Chapter 26

With the start of the new year the break quickly came to an end, now it was Sunday and Harry knew the students would return in time for dinner. While he was looking forward to seeing his friends, he wasn't looking forward to hearing the students whisper about him and have them stare at him, he hoped one of his friends might have found a clue about the heir.

Breakfast that day had been uneventful and Harry found himself mostly listening to Ron and Luna talk. Glancing around Harry saw Percy was keeping a close eye on the twins and Lee, ever since they got caught setting off their fireworks McGonagall took away a hundred and fifty points and made Percy promise to keep a closer eye on them.

Breakfast soon came to an end and Harry left to practice in the dueling room, with the start of the new year Harry returned to practicing his casting and he was focusing on casting with both hands while also working on a difficult spell. Arriving at the dueling room Harry flicked his wrist and caught his wand, he focused on two targets and raised his wand and hand before casting, "Flipendo!" Harry managed to cast both and hit his targets, he felt the drain on his magic and noticed it wasn't as bad as before.

Harry continued to practice casting multiple spells for a while until he felt he was feeling tired and his magic was low, stopping to let his magic recover Harry sat on one of the couches and reached for one of the many books they started keeping in the dueling room. Harry grabbed a copy of Hogwarts: A History, he thought about reading more of the books Hermione let him borrow but he reminded himself he promised he would finish reading Hogwarts: A History. By the time lunch started Harry felt exhausted, once he recovered enough magic he continued to practice until his magic was low, he made sure to continue reading each time he waited for his magic to recover, he knew practicing like this would leave him feeling exhausted but he could feel his magic was getting better.

Arriving for lunch Harry spotted Luna sitting with Ron so he joined them, Luna looked at him and smiled before saying "It looks like you're getting better Harry."

Harry thanked her but Ron said "Don't you think you're practicing too much; we don't have any classes and you've already finished your homework, how about a round of chess after lunch?"

Harry wondered what Ron would say if he found out what he was really practicing, he nodded and agreed to a round of chess, even though he was practicing more than before he still made sure to spend time with his friends. Lunch continued and the trio continued to talk, the two had asked Harry about Hermione and were glad to hear she was doing better, neither of them had joined Harry in his late night visits since Luna would claim to be busy and Ron thought it was boring that they were spending their time reading. Luna was in the middle of telling them about dabberblimps when they heard someone say "Mr. Potter," They turned and saw Madam Pomfrey had approached the group, once she saw she had their attention she said "I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that you and your friends are allowed to visit Ms. Granger, she has done well in her recovery so I'm allowing visitors again."

The three were surprised to hear this but soon were eager to visit Hermione, even though lunch wasn't over the three got up and followed Madam Pomfrey back to the hospital wing. They soon arrived at the hospital wing and Harry noticed the curtains around Hermione's bed were drawn, Madam Pomfrey approached and said "Ms. Granger, your friends are here to see you."

They heard movement and Madam Pomfrey pulled back the curtains, the three saw Hermione standing there and she looked like her old self again, she saw all three of them standing there and gave a slight smile before hearing them say excitedly, "Hermione!"

All three rushed forward and hugged her, Harry was the first to speak, "It's great to see you again Hermione, you look amazing!"

Hearing that made Hermione smile, she told them "I'm mostly back to myself." They all felt something soft brush against them before noticing it was a bushy cat tail, stepping back they saw Hermione still had her cat ears and tail. Hermione explained, "Madam Pomfrey said it'll take longer to get rid of my cat ears and tail."

They heard Luna say "That's too bad, I really like your cat ears and tail." She turned to Harry and Ron and asked "What do you think?"

Ron just said "She looks like a cat."

Seeing them made Harry think about all the cats his neighbor Mrs. Figg had, he thought about all the times she would let him play with her cats, without thinking Harry said "They do look cute."

Hearing that made Hermione blush, she briefly thought about asking Madam Pomfrey if she could keep them. She was pulled from her thoughts when Luna asked "Can I feel them?"

