As Harry rapidly typed up his reports for the day he found himself glad once more that he'd had that seventh year enchant his bed the previous year. He'd had to tell her that he had nightmares so he didn't want to wake his roommates and was allergic to dreamless sleep to get her to agree to put up the spells silencing the inside of his bed and preventing anyone from going in or out while the spells were up. Instead of hiding nightmares though, they hid the sound of him typing.

After the events of the evening, he struggled to recall all of the information he'd gotten at the Death Day party and he also was missing the information Hermione had gathered for him.

Still, despite that being the whole point of the evening that wasn't the most important part. Ron had been right though when he'd said afterward that The Chamber of Secrets sounded familiar so before Harry finished his report on the events of the evening he did a database search of all the books he'd scanned in so far.

One result popped up.

Hogwarts, A History

Chapter 3 page 14

The fight grew so great that it finally fractured the group of four founders and Salazar Slytherin fled the school, but not before threatening the founders with his Chamber of Secrets. He promised that one of his children, or grandchildren, would come back and purge the school of all Muggles and Muggleborns with the monster that lay within.

Naturally, the school has been searched many a time, in fact, most Headmasters or Headmistresses have at one time or another funded a search for the mysterious Chamber of Secrets. Not even a hint of it has ever been found.

Scrolling back some Harry found that the fight had been about whether Muggleborns should be allowed to attend Hogwarts at all, Slytherin thinking that they shouldn't have been allowed at all, Ravenclaw of the opinion that only those who were already somewhat educated should be allowed in, and Hufflepuff and Gryffindor thinking that they should all be allowed in regardless.

Attaching a link to the whole Chapter at the end of his report Harry finally went to sleep.

The Chamber of Secrets was all anyone could talk about after that and many seemed to think that Filch may be right and Harry may have been the one to petrify his cat.

Of course, Hermione and Ron thought this was rubbish and Harry shared with them the excerpt from Hogwarts, A History.

"Merlin!" Ron exclaimed, "I knew Slytherin was a twisted old looney but I had no idea he started the whole blood purity crap! I wouldn't be in his house if you paid me! Honestly, if the Hat had put me in Slytherin I would have just gone right back home!"

Hermione nodded fervently but Harry felt his stomach drop. He'd never told them about the Sorting Hat almost putting him in Slytherin.

Meanwhile, Filch was furious. When he wasn't trying, and failing, to clean the message on the wall he was stalking through the halls trying to give people detentions for 'breathing' and 'smiling.'

One day shortly after Halloween, while on their way back from History of Magic they wandered back into the corridor where it had all started. Mercifully Filch wasn't there so they decided to do some detective work. First, they found some strange scorch marks, then they noticed some spiders acting weird (and thus learned about Ron's phobia of spiders) and finally Harry recalled that there had been water on the floor that someone must have mopped up.

It had been centered around a door that had an out-of-order sign on it which was, according to Hermione, a girl's bathroom occupied by the ghost of Moaning Myrtle. Apparently, she regularly flooded the bathroom whenever someone entered it and so they had closed it almost fifty years prior.

After briefly questioning Myrtle, and learning nothing more than that Myrtle was an overdramatic ghost, they left the bathroom only to be confronted by Percy.

"Ronald! What were you doing in there? That's a girls' bathroom!"

"It's fine," Ron hissed, "It's out of order and we were just searching around for some clues about-," and with that, he gestured to the giant message on the wall.

"Searching for clues," Percy said derisively, "That's ridiculous, bad enough Ginny, and now you-"

"You don't care about Ginny or me! You just don't want us to ruin your chances of being Head Boy!"

Percy's neck turned red and he puffed up in fury, "Five points from Gryffindor! No more detective work! If you do I'll write to mum!"

Remembering the howler Ginny had gotten Ron deflated as Percy stormed off.

That evening while working on their Charms homework the topic was brought up again.

"Who would want to frighten the muggleborns of Hogwarts?" Hermione asked.

"Well let me think," Ron began, "Who do we know who thinks all Muggleborns are scum?"

Hermione sighed, "If you're talking about Malfoy…"

"Of course, I'm talking about Malfoy! Their family has been in Slytherin for ages! They could have passed the secret down for generations."

Hermione frowned and chewed her lip, "We need to question him."

