Chapter Twenty: At Arm's Reach

The next day at breakfast, Daphne told the others that Snape had made her tell the truth about why they were in the corridor. Harry wasn't happy that Snape, of all people, now knew he heard voices, but he didn't blame Daphne.

"We were busted anyway, so he'd probably have found a way to either make us talk or give us detention for the rest of the year, and I don't want to have to answer Lockhart's fan mail again," he said.

Ginny had seemed very shaken by the attack on Mrs. Norris, but according to Ron, that was just because she loved cats. Even so, Daphne resolved to keep an eye on her, because she still didn't look healthy — if anything, she seemed a bit more tired than before.

Daphne also spoke to the Slytherins who had been helping her with the anti-bullying campaign. Gemma, like Daphne, thought that the message about the Chamber might have been written by a higher-year pureblood student who wanted to ruin their efforts, but she didn't have any likely suspects. The others in the group weren't sure it had anything to do with them, but they resolved to continue their activities for the time being to see what would happen.

Over the next few days, though, Daphne began to notice that people were beginning to look at her a bit warily, even at the Gryffindor table.

"What is with everyone?" she asked, feeling the eyes of some of the nearby Gryffindors on her back.

"They think you're the Heir of Slytherin," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh, come on!" Daphne said with an exasperated gesture.

"If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only suspect," Ron said.

"Who else?"

"Me," Harry said.

"You? You're a Gryffindor!" Daphne said. "Who are they going to accuse next, Ginny?"

Ginny, who was sitting nearby and morosely staring at her breakfast, gave a jolt as if she'd been punched, gave them a horrified look and got up from the table.

"Ah, damn," Daphne said, and she got up as well.

"I'll go talk to her," she said to the others, and she quickly followed Ginny out of the Great Hall, catching up with her just after she rounded a corner.

"Ginny, wait!"

Ginny seemed to have every intention to keep on walking, but she reluctantly stopped and turned around anyway.

"I'm sorry," Daphne said once she stood next to her. "It was a stupid joke and I shouldn't have made it."

Ginny said nothing, but still looked very troubled by something.

"Hey, is everything alright? Aside from me making stupid remarks, that is," Daphne said.

"I'm…I'm fine," Ginny said softly. She sounded like she was about to cry. Had a joke that bad really affected her so much?

"It's okay if you're mad at me," Daphne assured her.

Ginny vehemently shook her head. "No! I'm not," she said. "Really, it's…it's nothing."

Daphne cocked her head. "Look, I know something's bothering you. You can tell me, you know. I won't laugh at you for it," she said.

Ginny hesitated, and Daphne went on, "And if you don't want me to tell anyone, I won't."

"Not even Ron and H-Harry?" Ginny asked.

Daphne shook her head. "Not even them."

Ginny was silent for a moment, and Daphne waited anxiously if she would say anything.

"I– There's– No…I'm fine…really," she eventually said in a resigned voice.

Daphne gave her a faint smile. "That's okay. If there ever is anything, though, just tell me, okay? I'll help you as much as I can."

Ginny smiled weakly and nodded. "Thanks," she said.

She turned around and walked away, and Daphne couldn't help but feel something very big was weighing on her shoulders.

That night at dinner, Hermione asked Daphne if anyone in Slytherin had mentioned anything about the Chamber of Secrets, and if Malfoy could be the real Heir.

Daphne shook her head. "It's not him, I'm sure of it. Remember that book I sent you on pureblood families last year? It also talks about lineages that have been lost to time. When the known branches of the current pureblood families began, Slytherin's lineage was still somewhat known, but it faded into obscurity later.

"That means that none of the current pureblood families are descended from him, because they can all trace their lines back to a time when Slytherin's lineage was still known. It's a bit ironic, but if Slytherin's heir is at Hogwarts now, it's a half-blood, and there's no way of telling who it is."

"So the descendant of a crazy blood purist who wants all Muggleborns and Squibs gone…is themselves a half-blood?" Ron said.