They sat down to continue to talk, Hermione let Luna feel her tail but she didn't want any of them to touch her ears. The group of friends spent some time talking about what happened over the break, she was glad to hear they were all doing well. Hermione asked about the heir of Slytherin and was disappointed to hear they haven't found anything yet; Professor Flitwick was still looking for information about the attacks fifty years ago but he's been busy. They talked about their classes starting again and Hermione and Ron got into a small argument when Ron complained about his classes, thankfully Harry and Luna put an end to the argument before it could continue. Hermione was disappointed she was going to have to miss many of her classes and dueling lessons, thankfully she cheered up when Harry promised he'd take many notes for class so they could study them together, he even promised to help her catch up on their dueling lessons.

Eventually Ron and Luna left but Hermione asked Harry if he could stay, once the two were alone and they were sure Madam Pomfrey wasn't going to hear them Hermione said "Harry, with classes starting again I don't think it's a good idea for you to keep coming by each night to read to me."

Harry was surprised to hear this, he noticed Hermione didn't look happy to say it, he asked "What do you mean, why?"

She explained, "I've enjoyed listening to you read to me each night, you've even started to stay longer after you started to read my books, however with classes starting you'll need to get your sleep so you can be ready."

Harry was disappointed to hear that but he also understood, he knew Hermione wouldn't want him to do anything that could get in the way of his classes, Harry told her "I understand, maybe we can keep reading together once you're out of the hospital wing."

Hearing he still wanted to read with her made Hermione happy, she smiled and said "Of course."

The two noticed dinner was starting soon and Harry would have to leave to meet up with the rest of their friends, before he left Hermione asked if he could bring Fay and Sally-Anne there after dinner and he agreed he would.

The time came and Harry and Hermione shared a quick hug before leaving, Harry went straight to the great hall to join his friends. Arriving at the great hall Harry sat with Ron, the twins, and Oliver, Luna had left to return to her table. The twins and Oliver asked about Hermione and were glad to hear she was doing better, they continued to wait but it didn't take long for the doors to open and for the students to enter the great hall.

They spotted Neville first and saw he was followed by the rest of the Gryffindor second years, the returning group quickly joined them and Harry and the others welcomed them back, Harry noticed Fay and Sally-Anne were looking around before Fay asked "Hey, where's Hermione?"

Harry answered, "She's in the hospital wing." He noticed a look of worry appear on their faces so he quickly said "She's ok, she's ok, she's not petrified! She told me to bring you two to the hospital wing after dinner!"

The two girls were relieved to hear Hermione wasn't petrified, they wanted to ask what happened but felt it would be better to wait and see her. Once all the students were seated Dumbledore welcomed them back before starting dinner, they started eating and Harry turned to Neville and asked "Did you find out anything about other parselmouths?"

Neville shook his head and said "I asked gran if she knew about any families that speak parseltongue but she wasn't aware of any, I even asked if any of the Potters could speak parseltongue but she said none of them could." Hearing that made Harry wonder how he inherited his ability, before he could think about it Neville said "Susan did say she found something, she said we can all talk about it in the dueling room after dinner."

Harry nodded and agreed, dinner continued and Harry could already tell many of the students were glancing over at him and some of them already started whispering, he felt it wasn't as bad as before but even then, it wasn't by much.

Dinner came to an end and Harry told Neville he'd meet everyone in the dueling room, Neville agreed and left with Susan and Hannah following closely. Harry, Fay, and Sally-Anne made their way to the hospital wing to visit Hermione. Once the three arrived they quickly noticed the bed Hermione was in and the two girls gasped when they saw Hermione's cat ears and tail. Once she spotted them Hermione said "Fay, Sally-Anne, it's good to see you again."

The two girls approached and immediately asked what happened, before she could answer Harry told Hermione "I'll be back later Hermione, Neville and the others are waiting in the dueling room and they might have found something."

Hermione nodded and said "Alright, make sure you stop by before curfew and tell me what they found out."

