Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor am I attempting to make any personal gain from this story.
Harry Slithers-in; Chamber of Secrets: Chapter 7: The Case of the Exploding Potion
Harry and Tracey decided to wait a few days before going undercover. For one thing security was at the moment much tighter than usual and Slytherins were being more closely watched than other students anyway. Clearly most people, including most of the staff by the look of it, felt a Slytherin was to blame. They agreed that putting it off for a few days would be better than charging in straight away.
They waited until Friday night to slip out of the Common Room and begin their search around where the attacks took place. During the week they had learnt that the latest attack had occurred in the same corridor as the others but in a different location, although the first two sites were visible from where the third one had happened.
Their exploration revealed nothing definite although there were some unusual scorch marks on the floor. They noticed a group of spiders seemingly fleeing from the area and made a note of it but they couldn't see any reason for this behaviour. They just assumed the spiders had somewhere more important to be, perhaps a new nesting site they were fighting over.
While there they did go into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, hoping that she might have seen or heard something but Myrtle wasn't very helpful.
"What are you doing here?" Myrtle screeched at Harry. "This is a girl's bathroom."
"It's alright Myrtle," Tracey replied. "Harry and I would just like to talk to you, if you don't mind?"
"Oh, alright," moaned Myrtle.
"Did you see or hear anything unusual around here the night that boy was attacked?" Tracey asked.
"I wasn't in here that night," Myrtle replied. "I don't spend all my time in here you know. I do visit other parts of the castle."
"Ok then. We're sorry for disturbing you, Myrtle. Thank you for allowing us to visit. Maybe we'll see you again later," Tracey said. Myrtle sniffed as Tracey led Harry out of the bathroom.
Saturday morning they got together with their research group to report their findings.
"We still have no idea how these people were petrified," Harry explained. "The only new evidence we have uncovered is that there were scorch marks on the floor near where the first attack took place but we don't know if they are related to the case or not."
"We did notice more spiders behaving strangely but seems no logic to that, even," Tracey added.
"So basically we're no better off today than we were a week ago," Theo said, sounding disappointed.
"It seems to me we're putting in a lot of effort for no result," Blaise said. "I wonder if we should just forget about it. We still have classes to attend and assignments to do."
"I agree with Blaise," Theo said. "Until we get a better idea of what we're looking for we're just wasting our time. It's no different than last year. Remember how long it took to figure out about the Philosopher's Stone?"
"And remember too, the break on that occasion came from a chocolate frog card," Daphne put in.
Even though Harry and Tracey didn't like it they had to admit the others were right. Although they, along with everyone else, wanted to solve the mystery they had no clues to go on and no real idea of what they were up against. Like the others they decided their time would be better spent doing their assignments and homework.
Less than two weeks later the Slytherins were in potions with Gryffindors. Today they were attempting to make a swelling solution. Harry Tracey were working on the table in front of Crabbe and Goyle. Knowing how unskilled the two boys were they were occasionally checking behind them to see if anything was amiss but everything seemed to be alright until suddenly there was a loud bang behind them. Somehow Goyle had managed to cause his potion to explode and everybody around them, Harry and Tracey included, were drenched in the nearly finished potion.
Harry could feel his back expanding, forcing his head and neck forward. All around him there were people screaming and shouting and Snape was having a significant degree of difficulty trying to re-establish order. Eventually things began calming down.
"Everybody who has been affected by the potion please line up calmly and quietly so I may administer the antidote," Snape said over the noise.
Harry managed to get near the front of the queue with Tracey, whose head and ears were about twice their normal size, right next to him. Both received their dose of the antidote and returned to their table while it took effect.
Once everyone was back to normal Snape dipped a ladle into Goyle's destroyed cauldron and fished around until he scooped something out of it. Harry could see it was clearly the remains of an exploded firecracker. Harry felt a surge of anger when he realised it had been a deliberate act of sabotage.
Snape was just as angry. "When I find out who is responsible for this," he began in a deathly whisper that nonetheless everybody heard, "I shall personally see that they are expelled." The last part was spoken in a much louder voice.
Harry was one of several students who needed to return to the dormatories to change clothes. His school robes were ripped across the back; the result of the expanding body parts underneath having grown too large for them. After changing he joined his housemates in the Common Room where they were angrily debating what had happened.
"We know it was a Gryffindor who threw that cracker," Malfoy said. "That whole class of Gryffindors should be suspended until the person responsible confesses, then that person should be expelled."
"Don't those idiots even realise how dangerous that sort of thing is?" Theo said.
"Of course they don't. All Gryffindors are stupid," Pansy replied.
"And Goyle's cauldron is liable to explode anyway, even without that kind of stupidity," Blaise put in.
"No it isn't," Goyle said.