Daphne nodded. "Pretty much. I doubt that Malfoy has any idea who it is, but even if he did, he probably wouldn't tell me, nor any of the people in Slytherin I'm friendly with. He knows I'd tell you guys immediately," she said.

"Do you think he'd tell anyone else?" Hermione asked.

Daphne shrugged. "I don't know, maybe? He probably would, given that he's rather fond of hearing himself talk, but so far all I've heard him say is that he can't wait for the next attack to happen."

"What if we…had a plan to talk to him without him realizing it's us?" Hermione asked.

Daphne sat up a bit straighter. "Do tell."

Hermione explained about Polyjuice Potion, and how they would be able to use it to disguise themselves as Slytherins, after which they'd enter the common room and interrogate Malfoy.

Daphne shook her head in amusement. "I really think you'll be wasting your time and that Malfoy has no idea who the Heir really is," she said. "But I'm certainly not one to reject a reckless and cunning — by Gryffindor standards — plan, especially if it messes with Malfoy in the process. But do you even know how to brew that potion? I recall Snape saying it was incredibly difficult."

"It is," Hermione confirmed. "But I think I can do it. If it'll help us find out who's trying to get rid of the Muggleborns, I think we'll have to take the risk."

Daphne nodded slowly. She hadn't really considered how Hermione would likely be feeling about the attack. As a Muggleborn, she was probably afraid she might be next, and any chance, however small, of finding any information should be taken.

And she had to admit, Malfoy was her lead suspect as well; maybe not as the main culprit, but certainly as someone complicit in the situation. But ever since they'd been told by Snape not to get into actual fights, he'd mostly avoided her and she had no idea what he was up to. A plan this outrageous was probably the only way they had to get him to talk.

"Well, let me know once you've got the potion ready. I'll tell you where the common room is and what the password is that day."

Over the next few days, Daphne mainly focused on her anti-bullying efforts. To her great surprise, Quidditch Chaser Adrian Pucey had come to her in the common room one night, telling her that he'd try to help out as well.

She hadn't expected anyone on the Quidditch team to be willing to help her, since she'd expected all of them to be in Malfoy's pocket, but Pucey said that while he appreciated the broom, he preferred to play honestly if at all possible. He did ask her to keep his involvement hidden, though, so as not to get him in trouble with the other players on the team.

Daphne nodded and promised him she wouldn't mention it, and just told him to help however he wanted.

In the wake of the attack on Mrs. Norris, she'd actually expected that people would be withdrawing from the effort, but everyone seemed to be more determined than ever. She had noticed, however, that the bullying that did still happen was now aimed at Muggleborns even more than before, mostly in the lower years.

Colin, the Gryffindor first-year who idolized Harry, was a victim of this as well, and Daphne had only been just in time to keep Warrington from hexing him in the back, which had almost ended with her being cursed instead, though she was able to bluff her way out by using her status a Noble House member.

She began to study some jinxes and hexes in her spare time, just to make sure that if she ended up in a fight, she'd at least be able to go down fighting.

While she was occupied with all of that, the first Quidditch match of the year arrived: Slytherin versus Gryffindor. Just like the year before, Daphne went to the match with the sole intention of supporting Harry.

As soon as the match began, however, Daphne saw that Harry was going to have a hard time. One of the Bludgers seemed to be attracted to Harry specifically, and nothing Fred and George did seemed to dissuade it.

"Do you think the Slytherins did something to it?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"No way," Ron said. "All Quidditch balls are loaded with enchantments; it'd be way too easy to cheat otherwise. I don't trust Malfoy one bit, but no one on that team could've tampered with it. Snape, maybe?"

Daphne shook her head. "No. He wouldn't do something like that. He'd love to expel Harry, I'm sure, but he wouldn't try to kill him, especially not in such an obvious way. Didn't we go over this last year?"

Every time the Bludger narrowly missed Harry, Daphne tensed up. Despite the rain, her mouth was dry and she was terrified that the Bludger really would kill Harry. Why did people like this stupid sport?!

At a sixty to zero deficit, the Gryffindor team called a timeout, most likely to talk about the rogue Bludger.

