Hermione, as it turned out, had used cat hair instead of Millicent Bulstrode's, and she was turned part cat with whiskers, dark brown fir, yellow eyes, and a tail.
After they shuffled Hermione off to the Hospital Wing, where Madam Pomfrey didn't ask too many questions and informed them that she would be there for a few weeks, Harry went back to his room and spent an hour just shifting his features, reveling in the easy, smooth, painless transitions.
After that, he typed up his report and went to bed.
It was unfortunate that, even though the Aurors had made a statement about his innocence, determined with Virtaserium, the papers didn't seem to believe it and they continued to print stories about him after Christmas was over.
So it was that when people returned from their break they were more distrustful of him than ever before, made even worse by Hermione being in the Hospital Wing. Everyone came by to take a look at her until Madam Pomfrey had to put a curtain up around her. Even though plenty of people had caught sight of her looking part cat many still blamed Harry.
Harry responded to the constant attacks on his person by burying himself in the library. He was determined to clear his name and to do that he had to figure out who was behind the first set of attacks. So he spent every free moment he got digging through the slightly messy and very dusty archives of the newspapers. It was a good thing Madam Pince never threw anything out, though it did mean he had to sort past a variety of papers for each day.
Three weeks in Harry found something.
Petrifications at Hogwarts Stopped!
For the past school year, ever since 31 October, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has been terrorized by an unknown monster and the Heir of Slytherin. After seven petrifications a student by the name of Myrtle Warren died. With the death of Miss. Warren the Board of Governors decided to close the school with students being sent to various day schools around the country.
That all changed when one brave Prefect by the name of Tom Riddle found the perpetrator. It seems one Rubeus Hagrid, a half-giant, has been harboring a modified Acromantula that has been doing the petrifications.
While the Acromantula escaped into the forest Rubeus Hagrid was arrested and awaited trial.
Of the incident Tom Riddle had to say this, "Hagrid's a bit feeble. He doesn't realize that things that don't hurt him can hurt others. Because the Acromantula never petrified him he thought that it was 'a sweet little thing that would never hurt no one.' I feel a bit bad that he's been arrested but at the end of the day he was hurting people."
The seven students who have been petrified are expected to make a full recovery within the next month.
While Harry was shocked by the news when he shared it with Hermione and Ron they both agreed that it was bullocks.
"Maybe he was framed," Hermione said. "I've never heard of an Acromantula petrifying people."
"Yeah, Hagrid's too sweet to do something like that."
"The article talks about both those things; it says the Acromantula was modified and that Hagrid didn't realize that it was hurting people."
Hermione sighed, "If this were all true why would Hagrid be allowed to work here? Surely they'd be concerned that he'd do it again if he'd actually done it. Besides a modified Acromantula sounds really rare, where would he have gotten another one?"
"Well," Ron jumped in, "I don't know about the first part, Snape was a Death Eater after all."
Harry gaped at him, "What? Why the bloody hell is allowed anywhere near children then?"
Ron shrugged, "Apparently he turned spy, doesn't make him any less of a bloody awful teacher."
Frowning Harry nodded, "And it explains why he hates me so much. If he only said he turned spy or he did so because Voldemort told him to, then he must be furious that I killed his master."
Ron nodded and Hermione sighed, "None of this helps with the Hagrid situation. And for the record, if Hagrid had actually done it last time they surely would've gotten rid of him by now."
Sighing a bit Harry found he had to agree, it all seemed very farfetched but it meant that he now officially had nowhere else to go with his investigation. After all, if someone had framed Hagrid and never been caught it wouldn't exactly be in the newspapers.
On their way down to the Great Hall, they were confronted by the sight of Colin Creevey, his camera held up to his face, looking like a statue.
With a sigh, Harry found Professor McGonagall.
The Aurors were called quickly to the scene and he was once more questioned with Virtaserium, though this time the questions were even more probing.
"Have you ever broken the law?"
"I don't know if it's against the law but I used Polyjuice potion to impersonate someone."
"What?" Professor McGonagall shrieked. "Where did you even get Polyjuice Potion?"
"Hermione made it."
The Auror took control then, "Was this person a member of the government or Wizengamot?"
"No, it was Greg Goyle."
"What? Why?" demanded Professor McGonagall which caused the Auror to shoot her a poisonous look that she ignored.
"We wanted to question Draco Malfoy to see if he was the Heir of Slytherin. He wasn't."
"Well of course he wasn't," she said crossly, "he's only a second year as well."
"That's enough," snapped the Auror, who was a different Auror from the one who had questioned him before and he seemed quite irritated by the direction this had all taken.
"Do you have any information about the Heir of Slytherin or the Chamber of Secrets?"
And with that Harry explained everything he'd learned so far.
"Well that's all very interesting but I think we're done now," the Auror said before administering the cure.
Harry blinked away the fog then asked, "Am I in trouble for using Polyjuice Potion?"
"No," the Auror said at the same time Professor McGonagall said, "Yes!"
The Auror shot her an irritated look, "It's only against the law to impersonate government officials and members of the Wizengamot, otherwise Aurors would routinely go to jail. You're free to go."
"And you have detention every day for the next two weeks!"
Harry sighed heavily.
Detention ended up eating up a lot of his time to the point where all he could do was classes, homework, and detention. It was frustrating to not be able to work on his animagus studies, practice his Metamorphagus abilities, or scan any books in and he got several emails about theories for avoiding or working around truth serums which didn't really help him now but he supposed it might in the future.
One thing that was mentioned a great deal was Mind Magic, mainly Occlumency which had been mentioned in passing in one of the books he had bought when he first entered the magical world. There weren't any instructions on how to use it though and he was instructed to find more information when he was done with detention.
In good news though, Hermione was released from the Hospital wing after the tail had finally fallen off, all of the fur had fallen off ages ago and her eyes had changed back shortly before the tail had fallen off. Unfortunately for her Professor McGonagall had figured out the reason she had turned part cat and given her two weeks of detention as well. Then she'd tricked Ron into telling her that he had been part of it as well and so he also got two weeks of detention.
One day, after detention, while Harry was searching through the M section of the library for Mind Magic books Ron came up to him, panting as if he'd just run a great distance.
"…Tom Riddle…Trophy Room… Follow me!"
And with that, the two boys took off.
Unfortunately, it didn't tell them much that they didn't already know. Tom Riddle had gotten an award for Services to the school and had been Prefect and Head Boy.
Still, it was more than they'd had before.
When Easter Holidays came around the second years were given something else to think about, namely what electives they would start taking their third year.
The choices were: Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, and Muggle Studies.
While his friends fretted about this Harry had the easy option of asking his boss which was how he ended up signing up for all of the classes except Muggle Studies. Hermione also signed up for all of the classes including Muggle Studies. Ron and Seamus chose the easiest choices of Care of Magical Creatures and Divination. Neville fretted between Arithmancy and Ancient Runes and Dean Thomas just closed his eyes and poked the parchment with his wand, choosing what it landed on.
Author's Note: Sorry this is a little late today, I was busy this morning. Thanks for reading.
Recommendation: If you like Lord of the Rings try the Gold Coin by AlexFlex on archiveofourown. It's rated Explicit for some s*x but it's really good.