Polyjuice
The Polyjuice potion couldn’t be brewed fast enough. Nobody expected Anne to be the Heir of Slytherin, they didn’t think she was brave enough. But people did think Harry was because of the incident in the duelling club, it didn’t help that the day after the Duelling Club that Justin and Nearly Headless Nick had been found petrified.
Most of the students were avoiding Anne and Irwin though just because they were friends with Harry. This suited Anne and Irwin just fine though because it gave them more time to brew the Polyjuice potion.
“Hello Anne, Hello Irwin!” said Luna dreamily as she joined them for dinner.
“Hi Luna!” said Irwin cheerily as he tucked into his dinner. Irwin was in a good mood that evening because they were going to be attempting to take the Polyjuice that night because it was finally ready.
“We’re going home for Christmas in two days, are you excited?” asked Anne.
“Oh yes!” exclaimed Luna, “it will be nice to get away from the nargles for a few weeks, this school is infested with them,” said Luna as she ate her pudding, “I think the mistletoe makes it worse,” she wondered with a curious expression on her face.
“Does she really believe in all that?” whispered Irwin when Luna had left the table.
“Oh yes, they even gave me a nargle repellent charm last Christmas!”
“Fair enough,” said Irwin as he finished his dinner, “come on Anne eat up, we’ve got stuff to do tonight!”
Anne quickly finished her dinner and they rushed off to Myrtle’s bathroom to finish the potion.
“Hello!” called Myrtle as she popped out of her favourite toilet.
“Hi!” called Irwin as Anne got to work on the potion.
“You won’t be visiting me after, today will you?” Myrtle sulked. She had grown accustomed to Harry, Ron, Hermione, Anne and Irwin visiting on a regular basis over the last month
“Well no, but you can come to visit us,” offered Irwin as checked the recipe to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything.
“Well I suppose so, but it won’t be the same….” Moaned Myrtle before returning to her toilet.
Half an hour later the other three arrived.
“Where have you three been the potions nearly ready!” complained Irwin as the Gryffindors arrived breathless from running.
“We had to deal with Crabbe and Goyle!” said Ron.
“We don’t want them barging in on us in the middle of us interviewing Malfoy!” explained Harry.
Hermione was organising the large robes into two piles. “I’m staying here,” said Hermione, “Millicent hasn’t gone home yet.”
“You two are going under the cloak ok?” asked Harry as they got out the hairs for the potion.
Anne and Irwin nodded as Anne ladled the potion into glasses for Harry and Ron.
“You’re quiet tonight!” said Ron looking at Anne.
“Yeah even by your standards!” agreed Harry.
“I’m just nervous,” she muttered, “I don’t want it to go wrong!”
“We’ll be fine Anne; you can stay here if you want,” said Irwin.
“No! I want to go its important” said Anne gathering up some of the last of her courage.
Harry and Ron added the hairs to their potions after changing into the larger robes.
“Uggh it looks like troll bogeys!” complained Ron.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t taste like it,” said Harry before drinking the potion with his fingers holding his nose.
It was really creepy, Anne was watching Ron and her brother transform into two ugly thuggish Slytherins who were at least twice their size.
“You two had best get under the cloak,” reminded Hermione, “the potion only lasts an hour!”
Irwin and Anne got under the cloak, and they followed what looked like Crabbe and Goyle out of the bathroom.
Harry checked his map, “It looks like the Slytherin Common Room is in the dungeons” said Harry before pocketing his map.
Harry led the way down to the dungeons, they were only disturbed once, they had nearly made it down to the Common Room when they ran into Percy.
“What are you doing down here!” stammered Ron.
“I could ask the same of you!” said Percy in an accusatory tone, “curfew was half an hour ago!”
‘We lost track of the time,” explained Harry.
“Well I’ll let you off this once,” said Percy reluctantly getting out of their way.
“He was probably trying to catch the heir himself” whispered Irwin laughing very softly.
“Password password,” wondered Harry, as they reached the Common Room door where there was a brass snake.
