Gaunt ~ Book 2

Twenty-One~Potter

a/n: Same reminder as usual, I'm combining J.K. Rowling's work with my own. Hope you enjoy!

Percy Weasley had stopped dead on the top of the stairs, prefect badge a gleam, an expression of complete shock on his face.

"That's a girl's bathroom!" he gasped. "What were you —"

"Just having a look around," Ron shrugged. "Clues, you know —"

Percy swelled in a manner that reminded Harry forcefully of Mrs. Weasley.

"Get — away — from — there —" Percy said, striding toward them and started bustling them along, flapping his arms. "Don't you care what this looks like? Coming back here while everyone's at dinner —"

"Why shouldn't we be here?" said Ron hotly, stopping short and glaring at Percy. "Listen, we never laid a finger on that cat."

"That's what I told Ginny," said Percy fiercely, "but she seems to think your going to be expelled, I've never seen her so upset, crying her eyes out, you might think of her, all the first years are thoroughly over excited by this business —"

"You don't care about Ginny," said Ron, whose ears were now reddening. "You're just worried I'm going to mess up your chances of being Head Boy —"

"Five points from Gryffindor!" said Percy tersely, fingering his prefect badge. "And I hope it teaches you a lesson! No more detective work, or I'll write to Mum!"

And he strode off, the back of his neck as red as Ron's ears.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione choose seats as far as possible from Percy in the common room that night. Ron was still in a very bad temper and kept blotting his Charms homework. When he reached absently for his wand to remove the smudges, it ignited the parchment. Fuming almost as much as his homework, Ron slammed The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 shut. To Harry's surprise, Hermione followed suit.

"Who can it be though?" she asked in a quiet voice, as though continuing a conversation they had just been having. "Who'd want to frighten all the Squibs and Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts?"

"Let's think," said Ron in mock puzzlement. "Who do we know that thinks Muggle-borns are scum?"

He looked at Hermione. Hermione looked back, unconvinced.

"If your talking about Malfoy —"

"Of course I am!" said Ron. "You heard him — 'you'll be next Mudbloods!' — come on, you've only got to look at his foul rat face to know it's him —"

"Malfoy, the Heir of Slytherin?" said Hermione skeptically.

"Look at his family," said Harry, closing his books, too. "The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin; he's always boasting about it. They could easily be Slytherin's descendants. His father's definitely evil enough."

"They could have had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for centuries!" said Ron. "Handing it down, father to son. . . ."

"Well," said Hermione cautiously, "I suppose that's possible. . . ."

"How do we prove it?" said Harry darkly.

"There might be a way," said Hermione slowly, dropping her voice still further with a quick glance across the room at Percy. "Of course, it would be difficult. And dangerous, very dangerous. We'd be breaking about fifty school rules, I expect —"

"If, in a month or so, you feel like explaining, you will let us know, won't you?" said Ron irritably.

"All right," said Hermione coldly. "What we need to do it get inside the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy a few questions without him realizing it's us."

"But that's impossible," Harry said as Ron laughed.

"No, it's not," said Hermione. "All we'd need would be some Polyjuice Potion."

"What's that?" said Ron and Harry together.

"Snape mentioned it in class a few weeks ago —"

"D'you think we've got nothing better to do in Potions than listen to Snape?" muttered Ron.

"It transforms you into somebody else. Think about it! We could change into three of the Slytherins. No one would know it was us. Malfoy would probably tell us anything. He's probably boasting about it in the Slytherin common room right now, if only we could hear him."

"This Polyjuice stuff sounds a bit dodgy to me," said Ron, frowning. "What if we're stuck looking like three of the Slytherins forever?"

"It wears off after a while," said Hermione, waving her hand impatiently. "But getting hold of the recipe will be very difficult. Snape said it was in a book called Moste Potente Potions and it's bound to be in the Restricted Section of the library."

There was only one way to get a book from the Restricted Section: you needed a signed note of permission from a teacher.

"Hard to see why'd we want the book, really," said Ron, "if we weren't going to try and make one of the potions."

"I think," said Hermione, "if we made it sound as though we were just interested in the theory, we might stand a chance. . . ."

"Oh, come on, no teacher's going to fall for that," said Ron. "They'd have to be really thick. . . ."

Since the disastrous episode of the pixies, Professor Lockhart had not brought live creatures to class. Instead, he read passages from his books to them, and sometimes reenacted some of the more dramatic bits. He usually picked Harry to help him with these reconstructions; so far, Harry had been forced to play a simple Transylvanian villager whom Lockhart had cured of the Babbling Curse, a yeti with a head cold, and a vampire who had been unable to eat anything except lettuce since Lockhart had dealt with him.

Harry was hauled to the front of the class during their very next Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, this time acting a werewolf. If he hadn't had a very good reason for keeping Lockhart in a good mood, he would have refused to do it.

"Nice loud howl, Harry — exactly — and then, if you'll believe it, I pounced — like this — and slammed him to the floor — thus — with one hand, I managed to hold him down — with my other, I put my wand to his throat — then I screwed up my remaining strength and performed the immensely complex Homorphus Charm — he let out a piteous moan — go on, Harry — higher than that — good — the fur vanished — the fangs shrank — and he turned back into a man. Simple, yet effective — and another village will remember me as the hero who delivered them from the monthly terror of werewolf attacks."

The bell rang and Lockhart got to his feet. 

"Homework — compose a poem about my defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf! Signed copies of Magical Me to the author of the best one!"

The class began to leave. Harry returned to the back of the room, where Ron and Hermione were waiting.

"Ready?" Harry muttered.

"Wait 'till everyone's gone," said Hermione nervously. "All right. . . ."

She approached Lockhart's desk, a piece of paper clutched tightly in her hand, Harry and Ron right behind her.