Amelia Potter and the Chamber of Secrets PART 1

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believe your father works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office?' he said, looking up at Ron and smiling still more nastily. 'Dear, dear ... his own son ...'

Harry felt as though he'd just been walloped in the stomach by one of the mad tree's larger branches. If anyone found out Mr Weasley had bewitched the car ... he hadn't thought of that ...

'I noticed, in my search of the park, that considerable damage seems to have been done to a very valuable Whomping Willow,' Snape went on.

'That tree did more damage to us than we –' Ron blurted out.

'Silence!' snapped Snape again. 'Most unfortunately, you are not in my house and the decision to expel you does not rest with me. I shall go and fetch the people who do have that happy power. You will wait here.'

Harry and Ron stared at each other, white-faced. Harry didn't feel hungry any more. He now felt extremely sick. He tried not to look at a large, slimy something suspended in green liquid on a shelf behind Snape's desk. If Snape had gone to fetch Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor house, they were hardly any bet- ter off. She might be fairer than Snape, but she was still extremely strict.

Ten minutes later, Snape returned, and sure enough it was Professor McGonagall who accompanied him. Harry had seen Professor McGonagall angry on several occasions, but either he had forgotten just how thin her mouth could go, or he had never seen her this angry before. She raised her wand the moment she entered. Harry and Ron both flinched, but she merely pointed it at the empty fireplace, where flames suddenly erupted.

'Sit,' she said, and they both backed into chairs by the fire. 'Explain,' she said, her glasses glinting ominously.
Ron launched into the story, starting with the barrier at the station refusing to let them through.

'... so we had no choice, Professor, we couldn't get on the train.' 'Why didn't you send us a letter by owl? I believe you have an owl?' Professor McGonagall said coldly to Harry.

Harry gaped at her. Now she said it, that seemed the obvious thing to have done.

'I – I didn't think –'

'That,' said Professor McGonagall, 'is obvious.'

There was a knock on the office door and Snape, now looking