Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor am I attempting to make any personal gain from this story.
Harry Slithers-in: Chapter 2.1 Tracey
Tracey was becoming concerned about Harry. Early in the holidays she had sent him a letter but had not received a reply. A week later she sent another one but still no reply had been received even though she had included her home address if Harry had needed to use muggle post instead of an owl. Early in the third week of the holidays she had contacted her mother and told of the situation. Mrs. Davis' enquiries revealed that Harry's mail was being stopped by an unknown person. A trap set up by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement discovered it was a house elf employed by the Malfoys who was the thief.
The Malfoys took several steps to resolve this issue and even offered to host Harry's birthday party at an upmarket restaurant in the "rich people's" section of Diagon Alley; a part of the Alley that very few people ever bothered to visit because everything was more expensive than elsewhere in the Alley. Tracey had never been to the Gilded Galleon before but she had heard of it. Her mother had been there before marrying but, because she had married a muggle, her family had excluded her for several years. That situation had only changed a few years ago when Tracey's uncle Cyril had become Head of the family. Tracey, her mother and Robert would all be attending the dinner as would the Greengrass'.
The dinner party itself went well and, after it was finished, Harry returned with the Malfoys to Malfoy Manor where he would be staying until they visited Diagon Alley again for their school supplies after which Harry would be staying at Greengrass Manor until the school year began. Tracey would be staying at the Manor as well.
The shopping trip proved to be a surprise. While they were there they had learnt that Gilderoy Lockhart, a self-promoting publicity hound who had been at Hogwarts around the same time as Tracey's mother, would be teaching DADA that year. Tracey's mother spoke of her displeasure at this and told them a story of her own time at Hogwarts which Tracey and Harry both found amusing.
While they were there Tracey also learnt that Ginny Weasley would be starting at Hogwarts that year and that she apparently had a crush on Harry. Tracey decided she would need to keep an eye on the Weasley girl.
The stay at Greengrass Manor had been enjoyable but they were all looking forward to returning to Hogwarts. Robert had been made a prefect and had a new girlfriend and he was especially eager to be able to spend more time with her. Tracey found this funny considering he was staying with her family for the last couple of weeks of the holidays.
The train ride was uneventful except for Draco turning up and advising them of a muggleborn 1st year with a camera who was making a nuisance of himself. Tracey, Daphne and Harry managed to avoid meeting this boy on the train thanks in part to a warning they received from Ron Weasley. He, along with Hermione Granger, joined them in their carriage for the ride up to the castle.
Once everyone had settled in they sat talking quietly until Professor McGonagall entered leading a line of 35 first years. Ginny Weasley stood out plainly among the first years – she was the only red head in the group. arryTraceyT^TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTtttttttttt Tracey noted they all seemed as nervous as she had felt the previous year.
After the sorting hat's song (Tracey realised it was different to the one it had sung last year) Professor McGonagall began reading the names. One of the first to be called out was a tiny, mousey haired boy named Creevey, Colin. When the boy stepped up to the hat Draco said, "That's the boy with the camera from the train." They were relieved when the boy was sorted into Gryffindor.
During the feast Tracey learnt Harry had been dropped as seeker and would have to trial for the position again. She hoped he would get straight back onto the team.
Slytherin were scheduled to have their first DADA lesson with Lockhart on Wednesday but before they even got to class they had reason to believe Lockhart would be a terrible teacher. Apparently Lockhart gave the 2nd year class of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs a ridiculous test that had nothing to do with his subject and then he'd released a cage full of pixies without giving the students any instructions on how deal with them. In the ensuing chaos a couple of students had been injured while Lockhart had run off and abandoned them. There was speculation amongst the Slytherins they may not even have a lesson from Lockhart since there were already people saying he should be sacked for incompetence.
The Slytherins had DADA with the Ravenclaws straight after lunch on Wednesday. Lockhart had not been sacked although there was a rumour he had been given a reprimand by Dumbledore about not teaching his students proper technique before exposing them to danger. As it turned out DADA class started off the same way as it had for the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students but, instead of releasing a cage full of pixies, Lockhart had simply told them about his own first encounter with them. In fact the students didn't even need their wands for the class. After it many students complained that DADA looked as if it would be as boring as History of Magic was.
Next day they had their first potions class for the year. It was no different than the previous year had been and Tracey and Harry were happy to get out of class and out into the grounds afterwards, stopping only long enough to get something to eat. Unfortunately for them Lockhart was also outside during the lunch break.
"Well, well, Harry Potter. A pleasure to meet you outside of class, and Miss Davis, too," Lockhart said when he spotted Harry and Tracey sitting in the grass near the entrance.
"Hello, Professor," Harry replied warily. Tracey looked on, her expression neutral.
"I hear you are a member of the Slytherin Quidditch team; Seeker isn't it?"
"Yes," Harry replied.
