember, anyway- being left in the cupboard so that I wouldn't break my cousin's toys or something like that..."
"What?" Ginny said, looking at Harry in shock, embarrassment apparently forgotten with this new information (Harry was just grateful that she was able to keep her voice relatively low; the last thing he wanted was any more attention). "You were kept in a cupboard on Christmas?"
"The Dursleys never liked magic even when I didn't know I was doing it," Harry said, shaking his head grimly before he smiled and glanced over at Ginny. "It's why I've always been grateful to Hermione; she just... she accepted me when I was me, you know?"
Harry wasn't even sure he'd ever thought about that before he said it, but now that he'd voiced the thought, he realised that he meant it.
It wasn't that he thought that nobody in the wizarding world would ever be able to see him as 'Harry' rather than 'the Boy Who Lived'- Ron seemed to be getting past that issue, and most f his family were following his example, to say nothing of most of his year-mates-, but Hermione had accepted him when he was just the one with no possibility that his status as the second had any impact on anything...
Glancing up, Harry saw Ron waving urgently at him from the door, and sighed as he looked back at Ginny.
"Sorry, got to go; we've got a... project... we need to finish," he said, indicating Ron as he looked apologetically at Ginny. "But look, I'll talk with you a bit more later, OK?"
Ginny nodded briefly at him, a slightly hopeful smile on her face, but Harry wasn't able to stick around to see it as he hurried towards his friend; as much as he'd enjoyed the chance to talk to Ginny, finding out what Malfoy was up to had to come first.
"Any luck?" he asked, as they walked out of the hall and began to head towards the relevant bathroom.
"Grabbed a few hairs from Crabbe and Goyle and stuck them in a cupboard after leaving a couple of drugged cakes for them when they popped out earlier," Ron said with a smile. "Honestly, those two are thick; the things were floating in front of them, and they just ate the cakes anyway..."
"Eh, that's what generations of inbreeding will do to you," Harry said, taking some hairs from Ron's left hand before they walked into the bathroom, where Hermione was waiting with a couple of large Slytherin robes and larger shoes beside a steaming cauldron.
"You got them?" she asked, smiling as Ron nodded in confirmation. "Good, and I got these from the laundry; you'll need larger clothes to pose as Crabbe and Goyle."
"Good thing Malfoy left early, anyway; the sooner we can get this over with, the happier I'll be," Harry said, trying to restrain his gag reflex as he looked at the bubbling, mud-like potion behind his sister and the two glass tumblers beside it.
"I'm sure I've done everything right," Hermione said, glancing back over the book. "According to this, we just need to put it in the glasses and add the required hairs; after that, it'll just take an hour before we revert to our original appearances."
"Simple enough," Harry said, trying not to think about what they were going to do as Hermione ladled large dollops of potion into each glass. As Harry and Ron dropped their hairs into each glass, Harry wasn't sure if the snot-like colour of Goyle's potion or the brown of Crabbe's was worse; each evoked mental images of various bodily functions that Harry really didn't want to think about...
"Look, we'd better relocate; having all of us in here is going to be unpleasant enough even before we turn into Crabbe and Goyle," Harry said, indicating the door of the stall.
"Point," Hermione said, opening the door and smiling at her brother and friend. "You two move on; I'll wait in here."
As he moved into another stall, him and Ron grabbing the large robes Hermione had acquired, Harry suppressed the urge to just tip the potion down the toilet- it looked disgusting but he had to do this if they were going to know one way or the other what role Malfoy played in this mess-, quickly changed into the new robes provided, and swallowed the potion in two large gulps. The taste actually wasn't as bad as he'd feared, resembling overcooked cabbage rather than anything else, but then his insides started writhing as though he'd just swallowed live snakes- he briefly felt like he was going to be sick- and then a burning sensation spread rapidly from his stomach to the tips of his limbs, followed by a feeling as though his skin had turned into melting wax before his hands began to grow larger and thicker right in front of him, his shoulders stretched, his forehead felt hair beginning to grow over it...
Almost as soon as the pain had started, it stopped, leaving Harry slumped against the wall of the stall as he examined his new body; it felt a lot heavier than his own, but otherwise it didn't seem as bad as he'd feared. Slipping his glasses into his pocket in case he transformed back before he could return to the bathroom, he turned towards the door and walked out of the stall, his eyes quickly falling on 'Crabbe' as he walked out of another stall.
"Incredible..." Hermione's voice said, prompting Harry to glance over at where his sister was watching them both with a smile. "I mean, I read about what Polyjuice does, but actually seeing it..."
"Tell me about it; this is unbelievable..." Ron/Crabbe muttered, walking over to examine Crabbe's flat nose in the mirror.
"We'd better get going," Harry said, removing his now-tight watch and handing it over to Hermione. "We've still got to find the common room, and we're going to need someone to follow..."
