Chapter 7: Salazar Slytherin

In the days after the attack on Mrs. Norris, it seemed that the school could talk of nothing else. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by lurking in the corridor where it happened, as if hoping to catch the attacker red-handed. If he wasn't doing that, he was skulking red-eyed through the castle, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like "breathing loudly" and "looking happy."

The atmosphere in the Slytherin common room, meanwhile, was positively electric. Students traded rumors and stories like currency, but grew more and more frustrated as it became obvious that nobody really knew anything beyond a few whispered rumors among their parents and grandparents. Draco, for his part, had carried around a vague sense of dread since the attack, and couldn't seem to shake it. He could suddenly vividly recall a story his father had told him when he was small about a secret chamber hidden in the castle, which the one true Heir of Salazar Slyterin would be able to use to rid the school of Muggle-born students. According to his father, the Chamber had been opened before, fifty years ago. In the end, a girl had died, the culprit was caught, and the whole thing had been aggressively hushed up. He'd let slip to Blaise that his father had told him the Chamber was real, and now fervently wished he hadn't; Blaise was spending his every waking moment pestering Draco to write to his father with questions.

Theo had lent Olive to Ginny Weasley-when asked why, he simply shrugged and said she was upset by the attack. Privately, this amused Draco. According to Hermione, Ginny had all but stopped mentioning famous Harry Potter since she met Theo on the train.

Hermione, for her part, was devouring books at nearly twice her normal speed, and seemed increasingly out of sorts as the days went by. Asking what she was up to elicited nothing more than a brusque nothing, Draco, so he'd simply shrugged and let her get on with what he could only assume was a quest to read the whole library before Christmas.

The Wednesday following the attack, however, proved this assumption very wrong. Draco and Hermione were in the library finishing an exceedingly dull essay for Professor Binns on The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards. Hermione seemed uncharacteristically rushed, and they'd scarcely been at it a half-hour before she laid down her quill, measured her composition, sighed, and abruptly stood. Draco looked up, startled.

"Where are you going?" he asked. To his annoyance, she simply gave him a vague wave and took off briskly toward the shelves behind them. He watched her go, wondering for the hundredth time that week what she could possibly be doing that she refused to tell him about, then shook his head and returned to his essay. Twenty minutes later he'd finished, and was measuring his essay-an inch and a half over the requisite three feet-when Hermione returned, empty-handed and looking very severe.

"All the copies of Hogwarts: A History have been taken out," she announced, throwing herself back into her chair. Draco stared, waiting for her to explain the connection between this fact and the look on her face.

"Well, don't look at me," he said finally, when she offered no such explanation. "I haven't stashed them anywhere." Hermione gave an exasperated sigh.

"I wish I hadn't left my copy at home, but it wouldn't fit in my trunk with all the Lockhart books," she went on, as if Draco hadn't spoken.

"Why do you want it?" asked Draco, frowning slightly.

"To read up on the legend of the Chamber of Secrets, of course," she said, as though this were perfectly obvious. Draco's heart skipped a beat, then dropped like a stone. He'd been so stupid. Of course Hermione had been reading voraciously since the attack on Mrs. Norris-how could he not have made the connection?

"And once you've read up on the legend of the Chamber of Secrets," he began slowly, setting aside his homework, "you're going to do what, exactly?" Hermione shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"Well-I mean, if there's a way to prove who's behind the attack-"

"That's what I thought," Draco interrupted sharply. His feeling of dread morphed slowly into thick, acrid fear which crept up his throat and threatened to choke him. "But Hermione...I know I said this last year, but you can't go poking around looking for whoever opened the Chamber, you really can't this time." She frowned intently at him, evidently thinking very hard about something.

"Why did you say 'whoever opened the Chamber?'" she asked, after a moment. Draco froze.

"What?"

"Whoever opened the Chamber, you said," Hermione repeated. "But we don't really know there's a Chamber at all, do we? It's just a legend." She was still staring steadfastly at him, a hard glint in her eye that made his pulse quicken and sent a shiver down his spine. Knowing it was a mistake but powerless to do anything else, he averted his eyes.

