"Well?" Samantha asked Max as soon as she saw him. She hadn't seen Leslie yet, but had run to Max as soon as he stepped inside the entrance hall.
"Woah, I don't even get a hello?" Max replied.
"Hello," Samantha said, hugging him. "Did you find out anything?"
Just as Max was about to answer, Leslie ran up. "Hi," she said, smiling widely and hugging Samantha.
"Hi," Samantha replied, also smiling.
"How was your break? How did the you-know-what go?" Leslie asked.
Samantha looked around. The entrance hall was crowded, and anyone could overhear them. "We should go somewhere private," she whispered.
"Yeah… where?" Max asked.
"Let's… go under the bleachers at the Quidditch pitch. Haven't been there in a while," Samantha suggested.
"Alright," Leslie agreed, and the three of them fought their way past the crowd of kids returning from home and out into the crisp winter air.
No one seemed to notice their departure, and soon enough they were sat under the bleachers and hidden from view of anyone passing by.
"So, who has information? Max, did your parents spill anything? Sam, how did the polyjuice potion go?" Leslie asked.
Samantha looked at Max, and decided to go first. "The polyjuice potion went okay. I mean, it worked and all. Excruciatingly painful, but I looked exactly like Pansy. We didn't get much information, though. Draco's not the one doing it, nor does he know who it is. All we got was that the Malfoys have their own secret chamber to hide their Dark artifacts," she told her friends.
Max raised his eyebrows. "Really? We'll have to be checking that out sometime…"
"Ron's going to write to his dad," Samantha informed him. "Anyways, did you get anything?"
Max opened his mouth and closed it again. He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, my parents told me who was accused of opening it last time," he said.
"And you kept this information until now?" Samantha cried.
"Who was it? Could they still be doing it now?" Leslie asked urgently.
Max looked very conflicted as he shrugged. "I don't know… I don't think so. I don't think he opened it in the first place."
"Who did it, Max?" Samantha demanded.
Max sighed, looking guiltily between Samantha and Leslie. "It- well, the person accused of opening the chamber fifty years ago, was… Hagrid," Max said.
"Hagrid!?" Samantha cried. "But- he couldn't- he wouldn't-"
"I know!" Max agreed.
"I mean, he was accused," Leslie pointed out.
"Well, obviously someone realized that it hadn't been Hagrid to do it, because instead of rotting in Azkaban, he's here, working," Samantha said. Suddenly, she gasped. "That was why he was expelled!"
"Of course!" Max agreed.
"Well, if he opened the Chamber, why would they let him stay on?" Leslie asked.
"Because he didn't open the Chamber. The school just wanted to look good, so they expel someone accused of opening the Chamber without really looking into it, but they know he didn't really do it, so they let him stay on and work," Samantha explained.
"Okay… I guess that makes sense," said Leslie.
"Yeah, except we still don't know who's opening the Chamber now and who opened it last time," Max pointed out.
"Exactly," Samantha agreed.
"Well, we're basically back to square one," Leslie said, sounding defeated.
"We know more than before, now. We know that Hagrid was convicted of opening the Chamber," Samantha said. "Maybe he has some information on who really opened the Chamber."
"How will we get him to tell us, though? It's not like we can just go up and tell him we know why he was expelled and ask who really did it. Besides, who knows if he'll know?" Leslie said.
"We'll just have to wait for the right time," said Max.
"When will that be, though?" asked Samantha.
Max took a deep breath. "We'll have to find out."
The three teenagers looked at each other grimly. They all knew it was very possible that the Heir of Slytherin could attack tons of people before ever finding a right moment to ask Hagrid, and they knew Hagrid wouldn't budge when asked about how he was expelled. Then again, the heir didn't seem to be taking it too quickly. Samantha couldn't help but wonder if they were waiting to do some grand finale.
"Well…" Leslie said finally. "Anything else happen while we were away?"
"Uh… Oh, Hermione got turned into a cat," Samantha said.
"She what?" Max and Leslie asked together.
"Well, the hair she got for the polyjuice potion turned out to be from a cat, and as the potion isn't supposed to be used for animals, it turned her into a half cat, half human thing," Samantha told them both.
"That took a turn I wasn't expecting," Leslie said.
"I know," agreed Max. "Will she be alright?"
"Should be. We took her to Madam Pomfrey," said Samantha. "We didn't tell her what happened, obviously, but she's being treated." She paused, thinking if there was anything else. "Oh, yeah, and Damon told me my hair was soft."
"Date him," Leslie said immediately.
"I'm already dating Max," Samantha countered.
"Well, then, if things don't work out, you have a backup," said Leslie.
"Things are gonna work out," Max said, putting his arm around Samantha's shoulders and pulling her into his side.