Hearing a slight chuckle, Harry looked over at Hermione. "What?"
"Just... this is probably the only time we'll ever see Goyle showing any signs that he's thinking about something," Hermione said with a chuckle.
"Tell me about it; I sometimes wonder if Snape's got to fake that guy's records to keep him in school at all," Ron muttered, before he sighed and glanced at his watch. "We'd better go; we've got... it was an hour, right?"
"More like fifty-eight minutes now, but yes," Hermione confirmed after a brief glance at her own watch. "I'll wait here with your things; good luck."
After shrugging on their larger shoes, Harry and Ron left the bathroom and headed for the great hall after confirming that the corridors around the bathroom were unoccupied, focusing on perfecting the more minor details of their disguise as they walked, finally reaching the great hall.
"Any ideas?" Harry muttered, glancing over at Ron after a quick check inside the hall had confirmed the absence of any Slytherins.
"Well, the Slytherins generally come up to breakfast from there," Ron said, indicating the door to the dungeons. "Maybe we could just... wait and see?"
Almost as soon as Ron had spoken, a girl with long, curly hair emerged from the entrance, but Harry stopped Ron before he could ask her anything; even from here, he could see the blue that signified Ravenclaw rather than Slytherin green.
After waiting a few moments for her to walk past, Harry glanced at Ron, shrugged at their obvious lack of alternative options, and hurried down the staircase, only to quickly become frustrated at the labyrinthine passages underneath the school (How the architects had been able to keep anything straight in this mess Harry didn't know; he'd have to ask Hermione if Hogwarts: A History provided any real detail about the architectural effort necessary to create the school in the first place). They had a brief near-run-in with Percy when he came out of a side room while they were searching, but Harry had convinced Ron to hang back long enough to determine that Percy couldn't help them and then hide in another side-room while the eldest Weasley in Hogwarts walked by; they didn't want non-Slytherins to know they were there just yet.
Finally, shortly after Percy had walked past, Malfoy's voice was heard coming from the other direction- judging by the tone, Malfoy was being as dismissive of Percy as he usually was of anyone in authority who wasn't Snape-, prompting the two of them to hurry out of the classroom just in time for their target to see them.
"There you are," he said, his usual slightly arrogant drawl in his voice. "Have you two been pigging out in the Great Hall all this time?"
"Food's good," Harry said, shrugging slightly in the hope that it would be an acceptable Goyle-esque answer, before taking a leap and hoping that his new idea for a topic would convince Malfoy to say what they wanted to hear. "Something has to make up for the mudbloods, doesn't it?"
"Particularly with the likes of Potter, right?" Ron added, seizing on Harry's train of thought.
"Quite," Malfoy said, sneering scornfully at the suggestion they'd just raised even as he turned around to walk down another corridor. "Honestly, how he can actually prefer to live with them I don't know; what can a bunch of mudbloods and muggles have to offer that wizards can't?"
Personally, Harry preferred what he'd seen of muggle popular culture to wizarding culture- their history might be more interesting, but wizards didn't really seem to have much in the way of leisurely reading; almost everything they wrote seemed to have some kind of informative purpose behind it-, but he wasn't going to say that in his current appearance, particularly not when they were probably approaching the Slytherin common room...
"What's the new password again?" Malfoy asked Harry, as he finally halted in front of a stretch of bare, damp stone wall.
"Er-" Harry began.
"Oh yeah; pure-blood," Malfoy said, apparently unconcerned about Harry's confusion as a stone door opened in front of them, promptly walking through it.
Harry didn't take long to form his first impression of the Slytherin common room, and it definitely came up short compared to the Gryffindor one. Where Gryffindor's common room was warm and comfortable even in colour, the Slytherin one was longer with rough stone walls illuminated by round, greenish lamps, an elaborately carved mantelpiece surrounding the fire as various Slytherins sat around it. As Harry and Ron sat down in the chairs, Harry wasn't surprised to note that even the chairs weren't that comfortable; he was starting to wonder if part of the problem Slytherins had was that they had to deal with an uncomfortable atmosphere rather than just them being pre-inclined to be bastards...
"Honestly, you'd never know that Potter's family has such a 'good' reputation," Malfoy said sarcastically, shaking his head in exasperation as he sat down opposite the other two. "I mean, the Potters have always freely mingled with mudbloods, but I don't think anyone expected the last one to like living with them this much; you'd never know he had any wizarding blood in him, the way he goes on..."
Harry and Ron both decided to remain silent; neither of them entirely knew what to say that wouldn't risk giving them away.
"Then again, it's not like everything's not going downhill anyway," Malfoy said, snickering as he spoke. "Father's always said Dumbledore's been the worst thing that ever happened to this place; he's probably stopped the Daily Prophet reporting all these attacks to stop himself getting sacked, but that can't last forever."
