It was most unfortunate, or so Envy thought, that Ron, Harry, and Hermione had been unable to tell him about Lockhart's lesson. They had seemed rather pitying of him when he mentioned he had Defense Against the Dark Arts first thing. Then the bell had rung, and they had told him that they would explain it later.

Their ominous looks were probably the reason for his dread.

The first thing Envy noticed when he walked into the classroom was the disheveled state of the place. What the hell had happened yesterday? And why hadn't the room been cleaned up? Envy wouldn't be surprised if Lockhart was simply too incompetent to master a simple cleaning charm.

Despite the disarray of the classroom itself, Lockhart acted the same as ever. For the lesson, the idiot reenacted a scene from one of his books. The bright side of all this, Envy decided, was that the lesson wasn't nearly as horrific as he had expected, and Lockhart looked like an absolute fool. He called on Malfoy to help him, thereby making him look just as stupid. Malfoy was completely humiliated by the time the bell rang, and he kept muttering angrily under his breath.

In Potions class next thing, Hermione whispered an explanation of what had happened in Defense Against the Dark Arts yesterday and Envy had to smother his laughter. Snape sent a glare his way, but said nothing.

Envy later overheard Lockhart asking Flitwick to help fix his classroom; when asked why he couldn't do it himself, Lockhart simply joked that his wand had gotten over excited and jumped out the window when he was performing a charm, and he had yet to find it. Envy supposed he was too embarrassed to say anything more.

He'd been wrong to think that watching Lockhart fumble around with his new job would be miserable.

'-'

The rest of September and most of October passed in a blur; boring classes, moderately exciting ones, and the laughable Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. Envy was still top at Transfiguration, much to his delight.

And suddenly it was Halloween.

He hurried down to the dorms to put away his school supplies before the feast and once he had done so, was startled to see a number of ghosts floating through the walls or down the stairs, all heading down a side corridor.

Might as well check it out.

Before a door down the corridor floated Nick, welcoming visitors—what was this, a party?

"Ah, hello Envy," Nick greeted him. "Are you joining the party as well?"

It seemed his guess was correct.

"Uh . . ." Envy stuck his head through the door and quickly drew back when the freezing air touched his face. "What's the party being hosted for? Is it a Halloween gathering?"

Nick chuckled gloomily. "My deathday party."

"Well, no thanks. I should be getting to the feast."

Nick nodded in understanding. "I didn't expect you to . . . Well, off you go, then."

Envy was glad to have gotten away so easily.

He ended up at the Slytherin table again, (Snape required that he sit at his house table during feasts, unfortunately) but managed to get a seat away from the more hostile Slytherins.

The Great Hall was decorated magnificently this year. Envy wondered if the decoration and entertainment would get more extravagant as the years went by. Perhaps next Halloween the ghosts and the bats would join the skeletons in a synchronized dance. Now that would be impressive.

Ron, Harry, and Hermione were nowhere to be seen, and Envy was beginning to wonder if they would just keep disappearing on him all year whenever the feasts rolled around. He hoped not—peace was nice, but a little bit of action wouldn't go amiss; he would prefer to disappear with them.

With the end of the feast came a great scraping of chairs. The dancing skeletons were packed away, and the chatter was split between tired and energetic. Envy wasn't really talking to anyone, of course, because there was no one in Slytherin who was worth talking to.

They seemed to wander aimlessly at first, following the other students up until they reached the second floor, two houses up one staircase and two up the other so they spilled from either end of the corridor.

The students at the front stopped and fell silent, and the rest soon followed. Envy was closer to the back, however, and being rather short, he could barely see the tops of the large letters painted on the wall.

Malfoy's voice rang out mockingly from the front of the crowd, quoting whatever was written on the wall, and Envy growled in annoyance. Already having stood on his toes and been unsuccessful in seeing properly, he pushed through the crowd as Filch's foul voice descended on whoever was unlucky enough to be at the front. Although most of the students were distracted by what they were witnessing and probably wouldn't notice if he used his transformation abilities, he somehow doubted that the person behind him wouldn't think it strange if he began growing taller.

Dumbledore and some others showed up sometime while he was pushing his way forward. He just broke through the front when Dumbledore ordered his three friends to follow him and Lockhart offered up his office for privacy. What had they been doing this whole time? Vandalizing school property?

The crowd parted, proving that it had really been pointless for him to go to the front, and the teachers and their three accompanying students began making their way down the corridor, a very stiff Mrs. Norris carried along as well. Envy followed.

A ways down the corridor, Dumbledore stopped and turned around. "Mr. Novus," he began, "please return to your classmates and follow them back to your dormitory."

His tone left no room for argument. So Envy made room.

"With all due respect, Headmaster," Envy started sarcastically, "I think that since this concerns my friends, I might as well come along."

Dumbledore's expression remained serious. "Return to your dormitory."

