The days that followed reminded Jade of her last few days of the previous year, all anyone was talking about was Harry and Filch's petrified cat hanging below that creepy message on the wall. Filch had been pacing the spot where it happened for days, keeping it fresh in everyone's minds. He was in a terrible mood, students tried to avoid him because he kept handing out detentions for anything he possibly could. Harry and the others hadn't gotten into any trouble but they were keeping to themselves more. She had noticed more students in the library than normal and when she brought it up to Blaise he had told her why. They were all checking out books, trying to find and read about the legend of the Chamber of Secrets.

"And?" She asked,

"Well, I heard from Theo, who heard from Daphne, who heard a group of Gryffindors talking, that Professor Binns told their class all about it."

"And?" Jade pushed again, Blaise leaned towards her and brought his voice to a whisper,

"Hogwarts was founded by four witches and wizards who were the best of their age, that's who the four houses are named after."

"Rowena Ravenclaw, Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin," Jade added, that she knew.

"They built the castle together, for a while they worked together to bring students into the school and teach them magic but then Salazar argued with the others, said he wanted to be more selective when it came to allowing students into the school. When the other houses didn't agree with him, he left the school. Before he left, he supposedly built a hidden chamber somewhere in the castle and he sealed it so that no one but the heir of Slytherin themself could open it. Apparently, there's something evil in the chamber that if released, would get rid of all the students who were unworthy of studying magic."

"Muggleborns." Blaise nodded,

"He went on trying to tell them that the school's been searched numerous times and they never found anything… but if only the heir of Slytherin can open it, don't you think he'd be the only one able to find it?"

"So it's someone in Slytherin," Jade concluded but Blaise disagreed,

"Not necessarily, maybe someone who was supposed to be in Slytherin but was sorted somewhere else." Jade frowned, she didn't like where the conversation was turning,

"Tell me you don't believe what everyone is saying."

"It could be."

"No, it couldn't." Jade insisted, "Harry would never hurt anybody, if you actually had a conversation with him you'd realize he's not capable of something like-"

"Murder?" Blaise asked and Jade rolled her eyes, "But you're right, I haven't talked to him, I don't know what he's like."

"The people at this school will believe anything." Jade huffed as she packed her books into her bag,

"Where are you going?" Blaise asked as she began to rise from her seat,

"Back to the Common Room, I don't want any part in this gossip." She turned before Blaise could object and made her way out of the library.

"Come and look at this!" She heard a voice say from a corridor to Jade's right. She looked around and didn't find anyone who could've been talking to her, "This is funny." Jade slowly approached the corridor and peeked around the corner, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were looking at the message on the wall.

"What's funny about that?" Jade asked and they all jumped as they spun around. "I would think of all people, you'd take it seriously, Granger." Jade didn't know what the message meant, but she certainly didn't take it lightly. Hermione looked from Jade to the message and back,

"No, not that." She stepped back and pointed to the window closest to the message, "That." Jade made her way over to them and looked to where she was pointing, a line of small spiders was scurrying towards a crack in the wall. "Have you ever seen spiders act like that?" Hermione asked, curiously watching the tiny creatures.

"No, have you, Ron?" Harry asked, "Ron?" He asked again, and when he didn't hear a response they all looked over their shoulder to see Ron had taken a few steps back. "What's up?"

"I… don't like-" Ron started tensely, "spiders." He finished and his voice cracked.

"I never knew that," Hermione looked at Ron in surprise, "You've used spiders in Potions loads of times…"

"I don't mind them dead," Ron explained, "If you must know,"

"We didn't ask." Jade interrupted as she continued to watch the spiders disappear into the crack, she looked back at Ron who was giving her an annoyed look,

"When I was three, Fred turned my teddy bear into a big filthy spider because I broke his toy broomstick… you wouldn't like them either if you'd been holding your bear and suddenly it had too many legs and…" Ron shuddered at the memory. Jade looked over to find Hermione trying not to laugh,

"Remember all that water on the floor?" Harry asked after a moment of silence of Hermione trying to calm herself down. "Where did it come from? Someone's mopped it up."

"It was about here." Ron said as he walked towards a door with an OUT OF ORDER sign, "Level with this door." He reached for the doorknob but then pulled his hand back quickly when he saw the sign above it, "Can't go in there, that's a girls' toilet." Jade smiled as Ron turned a light shade of red,

"Oh, Ron, there won't be anyone in there." Hermione sighed as she walked over to him, "That's-"

"Moaning Myrtle's bathroom." Jade finished as she realized which bathroom it was. Hermione opened the door and gestured for them to go inside. The bathroom had a gloomy feeling and everything had a light tint of blue. The large mirror above the chipped sinks was cracked and had dried spots from where water drops used to be.

"Incendio," Jade spoke quietly though her voice echoed through the empty bathroom. The candles on the left wall lit themselves and Hermione lit the rest of them. The doors to the stalls were scratched up and flaking on the top and bottom, one of the doors was dangling from its hinges. Hermione made her way over to that stall and held her finger to her lips,

"Hello, Myrtle. How are you?" The boys jumped as Moaning Myrtle flew out of the stall and glared at them.