Harry nodded and quickly left, once he was gone Hermione turned to the two girls and explained what happened over the break, Sally-Anne felt guilty when she realized she gave her cat hair, she started to apologize but was interrupted when Hermione said "Sally-Anne, you don't need to apologize, I actually kind of want to thank you."

The two girls were confused and Sally-Anne asked "What do you mean, why?"

Hermione looked over and made sure Madam Pomfrey wasn't able to hear, she felt her cheeks turn pink before saying "Well, Harry always came to check on me and even started to read to me."

The two girls were stunned to hear this, they soon started to smile and asked Hermione to explain.

Harry arrived at the dueling room and saw Neville, Susan, Hannah, Daphne, and Tracey were all there. They first greeted each other before Susan asked "Where's Hermione?"

Harry knew he didn't tell them about the potion and wasn't sure how they would react, he explained what happened over the break and soon Daphne and Susan yelled "You brewed polyjuice potion!?"

Hannah turned to Neville and said "You knew about this!?"

Neville looked sheepish and Harry nodded and said "It was the only way we could get close to Malfoy to find out what he knows."

Daphne yelled "Harry, brewing polyjuice is illegal, that book I gave Hermione even said it's illegal! Only a potions master is allowed to brew it and even then, they need permission from the ministry to brew it, you're lucky the worst you got was detention!"

Susan added, "If you had done this outside of Hogwarts then all of you would have been in serious trouble!"

The two boys were scolded for doing something illegal and not telling them, when they were done the two boys apologized and they were told to never do something this reckless again. Once everything calmed down Daphne spoke up "Alright, I should tell you that over the break Tracey and I looked at the families that previously claimed to have a connection to Slytherin, unfortunately none of them had any way to prove they are related to Slytherin, we even looked at their family history but we couldn't find anything about them speaking parseltongue."

Tracey added, "We've even asked our parents for help, unfortunately they didn't know about any families that could speak parseltongue."

Daphne continued, "Some of the families we looked at do have someone currently attending Hogwarts so we'll keep an eye on them, hopefully one of them will reveal they can speak parseltongue."

Harry nodded and thanked them for their help, he hoped this could help them find out who the current heir is. Susan spoke next, "I was able to find one family that does speak parseltongue." Everyone turned to her and Susan explained, "My aunt helped me look and we found information on someone who recently died in Azkaban, no one could understand him since he would mostly speak parseltongue."

Hearing this Harry asked "What was his name, did he have any family?"

Susan answered, "His name was Morfin Gaunt and he was from the house of Gaunt, unfortunately the house of Gaunt has become extinct since their last remaining members have all died. Morfin had a sister named Merope and they had a father named Marvolo. Both Merope and Marvolo died years before the chamber was opened and Morfin was locked up for killing a family of muggles. We tried searching to see if they might have had any relatives but the Gaunts were a family that strongly believed in the purity of blood, they would often marry their cousins or even their siblings, with how inbred they were it's unlikely that anyone at Hogwarts is closely related to them."

Harry sighed at hearing they hit another dead end, at least he knew there are other people who can speak parseltongue. Harry thanked them for their help and shared the information they found out from Malfoy, after Harry explained everything they found out everyone agreed to start looking for information on the expelled student, if they could find out who framed the student then they'll know who the previous heir was. The group saw it was late and said their goodbyes before heading back to their common rooms.

Harry and Neville made their way to the hospital wing to visit Hermione, arriving at the hospital wing they found that Fay and Sally-Anne already left, they greeted Hermione before explaining everything they found out. Hermione listened to everything they found out and sighed when she heard it wasn't much, now their best chance of finding the heir was to find out who was expelled. It was almost time for curfew and Madam Pomfrey sent the two boys away, the two returned to their common room but when Harry walked in he noticed the way most of the students looked at him. Harry felt uneasy and decided to head to bed early, he could only hope his life at Hogwarts wasn't going to get worse.

For the first week back things had not been as bad as Harry would have thought, for each of his classes his friends stuck close to him and continued to treat him the same way they always have, it made it easier to ignore the constant staring and whispering. Harry did have to start focusing on his occlumency when it came to potions though, Snape had continued to target him and Neville while ignoring anything Malfoy did, at least he managed to keep Malfoy from ruining his brewing again even though every time he caught an ingredient Snape would begin to berate him and take points away.