"I was a Slytherin myself, and I played Seeker too. If you ever want any one-on-one coaching please feel free to come by anytime. I'm always willing to help special people improve their skills."
"I think I'd prefer to stick to team trainings, thanks. I find that it's better if all the team trains together, rather than individuals going off doing their own thing."
"Perhaps then I could come to a training session? That way everyone on the team will get the benefit of my expertise. I'll have a word with Severus and arrange something through him," Lockhart said before walking back into the Castle.
"Can you believe him?" Tracey asked. "How arrogant is he? Maybe he should see Snape? I'm sure Snape will put him in his place."
"I'll speak to Flint tonight at trials," Harry said. "Flint will undoubtedly tell Snape and then we can have a good laugh at Lockhart."
Later Tracey discovered Draco was the new seeker and she, along with Harry and Daphne, wondered if the Malfoys had ordered their house elf to steal Harry's mail but they had no way of proving it so they let it go.
Saturday saw a near confrontation in the library. It came about after Hermione Granger had asked Draco why he was on the Quidditch team instead of Harry. Malfoy had then called her a mud-blood. None of the Slytherins present made any attempt to support Malfoy's opinion and this managed to avert any problems.
As the group headed to the Great Hall for lunch they met Hagrid who was carrying a dead rooster. "Hello Hagrid. What's that?" Harry asked.
"I found it outside the chicken coop jus' now. Looks like someone killed it on purpose," Hagrid replied.
"Who'd want to kill a rooster?" Blaise asked. The others agreed.
"Dunno," Hagrid replied. "I was goin' to see the Headmaster about gettin' some better spells around the coop so it doesn't happen again."
Hagrid left for Dumbledore's office while the students continued on to lunch.
It was as they were leaving the Hall after lunch that Harry heard something. It sounded like a voice but there was nobody in sight. He stopped to listen and this caught the others' attention.
"Harry? Is something wrong?" Tracey asked.
"I can hear a voice. It sounds cold and heartless, like it's threatening someone," Harry replied.
"What voice?" Theo asked. The others also seemed confused.
Harry looked at them. "Can't any of you hear that?"
"No," Theo finally said.
Harry said, "I can definitely hear something. It is getting fainter, like it's moving away."
"I still can't hear anything," Tracey said, sounding worried. "Harry, are you feeling ok?"
'I feel fine," he replied. "It's gone, I can't hear it anymore."
Slowly Harry started walking towards the Common Room along with the other students. He couldn't understand why nobody else could hear it since, to him. It had been quite plain. As they walked along the corridor to the Common Room Tracey said, "Look at those spiders."
"What about them?" Theo asked.
Tracey pointed to a long line of spiders all crawling towards a small crack in a window high above their heads. The spiders all seemed to be in a hurry and looked as if they were trying to push each-other out of the way so they could escape.
"That is strange," Theo commented. "Maybe a rat or something died up there and they are all hurrying to lay eggs in the body?"
"I guess so. Let's go," Harry said as they continued along.
Halloween was approaching. One day shortly before the holiday Tracey asked Harry, "Do you have any plans for commemorating your parents this year?"
"Not really," he replied. "Last year was special, it was the first time I actually knew the truth about how they died and it was the 10th anniversary so it was something special but this year is just another Halloween. It doesn't have any particular significance." Tracey nodded in agreement.
As they were leaving the Great Hall after the Halloween feast the Slytherins noticed a large group of students clustered around the top of the Grand Staircase that led to the Castle's upper levels. Curious, they climbed the stairs. As they made their way up several startled shouts and screams were heard. Malfoy pushed his way to the front of the crowd, his usually pale face flushed with excitement. "Enemies of the Heir beware. You'll be next mud-bloods," Malfoy shouted. Tracey looked closely and gasped. Hung on a torch bracket, like some horrific symbol of evil, was Mrs. Norris; Filch's pet cat.
Students were quickly ushered away and it wasn't until the following morning they were told that Mrs. Norris had in fact been petrified. Dumbledore then appealed for any information about any unusual activities going on in the castle. Tracey couldn't help feeling worried about it.
The next Saturday Slytherin were down to play Hufflepuff. Malfoy would be making his debut as seeker. When the game began it looked as if Malfoy was more interested in showing off than catching the Snitch. Tracey was wondering about this when Harry said, "Malfoy better pay attention to his job or he could end up making a fool of himself."
Just then they heard a shout from Slytherin captain Flint. "Malfoy, behind you, you idiot."
Malfoy turned around just as the Hufflepuff seeker Cedric Diggory shot past him. Harry could see the look of shock on Malfoy's face as he turned but it was already too late, Diggory caught the snitch while Malfoy was still several metres away giving Hufflepuff the win by 150 – 80.
After Draco's embarrassing mistake it took only a few hours for Harry to be back on the team. Tracey couldn't help feeling smug about this.