“Try Parseltongue!” suggested Anne.
“Open!” said Harry.
Ron shook his head, “English mate!”
Harry made a strange hissing noise and remarkably the door opened. Harry and Ron who looked like Crabbe and Goyle went in through the door and Anne and Irwin had snuck in after them.
“Where have you two been!” shouted Malfoy from a chair by the fire, “it's half-past nine!”
“We got lost!” grunted Ron.
“Oh of course!” drawled Malfoy, “you two haven’t lived here for two bloody years!”
Harry and Ron sat down into chairs next to Malfoy, Malfoy seemed to forget about them getting lost after this though, maybe Crabbe and Goyle got lost regularly?
Most of the other Slytherins had already gone up to bed or were packing their trunks for the holiday.
Anne and Irwin stood behind Harry so as not to gets in anyone’s way.
“I wish that bloody Heir would get on and kill some people, this school is full of bloody mudbloods!”
“So it's not you then?” asked Ron.
“I’ve told you ten times Crabbe!” said Malfoy exasperated, “it's not me!”
Harry and Ron looked at each other disappointed, they had just wasted a whole month!
“I wish I knew who it was!” said Malfoy excitedly “I could help them. Hey! Maybe I could persuade them to get rid of that Potter freak!” cackled Malfoy.
“The question is which one first, Harry who for some bizarre reason people think is the heir of Slytherin or that freak sister of his!”
Anne had to try not to scream, somebody was gripping onto her shoulder. She turned around and saw that Irwin had a look of fury on his face and was holding onto her trying to protect her.
“So you’ve got no clue who it is?” asked Harry somewhat urgently, they were starting to run out of time.
“No,” he groaned, “the thing is I know that Father knows who it is, he just won’t tell me!”
“Oh!” said Harry and Ron interested.
“All he’s told me is it was last opened fifty years ago, I just wish I knew who it bloody was!”
Ron’s hair was starting to turn red again, Anne nudged him lightly to remind him they were running out of time.
“Let's go get some food!” said Ron getting up followed by Harry.
“Don’t you two ever stop eating?” asked Malfoy but just left them to it.
Harry and Ron left the dungeon just in time for them to transform back into themselves. They all rushed to the broom cupboard where the real Crabbe and Goyle were starting to come to and gave them back their shoes.
They then sprinted up to Myrtle’s bathroom where they found Hermione and Irwin and Anne finally pulled off the invisibility cloak.
“How’d it go?” asked Hermione.
“Terribly!” groaned Ron.
“It wasn’t that bad,” said Irwin leaning against a bathroom counter to get his breath back.
“It wasn’t Malfoy!” said Harry.
“No,” explained Irwin calmly, “but we do know when the chamber was last opened fifty years ago.”
“Well that’s something I suppose!” admitted Ron.
“Maybe we can ask Dad if he knows anything?” suggested Irwin.
“Well at least everyone’s alright,” said Hermione, “nobody got caught and we know its not Malfoy.”
Anne began packing up her cauldron and ingredients.
“Anne you alright?” asked Harry.
“Hmm,” she muttered.
“Hey, cheer up sis, at least we know Malfoys, not the heir now!”
“Yeah even if he does hate you, he can’t petrify you!” laughed Ron.
This caused Anne to burst into tears however instead of feeling better.
“There was no point! All that work for nothing!” sobbed Anne curling up on the floor.
“Well we know it was fifty years ago that’s a start!” said Hermione.
“Cheer up sis!” said Harry putting an arm round Anne, “you’ll be going home for Christmas soon!”
“No im not!” sobbed Anne.
‘Oh yeah….” Muttered Harry remembering they weren’t going home that year.
“Look Anne you’re coming to my house for two weeks, nothing’s going to petrify you there!” said Irwin crouching down on the floor next to her and passing her a handkerchief.
‘Ok,” she muttered dabbing at her tears as Irwin pulled her into a hug.
“We can do some more research after Christmas, yeah?” offered Irwin.
“Alright!” said Anne cheering up slightly at the idea of such an interesting research project.