Hey guys! First I want to say (cover your ears) I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER WHATSOEVER! ALL RIGHTS GO TO THE QUEEN HERSELF! Whoo!
Except for my OC's. Those, are the sole property of moi :)
When Tess and Hermione left off, Ron and Harry became honestly worried that the fish wouldn't swallow the bait.
But to their utter amazement, stage one of the operation went just as smoothly as the girls had said. They lurked in the deserted entrance hall after Christmas tea, waiting for Crabbe and Goyle who had remained alone at the Slytherin table, shoveling down fourth helpings of trifle. Harry had perched the chocolate cakes on the end of the banisters. When they spotted Crabbe and Goyle coming out of the Great Hall, Harry and Ron hid quickly behind a suit of armor next to the front door.
"How thick can you get?" Ron whispered ecstatically as Crabbe gleefully pointed out the cakes to Goyle and grabbed them. Grinning stupidly, they stuffed the cakes whole into their large mouths. For a moment, both of them chewed greedily, looks of triumph on their faces. Then, without the smallest change of expression, they both keeled over backward onto the floor.
By far the hardest part was hiding them in the closet across the hall. Once they were safely stowed among the buckets and mops, Harry yanked out a couple of the bristles that covered Goyle's forehead and Ron pulled out several of Crabbe's hairs. They also stole their shoes, because their own were far too small for Crabbe- and Goyle-size feet. Then, still stunned at what they had just done, they sprinted up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
They could hardly see for the thick black smoke issuing from the stall in which Hermione was stirring the cauldron. Pulling their robes up over their faces, Harry and Ron knocked softly on the door.
"Hermione?"
They heard the scrape of the lock and Hermione emerged, shiny- faced and looking anxious. Behind her they heard the 'gloop gloop 'of the bubbling, glutinous potion. Three glass tumblers stood ready on the toilet seat.
"Did you get them?" Hermione asked breathlessly.
Harry showed her Goyle's hair.
"Good. I stole these spare robes out of the wash," Tess said, holding up a small sack. "You're gonna need bigger sizes once you're Crabbe and Goyle. The three of them stared into the cauldron. Close up, the potion looked like thick, dark mud, bubbling sluggishly.
"I'm sure I've done everything right," said Hermione, nervously rereading the splotched page of Moste Potente Potions. "It looks like the book says it should ... once we've drunk it, we'll have exactly an hour before we change back into ourselves."
"Now what?" Ron whispered.
"We separate it into three glasses and add the hairs."
Tess looked at the hair she was clutching with her fingers and then at the dark murky potion. "I'm probably gonna need therapy after this."
Hermione ladled large dollops of the potion into each of the glasses. Then, her hand trembling, she shook Millicent Bulstrode's hair out of its bottle into the first glass.
The potion hissed loudly like a boiling kettle and frothed madly. A second later, it had turned a sick sort of yellow.
"Urgh - essence of Millicent Bulstrode," said Ron, eyeing it with loathing. "Bet it tastes disgusting."
"Add yours, then," said Hermione.
Harry dropped Goyle's hair into the middle glass and Ron put Crabbe's into the last one. Both glasses hissed and frothed: Goyle's turned the khaki color of a booger, Crabbe's a dark, murky brown. Tess dropped hers in and it turned into the color of mud brown and smelled like rotten eggs.
"Hang on," said Harry as Ron, Tess, and Hermione reached for their glasses. "We'd better not all drink them in here ... Once we turn into Crabbe and Goyle we won't fit. And Millicent Bulstrode's no pixie.
"Good thinking," said Ron, unlocking the door. "We'll take separate stalls."
Careful not to spill a drop of his Polyjuice Potion, Harry slipped into the middle stall.
"Ready?" he called.
"Ready," came Ron, Tess' and Hermione's voices.
"One - two - three -"
Pinching her nose, Tess drank the potion down in two large gulps. For her, if vomit had a cousin, it would be this.
Immediately, her insides started writhing as though she'd just swallowed live snakes - doubled up, she knew she was probably going to be sick - then a burning sensation spread rapidly from her stomach to the top of her head, then the very end of her fingers and toes - next, bringing her grunting, while holding onto the stall walls for support, came a horrible melting feeling, as the skin all over her body bubbled like hot wax - and in a split second, her nose started to grow longer, her blond hair became short, flat and dull brown and her face seized up. As suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. Tess was still clinging onto the borders of the stall as the pain eased.
