Chapter 28: Rumors
"How much longer do you have to stir that for?" Ron demanded.
It was Saturday and Harry had Quidditch practice, so I'd dragged Ron with me to the girl's bathroom to work some more on the Polyjuice potion.
"Just another fifteen minutes," I assured him, checking my watch. It was important now that the boomslang skin had been added that I stir for exactly an hour. If I stirred too little, the potion might not transform us completely into the person we were trying to impersonate. If I stirred too much, the potion might not transform us completely back into ourselves at the end. "I know I don't want to be half me and half Slytherin forever, do you?"
Ron grumbled, but agreed.
"Why did you need me for this part anyway?" he asked, crossing his arms. "Seems all I've done is watch you stir for close to an hour. I could've been watching Harry's practice."
"You always watch Harry practice," I pointed out. "Besides, it's good to have a lookout. Between you and me, Myrtle's not all that vigilant."
Mercifully, when we'd arrived in the bathroom this morning, Myrtle had been off elsewhere, so we didn't have to deal with her and her moaning. Sometimes when I'd come down to brew without Harry or Ron, I'd get her to keep watch and make sure nobody found me brewing the potion in the first cubicle, but Myrtle was always more interested in annoying me than watching the door.
"And you're sure it'll be ready for Christmas?" Ron asked.
I nodded. "Not a moment sooner, mind you, but yes. It'll be ready."
"Good," Ron muttered. "The sooner we get the truth out of Malfoy, the sooner we can put this all behind us."
"I couldn't agree more," I replied.
With all this focus on brewing the Polyjuice potion, I hadn't had as much time to focus on my schoolwork as I'd have liked. Sure, my assignments were still excellent, but I knew I could do better if I had more time to devote to them. I hoped that by the time the second term arrived, I would be able to refocus my energies on my classes, especially since we'd be moving closer to exams.
I finished stirring and pulled the stirring rod from the cauldron. I adjusted the temperature to a low simmer and then packed up my things.
"Alright, I'm done for now," I declared, much to Ron's delight. "I'll have to check on it again this evening, to make sure the potion hasn't started to congeal, but I think it should be good for the rest of the day."
"Excellent," Ron said, leading the way to the door. "Now can we do something fun?"
"Well we do have that essay for Professor McGonagall," I recalled. "Why don't we head to the library and get started on that?"
I could practically feel the frustration pouring off Ron as he turned to face me with an exasperated look. I couldn't help but laugh.
"I'm just kidding," I assured him. "Well, I'm not. We will have to do that essay later this afternoon. But we don't have to do it now. Why don't we have a game of chess while we wait for Harry to come back from practice?"
Ron's frown immediately turned to a grin, and I couldn't help but find it funny how quickly he could change his tune.
"Now that sounds more like it," he said, picking up the pace. "Prepare to be slaughtered."
Though I rolled my eyes, I knew Ron was right. Despite the research I'd done over the summer and all the practicing I'd been doing; I still wasn't even close to beating Ron. I was determined to get there one day though, and so I continued to torture myself by losing to him over and over again.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and after checking on the potion once more before curfew – it hadn't congealed, but instead had turned exactly the shade of navy blue that I'd wanted – I headed up to bed.
When I arrived in the dormitory, it was to find all four of my dormmates huddled on Sally-Anne's bed, speculating as to who was behind the attacks on Mrs. Norris and now on Colin.
"It has to be an older student. Sixth or seventh year for sure," Lily was saying. "Whatever kind of magic they're using has to be highly advanced."
"Unless it isn't a student at all," Parvati pointed out. "What if it's a teacher?"
"No way is it a teacher," Sally-Anne shook her head.
"What makes you so sure?" Lavender demanded. "We don't know."
"The teachers are hired by Dumbledore," Sally-Anne insisted. "He wouldn't hire someone evil."
"I'm not saying he did it on purpose!" Parvati defended herself. "But, I mean, have you ever wondered what they do in their spare time? We never even see Professor Sinistra except for in class."
"That's because she teaches astronomy and she sleeps all day," Lily insisted. "Not because she's hiding anything."
"Or maybe that's what she wants you to think," Lavender said mysteriously.
As I headed over to my bedside table to get my bathroom kit and my pyjamas, the girls noticed me, and twisted around so that they were all facing me.
"What do you think, Hermione?" Lily asked.
"Hmm?" I frowned. Though I had been paying attention, I preferred to make it seem like I hadn't been. I didn't want my dormmates to think that I found them or their conversation interesting.
"Who do you think is behind the attacks?" Lily clarified.
