Lyla and the rest of her Slytherin friends choose seats as far from the Gryffindor table as they could, not wishing to have a repeat with Percy the Prefect. After a hushed dinner, the group made their way to the dungeons, settling themselves into a remote corner of the Slytherin common room.

"Who could it be?" whispered Daphne, as though continuing a conversation they had just been having. "Who'd want to frighten all the Squibs and Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts?"

"Let's think," said Lyla in mock puzzlement. "Who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are scum?"

She looked at Daphne. Daphne looked back, unconvinced.

"If you're talking about Pansy—"

"Of course I am!" said Lyla heatedly. "You heard her— 'You'll be next, Mudbloods!'— come on, you've only got to look at her foul little pug face to know it's her —"

"Pansy Parkinson, the Heir of Slytherin?" said Daphne skeptically.

"Take a look at her family," said Lyla. "The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin– not that that's a bad thing, but I only mean to say they have a history in this house! "

"If you haven't noticed love, all our families have a history in this house," said Daphne with a small snort of laughter, "doesn't mean we're knee-deep in evil schemes ourselves, does it?"

"Draco!"

Theo turned to Draco suddenly, his eyes lighting up with a new revelation.

"What does that look mean?" responded the pale boy.

"What do you know about her family?" asked the boy eagerly. "I mean, my father was at Hogwarts with hers– wasn't your father as well?"

"I suppose you're right," shrugged Draco, looking pointedly confused. "And what of it, Nott?"

"Well, I was thinking, maybe–"

"They could've had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for centuries!" said Blaise suddenly, eyes glimmering. "Handing it down, parent to child..."

"Well," said Lyla cautiously, "I suppose it's possible… Doesn't sound impossible…"

"But how do we prove all this?" asked Daphne with a wave of her hands. "It's not like we could waltz up and ask "hey Pansy, are you the Heir to Slytherin?" Don't be bonkers, you lot."

"Draco, why don't you ask?" suggested Lyla. "It's not a secret that Pansy likes you. I'm sure she'd fess up the second you asked."

Draco looked down.

"No, I don't think I will," he said slowly.

"What about Crabbe and Goyle?" suggested Blaise. "For a bit, they hung out around you."

Draco shook his head again.

"I don't want– I don't want to be thrown in with that lot," he finally said. "As I told Ron, I'm not my father. I'm not going to pretend I like them just for a dumb rumor."

"Alright," said Lyla quickly, "let's drop this topic for now."

"Yeah, alright," Theo sighed heavily, "I just wish we knew for sure…"

"Who could it be?" asked Arabella, pacing the Gryffindor common room. "Who could the Heir be?"

"Hmm, let's see here" said Ron with mock curiosity. "Who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are absolute rubbish?"

"But Pansy's just a hater, nothing more–"

"You heard her—!"

"Do you know anything about her family?" asked Arabella. She recalled the girl's father and shuddered.

"Just that they're as dark as can be," replied Ron seriously. "Dad's said a few things here and there about the Parkinsons– nasty people with an incredibly nasty history of hating Muggle and Muggle-borns.."

"I wonder…" mused Hermione softly. When her friends turned to look at her, she smiled in a very unusual way. "There might be a way we can do this," she said slowly, dropping her voice still further with a glance across the room. "Of course, it would be extremely difficult. And dangerous, very dangerous, indeed. We'd be breaking about fifty school rules, I expect—"

"If in a month or so, you feel like explaining, you will let us know, won't you?" said Ron irritably.

"Okay," said Hermione coldly. "What we'd need to do is to get inside the Slytherin common room and ask Pansy a few questions without her realizing it's us."

"But that's impossible," Arabella said as Ron laughed. "Haven't we got ourselves away into the common rooms already?"

"No, we will not ask this of them," said Hermione sternly. "It's clear the Pansy only enforces the belief that all Slytherins are bad, so I'd like to keep Lyla and the others out of this as much as we can afford to. All we're going to need for this to be successful would be some Polyjuice Potion."

"Somewhat?" asked Ron and Arabella together.

"Snape mentioned it in class a few weeks ago —"

"D'you think we've got nothing better to do in Potions than listen to Snape?" muttered Ron.

"It transforms you into somebody else," said Hermione with a scowl. "Think about it! We could change into three of the Slytherins. No one would know it was us. Pansy would probably tell us anything. She's probably boasting about it in the Slytherin common room right now, if only we could hear her…"

"This Polyjuice stuff sounds a bit dodgy to me," said Ron after a moment, frowning. "What if we were stuck looking like three of the Slytherins forever?"

"It wears off after a while," reassured Hermione, waving her hand impatiently. "But getting a hold of the recipe will be very difficult. Snape said it was in a book called Moste Potente Potions and it's bound to be in the Restricted Section of the library."

There was only one way to get out a book from the Restricted Section: You needed a signed note of permission from a teacher.

"Hard to see why we'd want the book, really," said Ron, "if we weren't going to try and make one of the potions."

"I think," said Hermione, "that if we made it sound as though we were just interested in the theory, we might stand a chance…"

"Oh, come on, no teacher's going to fall for that," said Ron. "They'd have to be really thick..."

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