"You never know," said Leslie.
Samantha looked at Max. "I do. It's gonna work out," she said. "On another note, I don't think we should tell Harry, Ron, and Hermione about Hagrid until we have some real information. I mean, think about it. Hagrid's expulsion was covered up. If one of them accidentally lets something slip, that would not be good."
"You're probably right," Max agreed. "Besides, they're twelve. They're not even teenagers yet, let's let them have a few more years."
"Hermione's thirteen," Samantha reminded them.
"Oh, yeah. I forgot that her birthday is only six days after mine," Max said.
"September babies. Virgos," said Samantha. "And I'm November, Sagittarius, and Leslie and Ron are March, day after the other, Pisces. Harry and Laur are July, Leo and Cancer."
"Constellations?" Max asked, Samantha still laying her head on his shoulder.
"Zodiac signs, stupid," Samantha replied.
"Oh, right," Max replied.
Samantha sighed, leaning farther onto Max.
Leslie looked at them both. "I think I'm gonna go back to the castle," she said. "Wanna come?"
"I think I'll stay here a little while," Samantha responded.
"Me too," Max agreed.
"Alright. I'll see you guys later."
"Bye, Les," Samantha said.
"Bye."
Samantha and Max were alone now, and they sat together in silence. Samantha moved so she was laying down, her head resting on Max's lap.
"I missed you so much," Samantha confessed.
"I missed you, too," Max said. "But like we said before, we'll spend every Christmas after this together."
"Definitely," agreed Samantha as Max played with her hair.
"Damon was right, your hair is soft," said Max.
"Thank you," Samantha replied, smiling. She sat up carefully and ran her fingers through his hair.
"It's kind of long-" Max started.
"I like it long. I was just going to tell you that you should keep it this length," Samantha said.
"Oh. Maybe I will,." Max smirked.
Samantha laid down again, and Max continued to comb through her hair with his fingers.
"What's on your mind?" Max asked her after a while.
"I don't know. A lot of things. It changes every few seconds," Samantha replied truthfully.
"Well, give me a few examples."
"Who's opening the Chamber? Is Voldemort ever going to successfully come back? What'll happen if he does? When will Laur talk to me again?" Samantha asked.
There were a few more things, of course. Such as how she'd have to go back to her strange schedule she adopted because of all of her classes, how she'd get less sleep, how she'd go back to doing homework during Binns' classes or during random chunks of time. She couldn't explain this to Max, though.
Max took a deep breath. "I don't know who's opening the Chamber. As for You-Know-Who, I mean, probably, he'll come back. He's one of the most powerful wizards ever, he'll figure something out. Hopefully it'll be a few years before that, though. As for what happens… only time will tell. Lauren… she's eleven. Eleven year olds are stupid. She'll talk to you again, realize she was being stupid," Max told Samantha.
"Well, I know that, but when? She seems so off recently. Maybe Harry and I shouldn't have left her with the Dursleys for a year. Maybe she's mad at me for that. Maybe… maybe she's mad I kept our world from her for so long. I just- Dumbledore told me to not tell them, and then I'm sure I could've told them later on, but I just wanted to have some fun, see how far the Dursleys would take it-"
"Saman- Sam- Sammy!" Max cried, trying to cut her off multiple times. "Listen, Sam, it's not your fault, okay? Maybe her not talking to you initially is your fault, but now she's just being a stupid eleven year old! Talk to her, for god's sake, Samantha!"
"She's not going to talk to me. She can be stubborn, Max. You don't know her," Samantha countered.
"Just try talking to her, okay?" Max told her.
"I'll try. No guarantee it'll work, though," Samantha told him.
"I know."
"Now, let's do something a little more fun than talk about my sister who hasn't spoken to me in months," Samantha said, smiling mischievously and sitting up.
"Like what?" Max asked.
"Like… I don't know, kissing?" Samantha asked, grinning, and she leaned into Max, their lips meeting.
The next day, after classes were over and Samantha was bored of doing homework, she decided to try to talk to Lauren. She stood up and set her book to the side of her.
"Where are you going?" Leslie asked her.
"I'm going to try to talk to Laur," Samantha answered, watching Lauren in the corner of the common room with a book on her lap.
"Go for it, Sam," Max said.
Samantha smiled at the pair of them before walking over to her sister. "Hey," she said softly. Lauren looked up and met Samantha's eyes but didn't reply. "Uh… do you want to go for a walk? Around the castle?" Samantha asked.
Lauren shrugged and shut her book. "I guess," she replied.
Samantha managed a weak smile as she led her sister through the common room and out of the portrait hole. The two walked a little ways away in silence before Samantha broke it.
"So, how have you been doing?" Samantha asked her.
"Fine," Lauren replied. "You?"
