The Polyjuice Potion- Take 2!!
Summary: The First Attack
Another talk with Zabini
'Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next Mudbloods!' Malfoy grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat. Filch appeared a moment later and started wailing when he saw his frozen pet. Dumbledore, on cue, pushed past the crowd and ushered Harry, Ron, Hermione and Filch up the stairs to Professor Lockhart's room.
Malfoy could hear all the chatter of the kids behind him. They were whispering things like, 'Did you see who was right there? It was Harry Potter!'
'Potter's the Heir of Slytherin?' That was Pansy Parkinson whispering loudly to Millicent Bulstrode. She, like most other Slytherins, knew what the word 'Heir' was referring to.
('Slytherin? But he's a Griffindor!…' Millicent hissed back).
'Harry Potter killed Filch's cat!'
'Did you see what's written on the wall…?'
'Serve's it right! I never did like Mrs. Norris, or that Filch.'
'What's the Chamber of Secrets?'
'That's impossible! I never would have thought it!'
Malfoy rolled his eyes and made his way through the passages to the Slytherin Common room, Crabbe and Goyle trailing behind him.
Goyle ran up to him. 'Do you think it's true Malfoy, that Harry Potter really is the Heir of Slytherin?' he breathed.
'That's rich—Harry Potter?!' Malfoy guffawed. 'There's no way he could be the Heir of Slytherin. He probably doesn't even know what the Chamber of Secrets is.'
Goyle was quiet for a while. 'Do you think…who is the Heir then?' he asked.
Malfoy sighed exasperatedly. 'Can we talk about this when we get inside?' They were heading deeper and deeper under the school, and it was getting colder.
They finally reached the Slytherin common room entrance. The wall was already open since someone had just gone in, so they stepped through it and entered.
It was getting late, and Crabbe and Goyle were half-asleep. But they didn't want to leave Malfoy by himself unless he told them he wanted to be left alone.
Malfoy could see from their wearied expression that they were tired, although Crabbe and Goyle wore a similar expression when they were wide-awake (so maybe it was just a look of stupidity). In any case, Malfoy got up and yawned. 'I'm going to bed,' he said, and made his way to his room. Crabbe and Goyle breathed a sigh of relief and followed suit.
Later that night, Malfoy came down to the common room, and with a flick of his wand, started the fire up again. Ten minutes later, he heard footsteps behind him. 'You're late,' he said without turning around, twirling his wand with his fingers.
'No, you're early.' Zabini walked around and sat down on the chair opposite. In his hands he held a huge, heavy book. It was very old, but the gilded cover on the front looked well polished.
'Okay, let's see.' He leant over and grabbed the book from Zabini. He turned over the cover and flipped through the pages. 'I've seen all this!' he scorned. 'We didn't need this book- Father has most of these potion recipes in his library at home!'
'Yeah. At home. Do you think we can get it from here?'
'No,' Malfoy admitted. He thought of suggesting that maybe he could write a letter to his father to send the recipe they wanted, but he doubted it would be given without an explanation, and a "bet" wasn't a very good reason for needing it.
'Alright, so what do we use to make the potion?' Malfoy quickly scanned the headings of each page, till finally he found what he was looking for. He whistled. 'This isn't going to be easy. Most of this stuff isn't available-'
'To us.' Zabini held out a long knobbly finger and pointed to the second last ingredient. 'But Professor Snape should have it. I remember him saying something about this one some time back.'
'So, what, you want me to steal from Snape? You must be joking!'
Zabini rolled his eyes. 'Look, you're his favourite student. Can't you wrangle it out of him somehow?'
'Not without a reason. You know he'll want one, even if it is me asking for it. I mean, he wanted a reason for us wanting to borrow this book.' Malfoy pushed the book back into Zabini's hands. 'You get it. I'll find all the other ingredients. It was your idea anyway.' Zabini slammed the book shut and didn't say anything, although Malfoy might have heard him mutter something that sounded like, 'Brainless turd…'
Zabini headed off to bed, as did Malfoy, but unlike Malfoy, he didn't go straight to sleep. Instead, he took out a spare parchment and his quill, and scribbled down the potion recipe. He wanted to return the book to the library the next day.