Envy stayed for a moment, engaged in a staring contest with Dumbledore's untwinkling eyes, before turning around. "Feh. Fine." He stalked off down the corridor, and had planned to dodge around the corner and wait until the group was a safe distance away before following; unfortunately after a minute of waiting, the footsteps had not started up again, so he was forced to begrudgingly hand the win over to Dumbledore and continue back to his housemates.

When he got back to the corridor, all the other students had already retreated, so he just returned to his dorm.

Despite the quiet of the corridors, the Slytherin common room was alive with chatter. A few of the first years seemed to have gone to bed, but everyone else was still up.

Malfoy had gathered quite a few Slytherins around him and was preaching about the meaning of the writing on the wall. Others were discussing it more quietly, but few seemed at all worried.

As was stated earlier, there was no one in Slytherin worth talking to, so Envy decided he might as well just head straight for his dorm room and pretend to fall asleep for a while. "A while" turned out to be a lot longer than he expected. His dorm mates returned slowly, and he got the feeling that Malfoy was one of the last to turn in for the night.

Finally, once everyone's breathing had slowed to a slow, peaceful rhythm, Envy quietly climbed out of his bed and padded over to the door. He pressed his ear to the wood and listened for a moment.

Silence.

He eased the door open, glad that it was oiled regularly, and closed it behind him before he took off down the hall.

A seventh year girl seemed to have fallen asleep in an armchair in front of the fire. Envy tiptoed by, wincing when he accidentally bumped an end table with a chess board on it and knocked over one of the chess pieces (which yelled at him for it), but the girl only shifted a bit before falling still again.

The corridor outside was quiet and cold. The torches flickered dimly in their brackets, casting a slight glow across the stone floor. Envy's shadow interrupted the unsteady light.

A couple floors up, he paused in front of the writing on the wall. "'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened . . .'" he muttered. "What the hell does that mean?" There was no answer, of course. He shook his head and continued into the corridor on the right. Lockhart's office should be somewhere around here . . . Ah yes, there it was.

Light streamed from the crack under the door. Envy stopped and leaned close to listen.

"Albus, could this possibly mean—"

"Not here, Minerva."

The was a slight sniffling noise, and Dumbledore spoke again.

"We'll have an antidote ready as soon as possible Argus." An antidote? For what? Had Filch caught a cold?

"Thank you, thank you . . ."

"Why don't you get some sleep?" McGonagall suggested. Her voice was full of uncharacteristic sympathy toward the pathetically distraught caretaker.

Filch must have nodded, because footsteps began thumping their way to the door.

Envy's eyes widened and he scrambled back, but he wasn't fast enough. The door creaked open and Filch stepped out. He froze for a moment, and Envy took uncaring note of his puffy eyes.

The caretaker sneered. "Well, what do we have here?"

As the other professors neared the door, Envy glanced down the corridor and weighed his chances; him, a mostly untrained wizard with slow-acting shape-shifting abilities, against two highly skilled wizards and a witch, plus an incompetent and narcissistic buffoon who might be able to accidentally trip him. And a nasty caretaker who he had never seen cast a spell before.

Yeah, there was no way he was getting out of this one. He cursed his lack of foresight; it would have been wiser to take on the appearance of one of his classmates before he went sneaking around.

Meanwhile, Snape had come forward. "Mr. Novus," he said stiffly. Envy guessed he was embarrassed to have a member of his house caught wandering the school at night, let alone having that student eavesdropping on the teachers.

"Professor Snape," Envy replied disdainfully.

Snape's lips twitched as he restrained a sneer. "What are you doing out of your dormitory at this hour?"

Envy decided to go for the deadpan approach. "Breaking the rules."

Snape's eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to say something, but Dumbledore broke in.

"Severus." The twinkle was back in his eye. "Why don't you send our young friend back to bed."

Snape scowled. "Very well. Mr. Novus, return to your dormitory. Detention with me, tomorrow after dinner."

Based on the lack of students to be seen in the office beyond the doorway, Envy guessed that Ron, Harry, and Hermione had been sent back to Gryffindor tower. He sighed. "Fine, fine."

Dumbledore bid him goodnight, and Envy begrudgingly set off back to the common room. Snape followed him, no doubt to make sure he didn't sneak off. He was tailed all the way to the common room door. When he proclaimed the passwords and stepped forward, muffled footsteps hurried away.

Well, that had certainly been a pointless outing.

Well. Just in time for October 3rd. I remembered it was soon, and I began the desperate scramble to finish this chapter before it was too late . . . and I made it. Hooray!

Fun fact: Where I am, the first day of autumn was freezing, and the second day was just as warm as the day before the first day of autumn. . . . Weird weather.

I feel like I stereotyped Slytherin house when I said there was no one in Slytherin worth talking to. . . . But those are just Envy's thoughts, and I would think he's prone to stereotyping, what with how he used to think of humans.

Almost two hundred followers! I'M SO CLOSE. *freaks out* Anyway, sorry if the chapter seemed rushed anywhere, because I was rushing to get it done. Please review, and if you're not feeling too lazy, please point out any mistakes!

-Quiet Leaf