112

2 0 0
                                    

Hermione followed suit.
'Who can it be, though?' she said in a quiet voice, as though continuing a conversation they had just been having. 'Who'd want all the Squibs and Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts?'

'Let's think,' said Ron in mock puzzlement. 'Who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are scum?'

He looked at Hermione. Hermione looked back, unconvinced. 'If you're talking about Malfoy –'
'Of course I am!' said Ron. 'You heard him: "You'll be next, Mudbloods!" Come on, you've only got to look at his foul rat face to know it's him –'

'Malfoy, the heir of Slytherin?' said Hermione sceptically.

'Look at his family,' said Harry, closing his books, too. 'The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin, he's always boasting about it. They could easily be Slytherin's descendants. His father's definitely evil enough.'

'They could've had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for cen- turies!' said Ron. 'Handing it down, father to son ...'

'Well,' said Hermione cautiously, 'I suppose it's possible ...'

'But how do we prove it?' said Harry darkly.

'There might be a way,' said Hermione slowly, dropping her voice still further with a quick glance across the room at Percy. 'Of course, it would be difficult. And dangerous, very dangerous. We'd be breaking about fifty school rules, I expect.'

'I am so in!' The three of them jumped to see Amelia standing behind them holding many books Sharptooh on her shoulder.

'I came for a quick visit. Got theses out of the lybrairy thought they could come in handy with what we are doing.' Amelia dfroped the book on the table with aloud thud. Ron looked them over.

'A guied to crimesloveing the muggle way. Magic and mytaryes A guied to speels and postions used by the minsorty. How to catcha crook. Really? Therse all sound so wired.'

Amelia rolled her eyes. 'Well maybe they sound cheesy but they have been wristen by real ditivees that work for the ministry all with tips and tricks they used. I looked over them and they give us a few tips.'

Hermione hummed happily picking up one of the books. 'I looked thought theses the other day. I got the idea from this book here.'

'If, in a month or so, you feel like explaining, you will let us know, won't you?' said Ron irritably.

'All right,' said Hermione coldly. 'What we'd need to do is to get inside the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy a few questions without him realising it's us.'

'Oh, I can do that! I can do that!' Amelia jumped up with her arm in the air Shaprtooth flew off her shoulder. Her hair changed to a bright red and her eyes a deep gray. 

'But that's impossible for the rest of us,' Harry said, as Ron laughed.

'No, it's not,' said Hermione. 'All we'd need would be some Polyjuice Potion.'

'What's that?' said Ron and Harry together. Amelia sighed.

'Snape mentioned it in class a few weeks ago –'

'D'you think we've got nothing better to do in Potions than listen to Snape?' muttered Ron.

'It transforms you into somebody else. Think about it! We could change into four of the Slytherins. No one would know it was us. Malfoy would probably tell us anything. He's probably boasting about it in the Slytherin common room right now, if only we could hear him.'

'This Polyjuice stuff sounds a bit dodgy to me,' said Ron, frowning. 'What if we were stuck looking like four of the Slytherins for ever?'

'You three not me. I'm safe.' Ron rolled his eyes at Amelia.

'It wears off after a while,' said Hermione, waving her hand impatiently, 'but getting hold of the recipe will be very difficult. Snape said it was in a book called Moste Potente Potions and it's bound to be in the Restricted Section of the library.'

There was only one way to get out a book from the Restricted Section: you needed a signed note of permission from a teacher.

'Hard to see why we'd want the book, really,' said Ron, 'if we weren't going to try and make one of the potions.'

'I think,' said Hermione, 'that if we made it sound as though we were just interested in the theory, we might stand a chance ...'

'Oh, come on, no teacher's going to fall for that,' said Ron. 'They'd have to be really thick ...'

Amelia Potter and the Chamber of Secrets PART 1Where stories live. Discover now