"Pretty good," Samantha said, grinning. "How are classes? Flying lessons? You liked those, right?"
"Classes are fine. Flying lessons are nice, I guess. I'm not as naturally talented as you and Harry-"
"Quidditch is in your blood. You're amazing, I saw you fly last summer," Samantha said.
Lauren gave Samantha a small smile. "Well, back to classes, do you have a favorite?" Samantha asked.
"Um… I like Charms, and Herbology," Lauren answered.
"Ooh, those are fun. Herbology is cool, you get to be outside, and Charms is fun, it always feels very cheerful," Samantha said. "What about Potions? Snape hate you?"
Lauren shrugged. "I don't know. He ignores me, most of the time. I do good on the potions and essays, though," Lauren responded.
"Ah, you take after me," Samantha said, smirking.
"No, definitely not," said Lauren quickly. "You're much smarter than me. I'm terrible at Transfiguration, I can't figure it out at all. And History of Magic, I can never get the dates right, and you know much more about the Wizarding World than I do, and you make better decisions, and-"
"Woah, calm down," Samantha said. "I can help you with Transfiguration and History of Magic, and about the Wizarding World, you can talk to Ginny about it, she's lived in it her whole life. As for decisions, well, you really haven't met me if you think I make good decisions."
Lauren shook her head, looking down. She played with the edge of her glove, which came up perfectly to the end of her sweater sleeve, keeping all unwanted information out.
"I'm sorry for not talking to you," Lauren muttered.
"It's fine, Laur," Samantha replied. "So… how's Ginny doing?"
"Oh- she's… she's fine," Lauren said.
She didn't want to tell her older sister of all of the arguments she'd been having recently with Ginny.
"And Sarah?" Samantha questioned. She hadn't seen Lauren with Sarah for a while. For the most part, she honestly saw Lauren alone, or occasionally with Ginny.
"Good, I think. We kind of… drifted apart," Lauren answered.
"Oh, that's too bad," Samantha said, smiling sadly.
"I heard about Hermione. I hope she'll be okay," Lauren said.
"I'm sure she will be. Madam Pomfrey is a miracle worker," replied Samantha.
The sisters walked around the castle in silence for a little while longer, not knowing what to say to each other.
Samantha felt bad. She and Lauren had been so close before Hogwarts, and then Samantha had run off, and she'd come closer to Harry, and then they both had left her, and she'd been alone with the Dursleys. And then, when Samantha was all excited about having all three of them together, she'd been carried away with her friends and even while Lauren was still talking to her, they hadn't been as close as they were pre-Hogwarts. Their age gap seemed like centuries now more than ever.
Lauren felt angry. Angry at herself, to be specific. She had cut out Samantha, the most experienced witch she was close to for months. Samantha could have helped her figure out what had been going on. Instead, she'd been stubborn and refused to ask for help, getting her in a tangled mess, with one friend not talking to her for "keeping secrets" and the other mad at her for not telling someone sooner.
Samantha and Lauren eventually made it back to the common room.
"I think I'm going to go to bed early," Lauren said.
"Oh, alright. Night, Lauren," Samantha said, smiling.
"Night, Sam."
Lauren walked up the spiral staircase. She got to her dormitory and sat on her bed, thinking.
It wasn't her fault, really. She had wanted a place to write her fears and excitements about starting school. She hadn't realized what harm it would cause.
Hermione stayed in the hospital wing for all of January. Samantha, Max and Leslie visited her a few times, but Harry and Ron were with her more. One afternoon, as Samantha, Max and Leslie were walking to visit her, they were stopped suddenly at the end of a hallway.
"Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," Leslie breathed.
Surrounding Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was a puddle of water, which Filch was staring angrily at.
"This is even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven't got enough to do! No, this is the final straw, I'm going to Dumbledore-" Filch shouted hysterically as he walked down the hall in the opposite direction of the three friends.
Samantha looked to Leslie and then Max. "Let's go check that out," she said.
The three of them made their way to the bathroom and, very careful that no one was watching, crept their way inside.
Myrtle's wails echoed off the walls, and water was flooding the entire bathroom.
"What's happened this time?" Max asked exasperatedly.
"Who cares anymore?" Samantha replied quietly. "Myrtle?" she called through the bathroom.
Myrtle's sobs stopped for a second. "Who's there?" she asked.
"It's Samantha, Max, and Leslie," said Leslie as the three of them splashed over to her stall.
Just then the door opened, and the three of them froze. They looked between themselves for a few seconds before slowly turning around.
"Harry? Ron?" Samantha asked.
"Sam? Leslie? Max?" said Harry, confused.
"We meet once again in the bathroom," Max said, grimacing.
"We came because we heard Filch yell," Ron explained.
