Chapter 9: The Mystery Potion
The relief Harry felt Sunday evening when he spotted Amelia Bones accompanied by another witch and wizard was indescribable. He glanced over at the Hufflepuff table to see if Susan had noticed and it occurred to him that he probably should have mentioned it to her. Susan followed her Aunts progress across the hall with her eyes while talking to her friend Hannah, she seemed unsurprised by the official looking visit.
Amelia strode with purpose straight towards Dumbledore's table, she'd shaken of Filch's unnecessary escort and looked very much like the Director of the DMLE in a way that Harry hadn't seen before.
"She looks mad," Ron observed as Dumbledore rose to greet her trying to mask his surprise.
"I wish we could hear what they're saying" said Harry focusing intently on them trying to read their lips.
"They wouldn't say anything important anywhere they could be overheard. They're far too professional for that." replied Hermione despite being equally focused on them.
"The DMLE might be, but Dumbledore can be unpredictable, who knows what he'd think is appropriate for anyone to hear." Harry reasoned. They watched as Dumbledore tried to encourage their guests to sit down to eat, something the Director apparently had no interest in doing. After a few moments further conversation Amelia Bones turned on her heal, red robes billowing and headed back out the way she came, her blue cloaked companions in her wake. They were amused to see Dumbledore's momentary panic as he dashed from behind the teacher's table, knocking over a goblet of juice as he frantically scurried to catch up with the Head of Magical Law Enforcement.
"Well, this looks like it's is going to be interesting," the three Gryffindors jumped as Susan spoke from right behind them. "My Aunt will probably want to talk to you," she told them all.
"Susan," Harry stood up in greeting, "You know why Amelia's here? I was just about to come and talk to you."
"Well it's bound to be about the Chamber of Secrets isn't it? I originally thought it would have been officially reported by Dumbledore, but seeing what just happened I'm glad I told her about it all in my last letter." She looked pensive.
"You wrote to her!" Harry said in surprise.
"Why wouldn't she?" Hannah defended her friend.
"No, of course you would that makes sense." Harry carelessly gestured for them to join them at their table; Hermione scooted along to make more room.
Hannah and Susan looked at each other for a moment before shrugging and sitting down to curious glances from several Gryffindors.
"I sent Hedwig to your Aunt as well," Harry confessed rubbing the back of his neck. "I wasn't convinced the teachers were taking it seriously enough."
Ron snorted as he reached across them for some more juice, "Right, Dumbledore said it was school antics." Ron was not impressed with Dumbledore at the moment.
"We should have realised you would have written to her." Hermione added.
"I told my Gran about it," chimed in Neville from across the table.
"You did?" Harry was surprised.
"It's a big deal, how could I not mention it. Imagine if she found out from someone else." He paled slightly at the idea.
Harry thought for a moment looking up and down the table. "Seamus" he called across to his dorm mate, "have you told your family about the Chamber of Secrets?"
Seamus looked at him a bit bemused, " 'course I did, I was hardly going to leave that bit out, it's the most interesting thing that's happened for weeks."
Seeing he'd managed to draw quite a few of the Gryffidors' attention his way he asked around and found almost all of them who had written home recently had mentioned the Chamber incident.
"Colin?" The young boy jumped in response turning wide eyed towards Harry. "Have you written to your family about it?"
He looked at Harry and froze eyes wide, mouth slack. "uh, I uh, n.. no?"
Harry smiled gently at him trying to put him at ease. "It's OK Colin, I'm just curious. I thought you might have taken a photo, I know you like to tell them as much as possible."
If at all possible the first year seemed even more terrified. "No, it.. it.. didn't seem right." He glanced sideways before grabbing his bag and scarpering from the table.
"That's a really weird kid" Ron observed.
"How could Dumbledore think the incident wouldn't get back to the DMLE?" Harry pondered out loud.
"Was he really planning on doing nothing!?" Susan sounded appalled.
"Not nothing," Hermione defended him, "He was obviously going to investigate, he just didn't seem to want to bring in outside investigators or Aurors as they might cause a panic."
Ron's face clearly showed his feelings on the matter.
They spent a good while discussing the possible motives of Dumbledore's secrecy but eventually went their own ways to prepare for the next morning's lessons and enjoy their last few hours of the weekend.