"Oh." said Myrtle circling around her. "Changing your appearance? Now you know how I feel!"
"Go shove your head down a toilet." Tess mumbled.
"Are you three okay?" Goyle's low rasp of a voice issued from a stall.
"Yeah," came the deep grunt of Crabbe from another.
Tess opened her door and saw not her friends but her "fellow" Slytherins. They stared at each other. Except that he looked pale and shocked, Ron was indistinguishable from Crabbe, from the pudding-bowl haircut to the long, gorilla arms. If it wasn't for the fact that "Goyle" was wearing Harry's glasses, Tess might have forgotten that it was Harry, literally wearing Goyle's face.
"This is unbelievable," said Ron, approaching the mirror and prodding Crabbe's flat nose. "Unbelievable. "
"We'd better get going," said Harry, loosening the watch that was cutting into Goyle's thick wrist. "We've still got to find out where the Slytherin common room is. I only hope we can find someone to follow. . ."
"First things first." said Tess, removing Harry's glasses. "There. All good."
Ron, who had been gazing at Harry, said, "You don't know how bizarre it is to see Goyle thinking." He banged on Hermione's door. "C'mon, we need to go -"
A high-pitched voice answered him.
"I - I don't think I'm going to come after all. You go on without me."
"Hermione, we know Millicent Bullstrode's ugly, no one's going to know it's you -"
"No - really - I don't think I'll come. You three hurry up, you're wasting time."
Harry looked at Ron, bewildered.
"That looks more like Goyle," said Ron. "That's how he looks every time a teacher asks him a question."
"Hermione, you okay?" asked Tess through the door.
"Fine - I'm fine - go on -"
Harry looked at his watch. Five of their precious sixty minutes had already passed. "We'll meet you back here, all right?" he said.
Harry, Tess, and Ron opened the door of the bathroom carefully, checked that the coast was clear, and set off.
"Don't swing your arms like that," Harry muttered to Ron.
"Eh?"
"Crabbe holds them sort of stiff . . . ."
"How's this?"
"Yeah, that's better . . . . Remember this guys, we only have 55 minutes left, so we get in, get the info, and get out." They went down the marble staircase. All they needed now was a Slytherin that they could follow to the Slytherin common room, but there was nobody around.
"Any ideas?" muttered Harry.
"The Slytherins always come up to breakfast from over there," said Ron, nodding at the entrance to the dungeons. The words had barely left his mouth when a girl with long, curly hair emerged from the entrance.
"Excuse me," said Ron, hurrying up to her. "We've forgotten the way to our common room."
"I beg your pardon?" said the girl stiffly. "Our common room? I'm a Ravenclaw."
She walked away, looking suspiciously back at them.
Tess looked at them like they were stupid, as she, Harry, and Ron hurried down the stone steps into the darkness, their footsteps echoing particularly loudly as Crabbe's and Goyle's huge feet hit the floor, feeling that this wasn't going to be as easy as they had hoped. For Tess, it was a good thing Pansy always minded her weight.
The labyrinthine passages were deserted. They walked deeper and deeper under the school, constantly checking their watches to see how much time they had left. After a quarter of an hour, just when they were getting desperate, they heard a sudden movement ahead.
"Ha!" said Ron excitedly. "There's one of them now!"
The figure was emerging from a side room. As they hurried nearer, however, their hearts sank. It wasn't a Slytherin, it was Percy.
"Watch and see how it's done boys." Tess whispered before asking in a surprisingly good British accent, "What're you doing down here, Prissy?"
Percy looked affronted.
"That," he said stiffly, "is none of your business. It's Pansy, isn't it?"
"Yes" said 'Pansy'.
"Well, get off to your dormitories," said Percy sternly. "It's not safe to go wandering around dark corridors these days."
"You are," Ron pointed out.
"I," said Percy, drawing himself up, "am a prefect. Nothing's about to attack me."
A voice suddenly echoed behind Tess Harry and Ron. Draco Malfoy was strolling toward them, and for the first time in his life, Harry was pleased to see him.
"There you are," he drawled, looking at them. "Have you two been pigging out in the Great Hall all this time? I've been looking for you; I want to show you something really funny."