The next day they discovered a student had been attacked and petrified. Even more shocking, a ghost had been petrified as well. Nobody could work how this had happened and this seemed to cause more fear than the fact that a muggleborn student had been attacked. The tension among the students of all four houses was obvious.
Lockhart was the only person who appeared unconcerned over the attacks. "Now, now, there is no need to look so worried," he said at the beginning of their next lesson. "As long as I am here and you all follow instructions there is nothing to worry about. Why, it's only a matter of time until I identify the culprit. Once that happens it will all be over. I must say, too, that the culprit would be very wise if they stopped now before I catch them. It is easily their best option." Nobody took him seriously, however.
Tracey and Daphne undertook a reconnaissance mission around where the attack had occurred. They even talked to Moaning Myrtle, a ghost who haunted the bathroom right by site of the attack, but failed to turn up any useful information.
Christmas dinner was its usual noisy affair. After most people had finished eating Crabbe and Goyle stayed behind for more food. Half an hour later Draco went to find them. When they returned Tracey noticed Crabbe and Goyle were acting strangely.
Her suspicions aroused she made up an excuse to leave the Common Room. What happened next showed she was right.
When she reached the deserted Entrance Hall she paused, deciding where to go. She could hear a banging coming from the broom closet by the Main Doors and was going to open it when she heard running footsteps coming from the corridor to the dungeons. Quickly, she ran up the main staircase into the castle proper. At the she top stopped and looked down to where she could see Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom wearing oversized Slytherin robes. They were placing shoes on the floor outside broom closet.
Tracey stepped back out of sight. She waited until the two boys climbed the stairs and hurried down the corridor away from her. Tracey was going to follow them but they turned off into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom so she went to the door instead. Leaning against it she could faintly hear voices.
"Hermione, we've got loads to tell you," Ron was saying. "Potter is the Heir of Slytherin but he says he's not the one attacking muggleborns. I think it might actually be Malfoy."
Tracey burst into the room, wand pointed at the Gryffindors. "Care to explain what you were doing in the Slytherin Common Room just now?"
Ron and Neville both looked startled at her arrival. Neville was still wearing Slytherin robes which tried unsuccessfully to hide from her.
"Alright then," Tracey began. "Let me see, you brewed some illegal Polyjuice potion then knocked Crabbe and Goyle out and shoved them in the broom closet in the Entrance Hall after stealing their robes and shoes. Then you used the Polyjuice potion to impersonate them so you could infiltrate our Common Room. And I'm willing to bet you lot had something to do with that exploding cauldron in potions class a couple of weeks ago, too."
"Well… we didn't take their robes but… um, apart from that, yeah," Neville mumbled.
Tracey nodded. "Granger, I know you're in there, come out."
"No. Um, I'd rather not," Hermione said. She sounded terrified.
"Fine," Tracey said. "Just FYI, Harry is the Heir of Slytherin but he is not responsible for those attacks on muggleborns. He, along with Theo, Daphne, Blaise and myself are attempting to identify the culprit so we can get them removed from the castle. Granger, I'm not going to speak to a door much longer. Remember all I have to do is go to Snape and all three of you would likely be expelled."
A lock clicked and the cubicle door opened. Tracey couldn't believe her eyes. "Granger, what on earth happened to you?"
"It was cat hair," Hermione said through sobs. "Millicent Bulstrode must have a cat and it was a hair from it that I used."
"Millicent does have a cat, its name is Pixie," Tracey said. "If you were planning on infiltrating our Common Room as her you were lucky. The Bulstrodes are in Italy at the moment and she couldn't have come back early even if she wanted to, and she wouldn't anyway."
"You call this lucky?" Hermione wailed.
"If you had gone into our Common Room as Millicent everybody would have known you were an imposter. You would probably have been knocked out, stripped naked and thrown into the lake. Then you would have been taken to Snape's office."
"In that case, yeah, we were lucky," Ron said.
"What are you going to do?" Hermione asked.
"Firstly, you need to take Granger to the hospital wing. While you're doing that I'm going to free Crabbe and Goyle, then I'm going to decide what I want from you in exchange for not telling Snape about your exploit," Tracey said smiling evilly.
"So you're going to blackmail us?" Hermione asked.
"I suppose so, yes," Tracey replied.
Ron and Neville led Hermione to the door. As they were about to leave Moaning Myrtle poked her head through the door of another cubicle. "Oh, you're leaving," she said. "I was so enjoying it too. It's not every day I see someone with a tail."
Later she told Harry all this while planning how to get revenge over the Gryffindors. Finally, she decided to ask each of them for something different.
Several weeks later that day Tracey and Harry heard Filch shouting angrily. A quick investigation revealed Moaning Myrtle had flooded her bathroom. Tracey asked Harry to help her turn off the taps and while they were doing that she asked Myrtle what was wrong.