"Yeah, so did we. Except, we were at the end of the hallway, and came in right away," Leslie said.
"So, what's up with Myrtle?" asked Harry.
"Haven't asked her yet," Samantha replied. She walked closer to Myrtle's stall. "Hey, Myrtle, we have Harry and Ron, too. What's wrong?"
"Have you all come to throw something else at me?" Myrtle asked.
"Why would we throw something at you, Myrtle?" Leslie asked softly.
"Don't ask me. I was just minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me," Myrtle sobbed.
Samantha's mouth was opened as if to speak, but she looked at her friends without making noise, unsure of what to say.
"I mean, it can't hurt, it just goes right through you, right?" Ron asked.
Myrtle sobbed even harder. "Oh, yes, let's all throw books at Myrtle because she can't feel it. Ten points if yo get it through her stomach! Fifty points if you can get it through her head!"
"You know, that does actually sound like a fun game," Samantha reasoned.
Myrtle shot down into the toilet bowl, glaring angrily at Samantha.
Harry looked at Samantha with the same disappointed stare parents give their toddlers when they draw on the walls.
"What, it does," Samantha said.
"I mean… she's not wrong," Ron agreed.
Harry sighed and stepped into Myrtle's stall. "We're not going to throw books at you, Myrtle. I mean, who threw it at you anyways?"
Reluctantly, it seemed, Myrtle came out of the toilet. "I don't know. I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death-"
"Cheerful," Samantha piped.
"-And it fell right through the top of my head," Myrtle finished.
"Hey, whoever threw it gets fifty points!" Samantha said, grinning.
Myrtle's nostrils flared.
"Is it still here, Myrtle?" Harry asked.
"It's over there," Myrtle said, pointing. "It got washed out."
The five of them turned their heads to look under the sink, where a small book with a black cover sat dripping in water. Harry leaned forward to pick it up, but Ron flung his arm out to stop him.
"What?" Harry and Samantha asked together.
"Are you crazy?" Ron said. "It could be dangerous!"
"Dangerous?" Harry asked, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"
"You'd be surprised," Ron said. Max nodded. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated- Dad's told me- there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who reads Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in ti, trying to do everything one-handed."
"And there have been never ending ones, and ones that use Permanent Sticking Charms to keep your hands attached to it forever, and ones that argue with you, and ones that twist your brain so you do bad things, evil things, and one that sucked you into the world it was set in, and you could never escape, you were just stuck in this story forever," Max added. "And-"
"Okay, okay, we get it," Samantha said. "Look, if a student had this book it can't be all to dangerous, right? I mean, it's so small and light, what harm could it possibly do?"
"Well, that's another one, it was a tiny book that shrunk you as well, so you were proportional to it, and you were stuck that way for the rest of your life," Max said.
"Right… remind me never to go to a bookstore with you," Samantha said. "Anyways, I'm sure it's fine." She bent down and snatched up the book from the floor.
"No-" Max said, but it was too late.
Samantha switched the book from and to hand. "Well, I guess it doesn't have a Permanent Sticking Charm attached to it," she said. "Although, someone threw it away, so I guess we could probably rule that one out already…"
"Oh-" Harry said, annoyed, and took the book from Samantha's hands. "It's a diary, from… fifty years ago," he finished, looking up at the four of them.
"You don't think-" Leslie said.
"They couldn't've…" Samantha said.
"T. M. Riddle," Harry read off of the first page.
"That sounds so familiar…" Samantha said.
"I know that name!" Ron said. "T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago."
"It's not that… but, fifty years ago? Guys… do you realize what this means?" Samantha said.
"He got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago. The Chamber of Secrets was last opened fifty years ago," said Leslie.
"Do you think he wrote anything about it?" Max asked eagerly.
"Let's see," Harry said.
He began to peel the pages apart, but they were all blank.
"There's nothing…" Leslie said.
"Maybe- maybe someone erased it, with a spell or something," Samantha reasoned.
"Why would they want to do that?" Leslie asked.
Samantha struggled to come up with something for a moment before realizing. "What if the heir of Slytherin found this diary of the person who caught whoever opened the Chamber last time, and they're destroying it so that no one can read it and figure out how to destroy the Chamber?" she said.
"I mean…" Max said. "It does make sense. Think about it. Whoever the heir of Slytherin is obviously doesn't want anyone finding out it was them, so they'd destroy the writings of someone who did catch their predecessor."
"I guess that could be an explanation," Leslie said.
"Or Riddle just got a diary for Christmas one year and never bothered to write in it," Ron said.
"No, someone went to great lengths to throw this thing away. It has to have some sort of significance," Samantha said.
"Exactly," Harry agreed, stuffing the diary into his pocket.