Chapter Fifteen- "And on that note, I need to pee ..."
"You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago - the precise date is uncertain - by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution."
He pauses, gazes blearily around the room, and continues, "For a few years, the founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them. A rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school. "
Professor Binns pauses again, pursing his lips, looking like a wrinkled old tortoise.
Tortoise, that's fun to say....
"Reliable historical sources tell us this much," he says, "but these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. The story goes that Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing.
"Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic."
There's silence as he finishes telling the story, but it isn't the usual, sleepy silence that fills Binns's classes. There's unease in the air as everyone continues to watch him, hoping for more. Professor Binns looks faintly annoyed.
"The whole thing is arrant nonsense, of course," he says. "Naturally, the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by the most learned witches and wizards. It does not exist. A tale told to frighten the gullible."
Did he just call us all gullible??
Hermione's hand is back in the air.
"Sir - what exactly do you mean by the 'horror within' the Chamber?"
"That is believed to be some sort of monster, which the heir of Slytherin alone can control," says Prof Binns in his dry, reedy voice.
I glance around the room, nervously.
"I tell you, the thing does not exist," says Binns, shuffling his notes. "There is no Chamber and no monster."
"But, sir," says Seamus Finnigan, "if the Chambee can only be opened by Slytherin's true heir, no one else would be able to find it, would they?"
"Nonsense, O'Flaherty," says Professor Binns in an aggravated tone. "If a long succession of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses haven't found the thing -"
"But, Professor," pipes Parvati Patil, "you'd probably have to use Dark Magic to open it -"
"Just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic, doesn't mean he can't, Miss Pennyfeather," snaps Binns. "I repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore -"
"But maybe you've got to be related to Slytherin, so Dumbledore couldn't -" begins Elinor, but Binns has had enough.
"That will do," he says sharply. "It is a myth! It does not exist! There is not a shred of evidence that Slytherin ever built so much as a secret broom cupboard! I regret telling you such a foolish story! We will return, if you please, to history, to solid, believable, verifiable fact!"
"Did he just interrupt me?" Elinor glowers. "NO ONE INTERRUPTS ME, I AM-"
"Shut up," I laugh, pulling her down, "it's your turn."
And within five minutes, the class has sunk back into its usual torpor and we're back to playing hangman.
*
"I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted loony," Ron tells us, as we fight our way through the teeming corridors at the end of the lesson to drop our bags off before dinner. "But I never knew he started all this pure-blood stuff. I wouldn't be in his house if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I'd've got the train straight back home ..."
Trying to bite back my anger I breathe in deeply, glancing over at Harry who looks very pale. Harry told me months ago that he almost got put in Slytherin, and was scared that he shouldn't be in Gryffindor, which I immediately told him was a stupid idea.
Hermione nods fervently but I glare at him.
"Hey, if you remember I fit into all the houses," I hiss, "and I easily could have chosen that house. Not all Slytherins are dicks, I happen to know some nice Slytherins, so don't you dare be so prejudice Ronald Weasley."
I breathe heavily and glare at the shocked looks on my friends faces.
"And on that note, I need to pee," Maya says, pulling Elinor along after her.
"WE'LL MEET YOU AT DINNER," Elinor yells over the crowd.
"Why -?" Hermione asks.
"Maya doesn't like going to the bathroom on her own," I mutter, then sigh. "I'm sorry for snapping."
"S'ok," Ron says, ears turning pink.
As we are shunted along in the throng, Colin Creevey goes past.
"Hiya, Harry, Emily!"
"Hullo, Colin," says Harry automatically.
"Hey," I smile weakly.
"Harry - Emily - a boy in my class has been saying one of you is -"
But Colin is so small he can't fight against the tide of people bearing him towards the Great Hall; I hear him squeak, "See you!" and he's gone.
"What's a boy in his class saying about you two?" Hermione wonders.
"That one of us is the heir of Slytherin, I expect," I say remembering the way Justin had run away from us at lunch.
"People here'll believe anything," says Ron in disgust.
The crowd thins and we are able to climb the next staircase without difficulty.
"D'you really think there's a Chamber of Secrets?" Harry asks Hermione.
"I don't know, "she says, frowning. "Dumbledore couldn't cure Mrs Norris, and that makes me think that whatever attacked him might not be - well - human. "
As she speaks, we turn a corner and find ourselves at the end of the very corridor where the attack had happened. We stop and look. The scene is just as it was that night except there was no stiff cat hanging from the torch bracket, and an empty chair stands against the wall bearing the message 'The Chamber has been opened.'
"That's where Filch has been keeping guard," Ron mutters.
We look at each other. The corridor is deserted.
"Can't hurt to have a poke around," I grin, dropping my bag and getting to my hands and knees so that I can crawl along, searching for clues. I ninja roll along the floor, coughing as dust gets up my nose.
They really should clean these floors....
"Scorch marks!" I say. "Here - and here -"
"Come and look at this!" says Hermione. "This is funny ..."
I get up and cross to the window next to the message on the wall, Harry behind me. Hermione is pointing at the topmost pane, where around twenty spiders are scuttling, apparently fighting to get through a small crack in the glass. A long, silvery thread is dangling like a rope, as though they have all climbed it in their hurry to get outside.
"Have you ever seen spiders act like that?" says Hermione wonderingly.
"No," says Harry, "have you, Ron? Ron?"
I look over my shoulder. Ron is standing well back, and seems to be fighting the impulse to run.
"What's up?" I ask.
"I - don't - like - spiders," says Ron tensely.
"I never knew that," says Hermione, looking at Ron in surprise. "You've used spiders in potions loads of times ..."
"I don't mind them dead," says Ron, who's carefully looking anywhere but at the window, "I just don't like the way they move ..."
Hermione giggles.
"It's not funny," says Ron, fiercely. "If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my - my teddy bear into a dirty great spider because I broke his toy broomstick. You wouldn't like them either if you'd been holding your bear and suddenly it had too many legs and ..."
He brakes off, shuddering. Hermione is obviously still trying not to laugh, and so am I.
He's like me with fire, therefore I shall not laugh!
Much...
Changing the subject, I say, "Remember all that water on the floor? Where did that come from? Someone's mopped it up."
"It was about here," says Ron, recovering himself to walk a few paces past Filch's chair and pointing. "Level with this door."
He reaches for the brass doorknob but suddenly withdraws his hand as though he's been burned.
"What's the matter?" says Harry.
"Can't go in there," says Ron gruffly, "that's a girls' toilet."
"Oh, Ron, there won't be anyone in there," says Hermione, standing up and coming over. "That's Moaning Myrtle's place. Come on, let's have a look."
And ignoring the large 'Out of Order' sign, I push the door open.
It's one of the gloomiest, most depressing bathrooms I've ever been in. Under a large, cracked and spotted mirror are a row of chipped, stone sinks. The floor is damp and reflects the dull light given off by the stubs of a few candles, burning low in their holders; the wooden doors to the cubicles are flaking and scratched and one of them is dangling off its hinges.
Hermione puts her fingers to her lips and sets off towards the end cubicle. When she reaches it, she says, "Hello, Myrtle, how are you?"
Harry, Ron and I go to look. Moaning Myrtle is floating on the cistern of the toilet, picking a spot on her chin.
"This is a girls' bathroom," she says, eyeing Ron and Harry suspiciously. "They're not girls."
"No," I agree. "We just wanted to show them how - er - nice it is in here."
I wave vaguely at the dirty old mirror and the damp floor.
Yeah, this bathroom is as nice as Snape....
"Ask her if she saw anything," Harry mouths at Hermione.
"What are you whispering?" says Myrtle, staring at him.
"Nothing," says Harry quickly. "We wanted to ask -"
"I wish people would stop talking behind my back!" says Myrtle, in a voice choked with tears. "I do have feelings, you know, even if I am dead."
"Myrtle, no one wants to upset you," I say quickly. "Harry only -"
"No one wants to upset me! That's a good one!" howls Myrtle. "My life was nothing but misery at this place and now people come along ruining my death!"
"We wanted to ask you if you'd seen anything funny lately," says Hermione quickly, "because a cat was attacked right outside your front door on Halloween."
"Did you see anyone near here that night?" says Harry.
"I wasn't paying attention," says Myrtle dramatically. "Peeves upset me so much I came here and tried to kill myself. Then, of course, I remembered that I'm - that I'm -"
"Already dead," says Ron helpfully.
"Wow, Ron, real sensitive," I face palm.
Myrtle gives a tragic sob, rises up in the air, turns over and dives head first into the toilet, splashing water all over us and vanishing from sight; from the direction of her muffled sobs, she's come to rest somewhere in the U-bend.
Harry and Ron stand with their mouths open, but Hermione and I shrug and she says, "Honestly, that was almost cheerful for Myrtle ... come on, let's go."
I've barely closed the door on Myrtle's gurgling sobs when a loud voice makes all four of us jump.
"RON!"
Percy Weasley has stopped dead at the head of the stairs, prefect badge agleam, an expression of complete shock on his face.
"Oh, here we go," I mutter.
"That's a girls' bathroom!" he gasps. "What were you -?"
"Having a four way, wanna join next time?" I wiggle my eyebrows, and Hermione smacks the back of my head. I turn and glare at her. "Well, OW!"
"Just having a look around," Ron shrugs. "Clues, you know ..."
Percy swells in a manner that's very similar to Mrs Weasley.
"Get - away - from - there -" he says, striding towards us and starting to chivvy us along, flapping his arms. Like a chicken. "Don't you care what this looks like? Coming back here while everyone's at dinner ..."
"Why shouldn't we be here?" says Ron hotly, stopping short and glaring at Percy. "Listen, we never laid a finger on that cat!"
"That's what I told Ginny;" says Percy fiercely, "but she still seems to think you're 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," says Ron, whose ears are reddening now. "You're just worried I'm going to mess up your chances of being Head Boy."
"Five points from Gryffindor!" Percy says tersely, fingering his prefect badge. "And I hope it teaches you a lesson! No more detective work, or I'll write to Mum!"
"WANKER!" I yell, as he strides off, the back of his neck as red as Ron's ears.
*
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Maya, Elinor and I chose seats as far as possible from Percy in the common room after dinner, where we fill May and El in on what they missed.
Ron is still in a very bad mood and keeps blotting his Charms homework. When he reaches absently for his wand to remove the smudges, it ignits the parchment. Fuming almost as much as his homework, Ron slams The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 shut. To my surprise, Hermione follows suit.
"Who can it be, though?" she says in a quiet voice, as though continuing a conversation we'd just been having. "Who'd want all the Squibs and Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts?"
"Let's think," says Ron in mock puzzlement. "Who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are scum?"
"If you're talking about Malfoy -"
"Of course I am!" says Ron. "You heard him: 'You'll be next, Mudbloods!' Come on, you've only got to look at his foul eat face to know its him -"
"Malfoy, the heir of Slytherin?" Elinor says sceptically.
"Look at his family," says 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 defiantly evil enough."
"Malfoy, he's too stupid!" Maya scoffs.
"They could've had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for centuries!" says Ron. "Handing it down, father to son ..."
"Well," I say cautiously. "I suppose it's possible ..."
"But how do we prove it?" says Harry darkly.
"There might be a way," says 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?" says Ron irritably.
"All right," says Hermione coldly. "What we'd need to do is to get inside the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy a few questions without him realising its us."
"But that's impossible," Maya laughs.
"No it's not," I grin. "All we'd need would be some Polyjuice Potion."
"What's that?" says Ron, Harry, Elinor and Maya together.
"Snape mentioned it in class a few weeks ago -" Hermione starts.
"D'you think we've got nothing better to do in Potions than listen to Snape?" mutters Harry.
"No, but Emily knows," Hermione pauses, then turns to me. "How do you know that?"
"I read the textbook, duh," I scoff. "Anyway, the potion transforms you into somebody else. Think about it! We could change into some 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," says Elinor frowning. "What if we were stuck looking like Slytherins for ever?"
"It wears off after a while," says 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's only one way to get out a book from the Restricted Section: you need a signed note of permission from a teacher.
"Hard to see why we'd want the book, really," says Ron, "if we weren't going to try and make one of the potions."
"I think," says Hermione, "that if we made it sound as though we were just interested in the theory, we might stand a chance ..."
"Oh, come on, no teachers going to fall for that," says Maya. "They'd have to be really thick ..."