"Draco, if you know something, you've got to tell me," Hermione insisted.

"I don't know anything," snapped Draco. "I just can't believe you're even considering this after what happened last year, that's all." This came out far harsher than he'd intended, but it was that or allow panic to seep into his voice, which wouldn't do.

"Considering what?" Hermione demanded, sounding indignant now. "I can read whatever I like, thank you very much."

"Except we both know you're only reading up on the Chamber because you're thinking of trying to catch the attacker yourself, as if there aren't loads of teachers whose job it is to-"

"For heaven's sake, Draco, I didn't say anything about catching the attacker, you did!"

"Oh, tell me you don't think I'm that stupid," Draco retorted at once. Hermione gave him a deep, probing look.

"You know I don't think you're stupid," she said, her voice now deadly calm. "But I'm beginning to think you know something you're not telling me, and I'm going to ask you once more what it is."

"I already told you, there's nothing," Draco insisted. He still couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes, but even so he could tell she was considering smacking him out of exasperation.

"Draco-" she began, but was interrupted as the bell rang overhead. Relieved beyond belief, Draco snatched up his things and stood. A few paces away from the table, however, he turned.

"How long is your essay?" he demanded. Hermione looked startled.

"Four feet, seven inches," she said quietly. Draco had always teased Hermione for her tendency to do far more than her homework actually required, but today it made him inexplicably furious.

"Typical," he snapped. "You've always got to go around doing more than anyone actually asked you to." The moment the words left his mouth, he would've done anything to take them back. Instead, he turned on his heel before he could see her reaction and stormed out of the library as an excruciating mix of guilt and terror filled his stomach and rose threateningly into his throat. He spent that afternoon's lessons trying very hard not to vomit.

Hermione made her way out of the library, so dazed that she walked the wrong direction for nearly ten minutes and had to turn and sprint to History of Magic upon realizing she had nearly reached the Astronomy Tower. By the time she got to the classroom, Professor Binns was already wheezing on about the Warlock Convention of 1289, and her classmates had sunk so far into their usual stupor that they scarcely looked up when she slipped as silently as possible through the door. Even so, to Hermione the faint click of the door sounded like a gunshot and her own footsteps seemed to come from a giant. She had never in her life been late to a lesson, and she felt a fresh wave of annoyance with Draco. This was his fault.

"Where the hell have you been?" hissed Ron as she took her seat next to Harry. She simply shook her head once and determinedly faced the front of the room. Ron shrugged and returned to gazing absentmindedly out the window. Hermione spent the next ten minutes in a truly Herculean effort to pay attention to Professor Binns, but try as she might, her mind was reeling and she couldn't seem to pick out any individual words in his wheezy drone.

Draco had never snapped at her quite like that before, and she knew perfectly well it had nothing to do with the length of her History of Magic Essay. He was hiding something, and whatever it was had him well and truly panicked.

Whoever opened the Chamber...Her rational mind knew this could just as likely be a simple slip of the tongue as anything else. Awfully interesting slip of the tongue, though, and he'd looked as if she'd slapped him when she pointed it out.

As Professor Binns began to enumerate the achievements of the delegation of Sardinian sorcerers in attendance at the Warlock Convention, something else tugged at the back of Hermione's mind. Draco very often teased her, but he didn't often express genuine frustration with her-unless, she realized, he was concerned for her safety and would sooner swallow poison than admit it. So he did know something, and whatever it was, he was terrified of what would happen when she found out.

Whoever opened the Chamber. Suddenly, Hermione felt quite stupid. She'd been looking for Hogwarts: A History in the library, but here she was in a History of Magic lesson, with a teacher rumored to have inhabited the castle since the beginning of time. Making a split-second decision, she put up her hand. Professor Binns froze and nearly fell out of the air.

"Miss...er…?"

"Granger, Professor," she said clearly. "I was wondering whether you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets."

At once, the desolate wasteland of a classroom came alive around her. Harry and Ron jerked awake and frowned at her, then at one another. Lavender Brown's head came up off her arms, and Neville gave a start as though someone had poured freezing water down his back. Professor Binns looked distinctly wrong-footed.