"This is a girls' bathroom." She frowned, "They're not girls."

"No," Hermione agreed. "I just wanted to show them how… nice it is… in here." She said as she gestured around the bathroom.

"Ask her if she saw anything." Harry mouthed quietly to Hermione,

"What are you whispering?" Myrtle asked angrily as she flew right in front of Harry.

"Nothing." Harry said quickly, "We wanted to ask-"
"I wish people would stop talking behind my back!" Myrtle said as she choked back tears, "I do have feelings, you know, even if I am dead!"

"Myrtle, no one wants to upset you." Hermione tried to comfort the ghost on the verge of tears. "Harry only-"

"No one wants to upset me! That's a good one!" Myrtle's voice rose as she turned back to Hermione. "My life was nothing but misery at this place and now people come along ruining my death!"

"Myrtle!" Jade barked out, accidentally sounding harsher than she meant to, Myrtle turned again to face her, "Do you remember Halloween night?" Myrtle nodded silently, "Did you see anything odd? There was a cat attacked right outside your bathroom. See anyone?"

"I wasn't paying attention." She answered quietly, "Peeves upset me so much that I came in here and tried to kill myself. Then, of course, I remembered that I'm… I'm…" Myrtle started to whine again.

"Already dead?" Ron asked, trying to be helpful. Myrtle's tears finally burst through in a loud sob, she floated up, turned, and dived back into her toilet. They all tried jumping out of the way from the water that splashed around them. Even though she had just entered the toilet they could hear her sobs coming from the U-bend. Harry and Ron looked around and Hermione sighed and shrugged,

"Honestly, that was almost cheerful for Myrtle. Come on, let's go." They quickly left the bathroom and as the door closed, a voice filled the empty corridor,

"Ron!" They all jumped as they turned to find Ron's older brother, Percy, coming towards them. "That's a girl's bathroom." He gasped, reminding Jade of when Myrtle had said it only moments ago, "What were you-"
"Just having a look around." Ron shrugged, "Clues, you know-" Ron started but stopped as Percy started shooing at them wildly,

"Get away from here! Don't you care what this looks like? Coming back here while everyone's at dinner-" Jade hadn't even realized it was almost dinner time when she found the three of them,

"Why shouldn't we be here?" Ron asked as he glared up at his brother, "Listen, we never laid a finger on that cat!" Ron said annoyed as if he'd said it a hundred times.

"That's what I told Ginny, but she still thinks you're going to be expelled, I've never seen her so upset," Jade hadn't seen their little sister for a few days, she was usually close behind them, "crying her eyes out, you might want to think of her, all the first years are thoroughly over-excited by this business," Percy told them and Jade remembered Gretta crying in the corner.

"You don't care about Ginny!" Ron said, his ears began to redden as his temper grew, "You're just worried I'm going to mess up your chances of being Head Boy-"
"That's shallow," Jade muttered and Hermione gave her a look that meant she agreed.

"Five points from Gryffindor!" Percy blurted out, "And I hope it teaches you a lesson! No more detective work or I'll write to Mum." He threatened and strode off, leaving Ron with his mouth open. They all looked at each other and then slowly started to make their way to the Great Hall in hopes of catching dinner,

"Who could it be though?" Hermione asked, "Who'd want to frighten all the muggle-borns out of Hogwarts?"

"Let's think," Ron started in exaggerated puzzlement as he held a finger to his chin and pretended to think deeply, "Who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are scum?" He looked at Hermione but Hermione looked at Jade,

"If you're talking about Malfoy-" She started carefully, but Ron was still riled up from his recent argument with his brother,

"Of course I am! You heard him, 'You'll be next' and then he almost called you a Mudblood again! You've only got to look at his foul rat face to know it's-"

"Stop it, Ron!" Jade yelled at him and Ron looked taken aback, he'd almost forgotten that Jade was as much as his friend as she was theirs.

"Malfoy, the Heir of Slytherin?" Hermione said skeptically,

"Look at his family," Harry started and Jade turned to him, "The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin." He explained quickly, in fear of having Jade snap at him next, "I'm just saying they could easily be Slytherin's descendants. His father's certainly evil enough." Jade did have an uneasy feeling about Draco's father but there was a very clear difference between the two of them. Harry probably doesn't think so because all Draco does is bully the three of them.

"Well, I suppose it's… possible," Hermione said cautiously.

"No! It's not!" Jade shouted, her voice echoed through the corridors as they approached the Great Hall, "Draco's nothing like his father." She went on in a normal voice, "Just like I've been telling everyone that you're not the Heir, Harry." She said pointedly at him, "I'm just as positive that it's not Draco." She huffed and gave them all an annoyed goodbye as she left them at the entrance of the Great Hall and made her way to the Slytherin table.