'Ok, I'm definitely gonna need therapy after this.' Tess thought to herself before launching her performance. "Oh Drakey Poo!" Tess cried out in fake but convincing affection, as Pansy was known for having a large crush on Malfoy. "How have you been?"
"Evening to you Pansy." He said trying not to be repulsed.
Malfoy glanced witheringly at Percy.
"And what're you doing down here, Weasley?" he sneered.
Percy looked outraged.
"You want to show a bit more respect to a school prefect!" he said. "I don't like your attitude!"
Malfoy sneered and motioned for Harry and Ron to follow him, with 'Pansy' holding onto his arm. Harry almost said something apologetic to Percy but caught himself just in time. He and Ron hurried after Malfoy, who said as they turned into the next passage, "That Peter Weasley -"
"Percy," Ron corrected him automatically.
"Whatever," said Malfoy. "I've noticed him sneaking around a lot lately. And I bet I know what he's up to. He thinks he's going to catch Slytherin's heir single-handed."
"What an bloody egotist." 'Pansy' muttered.
He gave a short, derisive laugh. Harry and Ron exchanged excited looks.
Malfoy paused by a stretch of bare, damp stone wall.
"What's the new password again?" he said to Harry.
"Er -" said Harry.
"Oh, yeah -pure-blood!" said Malfoy, not listening, and a stone door concealed in the wall slid open. Malfoy marched through it, and Tess and Harry and Ron followed him.
The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. A fire was crackling under an elaborately carved mantelpiece ahead of them, and several Slytherins were silhouetted around it in high-backed chairs.
"Wait here," said Malfoy to Tess, Harry and Ron, motioning them to a pair of empty chairs set back from the fire. "I'll go and get it my father's just sent it to me -"
Wondering what Malfoy was going to show them, Harry and Ron sat down, doing their best to look at home. Tess, however was a natural, sitting in the chair and checking her reflection.
Malfoy came back a minute later, holding what looked like a newspaper clipping. He thrust it under Ron's nose.
"That'll give you a laugh," he said.
Harry saw Ron's eyes widen in shock. He read the clipping quickly, gave a very forced laugh, and handed it to Harry.
It had been clipped out of the Daily Prophet, and it said:
INQUIRY AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, was today fined fifty Galleons for bewitching a Muggle car. Mr. Lucius Malfoy, a governor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the enchanted car crashed earlier this year, called today for Mr. Weasley's resignation.
"Weasley has brought the Ministry into disrepute," Mr. Malfoy told our reporter. "He is clearly unfit to draw up our laws and his ridiculous Muggle Protection Act should be scrapped immediately."
Mr. Weasley was unavailable for comment, although his wife told reporters to clear off or she'd set the family ghoul on them.
"Well?" said Malfoy impatiently as Harry handed the clipping back to him. "Don't you think it's funny?"
"Ha, ha," said Harry bleakly.
"I admire your sense of humor Drake." Tess said giving her best smile. "Your mother would be so pleased."
"Arthur Weasley loves Muggles so much he should snap his wand in half and go and join them," said Malfoy scornfully. "You'd never know the Weasleys were pure-bloods, the way they behave."
Ron's - or rather, Crabbe's - face was contorted with fury.
"What's up with you, Crabbe?" snapped Malfoy.
"Stomachache," Ron grunted seeing Tess' raised eyebrow.
"Well, go up to the hospital wing and give all those Mudbloods a kick from me," said Malfoy, snickering.
"You know, I'm surprised the Daily Prophet hasn't reported all these attacks yet," said Tess thoughtfully, twirling her flat hair. "I suppose Dumbledore's trying to hush it all up. He'll be sacked if it doesn't stop soon.
"Well Pansy, Father's always said old Dumbledore's the worst thing that's ever happened to this place. He loves Muggle-borns. A decent headmaster would never've let slime like that Creevey in." Draco said proudly.
"I agree." said Tess. "That Colin kid hasn't even passed his final exams and he's making me wish I performed a curse on him, but I can't possibly risk looking bad in this school."
Malfoy started taking pictures with an imaginary camera and did a cruel but accurate impression of Colin: "`Potter, can I have your picture, Potter? Can I have your autograph? Can I lick your shoes, please, Potter?"'
He dropped his hands and looked at Harry and Ron. Tess was pretending to be struggling to breathe in her laughter.