"My subject is history, Miss Greenwood. I deal with facts, not myths and legends."

The energy in the room wilted a bit, but Hermione wouldn't allow herself to be deterred so easily.

"Please, Sir, don't legends usually have basis in fact?" Professor Binns was peering at her then in such a way that made her quite certain she was the first student, alive or dead, to have asked a question in his class.

"Well-I mean to say-yes, one could argue that, I suppose," he stammered. "However, the legend of which you speak is a very sensational, even ludicrous tale…"

But it was no use. The whole class was awake and hanging raptly on his every word now. Hermione felt a pang of pity for the old professor; she could tell he was completely thrown by such an unusual display of interest.

"Very well," he wheezed finally. "Let me see...the Chamber of Secrets. You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago-the precise date is uncertain-by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school Houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution." He paused, gave a dry cough, and continued.

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

He paused again, this time pursing his lips in obvious disapproval.

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

There was silence as he finished telling the story, but it wasn't the sleepy silence that normally pervaded Professor Binns' classes. It was electric, crystalized, filled with unease and the desperate desire to know more. Professor Binns looked very irritable indeed.

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

There was a long and very tense pause. Undaunted, Hermione put up her hand once more. Professor Binns blinked.

"Miss Grant?"

"Sir-what exactly do you mean by the 'horror within' the Chamber?"

"It is believed to be the home of a sort of monster, which the Heir of Slytherin alone can control," wheezed Professor Binns. "I tell you, the thing does not exist. There is no Chamber and no monster."

"But Sir," said Seamus Finnegan from the back of the class, "if the Chamber can only be opened by Slytherin's true heir, no one else would be able to find it, would they?"

"Nonsense, O'Flaherty," snapped Professor Binns. "If a long succession of Hogwarts Headmasters and Headmistresses haven't found the thing-"

"But Sir," interjected Parvati Patil, "you'd probably have to use Dark Magic to open it-"

"Just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic doesn't mean he can't, Miss Pennyfeather," said Professor Binns sharply. "I repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore-"

"But maybe you've got to be related to Slytherin, so Dumbledore couldn't-" began Dean Thomas, but Professor Binns had had enough.

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

Within two minutes the class had sunk back into their usual sleepy haze, but Hermione remained quite alert. It wasn't hard to imagine Draco was already familiar with this legend; given what she knew of his family, he'd probably grown up with it as a bedtime story. Suddenly, her mind flashed back to her first year and she could hear Theo's voice clearly in her head: there's some wizards who think those who come from all-wizard families are better than those who don't. Pure-Blood, they're called. Suddenly, it all made a twisted kind of sense. Salazar Slytherin had started all of this Pure-Blood nonsense. Of course, it was quite a leap to assume the legend itself was true. No, the attack on Mrs. Norris seemed, to Hermione, more like someone who shared Slytherin's ideals capitalizing on the myth to stir up fear and confusion. Except, of course, that whoever was behind it had managed to Petrify a cat. No wonder Draco was so afraid.

That evening found Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the Gryffindor common room attempting to finish their Charms homework, but all very distracted. Ron seemed grumpy, which was quite usual when homework was involved. Harry, on the other hand, had been uncharacteristically quiet all afternoon, and Hermione had the impression something Professor Binns had said was bothering him. Hermione, for her part, was trying to think of a nonchalant way to ask Ron what he thought of the whole thing. Ron, like Draco, had grown up in an all-wizard family; perhaps he might be more inclined to tell her what he knew.

"Do you think there's really a Chamber of Secrets?" she asked finally, closing her book. Frowning slightly, Ron followed suit.

"I dunno," he said slowly. "It rings a sort of bell...I think someone told me a story once about a secret chamber at Hogwarts. Might've been Bill." Hermione waited for him to elaborate, but he simply continued to frown in thought.

"Er-what was the story?" she prompted, after a moment.

"I don't really remember," Ron admitted with a sigh. "What d'you think? D'you reckon what Binns said is true?"