With their classes having resumed Harry and his friends weren't able to spend as much time in the library looking for information on the expelled student. The teachers had given more homework and Harry started attending his quidditch practices again, with their schedules becoming busier they had limited free time to spend searching. Flitwick also had to focus on his classes so he wasn't able to search as much as before.

Even though they were busier than before many of them made time to stop by the hospital wing to visit Hermione, Madam Pomfrey did have to shorten their visits though since she still needed to work on undoing Hermione's changes, now they were only allowed to visit after dinner. While most of their friends had dropped by a few times to visit she was mostly visited by Fay and Sally-Anne, Harry had come by each day to hand Hermione his notes but his visits were shorter since he didn't want to bother the three girls, although whenever it was just the two of them he stayed longer to talk to Hermione.

When the first weekend came Harry was disappointed to hear that he had to report to Filch right after dinner for his detention, from what Harry could tell the man still believed he was the one who attacked his cat so he wasn't sure how the detention would go. Right after dinner Harry arrived at Filch's office and soon he was told to follow him, they stopped in a corridor that had several suits of armor and Filch gave Harry some cleaning supplies and ordered him to clean the suits until they shine. Once Filch confiscated his wand he told Harry to have them clean by the time he got back and left, thankfully once Harry made sure he was alone he cast a wandless cleaning charm and finish the suits quickly. Filch hadn't been gone for long and soon returned however he was stunned to see Harry had finished cleaning all the suits of armor, Filch inspected the suits of armor closely but saw they were completely clean, however Harry noticed Filch purposefully dirtied one of the suits with mud then turned to him and yelled at him for missing a spot. Harry could see the man intended to make his detentions worse than they needed to be, he ordered Harry to clean them all again and this time stayed to watch.

That Monday after their classes both Harry and Neville spent their time in the library searching for information on Salazar Slytherin, they were hoping that learning more about him could give them a clue about his heir. The two boys had even searched for information on how different creatures can petrify someone, maybe learning how Penny and Mrs. Norris were petrified could help them. Harry tried to read but for some reason he kept having this weird feeling, every now and then he stopped reading to glance around since he kept having this feeling like he was being watched.

The two boys soon noticed the time and came to a stop, they got up to head to the great hall but then heard what sounded like arguing.

"What happened to loyalty Bones, why are you turning your back on the rest of the house!?"

Hearing the name Bones they quickly realized Susan was there, they approached and spotted Susan and Hannah arguing with Ernie, they heard Susan say "I'm not turning my back on the rest of Hufflepuff, I'm just thinking clearly and seeing Harry isn't the heir!"

"The bastard can speak parseltongue, everyone knows that's a dark trait, he's just going to become another dark lord!"

At that Hannah spoke up, "You're wrong, Harry has been trying to stop the actual heir and prevent more attacks from happening, he even tried to order mature mandrakes to help, you haven't spoken to him so you don't know anything about him!"

Ernie yelled "I don't need to know him to know how much of a bastard he is!"

At that the two girls glared and Susan said "That just shows how stubborn you really are, you refuse to listen to anyone unless they're telling you that you're right since you think you're never wrong!"

The two boys were about to step in to stop the argument but they were interrupted when Madam Pince showed up, she demanded to know what was going on, they turned to face her and spotted Harry and Neville were standing close by, Ernie glared at them and said nothing before leaving, he passed by Harry and glared at him before saying "I wonder how long it'll be before we're calling you You-Know-Who, good thing Justin already left."

Harry grimaced when he heard that, Neville glared back and wanted to say something but then they heard "You heard that?"

The two boys turned to see Susan and Hannah walked up to them, Harry nodded and asked "Are you ok?"

Susan answered, "Yeah, Ernie is just being a jerk like usual."

Neville asked "What did he want?"

Hannah answered, "He decided to confront us here instead of the common room, he called us traitors for still being your friends."