Daphne saw Harry talking to Wood, with Fred and George alongside him, but she had no idea what they were saying. Through her binoculars, she could see that Wood looked conflicted, but he said something to Fred and George, and a few seconds later play resumed.

Harry shot up into the sky, rolling, looping, and zigzagging, trying desperately to keep the Bludger away from him. Fred and George, meanwhile, focused on defending the Gryffindor Chasers from the other Bludger.

Daphne didn't care about the score and just kept her eyes focused on Harry and his efforts to stay in the air…and then Harry stopped moving for just a few seconds, allowing the Bludger to slam into his arm.

"No!" she shouted, and she felt her stomach turn.

Harry seemed to partially slide off his broom, but he managed to dodge the Bludger's second attempt at hitting him and dived down towards — presumably — Malfoy.

For a moment, Daphne thought Harry at lost his mind and wanted to attack Malfoy, but then she saw Harry reach out and grab something small out of the sky…before continuing to streak downwards to the field and rolling off his broom.

Daphne, Hermione, and Ron wasted no time in sprinting down to the field, but when they arrived, the least welcome person imaginable was already bent over Harry with his wand out.

Lockhart raised his arm, but Daphne ran forward to stop him — and got her arm in front of Lockhart's wand the moment he swung it down.

A strange and unpleasant sensation started at her shoulder and spread all the way down to her fingertips. It felt as though her arm was being deflated.

Staring in horror, Daphne saw her arm take on the shape and consistency of an empty glove. It dangled uselessly next to her body.

"What did you do, you absolute candlestick?!" she shouted, not caring even for a second she was addressing a teacher.

"Ah," Lockhart said, making no comment at all about the fact that Daphne had stepped between him and Harry. "Yes. Well, that can sometimes happen. Er…maybe you should go to the hospital wing, Miss Greengrass, and er, you should probably take Harry there…Madam Pomfrey will be able to, er, tidy you up a bit." He laughed nervously.

"Tidy me up a bit?! You removed the bones from my arm, you–"

"Let's get you two to the hospital wing!" Hermione said, pushing Daphne away while Ron helped Harry get to his feet.

"You distracted him," Hermione said while they walked to the castle. "That's why the spell went wrong."

"Rubbish," Daphne said. "If the spell was meant to heal a broken bone, it wouldn't have done anything to me since my bones weren't broken to begin with. Lockhart is a fraud and I am not letting him near my friends with his wand."

"So you'd rather have your own arm deboned?" Hermione asked.

"I didn't intend to get hit in the first place, but I was too late to stop him," Daphne said irritably. All she could think about was getting revenge on Lockhart.

"Well…I owe you," Harry said, grimacing in pain. "If you hadn't stepped in it'd be me missing my bones."

Daphne said nothing. She'd put herself in harm's way to help her friends before, but this had been different. Harry had been hurt, and all she could think about was to make sure he was alright, to get between him and whatever could hurt him. Was that really just a sign of friendship, or…?

She didn't get a lot of time to think about it, because they'd reached the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey healed Harry's arm in about three seconds — using a far less complicated movement of her wand than Lockhart had done, to boot — but was very displeased with the state of Daphne's arm.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

When Daphne explained, Madam Pomfrey shook her head in irritation.

"That man always meddles in things he knows nothing about. This is the fourth time this year I've had to heal an injury he made worse."

"If it makes you feel better, I did call him an absolute candlestick for it," Daphne said.

"Anything that gives off light is too bright for that man," Madam Pomfrey scoffed.

Hermione was scandalized, but Ron had to fake a cough to hide his laughter.

"You'll have to stay the night," Madam Pomfrey said. "Regrowing bones is nasty business."

She threw Daphne a pair of pajamas. Hermione helped Daphne to change into them, and stuffing her floppy, boneless arm into the sleeve made her feel like throwing up.

"At least it's my left arm," she said with a weak smile.

Madam Pomfrey came around the curtain with a bottle labeled Skele-Gro. She poured out a steaming beakerful of the stuff and handed it to Daphne.