"I don't know," said Hermione slowly, biting her lip. "Dumbledore couldn't cure Mrs. Norris, could he? Which makes me think whatever attacked her...well, it might not be human." She paused. "Who could it be, though? Who'd want to frighten all the Muggle-Borns out of Hogwarts?" To her extreme annoyance, Ron rolled his eyes at Harry, who frowned slightly and then shrugged.

"Don't tell me you think it's Draco," she said coldly.

"You said it, we didn't," said Ron, smirking slightly. Hermione scoffed.

"And that's based on what, exactly?"

"Look at his family, Hermione," sighed Harry, setting aside his homework. "The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin, everyone knows that. They could easily be Slytherin's descendents."

"His father's definitely evil enough," added Ron, with a shudder.

"Honestly, you two, just because you don't like someone doesn't mean they're evil," Hermione interjected.

"It's not because we don't like him, it's because he's a slimy git," Ron retorted.

"Hermione's right, though, we haven't got any proof," grumbled Harry. Ron, however, brightened.

"That's it!" he exclaimed. "I know a way to prove it's him!" Hermione was visited by the strong urge to seize their heads and bang them together.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Ron-"

"All we'd need to do," Ron went on, speaking more loudly now to drown out Hermione, "would be to ask Malfoy a few questions without him realizing it's us."

"But that's impossible," said Harry, frowning slightly. Hermione, however, understood and stifled a gasp.

"You don't mean-not Polyjuice Potion?" Ron's jaw dropped.

"How d'you know about Polyjuice Potion?" he demanded. "Seriously, how is it she knows everything?" he added, rounding on Harry.

"Oh, Ron, Snape mentioned it in Potions class the other day," groaned Hermione. Ron gave a disgruntled sigh.

"Leave it to you to pay attention to Snape in Potions," he grumbled.

"I hate to interrupt," interjected Harry impatiently, "but what exactly is Polyjuice Potion?"

"It transforms you into somebody else," explained Ron. "We could turn into three Slytherins, and he'd never know the difference." Harry looked incredulous.

"That's brilliant!" he exclaimed. "We could turn ourselves into Crabbe and Goyle, I bet he'd tell us anything!" Unable to help herself, Hermione rolled her eyes.

"No, he wouldn't," she said scornfully. Harry's and Ron's heads snapped toward her in unison.

"What d'you mean?" demanded Ron, looking scandalized. Hermione sighed.

"I mean, Crabbe and Goyle aren't Draco's real friends. You'd be wasting your time, turning into them. And besides," she added, raising her voice slightly as Harry and Ron opened their mouths to interject, "I think this is a really terrible idea."

"Oh, come on, Hermione," groaned Harry.

"This is serious," said Ron vehemently.

"I know it is," snapped Hermione. "Which is why I don't think it's a good idea for you to be going around brewing Polyjuice Potion when you haven't even bothered to find out who you should actually impersonate if you want Draco to tell you anything. You're bound to get caught right away, and after the way you two flew that car to school this year, you'll be expelled." There was a moment of stunned silence, during which Harry and Ron looked at her as if she'd threatened to eat them alive. Truthfully, Hermione rather enjoyed it.

"Fine," said Ron at length, sounding slightly subdued. "You're his friend for some reason, you find out what sort of shady stuff his old dad's been teaching him to attack Muggle-borns, then."

"No," said Hermione firmly. "I'm not going to have any part in this."

"Why not?" Harry demanded. "Hermione, if he's the one behind the attacks-"

"Then I'll do whatever it takes to stop him," Hermione interjected impatiently. "But right now, we've got no evidence it's him."

"No evidence it's not, either," muttered Ron.

"That's enough," said Hermione sharply. "You don't have to like Draco, but he's my friend, and I'm not sneaking around behind his back on the off chance he's up to something I've got no proof he's done. And if I find out the two of you are going ahead with this plan, I'm going to tell him about it." Harry and Ron opened their mouths at the same time, looking furious, but quickly looked at one another and fell begrudgingly silent. To Hermione's enormous relief, Ron tore open his Charms book and resumed working on his essay. A moment later Harry followed suit, and she could tell they had both reached the same conclusion: with their dismal Potions skills, they would be hard-pressed to put this plan into action without her.