Monday morning arrived and brought with it double Potions with Slytherin. The dungeon classroom was chilly as autumn was fully upon them in their little slice of Scotland and their breath hung misty in the air in front of them. Snape had wordlessly stalked into the classroom and stood in front of them all dark eyes sweeping from one student to the next. His gaze stopped briefly as he reached Harry and his lip started to curl in distaste before he continued his scan of the class. There was an air of more than usual unease about the place and Harry found himself holding his breath as he awaited Snape's instructions. Instead the Potions Professor stiffly turned his back and started writing instructions on the board. The students, who were still stood silently behind their desks, began looking around at each other getting raised eyebrows and shrugged shoulders in response.
The list of instructions continued to grow and still Snape had not spoken. Harry turned slightly to see how the Slytherins were taking their silent Head of House and surprisingly they seemed as unsure as the Gryffindors. He caught Daphne Greengrass's eye for a moment and received a single raised eyebrow in response before she turned her head quite deliberately back towards the board. Harry did the same. He could hear fidgeting and shuffling sounds growing more pronounced as the minutes passed by, but taking Daphne's lead he began studying the instructions.
Finally Snape turned to face his students again. "You will make this potion exactly as it is described on the board." His eyes turned cruelly towards Neville, who by this point was a trembling wreck. "At the end of the lesson you will bottle and label a sample." There was an intenseness to Snape's voice today that was truly unsettling, the hairs on Harry's arms stood up with a fear Harry couldn't quite explain. Snape continued to speak in his measured precise tone, "Your homework is to write an essay on what you think the potion is for based only on these instructions. Next lesson you will test your potions and believe me when I tell you you do not want to have made a mistake on either part." Harry could see Snape's jaw clench as he finished speaking and glared at them all. Harry didn't like this, a mystery potion with a mystery purpose and a seemingly furious Snape, there was no way this could end well.
The students stood frozen for several more moments until they heard Snape bark in irritation "Begin." At which point the strange paralysis that had come over them left and the shuffling and clattering of cauldrons and ingredients brought the dungeon back to life. Harry and many others began by copying all the instructions very carefully into their notes, though the potion wasn't one he was familiar with, many of the ingredients and methods were common enough. With Malfoy still keeping a low profile he felt that if he could avoid Snape's notice he would actually be capable of making the potion, whatever it was. He looked over to Hermione and Ron to see how they were getting on, Hermione had already copied the instructions and was chewing the end of her quill as she considered the steps involved while Ron had decided to just jump straight in and already had his cauldron heating up and was chopping up ingredients.
Snape remained stood by his desk for the entire lesson watching from a distance, never uttering a word but managing to make everyone feel very highly scrutinised as they proceeded to work in the strained semi silence. By the end of the lesson they all managed to bottle up samples and placed them on Snape's desk. Even Neville had managed to bottle something with Hermione's help despite the terrible tremors he had.
Harry had never been so relieved to leave a classroom before. The inexplicably oppressive atmosphere had left him tense and more than usually keen for quidditch practice that evening. Hermione and Ron who caught up with him just outside the classroom looked equally as rattled as they headed down the dim corridor.
"That man is a psychopath," said Ron seriously.
"Ronald!" Hermione slapped his arm.
"What," he exclaimed defiantly, "He is!"
"At least wait until we're out of earshot," she hissed at him as she glanced back down the towards the classroom.
"Who would have thought you could get a headache in such a quiet class" Harry rubbed the heel of a hand between his eyes as he squinted at them.
"Are you OK?" Hermione asked in concern, "Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?"
"I'm fine." He replied automatically. Hermione pursed her lips at his standard response but decided not to press the matter.
"It's Defense now," she told them.
Ron groaned melodramatically in response. "Haven't we suffered enough today already."
Lockhart welcomed them all into his classroom in his usual pompous manner. The Gryffindors were all in higher spirits than usual given the potions lesson they had just escaped and spent the first fifteen minutes of the lesson dragging Lockhart of topic by asking him about himself. As a work avoidance tactic it would never have worked in their other classes, but here it worked perfectly. Lockhart's overwhelming ego left him oblivious to the class's manipulations. Dean began proceedings by asking about how he managed to keep his cool when surrounded by vampires, then Lavender wanted to know how he could possibly chase after Ghouls so bravely. He had just been coaxed in to re-enacting how he'd cornered the Banshee with Neville playing the part of a Banshee when there was a brisk knock on the door and the Director of the DMLE walked in. Lockhart froze in surprise with Neville pressed up against the wall.