I shrugged. "Well it's probably someone from Slytherin," I pointed out unhelpfully. The message in blood had referred to the Heir of Slytherin after all, so I figured that much was obvious. I didn't want to go spreading gossip about my true suspicions until I had proof. Especially not to these four gossip-hungry girls. "Apart from that, I don't know," I shrugged.
"See?" Sally-Anne said, turning back to face the other girls. "Even Hermione thinks it's a student."
"That's not what she said," Parvati insisted. "She just said it was someone from Slytherin. It could be a teacher who had been in Slytherin when they went to school here."
"Anyone know what house Professor Sinistra was in when she was a student?" Lavender wondered aloud.
There was a pregnant pause in the conversation as the four girls pondered that.
"She could have been in Slytherin," Parvati said slowly.
Lily shook her head. "I'm pretty sure she was in Ravenclaw."
"You're just saying that because you don't want the Heir of Slytherin to be a teacher," Lavender insisted.
"No, I'm saying it because I think I remember her mentioning it in class once," Lily retorted.
I chose this moment to slip out of the bedroom and across the landing to the bathroom.
Whoever the Heir of Slytherin was, I was pretty sure it wasn't Professor Sinistra. I was immensely glad that Harry and Ron hadn't overheard the conversation between my dormmates, because they'd be likely to start accusing Professor Snape.
No, I was pretty confident the culprit was a student. Like Sally-Anne had said, Dumbledore knew his teachers well enough not to have hired someone who would open the Chamber of Secrets. Hopefully soon enough I would have answers. Until then, I just needed to focus on the Polyjuice potion and ignore the various rumour mills that were surely circulating the school.
Later that week, a notice went up about a new duelling club that was being started up. Excited and intrigued, Harry, Ron, and I all signed up to join. In preparation, I checked out a book from the library entitled The Art of Duelling and read up as much as I could about the topic in the short period of time that I had.
Unfortunately, the duelling club did not live up to my expectations. In fact, the whole thing turned out to be a huge mistake, and when it was over, I wished we'd never gone. Not only had it been a huge waste of time – I learned more from the textbook I'd borrowed from the library – but it had also ended in disaster.
Harry had revealed that he was a Parselmouth. In front of the entire school.
After my shock wore off, I immediately knew that there was no way Harry was the Heir of Slytherin. His house loyalties aside, he didn't have a malicious bone in his body. All Harry ever wanted to do was to protect people. There was no way he was going around the school petrifying people.
But the rest of the school didn't know Harry as well as I did.
"Did you hear about Harry Potter?" Lily Moon all but whispered.
Once again, my four dormmates were clustered together, this time on Lavender's bed, gossiping about the events of the day. Unbeknownst to them, I was already in bed, the curtains of my four-poster drawn shut.
"Hear? We were there," Parvati replied.
"Was it terrifying?" Sally-Anne asked.
"It was so scary," Lavender insisted. "Nobody knew what he was saying. He couldn't take his eyes off it. It was like he was controlling it."
"And Professor Snape had to vanish it?" Lily asked.
"That's right," Parvati agreed. "If he hadn't stepped in when he did… well I'm afraid to even think what could have happened."
"How did he even get into Gryffindor if he's a Parselmouth?" Sally-Anne wondered. "Don't they all go directly into Slytherin?"
"Obviously it was a mistake," Lavender replied. "The hat was probably confused, because usually all Potters go to Gryffindor."
"But this wouldn't have been the first case of a family being split between different houses," Lily insisted.
"Maybe the hat's just getting old," Parvati declared. "Either way, it's obvious he's the heir of Slytherin."
"I just hope Professor Dumbledore does something about this before he has the chance to strike again," Lily insisted.
"Well now that he'd been ousted, he won't be able to sneak around anymore," Sally-Anne said. "That's got to be why he's been getting away with it. Because nobody would ever suspect Harry Potter of being up to no good."
"Do you think his friends are in on it too?" Parvati wondered. I could feel the four sets of eyes looking in the direction of my bed.
"I bet all three of them are down in the common room now, trying to figure out a way to cover it all up," Lavender said.
"I always knew there was something off about her," Sally-Anne muttered. "I guess now we know."
Having had quite enough of listening to the four of them, I grabbed my wand and whispered a silencing spell, to block out the sound of their chatter. I could only imagine that the same conversations were going on in all the dorms across Hogwarts.
I suddenly wished the Polyjuice potion was closer to being ready. Once we exposed Malfoy, people would stop looking at us – particularly Harry – as villains. Christmas couldn't come soon enough.