"Have you come to throw something else at me?" Myrtle wailed from her cubicle.
"We haven't thrown anything at you," Tracey replied, trying to soothe Myrtle. "Has somebody else thrown something at you?"
"I was just sitting here in my cubicle thinking about death when somebody thinks it's funny to come in here and start throwing things at me," Myrtle moaned as she emerged from her cubicle.
"What did they throw?" Tracey asked, trying to keep Myrtle talking.
"A book," she wailed. "It got washed out, it's over there." Myrtle pointed to a small, black book laying in the corner of the bathroom. Harry went to pick it up. He found it was a diary. The name on it was T. M. Riddle and it was clearly very old.
"Did you see who threw it?" Tracey asked.
"No!" Myrtle screeched. "I was in here minding my own business when…" Myrtle turned and dived back into the toilet, splashing more water over the already saturated floor.
'Well, we'd best be going," Tracey said, turning to Harry. "Now you know why nobody comes in here unless they have to. They left the bathroom.
"Potter, Miss Davis. What do you think you're doing?" Professor McGonagall demanded as they left.
"It's my fault, Professor," Tracey explained. "We heard Filch's shout and came to see what was wrong. Mr. Filch had left all the taps running so I asked Harry to help me turn them off."
Professor McGonagall looked sternly at Tracey. "Very well. As I'm sure you remember there have been a number of attacks, most of them in this area. You should have stayed away from here until the staff had investigated the matter, just in case there was something dangerous here. You may go."
Once safely away Harry and Tracey looked through the diary. The date on it was 1943, exactly 50 years ago but it was completely blank. Whoever T. M. Riddle was he hadn't written anything in it; at least not in any easily recognisable way.
They remembered that Draco Malfoy had told them the Chamber of Secrets was last opened 50 years ago. This made them think the diary might have useful information on that incident so they redoubled their efforts to discover the diary's secret. They asked if anyone had heard the name T. M. Riddle before and were told his name was on an award for special services to the school and that he had once been head boy. Other than that they were unable to learn anything new or important about him.
They studied the diary carefully but it wasn't until Valentine's Day they figured out how to use it. Lockhart had announced at breakfast he had employed a group of Dwarves to deliver personalised Valentine's Day cards. This seemed to anger the staff as much as the pupils and Tracey and Harry made a pact not to send each other one. Unfortunately, Ginny Weasley did send Harry one. It was after this debacle, during which Harry had spilt a bottle of ink over his books, that they realised the diary could absorb ink. Out of curiosity they tried writing to the diary.
He took out his quill and ink and wrote 'Hello' on the first page. The word glowed faintly in the candlelight before disappearing from the page. A moment later the word reappeared, but in a different writing style. Tracey gasped while Harry stared in amazement.
"This diary has its own consciousness," Tracey said. "Be careful, this could be very dangerous."
"How can a diary be dangerous?" Harry asked.
"People will put curses on anything they want to protect. If Tom Riddle wanted to hurt someone who found his diary there are many things that could happen. He might pretend to be a friend while leading you down a dangerous path to self-destruction."
Next they asked about the Chamber of Secrets and it was here they discovered the truth. The diary showed them how Tom Riddle had caught Hagrid whom he claimed was responsible for the attacks during his time but Tracey immediately realised it story was false. This made them suspect Tom Riddle was in fact the killer.
Quidditch temporarily disrupted their plans but, after Slytherin defeated Gryffindor Harry was able to concentrate on the diary. Tracey hadn't done much on her own during this time but she had by no means forgotten about it. Her marks had improved thanks to the help provided by the Gryffindors and a discussion with them soon after the Quidditch match was what finally led to their next discovery with regard to the Chamber of Secrets.
In this conversation Hermione had claimed Tracey and Harry had something that belonged to Ron's sister. They showed her the diary and confirmed it was the item in question. Next they showed her how to work it and explained why they couldn't let Ginny have it back. Hermione agreed with their decision and told Ron it wasn't Ginny's diary.
Next they spoke to Myrtle and, while in her bathroom, they discovered the entrance to the Chamber. A visit to the library where Tracey asked Madam Pince about books on magical snakes led to the discovery the monster was a Basilisk, a giant snake. Harry realised how all the clues they had gathered over the year now fitted together and they took their information to Professor Snape who brought Professor Dumbledore in.
After a thorough explanation from Harry and Tracey during which they said they thought Ginny Weasley had been possessed by the diary and was, therefore, not responsible for her actions Dumbledore settled on a solution to the problem. They decided Harry would lead the teachers into the Chamber where Dumbledore would kill the Basilisk with a rooster. The date was set and, while Tracey sat in Snape's office with Professor Sinistra; Harry, Snape and Dumbledore entered the Chamber and killed the Basilisk. Harry gave Tracey one of the fangs as a souvenir.