Harry snorted, "Like Malfoy will tell us anything." He may mostly ignore the boy but it was clear that Malfoy hated him and his friends.

"Well there may be a way… but we'd be breaking about fifty school rules…"

"Maybe tell us this idea before the end of the century," Ron muttered sarcastically.

"Well Polyjuice potion."

Harry frowned, "That potion that changes you into a different person?" He'd wondered when Professor Snape had mentioned it, what it would do to a Metamorphagus.

"Sounds dodgy to me," Ron butted in, "What if you get stuck as someone for ages?"

Hermione shook her head, "It only lasts an hour, but think about it! We could pretend to be Slytherins and he'll tell us anything. I bet he's lording it up in Slytherin right now."

"Well okay," Ron agreed, a little unwillingly.

Harry was of several minds on the subject, on the one hand, he had no idea what Polyjuice Potion would do to a Metamorphagus. On the other hand, they really needed to know what was going on and stop them. Finally, though, there was the fact that Harry wasn't used to making decisions, he was used to taking orders. Would the Prime Minister approve?

Luckily no one asked his opinion, instead assuming he would agree.

Hermione continued on as if he wasn't in the middle of a crisis, "The only problem is that the book it's in, Moste Potente Potions, is in the Restricted Section. We'll need to get a pass. Maybe if we say it's just for research."

Ron snorted, "Who'd give us a pass? They'd have to be pretty thick to believe we just want it for research."

It turned out that it was surprisingly easy to get the pass to the Restricted Section, all Hermione had to do was play up how much she loved Lockhart (not much of an exaggeration at all) and she soon had a blank pass to the Restricted Section.

Madam Pince, always suspicious at the best of times, studied the pass suspiciously, holding it up to the light, tapping it with her wand, even sniffing it, though the last may have been to see if she could smell Professor Lockhart's perfume.

Finally, though, she disappeared down the hallway of the Restricted Section and arrived back with an old and moldy-looking book.

Five minutes later they were in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"No one comes in here," Hermione argued when Ron complained, "It's the safest place for it."

It turned out the book was in the Restricted Section for a reason as they found out while they looked for the Polyjuice Potion recipe. They saw detailed images of a man turned inside out, a woman with arms growing out of her head, and a man with his blood turning to literal ice.

Finally, they found it and Hermione nodded to herself, "This is the most complicated recipe I've ever seen."

Harry had to agree and he'd been brewing a fifth-year potion regularly since the start of the summer.

"Lacewing flies, leeches, fluxweed, and knotgrass," Hermione murmured as she ran her fingers along the list of ingredients. "Well they're easy enough, they're in the student store cupboard, we can help ourselves… Oh, look, powdered horn of a bicorn – don't know where we're going to get that – shredded skin of a boomslang, that'll be tricky too – and of course a bit of whomever we want to change into."

"Excuse me?" Ron asked sharply. "What do you mean, a bit of whoever we're changing into? I'm drinking nothing with Crabbe's toenails in it-"

Hermione ignored him, "We don't have to worry about that yet, though, because we add those bits in last."

Ignoring an outraged Ron Harry said to Hermione, "I'll order those ingredients we need."

Hermione frowned, "Most of those aren't on the standard order forms that we keep in the dorms. We could just steal them from Professor Snape…"

Harry paled at the thought, "No, no, don't worry I'll get them."

She eyed him curiously, then sighed, "This is another one of your secrets, isn't it."

Harry grimaced, it was a point of contention in the group that Harry still wouldn't tell them what he was doing with the ten books he checked out every day. Telling them he was reading them didn't help as they didn't believe him or understand why he needed to hide in his bed for that.

Harry nodded, "I can't tell you how, but I'll have the stuff soon."

It had after all been approved by management and they'd want 'The Polyjuice Adventure,' as it had been called in the email chain, to succeed. It would be easy enough to send a Researcher into Diagon Alley in a pair of robes and have them purchase what they needed.

"I'd say it'll be about a month until the potion's ready, provided we get all the ingredients," she said, giving Harry the side eye.

"A month!" Ron exclaimed, "But Malfoy could take out half the Muggleborns in the school by then!"

At Hermione's glare though he changed his tune, "But it is the best plan we have."