Chapter 13
Chapter 13
It turned out Mr. Lupin’s current job was too much to include time with me this year but promised to try and come if he got the chance.
The first class with Professor Lockhart was in one word… disappointing, not just because I read his books. I mean getting a vampire to change his way with light therapy. They have no souls! Well, with two exceptions, but still! The man decided it was smart to Release a cage of pixies in a class of unprepared second years and not even teach them how to handle the problem first. He ran to hide from his office if he could even handle them himself.
When it was time to go to Xander I didn’t say hi. I just started, “That man is just unbelievable! Ron broke his wand; poor Neville was hanging from the chandelier and who knows how many people got bitten! I can’t understand how anyone could be so irresponsible!”
“Whoa! Mia, hold the phone,” Xander exclaimed. “What’s got her in a tizzy?”
I was too mad to answer, but Harry stepped up, “Lockhart. He let loose pixies in the class then ran away.”
“Okay, I get the angry. Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone pretty much ran off too. Hermione immobilized the pixies and got them back in the cage and Neville down,” Harry replied.
“Mia, go hit the bag or something I need to get these two started,” Xander said waving to Harry and Ron. I instantly start letting out my frustrations but keep an ear on them. “So, here’s the deal, I don’t like this professor nonsense, so when it’s just us Xander is just fine. I’m not going to say you need to study, but if something drastic pops up you need to be able to buckle down and research for help. I also want to get your stamina up. You never know when you’ll need to run and sometimes that’s the only thing you can do. I’ll teach you the basics for vampires because honestly being friends with a slayer, it kinda comes with the package. That said, Mia go take a lap down to the top of the Grand staircase then the bottom and back. Us men will go to the bottom and back.”
I head out and take the time to cool my thoughts from everything. I’m not going to be able to learn anything from ‘Professor Lockhart’. Maybe I can ask Mr. Lupin if he knows any books I could read for self-study when he comes next. Once I get back to the classroom, Harry and Ron are out of breath and I just smile and shake my head.
Xander has the boys go through a series of stretches and calls me over. “Chances are at some point you will run into a vampire, so I’m going to have you go through paces with Mia and we’ll go from there before moving on to weapons training.”
Harry and Ron only joined me with Xander once a week. Aside from Lockhart, the classes this year were good. Nearly Headless Nick invited Harry to his Death Day party, so on Halloween after a disturbing amount of rotten food we were on our way to the Great Hall hoping to catch the tail-end of the Halloween Feast when Harry heard something saying it was going to kill and took off running. I tried to listen, but only heard a hissing sound I thought could be pipes. We came close to the girls' bathroom that Moaning Myrtle resides in and found the floor flooded, a bloody message on the wall, and Mrs. Norris frozen solid looking dead.
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware!
Just our luck that we show up just as everyone is leaving the Great Hall. “Enemies of the heir beware?” Draco turns and snarls at me, “You’ll be next mudbloods!”
Then Mr. Filch shows up and starts screaming that we killed his cat when the headmaster shows up as well as the other professors and Xander. Professor Dumbledore sends the other students on their way and guides us into Lockhart's office — that he so graciously offered — and informs us that Mrs. Norris is merely petrified. More accusations were thrown, but I just let the adults sort it out. Eventually, everyone else was released to leave except for myself, Xander, and Professor Dumbledore.
“I want Mia on patrol for at least a few nights and all information on this Chamber thing,” Xander says.
“Chamber of Secrets,” I correct.
“Eh, whatever. I still want her out. Snape said it was powerful dark magic and that’s the kind I don’t trust.”
“That is acceptable as long as it does not impact her studies,” Professor Dumbledore said.
After Xander accepted, I had patrols for the rest of the week. Xander did get a chance to tell me about the Chamber, and I relayed the information to Harry and Ron. At the end of the week, when they walked into Xander’s class with me, they saw the corkboard I was using to organize my thoughts.
"As far as I know, the Chamber of Secrets is a place where Salazar Slytherin left a monster to cleanse the school of the unworthy, muggle-borns. The Chamber was sealed when Salazar left the school. It’s said only his heir can control the monster within. It was opened 50 years ago, and someone died, but the attacks stopped after that."
“Someone died?” asked Harry.
“Yes. It was Moaning Myrtle. She’s a ghost that haunts the second-floor girl’s bathroom. Another thing I saw during my patrol was spiders acting strangely. It’s like they were trying to flee the castle. It might not be related, but it's enough to take note of.”
“Well, what about Malfoy?” Ron asks.
“What about him?” I reply.
“You heard him, ‘You’ll be next, Mudbloods’. What if he’s the heir?”
“Malfoy, the heir of Slytherin?”
“Look at his family,” said Harry. “The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin; he’s always boasting about it. They could easily be Slytherin’s descendants. His father is evil enough.”
I gave both boys an uncertain glance. “Well, I suppose it’s possible…”
“How would we prove it?” Harry asks.
“I might know a way, but I could never get it approved. Of course, it would be difficult and very dangerous. It would break about fifty school rules.”
“If in a month or so, you could tell us that would be nice,” Ron said.
“We just need to get in the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy a couple of questions without him realizing it’s us.”
“But that’s impossible!” Harry exclaims.
“Not impossible with Polyjuice potion and before you ask it transforms you into someone else. “We just need to disguise ourselves as Slytherins and we can talk to him after that,” I explain. “I just need a book and a gullible teacher that’s not Xander, but it will take time to brew.”
“Gullible? You thinking what I’m thinking?” Harry asks.
It was really easy to get Lockhart to sign a permission slip for me to access the Most Potente Potions from the restricted section. I just played to his ego and asked for his autograph. After informing Xander of our plan, he simply said, “I was never here. I can’t know anything if I wasn’t here.” I chuckled and later directed Harry and Ron to Myrtle’s bathroom to start brewing the potion. I'm planning to take some supplies from Professor Snape’s storeroom, but that should be simple.