"Lockhart" Amelia greeted him with a nod eyes lingering on Neville's squished face.
The flustered DADA professor paled slightly as he released Neville and straightened his robes. "Madam Bones," he returned her greeting as he attempted to casually sweep his hair back into place. "To what do we owe this… ah… pleasure?" He leant awkwardly against his desk and rubbed a sweaty palm against his cape. Harry couldn't help but notice that although he had turned to face their visitor he seemed to be avoiding making eye contact.
"May I borrow Mr Potter for a few minutes." she asked politely.
"Of course," He acquiesced immediately, taking the opportunity to turn his attention back to the students.
"Only if it's convenient of course. I would hate to interrupt anything important." she added lightly. Harry heard several muffled snorts and sniggers around the classroom. Even Hermione seemed to see the humour in the situation.
"No, no. No problem at all. Not a problem. Miss Granger will catch him up I'm sure. Mr Potter if you will." He gestured at Harry.
Harry was more than happy to escape the farce of a lesson. Not that he hadn't enjoyed story time but he would much rather find out what was going on with the DMLE. He quickly left his desk and followed Amelia out of the classroom. She led him to a classroom a few corridors away that was empty apart from her two blue robed colleagues. They turned out to be from the Department of Serious Threat Investigation, as Hermione had suggested.
As soon as introductions were over Harry jumped straight in. "Did you get my letter?" he asked urgently. Despite knowing Susan had written too he knew his letter had information that hers wouldn't.
"Yes Harry, in fact I got several letters to my home which is quite unusual I can tell you." Harry felt slightly guilty that he'd disturbed Amelia's time at home. It must have shown on his face because she quickly added "I truly appreciate that you felt you could write to me of your concerns, which unfortunately seem well founded. Susan wrote to me also and Professor McGonagall, though I must say your letter provided some very interesting insights."
Harry started, "Professor McGonagall wrote to you?" he queried. She nodded. "I mean about the Chamber of Secrets and everything?" He added to make sure. His respect for his Head of House increasing exponentially as he realised she had put the students ahead of the Headmaster's instructions
"Yes Harry, though that's just between us." She patiently confirmed. "Her account had a lot of similarities to your own. So you can imagine how confused I was when I got back to the office to find there had been no official report made by your Headmaster. You're right to think that this is an event that DLME should be investigating. A school full of children is no place for taking unnecessary risks no matter what Dumbledore thinks." She looked particularly disgruntled about Dumbledore's attitude which only improved Harry's opinion of her further.
Harry spent the next 10 minutes going over what he'd told Amelia in his letter with the other two investigators. The bit they were most interested in was of course the voices he'd been hearing. He was strangely comforted by their line of questioning. They didn't think someone was messing with him and more importantly they didn't think he was crazy. In fact they seemed to think the things he'd heard would give them some sort of insight or advantage. They spent the rest of the lesson time traipsing around the castle with Harry pointing out where and when he heard the voice and what he could remember it saying to the best of his ability.
The blue robed investigators didn't go in for casual talk but rather stayed completely on task asking open ended questions and probing follow up queries as they scribbled down notes and took small scraped samples. Harry was fascinated by their work, and though they volunteered nothing themselves he found they would answer questions he put to them. Derek Levitt had worked for the DMLE since he had left school, originally working in the lab and the library trying to untangle and decipher evidence. It was only in the last 5 years he'd moved to a field position and got to apply the same skills outside of the lab. Elizabeth Pym had trained as an Auror but had decided she preferred to prevent crimes occurring rather than catching the bad guys after the fact. He liked them both; they exuded an air of calm competence which was in stark contrast to the lesson he was currently missing. By the end of their interview the majority of Harry's worry about the bloody message had diminished, he was sure the DMLE would deal with it.