"You're in for a rough night," she said.

With great difficulty, Daphne managed to get all the Skele-Gro down. It burned her throat, and with every sip she took she wished violent death on Gilderoy Lockhart.

Hermione and Ron headed outside to meet up with the rest of the Gryffindor team — mostly to prevent them from bursting into the infirmary — but Harry lagged behind a little while longer.

"Er…I know I already said this, but…thanks," he said. He seemed a bit uncomfortable.

"You'd do the same for me, I'm sure," Daphne said. She tried to say it casually, but it came out almost like a question, one to which she desperately wanted the answer to be yes, if only so she could feel a bit less stupid about herself for doing this in the first place.

"I would," Harry assured her, and Daphne breathed a sigh of relief. Good, so it was just a thing close friends did, then. It was probably just her reckless Gryffindor side that had made her act like that in the first place.

Harry left the infirmary to join up with the rest of his Housemates, and Daphne lay back in her bed. Getting injured at a sports event as a spectator after the match had ended…that was a new one on her.

She winced as a stabbing pain shot through her shoulder. The Skele-Gro was apparently beginning to take effect. Well, if that was the extent of the pain, she'd be able to bear it.

In the middle of the night, Daphne woke up with a feeling like her arm was being pounded full of large splinters. Again, she was overcome with the desire to march up to Lockhart's office and murder him.

At that moment, the door to the infirmary opened, and Dumbledore backed into the room, wearing a long woolly dressing gown and a nightcap. He was carrying one end of what looked like a statue. Professor McGonagall appeared a second later, carrying its feet. Together, they heaved it onto a bed.

"Get Madam Pomfrey," Dumbledore whispered, and McGonagall hurried past the end of Daphne's bed out of sight.

Daphne lay quite still, pretending to be asleep. She heard urgent voices, and then McGonagall swept back into view, followed by Madam Pomfrey, who was pulling a cardigan over her nightdress. She heard a sharp intake of breath.

"What happened?" Madam Pomfrey whispered to Dumbledore, bending over the statue on the bed.

"Another attack," Dumbledore said. "Minerva found him on the stairs."

"A silver jug of pumpkin juice was found next to him. We think he wanted to visit Greengrass," McGonagall said.

Daphne felt like someone had thrown ice water in her face. She carefully raised herself so she could look at the statue on the bed.

A ray of moonlight lay across its staring face. It was Isaac Moore. He was oddly hunched over as if he were reaching for something, his arm still outstretched.

"Merlin's beard, I feel sorry for this boy," Madam Pomfrey said with a shake of her head. "Always in the infirmary, that one, and now this…Petrified?"

"It's very worrying that a Slytherin Prefect was the target of an attack," McGonagall said. "He's not even Muggleborn."

"No Minerva, he is not," Dumbledore said. "He is, however, cursed."

"Cursed?"

"He ran afoul of a warlock in Diagon Alley in his second year and was cursed with misfortune. It's not something he likes to share. Because of this curse, and his background, I highly doubt he was the intended target of tonight's attack. We need to find out if anyone was with him who might have been the intended victim."

"What does this mean, Albus?" McGonagall asked urgently.

"It means that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again," Dumbledore said gravely.

Madam Pomfrey clapped a hand to her mouth. McGonagall stared at Dumbledore.

"But, Albus…surely…who?"

"The question is not who," Dumbledore said, his eyes on Isaac. "The question is, how…"

No, Daphne thought. The question is 'again'?

Once again, a few notes to clarify some things I did. Pucey joining in with Daphne's little group may seem weird, but the wiki mentions him as being the only Slytherin Quidditch player never to be mentioned as cheating. I'm just going to extend that to him being less of a jerk than the other players, and interested in helping as long as no one realizes he's doing it.

Moore being Petrified instead of Colin…well, Colin got attacked sneaking up to Harry, but Harry wasn't in the hospital wing this time. Moore, being literally cursed to be unlucky, seemed a good victim, especially since he's also a member of Daphne's group. Whether or not there was actually someone with him when he was attacked…remains to be seen.