Harry chuckled slightly out of a lack of anything else that he could do in response to that statement, Ron following his example as Malfoy looked slightly sceptically at them before their response satisfied him; probably Crabbe and Goyle were always a bit slow on the uptake.
"Honestly, I just wish I knew who the Heir was; maybe I could get them to make an exception and go after Potter as an 'honourary mudblood' or something like that..." Malfoy muttered, shaking his head in exasperation as he sat in the chair.
"Wha-?" Ron began, clearly incredulous at the idea that Malfoy didn't know anything about the Heir's true identity, only to be halted when Harry quickly reached over and gave Ron's arm a pointed squeeze to stop him saying anything else.
"You've really no idea?" he asked.
"You know I haven't, Goyle, how often do I have to tell you?" Malfoy said, looking petulantly over at Harry. "And Father won't tell me anything about the last time the Chamber was opened either. Of course, it was fifty years ago, so it was before his time, but he knows all about it, and he says that it was all kept quiet and it'll look suspicious if I know too much about it."
Privately, Harry thought that just Malfoy knowing that much was suspicious- fifty years ago wasn't a massive amount of time, but it was long enough for most of the people involved to have moved on-, but Malfoy's later comments drew his attention back to his Slytherin counterpart. "But I know one thing; last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, a Mudblood died. So I bet it's a matter of time before one of them's killed this time ... I hope it's Granger."
Fighting down the urge to punch the boy who so casually insulted his sister, Harry instead tried another tactic.
"Do you know if the person who opened the Chamber last time was caught?" he asked; if they hadn't been, it was possible that someone had come back in disguise...
"Oh yeah... whoever it was was expelled," Malfoy said dismissively. "They're probably still in Azkaban."
Remembering the brief reference they'd found to the wizarding prison in their reading about magical history, Harry had to admit that it sounded fairly secure; he might not agree with the idea that anything could be inescapable, but no escapes since it was established was definitely something to be impressed at.
"Father says to keep my head down and let the Heir get on with it, really," Malfoy said, shifting restlessly in his chair. "He says the school needs ridding of all the Mudblood filth, but not to get mixed up in it. Of course, he's got a lot on his plate at the moment. You know the Ministry of Magic raided our manor last week?"
Resisting the urge to smile at the thought of Malfoy's family in trouble, Harry tried to look concerned instead.
"Yeah..." Malfoy said. "Luckily, they didn't find much. Father's got some very valuable Dark Arts stuff. But luckily, we've got our own secret chamber under the drawing-room floor-"
"Hah!" Ron said, grinning at that news, only to suddenly look awkwardly away from Malfoy as he reached one hand up and began to cough; only the fact that he was looking at Ron from the side allowed Harry to see that his friend's neck was 'shrinking' and he was trying to conceal it with his hands.
Clearly, their hour was up; they'd just have to be satisfied with what they'd been able to eliminate and go with that.
"Think he ate something that disagreed with him," Harry said, standing up and shrugging as he indicated the door while Ron did the same. "I'll just... go and help him get something."
With that, the two of them hurried out of the common room, leaving Malfoy looking after them in confusion as they hurried out of sight towards the stairs leading back to the great hall, ignoring the thumping sound from the cupboard where they'd stashed Crabbe and Goyle in favour of reaching their destination. Finally, after only a brief pause to remove their too-large shoes to avoid tripping, they arrived back at the second-floor girl's bathroom, returned to their usual appearances.
"Anything?" Hermione asked as they walked back into the bathroom, smiling hopefully at the two of them.
"Well, we have learned that the Chamber was last opened fifty years ago, that the person responsible was expelled, that the Malfoys have a secret chamber under the drawing-room floor, and that Crabbe and Goyle are as dumb as they look, but nothing that could really be of any use to us in this situation," Harry said, shrugging nonchalantly at his sister as he and Ron shrugged off their Slytherin robes. "Oh, and the Slytherin common room is a lot less comfortable than ours; it's no wonder that house has a bad attitude with atmosphere like that..."
"It's not like that's the only reason they're rotten-" Ron began.
"Pre-Hogwarts environment helps, I know, but I'm just saying that place was not conducive to relaxation unless you liked haunted houses with bad lighting," Harry said, sighing slightly as he looked back at Hermione. "But, on the bright side, we did get one over on them without anyone knowing it; always a good occurrence in my book."
"True," Hermione said, smiling back at Harry as she indicated the cauldron of polyjuice behind her. "Plus, this stuff keeps fairly well if you store it properly, so we might be able to get a few more uses out of this batch yet if we need them."
"Just so long as it's not for a while and I get to be someone less disgusting next time," Ron said, shaking his head as he rubbed at his throat. "I mean, God, essence of Crabbe was disgusting..."
All levity aside, Harry just wished that they knew what they could do next; with their most obvious lead exhausted, they were back to square one in their investigations into the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets...