No Turning Back Now.

Ron, Hermione and I sat in the cubicle on Sunday morning. There was a creak of a door closing between our sentences, and we froze.

“It’s me,” came Harry’s voice.

Hermione dropped the ladle into the cauldron, causing it to splash, and she gasped, pressing her eye to the keyhole.

“Harry!” she said. “You have us such a fright. Come in – how’s your arm?”

“Fine,” said Harry, squeezing into the overcrowded cubicle.

I watched him take in the old cauldron which was perched on the toilet, and the crackling from under the rim, coming from a lit fire beneath it. Conjuring up portable, waterproof fires was a speciality of Hermione’s.

“We’d’ve come to meet you, but we decided to get started on the Polyjuice Potion,” Ron explained, as Harry, with difficulty, locked the cubicle again. “We’ve decided this is the safest place to hide it.”

Harry started to tell us about Colin being Petrified, but I cut him off.

“We already know, we heard McGonagall telling Professor Flitwick this morning. That’s why we decided we’d better get going –“

“The sooner we get a confession out of Malfoy, the better,” snarled Ron. “D’you know what I think? He was in such a foul temper after the Quidditch match, he took it out on Colin.”

“There’s something else,” said Harry, watching Hermione tearing bundles of knotgrass and throwing them into the potion. “Dobby came to visit me in the middle of the night.”

Ron, Hermione and I looked up, amazed. Harry told us everything Dobby had told him – or hadn’t told him. We listened; our mouths open.

“The Chamber of Secrets has been opened before?” I said.

“This settles it,” said Ron in a triumphant voice. “Lucius Malfoy must’ve opened the Chamber when he was at school here and now he’s told dear old Draco how to do it. It’s obvious. Wish Dobby’d told you what kind of monster’s in there, though. I want to know how come nobody’s noticed it sneaking around the school.”

“Maybe it can make itself invisible,” said Hermione, prodding leeches to the bottom of the cauldron. “Or maybe it can disguise itself – pretend o be a suit of armour or something. I’ve read about Chemeleon Ghouls...”

“You read too much, Hermione,” I said, pouring dead lacewings on top of the leeches. I crumpled up the empty lacewing bag and looked around at Harry.

“So Dobby stopped us getting on the train and broke your arm...” I shook my head. “You know what, Harry? If he doesn’t stop trying to save your life he’s going to kill you.”

---

The news that Colin Creevey had been attacked and was now lying as though dead in the hospital wing had spread through the entire school by Monday morning. The air was suddenly thick with rumour and suspicious. The first years were now moving around the castle in tight-knit groups, as though scared they would be attacked if they ventured forth alone.

Ginny, who sat next to Colin in Charms, was distraught. Fred and George took it in turns to cover themselves with fur or boils and jump out at her from behind statues; which, I think, was their way to try and cheer her up. They only stopped when Percy, apoplectic with rage, told them he was going to write to Mrs Weasley and tell her Ginny was having nightmares.

Meanwhile, hidden from the teachers, a roaring trade in talismans, amulets and other protective devices was sweeping the school. Neville bought a large, evil-smelling green onion, a pointed purple crystal and a rotting newt-tail before the rest of the Gryffindor boys and I pointed out that he was in no danger; he was a pure-blood, and therefore unlikely to be attacked.

“They went for Filch first,” Neville said, his round face fearful, “and everyone knows I’m almost a Squib.”

---

In the second week of December Professor McGonagall came around as usual, collecting names of those who would be staying at school for Christmas. Harry, Ron, Hermione and I signed her list; we had heard that Malfoy was staying, which struck us a being very suspicious. The holidays would be the perfect time to use the Polyjuice Potion and try to worm a confession out of him.

It wasn’t only the Polyjuice Potion that held me here though. Calandra had come one morning and perched himself on my shoulder as I read the letter from my parents, before hopping onto the table and helping himself to something to eat and drink. My parents had written to me, merely to say that they would be away on their holiday a bit longer, so I’d have to stay at Hogwarts.

Unfortunately, the Polyjuice Potion was only half-finished. We still needed the Bicorn horn and the Boomslang skin, and the only place we were going to get them was from Snape’s private stores.

“What we need,” said Hermione briskly, as Thursday afternoon’s double Potions lesson loomed nearer, “is a diversion. Then one of us can sneak into Snape’s office and take what we need.”

Harry and Ron looked at her nervously, while I just shrugged.

“I think you’d better do the actual stealing,” I said.

“You three will be expelled if you get in any more trouble, and I’ve got a clean record,” Hermione agreed. “So all you need to do is cause enough mayhem to keep Snape busy for five minutes or so.”

Deliberately causing mayhem in Snape’s Potions class was about as safe as poking a sleeping dragon in the eye, but it was also just as fun.

Potions lessons took place in one of the large dungeons. Thursday afternoon’s lesson proceeded in the usual way. Twenty cauldrons stood steaming between the wooden desks, on which stood brass scales and jars of ingredients. Snape prowled through the fumes, making waspish remarks about the Gryffindors’ work while the Slytherins sniggered appreciatively. Malfoy, who was Snape’s favourite student, kept flicking puffer-fish eyes at Ron, Harry and I, and we knew that if we retaliated we would get detention faster than we could say ‘unfair’.

My Swelling Solution was far too thick, but my mind was on more important things. I was waiting for Hermione’s signal, and I hardly listened as Snape paused to sneer at my sloppy potion. When Snape turned and walked off to bully Neville, Hermione caught my eye and nodded.

I ducked swiftly down behind my cauldron, pulled one of Fred’s Filibuster fireworks out of my pocket and gave it a quick prod with my wand. The firework began to fizz and sputter.
Knowing I had only seconds, I straightened up, took aim, and lobbed it into the air; it landed right on target in Goyle’s cauldron.

Goyle’s potion exploded, showering the whole class. People shrieked as splashes of the Swelling Solution hit then. Malfoy got a faceful and nice nose began to swell like a balloon; Goyle blundered around, his hands over his eyes, which had expanded to the size of dinner plates, while Snape was trying to restore calm and find out what had happened. Through the confusion, I saw Hermione slip quietly out of the door.

“Silence! SILENCE!” Snape roared. “Anyone who has been splashed, come here for a Deflating Draft. When I find out who did this...”

I tried not to laugh as I watched Malfoy hurry forward, his head drooping with the weight of a nose like a small melon. As half the class lumbered up to Snape’s desk, some weighed down with arms like clubs, other unable to talk through gigantic puffed-up lips, I saw Hermione slide back into the dungeon, the front of her robes bulging.

When everyone had taken a swig of antidote and the carious swellings had subsided, Snape swept over to Goyle’s cauldron and scooped out the twisted black remains of the firework. There was a sudden hush.

“If I ever find out who threw this,” Snape whispered, “I shall make sure that person is expelled.”

I arranged my face into what I hoped was a puzzled expression. Snape looked right at me, and the bell which rang ten minutes later could not have been more welcome.

“He knew it was me,” I told them as we hurried back to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. “I could tell.”

Hermione threw the ingredients into the cauldron and began to stir feverishly.

“It’ll be ready in a fortnight,” she said happily.

“Snape can’t prove it was you,” Ron said reassuringly to me. “What can he do?”

“Knowing Snape, something foul,” said Harry, as the potion frothed and bubbled.