Harry still felt bad about Arthur facing an inquiry at work even if his father's letter had made him feel a little better about it. Hermione who had been cold to them since last night thought Ron deserved the Howler, but the good thing was that she thought they had been punished enough that she went back to being friendly to them.
Their first class of the day was Herbology with Professor Sprout. They found Lockhart helping her treat the Whomping Willow who then preceded to humble brag about not being better at Herbology than Professor Sprout. To Harry's dismay, he took him aside and blamed himself for Harry's flying car incident. Lockhart was under the impression that Harry wanted more taste of publicity after the publicity Lockhart had provided him at Diagon Alley since his front page appearance had been canceled by his father. Despite Harry's feeble attempts to explain that it wasn't so, Lockhart continued his false belief and "advised" Harry to calm down as he wasn't there yet to be flying cars to school. Harry could merely shake his head in exasperation as the clown walked away.
At Herbology, they learned about Mandrakes. Hermione earned ten points for correctly answering that Mandrakes were an essential part of antidotes and had a cry that was fatal. They had to use earmuffs due to to this. But since they were only working with seedling Mandrakes, their cry would merely have knocked them out without their earmuffs. Harry also met a muggle-born named Justin Finch-Fletchey and Collin Creevey, a first year muggle-born boy with a camera who was a fan of him.
Classes continued as usual with Draco and gang being gits and Lockhart proving to be a useless teacher who only liked blowing his own horn but never lived up to his boasts when it came to action. But to Harry's surprise, Hermione fancied Lockhart to the point of circling his classes on her timetable with hearts and being blind to his incompetence.
Oliver Wood got the team training hard in Quidditch. On one such morning when the Gryffindors entered the Quidditch pitch for practice, they were met with the Slytherin Quidditch team. Apparently Snape had given them special permission to train their new seeker who to Harry's dismay was Draco Malfoy. Lucius Malfoy had bought the whole Slytherin team Nimbus 2001s. Draco made a smug insult about the Gryffindor team being too poor to buy those brooms for their team. Hermione replied to this by pointing out that at least they didn't buy their way on the team. This enraged Draco to the point of calling Hermione a mudblood.
Both Harry and Ron furiously pointed their wands at Draco and said "Eat slugs". Draco began coughing out slugs from Harry's spell but the spell on Ron's wand which was broken and held together with spellotape backfired and caused Ron to start coughing out slugs.
Ron and Draco were carried to the Hospital Wing by their respective housemates. The spells were removed by Madam Pomfrey with a swish of her wand. It disheartened Harry and Ron to have to explain the meaning of mudblood to Hermione who hadn't heard of that term.
Harry braced himself for what was about to come as he was sure Draco would write to his father and Lucius would do everything in his power to ensure Harry was punished. But fortunately, Lucius couldn't do much beyond getting Harry detention.
James placed three mugs in front of himself before he sat down with Sirius and Remus. They just had dinner and Miranda who was tired was taking a nap in one of the guest rooms. James appreciated them for spending the day with him on Lily's death anniversary.
"Miranda easily gets tired nowadays. I'm afraid something might be up with her." Sirius frowned.
"Maybe she's just tried from work. If it persists, you could consult a healer to be certain," said Remus.
"Yeah".
"So Remus, how's your new book going along?" asked James.
Remus took a gulp from his mug. "Alright, just have a bit of a writer's block. How's the team?"
"Great. I'm certain you'll work through your writer's block Remus. Sirius, how's business?"
Sirius owned a clothing company with clothes line aimed at modernizing the fashion of youths.
"Pretty good".
James looked uncertainly at the clock.
"James, what's wrong? It's the tenth time you've looked at the clock," Sirius pointed out.
James bit his lip as he twisted the ring on his finger. "It's just … Harry. He hasn't written yet and the Halloween feast should have been long over."
Just then there was knock on the window from Hedwig.
"Finally" James breathed a sigh of relief as he approached the window, opened it and freed Hedwig off the letter in his hand.
After he had read Harry's letter, he flopped on the sofa and began running his hand through his hair.
"What's wrong?" asked Sirius and Remus together.
"I don't know but something is. Harry heard voices while he was returning to the Halloween feast from Saint Nicholas's Deathday Party with Ron and Hermione".
Sirius sniggered "Deathday Party?"
"Apparently it was his 500th death anniversary."
"Still, who celebrates that."
"I don't know, I don't attempt to understand the mind of a ghost. But anyways, Harry heard a voice saying it was time to kill and it was hungry. When he followed the voice, he found Filch's stupid cat petrified with 'The Chamber has been Open. Enemies of the heir beware' written on the wall above it in blood."
Sirius and Remus gasped.
"What's the Chamber of Secrets?" asked Sirius.
"I wish I knew but I've never heard of it," James shrugged.
"I've read about it. There was a legend that when Salazar Slytherin left Hogwarts after clashing with Godric Gryffindor over not taking in muggle-borns, he left a Chamber of Secrets that could only be opened by his heir when they came to Hogwarts. The Chamber of Secrets was supposed to kill muggle-borns when it was opened," Remus explained.
"Do you think it could be someone who heard of this legend playing a prank?" asked Sirius.
"Maybe, but that doesn't explain the voice Harry heard and Filch's cat being petrified," said James.
"If it is The Chamber of Secrets, then Slytherin's heir is at Hogwarts which brings the question of who it is. There aren't any known Slytherin heirs left. My father said the Gaunts were the last of Slyhterin's heirs and they had died out except for Morphin Gaunt in Azkaban," said Sirius. "My mother was disappointed that there was no chance of our family marrying into the Gaunts."
"Maybe Slytherin has a another branch that people didn't know about," said Remus. "And probably a first year because if they were at Hogwarts before, they would have opened the Chamber of Secrets earlier, wouldn't they?"
"They could have been waiting for the right time or just have figured out it's location now. It seems unlikely a first year could figure out how to open the Chamber of Secrets," said Sirius.
"Or it could be a professor rather than a student," said James.
"The only new professor is Lockhart," said Remus.
"The only Slytherin professor is Snape," said Sirius. "I wouldn't be surprised if it was him".
"He did try to paint Harry as guilty even if there was no evidence Harry did anything other than be the first one on the scene. The git even tried to get Harry's Quidditch privileges taken away," said James indignantly.
"Probably just figured out how to open it," Sirius added.
"To be fair, that could just be Snape being a his usual petty, vidictive self against Harry," said Remus. "I mean, Snape was bigoted against muggle-borns but he did like Lily, so I don't think he had a murderous hate for muggle-borns."
"You have a point Remus. Perhaps we shouldn't jump to conclusions and presume Snape's guilt with no evidence. But the mystery of who aside, the question is why Harry heard voices that Ron and Hermione couldn't hear when this happened?" said James apprehensively.
"Maybe we should do research on the Chamber of Secrets and that might give us a clue," Remus suggested as James and Sirius nodded in agreement.
"And I'll write to Dumbledore about it too." James stood up from his seat. "But first, I'll write to Harry not to worry and that I'll look into it."
"Is Harry in trouble?" asked Sirius, concerned.
"Nah. Fortunately Dumbledore and McGonagall didn't jump on Snape's 'charge Harry with no proper evidence' bandwagon," said James.