"What's the matter with you two?"
Far too late, Harry and Ron forced themselves to laugh, but Malfoy seemed satisfied; perhaps Crabbe and Goyle were always slow on the uptake.
"Saint Potter, the Mudbloods' friend," said Malfoy slowly. "He's another one with no proper wizard feeling, or he wouldn't go around with that jumped up Granger Mudblood."
" And people think he's Slytherin's heir!" Tess barked. "He doesn't even have the stomach to hurt a fly!"
Harry and Ron waited with bated breath: Malfoy was surely seconds away from telling them it was him - but then
"I wish I knew who it is," said Malfoy petulantly. "I could help them."
Ron's jaw dropped so that Crabbe looked even more clueless than usual. Fortunately, Malfoy didn't notice, and Harry, thinking fast, said, "You must have some idea who's behind it all ...
"You know I haven't, Goyle, how many times do I have to tell you?" snapped Malfoy. "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. 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," he said with relish.
Ron was clenching Crabbe's gigantic fists. Feeling that it would be a bit of a giveaway if Ron punched Malfoy, Tess shot him a warning look and said, "D'you know if the person who opened the Chamber last time was caught?"
"Oh, yeah ... whoever it was was expelled," said Malfoy. "They're probably still in Azkaban."
"Azkaban?" said Harry, puzzled.
"Azkaban - the wizard prison, Goyle," said Malfoy, looking at him in disbelief "Honestly, if you were any slower, you'd be going backward."
He shifted restlessly in his chair and said, "Father says to keep my head down and let the Heir of Slytherin get on with it. 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?"
Harry tried to force Goyle's dull face into a look of concern. "How awful! Tess cried out. "No sense of decency, there."
"Yeah. . ." said Malfoy. "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 -"
"Ho!" said Ron.
Malfoy looked at him. So did Harry. Ron blushed. Even his hair was turning red. His nose was also slowly lengthening - their hour was up, Ron was turning back into himself, and from the look of horror he was suddenly giving Harry, he must be, too. Tess eyes were slowly turning from beady brown to bright purple.
They all jumped to their feet.
"Medicine for my stomach," Ron grunted, and without further ado they sprinted the length of the Slytherin common room, hurled themselves at the stone wall, and dashed up the passage, hoping against hope that Malfoy hadn't noticed anything. Harry could feel his feet slipping around in Goyle's huge shoes and had to hoist up his robes as he shrank; they crashed up the steps into the dark entrance hall, which was full of a muffled pounding coming from the closet where they'd locked Crabbe and Goyle. Leaving their shoes outside the closet door, they sprinted in their socks up the marble staircase toward Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
"Well, it wasn't a complete waste of time," Ron panted, closing the bathroom door behind them. "I know we still haven't found out who's doing the attacks, but I'm going to write to Dad tomorrow and tell him to check under the Malfoys' drawing room."
"Yeah, there's the headline." Tess retorted sarcastically.
Harry checked his face in the cracked mirror. He was back to normal. He put his glasses on as Ron hammered on the door of Hermione's stall.
"Hermione, come out, we've got loads to tell you -"
"Go away!" Hermione squeaked.
Harry, Tess, and Ron looked at each other.
"What's the matter?" said Ron. "You must be back to normal by now, we are
But Moaning Myrtle glided suddenly through the stall door. Harry had never seen her looking so happy.
"Ooooooh, wait till you see," she said. "It's awful."
They heard the lock slide back and Hermione opened the door so it was ajar. "Hermione?" Harry asked. "Are you ok?"
"What's up?" said Ron uncertainly. "Have you still got Millicent's nose or something?"
"Um, Hermione?" Tess asked with concern. "What exactly did you put in the potion?"
"D-do you remember me telling you?" Hermione weeped out. "That the potion was made for human transformations?" She came out into the light showing what happened to face was covered in black fur. Her eyes had turned yellow and there were long, pointed ears poking through her hair.
"Oh Dear God." Tess could only say.
"It was a c-cat hair!" she howled. "M-Millicent Bulstrode m-must have a cat! And the p-potion isn't supposed to be used for animal transformations!"
"You'll be teased something dreadful," said Myrtle happily.
"It's okay, Hermione," said Harry quickly. "We'll take you up to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey never asks too many questions ..."