The Chamber of Secrets
Harry had made little progress in his lessons with Lupin. So far they had only practiced on a Boggart though. The main spell used against dementors it seemed was Patronus a spell which was intended to create a corporeal form of your inner spirit, represented by a guardian animal. For Harry so far though it merely created a small bit of white and blue light. Lupin stressed to him that the most important aspect was focusing on something incredibly happy and joyous, only for Harry this was rather difficult.
In Quidditch however Harry was doing quite well. As they entered October the first game was only a month away. Outside of class Wood had given Harry a small bouncy ball which would magically come back to him after he threw it, only it would often come back at an angle and Harry needed to catch it each time. They had three practices a week now and they often practiced late so Harry hardly had tiem to do anything else but homework. On a Wednesday, after dinner, Harry was finishing up with his nearly overdue potions homework to turn in tomorrow morning when he noticed Ron was missing. In fact he hadn’t seen him since dinner. Putting his finishing notes on a potion to turn your skin green Harry decided to go find him.
“Have you seen Ron?” he asked Hermione, who was perched over a page of odd shaped characters.
“No, I haven’t, and I’m rather busy right now,” she said.
Harry noticed annoyance in her voice and decided not to ask what was going on between them. His steps took him through the third, second, and finally first floor. Most students were in their dormitories already so it was quite empty. Finally he peered into the library looking for the fiery red of Ron’s hair. Instead he saw a young girl with curly black hair and grey eyes, Meissa Black. through a gap in the books on one shelf he could see her pouring over a massive number of books, very large books. It reminded him of how he had looked in his first year while looking for Nicolas Flemel. For a moment Harry got swept away in the moment his eyes looking over what she was reading wondering what it was she was looking for. He didn’t even notice that her eyes were fixed on him now.
“Harry Potter?” she said, slightly annoyed. His gazed snapped back.
“Yea, hahaha, Meissa Black right, how are you,” Harry replied, he was a bit embarrassed at being caught.
“We haven’t talked much since we were on the train,” said Meissa.
“Oh, right, I thought you didn’t like me much,” said Harry.
“I don’t really like or dislike anyone, I’ve just got here,” she gave a small chuckle.
“Oh, you’re mum’s a muggle right, I sorta forgot,”
“Don’t tell me you care that I’m a half-blood, not good enough for the school,” Meissa was half joking but she wasn’t smiling.
“Are you joking, my mum was a muggleborn,” said Harry, “She only found out she was a wizard when she came to school, and I was raised by my aunt and uncle who are also muggles,” Harry saw her face shift into partial realisation, he was starting to realise as well. Meissa was not a Muggle hating Slytherin in league with Draco Malfoy or even her uncle, she was confused, as confused as he had been when he had started at Hogwarts.
“Did you not like me because I’m a Slytherin?” asked Meissa. “I mean because Slytherins don’t like muggles and muggleborn people.” she added.
“I suppose so,” said Harry, “I just thought you were gonna be friends with Pansy and Malfoy and all of them, didn’t think I’d like you too much because of that.”
“Oh right yea, they’re not the nicest,” she said, “The other Slytherins in my year.”
Harry was now feeling slightly guilty, like he could have helped her, or at least been nicer to her. Instead she was forced to find it all out for herself and whats more without a friend like Ron to help her along.
“What’re you looking for then,” asked Harry. He had come round the shelf to her table and sat down. He could see the book she was reading, Secrets of the Castle: A Millennium of Mystery by Charles Dogg..
“It’s a book about Hogwarts, have you read,” she asked.
“I haven’t actually, is it any good?”
“Well right now its talking about the Chamber of Secrets which houses a massive snake meant to murder students, it sounds a bit made up to me,” she said looking up at him. Harry stared at her for a moment. Said aloud like that it did sound rather far fetched.
“Well the Chamber of Secrets is actually real,” he said, “I may have opened it up last year.” Meissa had a look of upmost interest and surprise on her face.
“You opened it? Was the snake inside? Is the snake real? Did it try to kill anyone? Where is it?”
Harry’s explanation was a long one, a story like that needed a long explanation. Meissa’s attention was captivated through its entirety. She seemed especially happy when he got around to the part where he killed the basilisk with a magic sword he pulled out of a hat, and even happier when he saved Ginny’s life by destroying the book. Their discussion lasted up until Madam Pince came and rustled them out. Outside the library Harry somehow managed to promise Meissa he’d take her on a visit to the chamber in the future, though upon saying goodbye and heading back to the common room Harry realised that revisiting the chamber seemed like a terrible idea. Nonetheless he wanted to do it to impress her somehow, it was an odd feeling. A feeling which stayed with him all the way back to the dormitories where he noticed Ron sitting on his bed and just then remembered why he had been in the library in the first place.
“Hey Harry, where’ve you been mate,” he asked.
“Oh yea just doing homework and stuff, where have you been?”
“Right, yea, I was just playing a card game with Fred and George,” replied Ron.
“Oh, thats great,” said Harry. He felt awkward, like each day he talked to Ron less. He lay down in his bed and started practicing with his practice snitch again.
———M———
Thursday morning and Meissa was walking to another potions class. Usually this meant two hours of Malfoy bothering her. This day however she realised upon entering the dark musty classroom that Harry was here as well. She skirted over to his table much to the surprise of Draco who had been following her all the way from the common room. Harry smiled at her as she placed her weighty boom bag on the table.
Snape seemed unhappy with the idea of Harry and Meissa being friends and stared at them while they were concocting their potion.
“Your dad’s name was Regulus right?” asked Harry.
“Yep, Regulus Black,”
“I think I’ve read about him before,” said Harry.
“Really?” asked Meissa.
“I’ve read this book, School of Brooms: The Greatest Quidditch Players of Hogwarts. and he was in it, he was a seeker for the Slytherin team in the ‘70s, him and my dad went head to head in a couple matches.
“Mr. Potter,” came a greasy voice from behind him.
“Yes Professor?” replied Harry.
“We don’t need to hear about your father’s minor achievements at this school, 10 points from Gryffindor for distracting other students,” he walked away slowly and went back to watching them. The rest of the class they were silent, despite this they could hear Draco whispering and laughing. At class end Meissa felt like she wanted to pass out.
“Wait stop it, she’s coming over, Draco be quiet she’s coming over,” Pansy was whispering. “Oh, hi Meissa,” she gave her a fake smile. Draco looked away at his bag, pretending to organise his book bag.
“What was he saying Pansy,” asked Meissa forcefully.
“What do you mean,”
“I know he was saying something about me, what did he say,” Draco finished messing with his bag and started walking out.
“It was just something about you and Harry, he said that Harry has a friend as dumb as Weasley and as annoying as Granger now.” said Pansy who seemed genuinely scared as Meissa’s eyes dug into her soul.
Meissa stormed out of the classroom and caught up to Draco.
“Oh, hello Meissa,” he said.
SMACK!
Meissa’s hand flew out and slapped Draco across the face.