Harry returned to the DADA lesson just in time for the final bell then spent lunch time with Ron and Hermione discussing what he had learnt about the investigation. "McGonagall reported it, and Dumbledore doesn't know." He told them excitedly in hushed tones. The flash of emotions across Hermione's face was easy to identify. She was delighted that McGonagall had done what Hermione perceived to be the right thing but that Dumbledore hadn't was just unfathomable to her, he saw her trying to think of something to say.
"I knew she would," Ron said confidently.
"What about the voices?" Hermione shifted the focus.
"They don't know what it's about but they do think it's related, I'm to report to them immediately if I hear it again, no matter where or when. One of them will always be in the main hall outside of lesson times, or I'm to go to McGonagall if it's out of hours." He repeated the instructions for them glancing across at Investigator Levitt stood near the hall entrance.
Hermione nodded in approval. "Whatever you do don't go chasing it again, let the DMLE deal with it," she implored.
The rest of the day passed in the usual fashion and Harry soon found himself out on the Quidditch pitch weaving in and out of the goal posts and accelerating across the field. The whole team were focusing on techniques designed to counter faster brooms. Oliver Wood as captain had taken it upon himself to research known counter measures for such a situation as soon as he knew the Slytherins were on Nimbus 2001s. What it had essentially boiled down to was Fred and George being more important than ever at disrupting the flight path of the opponents. The chasers choosing to pass sooner rather than hold on to the quaffle and Harry simply out-maneuvering Malfoy.
Harry spent a lot of the practice acting as the Slytherins as he had the fastest broom. Fred and George were using Harry as target practice and Harry was running interference with the chasers, forcing the pass to keep the play ahead of him. As usual he found practice more enjoyable than actually playing a match, being a seeker was often a waiting game during a match but here and now he was pushing himself but without pressure, he was flying using all his skills but without a care in the world.
Wood called a timeout to discuss the tactical changes and Harry took the opportunity to bring up a concern he had. "If I was Malfoy, I would shadow me and simply accelerate past me when I go for the snitch," Harry started.
"You can outfly him" Wood stated confidently.
"Not in a straight drag race," Harry explained, "His broom is faster, I can't change that. But, if that is his play, I could distract him, make a few false dives, lead him on a chase with nothing to show for it." Harry looked at Wood for his approval. Wood appeared to ponder Harry's suggestion.
"Alright," Wood agreed glancing at his watch, "We've got fifteen minutes, you guys keep going with your passing drill, Fred defend them, George attack. I'll be your tail Harry," He grinned at him eyes bright, "lose me if you can." And with that they all rose back into the air.
Wood was as good as his word, knees knocking into each other and shoulders clattering as Wood kept on top of Harry. Harry tried a variety of moves designed to distract. He would dart away then come to a sudden stop seeing Wood fly past. He spontaneously dropped himself off his broom until he was just hanging by his fingertips before regaining his seat as wood panicked. He tried suddenly doing a barrel roll on the spot, he tried shooting straight up then suddenly reversing, he tried weaving at pace in and out of the chaser's drill causing Wood to dodge a collision with Angelina. But his favourite move was the dive. A sharp, suicidal dive straight at the ground with Wood following gamely behind. The ground was approaching very quick, the impact would be disasterous if he misjudged it. Wood was still following though Harry knew he would have to bail. Harry tensed his grip and gritted his teeth as he maintained his course staring unblinking at the very solid looking earth coming quickly towards his face. Just a moment longer. He vaguely heard Wood peel away swearing before he too finally tensed his shoulders and used all his strength to direct his broom parallel to the floor with millimeters to spare. His heart was pumping adrenalin around his body and he laughed in utter joy. It was almost an exact replica of his dive for Neville's rememberall back in first year only faster and it felt glorious. As the roaring in his ears faded he looked around at the rest of his team who were now hanging in the air watching him in amazement with Fred and George hollering and waving their beaters' bats egging him on. He slowly decelerated to a more reasonable pace as he circuited the pitch and brought his heart rate back down.
Finally Wood caught up with him, "YOU, ARE UTTERLY INSANE!" Wood shook his shoulders in glee. "Do that, all of that, and anything else you can think of." He ranted, "Malfoy doesn't stand a chance!" Harry grinned back at him and still riding the adrenaline high they all headed back to the castle.