Harry winced at hearing that, he felt terrible hearing how much trouble he was causing his friends, he lowered his head and said "I'm sorry, maybe you-"

He was cut off by Susan saying "Hey, don't apologize! you've been a much better friend to us than the other Hufflepuffs have been!"

Hannah added, "Don't apologize for how other people act!"

Harry saw the looks they were giving him and quickly nodded, Neville thanked the two girls for their help before they said their farewells and the two boys left for the great hall. The two quickly made their way out of the library but on their way out Harry spotted Ernie talking with Wayne Hopkins and Zacharias Smith, the two boys quickly left in order to avoid them.

The two boys made their way down to the great hall however when they reached one corridor they noticed there was someone standing there unmoving. Confused, they approached and noticed it was Justin however the two boys were soon stunned when they noticed he had been petrified. They quickly approached to check on Justin, they saw he was in the same state as Penny had been, Harry and Neville looked around wondering how this happened but all they saw was a shattered mirror ahead of them.

"You Bastard!"

The two turned to see who yelled and saw Ernie was there along with Wayne and Zacharias, they pulled out their wands and Harry tried to say "Wait, we didn't-"

All three Hufflepuff boys cast, "Expelliarmus!"

"Incarcerous!"

"Stupefy!"

Neville quickly raised his wand and cast, "Protego!"

A shield protected the two boys and blocked all three spells, the three Hufflepuffs didn't stop and continued to cast different spells while also yelling about an attack. Harry tried to say they didn't attack Justin however the noise quickly got someone's attention. They were stopped when they heard the voice of Professor McGonagall yell "Stop, stop this at once, what is going on here?!"

The three Hufflepuffs stopped and Zacharias yelled "Potter and Longbottom attacked Justin!"

McGonagall noticed Justin had been petrified, Neville dropped the shield and Harry frantically spoke, "Professor, w-we didn't-"

Ernie interrupted, "Shut it Potter, we know you were waiting to get Justin alone to attack him!"

McGonagall stopped the argument "Enough, I will inform the teachers first then I will hear what Mr. Potter and Mr. Longbottom have to say."

McGonagall turned to the nearest portrait to speak however they noticed none of the portraits were moving, the people in the portraits were all looking in the direction opposite of the shattered mirror. McGonagall felt worried and guided the students until they ran into a ghost, she ordered the ghost to inform the other teachers of another attack and to send all the students back to their common rooms, once the ghost left she turned to the boys and demanded to know what happened. Harry and Neville quickly explained they found Justin like this however the three Hufflepuffs started to call them liars, they accuse them of attacking Justin but McGonagall told the three to be quiet.

By the time the two Gryffindors finished explaining what happened more teachers arrived along with Madam Pomfrey, the healer checked on Justin and levitated him to the hospital wing while the teachers talked and McGonagall informed them of the situation. The boys were all guided back to their common rooms by their heads of houses, once Harry and Neville arrived they saw all the Gryffindors were gathered in the common room. McGonagall announced that there had been another attack, the Professor informed the students of what happened before noticing many were looking at Harry and Neville, knowing how bad the rumors could get she informed the students that Harry and Neville had nothing to do with the attack. Hearing that she was defending them made the two boys feel some relief, once she was certain the students understood she informed them that food would be brought to their common rooms, she soon left to join the rest of the teachers.

As soon as McGonagall was gone Harry and Neville were pulled up to the boys' dorms by their friends, once there the two boys explained how they found Justin petrified in the corridor. Hearing about another attack reminded Harry and Ron about what they learnt from Malfoy; they feared that more attacks were going to happen soon.

Harry and Neville didn't feel like heading down to the common room, they felt that even with McGonagall defending them the students wouldn't listen. Their friends decided to have dinner in the dorm and went down to the common room to gather some food, while the two boys were alone Harry thought about what Susan and Hannah were going through in Hufflepuff, now many students were looking at Neville, Harry didn't know what to do and he was worried he was going to cause more problems for his friends.

Please comment and let me know what you thought of the chapter.