"Yes it is Goyle," Malfoy replied, scathingly. "Go read a comic while we sort out what we're going to do."
"I only wish we could prove which one of them did it," Theo said.
"Whoever it was they must be really stupid," Harry added. "Crabbe and Goyle copped the worst of it but Tracey and I got badly hit too. In fact over half the class was injured because of their stupidity."
"How many of those who were hit with the potion were Gryffindors? Blaise asked.
"Not many. At least it looked like most of those lining up for the antidote were Slytherins, there weren't many Gryffindors in the group," Theo replied.
"But there were some though, right?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, one or two," Theo replied. "Undoubtedly most of the victims were Slytherins and all those badly affected were Slytherins. The Gryffindors who needed antidote seemed only to have been hit by stray splashes of potion, not direct contact with it."
"We know a Gryffindor was responsible. I think we should concentrate our efforts into finding who did it and then finding a way to target that person specifically," Harry put in. "I doubt Snape would stop us taking revenge on an individual if we could prove they were responsible."
"Do you think there might be a way to trick whoever is responsible into revealing themselves?" Daphne asked.
"Probably not," Malfoy said, "but there are other things we could try. I know Snape has several strong truth potions in his office. If one of us could sneak in there and 'borrow' some we could put it in the Gryffindor's food and ask them."
'What types of potions does Snape have?" asked Harry.
"He's bound to have some Veritaserum. I think that's the strongest and most reliable potion available for use in interrogations."
"Okay, even if we manage to get some, don't you think it likely Snape will notice if something like that goes missing?" Theo asked.
"We could replace it with something that looks the same. Hopefully it would take him a while realise a switch had been made," Malfoy told the others but clearly many disagreed with him.
"Snape would probably know the moment someone entered his office or storeroom," Theo said. "I wouldn't be surprised if the doors were booby-trapped to set off an alarm the moment someone entered one of them without permission."
"I daresay Theo's right there, Malfoy," Harry added.
"Even if they aren't booby-trapped I'm sure he'd notice if one of his potions vials was moved even an inch from where they normally are," Theo continued.
"We need a better plan," said Daphne. "Anyway, even if we did manage to get some of the potion and identified which one of them was responsible, whoever we tell is going to want to know how we found out who it was. How will we explain that?"
Everyone realised Daphne was right. Even if they managed to identify the culprit there was very little they could do. If they were going to have their revenge they would need to be more underhand in their methods. And being underhanded was something Slytherins were well known for.
That evening, as Harry sat with Tracey in the Common Room finishing his homework, Tracey was searching for something in her bag. After a few minutes she said, "I can't find my bracelet, you know, the one with the silver clasp and the gold chain. I know I had it on this morning and I took it off as we went into potions to keep it safe, but now I can't find it."
"Maybe it fell out of your bag during class?" Harry offered.
"I hope that's all it is," she replied. "I'd hate to lose it, and it is quite valuable both in actual value and sentimental value."
"It's not yet curfew. Perhaps you could go look for it in the classroom?"
"I think I will. I'd better see Snape first, though. I don't want him to accuse me of trying to steal things from the classroom." Tracey left the Common Room, leaving Harry alone to finish his assignments.
When she returned half an hour later she had both the bracelet and a potions text book. "While I was there I decided to have a quick look in the storage cupboards in the room," she explained. "I found a complete set of potions text books and they had all these extra notes in the margins. I doubt Snape would mind me borrowing the book for our year so I grabbed it."
"In other words, you stole from Snape," Harry said.
"Not stole; borrowed. I intend to return the book once I've tried out some of the suggestions the last owner made for improving their results. It can't hurt, after-all." Tracey had mischievous glint in her eyes as she spoke.
"Do you think you'll get away with it?"
"As long as I'm careful and don't do anything stupid, I should be alright. Do you want to borrow it if it does improve my grades?"
"I think I'll reserve judgement on that for now," Harry replied. "If it works then maybe I'll take a look at it too."
During their next potions class they noticed Snape paying very close attention to the Gryffindors while largely ignoring the Slytherins. Taking advantage of this Tracey tried the first experimental variation for the potion they were working on. The result was impressive. Her potion looked exactly how it was described in the textbook whereas Harry's potion looked wrong. He compared his notes with what was written in the book and decided to try the variation himself. Almost immediately his potion changed to what was described in the book.
"It looks like that book was right," Harry said as he read over Tracey's shoulder. "Do you think the other notes are as accurate as that one was?"
"The only way to find out is to try them," Tracey replied. "I think I'm going to copy all the notes in this book into mine, though. The longer I keep this book the more likely Snape is to notice it is missing."
"Good idea. Can I borrow your book once you've finished transcribing the notes?" Harry asked.
"Sure you can. I think my grades are about to become much better,' Tracey said, smiling.